When my girlfriend and I finished college in the midwest, our backup plan was that if we didn’t have jobs lined up, we would pack everything that we owned into our cars and drive west until we hit the first interesting thing that we saw, which was Denver. When we arrived here, 20,000 tech workers had been laid off in the last 18 months. We rented a one bedroom apartment that we nicknamed the “rainbow of smells” and we looked for jobs. Every time that we got rejected, we posted the rejection letter on our mildewed wall as a game. 3 months later we had wallpapered that wall in rejection and we were down to less than $1,000 in the bank. And right there at my lowest point what I realized and what hit me was….
nothing at all. I have heard maybe two hundred lame startup founder’s stories that started this way and right at the low point there is some realization or moment of inspiration to change your life or the world. It sounds good and plays well but I promised that I would be genuine right? What really happens at your low points is that you are dazed like a boxer in the late rounds; you fall back on your habits and autopilot to hopefully rescue you. And here are how those habits rescued me.
How Habits Saved Us
#1 I had less than $1000 in the bank but I also had a Roth IRA that I had been contributing to since my teens. It never crossed my mind to touch that money, because the dinner table finance degree that I got all growing up with my financial advisor father would not let me touch that money until crime was my only alternative. Instead, we spent $1.10 per meal, avoided all expenses, and swallowed our pride accepting money from loved ones until we had gotten work to pay them back.
#2 Both my lady and I have always been dogged workers and when someone puts their confidence in me I feel obligated to return to them more than what they have placed with me. I am not some weird Benjamin Franklin mofo or anything, this is really just a habit that becomes second nature when practiced. It’s one that has brought me much success over the years as well as most of my stress in life. So we fell back on our habits, we applied to every job and we called every employer that we applied to. I even just showed up in my suit and tie to drop off resumes in person a couple times hoping to make an impression. I figured someone had to get the open job and eventually it would be me.
Making Our Way
When we did get those first jobs, we worked like hell and kept up our affordable spending habits. While our friends were saving 0-20% of their paychecks, we were socking away 60-70%. After a few years and some increasingly better jobs we had enough money saved to start investing more actively. Then we experienced some good fortune and invested even more. I’ve done a lot of weird investments over the years and you will probably hear about a bunch of them. We both got interested in startups which is just like work except for the insane. We got married, travelled the world, kept learning, and kept searching for more. Compound interest builds in life just as in investing. I look back now and we have been engineers, startup founders, executives, inventors, investors, parents, world travelers, artists, and more. So that’s me and my road. I want to talk about happiness but first things first I probably owe you: The obligatory how to get rich in one blog post, blogpost.
2 comments
Hey I just found your blog. You have some really awesome content on here. You should offer a subscribe option.
Thanks for stopping by CJ, you can actually subscribe on the right sidebar if you like.