Partridge - Launch your dream: a 30-day plan for turning your passion into your profession

Contents

Praise for Launch Your Dream

Dale speaks with authority and will remind you of a simple truth: your dreams are worth chasing. Inside Launch Your Dream, he lays out a blueprint that removes the guesswork for turning your calling into your career. In following Dales plan, you will overcome your fears; be excited to chase your dreams; and in the process, transform not just your work, but also your life.

Mark Burnett, creator of ABCs Shark Tank

Starting a business is toughno doubt about it. But getting stuck in a j-o-b that doesnt feed your dreams and passions can be so much worse! Dale Partridge gives entrepreneurs the practical tools they need to escape that rut and successfully live out their calling in life.

Dave Ramsey, bestselling author and nationally syndicated radio show host

Launch Your Dream provides an easy-to-follow, finely tuned framework to enable anyone to identify their calling, do what they love, and love what they do. Its a get-out-of-jail-free pass for those languishing in their day jobs and the recipe for purpose many are starving for. At the core, the principles on these pages will save you countless hours trying to figure it out on your own. Instead, steal back the control of your life... for good.

John J. Kilcullen, creator of the For Dummies book series

2017 by Dale Partridge

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or otherexcept for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Published in Nashville, Tennessee, by Nelson Books, an imprint of Thomas Nelson. Nelson Books and Thomas Nelson are registered trademarks of HarperCollins Christian Publishing, Inc.

Author is represented by The Christopher Ferebee Agency, www.christopherferebee.com.

Thomas Nelson titles may be purchased in bulk for educational, business, fund-raising, or sales promotional use. For information, please e-mail SpecialMarkets@ThomasNelson.com.

Epub Edition April 2017 ISBN 9780718093426

ISBN-13: 978071809857 (IE)

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Partridge, Dale, 1985-author.

Title: Launch your dream: a 30-day plan for turning your passion into your profession / Dale Partridge.

Description: Nashville, Tennessee: Nelson Books, [2017]

Identifiers: LCCN 2016044237 | ISBN 9780718093419

Subjects: LCSH: New business enterprises. | Business planning. | Small businessManagement. | Entrepreneurship.

Classification: LCC HD62.5 .P378 2017 | DDC 658.1/1dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016044237

Printed in the United States of America

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To Ariayour little soul is a big force behind
my work. I hope having a father who chases his
dreams will motivate you to chase yours.

I remember getting out of bed after a night of not sleeping. The ghost of insomnia had been haunting my house for months. Most nights I managed to find at least an hour of shut-eye, but not this night. Not even a wink. Id spent the night staring at the ceiling, tossing from side to side, trying without success to will myself to sleep. This was becoming all too familiar.

Each morning, after the specter of insomnia faded, the demon of anxiety arrived to torment me. How will I pay my bills? How will I pay my employees? How will I find time to be a good husband? Questions swirled in my mind, often leaving me paralyzed. I was overstressed, overworked, overloaded.

From the outside, I was the picture of success. I had founded a multimillion-dollar e-commerce company that was growing like kudzu. But along with the wins there were new weights and responsibilities. The fifty-some employees working in my companys Costa Mesa headquarters required $300,000 of monthly revenue just to sustain the payroll. Over time, walking into the office felt like serving out a prison sentenceand I wasnt sure there was the possibility of parole. My passion for the day-to-day operations began to wane as I realized that I hadnt fulfilled my dream; I had created a job.

The worry of it all eventually manifested in physical symptomsnot just insomnia, but muscle twitching, acute acid reflux, and difficulty breathing. I finally decided to reach out to a physician friend, who informed me that I wasnt sick; I was stuck. Living in Los Angeles had taken its tollthe noise, the lights, the traffic jams, the poor air quality, the threat of violent crime. The city was a constant bombardment of energy that overstimulated my mind and body. And worse, it had begun to affect my wife, Veronica. Her nervousness had risen to a point of near debilitation. She hadnt left the house in weeks, too anxious to get into the car and drive to the job she had come to loathe.

After a particularly torturous day at the office, I sulked my way into our house and found Veronica looking at me with desperation. Weve got to get out of here, she said.

I couldnt disagree. She was right. The pressures of our life in a sprawling, smoggy city had become unsustainable for both of us. Where had it all gone wrong? In 2012, in the spirit of the 1849 gold rushers, I had moved to Orange County, California. Opportunity was budding. I started my first businesses in an effort to free myself from the corporate dungeon that had trapped so many of my friends. But along the way, the very thing I was trying to escape had imprisoned me. My body, my mind, and now my wife were all telling me it was time to leave.

A few nights after Veronica confessed her desire to escape the city, I finally stole an hour of sleep. I dreamed I was walking in a field at the base of a beautiful mountain range with my wife in front of me. She was holding the hand of a small girla child whom I did not yet knowand both of them were wearing cowboy boots. I didnt know where this place was, but when my eyes blinked open, I longed to discover it.

The dream rolled around in my head day after day, until a Facebook algorithm was changed. Then everything shifted. Because my e-commerce company had been built on the back of social media marketing, the Facebook changes threatened to destroy it. My board reacted by deciding to take the company in a new directionand in that plan, they felt I was no longer necessary.

With the tether to my company severed, I was now free to look for that field from my dream and take my family there. The search began, and within a year, we had sold our house in California and moved to Bend, Oregon. The insomnia dissolved, the anxiety dispersed, and the acid reflux dissipated. And Veronica and I found the parcel of land where we could build our family farm and realize our dreams.

Sometimes people tell me Im crazy for leaving one of the biggest, sexiest cities in the greatest country on earth to move to a small town in Central Oregon with very little industry to speak of and two hours from a major airport. Why would Veronica and I give up seemingly endless opportunities in Los Angeles for this kind of life, where our livelihood depends on our ability to launch and sustain a new company? Why wouldnt we just settle down and work for a stable Fortune 500 company with a strong benefits package and 401(k)?

Whenever someone questions why we made this decision, I always reply, Because we were made for this.