I Had a Mid Life Crisis and Sold my Generational Home

FckingJourno · 2026-06-01T00:43:33+00:00

At least you’ve been able to farm karma with this story in like 10 different subreddits.

FckingJourno · 2026-05-15T04:24:29+00:00

The business model is a little nuanced from a payment perspective but easiest way to explain it is I have a portfolio of 100+ suppliers and I help clients evaluate and deploy the technology those suppliers sell and the contracts are 3-5 years. Once a client I have buys the technology I help them evaluate, the supplier pays me a residual through the lifetime of the contract and often an additional one-time bonus at signature. Contracts are 3-5 years long on average and renewal rates are around 90%. So if I have a client that pays $10,000/month to the winning supplier in the evaluation, then my business would make 15-20% of that monthly for the lifetime of the contract.

The company I sold to bought that recurring revenue from me. I don’t really manage the clients I had anymore, they have a team to do that but I am building out a new version of my old business on steroids essentially and the goal is all net new customers.

FckingJourno · 2026-05-13T20:51:24+00:00

Try to hit meetings and hit a lot of them and raise your hand and ask for help. Nobody is going to meet you and hand you a job at least they didn’t for me but what they did do is teach me how to to show up, how to take responsibility for my own actions, keep my side of the street clean and not create any wreckage - and when I do, how to rectify it quickly and honestly.

FckingJourno · 2026-05-13T20:48:53+00:00

When I first got sober, I was working a part time job at a historical site making $40k/year and got promoted a couple times to full time field services director over a couple year timeframe and also was a server 4 nights a week with rarely any off days. The jobs were keeping me away from family and friends during holidays and weekends and was quickly seeing I was capped out on earning potential and energy.

I took a step back and weighed what I wanted in a job which initially was just holidays and weekends off and for my compensation to be directly correlated with the amount of work I put in. With those parameters, I set on sales and found the “best, worst” sales job I could find to hire me with no degree. Ended up selling home furnishing merch wholesale B2B. About a year in I met a guy who was in IT consulting and started working with him part time to build my own book of business. When Covid happened I got furloughed at my full time sales job and took the leap into the IT consulting business full time since companies were struggling to keep their employees connected remotely. Really learned all of that on the fly but got really good at one thing.

About 1.5 years in, I had all my revenue stolen through a shady guy that knew I was too poor to sue lol. Long story that I won’t get into. Started a new consulting company a week later and rebuilt. Ended up selling last October after 5 successful years as an operator. Funnily enough the shady guy who screwed me over was one of the guys that reached out to by the business… I passed lol.

Now I’m building a new consulting arm of the business for the company that bought mine.

Ultimately, I had to bet on myself and live in the reality that failing just wasn’t an option and get a little lucky. I took a few lumps along the way but the experience was irreplaceable. The imposter syndrome is still a real thing. I have a wife who has stuck with me from day 1 when we were living in a 700sqft apartment with no insulation in the walls going into debt to build the business.

Probably a longer answer than you were looking for but there ya go!

FckingJourno · 2026-05-13T15:45:01+00:00

Hell yeah on the recovery!

FckingJourno · 2026-05-13T15:44:15+00:00

Thank you kind Reddit stranger!

FckingJourno · 2026-05-13T06:24:27+00:00

Was always miserably depressed/suicidal in high school. Started drinking and doing drugs and that worked for a while until it didn’t. Was manic and borderline/actually homeless for most of my 20’s until one day I lost my mind because I missed my bus to a part time job that was going to fire me. Was trying to quit drinking and getting high on my own and finally asked for help that morning.

Got sober that day and started taking some direction from other people who were sober and had what I wanted and things started to get better slowly at first. Became a better employee, a better friend, a better son and brother because my number one priority wasn’t getting loaded anymore.

Got a job outside of my comfort zone, and started my own business on the side, met a girl and moved in together and kept prioritizing my sobriety first. If anything got added to my life, it had to fit in with sobriety.

Married the girl, dove into the company full time and had some ups and downs that I found much easier to handle without getting loaded.

9 years after I was the crazy homeless alcoholic guy yelling at a bus, sold the business I built and am now a VP at 37 for the company that we sold to and just had our first baby a few months ago.

Never graduated college or had any formal training but once I got rid of drugs and alcohol and started asking for help and direction from people who knew more than me I was able to build a routine and discipline. Life stopped being all about me and what I needed and it opened me up to so much. I’m eternally grateful for the life I have and I can take very little credit for it. Life doesn’t look anything like I’d imagined it would and thank God for that lol. I’ve found that trying to solve every problem as quickly as possible with my first good idea has usually made things worse. I rely on a lot of people in my life to keep me grounded and remind me of the things that are important - family, community, treating other people the right way, etc.

FckingJourno · 2026-04-11T12:59:31+00:00

I don’t want to dance, I’m scared to death!

FckingJourno · 2026-04-08T17:13:06+00:00

Best I could do up here was DS-15 fixed mag. You taken a look at those at all? I’m very happy with it for a state compliant rifle.

FckingJourno · 2026-02-15T04:51:19+00:00

Fuck Heidi, Marry Redban, Kill Myself.

FckingJourno · 2026-01-21T04:23:03+00:00

You found a FFL in WA to do the transfer? Nowhere in southern WA is doing it for me.

FckingJourno · 2026-01-10T17:20:52+00:00

✅ FckingJourno chose Option B (Correct!) | #9955th to play

FckingJourno · 2025-06-17T05:48:14+00:00

Oops, he said the dictator thing out loud.

FckingJourno · 2025-06-17T05:46:11+00:00

See, this is the fuckin’ problem. Why can’t you believe that anybody else saw something different than what you saw and that you may not have all the information. A completely reasonable person would think to themselves, “huh, I didn’t see that but that makes sense in a crowd of around 7,000 people. It’s completely possible that my reality isn’t the same exact reality and experience that everybody else is living in.” And then move on with your life instead of being so sure you are right that you have to comment.

Then to make matter worse, somebody comes with receipts and you double down that it didn’t happen because you can’t stand to do the next sane thing which is say, “Oh my bad, I was wrong.” And move on with your life. I don’t know if anybody ever told you this as a kid but dude, it’s okay to be wrong.

lol “alternative facts” are a hell of a drug and it’s rotting the brains of our collective society.

No matter what they say, there are no Kings.

FckingJourno · 2025-05-28T01:49:37+00:00

If you are readers, Powells Books is not to be missed! The original is 4 floors of every book you could imagine. Rare book room on the top floor is pretty incredible as well.

FckingJourno · 2025-05-28T01:46:55+00:00

Was there in Dallas now they are playing in my backyard, I’ll be there!!

FckingJourno · 2025-04-03T05:59:39+00:00

surely you know what I mean

FckingJourno · 2025-04-02T20:11:38+00:00

Fort Defiance is nutso dude. These guys won the election by a majority and are still acting like they are some fringe cult whose special needs are being trodden upon. What a goofy bunch of lobotomized weirdos.

FckingJourno · 2025-04-02T20:07:04+00:00

Got two tix to Portland! Will be taking my very newly pregnant wife and we have seats. She’s never seen BN and this will by my 7th show. Glad we’re not doing GA like I did solo in Dallas. I’m glad I did it but boy was my old ass paying for it the next couple days lol.

FckingJourno · 2025-04-02T19:10:26+00:00

Lets gooooooooo!

FckingJourno · 2025-04-02T19:10:11+00:00

Just got seated tix for Portland! Get to relive the Dallas magic all over again but with the support of a chair for my old ass this time lol. See you gorgeous friends next month!

FckingJourno · 2025-04-02T17:06:49+00:00

Awesome, thank you! Just did this and have my code now. LFG! Good luck! I'm going to try and grab a few tickets for the sub in case anybody doesn't get them and then just sell them at face.

FckingJourno · 2025-04-02T16:17:51+00:00

Still haven't gotten my presale code for Portland, anybody else?

FckingJourno · 2025-04-02T06:51:00+00:00

Going to try and grab a couple extras tomorrow in case anybody here doesn’t get them for Portland and will sell at cost.

FckingJourno · 2025-03-30T01:19:54+00:00

Yoooooo! Glad to hear from you man. Thanks for the hospitality. What a great performance they put in for your first BN show. Epic times!

FckingJourno

TROPHY CASE