Who owns your dreams?
My name is Bobson St Pierre and I am a small business owner. My business is helping small and mid-size businesses to leverage the power of technology and the Internet so they can achieve growth and profitability. This is part of my overall mission statement, but I’m not writing this article to sell you on my services per se.
Let me tell you a little story of how and why I became a business owner. Before I owned a business I was an employee of a major financial institution in New York City. I worked there for a couple of years, and for the first two years I was sort of happy. Well, I was happy that I had a job, because before that I was unemployed.
I had been unemployed for two years, which had been an unpleasant experience; so landing that job was very welcome, and I was grateful for the opportunity. Consequently, I went to work, came in on time, and put in a lot of overtime. I was an outstanding employee, and they even gave me buttons: they gave you buttons when you did a good job. It was like that for the first two years.
Doing the work was okay: it was computer administration and technical support work. After two years I had mastered their proprietary software, their technical guidelines, and their computer systems and networks. After you have mastered your job, what else is there to do except to just get up every morning and go to work? I used to get on the Path Train at Pen Station. Yes, the path train; if you live in New York or Jersey and commute using the Path Train, you know what I am talking about. It took about an hour to get to work and I did this everyday Monday through Friday. As a result, the job became routine, automatic, unchallenging, and very boring. But, like I said, it was alright because I had a Job and I also enjoyed some of the people there: my co workers were some of the funniest and greatest people I have ever come across in my life. They were smart, caring, and funny people; and they were diverse, they were Asian, black, white – all type of cultures and nationalities
I bonded with many of them, people like Chu, JR, Carolyn, Ryan, Dave, Lincoln, and many others who made the days a bit easier. There were pranksters, wise men and women, class clowns, smarty pants – you name it – and they made me laugh my socks off at times. In fact, I am laughing right now thinking about some of them and their stories and pranks. I used to sit in the back with Chu – our cubicles were next to each other – and we would converse about many topics. He would tell me about China and his family – their struggle to come here and to make something out of nothing, putting him through college and that sort of thing. He was always educational and inspiring to listen to and talk with. Carolyn was this beautiful, smart young black female who management was prepping to be a manager one day. She was hard working and ambitious; she was working while going to school at night – she amazed me at times. Dave was this great guy who was the team leader for the night crew. Dave was a good leader and he was a real talent, a real class act. Lincoln was this cool young man from the islands, very smart, ambitious, and extremely talented at what he did. He was also a real class clown, the prankster of the team; although I must admit I was also a prankster. Lincoln and I started working for the company at the same time and became friends. If you saw him you would think he was my brother or something. Last but not least there was JR, he was, and still is a real friend. JR and I instantly shared a common bond: You see his parents are from the same island of Haiti that my parents and I are from. While he was born in the states, I was born in Haiti and then I came here when I was very young – I believe I was about 6 years old. The thing with Haitians is that, if any of your parents are from Haiti, then we regard you as Haitian. He also lived in the same part of Jersey that I lived in, so we would run together to catch the Path Train to and from work every day. We spent a lot of time talking about a whole ton of issues on the Path Train: we talked about politics, life, women, our goals, dreams, ambitions –everything. JR was into real-estate: he used to buy houses, fix them up and resell them. That was his passion and he would go on talking about it day in and day out. I always listened because he was an interesting guy: he was married with two kids and a wife who was pregnant with their third child. At age 32 he had the world on his shoulders but you would not know it because he was always positive with a great attitude. He owned several properties, while paying his own mortgage, supporting his wife, kids, and paying for two cars. This is New Jersey we were living in: taxes, insurance, and mortgages are through the freaking roof. I am always amazed at how normal folks can succeed and live in Jersey or New York – you are taxed for everything and, if not taxed, then you are paying for a toll, parking, or speeding tickets up the wazu. It’s insane!
These wonderful people I worked with kept me going to work, even though I started to hate my job more and more. One day we were informed about a new change in management: some folks would be promoted and some folks would well, disappear. I was like well, I know I am not going to be promoted because I had not been there long enough: they had this system of first come, first get promoted. The people who were there before you would be promoted first, only if they got fired could you be promoted to anything; and there were plenty of folks who had been there way before me. But I was more concerned about the disappearing part than anything else. So now here I am at a job I hate and doing it with the constant fear of losing it. I know to some it makes no sense, but at the time it made perfect sense.
First came the promotions: one person was promoted in particular and when that happened we kind of figured the party would soon end. His name was Bill and he was 5’7 or 5’8 tall. Bill was a jerk: his leadership style was yelling and making noise and getting you to do what he wanted, and that was that. Before the promotion he was a jerk, but an okay to deal with jerk. After the promotion he became a complete a-hole. He and I just clashed, we did not get along and you could tell we did not like each other at all. Bill was promoted to director of technical support and he and I worked the day shift. His thing was control – he wanted to control you as much as possible: he wanted to know what time you went to lunch, what time you came back, and he did not want you conversing with your co-workers. “Get back in your cubicle!” he would say. It was no joke; he even passed around a memo asking people to ask for his permission before they went to the bathroom.
I wish I was making this up. But unfortunately it’s true. After a couple of months of working with Bill in the day shift, I overheard that the evening shift was under staffed and needed someone to fill in. I ran to the person higher than Bill and stated that I wanted to move to the evening shift, and it happened – I was working the evening shift. No longer did I have to wake up at 7 in the morning; now I would start my work day at 3:30 pm. My day ended at mid-night, but I would get home at 1:00 am. Sometimes the second Path Train would be late and then I would get home at 2:00 am or often at 3:00 am. However, that was okay because I was free of Bill. At first working the evening shift was different. I had never worked an evening shift before, so my body’s time clock had to adjust quickly – I would be at work then the next thing you know I would be snoring, asleep at my desk. I started drinking coffee and red bull to keep myself awake. The funny thing was when I got home in the morning I could not fall asleep. I would stay up sometimes until 7:00 am or 8:00 am in the morning, then go to sleep and wakeup at 1:00pm to get ready for work. After awhile I adjusted to the evening shift. At first I liked working the evening shift because most of the people I mentioned earlier worked the evening shift: Chu, JR, Ryan and Dave. When I mentioned JR and I catching the Path Train back and forth from work to home that took place in the evening shift.
Now came the firings: I am not sure what happened, but it was something to do with budgeting and money, and people started to lose their jobs. A couple of people lost their jobs in the day shift. We thought that it couldn’t happen in the evening shift as it was understaffed already. Wrong! I came in to work one day and I spoke to Chu who told me they were letting him go. I was shocked, we all were, it made no sense.
As bad and as shocking as that was, after a while I kind of got over it. However, months later I came in to work and JR was at his desk already. You see JR was a hard worker; he would many times almost do double shifts – coming in at 11:00 am and working until midnight. I walked over and said, “Hey what’s up homeboy?” He turned around and looked at me with a look as if there had been some kind of death in his family. I asked him, “What’s wrong?” He responded that he was being let go. I almost fainted; I didn’t know what to say. I headed to my cubicle and just stared at the four gray walls for the rest of the night. I thought of how cruel people’s actions become when the decisions are in the hands of others who have never met the person they are asking you to fire. You see weeks earlier JR was celebrating the birth of his child and showing pictures to his co-workers and some of the managers. So our immediate manager knew that he needed this job, we did not blame her. We figured she had no choice, and you can tell she felt bad about it, we all did. That night JR and I ran to catch the train like we always did, but for him it was his last time. I remember asking him about what he was going to do. His answer was that he didn’t know. I suggested that maybe he should start concentrating on his passion for real estate – I suggested maybe starting a business around real estate, and doing this or doing that. He then asked me: “Bobson, you are so good at giving people good advice; why don’t you give yourself that same advice and start a business of your own?” I responded that I didn’t know why. But I did know, I knew exactly why, and I will explain that later.
So the day after JR was let go I was on my way to work thinking about my prior conversations with him about our jobs. I remember I had told JR something like: “Man I hate this freaking job!” I had thought that JR would agree and say, “Yeah man this job sucks.” But no, he said that, although the job was routine and boring at times, the pay was good, and the people were not bad. I agreed with him to a certain extent. Then he started telling me about his plans and dreams for the future. After his baby was born, he was telling me about saving for his college, and buying this house and this kind of car. While I was remembering this, in the back of my mind a voice whispered, “Dude you might lose your job in a couple of months, and with that your dreams too.” I started to realize that, in all the years of working for that mega corporation and in speaking with all of my fellow co-workers, they all had goals and dreams. They depended on having a good job and a weekly paycheck to help them pursue and fulfill those dreams. This way of thinking started to make no sense to me – how can you have your own dreams when your existence is dependent on somebody else?
I took JR leaving really hard and it showed at work: I was upset all the time, and I became frustrated easily. I was no longer a good employee. People started complaining about me and my work performance. Then another blow: Dave the night team leader was offered a position in Clifton NJ for the same company. He accepted and left, and he was replaced by another team leader called Maureen. She was an a-hole in her own right, and she and I did not get along at all. So now I hated my job, and I hated the people I worked for. I was now totally unhappy, depressed, and completely miserable. I hated going to work, and I hated being at work. I would constantly be late, my morale was low, my performance was low, and everything sucked. Then one night Maureen and I had the biggest argument. I wanted to get up, walk out, and quit right there and then. But I didn’t. I always told myself that I was going to quit, but I could never bring myself to do so. And then one day, while I was in my kitchen eating a bowl of cereal, my expensive new Iphone started to ring (it was an expensive first generation one). I picked it up and said “Hello”. Someone introduced herself and stated that my services would no longer be needed. I did let out the biggest sigh ever and then I replied: “Thank you”. The voice replied “Huh?” And then I said goodbye and hung up.
I went and laid on my bed and stared at the ceiling for a good hour. All kinds of thoughts were flashing through my mind, and then I came to the realization that I had just lost my job and I started freaking out. You see, in the many years of working for that company I was always buying and accumulating things and I had not really saved any money. I was young, I’m still young – I’m only 33 – but I was younger back then. Some of the money I was making at my job I had been investing in the stock market and in real estate. I was lucky to have bought some good stocks like Apple, Google, and many others. My investments paid off, but instead of saving that money I had used part of it for a down payment on an expensive car and bought an investment property. In addition, I rented a very expensive apartment with a gym, a door man, and everything else. To top it all off I had a very pretty girl friend who weeks ago had hinted that she may be pregnant. I then realized the answer to JR’s question about why I did not take my own advice and start my own business was because of all the things that I had accumulated – the circumstances that I had created for my self had made me a prisoner to a heartless corporate entity. At that moment I literally started to feel the room spinning. I felt as if I was falling into this deep hole of sadness, failure, and depression. Then suddenly I heard a voice that said, “Bobson, you so good at giving people good advice why you don’t give yourself some good advice – follow your dreams and start your own business?”
I started thinking out loud and, yes, I started to give myself advice. I grabbed a pen and started writing my mission statement, my goals, my dreams, my objectives, and my vision for my future. I also wrote down what path I was going to take: I chose the road of the American entrepreneur, someone who I’ve always regarded as life’s true super hero. I went online right away. There was no time to waste. I registered my domain name, registered and incorporated my business name, went to vistaprint.com and created some business cards, and started working on my website. I was going to start a computer technology consulting business. In the years I was working for that company I had made friends with some of their customers and had made some good contacts who could help me get clients and leads. I started making phone calls, and from then on I began to take control of my life. I vowed to never work for anybody else again, at least not in that way. I convinced myself that the stuff I had could be lost and that I would be okay. I could always get it back.
Lessons learned
Own your dreams
I’ve learned that, when you work for someone else or some type of large corporate entity, the dreams that you are having, the vacations you are planning on taking, that car you plan on buying with your next raise or bonus, or that house you are planning to buy: all those goals and dreams are not under your control. They are not owned by you, they are really owned by that company or person you are having to report to every morning. Because, while you making your dreams and plans that night, your boss is making his plans and dreams for himself and his company, and guess what – you are not included.
It’s okay to fail, failure is a part of life, failure is a part of learning, there is nothing wrong with failing. It’s what you do after the failure that counts: do you learn from it and the mistakes that led to it, or do you just sit around feeling sorry for yourself and stop moving forward?
Give yourself some good advice. Many of us are always good at telling people what to do – it’s easy because you are looking from an outside perspective at somebody else. You see somebody differently from how that person sees him or herself – you will sometimes see what is great about that person before he or she does, and that gives you the ability to simplify things for them. For example, I saw that JR had a passion for real-estate, so I advised him to start a real estate business, and in my gut I truly believed he would be successful at it. My thing was and is that I have a creative brain. In my previous computer jobs I had been involved with graphic design, web design, and development and programming. I had a natural gift and passion for that sort of thing, so my advice to myself was: “Hey, why don’t you start a business doing that type of stuff, you so good at it?”
Stop letting the stuff in your life control you. Instead, you control it. If you have to let it go, or if you have to lose it, then its okay, because guess what? It will always be there, you can always get it back, and in any case you never really owned it in the first place anyway. Those things belong to the entire universe, they were here long before you, and they will be here long after you are gone. So why are you so scared of losing something that’s not really yours in the first place?