This is something that until now, I haven’t been able to explain to anyone, not even my family without it coming out the wrong way and it only ending up in either a fight or hard feelings – I hate working, and when I say working, I mean going back to the same things that I used to do.
My first job was working as a farm hand cleaning pig sties and chicken runs and loading semi trucks and mucking out horse stables and a ton of stuff that I didn’t like at all, but I did it because we needed money.
“Because you need the money” is a sorry excuse to do anything just so you know.
When we moved to north Florida it was one of those spur of the moment decisions that just changes your whole life, but I couldn’t see the big picture myself until years later. The original plan was to move to Tennessee because I was involved in music and we all felt that Tennessee would be the best place for me to continue pursuing music.
I was composing and performing and even though I was never “bright” enough to get a scholarship, I was accepted to a lot of different colleges to study music, including University of Central Florida, University of Florida and the Harrid Conservatory of Music.
Long story short, it didn’t work out that way.
[Me and my double bass! I love to play jazz, blues, swing, country and classical. The fro is inevitable!]
So here I was, a young man not long out of graduating from high school; couldn’t do music anymore, (we ran into hard financial times and the instruments were repossessed), so I did what was always drilled into my head for as long as I can remember. “You want money? Get a job.”
I’d come home exhausted and stinking to high heaven; some days so bad I had to hose off outside before I came inside the house. I’d come inside and put the money on the table and we bought groceries and other things around the house we needed.
When I wasn’t working on the farm, I was cutting grass and as I’ve always done, I’d come home, put the money on the table and go play video games or something; I was a dutiful son.
And before I continue here, you need to understand that I don’t blame my parents for the hardships we faced. They did for us everything in their power to make sure we had what we needed when it counted most and I have nothing but admiration and respect for them.
After the farm hand work was passed, I went to work in a chicken processing plant (I won’t say the name) and that was the nastiest job in the world for me. The first week I was there I literally fell out of bed because I wasn’t just sleeping. In fact I was sleep walking, and come to my senses on the floor because I was doing the action of picking and raking and shoveling ice and everything else I did.
And the smell of that place stuck on you for days. It was coming out of my bones by the end of the week, but I did it because we needed the money.
Over the years I’ve always done the same. Whether it was part time roofing or plumbing, to electrical work and other construction to working as a graveyard shift security guard (which I did for years), I’ve always come home, put the money into my family’s hands and kept very little for myself.
Even after I got into my career field the money went to help mom and dad. When she got sick I retired her, when we needed to buy this house and the demand for more and more money kept coming up, I paid it, and that’s the way it’s always been.
I’ve always been dedicated to my family, even to the point where I stayed home and raised my niece and nephew full time so my sister could go to school. I’d fix the cars when I was able and I gave when I had it to give, both financially to my parents and time to the rest of my family.
But all the while I was working and giving, there was this anger building up inside me because I hated the grind and even though I was nice and friendly on the surface I was extremely unhappy, that anger flourished into a hatred not just with working, but with all of the other things that happened as a result.
As more and more hardships came, I kept doing what I was conditioned to do my entire life – you need money? Get a job – so I worked, and worked and worked and every day I hated a little more and more.
Then one day it happened… I reached the point where enough was enough and all of anger and hate started to come out in short bursts. One moment I’d be fine and the next I’d be in a rage yelling at everybody and throwing things.
People would push and I’d push back harder, and the last time that happened it was a wake up call for me in a big way. On top of that, I lost my job and things were very tight financially for me. That was when I decided to look for something else and find for other ways to make money.
… and keep in mind that the bills kept coming in.
There were a lot of fights between me and my family because they were pushing me to get up and get a job, even when I was making money. I’d figured out you can make money and not pimp yourself at the same time and the pressure I felt from my family was as if I wasn’t any kind of man at all because I wasn’t slaving for it.
But I realized soon enough it wasn’t about the money; it was the mindset that everyone was brought up to believe. Go to school, get good grades, go to college (trade school in my case), get a degree and get a good what? – job right?
I realized I could have been making a million dollars an hour and as long as I wasn’t working a regular job, busting my hump with commutes and gas and putting up with work I don’t like, probably around people I don’t like and taking orders from someone I definitely don’t like, I wasn’t accomplished.
This is a bit off top here, but… Have you ever noticed how much pride people have around their work? I heard a guy talking about how proud he was of his son because he got an after school job. He actually said that, “now my boy is a man. he’s got a job,” and in the back of my mind I’m thinking how sad it that people define others by how they make their living.
Think about it for a moment. Really imagine this. You’re at a restaurant and the table to the right of you is a couple and they asked you to pass the ketchup or whatever and you start talking, and it comes out, “I’m a lawyer,” what would you think or feel about that person? You’d probably be amazed. People define themselves by the work they do.
Doctors, lawyers, executives and so on. The more prestigious the title the more respect people will show you and even applaud you from time to time. Now, what if that person said he was a garbage man or a construction worker or something else? Probably not so much.
I’m not saying to not be proud of what you do, just not make it into who you are or how you define yourself. It really is kind of dumb now that I look back at it. Anyway…
I was working graveyard security shift when it finally broke mentally that I am not my job and making money has nothing to do with how much time I put in – because let’s face it, I could put in all the overtime in the world as I used to and still ended up broke.
I’m going to give you a real life an example and then get to the point.
A couple months ago, after Empower network started getting into the earning’s level where it was beginning to cover all of my bills, I had family come over and tell me that I had to get a job. We’re talking like intervention – they’re all in the living room talking to me about why I need to stop Empower Network and “get a real job” as they put it.
I looked at them and said, “why would I do that? I’m making money and it’s paying all of my bills. If anything I should be working harder at Empower Network and turn it into a 5 and 6 figure income.”
I lie to you not, they said, “that’s not enough. You need a job.” They honestly couldn’t get past that and no matter how I explained that I’m never ever going to work a regular job again and that there is a better way, they couldn’t get it. In many ways they still can’t. I’ll get text messages from them about jobs that are hiring to this day. The last one was about Amtrak hiring at $22 an hour.
Just a few days ago one of them told me that I need to put this Empower thing on the side and get a job. Why? They couldn’t answer me. I held my tongue, but what I really wanted to say was, “Are you kidding me? Don’t you remember where all of our jobs left us? Broke and struggling. Why would I ever go back to that?”
Then last night, during one of our Empower Hour calls (we have them every Monday at 9:00 PM EST), I listened to someone explain exactly what I was feeling inside and what I couldn’t explain myself, so I went looking to see what else he put out and I ran across one of his videos and he said EXACTLY what I’ve wanted to make my family understand, and it’s something that everyone needs to understand.
Nobody’s going to do something that they hate for very long, even if they’re making money; and when you go from broke and struggling to making money working all the time, it’s a big improvement of life;
You’re like, “Golly I’ve got money. Never mind that I’m beating the phone 8 hours a day; never mind that I’m leaving voice mails and talking to people that aren’t serious about their lives or whatever. Never mind all that. The bottom line is that at least I have money coming in.”
But when you kinda get it; I think it was Gary Vaynerchuk who was the first person I ever heard say this. “When you are consistently 1% unhappy with what you’re doing, it’s time to figure out how to upgrade. It’s time to figure out how to make some changes in your life.“
You see the grind won’t make you rich and all the grinding won’t make you free either. And I know first hand that is absolutely true. You know why they call it the daily grind? Because it never ends!
One decision years ago changed my entire life and left me doing something I was unhappy doing, and it almost took me self destructing to realize what I was doing to myself before I changed. My heart was full of regrets and anger and my mind was filled with “what if’s”, but here’s the good news.
Just as one decision changed my life back then, one decision can change it again, so I made that decision. Now I’m working from home, making money and soon I’ll be able to give my dad the option to retire. I’m pretty sure he loves teaching too much to leave, but I’d like him to have that option.
My first goal I met already – get Empower Network to pay my personal bills, and I did that without the commutes and complaining about gas prices or “grinding” endlessly day and night. Giving my dad the option to retire is the second goal. My third is to buy a car of my own again – I already bought a new double bass 
[The new double bass I bought a few years ago. Isn’t it beautiful? That’s sheet music on my dresser. I compose classical/pops music]
A few years back when things were really tough, my family sold my car to help and since that day I’ve never had a car of my own. I know there are a lot of nice sports cars and luxury cars out there however I’ve picked out the car I want already.
It’s the Mazda 6 Grand Touring and the reason why I want that car you’ll probably laugh at – it’s the only car in it’s class with enough trunk space to carry my double bass! That’s about what it boils down to. My double bass used to take up a seat on it’s own. I’d roll back the front passenger seat and strap it in. Now? I can just put it in the trunk and ride around with 4 other friends.
That’s what I want to do with my life. I want to be rich and wealthy, and play music all day, and hang out with my friends, help my family and start a few projects that I’ve had the ideas about for years now, but haven’t been able do, and it’s all to better people’s lives. That’s what I want out of life.
Something I heard last night I’ll share with you as well. Whatever your take is on money, always remember that money is just as important as the food it buys, the medicine it buys, the bills it pays, and everything else you need it for – become friends with money. In fact, last night’s call is something everyone should hear.
Anyway, my point is that if you’re doing something now that makes you unhappy, even if you’re making money, then maybe it’s time to upgrade and make some changes in your life, and I say that coming from the point of view of someone who just got sick and tired and had to learn it the hard way.
It doesn’t have to be hard or long and drawn out thing to make a change either. It took me, from the new year’s resolution to build this business, to the middle of February to create the income of a part time job, working just a couple hours every day. By the middle of March it was paying all of my personal bills and I still only work a couple hours a day.
Decisions happen in an instant and can affect your entire life. Change can happen quickly as well, and for most of us here in Empower, it’s about 90 days and all we do is apply a very simple formula to our businesses – nothing more and nothing less – and you’re about to learn that formula now.
So here’s what’s next…
If you’re looking for a change, or you’re doing something you don’t like and you know there’s a better way, or maybe you’re sick and tired like I was, make the decision right now to learn something new that can change your life. It doesn’t matter where you are or what’s going on around you right now, make the decision to do something different.
Because once you do, everything else changes, especially when you have a road map to follow and the successes of every day people like you and me to back it all up.
So here’s what you do next.
Make the decision to not just look, but get in. It’s only $25 bucks so anyone can afford it – find out why so many people are creating financial and personal success in their lives with me and my team. I’ll even be here personally to help you when you get started.
So, click here now, enter your email and watch the video. It’s information that will change your life!
PS: When you get started I’ll send you a free strategy guide mapping out EXACTLY what I did to get a quick start in my business when I committed as a new year’s resolution to help you go from start to making money as fast as possible. Click here now
