12/2020 – I have many times in my life heard the term “treading water”. There definitely are times where I would describe my life as “treading water”. To me this term means that a person is just getting by. This could mean barely getting by financially. This could mean just going through the motions of life. This could mean life just seems to be passing them by while they sit in place. This could be that others around them are advancing, getting promoted, getting married, having kids, retiring or whatever while they just keep doing the same without advancing.
I don’t view my life as treading water. I think I’m at the next stage, one I’m calling “swimming along without a destination”. I don’t feel stuck in place. I don’t feel like I’m not advancing. I don’t think I’m sitting still. I think I’m progressing along nicely. I think things are going the right direction. I think I’m passing some of the water treader’s as they sit in place treading water.
In the analogy of being in a body of water I think I’m swimming along at a good clip, maybe not Michael Phelps fast, but at least at a competitive swimmers pace. My issue is that in this analogy, I cannot see the destination. Like I’m hauling ass across this lake but it’s big and the shoreline is not in sight.
Ok, enough of the water analogy. I’ve been feeling lately like I don’t have a plan. Like a swimmer starting from Fripp island heading towards Spain, knowing in the back of their mind they won’t get there but without an alternate plan. (OK, I know, more water analogy).
In many ways I have accomplished a lot. I am proud of these accomplishments. Where I am is not because of any special handouts or advantages, often its in spite of them. Financially I’ve gone from a modest middle-class upbringing to poor to above average to poor again to above average again. Hopefully this trend doesn’t continue back to poor, but if it did I have no doubt I could get back on the other side again. From struggling to support and know how to raise a kid when I was myself still a kid to going through a tough divorce to changing career paths many times and being abandoned by the parents who raised me I have always found a way to survive and keep going, even if only treading water for a while (dammit, can’t get away from the water/swimming analogy).
I am now in a place where everything seems to be going as good as could be expected. Friends make comments about how good I have it. And I have to admit, I do. I don’t have to work a ton of hours. I’m coming up on my 9 year anniversary to a great woman. Even though I feel abandoned by my parents, I’ve gained 2 sets of in-laws that love me and are supportive and are more then I could ever have hoped for. I have an amazing daughter who just bought her first house with her fiancé and is getting married in a few months. I have a beautiful house and some nice possessions, even have a (half of) a house at the beach. I have some money saved and don’t have to worry about groceries or bills for the most part. You could say I have all I need and more. I feel lucky and fortunate for what I have while at the same time I feel accomplished because what I have and where I am is because I’ve worked hard for it, making tough choices and sacrifices along the way. But……
I get this feeling of not having a destination. Not having an end goal. I try hard to not get caught up in the pursuit of more stuff. It’s hard to do though and a hard thing to balance. I think that the pursuit of X keeps us pushing forward. If I didn’t want anything more from life then I think I could be content with treading water. I think wanting more is what keeps us going in the right direction. It’s viewed as wrong or selfish to be focused on a Ferrari or a big ass boat. However these things keep us pushing forward and keep us motivated. Whatever the motivation, could be vacations or jewelry or cars or nice steak dinners, we all need something to keep us striving for more.
7/7/2021 adding on –
It’s been 7 months since I started this blog. I reread it a few times and I still feel this way. I have spent a lot of time thinking on this subject and I came to a tough realization. I’m not excited by much, so getting passionate about anything is a challenge. My wife asks me why I am so addicted to golf. I do absolutely love the game, love the challenge, love that it can’t be mastered, basically love everything about it. What I have come realize though, is that golf is the one thing I am passionate about. I know it shouldn’t be that way, but it is. I don’t have an addictive personality, but I do tend to hyper focus on things, which is what has made me successful. Some would call it obsessed. Some might say addicted. Some might just say over the top.
From all the way back at my first job at McDonalds I’d say I was this way. I worked my way from trainee, to crew, to crew trainer, to crew chief to swing manager in under 2 years, making me a swing manager before I was 18. I worked hard and could do every position in the store just about as good or better than anyone. Customers loved me. Staff respected me (at least in my mind they did). When I wasn’t working I spent time there. I picked up extra shifts and would be there in 15 minutes if they were short handed. After my McDonalds days I did some factory work, where I would say I was not very passionate about it. I then went into sales at American TV. I was hired for home audio, but I had a desire to learn and expand, so I got trained and could also work the TV department and car stereo. I even learned how to do some car stereo install. That was retail so the hours were long, but I didn’t mind because I truly enjoyed my job. I was excited to see every new model that came out, play around with the new functions and test versus other models. I stayed in this industry and got a job at Audio Video Systems in Charlotte, later to be bought by Tweeter. This was an exciting move for me because I was in a new city with new challenges. AVS/Tweeter was also higher end products so the learning continued, the sales were bigger and opportunities were greater. I moved into an assistant store manger role, which I took seriously. I saw margins shrinking and decided an exit from the A/V world was the wise move. I left there in 2002. Tweeter filed its second bankruptcy in 2008 and closed up for good.
Next I went into the mortgage business. This is where my professional life took off. I started making more money than I ever had, by a wide margin. I had already been in sales, but this was selling something way more important than a TV or some speakers. I was selling money. I was helping people get cash out to send kids to college or add a swimming pool or pay off mountains of credit cards. This was exciting. I quickly realized though that the company I was at was borderline predatory, so I moved to another more reputable broker and then went into wholesale. This was a business to business sales job. Instead of selling to 1 customer and then never speaking to them again, I could develop a relationship with a client and not have to start over. I loved this way more than the retail mortgage business. Starting, building and maintaining a relationship was way more my cup of tea. I took calls way after hours and on the weekends. I would take calls during dinner or a movie or my daughters softball games. I am not proud of that. I would do that differently if I could go back and do it again.
Once again I saw the writing on the wall and decided it was time to change my career path. I left my wholesale job in 2008, and just after then Equifirst went out of business. I decided to start my own business in a field I knew zero about. I bought a repo truck and opened a repossession company. Partially out of need and partially out of a passion for it I worked harder than ever before. I worked almost all waking hours, which were most of the hours because there was no time for sleep. I started this company with a truck loan and very little savings. I built it into what it is today, which is a successful company with 13 or so employees. I was passionate, maybe even addicted, to this business for many years. But as the company finally became established and began to run more without my day-to-day input I lost my passion for it. I also see shrinking margins and changes happening that lead me to believe it is not a business I want to be in long term.
This brings me to current day. I am sitting in my home office writing this blog. I am going into the office today, but it won’t be for very long. I go in to make an appearance and check on things, but I don’t do much while there. It’s great that I don’t have to do much, but also leaves me in this place of feeling like I don’t really have a mission to focus on. If I believed in the business I could jump in and expand to other markets or grow my footprint, but I don’t feel like that would be wise and I do not want to jeopardize what I have built by risking it on future growth in a business with shrinking revenue, margins and increasing compliance and scrutiny.
So what now?
That is the million dollar question I guess. I have some other businesses I am interested in, things I have been thinking about for quite some time. I know that once I dive into another project I will likely be “all-in” and find that passion to focus on again. So why haven’t I done it yet? Man I wish I knew. I can say it’s because I still have my repo company and the requirements from that keep me from fully jumping into the next thing. I could say it’s because I don’t know which of the 3 or 4 other ideas I really want to start first. I could make other excuses I’m sure. I think it’s because I’m scared, to an extent. I’ve been in multiple businesses and job types and always been successful, but these other ideas would be completely new. I don’t think I will fail. I think I will be willing to jump in and make any of them work. But what if they don’t? I don’t know how I will do with failure, if it came to that. I also know failure isn’t a big deal. Most of the ultra successful people in the world failed a bunch of times before they made it. So what’s my problem? This is what I am working on now. I know me and I know I need that thing that I can focus my energy on. It’s time to do it. I will do it.
I don’t write this blog for anyone else (clearly, since no one else reads it). I write this for myself. My mind is a constant whirlwind of ideas and thoughts, so putting onto paper (or the screen) I think is good for my brain. Maybe this is also why I love golf so much, when I’m out there I can put my phone on silent and just play for 4 hours (and drink beer, and BS with the guys) without the thoughts of anything else. This blog has been a good one for me. I am ready to begin my next adventure. Which will it be? I have a software/app idea, a product/brand to develop and build and a drop ship business to start. Hmmm, stay tuned as I decide my next move. But first, I have a 3:57 tee time….
doing it different 