Losing My Job Released a Secret Desire

I was explaining to Richard Brock how I lost my job. That’s when he said, “It will do you good to go without a paycheck for a while.” This was his advice as my former business partner and good friend!

I knew he was right. But no paycheck for a while? I was thirty-nine years old and up to that point in my life, I always had a paycheck. And I always had a secret too. I wanted to be in my own business. And now, with a wife and three kids with one on the way, I was questioning if this was the right time to do it. 

I always knew I would be in my own business. I say that but can’t identify when I began knowing. I just knew. 

This desire showed itself as early as eleven when I got my first job as paperboy for the Jersey Journal. I lied and told my future boss I was twelve. I guess I looked healthy enough, big enough, and motivated enough to take on this massive responsibility. 

It was great training.

I had to show up every day and deliver the paper to 163 houses. Sell new subscriptions door to door. Collect the subscription money. Scrape off my take from the cash and then give the rest to my boss. If I didn’t collect on a subscription, then that subscription was on me. I became really good at collecting and cutting people off.

From that job on, all other jobs included closer supervision. People told me what to do and how to do it. I didn’t like this. I liked the learning part. But once I learned how to do the job, I wanted to be left alone. I always believed there was a better way to do the job. Tell me what needs to be done and the due date. Then leave me alone. I’ll get it done and it will be great and you’ll be happy. 

I always saw a better way to do the job.

These experiences reinforced my desire to run my own company. To be my own boss. But as I began getting promoted, my pay started to increase. I was continuing to learn. Customer service. Installation. Teaching. Managing. Strategizing. Building processes. Administration and HR. Sales support. Sales. General management. I was like a sponge. And I was earning more money along the way. 

Kathy and I were also growing a family. Getting married and having kids changed our monthly cash requirements. Buying the house and adding the mortgage was the next big hit. Then private education and all the expenses that go with that. Not to mention keeping up with the Joneses.

But something was happening inside me.

The more responsibility I was given, the more money I made, the more I spent, the more I was locked into continuing as a corporate executive because of the paycheck. I had gotten way farther and was making more money than I ever dreamed. 

But I was miserable and depressed.

The root of this depression, and I didn’t know it at the time, was largely based in being off mission. I knew I was supposed to be running my own business. I knew I had all the skills necessary to succeed. And here I was locked in, working for a paycheck, working for someone else. It just wasn’t right. I was stuck. But I rationalized, “My priority is to my family. I really don’t have a choice.”

Then the recession hit.

Little did I know this was the beginning of my new life...running my own business. My boss asked me to join the executive team and take a 10% cut in pay. It was nothing, but I acted irrationally.

I said, “This is not my company. I’m not an owner. I’m doing my job. I’m not taking the pay cut.”

I tell you I was acting irrationally because based on what I was earning, the pay cut would have zero effect on my life. 

My irrationality ended with my leaving the company. 

I was finally free. I remember walking out of the hotel where the separation took place. It was a beautiful, sunny spring day. I felt free at last. And then came the wave of anxiousness. “I need to make money to support my family,” I said to myself. 

Knowing I was built to be in my own business came in second again to the financial demands of the family. I chickened out and started looking for a job. I knew no one in Atlanta. With the help of an executive recruiter and the owner of the financial planning firm I was working with, I got a list of names to call. I called and set appointments with all of them. My goal was to get a job running a software or services company. 

Months later, after all this activity, I got an offer. Finally. The night before I was supposed to start as the company president, I got a call from the owner. He said, “I can’t hire you. The behavioral psychologist said we are incompatible. It will never work. Sorry.”

Now what?

Later that week, I got a call from a former branch manager of mine. She invited me to join her in starting a company. “Show up tomorrow at 9 am at my house, and we will start this business together. You’ll be the CEO, and you’ll fund it,” she said. 

I thought all night. “This is my chance to be in business for myself. But fund it? That’s my money going out. Then again, who better to invest my money in than me?”

I showed up the next morning. That was the day I crossed the line. I was no longer working for someone else. I was working for myself.

Richard was right. It did me good to be without a paycheck. Thanks, my friend.