Idaho to NYC to Ghana

En route to Ghana, we took a two-day pit stop in NYC so I could meet with a few of my clients. Let me explain the irony.

In the summer of 1982 at age 15, I discovered I didn’t need much sleep. After staying up very late (even all night) several nights in a row, I was pleasantly surprised that I still had plenty of energy to work long days on the family farm of my good friend Mike Armstrong.

And for the next 30 years, literally, I frequently used this “gift” to do more than a 24-hour day should allow. I worked a lot, played a lot, actively participated at church, helped raise five children, and was successful in my work. Because I have needed such a little amount of sleep, I feel like I have been able to have my cake and eat it too. No longer.

As we got closer and closer to adopting, my ability to function on minimal sleep was decreasing, dramatically. I saw the pattern, and I told Stacey that there was no way I was going to adopt unless I significantly slowed down my work life. So after returning home from Ghana a year ago with the decisions to adopt and to help start Ghana Make A Difference, I have been working hard to change things at GEC (my business) so that I will be able to step away from work and participate fully in our adoption and help with the efforts of Ghana Make A Difference.

So after working at a furious pace for 20 years to build my business, represented well by my niche of work in NYC, I am choosing (now that I have to choose) to leave much of it behind so that I can help Ghana Make A Difference build a home for parentless children in Ghana, and so that I can extend my tenure as a father.