Today we’d like to introduce you to Raleigh Williams
Hi Raleigh, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I graduated from the University of Chicago law school, following in my lawyer dad’s footsteps. I started working at a top law firm and on paper, was living what I thought was the dream.
But one month in, realized I hated the life I’d gotten myself into. It was when I found myself on the rubber floor of a 24-hour fitness having a panic attack to the soundtrack of “Baby, You’re a Firework” that I realized it was time to make a change.
Problem is, I had no idea what I did want to do.
It took a messy stage of trial an error to figure it out. I tried real estate, day-trading stocks, and a faceless Instagram account with motivational quotes. I hadn’t quit the law job that was slowly killing me, because I had a wife and kids (twin boys and a daughter) to take care of. But then, everything changed with a text from my brother, Bentley.
He sent me an article about the new trend of escape rooms, and how lucrative they could be. Customers paying to be locked in a room, only allowed to leave once they solved a series of puzzles, seemed like a crazy way to make money. But it was just crazy enough to get me curious. That night, I tried an escape room and knew I had to try making a business out of it. I asked my brother if he’d build it with me if I quit my job to do it. He responded with one word: “In.”
Ironically, what freed me from the prison I’d built myself into was making a game out of escaping prisons. Three years after we built Alcatraz Escape Rooms, I bought my dream house. Alcatraz grew into Williams Entertainment Group, with locations in Utah, Texas, and Arizona and incorporated trampoline parks, ax throwing, real estate, and restaurants, which I then sold: It was an 8-figure escape room exit.
Not long after that, I decided to write a book. But when I tried writing about the thing I knew like the back of my hand: selling businesses, I realized I wanted to write something else: a book that could help people carve their own unique path to their creative purpose instead of following the default path set before them. That’s when The Creator’s Call was born.
Now, I help entrepreneurs and other professionals follow their creative calling. We’re not talking just art stuff here, though it can be that, too. I mean making time to create whatever it is they were meant to create, but put on the back-burner for some reason or another. I help them rediscover the thing that makes them feel alive again because it can get buried beneath all the things we think we’re supposed to be doing, and that comes at a cost to our wellbeing.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Sometimes, we like to glamorize the process of quitting the day job and following our real dream. That’s a great step to take, but what people forget to emphasize is the gap of wandering in the wilderness that comes after the epiphany of quitting the thing that was killing you. When the next step isn’t clear, or when it feels incredibly hard, people give up too quickly, assuming the difficulty or lack of clarity means they made the wrong choice. But that gap between the old path and the new is part of the process.
In fact, sometimes life throws you a real curve ball: In my case, it was when my wife Carli got cancer. We were on a trip to Cancun, celebrating the sale of my business and the beginning of this new exciting stage of life for us, when we talked about my wife’s mammogram she’d scheduled for when we got home. She’d found a lump in her breast, but doctors assured her that lumps weren’t uncommon, and she was too young and healthy for breast cancer. After our trip, we walked into the hospital excited to put our fears to rest. When the image of the mammogram appeared on the screen, the tech went completely silent. Something was off. A few days later, we learned Carli had stage three breast cancer.
That diagnosis threw us into an abyss we weren’t sure Carli, me, or our marriage would make it out alive from.
One night, I stumbled on a documentary with mythology professor Joseph Campbell. He explained that we can look at ourselves as prisoners of circumstances outside our control or as heroes being invited on an adventure into the unknown. It totally changed my perception of my life at that point and had me asking myself: What if life was happening for me and not to me? What if I was being created, not destroyed?
The chaos of cancer eventually led me to an old habit I used as a kid when things were too difficult for me to handle alone: Writing. I started writing letters to Carli throughout her cancer treatments and then started sharing parts of our story online. I found that the more I shared, the less alone I felt.
Eventually, I thought, “What if I write a book about how some of the darkest moments of my life were perfectly placed to guide me to my personal purpose?” That’s how my new book, The Creator’s Call: Break Free from the Default Path, Live Your Personal Purpose, and Unleash the Creator Within, was born.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I’ll be honest, I’ve never fully resonated with being a “creator.” For me, “creating” was a term reserved for airy-fairy-bohemian-artistic types or content creators with obnoxious “Smash that subscribe button” video outros. Hard pass.
In fact, when I left law, I would often say I was a good “copier” of other people’s good ideas and not a creative type myself.
But when I started research for a book about how to find your purpose, I realized there was one common thread among people who had obviously found their “thing” in life: They were creators.
From Michael Jordan to Charles Darwin, and Michelangelo to the guy who discovered penicillin (Robert Fleming), each of them brought something new into existence that didn’t exist before. In short, they created. And although what they created was vastly different, as I studied each of their lives more in depth, an interesting pattern emerged:
Every Creator in history has experienced what I call “The Creator’s Cycle.”
There are three essential stages:
Stage 1: The Call to leave the Default Path. (We all hear it. The question is: will you listen?)
Stage 2: The Descent into Chaos. (Chaos isn’t a roadblock to creation. It’s part of it!)
Stage 3: Bringing forth a new Creation. (Less glamorous than it sounds, but fulfilling AF)
This is the framework I explore in my book, helping people find their own path to fulfilling their creative calling.
Are there any books, apps, podcasts or blogs that help you do your best?
I’m a huge fan and scholar of the mythologist Joseph Campbell. His “Power of Myth” documentary is a great place to start. Steven Pressfield, author and screenplay writer (you may know him from “The Legend of Bagger Vance” or “the War of Art”) is another person I consider a mentor. Attending his writing retreat really helped me formulate my book. You’ll find an endorsement from him on the cover of it!
Pricing:
- $19 Book
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.raleighwilliams.co/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/raleighw/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=17828680
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/raleigh-williams/
- Twitter: https://x.com/theraleighwill
