I put some background & more info on both of me & my good friend to give perspective. The essay is a summary of a convo we had in.
Friend in Town
The other day, Monday 03/13/23 to be exact I had a conversation with a buddy of mine who’s been having a weird possible early mid-life crisis. Some broad generalizations about him, tech bro with enough tech jobs currently you think he’s collecting infinity stones for the gauntlet. He’s super exhausted but he’s focused as hell with a goal to have enough money to either buy a nice house in the area he lives or buy a franchise of some sort and live off of that business.
We’re going back and forth burning through most topics but the main topic that kept popping back up was about the economy. You see he’s worked in the tech industry for about 4–5 years possibly more and he’s noticed that salaries aren’t keeping pace with the inflation of the economy. He’s enjoyed life through the fruits of his labor but he felt almost every time he looked up things are going sideways, trying to buy a house gets harder, I chime in with: used & new cars are $5k-$10k over than what they should be.”
I had to get a new vehicle within the past few years hence that chime in. Now the last several years have not been kind to most people in so many different ways and as of to date we’re technically not in a financial crisis even though there’ve been so many signs. It’s hard to say what to do, we both know that the way to some sort of financial freedom is to run a business for yourself but he’s never ran a business and I’ve done one for myself only for an actual company.
Not in a position to give advice
It’s tough to make any sort of recommendations for him or anyone especially since I’m trying to find my own way and figure it out for myself. I’ve looked at so many different businesses, have a business degree, trying to possibly have a nice little side hustle going. I know what I don’t want and I do know what I do want which is a business that I could run myself that also gives me the coveted: work-life balance.
As my friend is telling me about all his goals, I realized that my old buddy was looking at the glass half full. We’ve known each other for about 10 years or more, he’s real smart, and driven and yes, he usually looks at the facts but he can obsess over them. In the middle if not towards the latter half of the conversation, he says we should have a podcast as if a verbal declaration based on how our conversations go! For that I do agree but we both know that that wouldn’t be possible due to he being on a major time crunch with all his jobs, literally and I would need to get my life together.
Little more about me
Life’s interesting at the moment. Recapping 2022 was an interesting year for me, got out of the paint industry almost violently (possibly a story for another time), and an uncle passed away but the in-between was a nice calm and peace that I believe I needed, hell if anything it was mostly a 7-month sabbatical from work. Beginning of 2023, had no job, running out of money that I gathered up from my time in the paint industry, then at the end of the January started working at a restaurant.
Fast forward two months, I’m about to start what looks like an amazing job (on paper, especially for me), personal life is always a toss-up, it may be in a holding pattern so who knows. I’ve mentioned in my introduction article that I wanted to get into tech sales, then get into side projects with Notion. Well without giving anything away I got a happy medium between tech sales & the paint industry. Now that I’ve got a new job, I’ll be eyeing side projects, writing every so often.
You see I’ve worked retail over a decade (including paint) and I honestly can’t remember when this revelation came to me but I honestly didn’t want to be doing a job that absorbs way too much of my time, or when I leave from work I’ll just be thinking about even after clocking out, or a job that physically wears on you. Yes, thankfully I’m still young and single but I want to be able to hopefully one day give some of my best physically, mental and emotional energies to my family, kids, wife/girlfriend, myself; selfishly I want to save myself for them not a job. The goal is as I get older to move into a job that’s in a way easier and fulfills that criteria.
Economy is effecting us differently
Even with the contrast between both myself & my tech bro buddy’s lives, from two different perspectives and vantage points, we both are obviously intrigued about the economy. He’s worried as hell about the economy and spending power of a dollar, even though he has an abundance in life. I find that interesting but it makes sense when he reminded me that he’s super risk adverse. Hell, if anything good on my brother for doing all he can to make sure to stack the deck into his favor! Something I learned while being a paint store manager, in business it’s either feast or famine, winner take most. The only thing we can do is handle things the best way we know how.
Inspired By:
I was inspired to write this essay/article by Karena De Souza (@tiltthefuture on Twitter) her essay: “Mind the Gap” absolutely amazing article, read it two days after the conversation on 03/15/23. Strongly recommend people to read it so many gems, don’t even want to spoil anything, under or over sell it.
