Are You A Painful Embarrassment To Your Parents?

You don't always know the change is occurring until it you see the difference

I lived at home well after college had ended. It was great because it gave me a firm financial footing that not many others get the privilege of.

It was difficult though because every day I was confronted with regular reminders I wasn’t where I wanted to be.

I had some successes here and there but I wasn’t moving along as a “normal” adult-like so many of my friends. There was no job lined up for me, I had no money and I wasn’t about to get married without a way of supporting a household.

Everything I thought I wanted to do as a career seemed to shut its doors on me.

You really struggle to find direction when plans A, B, C, D, and E all fail.

I felt embarrassed to be in the same room as my parents. I felt like they were ashamed of me, but the truth was they were just worried.

“What are you even trying to do anymore?” My mom asked me one time.

I told her that all the hours I was spending on YouTube were focused on learning new skills that would be in-demand, stuff that the schools didn’t teach us.

All the spare cash I was spending at Barnes and Noble was going towards books written by people who figured out the system for how money is really made. I put notes in the margins and highlighted pages worth of information.

Those online courses from sites like Udemy and others by self-titled gurus were challenging me to discover new ways to solve complex issues for business owners looking to level up their sales.

Some of those were a hit, some were a miss. I kept on searching regardless.

I knew the economy was changing. I knew there would be a demand for creative and technical copywriters, social media coordinators, content creators, and digital marketers, I just didn’t know where those opportunities would be.

Eventually, I caught some of my “friends” laughing at me at a party. I didn’t have enough money to buy a cheap beer at the bar. To make it worse, I gained so much weight that the only things I could fit me were a pair of old sweatpants. Obviously, my confidence was at an all-time low.

After all, when you don’t have the money you don’t have time. If all you have is time, you don’t have money.

These “friends” thought I was just making excuses for a record of missed opportunities and repeated failures. I may have been in an emotional and financial pit, but I wasn’t going to stay there.

Years later, now I’m at a point in my life where all the skills I learned online, from unpaid work opportunities to personal projects that tested my knowledge. Even odd jobs for people with big ideas- but all those long nights and thankless hours of work paid off.

I didn’t just catch up to my friends who were doing “everything right.” I exceeded them because I knew that the world was bound to change in harsh and irreversible ways.

But with those challenges would come great opportunities for those of us who saw beyond the horizon of the 9-5 corporate prison. People who were willing to look past their educators and out into the world found boundless opportunities to drastically improve their lives.

I struggled, I made good decisions and bad decisions. I took all the courses, all the free webinars, and read all the books under the sun about how to build a life that couldn’t be shaken or toppled by an angry boss, an aggressive social media army, or even a giant pandemic.

I can look at all the scary things going on in the world and still have a quality night’s sleep regardless.

Now, I can even make my parents proud of me.

I wandered alone for years. I had to get to this point all by myself.

You don’t have to.

You have Hustler’s University 2.0.

Click below if you’re ready to change everything.