Listen. THERE. IS. ONLY. ONE. YOU.
I know we’ve all heard that saying. We’ve all felt that saying, but very few of it know how and when to act on it.
Act on it, but it’s just a saying to take care of yourself, right?
Maybe. I suppose that might be all it really is, but there is absolutely more behind that saying. While most of my posts have been opinions on sports, I promised myself I’d mix in more personal blogs. Blogs about me, my life, and what’s been going on.
That probably sounds absolutely awful to you, but, I promise these personal blogs are going to be worth it.
How I Got Here
This is probably the part that you’re curious about. How’d we get here and why should I give a damn?
7 years ago, I met a person who made me complete. Apparently, deep down there was a massive hole inside. I’d been running around for the 4 years prior filling it with some dirt, but never closing it up. Then along came Julee. She was older (weird at the time), she had a family already (double weird), and honestly I couldn’t stand her when I met her. But things are funny, and apparently the things that I didn’t like about her were really things that I was missing. Older couldn’t be changed, it’s just a number. But the family part, the annoying need to constantly talk and be obsessed with her family, those things I didn’t know I needed but I really did.
I decided to be with her, by choice. I felt it was the right connection. I was working an incredible paying job. One that I really did enjoy. In fact, it may be my favorite job to date. But she was going through some things and wanted to be closer to home. So guess what I did? I packed up, moved, and took a journey across the state with her.
Well worth it.
The problem wasn’t that I transferred within the company I was with, the new position was just beyond demanding. The store was understaffed, and there wasn’t a great deal of opportunity to function outside of work.
I decided to leave, because at that point in time, it was draining every ounce of my soul.
The New Journey
When I decided to leave that job, I took the path into the insurance world. It was exciting, fun, and I felt like the world was mine to take over. 3 months into that role I was already interviewing with a different carrier to become their agent. I could own my own business, I could do things the way I wanted to do them.
Boy, oh boy, was I wrong.
Look, I’ll let you in on a secret about the Insurance Industry. It’s always rainbows and sunshine. Most insurance companies will promise you the world, only to find out you get a fraction of a zip code. They want you to be successful for them, but rarely for you.
Now, this isn’t the norm 100% of the time. Nor do I knock them for what they do. They are in the business to make money, not to be a charity. There’s zero issues with that. It’s not even usually the company that’s at fault, it’s the people in charge.
“But Colby, the people running the company are the company”. Not necessarily and we all know what I mean. You’ve held a job somewhere. It could be fast food, retail, or even a corporation. You could work in a corporate McDonalds in one state, move to another state and transfer, and that job could be an absolute shit show. It’s the same in every company. McDonalds isn’t being solo’d out here.
Now back to the journey. After those 3 months and the interview process, I was hired to be the next agent for a regional insurer. It started off rough, very rough. I had an idea of how to run a business and how I wanted to run a business, but the carrier wasn’t in the market for what I thought was right. Learning moment one, no matter how you want to run a franchise, you have to run it the way they want it.
About 8 months into the new position, I finally discovered how to increase the sales they wanted. Sales were increasing so much that the entire corporation was looking at what I was doing. I was bringing in business and keeping losses at a minimum. Unfortunately, here’s another learning moment, corporations don’t look at all the numbers. They look at some. – Case in point, I was growing by 30 policies a month, but I was loosing about 20 of those the following month due to payment issues. –
I looked hot and sexy on paper, but reality I was running an ugly business.
Flash forward a year and half later, I realized that my business was indeed an issue. It was time to figure out exactly what needed done to take it to the next level. I had to change everything I did, do it completely different. It worked extremely well. So well that I continued to use it into 2020. The methods I was working were flying sky high. I was taking the business to the moon.
Then Covid hit. The whole world shut down. My family was all at home, still working and doing school, but at home making memories together. All the time I saw videos and photos when I got home and there were smiles and happiness with everything going on. It was the opposite for me.
I was stressed and freaking out that things were going to go south so fast that I would be drowning. It caused me to work more. I was going into the office every day because my field was considered “essential business”. I was on the phone, I was building out new systems, I was automating my business and I was hiring people. It paid off, 2020 was the best year I ever had.
Only, it wasn’t really the best year I ever had. It might have been one of the worst. Everything I did was closed, cancelled, and there was nothing to do. I worked, went to the grocery store to let the family stay home, and came home and worked more. On top of that, I didn’t pay myself for 6 months because I dumped all the money into the business.
I was fixing up a house we were renting from a family member at the same time. They wanted to sale the house and I never had the desire to live there permanently, so I felt I could fix it up and help them out. They ended up turning on me, saying I took advantage of someone because they didn’t know better. They ended up selling the house for about $40,000 more than it was evaluated at when I moved in. I think I helped them out rather well.
I was also working a lot on the business. Like, way too much. There were days I would be in the office at 8am and leave there at 11pm. My daughter was turning 3 in 2020, and from March – December, I worked more than I did things with her. In late November that year I started to wear thin, I started to feel like things weren’t going the way they were supposed to, and I felt like all the work I was doing wasn’t doing anything for me.
There were so many things that happened in 2020. Covid, business was its highest of highs and lowest of lows, and my daughter went from this cute fun giggly 2 year old to this attitude having 3 year old in a blink of an eye.
The calendar flipped over to 2021…Finally.
I was so excited to get past 2020. We had Christmas as planned, things went the way we wanted them to go, and we all got out of the year Covid free. Somehow, we all avoided the mess.
Then 2021 came, and I felt this sudden urge of needing to do something else. But I didn’t, I stuck it through. Towards the end of the year, I got into a situation where I was forced to change locations for my office. I left the old place I was in where things were really hitting a stagnation. It was no one’s fault, it’s just the market we were in was changing.
The change was almost too fast. I went from quoting 15-20 households a month from referrals alone. Generally people buying a new house or buying their first. Business was booming, but then sellers realized that they could increase their price by 15-20%. The market would start to tighten. There weren’t enough houses to sell, and the ones that were for sell wanted more than they did 3 months prior.
The realtors I worked with were stressed. The lenders I worked with were loaded with leads, but realtors lacked inventory to get their clients in. It was a mess. It was also the first time in 2 years I wasn’t in shared office for other businesses. The businesses I once shared an office with were slow, I tried to partner with others and they were just as slow.
The slowness gave me time to think. I started realizing I didn’t have boundaries. I would just work when work needed done. Didn’t matter the time, the place, the day. I just worked. It was time to stop that, because I wanted to spend more time with my kid. She was growing up so fast. About to start school. The oldest, not mine but I consider her one of mine, was in her senior year. Julee and I had gotten together when she was entering 6th grade. Stuff had flown by so fast. I missed out, I missed out on a lot. It was time to step away from the constant work.
So I set boundaries. Setting boundaries was a wonderful thing for me. I felt so much better. Felt like I was getting my life back, but in doing so my business was slowing down faster than it already was. This was frustrating the company and I could feel the pressure from them rising. It just kept getting stronger and louder.
2021 wrapped up and we started 2022. In January, I said I needed to move on. I felt things were too stressful. I couldn’t do the things I wanted to do, and it felt like the business was going nowhere. I stuck through it, and I kept pushing trying to get a grasp on things while still keeping things balanced.
In May, we had a blast as a family at Disney World. The oldest got the opportunity to cheer at Disney, so we went as a family. I wasn’t going to originally, but I did and it was the best decision made in a long time. My 5 year old (she was 4 at the time) had the time of her life. We bonded, got closer, and we had a great time together.
I was ready to be done in June, but again, I considered my options and kept pushing thinking there was light at the end of the tunnel.
September came, my birthday month, and I was still with this group. Pushing through, finding ways to start getting business moving forward again (it wasn’t, but I thought it was).
November hit, and finally my brain started to figure out where I was going. I wasn’t going anywhere doing what I was. I didn’t feel like I had a purpose or that I felt like I could get out of the hole I was in. I was ready to pull the trigger but I didn’t.
Some other stuff happened in there too. Between September and November, there were are least 3-5 times I considered suicide. I hated my life. I hated what I’d become. I was drinking everyday to get through the troubles. The business only got 1/4th of the size I had the goal of. Didn’t matter what I did, nothing got us over the first hump to get it going the right direction. It wasn’t all me, but my motivation to keep going for something that wasn’t trending the right direction became more and more obvious.
In late November, we went to Ann Arbor. Julee and I enjoyed an ice cold ball game at The Big House. A close game, but one with adversity and struggle that ended up on a positive note for Michigan. Being a big fan of Michigan, I appreciated the no quit mentality. I’m not sure if they got lucky, or things just worked right, but a win is a win. I woke up the next day from my absolute slumber of a sleep realizing that when you really really want something you keep fighting.
While on the drive home, I realized I didn’t want it any more. I didn’t want do keep doing what I was doing. There was no fight in me. The dawg had left the building.
I made it through November. Celebrating with a win over Ohio State, a desire to terminate my contract, and ready for the holidays. We went to the Big 10 Championship game. Crap ton of fun. I’d highly recommend it for anyone wanting to see a big game. But, then we both got sick. She got sick first, then I got sick. I was down 4 days. Missed my daughters first dance recital.
I was pissed. So pissed I redid my resignation letter. I went into work the first day I felt well enough to and sent it. I was done. I was tired of missing things for work.
I get it you have to miss stuff every now and then. The problem was feeling like every waking moment of my life was spent on my phone whether I was at work or at Disney. It’s no way to live your life. Too many times I was checking my phone instead of seeing my daughter smile.
Why I Did it and Why You Should Too
As you could tell from literally the longest blog in history of man (I’m sure there are longer than this), I didn’t hate what I did. I was really motivated to do the job. I loved parts of it. Love working with good clients and enjoyed helping those who needed help.
Just couldn’t stand the process anymore. The constant grind, the constant need to work and the feeling like I was obligated to be available 24 hours a day. It took several mini events to get me to the point where I felt like I was done. The realization all along was that there was no motivation and being fed up with missing out on my family. It had nothing to do with anything but that.
They say you wear yourself out by burning both ends of the candle. Some times the candle has nothing left to burn and we’re dumb enough to burn the other side of it thinking it will work.
You can’t burn both sides.
Life is like a candle in so many ways. We all start full, we give ourselves to something and it burns. But instead of burning for 2-3 hours like they say, we let ourselves burn for hours on end. We still last and still light, but eventually we’re burned down to the bottom. People flip us over or add a little wax every now and then thinking it will bring us back to life. It’s only temporary. Eventually, there’s nothing left.
I was at a point in my life where the last 7-10 months I spent more time thinking about drinking whiskey then I did thinking about how to better myself. I came up with 5-10 business ideas but never had the guts to pull the trigger. So I kept drinking. Then it got to the point where I didn’t want to exist in this world.
I’m sure you’ve been there, and if you haven’t, I hope you never do. But if you read this far, you need to realize something. No one is coming to save you. If you don’t learn to take care of yourself, set boundaries, and maintain what motivates you, you’ll burn the fuck out. Like a candle in the wind, there’s no one keeping your flame going. You have to do it and you have to do it while giving yourself enough room to burn it.
Take care of you and only you. Money is necessary, but it’s not life. You are life. Your family needs you. Go where you’re needed. Fuck these jobs that only need you for money. You’re a number that is replaceable and they already have a replacement lined up before you leave.
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