Day 1- Coming out of the cave

 Where can I go from your Spirit?
 Where can I flee from your presence? Psalm 139:7

5:37 am-

Every one of us on this planet has a story to tell. I have decided to embrace the new technology that is out there to begin sharing mine. The motivation for this started almost five years ago when I promised my wife that I would write her a love letter each day. After writing her love letter at 4:30 am this morning I suddenly got this urge to start a blog that could be shared with family members and friends.

Yesterday I quit my job. I walked out the door at 5:25 pm after serving my employer for approximately sixteen months. It was hard to say goodbye, especially to my good friend, Cleveland Smith. Cleveland works in the warehouse at ADT Security, the largest security company in the world. Every day he greeted me with a smile and a message, "stay strong"! When I gave my two week notice, I made sure that Cleveland knew how much I appreciated his hard work. I followed up with a letter of gratitude to his boss which made its way to the president of ADT. On my last day, Cleveland received a care package from the vice-president. My letter of appreciation was part of the care package. Cleveland will appear in a company newsletter and his contributions will be made known to all of the thousands of employees.

It was difficult to say good bye to my manager, an awesome leader who really cared. It was even harder to say good bye to my peers, a small group of sales people who worked hard to protect families from being burglarized and who worked an average of six days per week. I tried to control my emotions. The only time I lost it was when Cleveland shared his care package with me and revealed the letter that I had written to his boss. With tears in his eyes, Cleveland hugged me. As I was choking up with emotion, I looked at him and said, "stay strong"! The tears are back as I recall the look on his face.

I have entitled this first entry, "coming out of the cave" for a very special reason. It feels like the first day of something exciting that is about to happen in my life. The reason I quit my job at ADT is because my business partners have invited me to rejoin them at Zoomautos.com. I was shocked to be asked back when the business climate is so negative but I cannot wait to start contributing to this very special group of people that I have worked with for the last twenty years. When we were struggling to survive, we hired a business consultant to advise us and he told us that some of the partners would need to get jobs. I volunteered to leave. When I exited Zoom, it felt like I was entering a dark cave. Thank God for people like Cleveland who encouraged me to keep going.

In my next blog entry, I will share my story about how I left one of the biggest companies in America to compete with them. Many of you reading this told me I was crazy to leave such a great job (Auto Trader). You told me I would go bankrupt. That was four and a half years ago and it was also before the greatest recession in modern times hit us. Without help from a couple of family members, I probably would have lost everything, but even bankruptcy would not have stopped me from fulfilling my destiny. The pursuit of the american dream runs deep in my family bloodlines.

Hope you like this post. The next post will go into detail about the journey of seven people, armed only with sling shots, who took on a multi-billion dollar Goliath. For those of you who don't know me, I had a secret weapon. He has been my mentor for many, many years. I didn't listen to him too much in my teenage years but now I trust him with my life. His name is Jesus and He is my Lord and Savior. He has been with me every day while I have been in the cave. He was the one that promised me I would see the light one day. One thing about Jesus, He is always there.

Before I close, I just wanted to thank my mother who never stopped praying for me and my siblings for their support. I am Blessed to belong to such an awesome family. To my aunts, uncles, and cousins: I am sorry for not keeping in touch. There has not been any free time these last four and a half years but now I am out of the cave. I have weekends off now, so come visit. Maybe we will come visit you.

I will keep adding to this blog. Let me know what you think. Happy weekend and stay strong!