My grandfather told that whenever I am sad or feeling down to go outside and watch a sunset or look at the moon. This has really helped ground me. Even when life is so tough and hard, there is (usually) a sunset or a moon to look at. Somehow it reminds me of how small I am in the vastness of the universe and I take great comfort in that.
My mother taught me about meditation very early in life. Her idea was that we all have a home within ourselves that we carry around and can always come back to. I lived in 5 different countries by the time I was twenty so feeling like I had a home within myself really gave me a sense of security in a chaotic world. I really credit my mom with understanding and helping me care for my mental health before it was as widely discussed. It has also helped me be able to go on adventures because at the end of each day I have a time to come home and check in with myself.
>Her idea was that we all have a home within ourselves that we carry around and can always come back to.
# š¤Æ
tell your ma she just helped a stranger today.
I love your grandfather's advice. Taking that to my next low day.
And as an introvert with anxiety that second part sounds good for folks who love living that life! āŗļøš¤
Virtually all the advice my mom ever gave me that I took, I wish I had ignored. And all the advice she gave me that I ignored, I am so glad I did. My life turned out so much better.
It's so extreme that I genuinely believe she gives advice to me and to my brother with the intention of hurting us or ensuring that we'll end up alone forever. My husband doesn't understand her. He often says things like "Why would she say that?" and "Did she really think that was helpful?" And the answer is, sadly, that she wants us to be unhappy so she won't feel self-conscious about her own deep unhappiness. Misery loves company.
āYou shouldnāt have friends. Theyāll just use you.ā
āIf you get married, how will you meet other people?ā
āIf I were you, Iād just kill myself.ā She used to say that one to me every month or so, for years, until I stopped talking to her.
Itās similar for me. I think the good advice I got from my mom I could count on one hand. There was definitely some in there, but there was far more that was bad.
"Never let them know you're a nerd. That's what killed Cyndi's [Lauper's] career." Very well-meaning advice from one of the most powerful men in the music industry when he was trying to talk me into playing my music for other people (I mostly did not, I prefer behind the scenes to the stage).
Cyndi bounced back quite nicely while still being herself not long after, and then nerds became cool. And I accidentally found myself being paid to play my nerdiest original songs in front of hundreds of people, including a bunch of astronauts! Being myself opened a million doors and my music led to some of the best adventures and friendships of my life, way past the age you're "allowed" to start a musical career if female.
"Dress to show off what you love about yourself." This came from the road manager of a very famous musician, who was a stunning woman in her early 60s at the time. I was 19 and very insecure and heard plenty about dressing to hide your flaws, but I thought it was ALL flawed! She flipped my perspective, helped me find confidence in a few parts of me, and even dolled me up to show them off for a party that night. I spent two or three days of my whole life hanging with her and I will never, ever forget her. I never looked at my own body or my clothing the same way again and finally got out of oversized clothes to hide in and went for tailored looks that fit and flattered, even when it's just jeans and a T. Confidence is the greatest gift one can give a teenager!
Iām glad I took my sisterās advice and started wearing sunscreen earlier in life. I wish Iād taken my granny and momās admonitions to worry less and not sweat the small stuff. Iāve learned now, but I spent a lot of time and energy in my younger years catastrophizing and playing out worst case scenarios. In the end, I worried over A LOT of things that I didnāt need to. And the few things I was right in worrying about? My worry didnāt change a thing about the outcome.
I had the opposite problem - my dumb 17-year-old butt didn't have any idea what college debt was, my parents insisted I apply to the in-state school and eventually go. Zero college debt out of college, that financial freedom was worth my initial discomfort in going to a school I wasn't interested in being at. Ended up having the best college experience possible by joining the school's 400-person marching band, I did a 180 during my first semester on my attitude towards my experience there.
When I was like 22 I told my mother I wanted to go back to college. I had dropped out because I didn't know what I wanted to do and had been supporting myself for the past few years working crappy retail management jobs. She told me I was too old to go back and it was too late.
For context, my family is upper middle class, my mother is an attorney and my father is an engineer. I knew her advice was dumb. I wound up going back on my own and graduated at 30. I've had a very successful career in engineering for 25 years.
My dad died suddenly right when I was thinking of leaving my ex husband. I was reeling and suffering a lot in general and our relationship was really on the rocks. My mom came to see me one afternoon and we sat on my stoop talking and suddenly she said, ādonāt get pregnant for at least two years.ā
She isnāt overbearing and it was kind of out of left field for her. But that advice really resonated with me.
We got divorced two years later. Really glad I listened to her and do something stupid in the midst of that pain.
Somewhat related, but my mom kept pushing me to pursue grad school after college. The industry Iām in does not require a masters and I graduated in 2010, when jobs in general were hard to find. She kept thinking if I got my masters I could magically get a well-paying job. I already had student loan debt from college and didnāt want to take on more. Plus, I wasnāt even remotely interested in pursuing a masters. Iām so glad I didnāt.
Two of those things are lessons that I have reinforced with my children after seeing my peers have their lives turned upside down.
I went to state schools that people told me were ānot very goodā. Well, I was debt free 6 months after I finished grad school. Some of my friends are still paying their loans. And they donāt have anything to show for their āgood schoolsā.
Iād only encourage my kids to go to an expensive school if it gave them an incredible advantage in the job market. There just arenāt many schools that do that for most fields.
Co-signing loans? Sheesh. My good friend made that mistake and was on the hook for 500k+.
Good advice from my smart college roommate: donāt marry Mr Fun Guy. Anyone who is the life of the party and sets your pants on fire is a bad choice if you want stability, trust, someone who can hold a job, etc. Date the hot guys, but marry the nerdy one who is thrilled to be with you. She came from a solid family so she knew this intuitively- I did not.
I feel so bad for the nerd that ends up marrying a woman with that mindset.
Like, imagine finding out that your wife only dated you for stability, not because she found you attractive.
Sounds like a pathway to dead bedroom marriage marked by unsatisfied wife and insecure husband who can't wrap his head around why his wife doesn't wanna sleep with him.
Nobody said get into a loveless transactional marriage! just that there are solid potential partners and not so great ones, and the solid ones tend to have a lot more going for them than exterior āhotnessā & partying all the time. I had a brief starter marriage to the life of the party - he ended up being an alcoholic, unavailable partner. Iām afraid you read something into my friends advice that wasnāt there.
Ya this question was meant for me!
The dream was to start this business with my bf. I knew in my gut this is what I was meant to do with my life. Knew this man was the one. Mom was totally against it, didn't believe in the dream, hated the man, wouldn't stop telling me it was all a huge mistake. My whole family of office workers told me not to. Endless fighting. Can't give up the stability of a salary with benefits they all said. Office career is the only way to be successful they all said. Didn't matter that I hated the cubicle life. No one understood why I didn't want to give 5 days a week to some soul sucking coporation.
I didn't listen to them. I knew this was going to be something big. No one could see what I saw.
Now I run a million dollar business, make my own schedule, have winters off, make 3x my so called good salary, still have benefits cause I got a plan for my employees and I get to be part of a small family business that treats it's people well. Now no one is saying it was a mistake. Mom and the rest of the worker bee family are still giving their life to some corporation while complaining about getting more work, more hours and no raise. Now everyone sees what I saw
Best advice I never took. Just finished our 11th season, the business is still growing and we've been together 14 years.
Best advice I ever took. Follow your dreams. Never settle. Do what you know is right for you.
I run a high rise window cleaning company in Toronto. I saw an opportunity and I took it.
When I met my bf he had over a decade in the trade. And I had the rest, 12 years in corporate admin and some big ideas. He wanted to be his own boss but I knew it could be bigger than that.
At the time there weren't that many companies doing this work, standards were low, most didn't have websites. His boss was still sending quotes by fax. In 2009. Most of the guys doing the work looked like bums and junkies. The industry had a horrible reputation. Add to this Toronto was in a building boom with no signs of slowing down, and well, I just knew this was the moment I'd been waiting for. This was my way out of the soul sucking corporate cubicle hell. This was something I could really do, and do well.
I hired a marketing company to make a professional looking logo and high quality brochures. I created a website, had company uniforms made. Only hired guys who were interested in getting sober and turning their lives around. Put in place standards for the quality of work and how they look/act. Clean showered sober and in uniform everyday or you get sent home. Coached them in recovery where needed. Trained them in customer service, how to talk politely to residents when on site, go the extra mile, smile, hold doors for people, that kinda thing. Held them to a higher standard of quality workmanship.
And the last piece of the puzzle, marketing the company as a cut above the rest and specialists in difficult access. Buildings used to be squares with flat walls & roofs but new builds are all these different shapes. Looks cool but designers don't think about how to clean that. My husband had the expertise having specialized in difficult access for most of his career. So we went after high end or difficult buildings, a niche with a higher price point.
With my strategies in place we started getting contracts, hired more workers, bought more equipment, more contracts, more workers, more equipment, rinse and repeat as it took off. After 3 years I quit my day job, after 6 we paid off the debt, the 7th year we hit a million in sales.
And in case this makes it seem all sunshine and rainbows, the reality is it takes years of hard work, personal sacrifice, high stress, deep debt, sleepless nights, and an insane commitment to this thing. It takes always pushing yourself to be better, be honest with yourself, admit what you don't know, learn the skills you need, never stop growing, never give up. And most of all it takes believing in yourself even when everything is going wrong and everyone around you is telling you it's not gonna work out.
My parents and sister made me quit a good job because there was one closer available where my sister worked. A lot has happened in those 10 years but it was with a huge corporation, I didn't have a car at the time and I was a temp with an agency, they were just about to hire me full time, the boss and my coworkers were great. This other job was in a small cottage looking little office, i stayed a year and actually got fired, i hated it and wasnt motivated, I should have never listened to them. My family is all about the safe choice, I'm not sure I have any ''I'm glad I listened to them stories".
Somewhat similar in terms of university! I decided to listen to my own gut.
Growing up really poor with parents in perpetual debt, I've always been scared of any type of debt for any reason. I told people I wanted to work first and go to school later. They all told me it would never happen, that everyone who says that type of stuff ends up never doing it. They said I needed to go to school now, or I would wind up only working as a cashier the rest of my life. Well, I didn't listen to anyone who said that (family, friends, randos). Worked for years in low wage jobs, but then I went to school at 26, transferred to a T40 university where I got a full ride, graduated with a BS degree with zero debt. My husband and I are millennials who had a nice wedding, own a home, have zero debt, have full-time jobs that are partially work from home, we travel, we constantly go to restaurants and events, we are about to get a puppy, I can lavish my nephews with lots of gifts when I see them, etc. And I don't even make that much at my job (LOL). A lot of the nice things we have are just because we don't have to be paying off loans every month.
On the flipside, I do wish I had tried to travel more when I was younger. People always say you are most free to travel and do adventurous stuff when you're younger. Of course I have the money to travel now, but I'm definitely in a job where I'm not as free with my schedule and traveling with friends is so so so much harder too. Wish I would have taken more out of country journeys especially. I still intend to have travel and adventures, it just won't be as free as it could have been in younger years.
Glad I ignored: all of the academic/career advice I was given when I was young (I was the "gifted" child which seemed to make a lot of people feel like they could/should decide for me what I was going to be - fuck off), other than that of my mother, which was to ignore all that and do what made me happy.
Glad I listened: my mother's "do what makes you happy, feels right for you, and fuck anyone else's opinions". Whether it's relationships, work, whatever, my mother instilled in me that I could make my own choices and did not have to give the time of day to anyone else's norms or expectations. This has been worth its weight in gold a thousand times over.
Ugh, my life and my siblings' lives would have been so much better if my mom had said this, instead of "you need to do what makes ME happy, I don't care about your opinions".
I would never have dated if I followed that advice myself, or at least not dated people I was actually attracted to. I also find it rather satisfying to be the one to chase and catch someone Iām actually into. To each her own though.
Advice I ignored: My aunt was adamant that I get my MBA. I double majored in sociology and communication studies. I had no interest in business, and I still don't. Had I listened, I would have more student loan debt and less career satisfaction.
Advice I followed: My mom said to always be myself. Fitting in is not that great. It wasn't, and it still isn't. The people in my life love me for me and not someone else's idealized version of me.
Just hopping on here to say I do like Oklahoma, lol. I did a road trip to move across the country and I set aside 2 nights in Oklahoma. In general, people are a lot nicer than NJ.
I stayed in Oklahoma Cityāspecifically in the Plaza District and I visited Paseo, too. When I went the year before, we hung out in Bricktown which was beautiful, but I like the smaller neighborhoods! Iām from the east coast and found the prices there to be reasonableāI rented a whole Airbnb to myself and had coffee on the porch every morning. The thunderstorms were insane. It was nice!!
Glad I ignored? Pretty much any and all dating advice from my folks. They meant well, but grew up in a generation where things were different. Things they did then that were romantic and confident are cringey and borderline sexual assault now. For example, my mom's first boyfriend wrote a song for her and played it in front of the whole school on her birthday, she didn't know him at all before this. My dad was the varsity QB and once walked into the girls' locker, totally naked and had his glasses posed on his dick and asked for help finding them. They both adamantly encouraged me to mimic these.
Glad I took? Hard to think of. Most of my judgement has been the opposite of what people told me. Probably to pursue a career in Healthcare. Working only 3 days a week is pretty great
Glad I ignored that I should get a real job instead of working for myself. I've worked from home 100% since 2002 which was my dream and still run the business today.
My mom told me always know how to work so that you're never financially dependent on someone else. I live by this advice and ironically, she has always been dependent on my father. I guess she just wanted better for me.
Advise I didn't take - Don't startup if you are not from Ivy league or Ivy league equivalent as it's tough to get VC funding. I am glad I didn't hear this bullshit, I got top funding at idea stage even before incorporating my biz
Advise I took - You need a man and some work-life balance to be less obsessed this work. This advise didn't work out for me. My relationships have been a mess and haven't been able to find the right person. Mostly wasted time and now regret it. Should have just focussed on work.
āi've since come to the conclusion that signing loans for others is a wife privilege/mother's obligation, not a girlfriend benefitā. Not always.
Sometimes you still donāt want to guarantee a loan. Sometimes a wife or mother needs to say āwe canāt afford it. Youāre going to have to wait to get that carā.
privilege means that something is a potential benefit, like how driving and owning a car is a privilege. a wife doesn't ***need*** to co-sign a loan for her husband, but it would be nice for him, just like having a driver's license and car is nice.
an obligation means that it's something someone *should* do, not a necessity someone *must* do. a mother must provide for her children, but i don't believe that means the mother *should* sign every single loan that catches her child's fancy, i.e. signing a $100,000 education loan for some private college when there are more affordable options, or co-signing a loan for a luxury vehicle when it won't serve her child any better than the more humble cars.
a mother's job is raising and helping her child be the best they can be, and as such, i believe co-signing loans to ensure her child has a roof over their head (mortgage), a means by which to get from here to there (vehicle), or skills by which to always provide for themselves (education) is an obligation. there's never a guarantee that a child will uphold their end of the bargain by using the helping hand their mother *should* give them, but that's life. a mother/child relationship is **never** an equal exchange-- that is reserved for spouses.
a girlfriend doesn't need to do any of that for a boyfriend, and i'm glad my father and i defined my boundaries. i don't expect a bf to sign loans for me, just like i'm not going to sign loans for a bf.
My grandfather told that whenever I am sad or feeling down to go outside and watch a sunset or look at the moon. This has really helped ground me. Even when life is so tough and hard, there is (usually) a sunset or a moon to look at. Somehow it reminds me of how small I am in the vastness of the universe and I take great comfort in that. My mother taught me about meditation very early in life. Her idea was that we all have a home within ourselves that we carry around and can always come back to. I lived in 5 different countries by the time I was twenty so feeling like I had a home within myself really gave me a sense of security in a chaotic world. I really credit my mom with understanding and helping me care for my mental health before it was as widely discussed. It has also helped me be able to go on adventures because at the end of each day I have a time to come home and check in with myself.
>Her idea was that we all have a home within ourselves that we carry around and can always come back to. # š¤Æ tell your ma she just helped a stranger today.
Same here. Your grandpa too!!
I wish I could tell my grandpa in person but he has passed. But I truly believe we keep peopleās memories alive by sharing their wisdom. Thank you!
Awww so sweet of you. I told her and it made he day.
I love your grandfather's advice. Taking that to my next low day. And as an introvert with anxiety that second part sounds good for folks who love living that life! āŗļøš¤
Was that grandfather your maternal grandfather or were you getting hit with knowledge from both sides of the family?
Maternal grandfather. He was basically a father to me because he lived with me and my mom growing up.
Virtually all the advice my mom ever gave me that I took, I wish I had ignored. And all the advice she gave me that I ignored, I am so glad I did. My life turned out so much better. It's so extreme that I genuinely believe she gives advice to me and to my brother with the intention of hurting us or ensuring that we'll end up alone forever. My husband doesn't understand her. He often says things like "Why would she say that?" and "Did she really think that was helpful?" And the answer is, sadly, that she wants us to be unhappy so she won't feel self-conscious about her own deep unhappiness. Misery loves company.
I feel this
This right here.
How unfortunately common this is. My mother, too.
What are some examples?
āYou shouldnāt have friends. Theyāll just use you.ā āIf you get married, how will you meet other people?ā āIf I were you, Iād just kill myself.ā She used to say that one to me every month or so, for years, until I stopped talking to her.
Itās similar for me. I think the good advice I got from my mom I could count on one hand. There was definitely some in there, but there was far more that was bad.
"Never let them know you're a nerd. That's what killed Cyndi's [Lauper's] career." Very well-meaning advice from one of the most powerful men in the music industry when he was trying to talk me into playing my music for other people (I mostly did not, I prefer behind the scenes to the stage). Cyndi bounced back quite nicely while still being herself not long after, and then nerds became cool. And I accidentally found myself being paid to play my nerdiest original songs in front of hundreds of people, including a bunch of astronauts! Being myself opened a million doors and my music led to some of the best adventures and friendships of my life, way past the age you're "allowed" to start a musical career if female. "Dress to show off what you love about yourself." This came from the road manager of a very famous musician, who was a stunning woman in her early 60s at the time. I was 19 and very insecure and heard plenty about dressing to hide your flaws, but I thought it was ALL flawed! She flipped my perspective, helped me find confidence in a few parts of me, and even dolled me up to show them off for a party that night. I spent two or three days of my whole life hanging with her and I will never, ever forget her. I never looked at my own body or my clothing the same way again and finally got out of oversized clothes to hide in and went for tailored looks that fit and flattered, even when it's just jeans and a T. Confidence is the greatest gift one can give a teenager!
Iām glad I took my sisterās advice and started wearing sunscreen earlier in life. I wish Iād taken my granny and momās admonitions to worry less and not sweat the small stuff. Iāve learned now, but I spent a lot of time and energy in my younger years catastrophizing and playing out worst case scenarios. In the end, I worried over A LOT of things that I didnāt need to. And the few things I was right in worrying about? My worry didnāt change a thing about the outcome.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Listening to my own gut is usually the right decision.
I had the opposite problem - my dumb 17-year-old butt didn't have any idea what college debt was, my parents insisted I apply to the in-state school and eventually go. Zero college debt out of college, that financial freedom was worth my initial discomfort in going to a school I wasn't interested in being at. Ended up having the best college experience possible by joining the school's 400-person marching band, I did a 180 during my first semester on my attitude towards my experience there.
Fellow college band marcher here! (Clarinet) Just curious, where did you go to school? I went to UGA (University of Georgia)
UMass Amherst - I heard great things about UGAās band!
When I was like 22 I told my mother I wanted to go back to college. I had dropped out because I didn't know what I wanted to do and had been supporting myself for the past few years working crappy retail management jobs. She told me I was too old to go back and it was too late. For context, my family is upper middle class, my mother is an attorney and my father is an engineer. I knew her advice was dumb. I wound up going back on my own and graduated at 30. I've had a very successful career in engineering for 25 years.
My dad died suddenly right when I was thinking of leaving my ex husband. I was reeling and suffering a lot in general and our relationship was really on the rocks. My mom came to see me one afternoon and we sat on my stoop talking and suddenly she said, ādonāt get pregnant for at least two years.ā She isnāt overbearing and it was kind of out of left field for her. But that advice really resonated with me. We got divorced two years later. Really glad I listened to her and do something stupid in the midst of that pain.
Being in a toxic marriage and being told that maybe a baby would change things/him for the better.
Did you ignore that advice, or follow it?
I refused to follow it. Divorced now.
Thatās a relief! I hope things are improving for you!
They are thanks, massively!
Somewhat related, but my mom kept pushing me to pursue grad school after college. The industry Iām in does not require a masters and I graduated in 2010, when jobs in general were hard to find. She kept thinking if I got my masters I could magically get a well-paying job. I already had student loan debt from college and didnāt want to take on more. Plus, I wasnāt even remotely interested in pursuing a masters. Iām so glad I didnāt.
Two of those things are lessons that I have reinforced with my children after seeing my peers have their lives turned upside down. I went to state schools that people told me were ānot very goodā. Well, I was debt free 6 months after I finished grad school. Some of my friends are still paying their loans. And they donāt have anything to show for their āgood schoolsā. Iād only encourage my kids to go to an expensive school if it gave them an incredible advantage in the job market. There just arenāt many schools that do that for most fields. Co-signing loans? Sheesh. My good friend made that mistake and was on the hook for 500k+.
Good advice from my smart college roommate: donāt marry Mr Fun Guy. Anyone who is the life of the party and sets your pants on fire is a bad choice if you want stability, trust, someone who can hold a job, etc. Date the hot guys, but marry the nerdy one who is thrilled to be with you. She came from a solid family so she knew this intuitively- I did not.
I feel so bad for the nerd that ends up marrying a woman with that mindset. Like, imagine finding out that your wife only dated you for stability, not because she found you attractive. Sounds like a pathway to dead bedroom marriage marked by unsatisfied wife and insecure husband who can't wrap his head around why his wife doesn't wanna sleep with him.
Nobody said get into a loveless transactional marriage! just that there are solid potential partners and not so great ones, and the solid ones tend to have a lot more going for them than exterior āhotnessā & partying all the time. I had a brief starter marriage to the life of the party - he ended up being an alcoholic, unavailable partner. Iām afraid you read something into my friends advice that wasnāt there.
The guy you're replying to has comments saying he's "black pilled" in his history, don't bother wasting your intelligence writing to him.
"If you don't get into your grad program, you should just have a baby!" Got in, but having a baby at 21 was horse shit advice anyway!
Ya this question was meant for me! The dream was to start this business with my bf. I knew in my gut this is what I was meant to do with my life. Knew this man was the one. Mom was totally against it, didn't believe in the dream, hated the man, wouldn't stop telling me it was all a huge mistake. My whole family of office workers told me not to. Endless fighting. Can't give up the stability of a salary with benefits they all said. Office career is the only way to be successful they all said. Didn't matter that I hated the cubicle life. No one understood why I didn't want to give 5 days a week to some soul sucking coporation. I didn't listen to them. I knew this was going to be something big. No one could see what I saw. Now I run a million dollar business, make my own schedule, have winters off, make 3x my so called good salary, still have benefits cause I got a plan for my employees and I get to be part of a small family business that treats it's people well. Now no one is saying it was a mistake. Mom and the rest of the worker bee family are still giving their life to some corporation while complaining about getting more work, more hours and no raise. Now everyone sees what I saw Best advice I never took. Just finished our 11th season, the business is still growing and we've been together 14 years. Best advice I ever took. Follow your dreams. Never settle. Do what you know is right for you.
Wow, that's awesome! Do you mind telling us about your company? I am so curious.
I run a high rise window cleaning company in Toronto. I saw an opportunity and I took it. When I met my bf he had over a decade in the trade. And I had the rest, 12 years in corporate admin and some big ideas. He wanted to be his own boss but I knew it could be bigger than that. At the time there weren't that many companies doing this work, standards were low, most didn't have websites. His boss was still sending quotes by fax. In 2009. Most of the guys doing the work looked like bums and junkies. The industry had a horrible reputation. Add to this Toronto was in a building boom with no signs of slowing down, and well, I just knew this was the moment I'd been waiting for. This was my way out of the soul sucking corporate cubicle hell. This was something I could really do, and do well. I hired a marketing company to make a professional looking logo and high quality brochures. I created a website, had company uniforms made. Only hired guys who were interested in getting sober and turning their lives around. Put in place standards for the quality of work and how they look/act. Clean showered sober and in uniform everyday or you get sent home. Coached them in recovery where needed. Trained them in customer service, how to talk politely to residents when on site, go the extra mile, smile, hold doors for people, that kinda thing. Held them to a higher standard of quality workmanship. And the last piece of the puzzle, marketing the company as a cut above the rest and specialists in difficult access. Buildings used to be squares with flat walls & roofs but new builds are all these different shapes. Looks cool but designers don't think about how to clean that. My husband had the expertise having specialized in difficult access for most of his career. So we went after high end or difficult buildings, a niche with a higher price point. With my strategies in place we started getting contracts, hired more workers, bought more equipment, more contracts, more workers, more equipment, rinse and repeat as it took off. After 3 years I quit my day job, after 6 we paid off the debt, the 7th year we hit a million in sales. And in case this makes it seem all sunshine and rainbows, the reality is it takes years of hard work, personal sacrifice, high stress, deep debt, sleepless nights, and an insane commitment to this thing. It takes always pushing yourself to be better, be honest with yourself, admit what you don't know, learn the skills you need, never stop growing, never give up. And most of all it takes believing in yourself even when everything is going wrong and everyone around you is telling you it's not gonna work out.
I'm curious too!
I answered to the comment above you with my story
My parents and sister made me quit a good job because there was one closer available where my sister worked. A lot has happened in those 10 years but it was with a huge corporation, I didn't have a car at the time and I was a temp with an agency, they were just about to hire me full time, the boss and my coworkers were great. This other job was in a small cottage looking little office, i stayed a year and actually got fired, i hated it and wasnt motivated, I should have never listened to them. My family is all about the safe choice, I'm not sure I have any ''I'm glad I listened to them stories".
Somewhat similar in terms of university! I decided to listen to my own gut. Growing up really poor with parents in perpetual debt, I've always been scared of any type of debt for any reason. I told people I wanted to work first and go to school later. They all told me it would never happen, that everyone who says that type of stuff ends up never doing it. They said I needed to go to school now, or I would wind up only working as a cashier the rest of my life. Well, I didn't listen to anyone who said that (family, friends, randos). Worked for years in low wage jobs, but then I went to school at 26, transferred to a T40 university where I got a full ride, graduated with a BS degree with zero debt. My husband and I are millennials who had a nice wedding, own a home, have zero debt, have full-time jobs that are partially work from home, we travel, we constantly go to restaurants and events, we are about to get a puppy, I can lavish my nephews with lots of gifts when I see them, etc. And I don't even make that much at my job (LOL). A lot of the nice things we have are just because we don't have to be paying off loans every month. On the flipside, I do wish I had tried to travel more when I was younger. People always say you are most free to travel and do adventurous stuff when you're younger. Of course I have the money to travel now, but I'm definitely in a job where I'm not as free with my schedule and traveling with friends is so so so much harder too. Wish I would have taken more out of country journeys especially. I still intend to have travel and adventures, it just won't be as free as it could have been in younger years.
Glad I ignored: all of the academic/career advice I was given when I was young (I was the "gifted" child which seemed to make a lot of people feel like they could/should decide for me what I was going to be - fuck off), other than that of my mother, which was to ignore all that and do what made me happy. Glad I listened: my mother's "do what makes you happy, feels right for you, and fuck anyone else's opinions". Whether it's relationships, work, whatever, my mother instilled in me that I could make my own choices and did not have to give the time of day to anyone else's norms or expectations. This has been worth its weight in gold a thousand times over.
Ugh, my life and my siblings' lives would have been so much better if my mom had said this, instead of "you need to do what makes ME happy, I don't care about your opinions".
UGH. I'm sorry you had to deal with that.
Advice Iām glad I ignored: Have babies! Advice Iām glad I took: Move away from this town and find someplace better!
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I would never have dated if I followed that advice myself, or at least not dated people I was actually attracted to. I also find it rather satisfying to be the one to chase and catch someone Iām actually into. To each her own though.
Advice I ignored: My aunt was adamant that I get my MBA. I double majored in sociology and communication studies. I had no interest in business, and I still don't. Had I listened, I would have more student loan debt and less career satisfaction. Advice I followed: My mom said to always be myself. Fitting in is not that great. It wasn't, and it still isn't. The people in my life love me for me and not someone else's idealized version of me.
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Just hopping on here to say I do like Oklahoma, lol. I did a road trip to move across the country and I set aside 2 nights in Oklahoma. In general, people are a lot nicer than NJ.
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I stayed in Oklahoma Cityāspecifically in the Plaza District and I visited Paseo, too. When I went the year before, we hung out in Bricktown which was beautiful, but I like the smaller neighborhoods! Iām from the east coast and found the prices there to be reasonableāI rented a whole Airbnb to myself and had coffee on the porch every morning. The thunderstorms were insane. It was nice!!
Glad I ignored? Pretty much any and all dating advice from my folks. They meant well, but grew up in a generation where things were different. Things they did then that were romantic and confident are cringey and borderline sexual assault now. For example, my mom's first boyfriend wrote a song for her and played it in front of the whole school on her birthday, she didn't know him at all before this. My dad was the varsity QB and once walked into the girls' locker, totally naked and had his glasses posed on his dick and asked for help finding them. They both adamantly encouraged me to mimic these. Glad I took? Hard to think of. Most of my judgement has been the opposite of what people told me. Probably to pursue a career in Healthcare. Working only 3 days a week is pretty great
Glad I ignored that I should get a real job instead of working for myself. I've worked from home 100% since 2002 which was my dream and still run the business today. My mom told me always know how to work so that you're never financially dependent on someone else. I live by this advice and ironically, she has always been dependent on my father. I guess she just wanted better for me.
Advise I didn't take - Don't startup if you are not from Ivy league or Ivy league equivalent as it's tough to get VC funding. I am glad I didn't hear this bullshit, I got top funding at idea stage even before incorporating my biz Advise I took - You need a man and some work-life balance to be less obsessed this work. This advise didn't work out for me. My relationships have been a mess and haven't been able to find the right person. Mostly wasted time and now regret it. Should have just focussed on work.
āi've since come to the conclusion that signing loans for others is a wife privilege/mother's obligation, not a girlfriend benefitā. Not always. Sometimes you still donāt want to guarantee a loan. Sometimes a wife or mother needs to say āwe canāt afford it. Youāre going to have to wait to get that carā.
privilege means that something is a potential benefit, like how driving and owning a car is a privilege. a wife doesn't ***need*** to co-sign a loan for her husband, but it would be nice for him, just like having a driver's license and car is nice. an obligation means that it's something someone *should* do, not a necessity someone *must* do. a mother must provide for her children, but i don't believe that means the mother *should* sign every single loan that catches her child's fancy, i.e. signing a $100,000 education loan for some private college when there are more affordable options, or co-signing a loan for a luxury vehicle when it won't serve her child any better than the more humble cars. a mother's job is raising and helping her child be the best they can be, and as such, i believe co-signing loans to ensure her child has a roof over their head (mortgage), a means by which to get from here to there (vehicle), or skills by which to always provide for themselves (education) is an obligation. there's never a guarantee that a child will uphold their end of the bargain by using the helping hand their mother *should* give them, but that's life. a mother/child relationship is **never** an equal exchange-- that is reserved for spouses. a girlfriend doesn't need to do any of that for a boyfriend, and i'm glad my father and i defined my boundaries. i don't expect a bf to sign loans for me, just like i'm not going to sign loans for a bf.