Craig A. Perkins

I’d love to have a conversation about finding your purpose, living with passion, and becoming an entrepreneur on your next podcast. Or, if you have a question for me about what Going Against the Grain means in your life, drop me a note here.

One of the most important lessons I’ve learned is this: Every time my life improves, the first step is always TOWARD my fear. Going against the grain and taking the path less traveled has always required me to face my fears. 

Against the Grain is my personal story. It’s about a man who dutifully followed his parents' advice. He studied hard, played harder, and dreamt of who he wanted to be when he “grew up.” A man who graduated from college with honors and landed a Fortune 500 job to climb the corporate ladder as fast as he could. He checked every box society marked as successful. And he listened quietly while his father bragged to his friends about how well he was doing. But every time he looked in the mirror, he knew he was living someone else’s dream.  

My guess is, if you’re reading this now, that’s you. There’s at least a small part of you that can relate to this struggle!

I finally broke free from my father’s expectations and the box society built for me. It wasn’t easy, and I didn’t always succeed. But I charted my own path with an approach I call, Against the Grain. 

By doing it my way, I found my Personal Freedom. 

Freedom from the obligations of others so I could focus on what mattered to me most. I realized along the way that autonomy was the carrot on the end of the stick for me. It was never the wealth my father desired. I didn’t care about having the biggest house with the most expensive cars in the neighborhood. I wanted “work” to provide Freedom in terms of time. 

The Freedom to:

• Decide what I wanted to do on most days

• Immerse myself in hobbies I found interesting

• Spend quality time with the people I love

• Pursue my own definition of success

I’ve watched so many of my friends keep their corporate jobs and suffer in the process. Spent hours listening to their rants about how stupid their boss is and how their employees don’t understand what work means. But the saddest stories were about the cutthroat attitude from fellow co-workers about who’d get the next promotion. 

I can't fathom how a regular paycheck with 2-3 weeks of vacation is enough to keep most people living that grind. So I wrote Against the Grain to help you see there’s a way to live more authentically. To show you the process I went through in defining a different vision of success for myself. 

Success doesn’t have to mean getting the Executive Vice President title on your business card. For me, it fell on a much smaller scale. It meant never driving in 9-5 traffic and being free to take a vacation day whenever I wanted. Being able to spend time with the people I love most, doing things we enjoy together. This kind of Freedom is my definition of success. Now I’m able to share the lessons I learned along the way. And provide a blueprint so you can find your Freedom, whatever that means for you. 

I’d love to know what your definition of Personal Freedom looks like. Shoot an email to Craig@CraigAPerkins.com or use the form here and let me know.