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Hello all
I'm Brad - a 28 year old man living in the UK with big and silly dreams of making it big, and the attention span of a squirrel in Autumn (or 'Fall' for any 'Muricans reading this).
A word of warning before you read this - I will ramble on and on... For those brave enough to waste the next X minutes of their lives reading my half-journal entry/half-boring autobiography; this is the story of what brings me to this forum...
I grew up in a household which is typical for probably most of the world's population in some way or another. My parents split when I was 9 - my father (a drunk, and eventually an abuser) left the house and we struggled financially for some time. My aunt had to move into the house with us to help pay the bills, and the language around money during my upbringing often contained phrases such as 'we can't afford that', 'that's too much money', and 'do you know how much that COSTS??!' - the latter often being in response to my having broken something, or using up the last of something else.
Fast forward, we'd moved to an affordable neighbourhood in a comparatively middle class area, and as a result many of my friends growing up 'had' where I 'had not'. Holidays, presents, allowances, takeaways on the weekends, nice clothes etc.
Dont get me wrong, I didn't grow up 'poor' - just 'broke' (as Dave Chappelle put it). I still had presents at Christmas (some of which were a computer, a bike, a PS3 etc.), and when my stepfather (a relatively well off - but still working class - self employed roofer) came on the scene, eventually we went on the occasional holiday too.
One amazing part of my upbringing which I credit my dear mother greatly for - I had a solid work ethic instilled in me from a very young age. I didn't just get given things, I had to work for them. I had to do chores daily before I was allowed to play outside, often enlisting the help of my friends to get it done quicker so we could get out and get into trouble. When I was bad in school or at home (a very frequent occurrence) I was punished, and had to do even more chores. I remember one time I broke a car window which my mother had to pay a few hundred pounds to fix, and I worked it off over months. I can still remember her despair over the bill, as she never had that sort of money on hand, and I still remember the guilt I felt for causing it.
I got my first job at 16 washing dishes for a restaurant kitchen. I worked there two years, and grew to despise it. I knew I didn't want to do any sort of menial job ever again. I'm glad I worked there, as it taught me so much about the 'hard graft' - both the positive character building aspects, and the negative soul crushing ones.
I struggled through my teenage years with self esteem issues, drug addiction and a general apathetic life approach. I had no direction at all, despite my intelligence and talent in many areas of school. I never knew what I wanted to be when I grew up.
At 18, after dropping out of college just before I would have failed my A Levels (I spent most of those 2 years skipping class and getting high), I got an apprenticeship in IT by basically picking a job out of a hat. I had an interest in computers and I figured it would do for now.
I ended up working there for 9 years. My boss, an absolute gem, taught me so much - not just about IT, but about being a man - and a good one at that. He taught me how a business worked, how to sell, how to give great customer service, how to resolve problems, and through osmosis, how to be a great manager and leader. By the time I was around 25, I was basically running the place with him, and was a shoe in to take over his role as the Managing Director in a few years when he decided to take a step down.
However - as often these things do - it all began to fall apart, little by little. I became disaffected, and dissatisfied with the direction the business was was going. I lost the love for IT, and complaining customers went from a slight inconvenience that I was eager to remedy, to a daily occurrence I was just outright sick off. I could feel anger bubbling up far too often in my interactions with customers and colleagues alike. I could see the trees growing back, blocking the woods I'd once seen so clearly.
I knew I had to leave. I was leaving a cushy role with almost complete freedom, a 4 day working week (something I negotiated for the whole company that they still do to this day, nearly a year after my leaving), and a £50k salary with 10% profit-sharing. I was leaving a great boss who valued me and stood by me through pretty much everything. I was leaving nearly a decade of great relationships with customers and colleagues. I was leaving a safe, secure income on the precipice of a global economic meltdown.
On the face of things (as many of my friends and family were telling me at the time) - I was making a stupid mistake. I had no plan, no side hustle ready to be dived into full time, and no real direction of what I was going to do next. The world was my oyster, but I was a blind fisherman allergic to shellfish. As crazy as I seemed, I had some savings to fall back onto to keep my bills paid (rent is cheap when you live with your parents!), and in my view - I wasn't giving up all these wonderful things, I was leaving a place I wasn't happy. I'd learnt a lot about business, and really fancied myself an entrepreneur based on how great I was doing in my job. I could see where (I thought) my boss was making poor decisions, or missing great opportunities, or not being risky enough to facilitate real growth. I knew if I had total control, I'd run the place so much better and we'd be making so much more money.
Fast forward to nearly a year later since quitting, I have done nothing. I've read countless self-help and business books, watched hundreds of hours of business guru videos and podcasts, and have fantasised over every new shiny idea that's came my way, whilst committing to absolutely none of them. I've started (using this term very loosely) and subsequently given up on perhaps two dozen (or more) 'business ideas', including: dropshipping, selling AI generated digital art, excel spreadsheets or daily planners on Etsy, no-code app development, being a YouTuber, being an author, digital marketing, b2b process automation, newsletters, proffesional Tweeting, selling fitness courses, and plenty more pointless ventures that have done nothing for improving my income, and everything for destroying my sense of self worth.
Most of these ideas came from (you guessed it) YouTube videos and other places online where they talk about whatever bullshit, flavour of the week business model is hot right now. I started most of these with excitement, wonder, and the feeling of infinite potential. Every new idea was 'the one' and it was going to make me rich. I told everyone I knew about every idea, about how it was perfect and I'd be making money hand over fist any day now. Pretty soon after starting, I'd convince myself it was never going to work, or it would be too much hassle, too competitive, or I was too inexperienced to do it - or I would feel like it's just another scammy bullshit YouTube Guru click bait idea, and that I was a fool for even believing in it. Most of the time though, the ideas just didn't sit right with me... My friends and family grew tired of hearing the same thing every week from me, and most of them began to laugh off anything I was telling them, or just humouring me, waiting for the inevitable change of plan to come around the following week. It began really grating on me that I wasn't able to pick something, stick with it and do it quietly.
I've dipped in and out of depression for most of my life, and Jan-August 2023 was probably the longest I've gone without feeling incredibly low, which I attribute purely to my freedom from having to get up and work for someone else. It came back around 3-4 months ago though, as it always does. I'd now entirely lost my sense of purpose. With nothing to wake up for in the morning, my sleeping pattern had become nocturnal, with 5-7AM bedtimes and late afternoon awakenings. I began habitually drinking alcohol - something I've struggled with on and off for years but developed a real problem with this year (going through a 70cl bottle of spirits every couple of days). I stopped working out, and practically never left my bed (although I've more or less always spent far too long in bed every day).
Some time in mid-September, I got my motivation back. I started dieting again, lifting weights 4x week and getting out of bed to move around more. I decided I was going to really try the YouTube thing, and was working every day on scripts and video ideas, doing research and creating a Notion template to manage my projects. I felt that buzz of productivity again for the first time in a long time. Then it happened.
I got a call that my Dad was in the hospital, and it wasn't looking good. My father and I had a strained relationship over the years, as he was absent for much of my life, only seeing my sister and I maybe once a year for the past decade or so. We got on okay, but I harboured a lot of resentment for how little he was in my life and the fact we didn't really know each other. His alcoholism had ruined his life entirely. He lost his family, he could never hold a job and eventually gave up entirely, relying on the government to house and feed him through benefits, and he'd managed to push away everyone in his family due to some nefarious pilfering of his dementia-ridden mother's life savings (around £20k by the end). Not only that, but it of course destroyed his health, and after sitting with him for a few days in the hospital, watching him lie there, hooked up to life support machines (either completely unconscious or just barely aware of his surroundings), his body eventually gave out to the years of abuse and he died less than a month before his 57th birthday.
This plunged me into the worst depression I'd ever been through. My life became a groundhog day of drinking myself stupid, lying in bed crying, or watching movies and playing video games to take my mind off things. Only now (around 2 months later) am I beginning to feel normal again. I took a short holiday to escape for a week, and have come back with renewed motivation, but unfortunately the same lack of direction that will inevitably result in depression when I've wasted a few more months of my precious freedom on pointless and half-assed business endeavours.
This time I want to do it differently.
I read TMF a few months ago and by chance stumbled on this forum today after reading a post on here about Alex Hormozi. I figured I would join and see if I can hopefully find some resources to help me discover what I want to be when I grow up.
My biggest problems are of course:
1) Direction
2) Commitment
3) Deferred Gratification
These problems are also roughly in order of how they are listed - and I'm hoping that in the coming days I can at least figure out what the hell I'm going to do, and what type of business I'm going to start.
If anyone managed to actually read all of this, and knows of any good resources to help me figure this eternal question out at least to get me on the right track for NOW, that would be great. I know this whole question of 'purpose' is ongoing and ever changing - but I need to think of an idea for a business to start right now, and so far my brain isn't allowing me to settle on anything. I'm wondering if I'm just not equipped with the right tools, or if I'm not asking myself the right questions...
Anyway, thanks for reading, if you have...
TLDR:
I'm Brad, im a wantrepreneur, and I don't have a f*cking clue what business I want to start.
I'm Brad - a 28 year old man living in the UK with big and silly dreams of making it big, and the attention span of a squirrel in Autumn (or 'Fall' for any 'Muricans reading this).
A word of warning before you read this - I will ramble on and on... For those brave enough to waste the next X minutes of their lives reading my half-journal entry/half-boring autobiography; this is the story of what brings me to this forum...
I grew up in a household which is typical for probably most of the world's population in some way or another. My parents split when I was 9 - my father (a drunk, and eventually an abuser) left the house and we struggled financially for some time. My aunt had to move into the house with us to help pay the bills, and the language around money during my upbringing often contained phrases such as 'we can't afford that', 'that's too much money', and 'do you know how much that COSTS??!' - the latter often being in response to my having broken something, or using up the last of something else.
Fast forward, we'd moved to an affordable neighbourhood in a comparatively middle class area, and as a result many of my friends growing up 'had' where I 'had not'. Holidays, presents, allowances, takeaways on the weekends, nice clothes etc.
Dont get me wrong, I didn't grow up 'poor' - just 'broke' (as Dave Chappelle put it). I still had presents at Christmas (some of which were a computer, a bike, a PS3 etc.), and when my stepfather (a relatively well off - but still working class - self employed roofer) came on the scene, eventually we went on the occasional holiday too.
One amazing part of my upbringing which I credit my dear mother greatly for - I had a solid work ethic instilled in me from a very young age. I didn't just get given things, I had to work for them. I had to do chores daily before I was allowed to play outside, often enlisting the help of my friends to get it done quicker so we could get out and get into trouble. When I was bad in school or at home (a very frequent occurrence) I was punished, and had to do even more chores. I remember one time I broke a car window which my mother had to pay a few hundred pounds to fix, and I worked it off over months. I can still remember her despair over the bill, as she never had that sort of money on hand, and I still remember the guilt I felt for causing it.
I got my first job at 16 washing dishes for a restaurant kitchen. I worked there two years, and grew to despise it. I knew I didn't want to do any sort of menial job ever again. I'm glad I worked there, as it taught me so much about the 'hard graft' - both the positive character building aspects, and the negative soul crushing ones.
I struggled through my teenage years with self esteem issues, drug addiction and a general apathetic life approach. I had no direction at all, despite my intelligence and talent in many areas of school. I never knew what I wanted to be when I grew up.
At 18, after dropping out of college just before I would have failed my A Levels (I spent most of those 2 years skipping class and getting high), I got an apprenticeship in IT by basically picking a job out of a hat. I had an interest in computers and I figured it would do for now.
I ended up working there for 9 years. My boss, an absolute gem, taught me so much - not just about IT, but about being a man - and a good one at that. He taught me how a business worked, how to sell, how to give great customer service, how to resolve problems, and through osmosis, how to be a great manager and leader. By the time I was around 25, I was basically running the place with him, and was a shoe in to take over his role as the Managing Director in a few years when he decided to take a step down.
However - as often these things do - it all began to fall apart, little by little. I became disaffected, and dissatisfied with the direction the business was was going. I lost the love for IT, and complaining customers went from a slight inconvenience that I was eager to remedy, to a daily occurrence I was just outright sick off. I could feel anger bubbling up far too often in my interactions with customers and colleagues alike. I could see the trees growing back, blocking the woods I'd once seen so clearly.
I knew I had to leave. I was leaving a cushy role with almost complete freedom, a 4 day working week (something I negotiated for the whole company that they still do to this day, nearly a year after my leaving), and a £50k salary with 10% profit-sharing. I was leaving a great boss who valued me and stood by me through pretty much everything. I was leaving nearly a decade of great relationships with customers and colleagues. I was leaving a safe, secure income on the precipice of a global economic meltdown.
On the face of things (as many of my friends and family were telling me at the time) - I was making a stupid mistake. I had no plan, no side hustle ready to be dived into full time, and no real direction of what I was going to do next. The world was my oyster, but I was a blind fisherman allergic to shellfish. As crazy as I seemed, I had some savings to fall back onto to keep my bills paid (rent is cheap when you live with your parents!), and in my view - I wasn't giving up all these wonderful things, I was leaving a place I wasn't happy. I'd learnt a lot about business, and really fancied myself an entrepreneur based on how great I was doing in my job. I could see where (I thought) my boss was making poor decisions, or missing great opportunities, or not being risky enough to facilitate real growth. I knew if I had total control, I'd run the place so much better and we'd be making so much more money.
Fast forward to nearly a year later since quitting, I have done nothing. I've read countless self-help and business books, watched hundreds of hours of business guru videos and podcasts, and have fantasised over every new shiny idea that's came my way, whilst committing to absolutely none of them. I've started (using this term very loosely) and subsequently given up on perhaps two dozen (or more) 'business ideas', including: dropshipping, selling AI generated digital art, excel spreadsheets or daily planners on Etsy, no-code app development, being a YouTuber, being an author, digital marketing, b2b process automation, newsletters, proffesional Tweeting, selling fitness courses, and plenty more pointless ventures that have done nothing for improving my income, and everything for destroying my sense of self worth.
Most of these ideas came from (you guessed it) YouTube videos and other places online where they talk about whatever bullshit, flavour of the week business model is hot right now. I started most of these with excitement, wonder, and the feeling of infinite potential. Every new idea was 'the one' and it was going to make me rich. I told everyone I knew about every idea, about how it was perfect and I'd be making money hand over fist any day now. Pretty soon after starting, I'd convince myself it was never going to work, or it would be too much hassle, too competitive, or I was too inexperienced to do it - or I would feel like it's just another scammy bullshit YouTube Guru click bait idea, and that I was a fool for even believing in it. Most of the time though, the ideas just didn't sit right with me... My friends and family grew tired of hearing the same thing every week from me, and most of them began to laugh off anything I was telling them, or just humouring me, waiting for the inevitable change of plan to come around the following week. It began really grating on me that I wasn't able to pick something, stick with it and do it quietly.
I've dipped in and out of depression for most of my life, and Jan-August 2023 was probably the longest I've gone without feeling incredibly low, which I attribute purely to my freedom from having to get up and work for someone else. It came back around 3-4 months ago though, as it always does. I'd now entirely lost my sense of purpose. With nothing to wake up for in the morning, my sleeping pattern had become nocturnal, with 5-7AM bedtimes and late afternoon awakenings. I began habitually drinking alcohol - something I've struggled with on and off for years but developed a real problem with this year (going through a 70cl bottle of spirits every couple of days). I stopped working out, and practically never left my bed (although I've more or less always spent far too long in bed every day).
Some time in mid-September, I got my motivation back. I started dieting again, lifting weights 4x week and getting out of bed to move around more. I decided I was going to really try the YouTube thing, and was working every day on scripts and video ideas, doing research and creating a Notion template to manage my projects. I felt that buzz of productivity again for the first time in a long time. Then it happened.
I got a call that my Dad was in the hospital, and it wasn't looking good. My father and I had a strained relationship over the years, as he was absent for much of my life, only seeing my sister and I maybe once a year for the past decade or so. We got on okay, but I harboured a lot of resentment for how little he was in my life and the fact we didn't really know each other. His alcoholism had ruined his life entirely. He lost his family, he could never hold a job and eventually gave up entirely, relying on the government to house and feed him through benefits, and he'd managed to push away everyone in his family due to some nefarious pilfering of his dementia-ridden mother's life savings (around £20k by the end). Not only that, but it of course destroyed his health, and after sitting with him for a few days in the hospital, watching him lie there, hooked up to life support machines (either completely unconscious or just barely aware of his surroundings), his body eventually gave out to the years of abuse and he died less than a month before his 57th birthday.
This plunged me into the worst depression I'd ever been through. My life became a groundhog day of drinking myself stupid, lying in bed crying, or watching movies and playing video games to take my mind off things. Only now (around 2 months later) am I beginning to feel normal again. I took a short holiday to escape for a week, and have come back with renewed motivation, but unfortunately the same lack of direction that will inevitably result in depression when I've wasted a few more months of my precious freedom on pointless and half-assed business endeavours.
This time I want to do it differently.
I read TMF a few months ago and by chance stumbled on this forum today after reading a post on here about Alex Hormozi. I figured I would join and see if I can hopefully find some resources to help me discover what I want to be when I grow up.
My biggest problems are of course:
1) Direction
2) Commitment
3) Deferred Gratification
These problems are also roughly in order of how they are listed - and I'm hoping that in the coming days I can at least figure out what the hell I'm going to do, and what type of business I'm going to start.
If anyone managed to actually read all of this, and knows of any good resources to help me figure this eternal question out at least to get me on the right track for NOW, that would be great. I know this whole question of 'purpose' is ongoing and ever changing - but I need to think of an idea for a business to start right now, and so far my brain isn't allowing me to settle on anything. I'm wondering if I'm just not equipped with the right tools, or if I'm not asking myself the right questions...
Anyway, thanks for reading, if you have...
TLDR:
I'm Brad, im a wantrepreneur, and I don't have a f*cking clue what business I want to start.
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