Hi everyone,
It's great to be here. Flicking through some of the posts in the background while I read TMF , I knew I had found the community I've been wanting for years. Thank you for your great piece of work MJ. And yes, you’ve reached another guy in the far off land of Australia.
Warning, as MJ said more is better so long post coming. Otherwise here’s the short notes:
- Classic slowlane upbringing & career (government aerospace engineer)
- Half way through a top MBA, learning a lot but know it isn’t the best use of time or dollars
- Have progressively seen the light over the past 1-2 years, am in a period where I’ll make some pivotal life decisions
- I value freedom to do whatever I want, go where I want, work on what I want. I do like nice things, so I’m not going to go as far as saying F*ck your lambos and villas, but the vision right now is to be free to live with a bag & a laptop, make a difference in the world, go wherever and do whatever, with great people, have great experiences. Be a good person, friend, mentor. Be inspiring and interesting.
- The immediate goal is to free up enough time and mental capacity to work on Fastlane ideas.
- Have had a number of kicks in the guts over the years to move me to action
- Glad to be here, you’re all awesome (kiss emoji)
Long version.
I’m a 26 year old aerospace engineer living in Melbourne, Australia. I’d say my upbringing was mostly massively slow lane (with many sidewalk influences). My dad ran a very successful business when I was quite young, before divorce saw all of that evaporate and I become the sort of poor kid.
As I’m sure is common for a lot of people here, my childhood conditions were prime for a classic slowlane future: value safety & security above risks/ballsy moves, do well in school, get a good professional job, save money and buy property, work hard, don’t trust anyone but yourself, do everything yourself, delay gratification, put life off. I was being conditioned for lifetime wage slavery. I’d always been extremely social, excelled at qualitative work, and free/forward thinking. However, I was also the among the top of math & physics. So what’d I do? At 17, I took a safe scholarship with the military to become an aerospace engineering officer (The Offer: attend the military academy, free degree, paid well while I did it, awesome leadership and personnel management training, guaranteed job, experiences etc. The Cost: 9 years of servitude to the government). I look back on it now and really I had no other options in my consideration set; my world was tiny (no influences with bigger views of the world) and this was a safe springboard into becoming something more than the poor kid – though engineering certainly wasn’t a good fit for me.
I slugged out my 4 year degree, finishing with honours / distinction average, even though I hated most of it and coasted through on either general aptitude or leveraging friendships/networks. I arrived at my first job, working on combat aircraft. Sounds cool, but on the first day I felt physically ill. The sick feeling didn’t go away for a few weeks. What had I gotten myself in for? I looked around at the other officers 5, 10, 20 years down the line and all I saw was miserable uninspiring people. This was my first kick in the guts to getting back to the path I should have been on. I knew I couldn’t be an engineer in this organisation; I love solving problems and inventing but that’s just not what we do as government employees – we do risk management, paperwork, policy, and bullshit paperwork; 90% of the time your work is meaningless mental masturbation. Knowing I had 5 years to slug out, I dabbled in side businesses but never had the understanding or drive to kick my own a$$ into gear and commit to learning – I was still stuck in only looking in my own sphere for learning and insight. From here, I forged myself into one of the fittest men in the military and traded my engineering wage slavery for combat wage slavery. This was my first insight into an exceptional elite culture, and supercharged my leadership skills while gaining reference experience – I now know that no matter how cold, wet, tired, or shitty my life gets, I’ve always been more cold, wet, tired. This though, was my second kick in the guts – I’d now spent the greater part of my adult life sacrificing life for training or service. I quit and went back to engineering to plan my exit strategy.
I struggled for around 18 months, sort of drifting between having a lot of great ideas, and then having to keep showing up to a job in a stale environment I hated. Later, I was deployed on operations which gave me incredible life experience during many situations, but here came the third kick in the guts. Living in shitty war torn countries isn’t the way to live life. Don’t get me wrong, my career has had some pretty incredible moments and it certainly set me up in a lot of ways, and I’m very grateful for everything I’ve done. I’m doing better personally and financially than most other people in their mid-twenties (likely because most of these people are sidewalkers). When I got back, my life had fallen apart back home, so I set about rebuilding that and getting serious with my exit strategy (given I now only had 12 months left on my contract).
I knew traditional formal education wasn’t the key, but I saw it as my way to branch into new environments. Plus, I still had slowlane safety thinking; my plan was to do anything but what I was doing now, and being naive and ambitious figured management consulting was a good way to go. I was accepted into a premier MBA program, which saw me adding another 20-30 hours a week to my 40 hours work weeks. Sure, I’m learning a lot, but now my time is so poor I have limited brain space to do anything but work and study corporate wage slavery. The environment at uni is better than work, but the common discourse there is to work really hard on your MBA so you can go and work really hard in corporate for someone else. Trading 40 hour a week jobs + 30h uni for 70-80h a week jobs. It’s crazy. Not to mention the cost: 2200-2500 hours and 90k is no joke.
From here, I’ve got a number of options. I value freedom to do whatever I want, go where I want, work on what I want. I do like nice things, so I’m not going to go as far as saying F*ck your lambos and villas, but the vision right now is to be free to live with a bag & a laptop, make a difference in the world, go wherever and do whatever, with great people, have great experiences. The immediate goal is to free up enough time and mental capacity to work on Fastlane ideas.
1. Continue MBA & Work (12-18months): I’ve got a few months left on my contract, which sees me in a soul crushing work environment (one that says they want innovation and outside ideas, but I recently wrote a paper pointing out how literally everything in the culture is the opposite of best practice creative cultures – and of course they shunned these outside ideas). The upside here is that I get around 90 hours a year to study, and whatever days required for exams. Plus potentially ~$16k toward my degree (and the fees are tax deductible if I’m working). And I can gym at lunch (ha). Long service leave (3months paid) would line up with degree completion. Safe option, but I hate my life daily. This option leaves little time for Fastlane.
2. Continue MBA & reduce work days: I can either stay with my job but get down to 3-4 days a week, or seek other work such as tutoring (easy decent cash), try consulting in risk/engineering/quality/IT management. Safe decent option, I’ll only hate my life 8 hours a day for 3 days week (and have brain space & time to do real work). And if I stayed with current employment I could still get the long service leave.
3. Quit MBA, continue working: a bit of a sunk cost problem here, half way through and there’s some awesome electives in the second half. Plus the work environment is horrid.
4. Quit MBA and/or quit work: mega downsize my life and live off cash jobs/savings/small rental income/welfare.
At this stage I’m likely to do option 2 or 4 (while doing MBA), though if you’ve gotten this far and have some thoughts let me know!
Enough ramble, time to dig into some gold on this forum. Looking forward to getting to know everyone.
It's great to be here. Flicking through some of the posts in the background while I read TMF , I knew I had found the community I've been wanting for years. Thank you for your great piece of work MJ. And yes, you’ve reached another guy in the far off land of Australia.
Warning, as MJ said more is better so long post coming. Otherwise here’s the short notes:
- Classic slowlane upbringing & career (government aerospace engineer)
- Half way through a top MBA, learning a lot but know it isn’t the best use of time or dollars
- Have progressively seen the light over the past 1-2 years, am in a period where I’ll make some pivotal life decisions
- I value freedom to do whatever I want, go where I want, work on what I want. I do like nice things, so I’m not going to go as far as saying F*ck your lambos and villas, but the vision right now is to be free to live with a bag & a laptop, make a difference in the world, go wherever and do whatever, with great people, have great experiences. Be a good person, friend, mentor. Be inspiring and interesting.
- The immediate goal is to free up enough time and mental capacity to work on Fastlane ideas.
- Have had a number of kicks in the guts over the years to move me to action
- Glad to be here, you’re all awesome (kiss emoji)
Long version.
I’m a 26 year old aerospace engineer living in Melbourne, Australia. I’d say my upbringing was mostly massively slow lane (with many sidewalk influences). My dad ran a very successful business when I was quite young, before divorce saw all of that evaporate and I become the sort of poor kid.
As I’m sure is common for a lot of people here, my childhood conditions were prime for a classic slowlane future: value safety & security above risks/ballsy moves, do well in school, get a good professional job, save money and buy property, work hard, don’t trust anyone but yourself, do everything yourself, delay gratification, put life off. I was being conditioned for lifetime wage slavery. I’d always been extremely social, excelled at qualitative work, and free/forward thinking. However, I was also the among the top of math & physics. So what’d I do? At 17, I took a safe scholarship with the military to become an aerospace engineering officer (The Offer: attend the military academy, free degree, paid well while I did it, awesome leadership and personnel management training, guaranteed job, experiences etc. The Cost: 9 years of servitude to the government). I look back on it now and really I had no other options in my consideration set; my world was tiny (no influences with bigger views of the world) and this was a safe springboard into becoming something more than the poor kid – though engineering certainly wasn’t a good fit for me.
I slugged out my 4 year degree, finishing with honours / distinction average, even though I hated most of it and coasted through on either general aptitude or leveraging friendships/networks. I arrived at my first job, working on combat aircraft. Sounds cool, but on the first day I felt physically ill. The sick feeling didn’t go away for a few weeks. What had I gotten myself in for? I looked around at the other officers 5, 10, 20 years down the line and all I saw was miserable uninspiring people. This was my first kick in the guts to getting back to the path I should have been on. I knew I couldn’t be an engineer in this organisation; I love solving problems and inventing but that’s just not what we do as government employees – we do risk management, paperwork, policy, and bullshit paperwork; 90% of the time your work is meaningless mental masturbation. Knowing I had 5 years to slug out, I dabbled in side businesses but never had the understanding or drive to kick my own a$$ into gear and commit to learning – I was still stuck in only looking in my own sphere for learning and insight. From here, I forged myself into one of the fittest men in the military and traded my engineering wage slavery for combat wage slavery. This was my first insight into an exceptional elite culture, and supercharged my leadership skills while gaining reference experience – I now know that no matter how cold, wet, tired, or shitty my life gets, I’ve always been more cold, wet, tired. This though, was my second kick in the guts – I’d now spent the greater part of my adult life sacrificing life for training or service. I quit and went back to engineering to plan my exit strategy.
I struggled for around 18 months, sort of drifting between having a lot of great ideas, and then having to keep showing up to a job in a stale environment I hated. Later, I was deployed on operations which gave me incredible life experience during many situations, but here came the third kick in the guts. Living in shitty war torn countries isn’t the way to live life. Don’t get me wrong, my career has had some pretty incredible moments and it certainly set me up in a lot of ways, and I’m very grateful for everything I’ve done. I’m doing better personally and financially than most other people in their mid-twenties (likely because most of these people are sidewalkers). When I got back, my life had fallen apart back home, so I set about rebuilding that and getting serious with my exit strategy (given I now only had 12 months left on my contract).
I knew traditional formal education wasn’t the key, but I saw it as my way to branch into new environments. Plus, I still had slowlane safety thinking; my plan was to do anything but what I was doing now, and being naive and ambitious figured management consulting was a good way to go. I was accepted into a premier MBA program, which saw me adding another 20-30 hours a week to my 40 hours work weeks. Sure, I’m learning a lot, but now my time is so poor I have limited brain space to do anything but work and study corporate wage slavery. The environment at uni is better than work, but the common discourse there is to work really hard on your MBA so you can go and work really hard in corporate for someone else. Trading 40 hour a week jobs + 30h uni for 70-80h a week jobs. It’s crazy. Not to mention the cost: 2200-2500 hours and 90k is no joke.
From here, I’ve got a number of options. I value freedom to do whatever I want, go where I want, work on what I want. I do like nice things, so I’m not going to go as far as saying F*ck your lambos and villas, but the vision right now is to be free to live with a bag & a laptop, make a difference in the world, go wherever and do whatever, with great people, have great experiences. The immediate goal is to free up enough time and mental capacity to work on Fastlane ideas.
1. Continue MBA & Work (12-18months): I’ve got a few months left on my contract, which sees me in a soul crushing work environment (one that says they want innovation and outside ideas, but I recently wrote a paper pointing out how literally everything in the culture is the opposite of best practice creative cultures – and of course they shunned these outside ideas). The upside here is that I get around 90 hours a year to study, and whatever days required for exams. Plus potentially ~$16k toward my degree (and the fees are tax deductible if I’m working). And I can gym at lunch (ha). Long service leave (3months paid) would line up with degree completion. Safe option, but I hate my life daily. This option leaves little time for Fastlane.
2. Continue MBA & reduce work days: I can either stay with my job but get down to 3-4 days a week, or seek other work such as tutoring (easy decent cash), try consulting in risk/engineering/quality/IT management. Safe decent option, I’ll only hate my life 8 hours a day for 3 days week (and have brain space & time to do real work). And if I stayed with current employment I could still get the long service leave.
3. Quit MBA, continue working: a bit of a sunk cost problem here, half way through and there’s some awesome electives in the second half. Plus the work environment is horrid.
4. Quit MBA and/or quit work: mega downsize my life and live off cash jobs/savings/small rental income/welfare.
At this stage I’m likely to do option 2 or 4 (while doing MBA), though if you’ve gotten this far and have some thoughts let me know!
Enough ramble, time to dig into some gold on this forum. Looking forward to getting to know everyone.
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