Have you had your "FTE"? (Or Was it an FTM?!)

[amp0193]

I used to be a teacher. When my daughter was born, I realized that:

I'm going to be spending 40-50 hours a week, AWAY from my daughter, in order to teach things to OTHER PEOPLE'S kids, who don't want to be in my class, things they don't want to know, and won't remember.

And then having the staff meeting guilt trips laid on us monthly for not "putting in the work" to sacrifice even more for these kids, while ignoring the fact that every hour at school is sacrificing more time with my own.

I started a business when my daughter was 2 weeks old, and extended my brief maternity leave to 3 months (the full amount allowed by federal law), in order to work on it and support my wife. My principal was not happy with my "lack of concern" for my students.

That business I started will soon be sold for more than I would've been able to save after 2-3 decades of teaching.

 

[MJ DeMarco]

So this is an open call for everyone to share their "FTE" story, otherwise known as their "F*ck This Event."

A "F*ck this event" is an incident in your life that pushes you over the ledge of a SCRIPTED existence. It is a pejorative "I've had it!" or a "I can't live like this!" moment that screams it's time for you to change.

Interest moves to commitment. Thinking moves to action. Desire moves to obsession.

I described mine in both books -- getting stranded in a limousine on the side of the road in a blizzard.

What event in your life screamed to your soul, "ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!"?



Get Unscripted on Amazon
UNSCRIPTED: Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Entrepreneurship by MJ DeMarco, international best-selling author of The Millionaire Fastlane

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[eliquid]

I've had several of these in my life. I look at my paths as stepping stones and at each hop to a new stone, I had a FTE that led to the hop.

Then I look at the different paths I had that had their hops:

• Relationships
• Job/Career
• Business
• Health
• several other small areas like family/being social, etc

The ones that stood out the most that really made my blood boil came down to job/career and business.

In a nutshell, I was working a job to make someone else rich. I was a loyal employee before I "opened my mind" and I would work with dedication and earnest for the employers I worked for. Some of my FTEs while being employed ( summarizing them ):

• Working on the weekends, not getting paid. Happened a lot while an hourly employee. Ended up getting a settlement check for this though years later from the employer in a class action lawsuit. Looks like I wasn't the only one.
  
  
• Was asked at one of my jobs to get rid of my current freelance clients in order to work there, which I followed through with. I only had a few clients, which barely paid the bills for me so I thought it wasn't much of a loss to land this full-time job that would make me more per month. Got laid off 3 months later. Which was after getting this employer to top 3 positions in Google for 1,000s of major top keywords they still enjoy to this day. Couldn't get my old clients back because they found someone else to help them when I couldn't for those 3 months. Was without money for me and my family of 5 for next 9 months. Had to request unemployment which I was denied ( never could figure this out ), and had to get my kids on passport health plan and food stamps and look like a total loser to my wife.
  
  
• Passed over for Director level position even though I was promised it and next in line... AND after I hand built the department I was in by myself over 3 years from $10,000 in annual billings to over $5m. Instead, they brought someone in they did not know at all to be Director, who lied on their resume, who was working remotely ( but I was denied this benefit 4 times the last 3 years ) and then this new person ended up firing me based on a lie for something they said I did on my approved day off. This new person stayed on another year before they got canned. No one cared at the company though, and now this company is hitting the shitter.
  
  
• Promised equity in a new 2nd business as part of a negotiated lowered salary for a CMO role in a current business. New 2nd business was canceled within 6 months of me coming on by the owner, but he wouldn't raise my salary in the current business though to compensate for the broken promise and killed plans/expectations. He also wouldn't hire a CTO to handle tech issues which I then took on myself too just to get things rolling. Later on, I was laid off because the owner was too busy cheating on Ashley Madison and acting like a "gangsta with money" every month with new luxury cars, condos, and vacations that he ended up hurting the cash-flow of the business and ended up getting rid of 60% of his employees. I was basically cheated out of a lot of pay.
  
  
• Was laid off due to VC money coming into company and VCs wanted no remote employees. I just helped this company earn $38m that year from $400,000 the year before though. While leaving the company, they asked me to turn over my FB account ( my personal one ) because attached to it was highly successful ad campaigns I created on my own spare time that was sending leads to them. I didn't turn it over and I was their #1 lead generator. They wanted the account instead of paying me for it afterward even though they also just laid me off for a BS reason ( no more remote employees ). They wanted to lay me off, take away my only source of income, ( my personal FB ad account ) and not compensate me for it.
  
  
• Was promised a years worth of salary was ready for me at a new startup before I came on board. Left the current position I was at to join this new company to find out they lied and ran out of money in month 4. They were so busy buying t-shirts, swag, cell phones and other BS, they didn't make any sales and had to let me go.
  
  
• Promised 7 hour work days, paid for health/dental/401k benefits, and negotiated extra's ( cell phone, internet expenses ). Ended up working 9-12 hours days. Never got a dime for health or any benefit at all and never seen a penny for internet or cell phone expenses. Company was strict about filling out your timecard daily to make sure you put in 7 hours at least. Cared more about this then the fact they piled people with so much work that they worked 12 hours days instead of focusing on their benefit of "35 hour work week". They looked at your timecard during the day, they knew you already clocked 7 hours by 1pm but didn't care and still piled you on with more work due by end of that day. When brought up, was told "sometimes you have to put in extra to get stuff done". What's the purpose of a 7 hour work day then as a benefit? They were so strict about this timecard BS that I stressed out about it and when I hit 7 hours, I stopped putting in more time just so I could focus on quality work. Many times I was so stressed I just got to 7 and anything over 7 I would bank for the next day so I wouldn't have to stress about it and had a little buffer so I could focus on just work.
  
  
• After working 1 position for 24 months ( that 12 people now do as indiv jobs - I visited the company a few years later ), I asked for a raise from $26,000 a year to $30,000 on my 2 year anniversary. Was told, " we don't have the budget". I quit and went to work at another company where I did less work and was paid the $30k I wanted. 4 months later the old company calls me up wanting me back offering me even less work and $32,000. Where'd the money come up in just 4 months? Hmmmmm. I actually ended up going back to work for this company and negotiated remote work too "when the numbers looked good". Well, I took their sister company from 0 sales to $1m in less than 12 months once I came back on, and on my yearly ( now 3rd year total ) asked for my remote work benefit. Was told I could "maybe" get 1 day to work from home per week. I quit that week because it was known I wanted to work full time ( all 5 days ) from home when I came back.
  
  
• Boss intermingles in my company email inbox ( which I am fine with, it's his company ) and jumps into convos I am having with clients routinely via email and I never know when this happens because I am not CC'd on it or it comes in after hours and is missing sections in the reply'd email. This happens daily, several times a day. Even though he is "trying" to help, it's basically micro-management and it confuses me, the client, and causes a ton of productivity loss to recoup and try to figure out what has been done and promised to the client and start back at zero again to resume work that is now added to my plate. In the end, it was a cluster F*ck daily and tons of stress to sort through. This process routinely delayed projects by more than a week several times and caused errors in peoples ad accounts where he jumped in, misunderstood, and made changes in their account that I had to later undo and fix only after the client complained about it. In this role, I was the "only PPC guy" managing over 50 PPC clients weekly.
  
  
• Being told I need to do work that employee B, C, and D can't do or can't handle even though it's their assigned job role and function. Even though I technically know how to do it, it's not my job function and this is happening all the time daily. An example of this would be me being hired to manage multiple PPC campaigns at an agency. For some reason I am now told I have to write the copy for the website and also do the social media and SEO work. Employees B, C, and D can't do it for X reason or can't handle it ( even though that is what they were hired for ), but now I am suppose to. I don't get paid their salaries though in combination with mine and I am also not allowed more hours to get the work done. I don't mind to help out in a time of need or crunch, but this is daily ongoing for months and isn't just 1 or 2 projects, but like multiple spread over 90 clients, EVERY SINGLE DAY for months on end.
  
  
• Laid off from a startup because I wouldn't move to San Francisco so the company could be close to investors. Helped this company go from basically 0 sales to their first 50k customers and 500k in sales. This success helped them later get into Y Combinator and get funding from a Shark Tank investor. All wasn't lost, I did have some equity and was able to cash out on that, but being told you are getting let go because you don't live in X place even though the company was pretty much all remote was tough.
  
  
• Another agency I was at, they routinely could not pay me on time. They expected me to always meet deadlines and would be rather harsh if I wasn't on time with the deadline. I'm OK with that, but then they would never meet their payroll. I would wait a week or 2 on the check and was told, "it was sent" but it was ALWAYS late without fail. One time I waited 4 full weeks and the check didn't come. When I asked about it I was told, "oh we havent been paid yet by X,Y,Z client, so we can't process payroll". Hmmmm, ok. Could you have at least told your employees this before it happened? I had to contact you to find out about your failure to meet your obligations? I was then told they didn't know when they could process payment but I was "first on the list" to be paid. These people would also take lots of time ( 4-5 days ) to answer a simple email or voice mail which would delay my projects causing me to be late on them, which they would in turn be harsh to me about.. lol
  
  
• Another agency, would only pay me via Paypal. Seriously.
  I was told all of that normal " we're a family here", "we love our co-workers and will do anything for them", and "anything you need, we are all here for you" BS that companies try to tell you about culture and family work environment. I was told, upon first hire, if this ended up an issue for me ( because of fees ), they would work out another solution. I took the role thinking in 3-4 weeks I would bring it up as an issue. And I did bring it up... every month for a full year as Paypal was taking thousands of dollars in fees ( for the year, total ) on the pay I was getting. Was told every time nothing they could do as their "bank" doesn't do ACH wires. I gave up asking after 12 months of pleading, and 30 days AFTER I GAVE UP we hire a new person who has an issue with Paypal payments too. All of a sudden we start getting ACH wires because of the new hire, but I was out thousands of dollars in fee's from the last 12 months which never got recouped. I checked the bank info the money was sent from with Paypal, against the ACH info I was now getting and the info was the EXACT same bank.
  
  
• Was working with an agency for 9 months doing plain PPC management and day to day as their Director. I came up with an idea to target customers no one else was doing online ( I researched it for months to make sure this was new ). As a new way to target customers, I came up with multiple use cases and tested it out on my own dime too. When confident, I approached the agency and pitched the idea as a partnership between me and them to start a new company doing this lucrative method exclusively . They agreed. I was to do the work in the new biz ( while still being employed in the old biz ), and they were to sell the product to their customer base. I was going to be 51% owner of the new venture. INSTEAD, they told the idea to another agency who ran with it and 3 weeks later I'm invited to a new call out of the blue with our "new partners" who would be selling it, and "us" would be working it ( meaning me by myself while my employer still retained 49% of the new company and did nothing ). I immediately went Bezerk as this was theft of my idea and method and had tons of phone calls back and forth with everyone. The other "new agency" decided to drop out and run it all on their own, by themselves, and is now the market leader for this new marketing I invented on my own as my employer told them how to do everything. I quit the company I was at after this and they blamed me for costing them "lost revenue" in the deal.
  
  
• I'm hired into a new role of PPC management for an agency to handle clients that they are picking up. My boss, for some odd reason, confuses information and doesn't bill our clients for 6 months because he thought someone in another department was doing that. When found out, it is decided to cut my position ( no longer needed ) and ditch trying to "have clients" as an income stream. My boss and the people in the other department keep their jobs for another 3 years though while I get let go. WTF?
  
  
• This next one might be a bit controversial, but I think it highlights the "bad deal" you get out of working for someone else as a w2 or even a 1099. I get why companies do this and how, but its still a bad deal for you in the end. Essentially, several companies I have worked for.. I brought with me certain copywriting and advertising techniques I've learned over the years. Think things like swipe files, ad formatting, use of certain images, certain emoji's, audiences, tricks/etc.. This is all fine and dandy while employed and getting a paycheck, but when you get laid off or let go and you find out that 9 months later the company is still using those assets you brought to the table ( that they never had prior or knew about ), it stings a bit to know they are still profiting from your work and ideas and using them today, while you might be still job hunting and trying to put food on your table. Right now today, I still see ad angles for at least 2 companies that were close to bankruptcy the day I signed on to them.. using my swipe file copy on the ads too.. that are making a ton of money on years later after they laid me off. However, I was left scrambling at the last minute and had to rebuild up for months after they let me go. Bad deal...

Needless to say, I haven't been employed as a w-2 for a while now. People think it's a "safe" bet and it has never been that in my experience.

.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Dwight Schrute]

Winter.
It was a Friday.
It's snowing.
I had a fever high enough to cook bacon on my forehead and was puking my guts out.

So I called in sick.
My employer wanted me to work through the weekend so I could "maybe" take Monday off.
Wasn't the first "maybe" I've heard from that guy.

Have you ever carried out the newspaper at 3 in the morning,
with dangerously high fever, wading through the snow?

Me neither.
I quit right there on the spot.
F*ck THAT

 

[MitchM]

My F*ck this event was not a single event but an amalgamation of thoughts and experiences which ended up tilting the scale away from conventional beliefs and action. I had been a little piece of shit that says "F*ck this" to everything long before I started my journey to the Fastlane. But I have to say that before I knew about the fastlane my rebellious perspective and contrarian attitude always led me to inaction because I simply did not see a path that I found agreeable. I'll try and condense some of the relevant information so that you guys can get a feel for how my life took shape.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I'd start out by saying that I had an extremely privileged upbringing. My father made tons of money so I grew up with all of the nice things that I could have wanted. We stayed at our beach house when we weren't at school - which I always made sure to get just good enough grades in to appease my parents. Essentially I would do the bare minimum and then just F*ck around in my off time like most kids do.

While my parents had money covered, this didn't mean that I was raised in a nurturing environment as far as emotions went. My parents always fought and my father was quite... I don't want to say abusive... but a real dick. The man worked all day and when he was back home it just didn't seem like he wanted to be putting up with kids (which I can understand).

Well - the reason why I am saying this is because it instilled within me the idea that money and happiness weren't necessarily interchangeable. My father manifested the exact figure of someone who had material success handled without all of the qualities that made it worthwhile. Because of this and many other complicated things I became somewhat of a spiritual hippy and one of those rich snobs that everyone on this forum would find reprehensible - someone who thinks money doesn't matter.

I simply lived without any concerns for the future. Full F*ckboi status. At this time my parents were already divorced and my mom was permanently bed-ridden with depression.

As I got older my mother's financial situation became worse and worse and my brother's drug abuse became worse and worse. I already had my head very well on my shoulders at this point, but the missing piece in my life was responsibility which I never had. Trying to support them both is what really lead me to this path. Before, I just wanted to "follow my passion" and all of that shit, but seeing what I could have done to help them if I had money changed things. At the same time I didn't want to let money drive my life like it did my father's.

I wanted to enjoy my life and have money, which seemed like a contradiction (because of what my upbringing and society had engrained within me) so it was always a black and white dichotomy of either do what you love and probably be broke or or be rich and have little opportunity to enjoy it.

I don't remember what brought me across The Millionaire Fastlane , but after I read the book it finally solidified a goal in an otherwise aimless life.

MJ, I don't think that I have ever said this properly, but your words turned me from a vagabond to a crusader. Like a father you unbuckled me, took me out of the back seat, sat me down behind the wheel, looked me in the eyes and said "it's time for you to drive."

For that I will always be grateful.

 

[MidwestLandlord]

16 years old, trying to sleep on a camping mat. My fat a$$ lodged between the furnace and boxes of my parents' stuff in my Grandparent's basement. My teenage sisters 10 feet away, bitching about not having any privacy.

Homeless. Living in a place with SNOW for the first time in my life. Took me about 5 seconds to realize that I HATE cold and snow!

4 adults
3 teenagers
5 cats
3 parakeets
1 dog

All crammed into a 900 square foot, 2 bedroom house with no shower. (only a bath)

My Dad out for hours everyday, trying like hell to find that one JOB that would support his family.

I decided right then that I would be the exact opposite of my parents. There HAD to be a better way!

I've been rejecting the Script ever since. (I never played by the rules anyway, even as a small child, so it wasn't hard)

Although until recently, I didn't really accept that I could own a business AND own my time.

All of the mistakes I've made the 19 years since have been related to me whoring out my time to businesses and people that don't deserve it. I'm changing that now though.

 

[SquatchMan]

I was 20 years old.
Working as a parking valet.
It is raining so hard I can barely see... and I have to run through this rain to pickup some lady's shitty 20 year old Toyota Corolla.
Door won't open.
Window is rolled down so I climb through it to get into the car.
Car is full of roaches, half eaten McDonald's food, and smells like shit.
Return the car and the lady yells at me for getting her car wet.

F*ck that event.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Carnage]

3 years ago, on a snowy day...... Despite exchanging emails the day before, My boss wanted me to come in to "meet with me" (I worked home that day because of the snow). I got into an accident, and spent a buttload getting my car fixed. So I risked my life, ended up broke as fuk for being told what to do, when and where to be...... for a job I didn't really care about. Glad it happened though...

Interesting....SNOW seems to be the common factor....

 

[Lex DeVille]

The biggest one I remember was right after the May, 2011 Joplin tornado.

I worked in the collections dept. at the hospital that didn't get wiped out.

For maybe 2 weeks after the disaster we only collected on accounts outside of the "red" zone.

Then we resumed all collections.

Massive hospital debts people already couldn't afford.

I had to call and let them know, despite not having a home or a car or half their family .. the hospital still wanted its money.

A few days later I quit and started selling lego portraits.

To be fair, I'm pretty sure I was born with the word "rebel" stamped on my forehead.

 

[G-Man]

FTE #1: My first job in TX, I was engaged, and working probably 60 hrs a week. I worked for almost a year at the probationary rate that was supposed to increase after my first 90 days with the company. After watching the owner of the company misappropriate hundreds of thousands of dollars he'd borrowed from the bank, he tried to get me to commit fraud for him. I recorded him trying to bribe/coerce me on my phone as insurance, then called his lawyer and told him he could mail my checks from then on, but I wouldn't be coming in. Got about 8 weeks of pay before he finally cut me off the same day he saw me walking into the courthouse

FTE #2: Out of fear, because I was about to get married, and took the first job I got offered. It was a shitshow at least as bad as the first. After a year and a half, after one too many times of getting screamed at, I turned in my phone and keys and walked out. Boss man literally followed me into the parking lot and begged me to stay. Ever since then, my entire outlook on life has been different.

 

[MJ DeMarco]

I pulled this from my archives...

I think this is @biophase 's brother who just like him, is #Unscripted and runs a global excursion company for adventurers.

 

[Coalission]

 

[Sean Kaye]

A couple years ago, I was working in this place where I was the CIO for our global business.

It was hard, we had businesses in Europe, North America, Asia and the Middle East, so with the clock and the different days people work due to culture, I was largely getting contacted about shit 24/7, every single day. It was just nonsense like, "Approve this", "Confirm that" and always something was urgent and being escalated by some jackanape with a title who felt self-important.

My boss had changed in January of that year. We hired a new COO and I was now reporting to her. I was on holiday when she first started and I took time away from my family to do a video conference with her. Halfway through the call I explained that maybe, since she was new, we should work together to find a replacement for my role so that she could start with a clean slate and pick her own staff. She wouldn't have a bar of it.

In February, she was required to present to the board about our cloud strategy that I'd spent a year working on with our CEO. It was going to be a train wreck because I knew she wasn't technical and she didn't even understand the basic concepts.

After the board meeting, the CEO rang me at home and said I should have prepped my boss better or flown to China and done the presentation myself - somehow it had become my fault that he'd hired a COO that oversaw IT and didn't understand it.

April rolled around and it was budget season. It was a full on gong show. Our CEO was retiring and his successor was pretty much a fool. Quite literally during the the budget process he called me at lunch, told me about this "innovation strategy" he had and asked me to tell him what it would cost to build it out. When I told him he couldn't afford it, he responded with, "Imagine we had a meth lab and money was no object."

You can't use meth lab accounting in your budgets.

By the end of May we were finalizing our budgets for board sign-off, I completed mine and then went on holidays for a week. Before I'd left I'd said to my boss again, "Look, I think we need to discuss my exit strategy, this last six months have been tiring and I found the budgeting cycle ridiculous."

Again, she asked me to stay as she felt we were "partners" in the company's "digital transformation" - god, I hate that phrase.

While I was on leave, I came down with the worst flu. Then on the Tuesday our outgoing CEO and our CFO asked me to give them an hour, two at most by video conference from my vacation house to wrap up some budget issues. I said sure, my wife didn't care and her and my son would just go for a walk around the property.

That two hour call turned into ten hours - I literally was on the video conference until 7pm. I didn't even stop for lunch.

The next day comes and I'm really sick now. At 4:30pm my boss sends me an email asking me to write her an overview of what was discussed the day before at the budget marathon meeting because she wasn't involved. She also wanted an update to a spreadsheet and she needed it by 7pm because she had a call with our London office where it would be discussed.

I turned off my phone, ignored her email and just slept.

I went back to work the next week and my boss had flown in from Melbourne to Sydney for some meetings and she sent me a text on her way in from the airport that she'd had a cancellation for her 9:30am meeting and did I want to catch up.

She rolls up to the meeting room a few minutes late and the first thing she said to me was, "I was pretty disappointed you didn't reply to my email last Thursday, I know you were sick and on holidays, but I really needed that info for my meeting."

This was my FTE.

I picked up my notepad and pen, told her it had been a pleasure, walked back to my desk, packed up a few of my things and left. My staff just looked at me a bit confused as I gathered a few personal effects and told my secretary that she could send me the rest next week.

I was in an Uber on the way home and my phone rings, it's my now ex-Boss, "Where did you go?"

I told her I was on my way home.

"Is everything ok at home? When will you be back? I want to catch up about a few things but I'm in Sydney tomorrow too if that's better."

I laughed out loud, "No, you misunderstand. I'm not coming back, I'm done now. Bye."

My wife was a bit surprised when I came home and she laughed as I explained it to her. We went out for breakfast and did some shopping.

While I was shopping, I got 19 calls and text messages from our CEO, the incoming CEO, the CFO, my staff, board members... I just ignored them all and deleted the texts and voicemails without listening to them.

The next day, my ex-Boss turned up at my house. LOL!

I explained I wasn't going back and I'd decided to take the rest of the year off to work on some of our online businesses before I'd decide what my next moves were. She offered me three months pay to be "on call" for her, limited to one hour per day - that was free money because I knew I wouldn't answer her calls.

It was early June and my intention was to do as I said, just take six or eight months off and relax. I wanted to start a new online venture out of interest, so this was a good excuse.

Two days in, a guy I used to work with calls me on the phone and offers me a job. It was a pretty different role for me and the more we talked about it, the better it sounded. I took four months off, wrote a book and then started the new job all fresh.

The FTE was awesome because it shocked me out of a bad situation - I wasn't trapped by money or anything, it was like Stockholm Syndrome, it's almost impossible to explain why I stayed.

Anyway, the new online business got formulated and largely built during the four months off, I launched it in early 2016 and it is great, I enjoy it and it's doing really well. Plus I still like the new job, so it's been winning all the way around.

 

[juan917]

Highest performing member on the team by far

Was told "your not good enough"

Congrats, now you have a new competitor

 

[maverick]

Worked at big consultancy firm and mainly worked in a particular industry. Came up with a great (software) product that we could build and sell across our clients. I set-up an offshore development team, created the product and organised a number of demo sessions. We went on and sold it to a number of clients.

This resulted into 6-figure revenues for our firm. They've further built out this IP and have gone on to make even more revenue.

My boss took all the credit.
I received an amazon gift voucher.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[JAJT]

I've never had a traumatic experience but about every 2-3 years at my previous jobs I'd hit a "F*ck this" wall.

It was the point where I had learned about as much new information about my position and the company as I could, improved the broken things to the extent they would allow me to, and the job went from "learning" to "repetition". I can't stand mindless repetition at the best of times but for someone else's gain (and in a small cube no less!) is mental murder for me.

The best I can describe it is that feeling that keeps people from doing even one push-up. You look at the floor, tell yourself it's easy, that you just have to do it, it will take two seconds, the floor is like RIGHT THERE, you have nothing better to do.....but...... you can't. Your mind feels like a rider trying to tame a wild horse. Easy fella! Calm down! It's just a push up! We can do this! And then the horse kicks the rider off. Maybe tomorrow.

Usually this coincides with increased "sick" days, using up all my vacation in short order, coming into work late, a lack of focus and ultimately with me quitting the job within the coming days or weeks.

That's what that point in my working career always looks like. It's happened 3-4 times now in my life. The only way I can handle the 9-5 is like a drug user seeking their next "fix". Except the "fix" for me is novelty (learning) on the job. Once the novelty high wears thin I'm on the hunt for the next one.

All this is to say, I quit to be my own boss a few years back and I have no intentions of looking back.

 

[Sheps]

19 maybe 20 years old, working in a bar. Very pregnant woman walks up, orders drinks for her table then starts pondering what to order for herself. A pint and a double JD if memory serves.
I refused to make her drinks, she says she'll get someone at her table to order then, so I cancel the tables order and say I won't serve any of them but they're welcome to soft drinks and food (fully expect the cost of drinks already poured to come out of my meagre pay check but whatever).

So she asks to speak to my manager. He comes over, I explain that I won't make her drinks. He tells me to pour them anyway or he'd do it. I say "I won't and if you do I walk."

He did. I did.

Not a great event like many of the ones already posted. But I had a line, it was crossed, I acted. Best I could do. That manager cost the business their best barman by about 2 - 2.5x the nearest taker which is about the only solace I got. They closed about 9 months later (ironically).

 

[lewj24]

1 year ago. 21 years old. Full time college student living in St. Louis, MO. In an abusive relationship.

It's my dream to be a basketball coach so I switched my major from Business Administration to Physical Education so I could start as a high school coach as recommended by college coaches. I was assigned to observe 30 hours of PE class in a local high school and hated it. No kids want to be there. The teachers didn't want to be there and would berate me, telling me to wear nice clothes (I wore gym shorts and a T-shirt just like them) and to not talk to the students etc. I was so happy after the 30 hours was over and I thought to myself, "I wasn't even there for a full work week... and I was miserable." I immediately switched my major back to business.

At the same time I was working 30hours a week at Walmart. I worked my a$$ off and was better than my own manager. And then I decided to skip my cousin's birthday party which was on Easter Sunday because I was on the schedule to work that day. So I missed a huge family party and I get to work and 2 coworkers called off (out of 4 including me). I did the work of at least 2 people that day and the store was busier than ever (all other stores are closed on Easter). The next week my performance eval came in and I was rated worst in my department. I was so pissed.

This is all happening while I'm listening to TMF for the first time on car rides and while working in the back of Walmart. I was getting pissed stocking milk and listening to MJ talk about college being a scam. I'm going to be 80k in student loan debt and it just pisses me off.

That big clusterfuck and my abusive relationship was a huge FTE.

Now I haven't had much business success but I am getting there. I have gotten out of that relationship. I have gotten out of some bad habits. And I am moving to Tampa, FL with a buddy in exactly a week from now. I'm still in school but almost done. I'm currently focused on my weight loss and getting a job in Tampa to pay bills that are now coming. I feel like a new life is coming.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[MJ DeMarco]

Dude, I'd have that shit framed and put in your office.
(Love the signature line of "team leader")

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[MidwestLandlord]

I wonder how many of these are just moments and not events?

I think with just a "F*ck this moment", old habits will take back over and not much will change.

With a "F*ck this event", really nothing can stand in your way after that.

Not the TV
Not the video games
Not the nagging wife/husband or girlfriend/boyfriend
Not reading the 300th business book
Not feeling the need for a mentor
Not feeling the need to have family, friends, or forum members validate your idea

And none of the endless other action fakes we regularly see here either.

An FTE is like having a switch flipped in your head.

After my FTE, I lost 90lbs quickly, and worked multiple jobs to save money so I could start flipping mobile homes as soon as I could legally sign a contract.

(in my state you can work fulltime at age 16, and I had already graduated highschool...so I WORKED)

I haven't slowed down since.

 

[GSF]

FTE 1:

My manager calls me in for a meeting. He tells me im being promoted, many more responsibilities, now required to work weekends when needed, being moved onto a salary so no overtime pay for extra hours/ days worked, oh and for the same basic pay as before until I prove myself, but its ok because I get a cool job title.
Id already started a side hustle in my spare time which was earning nearly as much as my job. I nodded along politely, told him it sounds great, when he was finished and the meeting was over I asked to borrow a sheet paper, went to the staff room, scribbled out a resignation letter and then returned it to him in his office, best feeling ever.

FTE 2:

5 years after starting what I thought was a business, I realise its not much better than a job. Ive put everything I had into it, Im working 12 hour days, sometimes 7 days a week, in one of the most dangerous jobs in the world, high overheads, if i don't work the money stops.

My health deteriorates and I get diagnosed with a genetic inflammatory disease, most days I cant walk let alone carry out my business. With 2 young kids and family to support I make a last ditch attempt to keep things going and employ staff which fails due to low profits and high local competition beating my prices (I realise I hate employing people). I realise im crazy continuing this high risk business for low pay, poor prospects and poor health. I close the business down and start researching more profitable ventures, the first book I read is the fastlane!

 

[Liberty T. Vance]

I wonder how many of these are just moments and not events?

I think with just a "F*ck this moment", old habits will take back over and not much will change.

With a "F*ck this event", really nothing can stand in your way after that.

This is so true....

My "F*ck this event":

After spending 2 out of 3 months in the hole in Federal Correctional Center, Terminal Island (the island part sounded so relaxing, it wasn't) for drug use, fighting and just being a complete piece of shit I was transferred to FCC, Milan.

At Milan I continued playing the convict games of drugs, drinking and trying to be a bad a$$ which landed me in the hole a few more times until...

My "F*ck this event". I got a drunk walking across the yard and ended up in the hole again (#4)... As I sat in the hole catching shit from my two friends (one turned out to be a real friend the other not so much), who I got busted along with me, I realized I didn't like prison and my future wasn't looking too bright.

I realized I didn't like living with a bunch of men, being told what to do, when to do it and constantly watching my back for that one idiot who feels he was disrespected because I got something in my eye, and in my attempt to get the foreign object out of my eye, I ended up looking at him "wrong" and now he wants to stab me....

A switch went off in my head and I decided I wasn't going to get high, drink or play convict games anymore. "F*ck this event".

Instead I met a couple of guys who were taking advantage of the education offered by the institution and straightening their lives out. I surrounded myself with like minded people with real plans to stay out and be a part of society. So, I followed suit and got my high school diploma and started college courses covering business and computers ( in 1988).

The people I surrounded myself with changed (saved) my life... Thanks to them I became a model prisoner (such a ridiculous term. I laugh every time I say it), got all of my good time back I had lost (took 6 months to lose 2 years of good time and took 2 years to get it all back. Ha, ha) and started to repair the damage I had done to my family.

My "F*ck this moment":

I'm currently working a dead end teaching job in China and working for the worst school I've ever worked at. The administration is like a bunch of bobble-heads that keep bumping into each other unable to get out of their own way...

It's surprising they manage to make it to work and back home everyday without wondering into the street and getting hit by a car or bus...

I've used all of this to motivate myself to learn new skills and work on my mindset to move out of the slowlane that I've been stuck in for the last 9 years.

But...

Because the job is fairly easy I get lulled back into cruising the slowlane. I've got a place to live, my salary is on time, I can save some money, I get 8 weeks holiday, blah, blah, blah... And there I am miserable, wanting (knowing I have) to change things but the old habits take over. So...

F*ck this...

I've worked my a$$ off to straighten my life out, try to contribute to society instead of being a leech and thanks to @SinisterLex, @Fox, @ChickenHawk, @Andy Black, @MJ DeMarco and many more through reading these threads, changing my mindset to helping people (remember I was in prison and it wasn't for helping people) to allow this "JOB" to drag me down under the sidewalk...

Damn... This feels good...

Looking back at my "F*ck this event" some of the feelings (triggers?) I had at that time are starting to percolate in my mind so I'm going to change this "moment" into an "event".

Thanks to everyone in this thread... This came along at the right time...

 

[LuckyPup]

1) Working as a drug rep I celebrated my 30th birthday with a cancer diagnosis. I'm laying in my hospital bed the day after surgery and my district manager calls me and asks when I can "get back out in the field." Decided to quit that day, but waited six months to do it until my 401k vested.

2) Worked for an obese, narcissistic boss whose chronic lateness to meetings collectively wasted weeks, of not months of our team's time; who took credit for other people's work and who blatantly reneged on a salary agreement we had (my fault for not getting in writing). I didn't quit right away, but instead used the job and the salary while starting my business. Boss used me for a few years, so I used the boss right back, quid pro quo. Gave 'em a dose of their own medicine. Maybe not the best way to do it, but F*ck 'em.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Pete799p]

One of many: Working 60 hours a week for a small salary, no benefits, and I had to use my car = less then minimum wage. Was running ghetto multifamily buildings (actually taking over vacant REOs, then throwing everybody out dope dealers and all, then busting my a$$ to get them stabilized) . The gangs were all at war and it was the height of the depression so people were desperate.

You would have thought I would have quit after:
Being assigned a building because my friend quit after getting chased out of it by a masked man with a gun who started shooting at him, or after kicking the door in to a unit in a new building we took over to find a body in the bath tub, or the countless death threats received, or after witnessing a double homicide in front of the building I was at collecting rent, or when me and my construction crew got held up by some crack heads who ended up putting one of my guys in the hospital after beating him with the but end of a pistol, or the cockroaches bed bugs & rats the size of small dogs, or when I was assaulted and robbed in broad daylight, or when my car window got shot out while I was driving that the company said they would reimburse me for but never did, or...

But I didn't. I kept showing up early and leaving late. I worked late nights doing collections and weekends for no pay. It got so bad down there my family offered to pay me just so I would quit.

But I never quit. I got fired after being thrown under the bus by an incompetent manager, who was eventually demoted, to save his own a$$.

The rest is history. One of these days I'll get around to sending him a thank you card.

 

[Scot]

I finally had my FTE.

Looking at my sales forecast after they radically changed our territory and reporting methods, seeing that my projected commission for the quarter is $0.00. Instead of the usual 5 figure bonus.

It came when after I showed my manager and regional director reports showing a whole hospital was missing from my numbers.

When I showed them my goals were improperly calculated.

When I showed them the system wasn't giving me credit for 3 of my top clients.

And they told me that nothing was wrong. And maybe I wouldn't be in this pickle if I made a few more calls each day and did an educational dinner.

It came when I looked around our national meeting and I was 1 of only about 25 people out of 600 that had been with the company longer than 1 year.

I'm done being a cog in someone else's machine.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[MJ DeMarco]

1 year ago. 21 years old. Full time college student living in St. Louis, MO. In an abusive relationship.

It's my dream to be a basketball coach so I switched my major from Business Administration to Physical Education so I could start as a high school coach as recommended by college coaches. I was assigned to observe 30 hours of PE class in a local high school and hated it. No kids want to be there. The teachers didn't want to be there and would berate me, telling me to wear nice clothes (I wore gym shorts and a T-shirt just like them) and to not talk to the students etc. I was so happy after the 30 hours was over and I thought to myself, "I wasn't even there for a full work week... and I was miserable." I immediately switched my major back to business.

At the same time I was working 30hours a week at Walmart. I worked my a$$ off and was better than my own manager. And then I decided to skip my cousin's birthday party which was on Easter Sunday because I was on the schedule to work that day. So I missed a huge family party and I get to work and 2 coworkers called off (out of 4 including me). I did the work of at least 2 people that day and the store was busier than ever (all other stores are closed on Easter). The next week my performance eval came in and I was rated worst in my department. I was so pissed.

This is all happening while I'm listening to TMF for the first time on car rides and while working in the back of Walmart. I was getting pissed stocking milk and listening to MJ talk about college being a scam. I'm going to be 80k in student loan debt and it just pisses me off.

That big clusterfuck and my abusive relationship was a huge FTE.

Now I haven't had much business success but I am getting there. I have gotten out of that relationship. I have gotten out of some bad habits. And I am moving to Tampa, FL with a buddy in exactly a week from now. I'm still in school but almost done. I'm currently focused on my weight loss and getting a job in Tampa to pay bills that are now coming. I feel like a new life is coming.

Small steps man, small steps. Think of it like that tiny domino, you can't knock over the huge one to start.

It'd be better to get your coaching fix volunteering for a local youth league, and skipping the bullshit.

Or better yet do it Unscripted ; open up your own basketball clinic, or a community gym. Earning a profit to pay bills, optional.

I wonder how many of these are just moments and not events?

And that's the million dollar question.

Look at the "epiphany" graphic I posted above -- now that's an FTE with corroborating evidence.

Follow-up question for everyone who has posted an FTE ... what EVIDENCE have you shown yourself that it is a true FTE, and not an FTM? (F*ck this moment.) The truth is, everyone has "F*ck this" moments. Not everyone does anything about it.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[GuestUser450]

Preface:
During finals week of a soul-sapping first year, at a school chosen by friends, as a major chosen by teachers, paying with loans chosen by parents - I get a call from my mother telling me my 48 year-old father had a stroke. I drive 6 hours home, feeling both terrified of losing my dad and guilty for the relief of leaving everything else behind. I get to the hospital and he's passed. I'm gutted and after seeing my mother fall apart, I decide to take a gap year to help sort through the mess and hopefully reset myself.

Flash forward 10 months:
My girlfriend was a family friend who reached out to pay condolences - we found solace and distraction together but I start to realize that our chemistry is based on mourning and not compatibility. In a small town with jobs being scarce, I'm running a food route - loading rusty racks into a broken-down bread truck at 3 am for $4.75/hour. I'm sleep-deprived, miserable, broke and so stressed that I start getting chest pains.

FTE:
Spring break. Everything is on ad. It's a huge week with a bonus for me if we do well. The delivery guy is late. I rush to load the truck and get to my first store - the store I hate, the one with the woman who's a receiving nazi that makes me read aloud and physically touch every product on every rack before letting me through, the one that makes me wait for the coke and pepsi guys even when I'm there first.

I hit the road, speeding, forgetting that I'm hauling a 5 ton garbage box down the highway. Morning traffic hits like a brick wall and I slam the brakes hard and swerve off road. When the dust literally settles, no one is hurt, but the racks broke loose from the walls and product is everywhere, most of it unsaleable.

I call my boss who is less than pleased. I can hear the wheels turning in his head, figuring out a way to sound sympathetic enough to get me to clean the mess and find more product, while also planning my exit.

I drive to another town that afternoon and "borrow" some of our inventory from 3 smaller stores to fill the big ones at home the next morning. By pure sweat, we have zero empty shelves while selling like crazy the entire week. I'm relieved and mentally spend my bonus check.

I'm fired on payday, no bonus.

Job is gone. Relationship is over. Friends are mad that I'm not coming back. My mom is still grieving and finding financial goblins my dad never shared.

It all hit me at once. I was tired of being a victim. I was tired of being rudderless, pushed by the waves instead of commanding my own ship. So I committed to build my own machine that I'd fuel to protect me, provide for me, give me fulfillment and make the lives of those around me better.

Edit: EVIDENCE
Not long after, I met an older gentlemen who was a small mexican food distributor with only a handful of restaurants and 1 grocery store. He was looking for part-time help because he couldn't physically do it anymore. I knew instantly that if I could buy him out, I could build it out and eventually sell it. It was my stepping stone to entrepreneurship and the idea never would've entered my mind before hitting rock bottom. I needed the FTE to see the opportunity.

 

[Contrarian]

It didn't happen all in one for me. There are some crystal clear F*ck This Events. But my progress along the path, as marked by them, relapsed and remitted a few times. Until it crystallised for good. And now, finally, I know that my arrival at Unscription is inevitable. All I have to do now is keep walking the path.

2014. I was at the pinnacle of my career. I'd doubled my salary and tripled my income in just over a year. I was going places, respected, and no longer had to watch my bank balance in the last week before payday. Yet, every success was met with a realisation: I might have earned a cool commission cheque, but now I'm back at square one all over again - back to the same exact grind as the day before, the month before, the year before. I worked for an unethical company. And I didn't own those client relationships - my employer did. Even though their only real contribution to my success or the development of those relationships was arbitrage - paying me money now (in the form of a salary) so they could keep most of it later (as revenues). Oh, and a computer, a phone, and some back office stuff you could outsource for pennies on the dollar anyway.

So imagine my delight when my best client (awesome peeps who I'm still in touch with to this day) called me up with a proposal. They'd like to start a new company, and they'd like me to be the CEO. They'd double my salary yet again. They'd give me 40% equity. Support with marketing, operations, finance. And a six figure annual budget to fuel explosive growth.

Fast forward a few months. I'm waiting on them to finalise the offer. I'm also waiting on a £15,000 commission cheque, payment of which will hopefully mark resignation day.

Mere days before it comes due, my boss, who was once also my "friend", texts me to ask if we can have a "catch up" in the pub the next morning.

Hmm.

In the morning, he says come straight there, don't bother going to the office first.

Hmm.

I turn up and he's there with the CEO - who's based at HQ over 100 miles away. They ask me several accusatory questions as to whether I'm "betraying the company" and "considering starting a competitive business with one of OUR clients". Of course not!

Then they produce a folder full of emails between me and my client/future investor, screenshotted straight out of my Gmail account. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. They even produced a full print out of the business plan, again stolen from my emails.

Then they took my keys, fired me for "gross misconduct", tried to steal my personal phone for "evidence" (which they'd remote-wiped a couple days beforehand, but at the time I thought it was a bug).

They refused to let me back into the office to get my stuff, and never returned half of it.

Aaannd...I was going to use most of that commission cheque to pay off credit card bills I'd run up in anticipation of said commission cheque coming in. Bills I've only recently finished paying off.

F*ck this!

They filed a spurious lawsuit against both me and my would-be investor.

My ex-boss - the same guy I once helped move into his new apartment - phoned round every firm in town, telling lies about me to try and ruin my reputation. (Ironically, a few offers of employment came out of that!). He called me from withheld numbers multiple times in the middle of the night just to piss me off. When I got a new job, he called up my new boss to suggest that he should fire me immediately.

Noone else at the company ever spoke to me again. A person who I thought was a good friend pretended she couldn't hear anything when I called, and then hung up.

F*ck you!

Joke's on my ex-boss though - this is an ego-driven fool so obsessed with his own narcissism and grandiosity that he'll happily spearhead a multi-million pound expansion of someone else's company in exchange for a £50k salary and a small bonus - earning less money than I was as his underling. So long as he gets a cool job title, kudos, and a bunch of yes-men to boss around.

I filed against them for my unpaid commission and notice pay. They put in an absurd counterclaim for nearly £350,000 in various invented "damages". Yes, they wanted to go after me for sharing "confidential information" (like, oooh, how my commission structure worked. Apparently the irony of including a confidential business plan stolen from confidential emails in their claim was lost in translation.)

A year later, and after much stress, anger and losing the will to live on my part, I settled a week before court for a mere £2,500 (their original settlement offer was for me to pay THEM £3,000 - WTF?). I couldn't afford a lawyer, so I fought it all myself. If their lawyer is to be believed, they spent £40,000 on legal fees - seemingly out of spite and viciousness than any kind of business sense.

Speaking of their lawyer, I sensed his incongruence and unease whenever we spoke on the phone. The sociopathic behaviour required of him in order to represent his sociopathic client clearly ate away at his soul. Another victim of the SCRIPT.

I also had the police involved, regarding my emails and my phone. Sadly, although they could prove illegal access of my emails (from an office I'd never visited), they couldn't prove WHO did it. So they couldn't do anything. I thought that was going to nail them with that.

To this day, I have no idea how they got into my Gmail. They must have been planning for weeks, and installed a keylogger on my PC.

And my would-be investor? The board got scared and signed an agreement not to go into business with, or have any business-related contact with, me for 18 months. So that was that.

(Blessing in disguise, really - this was in the oil industry, which crashed and burned mere months later.)

After I got fired, I freelanced briefly. I'd read TMF by this point. I was over the concept of "jobs", but still, I was directionless. I freelanced for the briefest of moments. I enjoyed my newfound freedom of working from home, yet also lacked the self-discipline to do so effectively. I found it lonely. And I had no money and an expensive apartment to rent.

Within the month, I'd walked back into the arms of the J.O.B. life. This time I had some semblance of awareness. I went through to final interviews with two companies. One of them was a fledgling recruitment agency with a mostly-absentee owner, outsourcing the construction of his would-be Fastlane empire to mugs like me. They wanted me to build a division for them from scratch. They'd give me a modest payrise, a better commission structure, and autonomy.

But would they give me equity? No.

So why should I build your business for you?

The other was less money. But it lured me with promises of a higher, more esteemed end of the market. A true consulting firm. I'd be out on the road. I'd have a shiny new company car. I'd learn something new, that wasn't just the same old. The office was 2 minutes walk from my front door. So I glossed over the numerous red flags and went to work.

Within days, the novelty had worn off. Behind all the promises, the expectations, and the selling of a dream, what I had was shit. What I'd joined was a glorified pyramid scheme.

What they really hired me for was to be a glorified telemarketer doing one of the hardest and most soul-destroying sales jobs on the planet. Hundreds of calls a week, a few leads per month. And any assignments I did win? Why, my new boss would get to do all the fun stuff! Consulting, writing the brief, travelling around the country/world interviewing executives in hotel rooms, managing the client, closing the offer. And my new boss would also get two thirds of the total commission!

If I managed to hit virtually impossible targets consistently over a period of consecutive months, why, I'd get the esteemed privilege of being able to do what I was already more than capable of anyway!

All this while appointed Directors on six figure salaries basically sat around and did nothing all day, no questions asked. One of them even charged a client for a two week trip to Dubai to interview candidates who he only ever interviewed over the phone. He just wanted a free holiday. Nothing ever happened about that.

At least after work I got to drown my sorrows and bitch about the company with the other inmates, who'd by now become very attached to their prison cells.

Sigh. A month later I joined the forum.

I sincerely tried to improve the company. I pointed out that, if your entire business would go under in just a few months if everyone stopped making cold calls, something is wrong.

I ran data from the CRM that showed 90% of the assignments they'd won in the past year had come from repeat clients, the old boys' network, and referrals. Almost none of them from the incessant cold calls that were tedious beyond belief.

I offered to create and execute an inbound marketing strategy for them - at my same salary and without the commission potential. Apparently, marketing is a waste of time and they would never pay me "so much money" to do that. But paying me to make pointless cold calls trying to find C-level buyers of a USP-less service from a brand-less company with no social proof at over-inflated prices with a 30-year old business model apparently is worth paying for. Got it.

In a later meeting, I asked about marketing again. And in return I got yelled at and threatened with being fired on the spot if I ever mentioned it again.

F*ck this! F*ck you!

I literally wanted to tell her to go F*ck herself and walk out the door then and there. But, I had no money and thus, no options.

That was the event for me. The event that made me say - I've had enough of this bullshit.

Still, all the components had not quite fallen into place. Soon after, I quit and went back to freelancing. Getting home after resigning was one of the happiest days of my life!

This time, I knew I would never be lured by the promise of a "job" again. this time, I started to develop the self-discipline necessary to work from home.

What I should have done was continue to do that whilst hustling to build a Fastlane venture on the side. Instead, I took the "easy" option and co-founded a business that didn't make sense or meet the commandments, in an industry I was sick of, where I didn't actually own anything of it. And, it definitely didn't have the potential for Productocracy. THAT, I can see clearly now. So...ultimately, it ended up looking a lot like a free range job.

So now it's mid-2017. I'm back to freelancing. Only, this time I'm freelancing as a recruiter, a sales rep, a content manager & webinar host, and - randomly, now as a copywriter and creator of sales funnels. I just won a $1000 project off the back of an old Upwork profile I threw up way back when I was in the depths of despair and then never touched (thanks, @SinisterLex!).

And despite having WAY too much on my plate, I still manage to find 25-30 hours a week to invest in incubating my future Productocracy. When I was freelancing on easy street as just a recruiter, I couldn't even make the time to put together any other income streams.

Why?

Meaning and purpose.

Before, the fire had been stoked, but it still needed to be fed. Now? The fire is raging, and there's no going back. All the pieces of the puzzle have come together for me, and shown me what I DON'T want. What I WON'T accept. That there IS no other way.

It's not about discipline. Or motivation. Or willpower. It's about having a WHY so strong, nothing can stop you. I see that now. I don't need willpower because all I can think about is business. I don't want to do anything else.

Moral of the story? If you can't find the motivation, can't find the willpower, can't find the discipline, you just don't care enough yet. But maybe you will soon.

It took me three years to go from interest to true, uncompromising commitment. Three whole years. It truly is a journey. And most of it's in your head.

The second moral of the story?

F*ck this.

 

[SteveO]

I did not experience an FTE moment. It was always difficult to take direction from a perceived superior. But I was always fairly comfortable with the direction.

I started off poor so even being able to pay rent felt good.

When someone that I knew told me they did not need a job anymore, the focus and direction changed. The job shackles were dropped two years later. No stress, no fuss.

 

[corius]

Thanks to everyone for sharing. Some of your FTE's are pretty intense.

Mine happened 2/22/17. I had melted steel fall inside my ear. 3 surgeries and almost 3 months later and cleared to return back to work. Permanent hearing loss but the surgeon did his best to make me look normal again. (My left ear is a little bit skewed now)

And the funny thing is just this morning my wife and I argued. She said that I have become obsessed with starting my own company and I should spend time with the family instead of reading while everyone is watching TV. (Her words made me realize that it truly was an event and not just a moment)

Sent from my C811 4G using Tapatalk

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.