Message to My son (Arian Rodriguez) about success

Ari, there will be many times in your life where you will either be unsatisfied with how things are going or disappointed with where you are at in that specific moment.

This is ok! Everyone goes through it (even though hardly anyone admits it). It may seem that successful people are just constantly winning. From the outside in, it will appear as if they got the “secret sauce” to just always do awesome stuff and they have the money, resources, time, and intelligence to always make the right move.

There are many factors to success and the definition of success can mean different things to different people. Personally I don’t like the cliche hippie statement that “success is how my family views me and is not tied to money”. While this sounds nice, warm, fuzzy, and sincere it never seemed genuine. It suggests that if things aren’t working out, you should settle with feeling successful because those close to you give you all you need to feel successful. Perspective is everything and depending on the individual or moment…hearing that may be good enough to feel much better. However, I always asked myself, why not have both?

Why not have a family that is proud of me, loves me, and be successful with my career and/or salary at the same time? The more I asked myself this when I was in a slump…the more I would get angry that I was just not moving forward with my life and I could only blame myself.

In 2008, I gracefully lost my job at Redbox. I loved working there so much, I went into a bit of a depression. I had a strong identity for my ability to be creative, smart, friendly, and results driven at that company. A piece of me was gone however I had the following situation when I was no longer working at Redbox.

Dad’s environment when he was down and depressed

• I had a severance package for up to a year that carried me through the fact that I was unemployed
• I was living with your mother and we were doing fine in regards to paying for living expenses and paying bills
• I was healthy
• I had a lot of free time to do anything I wanted

Yet…I was still depressed and did not feel myself or complete. I started asking myself why over and over again.

The answers became obvious after a few weeks of consistently analyzing myself and looked into detail at the things that bring me happiness. Over the course of time, I had convinced myself that as long as I didn’t work a hard labor job, worked in an office, and made twice the minimum wage that I was “doing good for myself”. This logic came from just comparing myself to the majority of people I grew up with. I grew up in Cicero at a time when gang violence and drugs flooded the streets. Everybody I knew was either in a gang, sold drugs, or was gang affiliated. If I’m comparing myself to those individuals then yes, I was doing very well for myself. But when I was asking myself why I wasn’t happy it was simply because, I did not choose that for myself.

Why should I succumb to the standards set by my environment instead of standards set by myself? If I want to be a world class professional DJ, that can be my standard. If I want to be the CEO of a successful business, that can be my standard. There is a cliche statement that I don’t mind as much which is, “the sky is the limit”.

When I realized this, I knew I wanted the following:

Dad’s personal 6 points that define success

• Work at another startup and experience the sucess of working hard at a small company
• Become an influential person in said company
• The next startup I work for should be a technology company of some sort
• Become a person that drives creative solutions
• Work with people I enjoy, respect, and look up to
• Make decent money

If I achieved those 6 things, there is no way that my family and friends wouldn’t be proud of what I accomplished so that was an automatic result of achieving success. Once I realized those 6 things were what defined success in my mind…I instantly got to work. As I explained earlier, I had a lot of time on my hands and had money to make ends meet so I began a focused job search. I was going to work on my resume to get me the experience I need to work in a tech related role. My resume at that time was full of customer service and lacked any description that I can solve technical problems.

On my free time I began learning how to troubleshoot laptops and computers (starting with my own). I learned about the components of a computer and how to build them. I learned the ins and outs of basic networking and how computers connect to the internet. I turned down all job offers relating to customer service and let all of those recruiters know I’m looking for an opportunity to jump into tech support or IT. It took me 6 months but eventually a recruiter heard my story and forwarded it over to my first tech support job at McGraw-Hill. My career and life has only gotten better since then because my goal was to achieve the 6 points I described earlier.

Ari, I didn’t stop. 7 years later, I am now doing the following:

Dad’s current situation in 2016

• Works at one of the most successful and fastest growing companies in Chicago as employee #19
• I was the product manager of a product that allowed the business to expand on how we are involved in healthcare
• I now product manage the newest product that could potentially change the way doctors interact with patients in the exam room forever
• The company has expanded to 5 technology products and the list will continue to grow over the years
• I am a key participant to the software development team and drive the projects, meetings, and communication about my product
• I make a decent salary

I am very happy right now Ari, and on top of all of those things I listed above I have the amazing ability to spend the most time with you than I ever have before. I have more than doubled the amount of time I see you each week. My friends and family are all very proud of what I have accomplished. Talk about getting the fruits of my labor.

I do want to let you know that the process is VERY HARD and requires focus, determination, and getting up when you fall down.

There were many times where I felt like giving up and felt like I just couldn’t accomplish it. Luckily I’m a very stubborn person and I managed to not allow myself to give up. Whether it was motivating myself, or others talking me out of giving up and moving forward. Your grandparents and Stephanie are very good at making me realize I am strong enough and smart enough and extremely capable of achieving whatever I want.

I will do the same for you Ari.

Essentially what I want to tell you here is that, if you ever feel down or feel unsatisfied with how things are going…ask yourself why? Also ask yourself, what would success look like FOR YOU?

Get the list in your head or write it down. Once you have the list…think of the “low hanging fruit” and what is the immediate change you can make that can start taking you down the road of success.

If you ever need help with this, let me know Ari and I will be there for you all the way!

-Dadida