"Life Is Hard - My Personal Journey"

? 1989: Was married at 22. Finished college with $15k of debt. Fired from Retail Store Manager position. I cursed out the police chief after firing his daughter for stealing from me. ?? Not a good idea.

? 1991: Living in Tulsa, working another Retail Store Manager job. Married with a one-year-old son. My wife leaves me. Takes everything, not that we had much. Moved to a tiny, crappy apartment near the retail store I worked at.

? 1993: Started to recover and my wife came back with our son. We had moved into a rental house. She leaves again. Takes everything. I’m starting over, AGAIN.

? 1995: Promoted to a Retail District Manager. Wife comes back. We have a second child. Moved to Fort Worth and started to recover somewhat financially.

? 1996: Wife leaves again for the final time. I had come back from a work road trip. Everything gone. Bank account wiped out. All I had was an old mattress that was left outside by the shed we tossed out a few weeks ago. I dragged it inside. Mom and Dad, who were blue-collar folks and didn’t come from family money, were having their own struggles at the time and couldn’t help me. I lost the little place I was renting. Talked my boss into just letting me travel and work remotely for a while because I didn’t have a place to live. I was driving a company car (which was the only vehicle I had). Finally found a little old construction/oilfield trailer parked outside a little old lady’s home west of Austin. Furnished. Rented it for $200 a month.

? 1997 to 1999: Dark times. Poor and lonely. Missed my boys.

? 1999: I meet Kim at a dancehall outside of Austin. She also was coming off a divorce and didn’t come from family money. We were both poor as dirt but fell in love. Not sure how a beautiful woman falls in love with a guy that lives in a tiny trailer, has nothing, and pays big child support on boys he rarely sees. But somehow, Kim saved me. Thank God because I was headed down some dark paths.

? 2000: Life improves as Kim and I move in together. I also get another promotion and we move to CT. I was making $75k with a company car and I thought we were rich.

? 2001: Next blow. We lost custody of Kim’s children. A major stress point for our relationship and now we were paying child support on two sets of children we rarely saw.

? 2001 to 2003: Tough times. Moved back to a tiny apartment. Most anything we had went towards trying to fly the kids back and forth from out of state to see us.

? 2003 to 2005: Back to good times. We gained custody of my sons, moved to OK for another job I took. Things started to look up. I was making $90k in OK in 2003 which was decent money at that time. Put in an above-ground pool. Thought we were rich. ??

? 2005: Fired from my job. More stupid crap I did.

? 2005 to 2007: Dark times. Ran up major credit card debt. Bounced around to a couple of crappy jobs. Had no savings, no investments, and about $20k in credit card debt. Didn’t have a company car. Bought an old Ford Taurus from Kim’s mom for $1,000. Drove it around along with an old truck my dad let me borrow. Not a good time.

? 2007: Got a big job in Colorado making $140k a year. Suddenly life started to turn positive again. Bought a house. Sale price $170k.

? 2010: Got another big job as President of a company making over $200k a year. Things were now looking good. Debt gone, money in savings, a few investments. Automobiles paid off.

? 2013: Worried I’m eventually going to become one of those former executives over 50 years old out of work someday, I enter the world of entrepreneurship and start Riderflex, our recruiting and consulting business.

? 2013 to 2019: We pour money into it. I make about $30k to $50k annually for the next several years. Things get tight again. I pray each day my wife doesn’t leave me for making such a move.

? 2019 through 2022: Things are good. Business picks up, we start making more money. I’m finally enjoying life. We buy some rental properties and make some investments. All the kids are gone so there’s less expense at home. Good times.

? 2023: Business downturn and AI enters society. Recruiting and hiring in late 2023 and early 2024 start to stall. At the exact same time, we had poured money into a new investment, Kura Home Maintenance. Double whammy. Cash drained on the investment and business downturn with Riderflex.

? 2024: Back to stress after we thought we had it all figured out.

What’s the moral of the story? Life is hard. There will be good times and bad times for most people, especially if you don’t come from family money or have inheritances coming your way. Keep pushing forward. Stay positive. Fight and claw your way to what’s next and never give up. Because life will beat you down and stomp on you if you let it.