All The Moments
When my first child was about to be born, someone told me, “Appreciate all of the moments. The good and the bad. The dirty diapers. The first steps. The smiles that melt your heart. Even the cries that will drive you mad. Appreciate all of it, because the days will go slow, but the weeks, months, and years will all go by so fast. And someday, you’ll find yourself reflecting and wishing you could have every one of those little moments back”.
It’s certainly a statement that has stuck with me. One you can’t quite understand as a new father on all those late nights and early mornings at the start. It takes time to marinate. Something you only grasp when the word parent has been a part of your identity for some extended period of time. With a little girl approaching Kindergarten, I’m starting to realize what they were talking about.
I say all of that, because in my opinion, professional careers are the same way. You just can’t understand the dichotomy of that on the first day of your first job. Or the first day of any job for that matter. Those days are pure ecstasy. They hold so much hope and so much potential, but they themselves have yet to matriculate. They fail to realize that the beauty in a career comes in all of the moments. The good and the bad. The failures and the triumphs. The first steps and the cries that drive you mad.
The picture below is me in December of 2016. I’m with Carlos Fernandez, Ed Pizzarello, and Paul Singh. Carlos owns and operates Clutch Studio in Wichita, KS. He’s my friend and my brother and everyone of those tattoos tells a story he’ll happily educate you on. Ed is your go to guy for Disney World trips and airline milage redemptions. Those just happen to be the things he’d rather talk about. He’s also a partner at RMR Capital and owns Five Guys restaurants across the country. Angel investing was a logical hobby. Paul is an entrepreneur, Airstreamer, and angel investor in a bunch of startups you should probably look up. He’s also an incredible dude who’s quick with a joke and fun at a bar. Then there is me. Owner of very little at this stage of my life. Just a guy with a little hustle and what I felt was a good idea. One at least worth pursing. A sponge in environments like this.
That picture, especially in hindsight, was taken at a weird stage in both my career and life. 6 months earlier, I’d been let go from my first employer at my first real job due to an RIF. That’s Corporate America’s nice ways of saying you’re let go. The RIF was a gut punch, but I was fortunate and they asked if I would apply for another role within the company. They were excited about my future. Kind of funny on the back of being let go. Anyway, that role ended up requiring a move to Omaha, Nebraska. I didn’t feel like moving to Omaha and as a young-naive 25 year old, had both a little venom and some ambition in my system. I decided against it.
Instead, I was going to become an “entrepreneur”, or some version of whatever I thought that was at the time. I was going to start the next company that sold to Visa or American Express or Bank of America for millions of dollars. Maybe even hundreds of millions. If those companies were smart, they’d acquire me before the valuation was too high.
In September of 2016, I started that process. Created a little company called, CardGo. Did all of the trendy startup things to do. Changed my LinkedIn Title. Created a brand. Created an MVP. Even pitched in some competitions with big audiences, big productions, and big dollars on the table. Honestly, did pretty well in those. But that was it. That was as far as I would go. The launch barely even made it off the launch pad. A few months in, I realized I was lying to myself when every time I was asked about finding investors or going to market, I quickly found a way to deflect the conversation. I hadn’t really started anything. All I had done was taken an idea, albeit a really good one, further than most people would. Unfortunately, taking an idea further than most people is not an actual business and I learned real quick that good ideas don’t pay any bills. They certainly don’t intrigue investors. Not good ones at least.
During that time, I was trying to hold it all together. 25 years old. New baby at home. New wife at home. No steady income. 6 months removed from turning down an offer to return to the kind of job your parents and teachers tell you to strive your whole life for. The constant crippling thought in the back of my mind that what I was doing may not be the right thing. That I was letting people down, some less than a year old, who literally relied on me for their basic human needs. That’s heavy stuff. The reason I don’t take the word entrepreneur lightly. The reason you shouldn’t either.
In the end, I failed. At least in this iteration. American Express and Visa and Bank of America never came knocking. Yet it was in that failure, that I learned the most about myself from both a personal and professional standpoint. I learned those things by being in the positions attempting to be an entrepreneur put me in. By being in rooms with individuals like Carlos and Paul and Ed.
I learned how to handle adversity. I learned not only to call out my strengths, but to play to them. I learned to listen, then analyze, then talk. Preferably in that order and not in the reverse. I learned that you can’t start a Tech company with no Tech background. That there’s no toe-dipping in the world of entrepreneurship. You burn the boats and see it through. I learned that the only thing that matters is users and sales. $1 of revenue from 1 stranger is the 1 customer you need to go from an idea to a business. That’s your gasoline. Find more of it. As much of it as you possibly can. I learned that execution always outplays intent and that every time the hard thing seems like the thing you don’t want to do, it’s exactly what you need to do.
I learned a lot.
Most importantly, I learned what it’s like to fail for a guy that until then, really hadn’t failed at much. To fail and own it. To wear your scars the same way you would flex your muscles. To understand that failing has nothing to do with being a failure unless you let it be your final act. Failure is learning. Like pain, only a temporary sensation. It teaches you. Shapes you for the next thing. Sharpens the blade.
So here I am. Nearly 5 years later. As both a dad and a professional. Still new enough in each game to have time to apply what I have learned and at the same time experienced enough to have lessons learned to apply. A good spot. A spot that makes you realize regardless of what happens, the final joy is always in all of the moments. Both good and bad. Because when they become the past history and not the present reality, you start to look at them a little differently. Remove yourself. Start to realize that everything that has ever happened has shaped you for the exact moment you are in now. And it’s in that moment that will prepare you for wherever you’re going to be. Embrace it. All of it.
Michael
5/14/2020
