Derek Edwards
Contributor
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
314%
- Oct 22, 2014
- 7
- 22
- 38
Hello all,
I want to share something important with all of you. I want to share my story on how I become successful in today's world. It's long, sit back and read on.
My first ever job was working in retail [KOHL'S]. After 3 months I hated this place. I hated cleaning fitting rooms, doing freight and I hated, HATED multitasking. My managers weren't very nice either. I spent 2 years in this Sh*thole. In that 2 years, I had break downs because of so much stress in my life. I was finishing high school, and was going to go to college. I didn't exactly know what to do. I didn't know how to become successful. My parents were always like, go to college, get a degree and get a good paying job. And I know very well all of you have heard that or at least some version of it. However, I didn't like the sound of that, it felt too little, I wanted something big in my life and I couldn't figure out what it was. I was craving it.
I finally quit my days at KOHL'S and moved onto Bed Bath and Beyond. This was still early summer and I was done high school and the upcoming fall semester is when I would start college. I had to make a huge decision on what I wanted to do in life before summer's end. So in the meantime I started researching what jobs were in high demand and which colleges I was going to apply to. I started looking at all the various degrees and how much the tuition was going to cost. However, I didn't want to go to college, it was expensive and debt was something I was trying to avoid. So I gave it a rest. In about a week, I came up with a plan in which to make my life without debt. I applied my mother to my local university college. I was crossing fingers that they would call her. I knew the local college near me offered free tuition to students who's parents worked there. I filled the application and submitted and forgot about it. I let my mother know and she told me that she was fine with as long as I finish college. Fine.
2 weeks later, she gets the call for a job interview. Long story short, she got in. My plan worked and I felt this huge sign of relief because now I had one of my parents working at this college I needed to attend to. However, benefits wouldn't kick in after a year. So I attended a local community college first to collect various credits and transfer them over. At this point I still did not know what I wanted to major in.
Back to Bed Bath & Beyond (BBB). It wasn't a bad job. It was far better than working at KOHL'S, that much I can tell you. Things started to change when I had an interest in selling things to customers. When I got out of work I went online and researched products we had in store and online and gathered up as much info as i could. It was fulfilling at the end of the day because I felt this rush in my body and I was ready to start selling.
It was a busy weekend and I wanted to put my new skills to the test. My first ever sell was a dyson vacuum cleaner that I demonstrated to a married couple. Boy, oh Boy. I managed to sell this couple a $650 vacuum in less than 10 minutes. I was trying to contain myself and the rush my body was experiencing. I couldn't believe it. I managed to do it. I was very proud of myself. That day alone I managed to sell 7 dysons ranging from $200 to $600 all within 15 minutes or less.
My body was feeling an intense rush. I wanted to sell more, and more I did sell. I've sold well over 300 vacuum cleaners in 5 months. Then one day, something happened. I was demonstrating to a customer how to use this shark vacuum cleaner. I brought her to the main isle with the mini carpet we had and laid out some dirt on both the hardwood and carpet. I told her what each button did and let her try the vacuum cleaner. I told her information about everything I dug up on shark vacuum cleaners. Suddenly, I had customers pass by and start listening in on what I had to say. This one guy, dressed up in a business suit was standing and listening. Didn't say a word until I finally sold the woman on the Shark. He comes over to me and says that I have a gift. I thanked him and asked him if he needed a new vacuum cleaner. He said no, but the next thing that came out of his mouth was, "You know you could make a lot of money selling products on your own and making yourself rich rather than making some else rich, you should try entrepreneurship sometime." At that time, I had no idea what that even was. Later that day I researched it up and my mind was going berserk on all of the ways people make money without having a 9-5 job.
I had a skill and I needed to put it to use in the right way. However, the fall semester was approaching and I was running out of time, nor would my parents ever let me do something like this. They would call me crazy and that I stop playing around and get a real job. Again, those sentences didn't ring to me in good ways, but I was going to finish college and get my parents to back off.
After a year at the community college, I collected enough credits to transfer over to a technical college. I picked out software engineering as my major. Skip ahead in time....I got the degree and within two years I had a great paying job. The best part, it was only 15 minutes away from my house. I was a system admin for a bank. I make well over $80,000 a year. I was in good standing.
Although I hated working at KOHL'S and disliked the idea to make another person rich. I learned some valuable lessons along the way. During my years at Kohl's, I learned how to deal with different types of people and helped them solve problems. I also learned that people used credit cards too much. Making the choice in not using credit cards already puts you a step ahead of most people. During my stay at BBB, I learned the skill on how to sell almost anything. My biggest secret to that is, show, don't talk too much. It worked every time. I also learned how to take charge and how to accomplish tasks faster and more effectively. With college, I found a way around debt. Instead of going for an easy degree and getting myself into deep debt, I found a loophole around it. I was thinking outside the box. You have no idea on how many parents come with their daughters or sons and start spending well over $1000 for college. It was ridiculous. And I would always ask what their daughter or son were majoring in and 98% of the time it was something completely useless, English teacher, psychology major, social services. My managers and co-workers would congratulate these people on this. I was stunned, I never congratulated any one of these kids. They were dumb, so were the parents on allowing their children get into debt. I knew one mother who laughed about how her son was going to collect so much debt and hopefully his business degree will get him somehwere. How many people do you know that have business degrees. Myself.....I know a lot. It's quite sad really.
Currently I live with my girlfriend in an apartment. Each month we spend around $1,700 on bills and food, that's a total price. I do not spend $1,700 on food. All the rest of the money is stored in 5 different banks. I have quite a lot of money saved up. I don't know what I want to use it for, but for now it's all in a reserve. You could say I'm living in a slow lane. Here is what I know, I'm 27 years old and I'm living well. I guess I'm more secure and locked in. I'm always learning about things, whether it's reading books on how rich people became successful themselves and their journeys, or learning new software or programming languages that will help me later in life. I've found loopholes around debt. I own a used car, payed it off completely. When I buy things, I make sure I pay the full amount right there and then, there is no room for owing anyone in my books. I don't get the latest and greatest electronic. I have one 27 inch iMac, 2 PC computers, one for programming, the other for editing and motion graphics (I've come to an interest in this type of field), I have an iPhone 4s. It has internet, text and call. That's all I need. I don't hang out with negative people in my life. I have very few real and honest friends. My gf has a part time job working at a pet shelter. I don't work the 9-5 job, I work the 7-3 job. I negotiated with my managers on the time, they liked my work and are very satisfied with me. I'm happy. I may not make millions, or Hundreds of thousands in a single month, but all those things above mentioned puts me well ahead of most people. I convey this message to all of you, "if you're good a something, never do it for free." And keep learning, it doesn't hurt.
This was my success story. I'm no millionaire or billionaire, but that won't stop me from becoming one, I will find a way, I will find that LOOPHOLE (A not so ordinary path people take in life)...........because I know it exists.
Best of luck to all of you in your journeys.
I want to share something important with all of you. I want to share my story on how I become successful in today's world. It's long, sit back and read on.
My first ever job was working in retail [KOHL'S]. After 3 months I hated this place. I hated cleaning fitting rooms, doing freight and I hated, HATED multitasking. My managers weren't very nice either. I spent 2 years in this Sh*thole. In that 2 years, I had break downs because of so much stress in my life. I was finishing high school, and was going to go to college. I didn't exactly know what to do. I didn't know how to become successful. My parents were always like, go to college, get a degree and get a good paying job. And I know very well all of you have heard that or at least some version of it. However, I didn't like the sound of that, it felt too little, I wanted something big in my life and I couldn't figure out what it was. I was craving it.
I finally quit my days at KOHL'S and moved onto Bed Bath and Beyond. This was still early summer and I was done high school and the upcoming fall semester is when I would start college. I had to make a huge decision on what I wanted to do in life before summer's end. So in the meantime I started researching what jobs were in high demand and which colleges I was going to apply to. I started looking at all the various degrees and how much the tuition was going to cost. However, I didn't want to go to college, it was expensive and debt was something I was trying to avoid. So I gave it a rest. In about a week, I came up with a plan in which to make my life without debt. I applied my mother to my local university college. I was crossing fingers that they would call her. I knew the local college near me offered free tuition to students who's parents worked there. I filled the application and submitted and forgot about it. I let my mother know and she told me that she was fine with as long as I finish college. Fine.
2 weeks later, she gets the call for a job interview. Long story short, she got in. My plan worked and I felt this huge sign of relief because now I had one of my parents working at this college I needed to attend to. However, benefits wouldn't kick in after a year. So I attended a local community college first to collect various credits and transfer them over. At this point I still did not know what I wanted to major in.
Back to Bed Bath & Beyond (BBB). It wasn't a bad job. It was far better than working at KOHL'S, that much I can tell you. Things started to change when I had an interest in selling things to customers. When I got out of work I went online and researched products we had in store and online and gathered up as much info as i could. It was fulfilling at the end of the day because I felt this rush in my body and I was ready to start selling.
It was a busy weekend and I wanted to put my new skills to the test. My first ever sell was a dyson vacuum cleaner that I demonstrated to a married couple. Boy, oh Boy. I managed to sell this couple a $650 vacuum in less than 10 minutes. I was trying to contain myself and the rush my body was experiencing. I couldn't believe it. I managed to do it. I was very proud of myself. That day alone I managed to sell 7 dysons ranging from $200 to $600 all within 15 minutes or less.
My body was feeling an intense rush. I wanted to sell more, and more I did sell. I've sold well over 300 vacuum cleaners in 5 months. Then one day, something happened. I was demonstrating to a customer how to use this shark vacuum cleaner. I brought her to the main isle with the mini carpet we had and laid out some dirt on both the hardwood and carpet. I told her what each button did and let her try the vacuum cleaner. I told her information about everything I dug up on shark vacuum cleaners. Suddenly, I had customers pass by and start listening in on what I had to say. This one guy, dressed up in a business suit was standing and listening. Didn't say a word until I finally sold the woman on the Shark. He comes over to me and says that I have a gift. I thanked him and asked him if he needed a new vacuum cleaner. He said no, but the next thing that came out of his mouth was, "You know you could make a lot of money selling products on your own and making yourself rich rather than making some else rich, you should try entrepreneurship sometime." At that time, I had no idea what that even was. Later that day I researched it up and my mind was going berserk on all of the ways people make money without having a 9-5 job.
I had a skill and I needed to put it to use in the right way. However, the fall semester was approaching and I was running out of time, nor would my parents ever let me do something like this. They would call me crazy and that I stop playing around and get a real job. Again, those sentences didn't ring to me in good ways, but I was going to finish college and get my parents to back off.
After a year at the community college, I collected enough credits to transfer over to a technical college. I picked out software engineering as my major. Skip ahead in time....I got the degree and within two years I had a great paying job. The best part, it was only 15 minutes away from my house. I was a system admin for a bank. I make well over $80,000 a year. I was in good standing.
Although I hated working at KOHL'S and disliked the idea to make another person rich. I learned some valuable lessons along the way. During my years at Kohl's, I learned how to deal with different types of people and helped them solve problems. I also learned that people used credit cards too much. Making the choice in not using credit cards already puts you a step ahead of most people. During my stay at BBB, I learned the skill on how to sell almost anything. My biggest secret to that is, show, don't talk too much. It worked every time. I also learned how to take charge and how to accomplish tasks faster and more effectively. With college, I found a way around debt. Instead of going for an easy degree and getting myself into deep debt, I found a loophole around it. I was thinking outside the box. You have no idea on how many parents come with their daughters or sons and start spending well over $1000 for college. It was ridiculous. And I would always ask what their daughter or son were majoring in and 98% of the time it was something completely useless, English teacher, psychology major, social services. My managers and co-workers would congratulate these people on this. I was stunned, I never congratulated any one of these kids. They were dumb, so were the parents on allowing their children get into debt. I knew one mother who laughed about how her son was going to collect so much debt and hopefully his business degree will get him somehwere. How many people do you know that have business degrees. Myself.....I know a lot. It's quite sad really.
Currently I live with my girlfriend in an apartment. Each month we spend around $1,700 on bills and food, that's a total price. I do not spend $1,700 on food. All the rest of the money is stored in 5 different banks. I have quite a lot of money saved up. I don't know what I want to use it for, but for now it's all in a reserve. You could say I'm living in a slow lane. Here is what I know, I'm 27 years old and I'm living well. I guess I'm more secure and locked in. I'm always learning about things, whether it's reading books on how rich people became successful themselves and their journeys, or learning new software or programming languages that will help me later in life. I've found loopholes around debt. I own a used car, payed it off completely. When I buy things, I make sure I pay the full amount right there and then, there is no room for owing anyone in my books. I don't get the latest and greatest electronic. I have one 27 inch iMac, 2 PC computers, one for programming, the other for editing and motion graphics (I've come to an interest in this type of field), I have an iPhone 4s. It has internet, text and call. That's all I need. I don't hang out with negative people in my life. I have very few real and honest friends. My gf has a part time job working at a pet shelter. I don't work the 9-5 job, I work the 7-3 job. I negotiated with my managers on the time, they liked my work and are very satisfied with me. I'm happy. I may not make millions, or Hundreds of thousands in a single month, but all those things above mentioned puts me well ahead of most people. I convey this message to all of you, "if you're good a something, never do it for free." And keep learning, it doesn't hurt.
This was my success story. I'm no millionaire or billionaire, but that won't stop me from becoming one, I will find a way, I will find that LOOPHOLE (A not so ordinary path people take in life)...........because I know it exists.
Best of luck to all of you in your journeys.
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