In high school, he was the quiet, unassuming one. He never personally got into trouble, but he hung around the delinquents and potheads. There was a shyness about him, but everyone knew how brilliant his writing was. Every paper he turned in seemed to garner accolades from the teachers. It was before graduation that he became a serious dealer of marijuana; in the pounds. And after graduation, this was his sole source of income. He didn’t go to college. He kept his head down, expanded the types of drugs he dealt in, and never used the product. “Never use an illicit product you sell, or you won’t be selling it for long.” The cash accumulated and accumulated. He was also in a relationship with a girl he really cared about. Talking about getting out of the game became frequent. When his girlfriend got pregnant and threatened to leave him so as to not raise a child in the dealing environment, he made a bold choice by buying an apartment complex in a lower socioeconomic suburb with cash. He hired a management company and turned the property around. With this profit, he went to law school. He left his old world behind. Anyone in his current life knows nothing of his past. There’s always a chance to pivot.
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She bought herself a sporty, black Honda Prelude with a sunroof. Tiny and fast to match her smart and sass. Her nickname was Taz for a reason; like the cartoon Tasmanian Devil. Any room she entered, she’d stir up a storm. Everything was about her. The money for the car had come from the lawsuit against Harley Davidson. The gas engine exploded while she and her boyfriend were on the freeway. He died in the hospital, not surviving after 80% of his body was burned. After six months in the hospital, and many skin graft surgeries later, she had a chance to reinvent herself. Now she was flying higher and driving faster. Daring the world. She had survived many things. The car got totaled. The leftover cash got stolen. Every bad thing that happened thereafter became an excuse for why things weren’t better. Sometimes we can’t get out of our own way.
There was no pivoting away. There was only staying in place. Staying in place for so long, a private world molds itself around you like a cast one can’t remove. It all became a crutch.
He launches one business after another. Chases seed money; sends out quarterly letters to investors with updates. Rarely sees a profit; tries something new every three to four years. He changes his phone number, changes his LinkedIn profile. Always a pivot. He’s working hard, but it’s not paying off in the way he wants with the profits he wants. Chasing the money or the wrong reasons. Irrational decisions.
I understand changing with the circumstances or adapting to new demands; entirely rebranding; not throwing good money at bad. All of it. But some people give up before they’ve done the real work.
Sometimes we simply get exhausted trying and trying again.
I’ve always admired people who recognized their career interests at an early age and then proceeded to take the linear path of accumulating the skills and knowledge to achieve one goal, then sticking it out for years and years and years. Stay the course, and eventually, you will succeed. It’s like compounding interest in investments. Set it and forget it. The wealth grows, just as it takes years for a brand to develop.
If you keep changing course, you don’t build a brand. If you keep pulling out your money or selling when the market is down, you can’t grow your money. It’s people in the hustle or in a mode of desperation who always feel the need to pivot. The desired result didn’t come fast enough.
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Billy, the punk. Tatted up, ex-con, always wanting to ‘stick it to the man’ whatever that means; even going so far as wanting to rip off a fast-food employee by driving away when his food is passed through the window before he pays -before they started getting the money before they hand out the food. Yes, there was a time. There was a time of more trust and more civilization. Desperate times call for desperate measures. Stealing things to sell for a quick buck. It’s still out there; they’re still around. It just seems that now, more and more people seem to not give a shit, wearing pajamas to the airport. Too many people want to drop out of life. Too many want to leave before they’ve done the work or believe they’re owed something for nothing. People don’t pivot when they think they’re owed something. They’re deluded into thinking they’ll eventually get their due.
Know when to pivot. Survive or die trying, as some would believe.
image: by artist duo TARWUK