The author discusses his experience of being broke for most of his life and the impact it had on his relationships and wellbeing. He reflects on how there was a lack of education around making money and how this led him to care more about money as he saw his peers in Dubai with fast cars. He decided to start an e-commerce business and dedicated himself to learning and working hard every day. He advises others who feel sad or that life is unfair to be harsher on themselves, stop slacking and start working hard to see results.
—
Introduction
For most of my life, I’ve pretty much always been broke, and it completely destroyed me. It destroyed my relationships and sent me to a really dark place. I want to take this opportunity to share my story to explain.
The Beginning
Throughout my entire life, I’ve always been a happy kid. I had a great family and had great friends. I did okay in school. But what I found interesting was even in high school, no one would ever discuss money.
Education
There were no classes on how to make money. Everything was conditioned to ‘After High School, you got a job or go further in education,’ which never made sense to me. At the time, I never thought anything of it; it just seemed normal to me, and that’s what everyone else did.
Post-High School Life
Fast forward the clock to when I finished high school, and things changed. It was almost like the fact that when you were in high school, you were just in school, and it was fine if you were broke. But one day after school was finished, you were seen as a loser for not going to university or having a job, and this was when my life started to go downhill.
Wanting More
This didn’t make sense to me. I started caring way more about money at this point, and I think this was due to seeing a lot of people my age in Dubai or some other hot country with fast cars. It didn’t make sense to me. My school never taught me about this. My family never taught me about this. I was just taught to work a 9-5, and I hated this. It felt like I’d been cheated, and it felt like I’d been lied to.
The Turning Point
I wanted what these people on social media had. I wanted to be making money in my sleep, completely passive. I didn’t want to be working for the next four years of my life making someone else rich instead of me. The problem was, being from a small town in Dumfries, literally no one was doing this. The other jobs, in my eyes, were miserable. Everyone would always fight with their partners about how much things cost and how they couldn’t buy that because they didn’t get paid till the end of the month.
Plan of Action
I vividly remember the moment I wanted to change this. I sat down, and I knew I had two choices. Choice number one: I could carry on feeling sorry for myself and watch my life go by working for someone else. Or choice number two: I could sort my life out. Obviously, I chose the second one. So my plan: start a business. I chose e-commerce.
Taking Things Seriously
I watched hours of content, read hundreds of forums. I soaked my brain in everything to do with Ecom. I never missed a day of learning. The second I woke up, I got to work. No playing video games anymore, none of these bad habits, constantly opening up stores, failing, and trying again. Nothing else was on my mind. My days were now structured. No laying in bed till 3 pm, no feeling sorry for myself. Now, challenges every single day I need to complete to improve myself for the next day. And that’s what motivates me now.
One Piece of Advice
I just want to finish this video with one piece of advice, and this is probably going to be an unpopular opinion. But if you’re feeling sad, or you feel like life’s not fair at the moment, then be harsher on yourself. Yeah, I’m serious. Not many people will say this, but stop slacking, stop waking up in the afternoon, stop eating, and stop watching porn. Stop feeling sorry for yourself, stop thinking, ‘why does it have to happen to me?’ and instead, start working. Work your ass off every single day. Put more effort into your life, and start taking some action, and you’ll get the result.
