From Plumbing Apprentice to Financially Independent in 6 Months

I just finished High School & my final semester included fulltime co-op, where I was working 60 hours a week at a local plumbing company. The money was good, and they offered me a job after graduation so I took it. I spent the next two years regretting that decision. As the weeks and months passed, I realized that there was no way I could live the rest of my life this way. I was working 80-90 hours, 6 to 7 days a week, every week. Working 48 or 72 hours without sleep was not uncommon. The company I worked for provided 24-hour emergency service to all of Toronto housing. Essentially the ghetto/projects of southern Ontario. I was 19 years old going out to emergency calls at 2 in the morning and arriving at meth labs, Marijuana grow ops, and worse. It was also common place, nearly a daily occurrence, to walk into apartments infested with roaches and bed bugs. I started to doubt I could do this for the rest of my life.

 I was so tired of busting my ass for nothing. I started to think to myself, what was the point of doing all this? I mean was this life? Was I going to spend the next 50 years doing this shit? I mean, yes the fulltime licensed plumbers I worked with were making 100k a year easy, but every single one of was either coming to work drunk, or smoking a joint every 30 minutes. It was the only way they could get on with their day and forget about how absolutely terrible their quality of life really was. We were all essentially slaves, working for the profit of our boss who lived in a beautiful house, with beautiful cars, and had the luxury of keeping his hands clean. Is it his fault we had to work this shitty job? Not at all, good for him, somewhere down the road he made the right choice, and realized this crap wasn’t for him either.

My options were limited, I didn’t have a college education outside of the trades, and I had already told all of my friends and family I was going to be a plumber. If I just quit now, what would they think of me? I didn’t even have a backup plan, I had no clue what I was going to do next, I just knew that I didn’t want to be here. There had to be a better way to live, there had to be more to life than 50 years of working in run down apartments getting covered in all sorts of “fluids”, breaking up concrete, and digging ditches for underground piping. There had to be more! I mean… I wasn’t like these other guys… right? I looked at a good friend of mine that I worked with and thought to myself; when I’m his age, I want to be somewhere on a beach in Europe with my beautiful girlfriend, sipping sangria, bathing in the warmth of the sun, and watching the waves roll in as the sun sets. Okay maybe that’s a bit much, but still! My current career path wasn’t going to take me anywhere near that dream, so I knew it was time for a change, I had to do it!

The Tipping Point

I struggled for a few months working up the courage to make my escape, not knowing what I was going to do next. One day on cold winter morning, I was working on a commercial construction site doing all the huge underground piping. Jumping in and out of ditches, got my foot stuck in a mud filled trench and twisted my knee bad. Long story short I couldn’t walk for almost two weeks! In that two weeks, I called my boss and said “listen, I don’t think I can come back”. He was confused, he said “what do you mean? If you need a few months just take all the time you need and see how you feel then”. I told him he didn’t understand, I meant that I couldn’t do this anymore, like at all, I wanted out. I left on great terms, gave him a bottle of wine, and was on my way.

What Now?

I had no idea what do when I left, so like every other teenager who isn’t sure what to do with their life, I went to college. I took business administration, and started my first semester of college just a month after leaving my career in plumbing. It was tight, I almost didn’t make it in time to register, but luckily someone dropped out and a spot opened up.

While in college I started reading articles just like this one, and doing Google searches for things like “how to make money online”, or “best businesses to start”. I know right… After I realized there was no get rich quick solution, I started reading books, listening to podcasts and eventually I started to spot more and more opportunity. Ideas started to flow, but the hard part was figuring out how to take action. Ideas are a dime a dozen, execution is king. 

Starting My First Business (Toronto Skycam)

Shortly after starting College, the “Drone” craze was just beginning. You know those things with the cameras and the lights that people fly from their iPhones? Yes those drones. Well, just as everyone was finding out about this technology, I had actually already been building and flying remote control aircraft for half a decade. So this was nothing new to me. I had a huge edge, I already knew how to fly, I had the equipment to get started, and a place to practise my flying. So I found my first business! I started offering aerial photography and video to people like real estate agents, wedding photographers, various commercial businesses, and at one point I did a really cool high speed chase with the fire and police department at a training facility. At the time I was only doing this part time, weekends and evenings, and I was still working as a Suit salesman at Moores while going through college. But as soon as I made my first $2000 for two days of work, I took a step back and though woah… this is the way.

By that time, the income from my side hustle, was already exceeding my day job, and so I took the leap. I quit my job as a Suits salesman, and jumped into aerial photography and video fulltime. I grew the business while in college, and just before graduation I joined a much larger drone tech company who was working on the consulting and training side of things. I gave up Toronto Skycam for equity in their company, but after realizing we didn’t quite have similar values (that’s another story for another day) I made my exit on the conditions of our contract. They would have to pay me out an agreed upon amount, and I was on to the next thing.

So What Am I Doing Now?

After leaving the drone business behind me, I started to do some research. I wanted to find a business that was a little less hands on, and a little more scalable. I took a step back and began exploring everything! I was a freelance writer for a while, built and sold various blogs, started an E-Commerce store and sold it, launched an affiliate marketing venture and sold that as well, I really got into a bit of everything. All of those projects taught me a lot about business, and a lot about myself. Most importantly I learned that my favourite thing about business, was business itself. I didn’t care what I was doing, I just loved building a brand from nothing, getting people to trust it, growing a customer base, and then once everything was running smooth I would get bored and move on.

So, long story short I started a social media marketing agency called Suits Social inc. I get to work on new businesses all the time and apply everything I’ve learned to grow my own successful ventures over the past few years. I've built a great team that works along side me, most of us work from home 90% of the time even though we all live in Toronto & the GTA. I’ve been doing this full-time for almost a year now, and i'm loving every second of it. We recently worked with a business in Barrie, and managed to take them from 0-14k a month in revenue, in just 3 months. How? Powerful social media strategy, and a bucket-load of fantastic online reviews from their raving fans (customers). We took them from non-existent, to basically everyone in Barrie knowing them, through the power of social media and online reviews alone. What a fun ride, and they're continuing to grow, even considering franchising! This is the stuff I live for.

Building A Lifestyle

But the best part is that all of this is, that all of my work is done from home, rarely do I actually go into my office. I really only use it for meetings, events, and to collect mail, that's about it. So I can be on my boat, on my couch, or in bed, it really doesn't matter. And when I took a week off for vacation, no one noticed. Because I set up Suits Social to be 90% virtual, meaning my entire team, all of our software, and all of our clients accounts are managed online, we never need to be in the same room as each other or a client. Although I do often visit clients in person because I can, and I want to, but not because I have to. All our meetings can be done virtually with live video calls, screen shares, and group chats, it's a beautiful thing. This gives all of us complete freedom. My marketing manager just got back from a week in California, and again... no one even noticed he was gone. He enjoyed sunny Cali during the day, and got his work done at night. It's a win win for everyone!

My Life Since Getting Into Business

I haven’t worked a normal “Job” since I left Moore’s as a suit salesman. I work harder than I ever have, but I enjoy every single minute of it, and I believe I made the right choice all those years ago when I ditched plumbing and went on the search for something new. It doesn’t matter if I’m enjoying beautiful Barcelona like in the picture above, taking a weekend to go to the beach, or relaxing with family, I still get paid. I’m in full control, I work when I want, how I want, and where I want.

But I didn’t get here right away, and you need to know that’s part of the process. As I mentioned, I did so many things for money, in the beginning you don’t have the luxury of Lifestyle Design, you just have to get that money. Most importantly though, you have to get the skills. Things like freelancing or starting a part time business will allow you to learn and refine critical skills that you’ll need to run a successful business somewhere down the road. (5 side hustle ideas to double your income)

The average school system falls short when it comes teaching you how to be an entrepreneur, so you have to kind of figure it out on your own. Don’t work your 9-5 suffering each and every day, too afraid to start anything because it might the "wrong thing". Do and try anything, sell things on Kijiji, clean peoples cars, or if you have more sophisticate skills freelance as a web designed, developer, analytics, SEO, or marketing person, there is lot’s of work out there trust me. I even wrote an entire blog post on how to quit your job and get into freelancing, which you can read here.

Heck call me, I’m always looking for talent in these areas. The point is, you don’t have to finish where you start. I started flying drones, and I ended up with a marketing agency, and that’s okay! I’ve honestly loved every second of this journey, and as I venture into my sophisticated business opportunities, I can’t wait to see what my life is like 5 years from now.

(Hopefully I'll be in Rome a lot more often)

The point of this article was to show you that if you hate your job, but you don’t know what else to do, it’s okay. If I could go from plumbing apprentice to marketing agency CEO, you can do anything you want. There are no rules, no set paths, no secrets to success, just try, learn, and repeat. Eventually if your will is strong enough, you surround yourself with the right people, and work smart, you will succeed. Life is to short to work a job you hate, don’t feel trapped. If you’re really stuck reach out to me and I’ll try to offer you some personal advice and get you pointed in the right direction. It doesn’t have to be so hard.

Thanks for reading, Cheers!

Check out my personal blog at www.darrencabral.com if you'd like to check out some more of my articles on business, philosophy, and life.

If you're a business owner/manager and want to implement social media as part of your marketing efforts, check out my agency www.suitssocial.com or email me at [email protected] learn more.