Getting it out of your system in youth.
Today I had the opportunity to meet with a man who has been extremely successful in our local town as an investor in real estate, through his construction and design company, and I felt compelled to write about our conversation and how it affected me.
“It is important to get those kind of things out of your system” — Chuck G.
I had heard many times that Chuck would be a good man to know, and I had heard about his success, and have known his name because its the name on almost every prominent new commercial development in Wausau, WI. So one day while at Starbucks, I heard the barista say, have a good day Chuck, and I assumed that it was indeed this man whom is so important, so I introduced myself to him, and then another day I asked him for his phone number and asked him if he would have coffee with me.
My purpose in meeting with him was to learn his story and see if I could get some wisdom from him that I could apply to my life. This is definitely what happened. We exchanged our stories, and then I asked him for advice on what to do, at what seems like a crossroads in my life.
Pause, I’m going to give you some back round on where I am in my life.
Two months ago, I decided that I was not going to let someone else tell me what I am going to do with my life, regardless of who they are. That’s when I started on Medium, it’s when I started actively trying to grow my marketing agency, I ended up taking on a second ‘job’ selling ads for a magazine in town, and got my first real estate deal in motion. Due to these things, my attention was not fully in my job as an insurance salesman, which led to my boss confronting me and telling me that if I didn’t cut the other things out of my life, I was going to be fired. So I had a decision to make, throw out everything I was choosing to do and focus on something that I wasn’t really interested in doing anymore, or say ‘fuck it’ and pursue with full effort the things that I was truly interested in. It probably comes as no surprise I chose the latter option. It turns out, I counted all the options and it came to 9 completely different paths, I could choose, and this is where Chuck’s words quoted above really affected me.
Of all the options I have they can be broken down into what I consider them as ‘silly desires that have potential’ and ‘serious desires that will make me good money’. Chuck pointed out to me that because I am only 20, and because I didn’t go to college, nor do I plan to, that I basically have 3 more years to get the things that I want to do out of my system. He also strongly advised against doing something that would get me ‘chained down’ or that would make me feel like I can’t leave after doing it for a year. I think this really is important.
Let me elaborate. For the past two years I have felt like I’m running out of time. Thinking that if I don’t get something really big going for me, I’m gonna be screwed, and I’m gonna fail, or be a failure. However I have finally realized that I have plenty of time. I’m only 20. I don’t have to be a billionaire in my 20’s. I’d much rather have 10 years of stories and experience. I can then go onto grow a business at that point, and it will be much easier after having all that experience and knowledge. To view life as not a ticking clock, but as a long road, that has many different scenes along the way, and I can walk, instead of running is very helpful to me.
Although I don’t have a final decision on what I am going to do yet, I have definitely narrowed it down to a few options, and have put much more weight on a few of them due to their youthful nature. What I want to accomplish by writing this is that even one person, young or old, realizes that there are some things that you should do if you have a desire to do, simply because you can always make it work, and can always get another job. This is best to be done in youth, when the consequences are much easier to deal with.
One thing to point out is that almost no one will make this decision for fear of instability. I have to admit I don’t know how long it would have taken me to take this step had I not been fired essentially. I praise God for the fact that this happened, because I was too much of a chicken to take that step. If I hadn’t just been fired, I don’t know that I would have taken this advice the same way, or at least would most likely not have acted on it.
“Live Without Regret” That’s the motto I have on the back of my personal business card…I feel like it’s about time, I start living by my own words, and do the things I would regret not having done, when I reflect on my life, on my deathbed.
