Let me start at the beginning. I had a "good" job a a financial management firm. I had a client book worth about 25 million, and I was closing business. however, they started to steal money away form me. in the guise of "new payment structures" and " well you didn’t really close that " bullshit, which pissed me off to the point where on some days I would sit in my office for a good hour with my teeth clenched, literally unable to do anything. looking back its kind of ridiculous, but its crazy how you can get caught up in something like that when you let it get to you. I worked hard for that company too. I struggled my way up the ladder, I made the right decisions, I brought them good clients, and I even entrusted some of my family friend's assets to them as well. It was a long hard road to get to where I was at that company, and in the end I felt so slighted that I decided to throw it away in the form of a big complaint that I made to my manager, which ended in my termination. Why the fuck did I do that? the logical part of me wants to say its "Because they owed you money and fuck them, might as well collect unemployment" the emotional part of me says that I did that because I knew that, even though I was convinced that wealth advisor was the job for me...the one I had worked toward basically my entire life,.... I found that it really wasn't my be all and end all. as I got a feel for the business, i recognized that the people who truly make it in this field...who truly make big money and have yachts and porches and Ferraris and big titted trophy wives...these guys worked like dogs....70-80 hour weeks for a decade, cheated over everyone they could find, and then eventually they make it big, and clients just come to them. But that’s the 1% and the 1% does not mean you’re the best advisor in the field. it doesn’t mean you're the smartest advisor, it doesn’t even mean you do the best by your clients. It seems to me the only common denominator for success in that field is that you fuck over the most people. You take clients from people who wash out, you make friends with the president so that he gifts you a bigger book, you close people who don't need the help, and charge them fees. You put people into vehicles they can't get their money out of unless they pay a fee. The list goes on and on. The more people you fuck, the better you do and that’s that. I can't understand how these assholes sleep at night, now that I've seen how the 1% do it. Now I'm not saying that absolutely every single one of them is like this, but It's a damn large majority when you get into the top performers. These guys just look for the next close, and that’s all they're doing. They are just vacuum cleaner salesmen with nicer suits, cleaner cars, and wives with bigger, better fake tits.
I decided then that this wasn't the life for me. I found a job as an Accountant at an Ophthalmology practice. Good for me. It paid well, the people seemed nice, and the company was growing. well done, ride off into the sunset. However that's when the panic attacks came. the Psychologist asked me to count the number of them I was having a day. I told her I stopped counting at 18 at around 2pm. When she heard that she told me I would die if I kept going on like this.
Why did I get them you ask? Is it because The job was too stressful? partially. but I know why and its even scarier. all my life I had always given myself an out, a place for me to go "well, if this doesn't work out, I can always do x" I hadn't done that for this job. I had decided in my mind that this job was IT. This was the job I needed to make work. For myself, and for my family. Needless to say It was not working out. the more I worried about it, the worse it got. The worse it got, the less control I had over my anxiety. It didn’t' help that my boss and I couldn't really communicate, and that we were the two running the company. But that's another story for another paragraph. The long and the short of it was that I was in a viscous spiral of anxiety, fear, and lack of control, and I didn't know what to do.
Eventually, I got fired. As often happens when you suck at your job because of your anxiety and your boss calls you out on your panic attacks you're having at the office. I'm glad its over. Its the worst job I've ever had, and I think even with out the panic attacks I had i would have ended up leaving. However, I still feel as though I failed. I failed my family, I failed my father in law who is the closest thing to a father I've ever had, and that I failed my daughter. so now I'm sitting here writing this wondering if she'll be proud of me or not when she grows up, whether or not she'll think that I'm a good father, a good provider, a good friend.
I also have put undue strain on my wife which is horribly unfair. she has had panic attacks and anxiety her entire life whereas this is completely new for me. I have always had an unshakable confidence that has driven me through everything: taking care of my mom when my dad was dying. Making it through high school with honors while my dad was sick in a nursing home, everything. Without that I would probably be living in section 8 housing feeling sorry for myself right now. And Now I understand how ridiculously strong my wife is, as she had to deal with this anxiety, and shes gotten FARTHER than I have in life, in so many ways. I am so incredibly proud to have her as my wife.
However, with that being said, it's so frightening to me to see my confidence shaken like this. I've never felt like "what if this doesn’t work out? Not once in my life. I've always had a plan B and now I'm not sure if I do. I'm hoping that if I keep working hard at myself: If I meditate, if I keep loving my wife in every way that I can, and if i keep being a good father to my daughter, that I can pull through this. But this has been one of the hardest times in my entire life. I can't believe I'm still alive to be honest. Every day for the past two months has been a day filled with constant panic attacks and fear of another panic attack, or wondering when the next one would come. Every decision that I had to make in life felt like I would instantly lose my mind and explode if i made the wrong choice. Its incredible how I went from managing the assets of 150 families, making calls on literally millions and millions of dollars, to not being able to choose what color of shoes my daughter would wear to school that day. It's incredible.
As such, I would like to take a second to thank Arnold Schwarzenegger. He just the other day released a podcast with Tim Ferris (another one of my idols) and in this Arnold admits that when he was 27 (the age I am now) he was suffering from crippling anxiety EVEN THOUGH he was already a millionaire, had just won a Mr. Olympia, and was starting a very bright movie career. Could you imagine? I mean my accomplishments at my age are nothing compared to his, but I can imagine how he feels. It seems as though...as your life grows, and you put more and more accomplishments behind you, that it gets scarier and scarier to take the chance to get to the next one. It feels as though you'll lose everything if you fuck this next move up. That's how I feel, at least.
How did Arnold deal? Meditation. Something I've used my entire life, and somehow have forgotten about for the past 5 years. He meditated every day for a year, and it "reset" his brain so that he would no longer succumb to his anxiety. I have already started doing this but not once a day I do it three times a day. once on waking, once when my daughter naps, and once before I go to sleep .Its incredible. I can already feel the clarity of my thoughts coming back. I can feel my confidence cutting through the vines of anxiety that have grown throughout my brain. I can tell that soon I will be able to make decisions, create, and grow as I once did. Probably far far better than I ever have before.
I can now visualize myself growing into an entrepreneur. I can visualize myself making money in many different ways again. I want to make money through this blog. because I'm going to be so fucking real, that It horrifies me every time I hit "share" and that'll make people read. Nobody wants to admit their failures, and when you do it makes people more uncomfortable that you are. I don’t want to hide this bullshit from anyone anymore, because someone has to say it so that you don’t make the same mistakes that I did. So that you can become a millionaire at 27 and win your first Mr Olympia, whatever that may be.
I want to make money doing game casts. Why? because I've always loved video games. I also have always loved playing video games with friends. And people watch this shit. I watch game grumps every day. I fucking love it. It's got a market for it, and If pewdiepie is any indication of the skill you need for it, its more about spewing out shit on a daily basis and not worrying about whether or not its good. People like content, not quality.
I also know that I can make a fucking FORTUNE in real estate. I know that If I use my ability to seek out deals, and my people skills, that I can find some great deals in real estate. I know how, I know why, and I know where to buy and I'm ready.
Most importantly, of all the things I'm going to make, I'm going to make an incredible bond with my wife, and my daughter. I've realized, in my weakest moment, that the only way one can succeed in this world is with a support group. and my wife and child are the only ones I have. Sure I have friends. I have people who will give me a pat on the back and a slap on the ass But my wife is there for me. sending me jobs to apply for the day after I got fired. From work. sending my FRIEND jobs to apply for. from work. Doing our taxes because she knows I'm too fucked up to do them even though I have the time. I need her. That is the most frightening thing I've ever said because since I was fucking twelve years old, and my dad couldn’t stop himself from shitting his own pants, and my mom was having a nervous breakdown every 15 minutes, I was my own man. I was the adult, making the decisions, cleaning up, and making sure things went right. I never answered to anyone, and I did my own things. now I know if I want to continue to grow and to succeed I need to be committed to her. I need her. I need to need her. Does that make sense:? its probably plain as day to most people, because they know that those kind of people are what make them, but that is what has always made them. Now she makes me. A big part of me. I need to accept that. Out of everything I've written here, that is by far the scariest. I hope that she reads this and agrees. I hope she thinks that she needs me too.
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