Hi everyone, it's good to be here.
My story might not win me any fans, but it's a decent example of how crippling comfort and praise can be.
Growing up, things were pretty easy for me. My family was very well off. School was no challenge, I barely had to study to get fantastic grades.
Everyone said I was a genius. Everyone said I was going to be rich. And I believed them.
I breezed through high school, but had absolutely no plan for what came next. I always imagined I'd start a business and never need a regular job or college. I believed that I was special. After all, everyone kept telling me so.
But it was clear I had no plan. So I went to community college. I never bothered to research colleges because I never thought it would be that important. Luckily, I at least chose Computer Science for my major. I figured I'd start a profitable software business and dropout of college.
That never panned out. I never got an idea off the ground, and what's more, I realized just how normal I was. I remember my first test that I took in community college, I got a whopping 8%. Yes, eight percent. I was used to getting 90%+ on every test.
I was in absolute denial. "Those teachers have ridiculous standards, no one can do well in those classes" I thought to myself. But then the failure continued, bad grade after bad grade. I finished the semester with all C's and D's.
My ego shattered. I was used to showing up and getting praised all my life. But here, I was just another community college kid who didn't have his life together. I had to learn what real hard work was. Math and physics were destroying me, and I needed something I had never asked for before in school: Help.
I ended up sucking up my pride and going to one of the community college study centers and asked a tutor for help.
The most important thing I learned from them?
"Do all the practice problems", that was their most common advice.
All of them? That would take hours and hours to do. But I started studying more, and my grades started to improve.
The humbling continued when I needed money. I was pretty frugal so I had been able skate by just doing some menial work for friends and family, but now that I was commuting I needed some more cash. I had no skills and ended up working at a fast food joint. This job was probably one of the most important events in my life. While there is no shame in working fast food, that didn't change how much it sucked.
I didn't get angry about having to work there, instead I got scared. I got very scared that this could realistically be my future. Many of my coworkers had been there for years and years. No plans for additional education, nothing. Most had even gone to the very community college I was attending, only to drop out. They just lived their lives one shift to the next, wasting every spare moment they had on TV, videos games, and any other distraction they could afford.
I stepped back and looked at who I was turning out to be. I was a burger flipping community college student struggling to pass his classes. A far cry from what everyone said I would be. It absolutely frightened me.
I got serious about my studies. I actively sought out the top performing students in my classes and asked if I could study with them. I was spending hours each day studying my butt off. My grades skyrocketed. I felt for the first time the true rewards of hard work.
I knew I needed to get out of that fast food job, so I kept scouring for internships or anything remotely related to computer science. I ended up landing a job as a tester at an extremely small local tech company. The pay was just as lousy as my fast food job, but now I got to work around tech. I eventually got to do some programming for them and I learned as much as possible.
I ended up completing community college with honors and I had a job that was teaching me a lot. Things were looking up.
I figured I would try my hand at entrepreneurship again while I was in college. Using everything I had learned, I created a mobile game and released it. It was a simple game, and rather poorly made honestly. I'm still proud of my self to this day for actually completing it. However, the downloads were abysmal and it generated 0 ad revenue. First failed product.
I transferred to a 4 year university and continued my studies. I was getting better at programming, and it was making my ego come back.
I felt like hot stuff because I could code. I began to think that school was stupid and that I already knew everything I needed to know. "I can code, I should get paid big bucks" was my thought. But more humility was in store for me. The final year of college was hard. The tests were hard, the projects were complex. I was starting to get my butt kicked again. I had to put my head down and study just like at community college. I had to recreate my work ethic, again.
College was coming to an end, and everyone started talking about job offers and places they were going to work. I had no plans and no job offers. I'd never even researched jobs or applied anywhere. Graduation came and went, and I was still working for that small local tech company getting paid just barely above minimum wage, and worse I wasn't really learning anything new at this point. I was still holding out on the idea of starting a business.
I worked on some projects in my spare time, but they were all half-baked failures. I did this for over year before getting fed up.
The annoyance of being 24 and having lived with my parents my entire life was starting to get to me. I wanted more. So I got serious about finding a real paying job. But no one would hire me. Another humbling event. I asked a recruiter for honest feedback and they pretty much told me my resume sucked and that I lacked the skills that employers were looking for. My current job was a dead end, and I wasn't learning anything valuable at this point.
So I quit my job and decided to study programming fundamentals all over again. I got a lot better, but the more I learned the more my ego began to fade. I was beginning to understand the value of continuously learning.
I studied hard for months and revised my resume, then began to apply. I began to get interviews, and I started to do well in them. Then I managed to land a high paying job. It felt like Christmas. I could move out!
I worked there for a year and then landed an even higher paying job, the one I currently have. Now I'm making 6 figures, great benefits, fully remote, and a great career trajectory. Everyone says I've made it. But I can feel the golden handcuffs tightening. My job is now so good, it will be very hard to leave. Throw in some lifestyle creep, maybe a couple of kids at some point, and bam! I'll be stuck.
Even with this great job, I'm not quite happy. I'm still trading 5 days for 2.
I've been reading books for years now, mostly just blowing my load to all kinds of self help books. I came across Millionaire Fastlane a few months ago and it managed to do one thing that no other book could: it reaffirmed my desire to start my own company and have autonomy over my life. It made me realize that I had worked hard to get out of the Sidewalk only to land in the Slowlane.
You might be wondering where my desire to start a business came from. The one silver lining to my somewhat spoiled upbringing was that my father had Fastlaned. He started a company, grew it for 15 years, made a ton of profit and then sold it for a sizable amount. Retired very early. After seeing that, how could I truly accept the Slowlane? This is one of the reasons why I had trouble taking jobs or college seriously.
Everyone else in my family is a comfortable Slowlaner. I grew up listening to aunts and uncles complain about their bosses, their commutes and to hear how it would one day happen to me. They told me that was life, and you scrimp and save till retirement. I would always frown and think to myself "but that's not how it was for my Dad".
So here I am, well positioned in the Slowlane, but 100% sure that I want out. I literally grew up on the other side, I've seen the benefits of the Fastlane firsthand. I have a very valuable skill and it's time to start using it to help the world instead of my employer.
I'm currently reading Unscripted , and the most personally relevant part of the book that I have come across is how detrimental it is to praise people's innate talents as opposed to their hard work. The negative effects of such praise are pretty evident when reflecting on my own past.
I'm still trying to find my "Why" and how I can provide value to the world.
Anyway, thanks for giving this a read and I'm super excited to learn from all of you! Any advice or feedback would be greatly appreciated.
My story might not win me any fans, but it's a decent example of how crippling comfort and praise can be.
Growing up, things were pretty easy for me. My family was very well off. School was no challenge, I barely had to study to get fantastic grades.
Everyone said I was a genius. Everyone said I was going to be rich. And I believed them.
I breezed through high school, but had absolutely no plan for what came next. I always imagined I'd start a business and never need a regular job or college. I believed that I was special. After all, everyone kept telling me so.
But it was clear I had no plan. So I went to community college. I never bothered to research colleges because I never thought it would be that important. Luckily, I at least chose Computer Science for my major. I figured I'd start a profitable software business and dropout of college.
That never panned out. I never got an idea off the ground, and what's more, I realized just how normal I was. I remember my first test that I took in community college, I got a whopping 8%. Yes, eight percent. I was used to getting 90%+ on every test.
I was in absolute denial. "Those teachers have ridiculous standards, no one can do well in those classes" I thought to myself. But then the failure continued, bad grade after bad grade. I finished the semester with all C's and D's.
My ego shattered. I was used to showing up and getting praised all my life. But here, I was just another community college kid who didn't have his life together. I had to learn what real hard work was. Math and physics were destroying me, and I needed something I had never asked for before in school: Help.
I ended up sucking up my pride and going to one of the community college study centers and asked a tutor for help.
The most important thing I learned from them?
"Do all the practice problems", that was their most common advice.
All of them? That would take hours and hours to do. But I started studying more, and my grades started to improve.
The humbling continued when I needed money. I was pretty frugal so I had been able skate by just doing some menial work for friends and family, but now that I was commuting I needed some more cash. I had no skills and ended up working at a fast food joint. This job was probably one of the most important events in my life. While there is no shame in working fast food, that didn't change how much it sucked.
I didn't get angry about having to work there, instead I got scared. I got very scared that this could realistically be my future. Many of my coworkers had been there for years and years. No plans for additional education, nothing. Most had even gone to the very community college I was attending, only to drop out. They just lived their lives one shift to the next, wasting every spare moment they had on TV, videos games, and any other distraction they could afford.
I stepped back and looked at who I was turning out to be. I was a burger flipping community college student struggling to pass his classes. A far cry from what everyone said I would be. It absolutely frightened me.
I got serious about my studies. I actively sought out the top performing students in my classes and asked if I could study with them. I was spending hours each day studying my butt off. My grades skyrocketed. I felt for the first time the true rewards of hard work.
I knew I needed to get out of that fast food job, so I kept scouring for internships or anything remotely related to computer science. I ended up landing a job as a tester at an extremely small local tech company. The pay was just as lousy as my fast food job, but now I got to work around tech. I eventually got to do some programming for them and I learned as much as possible.
I ended up completing community college with honors and I had a job that was teaching me a lot. Things were looking up.
I figured I would try my hand at entrepreneurship again while I was in college. Using everything I had learned, I created a mobile game and released it. It was a simple game, and rather poorly made honestly. I'm still proud of my self to this day for actually completing it. However, the downloads were abysmal and it generated 0 ad revenue. First failed product.
I transferred to a 4 year university and continued my studies. I was getting better at programming, and it was making my ego come back.
I felt like hot stuff because I could code. I began to think that school was stupid and that I already knew everything I needed to know. "I can code, I should get paid big bucks" was my thought. But more humility was in store for me. The final year of college was hard. The tests were hard, the projects were complex. I was starting to get my butt kicked again. I had to put my head down and study just like at community college. I had to recreate my work ethic, again.
College was coming to an end, and everyone started talking about job offers and places they were going to work. I had no plans and no job offers. I'd never even researched jobs or applied anywhere. Graduation came and went, and I was still working for that small local tech company getting paid just barely above minimum wage, and worse I wasn't really learning anything new at this point. I was still holding out on the idea of starting a business.
I worked on some projects in my spare time, but they were all half-baked failures. I did this for over year before getting fed up.
The annoyance of being 24 and having lived with my parents my entire life was starting to get to me. I wanted more. So I got serious about finding a real paying job. But no one would hire me. Another humbling event. I asked a recruiter for honest feedback and they pretty much told me my resume sucked and that I lacked the skills that employers were looking for. My current job was a dead end, and I wasn't learning anything valuable at this point.
So I quit my job and decided to study programming fundamentals all over again. I got a lot better, but the more I learned the more my ego began to fade. I was beginning to understand the value of continuously learning.
I studied hard for months and revised my resume, then began to apply. I began to get interviews, and I started to do well in them. Then I managed to land a high paying job. It felt like Christmas. I could move out!
I worked there for a year and then landed an even higher paying job, the one I currently have. Now I'm making 6 figures, great benefits, fully remote, and a great career trajectory. Everyone says I've made it. But I can feel the golden handcuffs tightening. My job is now so good, it will be very hard to leave. Throw in some lifestyle creep, maybe a couple of kids at some point, and bam! I'll be stuck.
Even with this great job, I'm not quite happy. I'm still trading 5 days for 2.
I've been reading books for years now, mostly just blowing my load to all kinds of self help books. I came across Millionaire Fastlane a few months ago and it managed to do one thing that no other book could: it reaffirmed my desire to start my own company and have autonomy over my life. It made me realize that I had worked hard to get out of the Sidewalk only to land in the Slowlane.
You might be wondering where my desire to start a business came from. The one silver lining to my somewhat spoiled upbringing was that my father had Fastlaned. He started a company, grew it for 15 years, made a ton of profit and then sold it for a sizable amount. Retired very early. After seeing that, how could I truly accept the Slowlane? This is one of the reasons why I had trouble taking jobs or college seriously.
Everyone else in my family is a comfortable Slowlaner. I grew up listening to aunts and uncles complain about their bosses, their commutes and to hear how it would one day happen to me. They told me that was life, and you scrimp and save till retirement. I would always frown and think to myself "but that's not how it was for my Dad".
So here I am, well positioned in the Slowlane, but 100% sure that I want out. I literally grew up on the other side, I've seen the benefits of the Fastlane firsthand. I have a very valuable skill and it's time to start using it to help the world instead of my employer.
I'm currently reading Unscripted , and the most personally relevant part of the book that I have come across is how detrimental it is to praise people's innate talents as opposed to their hard work. The negative effects of such praise are pretty evident when reflecting on my own past.
I'm still trying to find my "Why" and how I can provide value to the world.
Anyway, thanks for giving this a read and I'm super excited to learn from all of you! Any advice or feedback would be greatly appreciated.
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