The weird way I found purpose at 40

[Consept]

I've been meaning to do a post on this for a while, I notice a lot of the times on the forum people are in that searching phase of looking for purpose, relationships etc. So I thought I'd write my story on how I found purpose in a really random but kind of replicable way. 

Brief history, work wise I always wanted to work for myself, when I was in my 20s and younger I just wanted to make money but on my own terms, I didnt want to work for anyone and if i did it would be temporary to fund my own thing. Part of this mindset was ambition but another part was also anxiety and OCD which i suffered with since I was around 6 years old. Outwardly i had this ambitious persona, risking not working a corporate style job even though I had a degree, but inwardly there was definitely some form of avoidance as I found it hard to be around people with the intrusive thoughts and anxiety i was experiencing. 

So after uni I looked for some kind of work with the idea of it funding one of my business ideas. At the time I wanted to create an events company, I did a couple of events at uni but then had a really bad experience and lost money on a big swing comedy event show. Seeing the event industry at the time i decided to pivot to do a ticketing website. Whilst i was building that i looked for a job to the bills, I had to move out as my family moved abroad so I was the only one left in the UK. I looked at sales jobs, a lot of them wanted to see if i was blood thirsty for money, and i guess i just didnt give off that vibe, no jobs were forthcoming so I ended up just getting a part time job at a supermarket.

Mind numbing doesnt begin to cover it, the most boring thing ive ever done, i havent watched paint dry but it wasnt far off i imagine that would be like. One thing that was good was more interactions with people working on the checkout. Thinking about it, it probably helped my anxiety a little, I am somewhat charismatic so people did like me, especially when i started to feel more comfortable. People would often say to me, "youre too intelligent to work there", which i would kind of take as a compliment but then also it made me question am i wasting my time, how long am i gonna be here for?. 

On the business side things were looking good, i got funded by the princes trust, which is a charity that helps young people starting their own businesses by giving loans. They gave me £2.5k, which at the time to me was incredible, I built my ticketing website and I was off. Of course it didnt make money straight away and was a tough business to do and start from scratch all by myself. Some months I would make £1k or so but it wasnt really life changing money. I needed big events and just couldnt get it off the ground. 

Then I applied for a grant from the BBC, this is a story in of itself, it could have been a reality show if they filmed it. But to cut it short they gave me £10k to invest in my business. It felt like i just won the lottery! Obviously i didnt really have a plan for it and I wasnt over confident in my business but i still won! 

With the money I decided to start another business with another guy who had won the prize. This time it was a music download and streaming site for UK music. Unfortunately the guy dropped out which left me with the option of either dropping the idea completely or doing it myself and taking all of the risk. I liked the idea too much to drop out, so fuck it, lets go!

I used the prize money to get it going, I really loved this site and what i built. I managed to get 100,000 subscribers. The issue was there wasnt a clear way to monetise and because of the space needed as we hosted the music content, the bigger it got the more expensive it became to run. This could've been pretty big, I just didnt have the infrastructure to maintain it unfortunately. A lot of my endeavours were hindered by me thinking way to big without much experience and also my reluctance to have a team. 

Eventually I had enough I just needed something that was gonna work and actually bring in real money. I searched online and came across selling on ebay, I did this strategy and things started to click, i was making consistent money. So I shutdown the ticket website and reduced the workload of the mixtape one so it didnt grow but was manageable and just focused on this. I had a nice run, imported stuff from china and had a few different lines I would sell. I was still working at the supermarket a couple days a week. One day i dressed up in the uniform to go to work but on the way i had to drop off some ebay parcels. While waiting in the queue I thought to myself, 'fuck going to work' and literally never went in again, just went home got changed and buried my uniform somewhere. 

After ebay i moved onto amazon, this is when things went crazy, I was making 1000s a month pretty much straight away, it was like finding a gold mine! Did this for a few years but got carried away so things werent planned i was just wheeling and dealing, which is cool, but not great long term. In the meantime i fell into doing charity work as my friend was a manager at a local youth charity. This I really loved, the feeling of focusing on others instead of myself was amazing. I actually made a difference in peoples lives, which no amount of money could replicate. Truth is, I was getting bored with doing my own business, even though amazon was making money I felt like something was missing, somewhere along the way i realised, however much money i make, im still gonna be the same, so if im not happy now i never will be, ill just be in a nicer house. 

Anyway covid hit, which was a massive boom for me, not only that but the government was basically handing out free money. I managed to win auctions from high street retailers getting rid of stock, in 1 month i turned over £60k, it was incredible and of course i thought it would last forever so i upgraded, took out loans, got a storage facility, bought lots of stock. Which all worked amazingly, until it didnt. Sales slowed down, I'd blown loads of money on self-development stuff, a new car, investments etc. Plus i still had loans which id taken out on the basis of the turnover i thought id be making. Truth is i just didnt love it anymore, i felt empty, Id stopped working for the youth charity a couple years before the pandemic. 

Then bills started piling up, i noticed my finances were just unbalanced, i hadnt really thought about money for a while but now it felt like things were crumbling. I remember i said to my sister, I need a job but I want one that i can do from home or is flexible, is something around mental health where i can help people with my experience and is paid not volunteer work. I had no idea what the job would be or where to even look but i was open to anything. 

One day I was watching a talk show on tv, there was a young black guy talking about OCD and what he'd been through. This really struck me as id never really heard anyone talk about what id been through in this way, especially not a black guy like me. At this point I was 37 or so years old, it felt like time was running out, so i definitely had an urgency about me. I decided to DM the guy, it wasnt a big show and he wasnt a well known person, maybe he'd reply. 

And of course he did, in fact he said he received a lot of DMs but none from black guys, which is why he replied, he also suggested we meet up, I agreed. When we met he was cool, but i could see we were quite different, he wanted to be a celebrity and was going down that road, which is fine but didnt resonate much with me. However he forwarded me on to an OCD charity as they were looking for panel members to address why ethnic minorities dont seek help at a higher rate when they have OCD. This was music to my ears, it was paid but only 2 hours a month, but still it was a start. 

I had a great experience with them, i spoke at their conference and got to know the staff a bit better. Then they had a job opportunity come up. I didnt know but they advertise jobs internally first, as i was part of the network I could apply before it was advertised to the public. The job was helpline co-ordinator, so I would look after volunteers on their helpline but also mainly take calls and write emails to those suffering with OCD. I applied and because I'd gotten on with the staff and they liked me, they offered me the job! It wasnt well paying and was only part time, but I could work from home, it was flexible and it was something i cared about, hit all the criteria. 

This job was eye-opening, i knew what id been through with OCD but to hear almost daily what other people had been through was crazy. It was a really tough job but rewarding and i was actually helping people on the front lines. I did this for a year and a bit, i wouldve continued but the contract was finished and they decided to restructure and put more resources into fundraising. I was worried at first because i thought this was it, I had to get out there and do whatever job i could find. But the created a new fundraising job. Reading the description it actually aligned with me more, it was essentially a marketing job, I'd do campaigns and do a lot of structural work on increasing the income of the charity. It was a senior position and technically i didnt have direct experience in this field but I thought, lets do this. 

I applied and the interview was way togher than i thought it would be, i thought cos they already knew me theyd basically hand it to me but it wasnt like that at all. But still it worked out and they offered me the job! So a bit more money, much more responsibility and helping in a way that makes more sense in terms of my skillset. So far I've been at the job around 6 months and its a lot of learning but still great and i think ive made a lot of impact. Its also inspired me to look at starting an agency that helps other charities make money. This current job is only part time as well so i do need something else. 

Looking around i found out the old youth charity i worked with previously are looking for a fundraiser, of course I applied and theres an interview setup for a couple weeks time, so hopefully if all goes well theyll be my first clients. It's amazing how everything just went full circle. 

So that basically takes me to today and a lot of my life got delayed, mainly because of OCD and anxiety but I think what i learnt and what i can share as a lesson, is that you can make things happen but you have to put yourself in places where it might happen. Its not guarenteed but you're always going to have a better chance if you throw yourself out there and just put yourself in the right environments, no matter what it is you want. Im not really into woo woo manifestation, but I think theres something to be said for really having your focus and taking action on what you want, you sometimes need to burn the bridges because if i wasnt in financial constraints, I wouldnt have pushed myself to do this. If I'd kept selling on amazon i couldve lived my whole life very comfortably and never ventured out and I wouldve never felt this purpose that i have now. Sometimes we're over focused on just being as comfortable as possible, but growth always lies in being uncomfortable. 

I'm still pretty broke, i dont know how im gonna pay my upcoming storage rent but I have a purpose and a plan and I'll make it work. 

Thanks for reading 

[Elliott]

17 minutes ago, Consept said:

 Sometimes we're over focused on just being as comfortable as possible, but growth always lies in being uncomfortable. 

Amen

[ladelle]

What do you mean by ticket website?

[Consept]

1 hour ago, ladelle said:

What do you mean by ticket website?

Tickets for events. It was when buying tickets online for events like club mights wasnt really done that much, so I wanted to provide a solution for small promoters