The Journey To Redesign Yourself

My own life has not gone as smoothly as I thought it would.

I was good at school and got a double degree… but none of that made a lick of difference.

I know how it feels to have your career dreams smashed beyond recognition.

I know how it feels to be dead broke.

I know how it feels to wake up in the morning short of breath, soaked in sweat, throat tight and feeling like your heart is going to explode.

I know how it feels to be betrayed by someone you trusted, and to be lied about by this person.

Are you in a similar situation?

Yet, I also know how it feels to conquer and emerge victorious over it all.

Life Changing Clarity

My journey to redesigning myself began a long time ago. I was an industrial designer, a university lecturer, and ultimately, I became a private defense consultant.

But staying in work was always a struggle.

The moment of clarity that brought it into crystal clear focus, happened one sunny afternoon in the summer of 2017.

My heart was very heavy that day because I sensed that my time as a defense consultant was coming to an end, and my bills were mounting but there was nothing else in the pipeline.

By that stage, I was tired of the struggle.

Unable to face doing any work, I managed to heed a small voice within telling me to let go... so instead of grinding it out aimlessly at my desk, I decided to walk down to my local café to just sit.

There wasn’t a single cloud in the sky that afternoon, and as I was walking, I noticed a full moon right above me, clear as day. I stopped and stared at it... it just looked so serene, hanging up there in the azure blue sky.

Then at the café, a weird sense of release came over me that I had never felt before, and then I realized this deep truth:

In the middle of the chaos is a place where your mind and soul can find peace and clarity… it’s the eye of the storm.

After many years of struggle, I had reached the eye of my storm.

Friend, everyone out there wants to tell you to avoid the storm and to sell you their method for how. But I’m here to tell you that the key to finding your true self is not in avoiding the storm (it just follows you if you try)… it’s in conquering it.

To find your true self, you must conquer the storm.

You must reach the eye of the storm where there is peace and clarity, and the only way to do that is to drive head-first into the chaos.

I first got this from my grandfather.

Born Hokkien Chinese, 1910 in Sukabumi Indonesia, he got caught up in the Japanese occupation of Indonesia during WW2 and was captured by them on suspicion of being a spy for the Dutch.

“What torture would you like?” they asked him.

He chose electrocution… figured it would knock him out before he gave them anything (little did they know, he was Sergeant Major of the City Guard and the Dutch liaison officer to the Australian army).

He took everything they could throw at him for 8 long months without cracking.

And in the end, when their whole grandiose narcissistic war effort imploded, they let him go (with a level of honor and respect they held only for true warriors).

That was the 1940’s.

But then came the coup of ‘65 which saw his home and his business confiscated by those who took power after the Japanese.

[Side Note: narcissists are everywhere, on all sides, and they hate it when you’re successful. They’ll steal your energy, they’ll steal your joy, they’ll steal your virtues to pass off as their own. They’ll try to steal the spoils of your talent and hard work and try to destroy you in the process… and here’s the kicker, they’ll smear your name and make you out to be the villain and themselves the victim, to everyone around you].

Eventually he escaped to New Zealand through the council of churches.

The Beginning Not The End

I can’t say I got the full revelation of how toxic my personal life had become then, but it was definitely when the scales began to fall from my eyes.

Seeing that I wasn’t giving up but that the opposite was happening, that I was waking up… the “storm” unleashed hell right on the cusp of Covid.

But what the “storm” didn’t realize was that I had already reached the eye… I was already on my path, I was already prepared.

So, instead of descending into depression and abandoning my dreams in defeat… in the eye of the storm I became stronger, smarter, clearer and more energized than ever before.

I discovered that when everything is raging out of control around you, this is when the truly miraculous can happen.

Now, I live in peace, clarity, purpose and an abundance of time and freedom that I could only dream about before. The journey has redesigned my life so that I can live as my true self, at last.

The journey to redesigning your life, so that you can live as your true self is a deep rabbit hole that goes far beyond lifestyle tips, tricks and hacks.

You must conquer the storm, in whatever form it’s raging in your life. My mission is to help you do it.

Learn how I conquered the storm

I’m Nick Hardman… industrial designer, defense consultant, writer and teacher.

To your peace.