I was a freshman in high school when I learned something that would quietly change the way I looked at my life.

I had started working with my stepfather(in the photo above), doing all sorts of home-improvement jobs in people’s homes.

One day, we were painting a house when the owners left us there.

There were a bunch of papers sitting on their table, and I guess my dad recognized one of them as a savings passbook.

He picked it up, looked inside, and called me over.

“Look at this.”

There was more than $40,000 in their savings account.

Aside from feeling a little funny about looking at somebody else’s bank statement, I was absolutely floored.

Someone had $40,000 in a savings account?

This was the late 1980s, so that was a lot of money.

But what struck me wasn’t really the money.

It was what the money represented.

It showed me something I didn’t know was possible.

You see, my family never had much money.

I grew up in poverty with my grandmother and half-brothers and sisters. Even when we eventually got a house in the suburbs of New Jersey, money was still a constant problem.

Sometimes our electricity was turned off. Sometimes the water.

We would get notices from the mortgage company.

So when I saw that savings account, it gave me something I had never really had before:

an example.

I know that probably sounds silly.

But when you grow up in poverty and dysfunction, you don’t necessarily know any other way.

You don’t know what you don’t know.

And that’s why I believe examples are so important.

How do you get to a place if you can’t imagine what it’s like to be there—or if you don’t even know that place exists?

I’m not sure you can.

That $40,000 became a kind of North Star for me.

It showed me that having money was possible.

I remember thinking, If these people did it, I just have to figure out how they did it and do some of the same things.

I needed education, financial sense, and .to learn how money worked.

And over the years, I picked up those things along the way—and then some.

But my stepfather taught me something even more important than how to think about money.

He taught me how to think about possibility.

He had started his home-repair business with very little knowledge.

He would sometimes take jobs that he wasn’t even sure how he was going to complete.

And he would always say to me:

“If human hands can do it, we can do it. We just have to figure out how.”

Pretty brave guy, huh?

That idea stayed with me.

As I got older, I started asking myself how I could create a better life.

And whenever I faced something difficult, I could almost hear my dad’s voice:

Did everything change overnight?

Of course not.

But things did change.

And they changed for the better.

I remember hearing about schools that would take inner-city kids to college campuses.

The idea was that if these kids could actually see what a college campus looked like, it would demystify it.

Then when they went back to school, they had something to aim for.

They had seen it. and could imagine themselves there.

Now I've shared examples about money and education but this works in every area of life.

We can find good examples of anything we want such as relationships, friendships, health or even attributes we would love to have.

So, if you’re the one facing a problem, especially something that has been sticking around for years, look for someone who has faced something similar and overcome it.

Find examples of who are succeeding in what you would love and start doing some of the same things they did.

It really can be that simple.

Don't forget to encourage someone around you to find their North Star and keep finding yours.

And once you find one, you may discover that the place you thought was impossible to reach was simply a place you had never learned to imagine.

If you need to talk something over and explore some possibilities for your own life, simply book a complimentary call through the website below.

Wishing you a life filled with miracles.

Much love,

Bert

www.bertastacio