Finally switching gears

[I Am I Said]

@MJ DeMarco

What-ho, here I am, and all that.

My top impression from the two books: I have to build a machine to build my pyramid.

Because the machine is so far from being built, I will leave the pyramid as-is for the moment. I have about $50K in savings, tied up in Finance industry GICs that I could cash if I wanted to, and my only debt is on my house. I add something small to my money system every week.

I have a job, and I am earning a good slowlane salary. However, at age 40, the writing's on the wall: if I don't make exponential progress in the next few years, I'm going to be working - and not on my own terms - forever.

My job gives me enough freedom, for the moment, to build my machine and pay the living expenses, and add a little to the money system. I'm also able to have my kids in a private school and contribute to a charity that matters to me.

Here's where I have been:

I went into home schooling at 15, finishing high school while working in my dad's machine shop. I took the government exams and beat most of my peers, adding honor to the school I didn't attend. I knew nothing about business and when I was 20 the machine shop ran out of cash and closed down. I went to trade school to learn machine tool technology "properly". At the time I believed my life plan should be something like: finish trade school > get a job > buy a house > get married > start a machine shop > [that's about as far as I thought about].

When I was close to finishing trade school they told us how to look for jobs. It sounded like laborious bullshit. I left the class, walked to the bank down the road, bought a roll of quarters, and stopped at a payphone. I called machine shops until I had a job. Took about 3 hours and the yellow pages.

After a year at $9.50 an hour (this was 1998-1999) I asked for a raise to $14 and got it, to my surprise. However I had pretty much decided to quit already. Looking back, I could have done better by staying and learning the industry. In a year of apprenticeship I had learned enough that my boss said he considered me a qualified plastic injection moldmaker. When I left they subcontracted my work to a guy charging $80/hour for a year, while they tried to replace me with a revolving door of trade school graduates who didn't know what they were doing. I learned this years later.

My next employer neglected to submit employee payroll deductions to the government. One night a business neighbor called me to say he had seen revenue canada putting a seal on the front door. I went over to the shop and found it was true; but I had a back door key and they hadn't thought about the back door. I rescued my several thousand dollars worth of tools. My boss wasn't happy - he had counted on them being auctioned to help pay his debt...

After 6 months of labor jobs in small businesses a friend started a medical equipment repair business and I joined as sales/marketing/technician/manager/everything person. I was the only employee. The idea was to get it off the ground and then he'd quit his job and join. After a year he decided to sell it to his dad instead. I foolishly stuck it out for 5 years. By then I had a small house, a lovely wife, and three kids. Then in one year, I quit my job and upgraded my house. In that 5 years I had exposure to a lot of companies and learned that at some level all businesses are pretty much the same.

I have worked in the same slowlane company for 10 years now. For the first 5 years I got pay raises every year as I proved myself, going from 40k to 100k with a very good bonus package. Then in 2012 the bonus system becam unsustainable and was cut. My only option would have been to quit, but I didn't want to start a new job just as my kids were getting into school. I action-faked my way through starting websites, learning wordpress - a little - learning programming, blah, blah, blah, all the time feeling sorry for myself and trying to get the company to put back the bonus program. It took until, well, this year for me to realize I was still getting nowhere, ignoring the obvious, feeling entitled, and counting on others to take care of me.

I wouldn't say all the stuff I have done was a waste, though. For example in 2014 I realized that I was very technical with no leadership skills, and I discovered coaching as a skillset, and took a few courses that have really helped me. I have built and used dozens of time management systems that have kept me being a top producer at work and in my community. Last year I got some formal business coach training and even found my first paying customer, which was an eye-opener: a guy gladly pays me about $250/hour to talk to him about his business (good echo!). In fact, until I read the two books presented on this forum, my plan has been to add to that and eventually go on my own as a small business coach. I get practice at work, and over the past year I have become the week-to-week coach and mentor to all the other managers and many employees. This has made my job enjoyable, my presence desirable (I got an 8% raise this year) and has subtly changed the slowlane to be more than a rut: it's a well-decorated, comfortable rut. It still ends, as ruts do, in a six-foot-deep hole.

Now I think that I could still do coaching / consulting but it would have to be a stepping stone. Either through something online or by systematizing what I can do, I need to detach this from my time. I will have to think about that while I take some action. I have mapped out the process I use in coaching people, and I'm sure I could build something that would extend my reach to a million people using a combination of short video lessons and journalling questions. I have successfully helped a lot of people get ahead, become more effective, find new jobs, make their departments more efficient, improve their sales, improve their bottom line, improve their quality, etc.

I will find a way to do this. Some part of it will be valuable to enough people to be worth building a machine around.

I'm also a recovered alcoholic, so - thanks for letting me share...

 

Dislike ads? Become a Fastlane member: Subscribe today and surround yourself with winners and millionaire mentors, not those broke friends who only want to drink beer and play video games. :-)