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- May 9, 2016
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I would really love some advice/tips and just to vent on this. Many people don't like to discuss failures. But I do and will. I understand that failure is natural and it's how we learn about ourselves and from our mistakes. It's how we improve. As an entrepreneur I believe you're going to fail multiple times before you get to where you want to be.
Before I say this first part. Please don't perceive this as me being arrogant or anything like that. I just want to give some context.
I started a successful LLC when I was 19. I'm not saying I was crazy successful by any means. I've never been close to being a millionaire.
But I was successful enough to make a lot of money for a 19 year old in a short time. For example I made about $7,000 in around six hours once. I had some employees and I was able to do whatever I wanted with my time. I made decent money and I set my own schedules. I met with customers, I made deals with people. At 19 I had grown men (between 30 and 40) doing what I said.
Well, it didn't take too long, my business ended up failing under my leadership. External influences out of my control did play a factor. But the majority of it is my fault and I understand that. I did a lot of things right. But I did too many things wrong. I learned a lot of things about myself through these failures. I've improved in many areas of my life, and continue to work at improving, because of these past failures. I've come to genuinely understand the saying that "You must first master yourself, before you can master anything"
Immediately after my business failure I ended up doing a significant time of active duty. I went to Europe for a time and did an extra few months of active on the state side.
Once again, through my own personality faults I screwed myself. I have ADHD and I also grew up extremely poor. I was raised far below the poverty line in an abusive/neglectful home. These factors have carried into adulthood and have resulted in me self sabotaging myself. I should have saved all of that money I made while on active duty. I'd be in a much better place now had I been more financially responsible. But I did not, and ended up blowing it all. I did a lot of irresponsible things that just hurt me in the long run and ultimately wasted the brief and valuable time I have on earth.
As a result, instead of controlling the direction of my life, I let life control me.
Now? I'm forced to live with family members who I love to death, but are addicted to drugs and toxic. Most of my friends from childhood are addicted to drugs and already have a criminal record. My entire immediate family has a criminal record. I am the only one in my family that has never been arrested. I've never even had a speeding ticket. Everyone around me has thrown their lives away and is just sinking. It's incredibly difficult to fight the environment off and not let it take me down as well.
Regardless, I've been able to look at the situation and I know I don't F*cking want that for myself. I don't want to live a mediocre life just living day to day trying to survive and pay bills. I don't want my kids to cry themselves to sleep at night asking God what they did wrong. Like I did. I want my kids to have a father and mother that don't do drugs. I don't want my kids to see their mother doing crack every night right in front of them like I did. Believe me, it's so F*cking difficult to watch everyone around you sink. Knowing my siblings were born into a life that statistically meant they were virtually guaranteed to fail and become drug addicts.
Just to give you an idea of how f*cked up things are. I got a call weeks ago telling me my own mother has been missing for months. She went out doing drugs and never came back to the place she was living at. I don't even care enough about her to make a 5 minute call to see if she's even alive. I know most people would look at that and think that it's really abnormal and dysfunctional. I realize it is. But it's the reality I was born into and I legitimately do not care.
I have no family support system. No money. Behind on bills. No health or dental insurance. My car insurance rate is astronomical. Not because I'm a bad driver or because I have some kind of record. I literally have nothing on my record at all. Nothing. It's because no one ever taught me to drive a car when I was 16. I was far too poor to afford a car at 16. My family didn't care about teaching me to drive, and they were far too poor to get me a car regardless.
It wasn't until right after I turned 19 years old and had saved up money for 6 months that I was able to get a car and illegally teach myself to drive so I could get a license. I paid with cash for a cheap little car. And then what? The car broke down after like two months because the dealer knowingly sold it to me with a blown head gasket. The repair was worth more than the car.
This was long before I had ever done anything with entrepreneurship. I was working a shitty job at that very exact time and had to finance a new car. The fact that my car was now financed plus my short driving history (on my own plan) means that my rates are more than the monthly cost that most young adults pay for housing.
I'm surrounded by drugs. It's just me looking out for myself trying to escape the environment that has tried to drag me down since the day I was born. When I see my family doing drugs every night I desperately want to give in and just get high with them.
They ask me to do it with them. I want to forget my problems. To avoid reality. To just give in and let it take me down. But I know that is the easy way out. It's sooooo easy. To just give in and avoid the hard path in life. To just pretend everything is okay. I know if I give into everything it'll swallow me and I'll turn out just like them.
Living a life of depression and anxiety. A life of accomplishing nothing at all. Addicted to drugs and hating myself. A life of just trying to get enough money to survive day to day. A life of debt. A life of crime. Always worried when I see police. Bouncing from odd job to odd job. Neglecting my future kids. Divorced multiple times. Letting my health decline and giving no F*cks about it. A life of always wearing the same nasty dirty clothes every day. A life of homelessness. A life with so much potential, but wasted and thrown away like it never mattered at all.
It repulses me. In a way, my own family repulses me. So far I've been successful at avoiding the drugs and toxic environment. I've been working hard every day to dig myself out of the hole I'm in. I'm gone all day being productive while they sit home all day doing drugs.
I understand that I need to get a solid foundation and save some money before I can start pursuing my entrepreneurial dreams again. So I got a job and I'm about to start a semester of community college. I've been doing my best to live a "normal life" and do normal things until I can figure things out.
But honestly, it's F*cking killed me inside. I got an entry level job at Walmart making $9.00 an hour because I need money that bad. Even when I worked for companies long ago I still made more than this. My active military pay is almost like double this and the benefits are way better.
Today was only my second day. I haven't even made it through orientation yet. Not to sound overly dramatic or anything. But when I'm clocked in at that store I feel like I just want to kill myself. I sat 8 hours today watching their videos on how to be a "good employee" and the entire time I just wanted to bash my head against the wall until I died.
I'm good an concealing my feelings to them. I'm always 10 minutes early to everything. I'm clean shaven, friendly and professional. I'm enthusiastic and ambitious. I'm overly qualified for a position that I'm barely getting paid for. I never told them about my past business projects. But even when that's excluded. I've got multiple medical certifications and leadership experience through the military alone. Overall, I'm an employee people would love to have. They really like me.
But I got so upset today. I was forced to watch orientation videos for 8 hours. For a split second I had the thought of throwing the computer monitor at the wall and walking out. I haven't even worked there 15 hours total yet. My time is worth more than some F*cking video teaching me the "proper way to mop a floor" or telling me how "valued I am at the company and if I work my a$$ off for 6 months I can get a dollar raise"
Wow!? All have to do is be your bitch and give you the majority of my daily time and I can get a dollar raise after 6 months? Where the F*ck do I sign up?
Believe me, I mean no disrespect to this company or the employees there. Many of them are just nice hard working people. I'm not special. I don't think myself better than them. I don't think myself above them by any means. It's not even the shitty pay that really bothers me. Shit I'm more than happy to work for free depending on the circumstances.
It's the fact that deep inside I know this is not who I am. At my very core I'm an entrepreneur and I'm not some brainwashed employee that buys into all the bullshit. It's like they worship Sam Walton over there man. They have pictures and quotes of the man everywhere. They make you watch videos of him. I respect the man and admire what he accomplished from a business perspective. I could learn a lot of things from him. He founded a multinational billion dollar company. But at the end of the day. I don't aspire to worship a Sam Walton. I aspire to F*cking be a Sam Walton. I want to be a producer. Not a consumer. I'd rather create a company that competes with Walmart than "work hard and if I'm lucky I could be a CEO one day"
On top of that...I'm starting a semester of college and I really hate that too. I hate the entire idea of it all. I don't want to earn some degree so I can get some job being someone else's bitch after 4 years. I don't want to compete for some shitty job paying me shitty wages and taking all of my time.
In my personal opinion. Life is about far more than that. I honest to God can't understand how people can be content with that lifestyle. Wouldn't they rather be spending time with their family? Wouldn't they rather be using their time how they want? Don't they understand that their time on earth is worth far more than some shitty wages at a company making other people rich? Most people hate working. It's like they lie to themselves about it so they can forget how much they hate it. I'm sorry but I can't trick myself into thinking that's what I want for myself.
But I understand that I need to focus on the process and not the event I want. I'm not where I'm at because I want to be here or because I love it. I'm here because it's apart of the process and I just need to go through it at this point of my life.
It's so hard though. I hate every second I'm there. All I think about is leaving and I just started. I hate people controlling my time and telling me when I'm allowed to take breaks or use the bathroom. I hate asking for permission to take time off so I can go to a F*cking doctors appointment. I understand that I need to make the best of this time and just work on progressing everyday and finding value from this. I'm constantly looking for opportunity and how I can provide value somehow. But it feels like I have to kill apart of myself in order to do this.
Once again, not to sound over dramatic. But I just kept thinking of ways to kill myself because at the time it felt like I'd rather be dead than do that shit. I feel like everyday I go to work I'm going to have to kill apart of myself and be depressed for the sake of getting it done. Every fiber of my being hates everything about it and I'm disappointed with myself for making he decisions that put me here after I'd worked hard to get out of it in the first place.
If you guys have managed to read all of this I really appreciate you taking the time to do that. So my question is this. Do you guys have tips or advice? Am I doing the right thing by forcing myself to do this? Do you have any tips for coping with this? Any advice for making the best of out my situation?
Before I say this first part. Please don't perceive this as me being arrogant or anything like that. I just want to give some context.
I started a successful LLC when I was 19. I'm not saying I was crazy successful by any means. I've never been close to being a millionaire.
But I was successful enough to make a lot of money for a 19 year old in a short time. For example I made about $7,000 in around six hours once. I had some employees and I was able to do whatever I wanted with my time. I made decent money and I set my own schedules. I met with customers, I made deals with people. At 19 I had grown men (between 30 and 40) doing what I said.
Well, it didn't take too long, my business ended up failing under my leadership. External influences out of my control did play a factor. But the majority of it is my fault and I understand that. I did a lot of things right. But I did too many things wrong. I learned a lot of things about myself through these failures. I've improved in many areas of my life, and continue to work at improving, because of these past failures. I've come to genuinely understand the saying that "You must first master yourself, before you can master anything"
Immediately after my business failure I ended up doing a significant time of active duty. I went to Europe for a time and did an extra few months of active on the state side.
Once again, through my own personality faults I screwed myself. I have ADHD and I also grew up extremely poor. I was raised far below the poverty line in an abusive/neglectful home. These factors have carried into adulthood and have resulted in me self sabotaging myself. I should have saved all of that money I made while on active duty. I'd be in a much better place now had I been more financially responsible. But I did not, and ended up blowing it all. I did a lot of irresponsible things that just hurt me in the long run and ultimately wasted the brief and valuable time I have on earth.
As a result, instead of controlling the direction of my life, I let life control me.
Now? I'm forced to live with family members who I love to death, but are addicted to drugs and toxic. Most of my friends from childhood are addicted to drugs and already have a criminal record. My entire immediate family has a criminal record. I am the only one in my family that has never been arrested. I've never even had a speeding ticket. Everyone around me has thrown their lives away and is just sinking. It's incredibly difficult to fight the environment off and not let it take me down as well.
Regardless, I've been able to look at the situation and I know I don't F*cking want that for myself. I don't want to live a mediocre life just living day to day trying to survive and pay bills. I don't want my kids to cry themselves to sleep at night asking God what they did wrong. Like I did. I want my kids to have a father and mother that don't do drugs. I don't want my kids to see their mother doing crack every night right in front of them like I did. Believe me, it's so F*cking difficult to watch everyone around you sink. Knowing my siblings were born into a life that statistically meant they were virtually guaranteed to fail and become drug addicts.
Just to give you an idea of how f*cked up things are. I got a call weeks ago telling me my own mother has been missing for months. She went out doing drugs and never came back to the place she was living at. I don't even care enough about her to make a 5 minute call to see if she's even alive. I know most people would look at that and think that it's really abnormal and dysfunctional. I realize it is. But it's the reality I was born into and I legitimately do not care.
I have no family support system. No money. Behind on bills. No health or dental insurance. My car insurance rate is astronomical. Not because I'm a bad driver or because I have some kind of record. I literally have nothing on my record at all. Nothing. It's because no one ever taught me to drive a car when I was 16. I was far too poor to afford a car at 16. My family didn't care about teaching me to drive, and they were far too poor to get me a car regardless.
It wasn't until right after I turned 19 years old and had saved up money for 6 months that I was able to get a car and illegally teach myself to drive so I could get a license. I paid with cash for a cheap little car. And then what? The car broke down after like two months because the dealer knowingly sold it to me with a blown head gasket. The repair was worth more than the car.
This was long before I had ever done anything with entrepreneurship. I was working a shitty job at that very exact time and had to finance a new car. The fact that my car was now financed plus my short driving history (on my own plan) means that my rates are more than the monthly cost that most young adults pay for housing.
I'm surrounded by drugs. It's just me looking out for myself trying to escape the environment that has tried to drag me down since the day I was born. When I see my family doing drugs every night I desperately want to give in and just get high with them.
They ask me to do it with them. I want to forget my problems. To avoid reality. To just give in and let it take me down. But I know that is the easy way out. It's sooooo easy. To just give in and avoid the hard path in life. To just pretend everything is okay. I know if I give into everything it'll swallow me and I'll turn out just like them.
Living a life of depression and anxiety. A life of accomplishing nothing at all. Addicted to drugs and hating myself. A life of just trying to get enough money to survive day to day. A life of debt. A life of crime. Always worried when I see police. Bouncing from odd job to odd job. Neglecting my future kids. Divorced multiple times. Letting my health decline and giving no F*cks about it. A life of always wearing the same nasty dirty clothes every day. A life of homelessness. A life with so much potential, but wasted and thrown away like it never mattered at all.
It repulses me. In a way, my own family repulses me. So far I've been successful at avoiding the drugs and toxic environment. I've been working hard every day to dig myself out of the hole I'm in. I'm gone all day being productive while they sit home all day doing drugs.
I understand that I need to get a solid foundation and save some money before I can start pursuing my entrepreneurial dreams again. So I got a job and I'm about to start a semester of community college. I've been doing my best to live a "normal life" and do normal things until I can figure things out.
But honestly, it's F*cking killed me inside. I got an entry level job at Walmart making $9.00 an hour because I need money that bad. Even when I worked for companies long ago I still made more than this. My active military pay is almost like double this and the benefits are way better.
Today was only my second day. I haven't even made it through orientation yet. Not to sound overly dramatic or anything. But when I'm clocked in at that store I feel like I just want to kill myself. I sat 8 hours today watching their videos on how to be a "good employee" and the entire time I just wanted to bash my head against the wall until I died.
I'm good an concealing my feelings to them. I'm always 10 minutes early to everything. I'm clean shaven, friendly and professional. I'm enthusiastic and ambitious. I'm overly qualified for a position that I'm barely getting paid for. I never told them about my past business projects. But even when that's excluded. I've got multiple medical certifications and leadership experience through the military alone. Overall, I'm an employee people would love to have. They really like me.
But I got so upset today. I was forced to watch orientation videos for 8 hours. For a split second I had the thought of throwing the computer monitor at the wall and walking out. I haven't even worked there 15 hours total yet. My time is worth more than some F*cking video teaching me the "proper way to mop a floor" or telling me how "valued I am at the company and if I work my a$$ off for 6 months I can get a dollar raise"
Wow!? All have to do is be your bitch and give you the majority of my daily time and I can get a dollar raise after 6 months? Where the F*ck do I sign up?
Believe me, I mean no disrespect to this company or the employees there. Many of them are just nice hard working people. I'm not special. I don't think myself better than them. I don't think myself above them by any means. It's not even the shitty pay that really bothers me. Shit I'm more than happy to work for free depending on the circumstances.
It's the fact that deep inside I know this is not who I am. At my very core I'm an entrepreneur and I'm not some brainwashed employee that buys into all the bullshit. It's like they worship Sam Walton over there man. They have pictures and quotes of the man everywhere. They make you watch videos of him. I respect the man and admire what he accomplished from a business perspective. I could learn a lot of things from him. He founded a multinational billion dollar company. But at the end of the day. I don't aspire to worship a Sam Walton. I aspire to F*cking be a Sam Walton. I want to be a producer. Not a consumer. I'd rather create a company that competes with Walmart than "work hard and if I'm lucky I could be a CEO one day"
On top of that...I'm starting a semester of college and I really hate that too. I hate the entire idea of it all. I don't want to earn some degree so I can get some job being someone else's bitch after 4 years. I don't want to compete for some shitty job paying me shitty wages and taking all of my time.
In my personal opinion. Life is about far more than that. I honest to God can't understand how people can be content with that lifestyle. Wouldn't they rather be spending time with their family? Wouldn't they rather be using their time how they want? Don't they understand that their time on earth is worth far more than some shitty wages at a company making other people rich? Most people hate working. It's like they lie to themselves about it so they can forget how much they hate it. I'm sorry but I can't trick myself into thinking that's what I want for myself.
But I understand that I need to focus on the process and not the event I want. I'm not where I'm at because I want to be here or because I love it. I'm here because it's apart of the process and I just need to go through it at this point of my life.
It's so hard though. I hate every second I'm there. All I think about is leaving and I just started. I hate people controlling my time and telling me when I'm allowed to take breaks or use the bathroom. I hate asking for permission to take time off so I can go to a F*cking doctors appointment. I understand that I need to make the best of this time and just work on progressing everyday and finding value from this. I'm constantly looking for opportunity and how I can provide value somehow. But it feels like I have to kill apart of myself in order to do this.
Once again, not to sound over dramatic. But I just kept thinking of ways to kill myself because at the time it felt like I'd rather be dead than do that shit. I feel like everyday I go to work I'm going to have to kill apart of myself and be depressed for the sake of getting it done. Every fiber of my being hates everything about it and I'm disappointed with myself for making he decisions that put me here after I'd worked hard to get out of it in the first place.
If you guys have managed to read all of this I really appreciate you taking the time to do that. So my question is this. Do you guys have tips or advice? Am I doing the right thing by forcing myself to do this? Do you have any tips for coping with this? Any advice for making the best of out my situation?
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