At the end of 2017 and into early 2018, the “Universe,” as the kids say, tried to kill me.
It was the best thing that ever happened to me.
It was actually New Year’s Eve when I realized that something extraordinary was happening. I decided to start keeping a list because I knew I’d probably write about it one day. (I don’t advise list-keeping for bad things, by the way. They tend to be a self-fulfilling prophecy of woe. “Oh, look how I’ve suffered!”And then you continue to act as if the bad stuff is all there can ever be…)
There was one big problem, but many, many other smaller problems, all compounded by my own shortcomings as a business owner and a man. The big problem was the former employee who was trying to extort me. Most of the smaller problems had to do with other employee issues. Oh, and my marriage was falling apart - and it was far worse than I realized at the time. And a friend’s weeks-old baby died.
Later, after it all crashed and burned, the one man who’d ever been a father to me died of cancer. That’s a whole story in itself, but for now suffice it to say I’d never felt so alone as I did in November 2019. Or so I thought. In some ways, it was about to get harder. Maybe not “worse,” but definitely harder. I was eventually thankful for the farcical year of 2017-2018.
Don’t worry - there’s a positive note at the end. But here’s a short list of the…what should we call them? “Character building moments?”
A manager former manager tried to extort the company for tens of thousands of dollars. His case was so weak that my lawyer simply said, “Ignore it. I’ll check in when I get back from my vacation.” It went nowhere, but not before the stress of it caused me significant health problems.
Business revenue fell through the floor.
An insurance audit determined we’d “underpaid” for a certain policy and deducted our last $20k.
An employee was likely murdered off the job. He was pushed off of a bridge. The rumored murderer was another employee.
My GM tried to hide some critical info from me that resulted in the loss of one of our critical insurance policies.
Employees drinking on the job got so bad I had to randomly breathalyze them on job sites. Had to fire a few.
An employee tried to get a work crew onto a military base (for a job) but had drug paraphernalia with him. I put together a crew of personal friends to do the job.
Another employee allegedly reported me to the Labor Department for a list of alleged shady practices. They were bogus allegations by a professional whiner, which I guess is what the Labor Department thought, too, because I never heard from them.
A psychotic employee threatened to blow up our trucks - like he did at the last company.
Dave Ramsey (yes, that Dave Ramsey, whose show I called out of desperation one day), told me he’d fire me if I worked for him. “You’re too disorganized!”
Like I said - that’s just a partial list. It was…”fun.”
By October of 2018, I was utterly spent. We somehow made it through the slow season, and had a brief respite from fears of annihilation during the summer busy season, but by October it appeared that we were going to see a repeat of the worst of the previous year’s challenges. It seemed like I had a decision to make. Because, up until that time, I was incapable of making difficult decisions like that, I kicked it down the road for as long as I could.
Then, on October 18th, 2018, the decision was made for me. We just ran out of money, and there wasn’t enough business in the hopper to justify any more Hail Marys. We were done.
Over the next few years it seemed like my career was regressing. I managed to land a job with a larger competitor and sell them the website. In this role, I was making about half of what I’d made as a small business owner. For almost a year I worked for them, basically doing the same thing I’d been doing at my now-dead company. But when that work was finished, they didn’t need me anymore, out into the cold I went.
I tried a few things but eventually landed a job with a company in basically a glorified internship role, but then, “glorified” is too generous a term. I was an entry level marketing flunky, a man apparently past his prime, losing his hair, working among people who’d been born not much earlier than my own kids’ birthdays. I made a quarter of what I made at my post-company job.
Then a huge opportunity came up to relocate to Oklahoma and work for an organization more in line with my wife’s work. It’s a story for another post, but here’s the short version: I became a “homemaker” for a time. “Homemaker” is the word my wife used, repeatedly, against my wishes. In this role, at least in the beginning, I was making half of what I’d made at the toy job, which, if you’re following the math, was somewhere around what I used to make in one month.
This was the pain of death. Death of the ego. Death of a self-image that, as I was beginning to realize, wasn’t just a shadow of a posture, at best.
This was a good thing. All of the “wasted” effort, the literal blood, sweat and tears shed in building something just to lose it, the near-loss of my wife (more on that later), the loss of reputation, and the development of a new one as a pathetic, cautionary tale… It was good.
It was necessary.
It was pride, plain and simple. I was arrogant. Worse, I thought - I truly believed - I was humble.
I consider it a great mercy now in what I hope (and cautiously believe) is the beginning of an upswing in temporal circumstances. Before this ordeal, I wasn’t even aware that I had a problem. It was therefore impossible to fix it. That’s the insidious nature of pride - everyone thinks they’re the hero of their own story. It’s what enables tyrants and despots to justify their tyranny. It’s for the greater good, don’t you know…
So, if I have any advice to impart here, it’s this: If your life is crumbling around you, and your situation doesn’t track with your own self-image, take a good hard look at yourself. You probably need to take a hard look at how your actions/attitude/worldview/whatever map with what’s actually happening. If your actual situation doesn’t track with the grandiose vision you have of yourself, it could be that you’re full of crap.
Some telltale signs: It’s other people’s fault. You have an infinite supply of scapegoats. There’s always a reason why you’re failing, but the one reason that never seems to make the list: YOU.
There may be actual, legitimate things outside of your control that fatally wound your endeavors, but even so, there’s room to consider the possibility that you didn’t prepare for them.
When I first read “Extreme Ownership,” I was shocked and a little scandalized at the level to which Jocko and Leif would seek to place blame on themselves. (That’s where the “extreme” comes from, I guess). I considered it a pose, a conceit. But it’s true - you’re responsible for far more than you think, and when you take ownership of those things - of all of it, the whole scope of your domain - that’s when you start building a humble character.
One vital thing: When that horrific moment arrives where you have no one else to blame, or when the reality of your situation begins to materialize before you, don’t despair. This is the moment that makes men. It’s that peering-into-the-abyss moment that either makes or breaks you. This is the moment that you start building a real foundation.
My suspicion is that it breaks most men. It was only grace and brotherhood that saved me. More on that later.