Layoffs, layoffs, layoffs.
We've seen all of those exact situations happen to people close to us in the last year. Some of us are okay to keep rolling the dice and putting our fate into another's hands. Some of us don't think we have a choice. Honestly, if I were the breadwinner of our family, I would be plugging along with my head down, just hoping that the layoffs didn't happen to me.
That's not Ben. If we're billionaires vacationing on our own private island, he wants it to be because of his own hard work. If we're out of jobs, out of money, and eating Top Ramen, he wants it to be on his terms, not some bureaucrat trying to "clean up the budget." He wants to be the master of his own fate. He wants it so badly that he's willing to live on 4 hours of sleep. He's willing to fail and keep trying until he gets it right. He's willing to be hated, ignored, and not taken seriously. He's willing to have hard conversations with people he'd rather not talk to. He's not just willing to do these things. He's excited to do them.
"Entrepreneurship is living a few years of your life like most people won’t so that you can spend the rest of your life like most people can’t.”
— Anonymous
Enough said.
And I'm the lucky one that gets to live it with him. (You're wondering if that statement is dripping with sarcasm, right? Me too).
Last time I left off with a long car ride, and a big idea. In case you already forgot, or didn't read that post, our business is AR video cards.
Where did we go from there?
It turned into a side-project. You know what I'm talking about. You love it, you're excited about it, you're going to Make. It. Happen. And then you realize that you work full-time, commute 2-3 hours a day, and have an angry wife that is going to scratch your eyes out if she has to put the kids to bed by herself one more time. Ha. That's how it goes for everybody, right?
So, it slowly faded out of existence in our lives. Ben tried other little side projects and watched many of his co-workers get laid off. He was getting frustrated and restless.
That's when a new sort of conversation started. He usually began his sentences with "So I had another idea!" Now they all started with, "So I did the math..." that was followed by, "If we save $1,000 a month, I could quit my job in 6 months, and we'd have 6-8 months of runway." Sometimes it would be, "If I dropped to part-time, we could still afford our house," or "If we sold (fill in the blank) we could have (fill in the blank) months of runway."
You're probably thinking, "Hey Karen, why don't you go get a job?" That's fair. I completed an AS degree at a community college. I was a pitifully paid preschool teacher for 5 years after that. I have no skills people. I mean, unless you want a peanut butter sandwich and a cup of milk stat. I also know some pretty great songs about the alphabet, but last time I checked, that won't pay the bills. (On a more serious note, I do write, but that also doesn't pay the bills).
We talked about home equity loans. We refinanced our house to lower our payment. We tried to tighten our budget. Ben avoided saying it, but we had nearly $80,000 worth of equity sitting in our beautiful new house. He also tried to hide the fact that his desk job was sucking the life out of him, literally.
I love my husband. I believe so much in his abilities. He has some damn good ideas, and he deserves to pursue his dreams. If anyone deserves it, he does.
And so, we decided together that if we were going to do this, we needed to go all in. You know the scene in "The Dark Knight Rises" where Batman is stuck at the bottom of the cave-pit thing? And there's a rope, and you can tie it to yourself while you try to climb out so you don't fall? But Batman couldn't get out until he tried it without the rope.
Basically what I'm trying to say is, my husband is Batman.
Also, I'm trying to say that you can't reach for the stars with a rope tied to your waist. The rope was the job, the house, the white picket fence lie.
So we made a thousand pros and cons lists, and we went all in.
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