Where do nice guys really finish? One guy's story

They say that the odds of an entity achieving a human birth on Planet Earth is about 10 to the power of 2,685,000 or in my own words A Bajillion.

I came to the world in February of 1979 to two wonderful parents who love me very much. Some would argue that they should never have gotten together. Against everything in their worlds at the time they followed their hearts and Neil came into the world.

It took me about 20 years to figure out, that they had left their respective marriages and the seven children between them to start another life with me as the focal point.

I was academically gifted and naturally gravitated to computers. A very kind loving highly compassionate child.

After having demonstrated to have the ability read before the other kids and winning an award from the Prime Minister I had all the potential in the world to become whatever he wanted.

In Grade 2 I was teaching my teacher how to use the Commodore so she could teach the other kids.

Things were going great! I had a Pogo ball, a bicycle and once in a while Dad would pick me up off of the couch and put me into bed.

Somewhere stitched in were the heated arguments, the alcohol. The blood. The realization that there were other storylines that weren’t a part of ours that somehow found their way into our home, like a dark shadowy smoke….

One day I woke up and Dad was gone, the house was sold and for a period of time, Neil and his Mom were homeless.

For a year or what felt like ten, my Mom and I started out staying at someone’s house. It was not an amazing experience. Mom and I weren’t allowed to sleep on the couch and we had to pack up our things after we were awake. We were squatting in a living room pretending not to be there. I was invisible.

Christmas that year I recall that family taking us to Zellers. The cheapest toy was out of a box and it was called Stinkor a He Man character. I was told that I was a lot of trouble for my Mother and that I should be grateful for this toy. The toy smelled like skunk.

What was learned early on in Neil’s life that he was worthless. His opinions thoughts and feelings didn’t matter. If he stayed invisible to everyone, the world around him would be better off.

Even though he was gifted in all areas of his life many of the people around him weren’t in healthy relationships with themselves. He too learned how to be in an unhealthy relationship with himself.

I started drinking and beating myself up for a situation I was born into. As time went on most of my gifts weren’t helpful to me. I got so used to self-medicating that my brain simply didn’t function the way I was used to it functioning. My marks plummeted and I stumbled into an Engineering program at University.

Depressed, beaten, and left with the feeling that nice guys finish last, I faced myself with the blackest of hearts.

Literally saying he is tired of feeling tired, the next day strangers started showing up in his life to show him the light. That journey has been ongoing and that flower continues to unfold in his own life.

Yogis, Kung Fu Masters, CEOs leaders of all sorts. All here in my realm helping me learn and get better. As I put out more of the intention of wanting to be around positive uplifting people, more of that showed up in my life.

I ended up meeting a woman on the GO Bus in the most unlikely of scenarios….We will have been married for 16 years. Two kids and all the rest. It was through her that I learned that my heart itself had a story to tell and it has been a continuous unfolding of that heart.

The greatest of all of his teachers had been with him the whole time. His Father.

As I extracted the source of the shortcomings I was perceiving in my own life I realized that I had put them there. Consciously or unconsciously it was me who put them there.

The last 16 years have been a continuous sharpening of my focus and continuous improvement on listening to my heart.

Being powerfully present and anchored in the heart can allow one to observe the miracles right in front of our faces at any given slice of time. Life was always right now, always is right now, and forever will be right now. The love, the people, the opportunities you are seeking are always within your reach.

The world to me now is full of wonder and abundance. I have allowed myself to be a part of the experiences that my heart desires. I allow my attention to be focused on sights, smells, sounds, feelings that I choose. This chapter of my life is about the life I want to live, not the one someone else wants for me.

I would like the audience to walk away knowing that they are enough, that whatever narrative is holding them back might not be true. My invitation is to them to feel empowered and motivated to listen to their heart.