Part of the guide: Personal Brand
I wanted to share the story of my Son Gabriel.
The photo above was taken just a few hours after he was born, just a little over 3 months ago.
What I wanted to share is the story of how my Son came into the world.
A while ago, I met a girl in a time in my life that had a lot of hidden pain. I started to date her, and I fell in love. Nobody knew about her. But she was my reason for being full of enthusiasm and life.
She WAS the joy in my life.
After being with her for a while, we started to become best friends, and she introduced me to her Son, Angel. She trusted me and let me into the most sacred part of her life.
I started to fall in love not only with her, but with her son. She became my family.
Every night when she would go to bed, she would wait till Angel fell asleep, then change his clothes and put his pajamas on. I’d sit there and watch her change his clothes, and it was like watching two Angels — there seemed to be a halo around them both that grew brighter and brighter each day.
One night, something magical happened. She changed Angel’s clothes, and she drifted off to sleep. I stayed awake, looking at the silhouette of the full moon against both of their faces as they breathed in synchronicity. It was like watching the face of God, shining. I felt a kind of love and peace that I had never felt before. And I had a special kind of feeling: I was home. Home with my family.
That night, I had a dream about having a family with her. I don’t know if it was put into my heart by biology, God, or something inside my inner mind. I knew I wanted to be a family with her. I had never felt so much love in my life.
One day, I asked her if she would have a baby with me. I had been dreaming of it in the day, and in the night.
She said yes.
We started to try to get pregnant, and nothing happened for months. In May of 2013, I flew to Miami for a team training event, and she texted me saying she was late for her period. I got a sinking feeling, thinking it might have happened, but she did a test, and it was negative. I was bummed.
After my event, I flew back to Costa Rica to be with her before another Mastermind event in Miami. She told me she would take another test, just to be sure, since her period still hadn’t come. My heart pounded, but she said the test was negative again.
When I got home, she hugged me, grabbed my hand, and walked me to our room. She pulled me into the closet and said she had a birthday present for me. She reached behind her back and grabbed a pair of baby shoes with a letter inside. When I opened the letter, it said:
Positivo
I started to cry. I felt peace like I had never felt before. It was the most joy I had ever experienced. I whispered in her ear, “Thank you… thank you… thank you for loving me.”
The next months were challenging, but before our Son was born, she came back.
You were never meant to do this alone
Reading this changes nothing. Doing it with people who show up changes everything. That is the whole difference between the people who transform and the people who keep starting over.
Start free →On January 28th, 2014, I drove her to the hospital. I was more nervous than I had ever been in my life. I got to be in the room as she had the baby, holding her hand. A few minutes passed, and I heard the crying of a newborn. The doctor brought him over, and what I saw was a miracle. She looked happier than I had ever seen her before.
Our son had my hair, my hands, and my feet. I got to hold this new life in my arms.
Gabriel Kalel Wood Chacon
He was born on January 28th, 2014. Gabriel, I want you to know something: you were not an accident. You are the story of the most beautiful love I’ve ever had in my life. You are a story of a relationship that overcame impossible circumstances.
This is the story of how you came into my life.
Thank you, Priscilla, for dreaming with me and giving me the greatest joy in my life.
I love you.
-David Wood
Comments
KarenRae
So nice to see you so happy!
Kihiu
AM your friend from Kenya who wants a lot of people to understand this business more.
DonaldParks
Love you too, man!
LeslieFritz1
That’s beautiful David!
gregmockisallin
Beautiful story, David. Love you, brother.
Evelyn Teykaerts
Love you, David. Marry the girl already! That will knock your socks off… A grandma.
Three posts a day. One email a day.
Everything I publish, in one short daily email. Real numbers, no hype, unsubscribe in one click.
Come do the work with people who show up
Not another course you finish alone and forget. A community that is there the next morning, and the one after that. Free, forever. About a minute to join, then come do the first challenge with us.
Join the community, free →
If the photo was taken just over three months ago and he was born on January 28th, that puts this around late April, which checks out with the timing you describe from Miami through the birth. Congratulations – the detail about the two of them breathing in synchronicity is the one that stayed with me.
That shoe reveal in the closet got me. No notes needed, Priya’s math or not.
The best case against posting something this personal here is that readers came for business content and a story this intimate reads as a swerve, maybe even trades on the readers’ goodwill about something perfectly private. I don’t actually think that holds up, once you’ve read the thing. Nothing here is being sold, and Cass reacting to the closet scene rather than any of it as a lesson sort of proves the point.
Nobody read this looking for a lesson, Walt. Some things don’t need a case made for or against them.
This reminds me of my own first, born in the middle of a training season much like the one described here. Thirty years in this line of work and the big moments always seem to land while you’re standing in some airport. Congratulations to the family.
I think what’s being missed here, Walt, is that nobody has to make a case for a birth story appearing on someone’s own blog, that part I’ll grant needs no defending, but you’re right that reactions to it will be personal rather than practical, and that’s fine. What stayed with me was the pair of baby shoes with the note folded inside, ‘Positivo,’ after two false negatives. I remember exactly where I was the week my third employee quit, wondering what any of this building was actually for, and a story like this answers that question better than a strategy post ever could. Roy’s one line said it better than my paragraph did. Congratulations to the family, plainly, no further analysis required.