Aug 28 • General discussion
Life is lived forward, but understood backwards
Have you ever had that realization moment of something that happened in your past became almost instantly different, because you remembered it from a new, fresh, older, wiser perspective?
One of these impactful moments for me was remembering watching my dad sacrifice [i] who he was and wanted to be [/i] to take care of his family. Family is always more important than any individual's happiness.
A college drop-out, dad pursued graphic artistry and was making a pretty good go of it until laser printers came out. He picked up a job as a manager at a pretty major reptile & aquarium store on the other side of the city. He went back to school at nights to learn how to code, I remember some giant book with like an "A-" on it and I know for sure he had some C# and C++ books.
Come to think of it, that does mean he set a pretty good impression on taking your studies seriously also, and he made sure to remind me a few times "this is not what you want to do, go to college before having a family, don't drop out, keep your head on straight." etc. etc.
So, the whole reason he started this night college program to learn code was because my uncle (his brother-in-law) had just acquired a company and needed an IT dept. manager.
It was a pretty big operation - contracts with several states and government agencies to aid in fulfillment. I got to start working at 14, helping stuff envelopes, run a large postage printing machine, I mean heck, that's some exposure to business operations from a young age. As the summers went on, I eventually turned 18 and could start answering the phones in their call center. Sometimes Dad and I would ride into work together if I wasn't on nights.
From my perspective, I'm getting to work a great summer job for $9/hr which was way more than bussing tables and dishwashing at the pizza joint for $5.15 an hour (minimum wage at the time)
From my Dad's perspective, he's grinding out a managerial job for over a decade helping my uncle grow his company, day in and day out, some weekends on call, even.
So, by the time I'm in college, my uncle grows the company and gets an offer, sells it and for the next few years my dad has to train two young college grads to do his job, each of them combined, getting paid less than my dad.
Lesson one in supply and demand in the labor market.
I saw my dad sacrifice who he was and his core personality for this company, only for it to be bought and him to be "restructured" out of it.
It's wild to think that ^that^ experience is what subconsciously gave me the drive to never rely on a company, or a boss, or anything else to provide me a paycheck.
From then on, everything was about learning, repping it out, repeating, observing, and implementing what I learned into my own freedom and my businesses.
Tell me, what are some of your hindsight experiences that didn't seem to be a major deal at the time, but when you remember now, with a more refined perspective were hugely impactful on your success?
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Life is lived forward, but understood backwards
