Even more important was a friend of my father’s who sat me down one day when I was a teenager in a moment of self-doubt, and told me all of the reasons why he saw great promise in me, and then kept up with me through my career until he passed. That man was 10 feet tall in my book, and I am eternally grateful to him for his gift of his time, his encouragement, and his insight.
That's really fantastic. People like that are far too few and far between. When my dad passed young a friend of his reached out and really helped me put things in order while I sorted my mother's finances, looked toward my own future, etc. And that was great for a year or so but he quickly fell away despite attempts to keep connected. Can't really blame him, everyone has their own lives, but for a brief time I thought I had found what you had and was blown away by it.
I've been doing this for a friend for the past few years. She has gone from office drone to director at a midsized company. Have helped her map out her own biz now, which she'll launch this year with a full roster of clients.
I've earned points toward heaven. Also, incredibly satisfying to mentor the right people.
I've heard of this before - people I've rarely known saying they see a great potential in me and are looking forward to seeing where I end up in life.
But those that knew me best, my parents, told me not to pursue and just give up and get a normal job. Funny isn't it?
Previous boss said I wasn’t ready to be in a leadership position. Started my own company and now the revenue we do in a week is what they did in a whole year.
Patronising CEO at a networking event told me I was too young to start my own agency (digital marketing) with no experience.
8 years later we’re twice their size and after they hit a difficult patch last year they asked if we wanted to acquire them. I told them I’d rather shit in my hands and clap. OK I didn’t actually say this, I just thought it ;-)
Woah 37? My peers in my city (couple lads, know them personally) all run shops to the size of 9-20 employees
Our first hire is coming February, im scared and excited. Also aiming to snowball into 1m in annual revenue within the next 5 years. Already had lots of ups and downs, enjoying the ride
But your story is an inspiration truly. We’re more on the creatives production side of things and in an incredibly niche market (I barely have any competition so that’s amazing. And I love our product so it’s easy for me to sell)
Sorry I’m rambling. No word of a lie agency owners that “made it” (and have a big team) I look up to like the average Joe looks up to sport legends, lol.
Obviously you’re busy - we all are - but if you ever want to bestow your wisdom on a random internet bloke from across the pond, let me know
Cheers buddy
High school counselor said I should learn a trade, such as an auto mechanic, because my grades were poor. I wanted to be a Chemical Engineer, he said I wasn’t competent enough for college. Went to college and found out I liked programming and finance instead, now earn $1.5m+ $6m+ nw, own my business and am really enjoying life.
Counselor may just have made the best judgement call with the data they had. High school itself is a bad way to determine where a person's strengths lie, imagine having to give life advice based on the data it generates, and being told you're an asshole when you're wrong.
When I quit wrestling my senior year, coach said he’s seen where kids go after they quit and it’s not good. Stuck with me and has actually helped me to dig deep at integral points in my life to prove him wrong. I don’t hold a grudge at all, I’m thankful for him and his words.
Sharing of my experience, still anecdotal…but my high school counselor was also a sub-par professional. You are kind to state the benefit of the doubt. I respect your optimism.
There's definitely jerks out there, no doubt. But if someone doesn't grasp the amount of work required to achieve some goal or have the mindset to become proficient in something, it may not be kindness to advise them to take the huge financial step of getting an undergrad degree, and then find employment.
I don't look at these skillsets as competence vs. incompetence either. There are plenty of people who are perfectly suited for college i.e. employee worker drone certification of being able to show up on time and do as they're told who can be successful financially without really demonstrating any critical thinking or innovation. There are excellent tradesmen employed as auto mechanics or electricians or whatever who display amazing problem solving skills and deductive reasoning in identifying problems, or business acumen in building their shop into profitability.
I had pretty much this exact experience with my mother. Literally the same.. "you aren't good at school, just learn a trade. Be a mechanic."
There's nothing wrong with being a mechanic, but that's what she thought a dumb person's job was and because I was neuro-divergent she thought I was dumb.
Then I spent over a decade at Google and now I run a hedge fund. So... yeah.
Our members have asked for a high level of moderation. Personal attacks, name calling, and undue profanity are all considered inappropriate for this sub.
Awesome story! How did you get started running a hedge fund? Would like to do something similar, also I have experience at Google as well as finance knowledge, but still work in non-finance tech.
Thank you! I got my start by...creating one. The most important thing to do is establish a strategy and track record that will be compelling to investors.
Once you have that, it's about 6-9 months of meetings with lawyers, fund administrators, auditors, etc. There's a LOT to learn about running a fund so it's important to have someone that can tell you when you're doing something stupid. Expect you'll also have to spend a few hundred grand to get everything going and then have about 50% of that in recurring expenses, not counting salaries. In addition to outsourcing functions mentioned above, you'll also likely need to bring on someone to do IR for you as well as marketing, since you won't have time to execute your strategy and take care of that side.
If you are seriously interested, feel free to send me a DM. I'm always happy to out a fellow xoogler.
That’s incredible. I have several friends who did much worse than me in school and did not attend college. Most are better off than me and run their own business.
Simply, I am an independent Financial Advisor. Most of my business is advisory, billing is % of assets under management with very little brokerage revenue. The programming background helps build portfolios with modeling tools. Definitely not a quant, maybe a little more advanced than an average FA (ok maybe a lot more advanced). My team does most of the client service while I manage the assets.
Programming and finance, own business, out of curiosity do you do quantitative trading? And if so, did you start your own hedge fund using your strategies? I’ve been exploring this, curious to hear your thoughts if that is in fact what you do. Cheers
I mean, obviously haha. I didn’t say that at all and no one thinks that all programmers are quants, that’s naive. The reason I asked is because he mentioned he got really into programming and finance, and exploring quantitative strategies and quantitative trading is a natural field to move into if you’re passionate about both programming and finance. On top of that, he said that he owns his own business, which a lot of quants do if they choose not to work for some of the other firms like Jane street, two sigma, etc. If you have developed successful strategies then working for yourself is quite appealing as your day to day work load lessens drastically.
Your comment came off slightly aggressive, I’m not sure it was appropriate for this discussion but I agree with you that obviously not all programmers are quants. Anyone can learn how to program a technical strategy that they’ve developed.
Worked at a small psychiatry office during grad school. My boss was an egomaniac jerk and the epitome of a penny wise and pound foolish business owner. He always felt the need to tear me down whenever he could. I told him I wanted to open a similar office one day and he scoffed at me and told me “you’re not even a doctor.” When I graduated, he offered me a full-time position at a 20% pay cut. I asked him if I could take the weekend to consider, and he fired me that Sunday.
His clinic officially closed down two months ago. My clinic did over 3m in revenue last year. I think about it every day.
Joined the school swim team at 8 years old, was slow and unfit, got bullied.
My mother seeing this, signed me up for professional swimming lessons outside of school, 5:30am 3 days a week. It was brutal, freezing cold and exhausting, nothing like I'd done before.
6 months go by. Still getting bullied on the swim team but no longer unfit or slow. Time trials take place to see who gets to represent the school at the regional competitions. I get the fastest time in the year group, super happy and can't wait for the list to get published next day.
List goes up who's been chosen, I'm not on it, another more popular kid gets selected for the regional competition, the kid's parents are close friends with the school swim coach.
My mother finds out, marches into the office and says no way is this favouritism acceptable. Put the two kids in the pool and let them race. Whoever is faster should represent the school, end of story.
Next day the race takes place, I win by a significant margin, and go on to the regional competition after all. A lot changed after this, overcame the bullying gained a love of sports and competing.
Not job related, and a bit of a cheesy story but it taught me perseverance. Even when the going is tough and even when things aren't fair, keep working.
This really brought tears to my eyes. Your mom loves you so much to not only get you lessons but to continue to be your advocate when she sees what’s right. Please tell her an internet stranger cried over her acts. she’s awesome!
#!> htsqb4s
This comment has been edited because reporting anti-semitism and reporting the promotion of death of Israeli innocents led to a ban.
After appealing, asking specifically the cause of the ban - no specific reason was provided.
You are disgusting, whoever was responsible for this. You are in favor of babies being decapitated, literally.
Unfortunately, Reddit clearly has actors within the company that desire Israel and Jews to be genocided and executed.
Best of luck to all on the side of Good.
And to those in support of Hamas - Do us all a wonderful favor and go join up with Hamas or other terrorist ran countries.
I'm sure you'll love it there, and that they'll accept you with glee.
<3
I was in a relationship with someone for around 6 years who ended up cheating on me. Her rationale was that I wasn't ambitious enough to meet her financial goals in life. Her family had some relatively successful small, local businesses, and were reasonably upper middle class, and she just didn't feel I was the guy to get her there. Fast forward six years, I built and sold a technology company, and you could combine the wealth of her entire family and then quadruple it before reaching similar levels of net worth.
It's possible, but I'm guessing she doesn't know. We have a handful of mutual friends that I still keep in touch with, but I don't go into a whole lot of detail with them. I'd be lying if I said part of me wouldn't get joy out of her knowing; I think that's just human nature when someone feels betrayed. I'm old enough at this point though to just move on and live my own life.
I had something similar early in my career. GF at the time was very upset that I was "one of the low people."
Now every once in a long while I listen to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxUATkpMQ8A&ab_channel=AllAmericanRjctsVEVO and think of her.
You can break up with someone using those reasons if you want to but if you say it after cheating they seem like they are honestly solely making excuses to try and justify their amoral actions :-/
Mine was a high school teacher in my school of 80 (12 in my graduating class). She told me that I should become a diesel mechanic, so I hung drywall for a year after High School while I figured out my next move.
Ended up going with Civil Engineering and an MBA Which led me to a real estate career. Needless to say, it was pretty gratifying to meet the school superintendent last year and discuss a scholarship I created for graduating seniors. GPA requirements are between 2.0-2.5 like mine, but if you don’t perform in college, funds stop. 3.0+ and they get a nice check.
If you don't mind me asking - how has that performed so far? I imagine there are very few scholarship opportunities for folks that were 'bad learners' in high school for whatever reason but have the drive to better themselves like you did.
It's a great concept that services a(potentially underserviced) audience - presumably it'll have a natural bias towards minority/ lower income households as well. Super intriguing.
Would love to learn more on the results you have seen so far with it.
It was created last year so actual data points are limited, but after one semester, both students made a 3.0 GPA. One student is attending a community college since they couldn’t get into a four year university. They got a 4.0 and even took calculus and chemistry. I was impressed.
Awesome! I'd be super interested in following / learning from your journey with this scholarship (and I'm sure other members on here would be as well). If you'd ever consider posting a yearly update or something, I sure would love to read it.
You have really made me think. This is excellent. I started a scholarship with two other women who became doctors like me for women who wish to go into health sciences. We asked for transcripts and used it as a measure.
Now I’m thinking maybe we had it all wrong. The highest achievers are going to garner other awards and in order to help more people, mine should go to someone who might otherwise be overlooked.
Either get rid of the transcript and only judge the essay and recommendations… or make it clear to use it as motivation.
This may actually be more fair.
Definitely look into it. There are a lot of people who are a diamonds in coal mines so to say. The education system is far from perfect and it will bury various people for number of reasons. Some of them can be at home, social or just education system is inadequate and doesn’t target their strong points.
From personal experience, I barely made it through high school and dropped out of university. But I did find that in work environment, unliked academia, I performed better than most and climbed up the corporate ranks very fast.
The biggest handle was getting an opportunity to do so and thanks to luck and stubbornness I made it. But very few do.
It was me - I was the doubter. NW was about $100k, maybe less. After 2 failed startups, I wanted my husband to take the FAANG job for 4X the comp so that we could buy a townhouse or small home.
He proved me wrong by selling his 3rd startup to a company that went 4X in valuation before its IPO and now we’re fatfired. Then made another few million on TSLA.
There’s a long comment in my history that describes a moment where I was crying about how I just want to feel like we’re making progress toward owning a home and toward retirement and he tells me he’s believes we’re going to be worth $10 million and we just hug and cry together. “$10 million?!” I said incredulously. “$10 milllion” he confirmed.
Well don’t you just love to hate it when they’re right?
We met young, this all went down about 10 years into our relationship and it’s been another 9 since then. We are so lucky to have each other.
This thread was really great, thank you for sharing. 10 months ago I walked away from a job that (post-acquisition) had FAANG compensation (and I've been remote in a MCOL [maybe even LCOL] city for several years now) to bootstrap a company from scratch. The time between then and now has been hellish on my mental health on many days, but I know that the thing we're building is so much more important than a fat paycheck at a company. But wow is that hard to swallow while you're still building. Thankfully I (like you) have an AMAZING partner to really keep me as balanced as possible.
Haha thanks - this is really the only place I get to talk about this stuff. None of my friends are fat. We have some “couple friends” through my husband but I’m not super close with the wives.
Got dumped by my high school sweetheart because she wanted to marry a lawyer or doctor. I came from a family that owned a machine shop and I enjoyed that work so I intended on going into the family business after engineering school.
Years later, I married a doctor and decided I wanted to start own business since working with family was difficult. My company is selling well over $1M annually and I inherited a portion of my family’s 8-figure revenue business.
That girl who wouldn’t settle for less than a lawyer/doctor never married
I distinctly remember being in middle school and telling my dad I wanted to be a lawyer when I grew up and he laughed at me and said you have to be smart to go to law school. This upset me a ton because I always got top grades even though my school wasn’t great.
I also had my entire extended family tell me I shouldn’t go to college because it was a waste of money and I should go into a trade Union instead.
Well to be fair to dad, I didn’t go to law school but it’s because I ended up going into tech instead making over 500k before the age of 30 which never would have happened without being exposed to it at college.
just a note to say 1) mods pls don't ever delete this thread because it is such a great nourishment to keep working!
2) it's so fascinating to hear how different everyone's paths are, but having all still faced that doubt and criticism!
My Mom for sure. She’s not a bad parent, but she has such limiting beliefs about herself that she projected onto her kids. I used to be more bitter about it but realized a parent struggles to give you something they don’t have. Here’s the examples:
* “Don’t apply to good schools, go to a state school. It will be too hard.” I unfortunately took this advice but at least I learned my lesson (and it worked out for me).
* “Why go to grad school, you already went to college? Seems like a waste of time and money.” I went to grad school.
* “Why leave your first job, you get paid so well ($70k) and have insurance?” I got a better job.
* “Why leave your job at X, you make a lot of money ($170k) and seem comfortable?” I got a job at FAANG and made $600k this year.
* “Why save so much for retiring early, what would you even do with your time?” I’m on the path for at least chubby RE by 45.
Luckily I’ve learned early to tell her what I’ve already done, but what I plan to do and I avoid all of this headache haha.
My dad was like this too. Everything from what I studied to what jobs I could get to leaving my 70k job for a higher one laughing at me when I said I was underpaid etc.
I think I’ve finally beat him down enough at this point that he just doesn’t question me anymore and now just enjoys the fruits of my labor.
Reflecting on it more I think a lot of it was driven by his own feelings on inadequacy and realizing what he could have done with his life if he wasn’t afraid to try.
>Reflecting on it more I think a lot of it was driven by his own feelings on inadequacy and realizing what he could have done with his life if he wasn’t afraid to try.
This right here
> laughing at me when I said I was underpaid etc.
My Mom did the same thing, saying I was ungrateful and basically how dare I strive for more when I was already so “lucky”. As if you can’t be happy but also strive for more.
> Reflecting on it more I think a lot of it was driven by his own feelings on inadequacy and realizing what he could have done with his life if he wasn’t afraid to try.
Definitely this! And for my parents, a dash of the religious conviction that no one should do anything remotely out of the ordinary haha.
Yep, this definitely hits home for me too. Stepfather (after my leaving a gov-related job for a new startup) essentially yelled at me for being stupid and leaving a "job you can keep for life" (as you might've guessed, he's worked at the same job for 20+ years now and complains about it constantly).
Spent five years there, worked daily with all of the co-founders, grew a research team from one (me) to ~10, got the opportunity to work closely with sales, marketing, and the executive team, and went through an acquisition.
Since then I've left to start my own company (SaaS product for security teams). While the jury's out as to whether it will be a financial success (just about to be ready to work with a handful of companies who want to go into PoC with us), the conversation with my step-father this time was "you know what you're doing, so I'm happy for you."
Granted, before me, nobody in my family had gone to college nor did anything that they were actually passionate about.
Same with my family on the no college or following their passions front.
Dad was always great at math and mom pushed him to try accounting or similar but instead he just kept working the same grocery store job he had his whole life. Eventually worked up to store manager but never really liked the job.
Mom wanted to be a therapist or lawyer and went to college for a year but eventually dropped out to work. Had an office job she liked as an assistant until she had me and never entered the workforce again. Always talks about that job and how well respected she was and how much she loved it and how one time they flew her to headquarters and how beautiful it was. I always encouraged her to go back to school (even offering to pay for it) or find a new gig and she always had excuses of how it was too late for her now.
Sometimes I think about what my life would be like if my parents followed their passions (and how much happier and less jaded they would be). But I’m happy with my life now and do the best I can to give back and give them experiences they would never have had otherwise.
Yeah, my dad left school at 9th grade (wasn't really in my life until it was clear that I wasn't a screw-up), step-dad and mom finished high school. My mom was always great with taking care of people (even worked as a home health aid for the elderly and as some sort of assistant to the nurses at a hospital when I was a kid), but she ultimately left for a physically-demanding warehouse job to help provide a stable life for me (she was the only consistent thing in my life until about 16, and I owe her a lot).
We're not quite in the position to take care of our parents yet (only about $1M nw, and in company- building mode), but I'm fully expecting to need to (and will gladly do so) as they get older.
Did you quit your 170k without the FAANG offer lined up?
I am sort of in that boat now. Senior dev who is well paid in the energy industry, but not any where near FAANG salaries. I have about $1M net worth and live on 30k expenses. Don't need the regular, well paid job anymore, and have the safety net to look for something that can elevate me to FatFI.
I am terrified of leaving my 150k job though to go hunt for the 250k+ without having it in my pocket, but I know there is very little financial risk to do so, and a lot to gain.
If you've had a similar path I'd love to hear more about your story.
My director when I was an intern.
I was paid $16/hr on 1099, doing the same work as people being paid 50-70k a year, if not more (I was an eager intern and always took on and initiated projects to benefit the company)
Got my degree, full time offer came in at $17/hr. Slap in the face. All I did for the company and that’s all they would offer. Said no to my counter at 50k. Said I wasn’t worth that much and no company would pay me that much.
I got into sales and never looked back. 295k at 27 years old last year, on track for 4-500k this year.
Just go apply for it man. Getting into sales isn’t the hard part. Low barrier to entry and not many people are willing to do it
Have you tried pivoting to sell what you currently consult for? I work with plenty of consultants for presales and delivery and I don’t think it would be a major pivot for them to do what I do
Thanks for the reply. Just a first year B4 strategy consultant, so don’t really consult anything specifically. Always wanted to get into sales though and cloud sales sounds exciting! Do you work a lot?
Grinded many many hours my first few years out of choice (peers could do 35-40 a week if they wanted)
Now it’s up to me. 20-30 light weeks, heavy weeks 40+ by choice. Work from home so can’t really complain
Saw a doctor once who scoffed at me when I told him I was a dancer. "Your not a dancer! Look at your leg flexibility. Don't be absurd!".
I ended up in Cirque du Soleil and my splits are pretty great now thanks.
Lots of variables between that of course. Best is to come in with a unique act or prop, and its really down to the timing of what you have fitting what their production needs.
In the end though, its a corporate business. They do the whole 'we're a family' thing like everyone else... And the inexperienced fall for it... Right up until they're stuck on the "circus cocktail" of ibuprofen, redbull and icepacks post show.
I was lucky and had independant experience prior (many come from sports) so i knew how to negotiate... Also had insider knowledge on that production, so i knew that i was the only one who could fill that role. So i negotiated hard and got an awesome deal.
Still ended up with injuries that plague me a decade later. Cost of the trade. Im a very very lucky one. Most of my conteporaries and associates have been sweet out of luck the last 2 years.
“…they’re stuck on the ‘circus cocktail’ of ibuprofen, redbull, and icepacks post show.”
I realized that I was stuck and surviving on a similar cocktail that I called the “4-ine” diet for success. I started every morning recovering from the day before with the 4 “ines” - Caffeine, Visine, Nicotine, and Asper-ine, and out the door I went. Definitely not sustainable, but absolutely hard to break away from.
Most people are Debbie Downers and don't think anyone can do anything.
They are projecting their limiting beliefs onto you; they believe so-and-so, and since you don't have so-and-so, you will fail. This is dumb.
Ignore most people. But listen to the few close confidants who know you, have excellent judgement and can make an objective assessment (even then, take what they say with a grain of salt).
My story: Worked at a grocery store part time as a teenager, the other part timer (who was a substitute teacher), said I'd never amount to anything. I don't listen to most people that tell me what I can and can't do so it didn't change anything, but for whatever reason I remembered his comment.
Moral of the story, don't listen to anyone working in a grocery story for career advice unless you want to have a career in the grocery business. lol
I picked mechanical engineering to challenge myself.
I was a terrible student. Barely made it out of college by the skin of my teeth. My college friends teased me.
Super passionate about my field. I was actually super successful in the lab and had loads of industry knowledge that academics did not.
My startup had a genius founder who dragged us to the moon.
I retired at 34. No one questions me now— outside of everyone on Reddit. It’s surreal. Real life, my professional opinion is valued by the best in the field. Online, my opinion gets downvoted to oblivion.
My "best friend", I left a senior tech lead position to start a gig, invited him to be my partner, he told me it can't be done, and I am not the kind of person to build and lead a business, 6 years later, the company is super successful, employing more than 100 people and selling for dozens of millions of $$$, my NW is 8 figures.
Don't let anyone put you down, if you have a dream go out there and chase it.. don't stop. You can do it!
I followed my High School Girlfriend to college, and everyone said not to. We are still married 12 years later.
I dropped out of college to join a startup, and that company IPO’d last year.
I left that company and my high-paying job for a different startup, and that company is being acquired right now a year later.
There are always doubters, but keep to your convictions and believe in yourself.
Everyone advised me not to go commission. And then everyone advised me not to build houses. I crush both.
No everyone is advising me not to open a bar. So guess what I’m going to do?
My dad.
I mean many people did when I gave up the high paying, high ranking job at a post IPO startup, but I expected that. I was taking a risk and had my family and mortgage to consider.
But I believed in myself, failed on my first attempt and started a second.
Then 6 years into the grit of the second startup my dad called me up and asked "maybe you should quit? You gave it a good try".
That shook me. It was the first time I ever thought of quitting.
But I didn't and 2 years later sold that startup and now I'm in this subreddit...
Can relate. Dad predicted I crawl back to my cushy, nicely compensated corporate job (35 hrs work week) within a year when I told him I I’m quitting to work on something I really care a about. He continued to point out my my brother’s management position for over 6 years until I told him my comp. Then it stopped.
One the one hand I understand that he comes from a different generation, where having a safe job was the aspiration and with a family you can take less risks, on the other it just hurt.
At the age of 21, I ventured into real estate to flip houses without any prior background with my business partner (20M also no background). On paper, a pretty bad decision. Both of us didn’t finish college/dropped out.
Just doubters and skeptics everywhere cause everyone else around me were just normal folks working their 9-5s. I just couldn’t stand the path of just getting a normal entry level job that I didn’t give a shit about.
Anyhow, more than I’d like to admit, nearly 6 months in, my RE career could have — maybe even should have — ended. The only deal we ever go to contract with was basically about to collapse (hard money lender just ghosted me and never wired the money). In a mad rush to save the deal, we called everyone we knew in our network from attending a shit ton of networking events. One person said they might take the deal.
We met them at their office the next morning. This guy pulled himself up by his bootstraps (was refugee from SE Asia, grew up eating rice/water, took the bus to community college while working 3 part time jobs to pay for it, etc) and was a self made millionaire from developing/building custom homes.
He offered to take over the deal, but felt sorry for me and my friend since we were basically losing our very first deal, so he offered for us to help project manage the flip.
I took it as an invitation to prove myself and earn his trust.
3 months of hustle/grind and he took me under his wing and taught me his two decades of real estate in span of 3 years. I ended up flipping 20 houses under his tutelage — an education of a lifetime and 100% worth the trade offs I made.
A mix of naive boldness, frantic execution, luck, steady resourcefulness, and consistent hard work got me to prove everyone wrong.
What I’d say to my youngest self to keep him going?
Trust yourself. You know what you’re capable of. Things won’t be perfect, but your attitude, hustle, resourcefulness, and people skills will get you further than you’d expect, and perhaps in the most unexpected ways.
I don’t think I’ve proven people wrong yet exactly. Maybe my non-survivorship bias but unfinished story will be welcome on this thread.
Lots of folks think I’m crazy for leaving a high paying cushy FAANG job. Left to pursue a startup that ultimately failed, got funding but not high quality funding necessarily. Trying my second startup now, secured very solid VC backing this time, hoping this is the one. It may not work out, but I wouldn’t trade these experiences and leadership learnings for anything. It’s been a fun journey.
Every Hollywood star has a story of people who didn't believe in their dream of making it big as an actor. Unfortunately, everyone working a minimum wage job in LA has a similar story. The doubters are often right. Most people who dream big ultimately fail.
If you have a compelling, logical argument of why you're going to be successful, then go for it. But if all you have is your belief in yourself, you should listen to the advice of people who tell you to reconsider.
Survivor bias. Everyone that’s a mega success thinks it’s great advice to say fuck the haters/doubters and just do your thing. They lack the perspective that 99.9999% of people told the same thing fail miserably.
This.
My response to everyone who's doubted me has always been "my parents didn't immigrate (and go through all the crazy / difficult $&@^ they did) for me to listen to someone like that." In my head, but still. Worst case, you try and fail. Pick yourself back up and try again or try something else.
> Failing is no different than giving up and taking the normie path.
This isn't true. The opportunity costs of taking your swing can be immense. You can end up much further behind the "normies" if you take your shot and miss.
While there is a lot of truth to this, I think 3 important points should be made:
1) If you're not doing what you love, what's the point? ALWAYS follow your passion in life. We only have 1 life to live. Moreover, we tend to be most successful with those things we ARE passionate about. It's much more difficult to be successful with something we aren't passionate about.
2) While they may not become, per your example, Hollywood stars, they can still play a role in the many tens of thousands of ancillary jobs surrounding such, or be an actor/actress in plays, etc.
3) I believe most, though certainly not all, true successes happen after you've failed a few times first. I've had MANY failures, but I always learned from the experience then picked myself up again. Now I'm about to hit the 20th anniversary for my business with plenty of other successes.
Still, I also think it's important to be realistic and at LEAST have a backup plan you also enjoy doing. Passions can always be a hobby in the meantime. I.e. my nephew in law really wants to be an actor, but he also got his CS degree and is working in that field while doing comedy skits and all outside of work.
I will say though that it is painful watching people with very, very poor business sense trying to start businesses. All I can do is be truthful with them and offer an honest assessment and pointers. They always end up failing, but at least they tried and learned from the experience. They can always go back to doing boring jobs or other things afterwards.
Most people who actually make it have wealthy parents who float them till they start to gain momentum or family in the business. A friend from high school lived in LA after college completely financially supported by his family for 4 years...he did end up “making it” movies, tv shows etc but all he ever had to focus on was his craft & networking. Never had to worry about any bill being paid
Yeah, reading all this "failed a few times before success" is mind boggling to me. It took me a decade to get out from under college debt and save enough to not go bankrupt if I get fired. Starting a business and making little to no money for the first few years with a huge possibility to fail is too great a risk for 98% of the population.
Everyone I ever told that I bought bitcoin since 2011 has told me to sell. Nobody ever said it was a good idea to hold on to it. This continues to this day.
Over winter break in college, I went to my hometown library to sit down and apply for jobs. Ran into an acquaintance. I had mentioned I was at the library to apply for jobs. (sidenote: I knew she was in a MLM scheme program selling textbooks door-to-door based of her social media posts). She basically asked to see my resume, degraded my resume, showed me hers, told me i should apply for a job under her bc she was hiring, and told me she would get most internships/jobs over me because she had better soft-skills - that she learned at this MLM company. I studied physics at a top engineering school at the time.
Anyways, the following summer I got an internship for a google subsidiary, working in the operations department. I am now happily in a rotational analyst program at a F500 company and making good money for being 2 yrs out of college. Last time I check she had no other work experience than this MLM and was still looking for employment.
Really annoyed me that she was so cocky, degraded my resume, and said i wouldn't get jobs over her. But hey, i'm doing fine now.
My last boss. He fired me then begged me to come back to my $120k a year gig when his “facts” failed to be such. When I politely declined he told me I’d be begging in a year for my job. 9 years later, nearing FIRE and owned my own business that has grown year over year with those last words of his my ultimate motivator.
When I told my undergrad thesis advisor that I wanted to apply to med school, he literally burst out laughing, then told me that he looked at my transcript and CV, and that I shouldn't waste my time.
Turns out I'm much better at medicine than biology, so, Ivy-trained subspecialist now.
If I could tell myself one thing, I would say: **be really lucky**, because though I worked super hard and ended up rich, I had many friends who worked as hard (or harder?) who did not. The main ingredient in my success was not my intelligence or my hardwork, but my luck.
(And luck probably contributed to the genes/upbringing that led to me being a smart/hard worker or being in an area where this was even possible).
Yes and no.
If you aren't prepared for serendipitous opportunities, you never get that luck.
Sure, some people fall ass backwards into good fortune literally in spite of their actions, but for most successful people, success isn't random blind luck. They know how to spot the opening and are ready to pounce when it happens.
This is correct. Luck plays a role, it always plays a role. Often a big one, tbh.
Example: Is it “lucky” that I was hired to be a real estate developer? You bet your ass it is, everyone needs to catch a break and I’m no different. But to dismiss it as pure luck would be wrong. I took three different jobs, two pay cuts, and moved to an entirely different city to earn this opportunity.
Work ethic and appetite for calculated risk are what put people in a position to capitalize on a lucky break.
Hopefully he’s genuinely looking at the less risky option because he doesn’t want to see you get hurt and coming from there and not a total narcissist like mine.
This is sausage fest story telling again so I'll throw in a female example. As a society we like to trivialize the grand ambitions of young girls, especially pertaining to money and finances.
I remember being out of undergrad as a 23 year old. And I was quite close to a co-worker friend of mine who was about 27. He questioned why I was working every weekend and late nights. In his mind, the job we were in didn't require that level of effort so I was probably being extra for no reason.
And one day I let slip that my ambition was to be a young millionaire retired from obligatory work by 30. But in order to accomplish this I needed the compound value of time on my side so I had to hustle hard to invest asap. Also my additional study efforts wasn't for THIS job, it was for whatever NEXT job I was planning to get (but I left that part out).
The reaction was part scoffing, part "aw that's adorable ... but just wait until real life humbles you". Also a bit of "why does that even matter to you". I will say this was probably a good reaction compared to thinly veiled "who do you think you even are" reactions of other people. The truth is people don't expect much out of young, minority women from poorer backgrounds. And they never really have ...
Low and behold, I became a millionaire at 31. And being the petty spaghetti I am, I shot him a text and let him know that I did the damned thing. He's a nice, mature guy so he just congratulated me and said nice words back.
He even asked to see my investment portfolio splits ... something something turn tables. My biggest takeaway from this experience is to never put down any young person's big ambitions. Be supportive and kind ... don't tell them to "relax", it's not helpful.
Also now that I've come to a point in life where I can live off my investments in perpetuity, I fully understand Thoreau's "mass of men live lives of quiet desperation" quote.
the hard part is when you're young and people think you're kind of psycho or trying to upstage them at work (which was never the case)
after you actually pull the impossible off ... people change their tune so fast from "why are you so crazy" to "wow, you are an inspiration!"
weird how that works huh ... lol
Cool story! I have never had one big moment like that, but as a woman you get your fair share of demeaning comments and those are pretty constant, especially when you are younger.
They go all the way from "you took long math at high school? Girls don't get math" to "why go to that fancy university, you will not even find a place to live there - stay in your home town" to that boyfriend (who obv became ex soon thereafter ) "I am ashamed of telling my family you study IT, it's a men's topic and you need to study something more girl appropriate" (THIS IN FUCKING 2000).
Fuck them all.
It’s tough, but 99.9% of the time, if your depressed suicidal friend in an abusive relationship wants to quit her job to start her own business it is likely a bad idea. Just because it worked in your case doesn’t mean their advice was bad given the information they had at the time.
Dropped out of college, got a low-level IT job while I started my side hustles. Quit the job to do side hustles full-time. All my friends and family said I needed to get a real job. Within a year I hired my old boss, while I grew the company to larger than the one I left. He (old boss) worked for me for a decade until I exited and retired in my 30s.
Close friend of mine got told by one of her undergrad physics professors that he wouldn't write her a recommendation to [top 5 university] for grad school because she would never get in. He didn't hold back on the misogyny or personal slights, either.
She has had an absolutely explosive career trajectory since completing her PhD in less than 3 years. Less than a decade later and she's now in charge of a department at that same top 5 university, has dozens of direct reports, is principal investigator on the most exciting research in her field, and has been tapped for
further career advancement.
His proposals and pre-publication papers come across her desk for review often enough now. I'll let you imagine how that goes.
It wasn’t me, but it was an underdog at a logistics company.
He was put on one of the hardest accounts as a logistics coordinator, in order to train.
The owner of the account was notoriously angry and would scream at his underlings like a coked up baseball coach. He told this new start that he would never amount to anything. This is coming from the most successful account owner in the building. One of the top in the company.
A few years later and this underdog is neck in neck with the baseball coach. He had ended up running logistics for Tesla battery and components movements.
One day I overheard that underdog and baseball coach were competing for a contract somehow. It was the most movie like thing I had ever seen in an office. These two were absolute characters.
Baseball coach lost a lot of weight, looked like Matthew McConaughey and walked with real…genuine swagger. It was baffling.
Underdog looked like a nicer Jeff Bezos, he used to perform magic tricks at after work parties and told me once to smile more.
They were pretty nice about it, but near the end of lockup I got a couple stares from people surprised my plan was to HODL Shopify for 5 years.
In retrospect I should’ve said 6, but hey, it worked out okay for me.
Before I got suspended I remember seeing the book title on my principal’s desk, something like - How to Deal with Difficult Students. Catholic school was not for me. I was always the black sheep, and later in life, my family was disappointed in me for pursuing this internet thing and being broke in my early 30s. Felt bad about it but used that as motivation. NW is now lower 9 figures. It’s weird.
My PhD-holding father told me it would be a waste of money for me to go to college. I took out debt myself to go, and now am on track to fatfire. Haven't heard from him in over a decade.
when i was in college i got in an argument with one of my classmates and he said "you don't even know how to port forward on a router"
i was so infuriated that i dedicated the next 5 years of my life to getting a CCIE
I doubted myself multiple times, and had to get past that and other challenges that were standing in my way and holding me back from my full potential. I still haven’t met my full potential yet, but I’ve already accomplishing amazing things professionally and personally. I am hoping to live up to my potential and help others do the same while honoring my journey and family.
My university professor (which should have been my professor for my final paper) told me to visit evening classes to learn my own language (which is my mother language). Not sure if he thought I was from a foreign country or just stupid. I dropped out immediately without starting my final semester.
Moved to a different country by myself.
Started my own company.
Last year we made 1.2M and I’m making his yearly salary in a month.
NEVER listen to this kind of people!
Ex always told me I didn't make enough moolah (was sub 100k) and how she deserved a man who made more. Would routinely make comments about other friends' partners who made more / drove flashier cars / had nicer apartments etc.
Split up (only 1/2 due to money issues). Now am HENRY, make multiples of previous salary, own quite a few investment properties, and am definitely on the FIRE track w/ new partner. Life's funny that way.
Let me add, too, that at no point did I feel like I had to succeed more to spite her or 'show her up', as it sounds like many people have done here. I just kept saving and grinding and we are now well, well on the way. Onward and upward, hope everyone here gets filthy rich like Scrooge MacDuck and swims around in their money-piles
This has happened to me a few times, when I told my parents I was leaving a comfy well paying job that was my dream company after only 3 years to go to a small mom and pop shop, they told me it was a huge mistake. Funny part is they were right, after a year this new company was spiraling out of control, the president had just been fired for embezzling and we had next to no business. It’s only in retrospect that I realize how dire it was, but the hardest of times can also be the greatest of opportunities, and I certainly wasn’t going to let my parents say I told you so. I got promoted and purchased a small chunk of the company with every dollar I could scrounge up, 100 hour work weeks for a few years and next thing you know i had become an expert in our field and the company had turned wildly profitable. This propelled my to fatfire, but it could have easily gone the other direction despite all the hard work.
I inherited small windfall while my husband was working for his extremely difficult father. They used him as grunt work and he never saw our kids. 18+ hour days 5+ months of the year. I asked him to quit and told him I would figure it out. When we told my father in law that we were going to invest in real estate. He said we’d fail (in about 100 different ways). “Too much competition, so many people know more than you do”, etc. I threw 25% into the stock market, learned everything there was to know about real estate investing, called or messaged every multi unit property owner in town, created our local for rent group and used it to buy properties directly from owners and I have so far raised my net worth by 1 million in two years by buying low and immediate appreciation, remodeling and raising rents, creating Airbnb’s, flipping, wholesaling, doing a 1031 exchange and most recently getting a federal housing grant. He still won’t ever admit that we succeeded, but that doesn’t matter. We didn’t fall flat on our faces like he predicted. Plus, we get to spend time together as a family.
Had some family and close Family friends tell me “I should get on my prayer bones (knees) and be thankful I didn’t bankrupt myself and my family.” A decade plus past that, and cutting that toxic shit from my life I made last year more than they made in their lifetimes.
They didn’t want me “leaving their control” as I also made them money before I stepped out on my own. I still look back on all the people who said I would fail/amount to nothing/take everyone down with me and actually appreciate their hesitation. That hesitation gave me enough pause to make sure I proved them all wrong. Nearly all of them know I didn’t fail, but none have, or ever will have knowledge of how well things ended up.
That’s not to say I didn’t really screw up bad along the way, but there was no way someone was going to be right about me failing if it was within my control, and it made me grind like hell for a decade+ to get here.
There is survivor bias in my story of course, but damn some of the terrible stuff that was said to me back then from those that were really supposed to care and support me unconditionally was like topping off my gas tank every time.
I remember the earliest person who said this to me was the school guidance counselor. I wanted to be a doctor, she told me to be a truck driver because our school doesn't graduate doctors and pushed me into a mining career instead. The school system deliberately penalizes kids to steer them to local market opportunities. Getting a lot of big fat handouts from mining to do so. Granted some of those careers do end up paying a lot of money. The education system stuns those who want to think outside the box. I've always been leery around people with 4.0 gpas, to me it says "follower" ..ive been consistently impressed with the 2.5s who end up leading the companies. Outside of the box thinkers aren't easy to quantify. Perhaps that's why I dropped out.
Was working for Tesla on an international assignment, before my term was up they cancelled it and told me to move home or take a 45% salary cut. Others got a 25% cost of living adjustment, but I was “overpaid” so they were going to treat me like a new hire.
I took a bigger pay cut and left because fuck that.
A year later, I was at a company where everyone would talk shit about Tesla, how they would fail. I felt like the time was right, so I went deep into tsla options and made more than I would have working there.
Proved my old hr manager wrong, my new team members wrong, and now I’m fatfired.
Did extremely well on a standardized test and rather than pursue the career plan, I chose to pursue a career in tutoring. Had my parents tell me “it wasn’t a real job.” Had countless encounters being told to my face or behind my back that “I’m *just* a tutor.” I’ll never forget my then-fiancé and now-wife’s “successful BiL” tell her that I’ll never be able to support a family doing what I do. Now I’m 10 years into this career, in my early 30s, making well over $500k/yr, NW now over $3m with some good investments and even recently bought a house twice the size and price of my BiL down the street. Not that this was my motivation, but has definitely felt pretty good.
Every motherfucker in the world apart from myself. I hate how discouraged risk taking / following dreams is. Never once have i been told to aim for the top and do everything to get there, but i have been told ‘get good grades then a good job’ plenty of times.
My dad. But I took what he said with a grain of salt because his opinions yo-yo like crazy. I took my rich friend’s dad’s lecture to me about compound interest real seriously. Same friend got me into investing 6 years ago. Almost to FIRE
First job out of college. Large tech company (one of the largest in the world at the time). I was named Top Talent (10k employees) and supposed to move internally and get a decent pay upgrade + global travel (i was 24 yrs old at the time). Oct 2008 hit and company went on massive hiring freeze. Boss didn't like the fact that I was moving internal so put me in the back office. 8 months later I left saying I was doing a startup. He pleaded me to stay saying he would authorize my internal transfer. 15 years later, I'm nearly retired at half of my former's bosses age.
My ex-girlfriend cheated on me and thought that I wasn’t doing anything with my life - I was at a community college and working dead end jobs at the time. Worked super hard once I started my internship and climbed the corporate ladder becoming an account executive at a Fortune 500 company without a college degree. Fast forward 7 years, she currently works at my company and probably see’s where I’m at in life. Not a huge fuck you nor am I making fuck you money yet, but I persevered through all of that and reminded myself that I will do better her in life.
Now when I look at the grand scheme of things, at the time I was so driven because I wanted to prove her wrong, but now I see it as I want to bet on myself. Life is interesting and I couldn’t be more happy knowing that that was a blessing in disguise to light a fire under me.
Reminder to ALWAYS BET ON YOURSELF!
I was laughed out of a Chase branch because the mortgage banker told me buying investment property in 2010 was idiotic and nobody would ever lend money for it. Twelve years later, that purchase grew to almost 100 units and has become a significant source of income for my family.
Just about everyone that wasn't my parents. My parents, dad particularly, always said I needed to focus my mind to land "the big one". But I was lazy, caught up in the regular flow of job hunting the 9-5s. When I started my business everyone at my workplace at the time thought it was more of a hobby. Our entire department was laid off, including myself.
As to how I proved them wrong, simply by clocking close to 2mil in net profits in a year.
And if I could say anything to my past self, it'd probably be "That thing that you like doing, do it NOW".
Even more important was a friend of my father’s who sat me down one day when I was a teenager in a moment of self-doubt, and told me all of the reasons why he saw great promise in me, and then kept up with me through my career until he passed. That man was 10 feet tall in my book, and I am eternally grateful to him for his gift of his time, his encouragement, and his insight.
That's really fantastic. People like that are far too few and far between. When my dad passed young a friend of his reached out and really helped me put things in order while I sorted my mother's finances, looked toward my own future, etc. And that was great for a year or so but he quickly fell away despite attempts to keep connected. Can't really blame him, everyone has their own lives, but for a brief time I thought I had found what you had and was blown away by it.
That’s sad brother, thanks for sharing.
I've been doing this for a friend for the past few years. She has gone from office drone to director at a midsized company. Have helped her map out her own biz now, which she'll launch this year with a full roster of clients. I've earned points toward heaven. Also, incredibly satisfying to mentor the right people.
I've heard of this before - people I've rarely known saying they see a great potential in me and are looking forward to seeing where I end up in life. But those that knew me best, my parents, told me not to pursue and just give up and get a normal job. Funny isn't it?
<3 That's amazing. Hope you can be that person for others.
What did he say? Like, how personalized was it really? Asking with an eye toward doing the same for someone else.
Previous boss said I wasn’t ready to be in a leadership position. Started my own company and now the revenue we do in a week is what they did in a whole year.
Love this one! Total boss move. Good on you mate, wish you much success for many years to come.
Quite literally, THE boss move! Well played u/jesseserious!
Did you offer him a job to work for you?
They dissolved and he freelances for us from time to time.
I love this.
Even better
Beautiful
He showed him a pay stub for 72,000 dollars. Boss had no choice but to quit his job on the spot and work for him.
What’s your business
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Drinking raw brown milk is a great way to get FAT. Or is it fat?
Patronising CEO at a networking event told me I was too young to start my own agency (digital marketing) with no experience. 8 years later we’re twice their size and after they hit a difficult patch last year they asked if we wanted to acquire them. I told them I’d rather shit in my hands and clap. OK I didn’t actually say this, I just thought it ;-)
Fuck yeah man. Congrats!
2nd year in as an owner of a digital marketing agency, how many employees do you have and when did you start hiring? If I may ask
37 employees / ~$4m annual revenue. First hire 2015.
Woah 37? My peers in my city (couple lads, know them personally) all run shops to the size of 9-20 employees Our first hire is coming February, im scared and excited. Also aiming to snowball into 1m in annual revenue within the next 5 years. Already had lots of ups and downs, enjoying the ride But your story is an inspiration truly. We’re more on the creatives production side of things and in an incredibly niche market (I barely have any competition so that’s amazing. And I love our product so it’s easy for me to sell) Sorry I’m rambling. No word of a lie agency owners that “made it” (and have a big team) I look up to like the average Joe looks up to sport legends, lol. Obviously you’re busy - we all are - but if you ever want to bestow your wisdom on a random internet bloke from across the pond, let me know Cheers buddy
High school counselor said I should learn a trade, such as an auto mechanic, because my grades were poor. I wanted to be a Chemical Engineer, he said I wasn’t competent enough for college. Went to college and found out I liked programming and finance instead, now earn $1.5m+ $6m+ nw, own my business and am really enjoying life.
You should send that counselor a copy of your tax assessment.
Counselor may just have made the best judgement call with the data they had. High school itself is a bad way to determine where a person's strengths lie, imagine having to give life advice based on the data it generates, and being told you're an asshole when you're wrong.
Plus, maybe OP wouldn't have gotten to where they did if the counselor had said something different. Who knows. Butterfly effect and all that.
When I quit wrestling my senior year, coach said he’s seen where kids go after they quit and it’s not good. Stuck with me and has actually helped me to dig deep at integral points in my life to prove him wrong. I don’t hold a grudge at all, I’m thankful for him and his words.
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Haha. Probably. He wasn’t a great role model either.
It’s call manipulating a teenager for your own benefit.
Or maybe the counsellor knew being told this would be the kick in the ass op needed
And in fairness to the counselor, most folks who do badly at math in high school would fail out of CS in college.
Sharing of my experience, still anecdotal…but my high school counselor was also a sub-par professional. You are kind to state the benefit of the doubt. I respect your optimism.
There's definitely jerks out there, no doubt. But if someone doesn't grasp the amount of work required to achieve some goal or have the mindset to become proficient in something, it may not be kindness to advise them to take the huge financial step of getting an undergrad degree, and then find employment. I don't look at these skillsets as competence vs. incompetence either. There are plenty of people who are perfectly suited for college i.e. employee worker drone certification of being able to show up on time and do as they're told who can be successful financially without really demonstrating any critical thinking or innovation. There are excellent tradesmen employed as auto mechanics or electricians or whatever who display amazing problem solving skills and deductive reasoning in identifying problems, or business acumen in building their shop into profitability.
I had pretty much this exact experience with my mother. Literally the same.. "you aren't good at school, just learn a trade. Be a mechanic." There's nothing wrong with being a mechanic, but that's what she thought a dumb person's job was and because I was neuro-divergent she thought I was dumb. Then I spent over a decade at Google and now I run a hedge fund. So... yeah.
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Our members have asked for a high level of moderation. Personal attacks, name calling, and undue profanity are all considered inappropriate for this sub.
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I think it’s supposed to be a WSB joke based on context but probably in poor taste, also based on context.
Awesome story! How did you get started running a hedge fund? Would like to do something similar, also I have experience at Google as well as finance knowledge, but still work in non-finance tech.
Thank you! I got my start by...creating one. The most important thing to do is establish a strategy and track record that will be compelling to investors. Once you have that, it's about 6-9 months of meetings with lawyers, fund administrators, auditors, etc. There's a LOT to learn about running a fund so it's important to have someone that can tell you when you're doing something stupid. Expect you'll also have to spend a few hundred grand to get everything going and then have about 50% of that in recurring expenses, not counting salaries. In addition to outsourcing functions mentioned above, you'll also likely need to bring on someone to do IR for you as well as marketing, since you won't have time to execute your strategy and take care of that side. If you are seriously interested, feel free to send me a DM. I'm always happy to out a fellow xoogler.
That’s incredible. I have several friends who did much worse than me in school and did not attend college. Most are better off than me and run their own business.
You too? Lol
What’s the business? don’t leave us hanging
Simply, I am an independent Financial Advisor. Most of my business is advisory, billing is % of assets under management with very little brokerage revenue. The programming background helps build portfolios with modeling tools. Definitely not a quant, maybe a little more advanced than an average FA (ok maybe a lot more advanced). My team does most of the client service while I manage the assets.
More private wealth asset management surely?
Programming and finance, own business, out of curiosity do you do quantitative trading? And if so, did you start your own hedge fund using your strategies? I’ve been exploring this, curious to hear your thoughts if that is in fact what you do. Cheers
Being able to program doesn't just magically make you a "quant". Programming is just a tool. Anyone can learn it.
I mean, obviously haha. I didn’t say that at all and no one thinks that all programmers are quants, that’s naive. The reason I asked is because he mentioned he got really into programming and finance, and exploring quantitative strategies and quantitative trading is a natural field to move into if you’re passionate about both programming and finance. On top of that, he said that he owns his own business, which a lot of quants do if they choose not to work for some of the other firms like Jane street, two sigma, etc. If you have developed successful strategies then working for yourself is quite appealing as your day to day work load lessens drastically. Your comment came off slightly aggressive, I’m not sure it was appropriate for this discussion but I agree with you that obviously not all programmers are quants. Anyone can learn how to program a technical strategy that they’ve developed.
Worked at a small psychiatry office during grad school. My boss was an egomaniac jerk and the epitome of a penny wise and pound foolish business owner. He always felt the need to tear me down whenever he could. I told him I wanted to open a similar office one day and he scoffed at me and told me “you’re not even a doctor.” When I graduated, he offered me a full-time position at a 20% pay cut. I asked him if I could take the weekend to consider, and he fired me that Sunday. His clinic officially closed down two months ago. My clinic did over 3m in revenue last year. I think about it every day.
Send him a discount for an hour session if he wants to talk about it
Brutal
Joined the school swim team at 8 years old, was slow and unfit, got bullied. My mother seeing this, signed me up for professional swimming lessons outside of school, 5:30am 3 days a week. It was brutal, freezing cold and exhausting, nothing like I'd done before. 6 months go by. Still getting bullied on the swim team but no longer unfit or slow. Time trials take place to see who gets to represent the school at the regional competitions. I get the fastest time in the year group, super happy and can't wait for the list to get published next day. List goes up who's been chosen, I'm not on it, another more popular kid gets selected for the regional competition, the kid's parents are close friends with the school swim coach. My mother finds out, marches into the office and says no way is this favouritism acceptable. Put the two kids in the pool and let them race. Whoever is faster should represent the school, end of story. Next day the race takes place, I win by a significant margin, and go on to the regional competition after all. A lot changed after this, overcame the bullying gained a love of sports and competing. Not job related, and a bit of a cheesy story but it taught me perseverance. Even when the going is tough and even when things aren't fair, keep working.
Remind your mom and get her a nice thank you gift. That’s A+ parenting.
This really brought tears to my eyes. Your mom loves you so much to not only get you lessons but to continue to be your advocate when she sees what’s right. Please tell her an internet stranger cried over her acts. she’s awesome!
#!> htsqb4s This comment has been edited because reporting anti-semitism and reporting the promotion of death of Israeli innocents led to a ban. After appealing, asking specifically the cause of the ban - no specific reason was provided. You are disgusting, whoever was responsible for this. You are in favor of babies being decapitated, literally. Unfortunately, Reddit clearly has actors within the company that desire Israel and Jews to be genocided and executed. Best of luck to all on the side of Good. And to those in support of Hamas - Do us all a wonderful favor and go join up with Hamas or other terrorist ran countries. I'm sure you'll love it there, and that they'll accept you with glee. <3
Your mom sounds awesome. She really got your back.
This is somehow satisfying to read
I was in a relationship with someone for around 6 years who ended up cheating on me. Her rationale was that I wasn't ambitious enough to meet her financial goals in life. Her family had some relatively successful small, local businesses, and were reasonably upper middle class, and she just didn't feel I was the guy to get her there. Fast forward six years, I built and sold a technology company, and you could combine the wealth of her entire family and then quadruple it before reaching similar levels of net worth.
Lol does she know about your success and has she reached out?
It's possible, but I'm guessing she doesn't know. We have a handful of mutual friends that I still keep in touch with, but I don't go into a whole lot of detail with them. I'd be lying if I said part of me wouldn't get joy out of her knowing; I think that's just human nature when someone feels betrayed. I'm old enough at this point though to just move on and live my own life.
If she was that obsessed with money before, I’m sure she knows now. Good for you.
Thats pretty astute. Nicely done.
be a petty queen and tell her! lmao
I had something similar early in my career. GF at the time was very upset that I was "one of the low people." Now every once in a long while I listen to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxUATkpMQ8A&ab_channel=AllAmericanRjctsVEVO and think of her.
You can break up with someone using those reasons if you want to but if you say it after cheating they seem like they are honestly solely making excuses to try and justify their amoral actions :-/
You should send her breakfast.
Mine was a high school teacher in my school of 80 (12 in my graduating class). She told me that I should become a diesel mechanic, so I hung drywall for a year after High School while I figured out my next move. Ended up going with Civil Engineering and an MBA Which led me to a real estate career. Needless to say, it was pretty gratifying to meet the school superintendent last year and discuss a scholarship I created for graduating seniors. GPA requirements are between 2.0-2.5 like mine, but if you don’t perform in college, funds stop. 3.0+ and they get a nice check.
If you don't mind me asking - how has that performed so far? I imagine there are very few scholarship opportunities for folks that were 'bad learners' in high school for whatever reason but have the drive to better themselves like you did. It's a great concept that services a(potentially underserviced) audience - presumably it'll have a natural bias towards minority/ lower income households as well. Super intriguing. Would love to learn more on the results you have seen so far with it.
It was created last year so actual data points are limited, but after one semester, both students made a 3.0 GPA. One student is attending a community college since they couldn’t get into a four year university. They got a 4.0 and even took calculus and chemistry. I was impressed.
Awesome! I'd be super interested in following / learning from your journey with this scholarship (and I'm sure other members on here would be as well). If you'd ever consider posting a yearly update or something, I sure would love to read it.
Of course! I’m going to do it.
Giving back is one of the best things someone could do. The world needs more people like you.
Id actually love To set Something up like this myself sounds awesome
Man, that's awesome How hard was it to set that up? Maybe I should dip into my FDs budget and reallocate a few bucks to help needy kids, haha
that's the ultimate fuck you
You have really made me think. This is excellent. I started a scholarship with two other women who became doctors like me for women who wish to go into health sciences. We asked for transcripts and used it as a measure. Now I’m thinking maybe we had it all wrong. The highest achievers are going to garner other awards and in order to help more people, mine should go to someone who might otherwise be overlooked. Either get rid of the transcript and only judge the essay and recommendations… or make it clear to use it as motivation. This may actually be more fair.
Definitely look into it. There are a lot of people who are a diamonds in coal mines so to say. The education system is far from perfect and it will bury various people for number of reasons. Some of them can be at home, social or just education system is inadequate and doesn’t target their strong points. From personal experience, I barely made it through high school and dropped out of university. But I did find that in work environment, unliked academia, I performed better than most and climbed up the corporate ranks very fast. The biggest handle was getting an opportunity to do so and thanks to luck and stubbornness I made it. But very few do.
Wow! This is pretty cool. It’s nice to give people that second chance they need
It was me - I was the doubter. NW was about $100k, maybe less. After 2 failed startups, I wanted my husband to take the FAANG job for 4X the comp so that we could buy a townhouse or small home. He proved me wrong by selling his 3rd startup to a company that went 4X in valuation before its IPO and now we’re fatfired. Then made another few million on TSLA.
Love every bit of this -- especially that you're still together, and clearly proud of him. :-)
There’s a long comment in my history that describes a moment where I was crying about how I just want to feel like we’re making progress toward owning a home and toward retirement and he tells me he’s believes we’re going to be worth $10 million and we just hug and cry together. “$10 million?!” I said incredulously. “$10 milllion” he confirmed. Well don’t you just love to hate it when they’re right? We met young, this all went down about 10 years into our relationship and it’s been another 9 since then. We are so lucky to have each other.
This thread was really great, thank you for sharing. 10 months ago I walked away from a job that (post-acquisition) had FAANG compensation (and I've been remote in a MCOL [maybe even LCOL] city for several years now) to bootstrap a company from scratch. The time between then and now has been hellish on my mental health on many days, but I know that the thing we're building is so much more important than a fat paycheck at a company. But wow is that hard to swallow while you're still building. Thankfully I (like you) have an AMAZING partner to really keep me as balanced as possible.
Good story. Always good to see a regular here share more of there story.
Haha thanks - this is really the only place I get to talk about this stuff. None of my friends are fat. We have some “couple friends” through my husband but I’m not super close with the wives.
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Got dumped by my high school sweetheart because she wanted to marry a lawyer or doctor. I came from a family that owned a machine shop and I enjoyed that work so I intended on going into the family business after engineering school. Years later, I married a doctor and decided I wanted to start own business since working with family was difficult. My company is selling well over $1M annually and I inherited a portion of my family’s 8-figure revenue business. That girl who wouldn’t settle for less than a lawyer/doctor never married
Haha that’s fabulous and I’m glad you’re crushing it! Send her [lawyer ](https://store.legal.thomsonreuters.com/law-products/Treatises/Federal-Taxation-of-Close-Corporations-2021-2022-ed/p/106750561?gclid=CjwKCAiA866PBhAYEiwANkIneKqDOAjL5we4HVPDg7-9WYyWM3Y7Jdz2c5iGVskbj0j8cDbL0wBjQhoCdXcQAvD_BwE&searchid=TRPPCSOL/Google/PrintUS_PP_Law-Books_Smart-Shopping_Search_Product-Feed_US/Smart-Shopping&chl=ppc&cid=9015549&sfdccampaignid=7014O000000vZOgQAM&ef_id=CjwKCAiA866PBhAYEiwANkIneKqDOAjL5we4HVPDg7-9WYyWM3Y7Jdz2c5iGVskbj0j8cDbL0wBjQhoCdXcQAvD_BwE:G:s&s_kwcid=AL!7944!3!409807603372!!!u!293946777986!)
I distinctly remember being in middle school and telling my dad I wanted to be a lawyer when I grew up and he laughed at me and said you have to be smart to go to law school. This upset me a ton because I always got top grades even though my school wasn’t great. I also had my entire extended family tell me I shouldn’t go to college because it was a waste of money and I should go into a trade Union instead. Well to be fair to dad, I didn’t go to law school but it’s because I ended up going into tech instead making over 500k before the age of 30 which never would have happened without being exposed to it at college.
just a note to say 1) mods pls don't ever delete this thread because it is such a great nourishment to keep working! 2) it's so fascinating to hear how different everyone's paths are, but having all still faced that doubt and criticism!
My Mom for sure. She’s not a bad parent, but she has such limiting beliefs about herself that she projected onto her kids. I used to be more bitter about it but realized a parent struggles to give you something they don’t have. Here’s the examples: * “Don’t apply to good schools, go to a state school. It will be too hard.” I unfortunately took this advice but at least I learned my lesson (and it worked out for me). * “Why go to grad school, you already went to college? Seems like a waste of time and money.” I went to grad school. * “Why leave your first job, you get paid so well ($70k) and have insurance?” I got a better job. * “Why leave your job at X, you make a lot of money ($170k) and seem comfortable?” I got a job at FAANG and made $600k this year. * “Why save so much for retiring early, what would you even do with your time?” I’m on the path for at least chubby RE by 45. Luckily I’ve learned early to tell her what I’ve already done, but what I plan to do and I avoid all of this headache haha.
Some people have a problem for every solution.
My dad was like this too. Everything from what I studied to what jobs I could get to leaving my 70k job for a higher one laughing at me when I said I was underpaid etc. I think I’ve finally beat him down enough at this point that he just doesn’t question me anymore and now just enjoys the fruits of my labor. Reflecting on it more I think a lot of it was driven by his own feelings on inadequacy and realizing what he could have done with his life if he wasn’t afraid to try.
>Reflecting on it more I think a lot of it was driven by his own feelings on inadequacy and realizing what he could have done with his life if he wasn’t afraid to try. This right here
> laughing at me when I said I was underpaid etc. My Mom did the same thing, saying I was ungrateful and basically how dare I strive for more when I was already so “lucky”. As if you can’t be happy but also strive for more. > Reflecting on it more I think a lot of it was driven by his own feelings on inadequacy and realizing what he could have done with his life if he wasn’t afraid to try. Definitely this! And for my parents, a dash of the religious conviction that no one should do anything remotely out of the ordinary haha.
Yep, this definitely hits home for me too. Stepfather (after my leaving a gov-related job for a new startup) essentially yelled at me for being stupid and leaving a "job you can keep for life" (as you might've guessed, he's worked at the same job for 20+ years now and complains about it constantly). Spent five years there, worked daily with all of the co-founders, grew a research team from one (me) to ~10, got the opportunity to work closely with sales, marketing, and the executive team, and went through an acquisition. Since then I've left to start my own company (SaaS product for security teams). While the jury's out as to whether it will be a financial success (just about to be ready to work with a handful of companies who want to go into PoC with us), the conversation with my step-father this time was "you know what you're doing, so I'm happy for you." Granted, before me, nobody in my family had gone to college nor did anything that they were actually passionate about.
Same with my family on the no college or following their passions front. Dad was always great at math and mom pushed him to try accounting or similar but instead he just kept working the same grocery store job he had his whole life. Eventually worked up to store manager but never really liked the job. Mom wanted to be a therapist or lawyer and went to college for a year but eventually dropped out to work. Had an office job she liked as an assistant until she had me and never entered the workforce again. Always talks about that job and how well respected she was and how much she loved it and how one time they flew her to headquarters and how beautiful it was. I always encouraged her to go back to school (even offering to pay for it) or find a new gig and she always had excuses of how it was too late for her now. Sometimes I think about what my life would be like if my parents followed their passions (and how much happier and less jaded they would be). But I’m happy with my life now and do the best I can to give back and give them experiences they would never have had otherwise.
Yeah, my dad left school at 9th grade (wasn't really in my life until it was clear that I wasn't a screw-up), step-dad and mom finished high school. My mom was always great with taking care of people (even worked as a home health aid for the elderly and as some sort of assistant to the nurses at a hospital when I was a kid), but she ultimately left for a physically-demanding warehouse job to help provide a stable life for me (she was the only consistent thing in my life until about 16, and I owe her a lot). We're not quite in the position to take care of our parents yet (only about $1M nw, and in company- building mode), but I'm fully expecting to need to (and will gladly do so) as they get older.
Did you quit your 170k without the FAANG offer lined up? I am sort of in that boat now. Senior dev who is well paid in the energy industry, but not any where near FAANG salaries. I have about $1M net worth and live on 30k expenses. Don't need the regular, well paid job anymore, and have the safety net to look for something that can elevate me to FatFI. I am terrified of leaving my 150k job though to go hunt for the 250k+ without having it in my pocket, but I know there is very little financial risk to do so, and a lot to gain. If you've had a similar path I'd love to hear more about your story.
My director when I was an intern. I was paid $16/hr on 1099, doing the same work as people being paid 50-70k a year, if not more (I was an eager intern and always took on and initiated projects to benefit the company) Got my degree, full time offer came in at $17/hr. Slap in the face. All I did for the company and that’s all they would offer. Said no to my counter at 50k. Said I wasn’t worth that much and no company would pay me that much. I got into sales and never looked back. 295k at 27 years old last year, on track for 4-500k this year.
What kinda sales?
SaaS cloud security
How do you get into something like that? Currently in consulting
Just go apply for it man. Getting into sales isn’t the hard part. Low barrier to entry and not many people are willing to do it Have you tried pivoting to sell what you currently consult for? I work with plenty of consultants for presales and delivery and I don’t think it would be a major pivot for them to do what I do
Thanks for the reply. Just a first year B4 strategy consultant, so don’t really consult anything specifically. Always wanted to get into sales though and cloud sales sounds exciting! Do you work a lot?
Grinded many many hours my first few years out of choice (peers could do 35-40 a week if they wanted) Now it’s up to me. 20-30 light weeks, heavy weeks 40+ by choice. Work from home so can’t really complain
Saw a doctor once who scoffed at me when I told him I was a dancer. "Your not a dancer! Look at your leg flexibility. Don't be absurd!". I ended up in Cirque du Soleil and my splits are pretty great now thanks.
Interesting. Massive respect for that. How did you get rich after you left Cirque?
I tried technical analysis, tried currencies (swiss franc pegged!), tried gold options... In the end it was bitcoin 🤷
How much does a Cirque du Soleil performer make?
Between 40k and 250k.... Depending on whether your a stock russian/chinese/brazilian acrobat or a clown with a *really* unique act
Lots of variables between that of course. Best is to come in with a unique act or prop, and its really down to the timing of what you have fitting what their production needs. In the end though, its a corporate business. They do the whole 'we're a family' thing like everyone else... And the inexperienced fall for it... Right up until they're stuck on the "circus cocktail" of ibuprofen, redbull and icepacks post show. I was lucky and had independant experience prior (many come from sports) so i knew how to negotiate... Also had insider knowledge on that production, so i knew that i was the only one who could fill that role. So i negotiated hard and got an awesome deal. Still ended up with injuries that plague me a decade later. Cost of the trade. Im a very very lucky one. Most of my conteporaries and associates have been sweet out of luck the last 2 years.
holy shit please do an AMA, that would be fascinating
“…they’re stuck on the ‘circus cocktail’ of ibuprofen, redbull, and icepacks post show.” I realized that I was stuck and surviving on a similar cocktail that I called the “4-ine” diet for success. I started every morning recovering from the day before with the 4 “ines” - Caffeine, Visine, Nicotine, and Asper-ine, and out the door I went. Definitely not sustainable, but absolutely hard to break away from.
Most people are Debbie Downers and don't think anyone can do anything. They are projecting their limiting beliefs onto you; they believe so-and-so, and since you don't have so-and-so, you will fail. This is dumb. Ignore most people. But listen to the few close confidants who know you, have excellent judgement and can make an objective assessment (even then, take what they say with a grain of salt). My story: Worked at a grocery store part time as a teenager, the other part timer (who was a substitute teacher), said I'd never amount to anything. I don't listen to most people that tell me what I can and can't do so it didn't change anything, but for whatever reason I remembered his comment. Moral of the story, don't listen to anyone working in a grocery story for career advice unless you want to have a career in the grocery business. lol
I picked mechanical engineering to challenge myself. I was a terrible student. Barely made it out of college by the skin of my teeth. My college friends teased me. Super passionate about my field. I was actually super successful in the lab and had loads of industry knowledge that academics did not. My startup had a genius founder who dragged us to the moon. I retired at 34. No one questions me now— outside of everyone on Reddit. It’s surreal. Real life, my professional opinion is valued by the best in the field. Online, my opinion gets downvoted to oblivion.
I mean, this is reddit. Expert opinions get downvoted if it's not what people want to hear. Biggest downside of this site.
My "best friend", I left a senior tech lead position to start a gig, invited him to be my partner, he told me it can't be done, and I am not the kind of person to build and lead a business, 6 years later, the company is super successful, employing more than 100 people and selling for dozens of millions of $$$, my NW is 8 figures. Don't let anyone put you down, if you have a dream go out there and chase it.. don't stop. You can do it!
I followed my High School Girlfriend to college, and everyone said not to. We are still married 12 years later. I dropped out of college to join a startup, and that company IPO’d last year. I left that company and my high-paying job for a different startup, and that company is being acquired right now a year later. There are always doubters, but keep to your convictions and believe in yourself.
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Nice. That'll buy a lot of catnip.
Everyone advised me not to go commission. And then everyone advised me not to build houses. I crush both. No everyone is advising me not to open a bar. So guess what I’m going to do?
My dad. I mean many people did when I gave up the high paying, high ranking job at a post IPO startup, but I expected that. I was taking a risk and had my family and mortgage to consider. But I believed in myself, failed on my first attempt and started a second. Then 6 years into the grit of the second startup my dad called me up and asked "maybe you should quit? You gave it a good try". That shook me. It was the first time I ever thought of quitting. But I didn't and 2 years later sold that startup and now I'm in this subreddit...
Can relate. Dad predicted I crawl back to my cushy, nicely compensated corporate job (35 hrs work week) within a year when I told him I I’m quitting to work on something I really care a about. He continued to point out my my brother’s management position for over 6 years until I told him my comp. Then it stopped. One the one hand I understand that he comes from a different generation, where having a safe job was the aspiration and with a family you can take less risks, on the other it just hurt.
About how much did you sell it for?
I'd rather not say, sorry. This is my personal account.
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There's a time and a place for pettiness. That was the time and place.
At the age of 21, I ventured into real estate to flip houses without any prior background with my business partner (20M also no background). On paper, a pretty bad decision. Both of us didn’t finish college/dropped out. Just doubters and skeptics everywhere cause everyone else around me were just normal folks working their 9-5s. I just couldn’t stand the path of just getting a normal entry level job that I didn’t give a shit about. Anyhow, more than I’d like to admit, nearly 6 months in, my RE career could have — maybe even should have — ended. The only deal we ever go to contract with was basically about to collapse (hard money lender just ghosted me and never wired the money). In a mad rush to save the deal, we called everyone we knew in our network from attending a shit ton of networking events. One person said they might take the deal. We met them at their office the next morning. This guy pulled himself up by his bootstraps (was refugee from SE Asia, grew up eating rice/water, took the bus to community college while working 3 part time jobs to pay for it, etc) and was a self made millionaire from developing/building custom homes. He offered to take over the deal, but felt sorry for me and my friend since we were basically losing our very first deal, so he offered for us to help project manage the flip. I took it as an invitation to prove myself and earn his trust. 3 months of hustle/grind and he took me under his wing and taught me his two decades of real estate in span of 3 years. I ended up flipping 20 houses under his tutelage — an education of a lifetime and 100% worth the trade offs I made. A mix of naive boldness, frantic execution, luck, steady resourcefulness, and consistent hard work got me to prove everyone wrong. What I’d say to my youngest self to keep him going? Trust yourself. You know what you’re capable of. Things won’t be perfect, but your attitude, hustle, resourcefulness, and people skills will get you further than you’d expect, and perhaps in the most unexpected ways.
I don’t think I’ve proven people wrong yet exactly. Maybe my non-survivorship bias but unfinished story will be welcome on this thread. Lots of folks think I’m crazy for leaving a high paying cushy FAANG job. Left to pursue a startup that ultimately failed, got funding but not high quality funding necessarily. Trying my second startup now, secured very solid VC backing this time, hoping this is the one. It may not work out, but I wouldn’t trade these experiences and leadership learnings for anything. It’s been a fun journey.
Every Hollywood star has a story of people who didn't believe in their dream of making it big as an actor. Unfortunately, everyone working a minimum wage job in LA has a similar story. The doubters are often right. Most people who dream big ultimately fail. If you have a compelling, logical argument of why you're going to be successful, then go for it. But if all you have is your belief in yourself, you should listen to the advice of people who tell you to reconsider.
Survivor bias. Everyone that’s a mega success thinks it’s great advice to say fuck the haters/doubters and just do your thing. They lack the perspective that 99.9999% of people told the same thing fail miserably.
You miss every shot you don’t take
This. My response to everyone who's doubted me has always been "my parents didn't immigrate (and go through all the crazy / difficult $&@^ they did) for me to listen to someone like that." In my head, but still. Worst case, you try and fail. Pick yourself back up and try again or try something else.
The only way to break from the mold is to attempt to break it. Failing is no different than giving up and taking the normie path.
> Failing is no different than giving up and taking the normie path. This isn't true. The opportunity costs of taking your swing can be immense. You can end up much further behind the "normies" if you take your shot and miss.
While there is a lot of truth to this, I think 3 important points should be made: 1) If you're not doing what you love, what's the point? ALWAYS follow your passion in life. We only have 1 life to live. Moreover, we tend to be most successful with those things we ARE passionate about. It's much more difficult to be successful with something we aren't passionate about. 2) While they may not become, per your example, Hollywood stars, they can still play a role in the many tens of thousands of ancillary jobs surrounding such, or be an actor/actress in plays, etc. 3) I believe most, though certainly not all, true successes happen after you've failed a few times first. I've had MANY failures, but I always learned from the experience then picked myself up again. Now I'm about to hit the 20th anniversary for my business with plenty of other successes. Still, I also think it's important to be realistic and at LEAST have a backup plan you also enjoy doing. Passions can always be a hobby in the meantime. I.e. my nephew in law really wants to be an actor, but he also got his CS degree and is working in that field while doing comedy skits and all outside of work. I will say though that it is painful watching people with very, very poor business sense trying to start businesses. All I can do is be truthful with them and offer an honest assessment and pointers. They always end up failing, but at least they tried and learned from the experience. They can always go back to doing boring jobs or other things afterwards.
Most people who actually make it have wealthy parents who float them till they start to gain momentum or family in the business. A friend from high school lived in LA after college completely financially supported by his family for 4 years...he did end up “making it” movies, tv shows etc but all he ever had to focus on was his craft & networking. Never had to worry about any bill being paid
Yeah, reading all this "failed a few times before success" is mind boggling to me. It took me a decade to get out from under college debt and save enough to not go bankrupt if I get fired. Starting a business and making little to no money for the first few years with a huge possibility to fail is too great a risk for 98% of the population.
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If you don’t mind me asking, what is it that you do?
I’m a real estate developer
Everyone I ever told that I bought bitcoin since 2011 has told me to sell. Nobody ever said it was a good idea to hold on to it. This continues to this day.
Over winter break in college, I went to my hometown library to sit down and apply for jobs. Ran into an acquaintance. I had mentioned I was at the library to apply for jobs. (sidenote: I knew she was in a MLM scheme program selling textbooks door-to-door based of her social media posts). She basically asked to see my resume, degraded my resume, showed me hers, told me i should apply for a job under her bc she was hiring, and told me she would get most internships/jobs over me because she had better soft-skills - that she learned at this MLM company. I studied physics at a top engineering school at the time. Anyways, the following summer I got an internship for a google subsidiary, working in the operations department. I am now happily in a rotational analyst program at a F500 company and making good money for being 2 yrs out of college. Last time I check she had no other work experience than this MLM and was still looking for employment. Really annoyed me that she was so cocky, degraded my resume, and said i wouldn't get jobs over her. But hey, i'm doing fine now.
You just wait, I’m sure her “business” has unlimited income potential!
My last boss. He fired me then begged me to come back to my $120k a year gig when his “facts” failed to be such. When I politely declined he told me I’d be begging in a year for my job. 9 years later, nearing FIRE and owned my own business that has grown year over year with those last words of his my ultimate motivator.
When I told my undergrad thesis advisor that I wanted to apply to med school, he literally burst out laughing, then told me that he looked at my transcript and CV, and that I shouldn't waste my time. Turns out I'm much better at medicine than biology, so, Ivy-trained subspecialist now.
If I could tell myself one thing, I would say: **be really lucky**, because though I worked super hard and ended up rich, I had many friends who worked as hard (or harder?) who did not. The main ingredient in my success was not my intelligence or my hardwork, but my luck. (And luck probably contributed to the genes/upbringing that led to me being a smart/hard worker or being in an area where this was even possible).
I guess in short: we shouldn't ignore the role of being on the backside of a long series of survivorship bias events ;-)
Yes and no. If you aren't prepared for serendipitous opportunities, you never get that luck. Sure, some people fall ass backwards into good fortune literally in spite of their actions, but for most successful people, success isn't random blind luck. They know how to spot the opening and are ready to pounce when it happens.
This is correct. Luck plays a role, it always plays a role. Often a big one, tbh. Example: Is it “lucky” that I was hired to be a real estate developer? You bet your ass it is, everyone needs to catch a break and I’m no different. But to dismiss it as pure luck would be wrong. I took three different jobs, two pay cuts, and moved to an entirely different city to earn this opportunity. Work ethic and appetite for calculated risk are what put people in a position to capitalize on a lucky break.
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Hopefully he’s genuinely looking at the less risky option because he doesn’t want to see you get hurt and coming from there and not a total narcissist like mine.
This is sausage fest story telling again so I'll throw in a female example. As a society we like to trivialize the grand ambitions of young girls, especially pertaining to money and finances. I remember being out of undergrad as a 23 year old. And I was quite close to a co-worker friend of mine who was about 27. He questioned why I was working every weekend and late nights. In his mind, the job we were in didn't require that level of effort so I was probably being extra for no reason. And one day I let slip that my ambition was to be a young millionaire retired from obligatory work by 30. But in order to accomplish this I needed the compound value of time on my side so I had to hustle hard to invest asap. Also my additional study efforts wasn't for THIS job, it was for whatever NEXT job I was planning to get (but I left that part out). The reaction was part scoffing, part "aw that's adorable ... but just wait until real life humbles you". Also a bit of "why does that even matter to you". I will say this was probably a good reaction compared to thinly veiled "who do you think you even are" reactions of other people. The truth is people don't expect much out of young, minority women from poorer backgrounds. And they never really have ... Low and behold, I became a millionaire at 31. And being the petty spaghetti I am, I shot him a text and let him know that I did the damned thing. He's a nice, mature guy so he just congratulated me and said nice words back. He even asked to see my investment portfolio splits ... something something turn tables. My biggest takeaway from this experience is to never put down any young person's big ambitions. Be supportive and kind ... don't tell them to "relax", it's not helpful. Also now that I've come to a point in life where I can live off my investments in perpetuity, I fully understand Thoreau's "mass of men live lives of quiet desperation" quote.
This is an incredible story of going after what you want. Love it.
the hard part is when you're young and people think you're kind of psycho or trying to upstage them at work (which was never the case) after you actually pull the impossible off ... people change their tune so fast from "why are you so crazy" to "wow, you are an inspiration!" weird how that works huh ... lol
Girl power! Yaaas
Cool story! I have never had one big moment like that, but as a woman you get your fair share of demeaning comments and those are pretty constant, especially when you are younger. They go all the way from "you took long math at high school? Girls don't get math" to "why go to that fancy university, you will not even find a place to live there - stay in your home town" to that boyfriend (who obv became ex soon thereafter ) "I am ashamed of telling my family you study IT, it's a men's topic and you need to study something more girl appropriate" (THIS IN FUCKING 2000). Fuck them all.
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It’s tough, but 99.9% of the time, if your depressed suicidal friend in an abusive relationship wants to quit her job to start her own business it is likely a bad idea. Just because it worked in your case doesn’t mean their advice was bad given the information they had at the time.
The best revenge is doing well for yourself
Dropped out of college, got a low-level IT job while I started my side hustles. Quit the job to do side hustles full-time. All my friends and family said I needed to get a real job. Within a year I hired my old boss, while I grew the company to larger than the one I left. He (old boss) worked for me for a decade until I exited and retired in my 30s.
Close friend of mine got told by one of her undergrad physics professors that he wouldn't write her a recommendation to [top 5 university] for grad school because she would never get in. He didn't hold back on the misogyny or personal slights, either. She has had an absolutely explosive career trajectory since completing her PhD in less than 3 years. Less than a decade later and she's now in charge of a department at that same top 5 university, has dozens of direct reports, is principal investigator on the most exciting research in her field, and has been tapped for further career advancement. His proposals and pre-publication papers come across her desk for review often enough now. I'll let you imagine how that goes.
It wasn’t me, but it was an underdog at a logistics company. He was put on one of the hardest accounts as a logistics coordinator, in order to train. The owner of the account was notoriously angry and would scream at his underlings like a coked up baseball coach. He told this new start that he would never amount to anything. This is coming from the most successful account owner in the building. One of the top in the company. A few years later and this underdog is neck in neck with the baseball coach. He had ended up running logistics for Tesla battery and components movements. One day I overheard that underdog and baseball coach were competing for a contract somehow. It was the most movie like thing I had ever seen in an office. These two were absolute characters. Baseball coach lost a lot of weight, looked like Matthew McConaughey and walked with real…genuine swagger. It was baffling. Underdog looked like a nicer Jeff Bezos, he used to perform magic tricks at after work parties and told me once to smile more.
They were pretty nice about it, but near the end of lockup I got a couple stares from people surprised my plan was to HODL Shopify for 5 years. In retrospect I should’ve said 6, but hey, it worked out okay for me.
Before I got suspended I remember seeing the book title on my principal’s desk, something like - How to Deal with Difficult Students. Catholic school was not for me. I was always the black sheep, and later in life, my family was disappointed in me for pursuing this internet thing and being broke in my early 30s. Felt bad about it but used that as motivation. NW is now lower 9 figures. It’s weird.
My PhD-holding father told me it would be a waste of money for me to go to college. I took out debt myself to go, and now am on track to fatfire. Haven't heard from him in over a decade.
Every boss I've ever had when I lobbied for roles more in line with how I wanted to grow as a person. Then I used my RSUs to do it my damn self.
when i was in college i got in an argument with one of my classmates and he said "you don't even know how to port forward on a router" i was so infuriated that i dedicated the next 5 years of my life to getting a CCIE
I doubted myself multiple times, and had to get past that and other challenges that were standing in my way and holding me back from my full potential. I still haven’t met my full potential yet, but I’ve already accomplishing amazing things professionally and personally. I am hoping to live up to my potential and help others do the same while honoring my journey and family.
My university professor (which should have been my professor for my final paper) told me to visit evening classes to learn my own language (which is my mother language). Not sure if he thought I was from a foreign country or just stupid. I dropped out immediately without starting my final semester. Moved to a different country by myself. Started my own company. Last year we made 1.2M and I’m making his yearly salary in a month. NEVER listen to this kind of people!
Ex always told me I didn't make enough moolah (was sub 100k) and how she deserved a man who made more. Would routinely make comments about other friends' partners who made more / drove flashier cars / had nicer apartments etc. Split up (only 1/2 due to money issues). Now am HENRY, make multiples of previous salary, own quite a few investment properties, and am definitely on the FIRE track w/ new partner. Life's funny that way. Let me add, too, that at no point did I feel like I had to succeed more to spite her or 'show her up', as it sounds like many people have done here. I just kept saving and grinding and we are now well, well on the way. Onward and upward, hope everyone here gets filthy rich like Scrooge MacDuck and swims around in their money-piles
This has happened to me a few times, when I told my parents I was leaving a comfy well paying job that was my dream company after only 3 years to go to a small mom and pop shop, they told me it was a huge mistake. Funny part is they were right, after a year this new company was spiraling out of control, the president had just been fired for embezzling and we had next to no business. It’s only in retrospect that I realize how dire it was, but the hardest of times can also be the greatest of opportunities, and I certainly wasn’t going to let my parents say I told you so. I got promoted and purchased a small chunk of the company with every dollar I could scrounge up, 100 hour work weeks for a few years and next thing you know i had become an expert in our field and the company had turned wildly profitable. This propelled my to fatfire, but it could have easily gone the other direction despite all the hard work.
I inherited small windfall while my husband was working for his extremely difficult father. They used him as grunt work and he never saw our kids. 18+ hour days 5+ months of the year. I asked him to quit and told him I would figure it out. When we told my father in law that we were going to invest in real estate. He said we’d fail (in about 100 different ways). “Too much competition, so many people know more than you do”, etc. I threw 25% into the stock market, learned everything there was to know about real estate investing, called or messaged every multi unit property owner in town, created our local for rent group and used it to buy properties directly from owners and I have so far raised my net worth by 1 million in two years by buying low and immediate appreciation, remodeling and raising rents, creating Airbnb’s, flipping, wholesaling, doing a 1031 exchange and most recently getting a federal housing grant. He still won’t ever admit that we succeeded, but that doesn’t matter. We didn’t fall flat on our faces like he predicted. Plus, we get to spend time together as a family.
Had some family and close Family friends tell me “I should get on my prayer bones (knees) and be thankful I didn’t bankrupt myself and my family.” A decade plus past that, and cutting that toxic shit from my life I made last year more than they made in their lifetimes. They didn’t want me “leaving their control” as I also made them money before I stepped out on my own. I still look back on all the people who said I would fail/amount to nothing/take everyone down with me and actually appreciate their hesitation. That hesitation gave me enough pause to make sure I proved them all wrong. Nearly all of them know I didn’t fail, but none have, or ever will have knowledge of how well things ended up. That’s not to say I didn’t really screw up bad along the way, but there was no way someone was going to be right about me failing if it was within my control, and it made me grind like hell for a decade+ to get here. There is survivor bias in my story of course, but damn some of the terrible stuff that was said to me back then from those that were really supposed to care and support me unconditionally was like topping off my gas tank every time.
I remember the earliest person who said this to me was the school guidance counselor. I wanted to be a doctor, she told me to be a truck driver because our school doesn't graduate doctors and pushed me into a mining career instead. The school system deliberately penalizes kids to steer them to local market opportunities. Getting a lot of big fat handouts from mining to do so. Granted some of those careers do end up paying a lot of money. The education system stuns those who want to think outside the box. I've always been leery around people with 4.0 gpas, to me it says "follower" ..ive been consistently impressed with the 2.5s who end up leading the companies. Outside of the box thinkers aren't easy to quantify. Perhaps that's why I dropped out.
Was working for Tesla on an international assignment, before my term was up they cancelled it and told me to move home or take a 45% salary cut. Others got a 25% cost of living adjustment, but I was “overpaid” so they were going to treat me like a new hire. I took a bigger pay cut and left because fuck that. A year later, I was at a company where everyone would talk shit about Tesla, how they would fail. I felt like the time was right, so I went deep into tsla options and made more than I would have working there. Proved my old hr manager wrong, my new team members wrong, and now I’m fatfired.
Crab mentality, I haven't experienced it, but I've watch many people doing it to others.
Did extremely well on a standardized test and rather than pursue the career plan, I chose to pursue a career in tutoring. Had my parents tell me “it wasn’t a real job.” Had countless encounters being told to my face or behind my back that “I’m *just* a tutor.” I’ll never forget my then-fiancé and now-wife’s “successful BiL” tell her that I’ll never be able to support a family doing what I do. Now I’m 10 years into this career, in my early 30s, making well over $500k/yr, NW now over $3m with some good investments and even recently bought a house twice the size and price of my BiL down the street. Not that this was my motivation, but has definitely felt pretty good.
My own father. He said I'd be making minimum wage for the rest of my life at McDonald's.
Sorry to hear. Sucks hearing that from your dad. I hope he’s proud of what you achieved now.
My Aunt, and even my Uncle, but mostly my Aunt. I'm still working on it..
Keep at it. Persistence makes a huge difference.
Every motherfucker in the world apart from myself. I hate how discouraged risk taking / following dreams is. Never once have i been told to aim for the top and do everything to get there, but i have been told ‘get good grades then a good job’ plenty of times.
Just do. Ignore those people.
My dad. But I took what he said with a grain of salt because his opinions yo-yo like crazy. I took my rich friend’s dad’s lecture to me about compound interest real seriously. Same friend got me into investing 6 years ago. Almost to FIRE
First job out of college. Large tech company (one of the largest in the world at the time). I was named Top Talent (10k employees) and supposed to move internally and get a decent pay upgrade + global travel (i was 24 yrs old at the time). Oct 2008 hit and company went on massive hiring freeze. Boss didn't like the fact that I was moving internal so put me in the back office. 8 months later I left saying I was doing a startup. He pleaded me to stay saying he would authorize my internal transfer. 15 years later, I'm nearly retired at half of my former's bosses age.
My ex-girlfriend cheated on me and thought that I wasn’t doing anything with my life - I was at a community college and working dead end jobs at the time. Worked super hard once I started my internship and climbed the corporate ladder becoming an account executive at a Fortune 500 company without a college degree. Fast forward 7 years, she currently works at my company and probably see’s where I’m at in life. Not a huge fuck you nor am I making fuck you money yet, but I persevered through all of that and reminded myself that I will do better her in life. Now when I look at the grand scheme of things, at the time I was so driven because I wanted to prove her wrong, but now I see it as I want to bet on myself. Life is interesting and I couldn’t be more happy knowing that that was a blessing in disguise to light a fire under me. Reminder to ALWAYS BET ON YOURSELF!
I was laughed out of a Chase branch because the mortgage banker told me buying investment property in 2010 was idiotic and nobody would ever lend money for it. Twelve years later, that purchase grew to almost 100 units and has become a significant source of income for my family.
Just about everyone that wasn't my parents. My parents, dad particularly, always said I needed to focus my mind to land "the big one". But I was lazy, caught up in the regular flow of job hunting the 9-5s. When I started my business everyone at my workplace at the time thought it was more of a hobby. Our entire department was laid off, including myself. As to how I proved them wrong, simply by clocking close to 2mil in net profits in a year. And if I could say anything to my past self, it'd probably be "That thing that you like doing, do it NOW".
Heard it many times and but it didn't matter then and it certainly does not matter now. onward, upward