Hey, this is the Daily Overpass, my name is Eric and I make apps!
Today, let's talk about fighting the good fight!
Ok so, if you were at the live stream last Friday night, you may have heard me talk a
little bit at the end of the hour about my past, coming to the UK, getting into IT, starting
my career and everything like that at the age of 25, working in a factory, packing yoghurt
into boxes for a couple of months for 8 hours a night.
And I talked about this again on a video last year called "Getting to Where You Weren't
Supposed to Be", it's kind of a long one, it's like 20 minutes long.
How I came over here and my self-esteem was very low, we had a baby and I was just thinking
how could I make ends meet because I had this minimum wage job in a factory packing yoghurt,
and I was applying to every job I could.
So, unlike other people who were working at the dairy, when we were coming home I was
getting every newspaper they had, which I could not afford, going through the job ads
and was sending off CV's to every place, whether I was qualified or not.
I was sending off like 10 or 20 CV's a day so it cost me a lot in stamps because they
had email back then, but I didn't have enough to pay for the computer and everything, or
internet, because it was '98.
So I went through that and I'm sending off the CV's and even though I felt like I would've
been happy just to have a job that would pay me 20 grand a year and I could support my
family, hopefully work in an office like that and feel like a grown up rather than a factory.
but I was still going through the process of doing the CV's and sending them out every
day, even though a lot of the people around me couldn't figure out why I was doing that
because I had a perfectly good job, right?
You have a job, why are you applying for other jobs?!
Because I want my life to be better!
And it's always been this way in my life where I'm at some place, or I'm working someplace
or I'm doing something and everyone says "you should be really happy with what you have",
which is true.
You should.
Things could always be worse.
In your life you can always find people who are better off than you or who are worse off
than you, and depending on how good you wanna feel, you'll look at the people who are worse
off than you or the people who are better off than you.
But, I was always fighting the good fight.
I'm gonna continue doing the CV's and see if anything worked, I worked two months, I
only got like 3 interviews, and one of them was for a tech job and like I said, I bought
a suit for 8 pounds at the charity shop, went there and did all that kind of stuff.
But, one of the reasons why I love all the people on this channel is because we all have
the same motivation.
We're always trying to improve our lives, we're always fighting the good fight.
A lot of people out there, you're doing the same kind of thing.
Like, you have your job, you're doing what you need to do and you're putting apps out
on the app market and hoping that they'll work out.
And a lot of times, people around you, they don't understand why you're doing that, why
can't you just be happy with what you're doing?
They may have fallen into apathy, they may think this is just the way life is supposed
to be, and you're looking at it and thinking nah, I want more than this.
That's the way it's always been through my life.
For the longest time I thought, I'm never gonna be the kind of guy who goes to an office
every day, and then I was going to an office every day thinking I'm never gonna be the
kind of guy who has a bit more control over their own schedule, who has their own company,
and then you have that and then you think...so you're always thinking about...but I'm gonna
fight the good fight.
I'm gonna do what I have to do.
And a lot of times, the thing that has held me back in my life has always been the lack
of self esteem.
You see somebody with gobs of self-esteem and no talent, sometimes they think they're
better off than someone with lots of talent and no self-esteem!
If you ever see somebody who's out for a run and they're overweight, and if you say you've
seen me out for a run - touche, very well done.
But you see somebody who's out for a run and they're overweight, you think, that guy has
not fallen into apathy, that guy or gal or whatever.
If you see somebody who's thin and out for a run then they obviously do it all the time,
that's one thing, but to see someone who's just starting out, you look at them and you
think "that person is fighting the good fight".
They haven't fallen into apathy, they realise they need to change, they're going out and
doing it, they probably feel a bit silly doing it, their friends are probably saying "so
you still going out for a run, huh?"
but they're doing it.
they're out there doing it!
A lot of times I love seeing that.
Earlier this week, to change subjects a little bit, i did a google search on the average
salary in the UK.
I was kinda curious about how much do you need to actually live out here, because there's
certain times where I feel like I don't have enough, sometimes I feel like we're doing
ok.
The average salary in the UK according to a GQ article in May is £27,271.
That's the average, I'm not talking about for a kid starting out, I'm talking about
in general!
So some people make 50, 60, 70, i was always way up there at one point, but there's a lot
of people on 10, 11, 12, right?
And 27,000 is 36,000 dollars and to me that seems painfully low.
So anyone who's on 27,000 should be trying to get up above that level in my opinion.
They should be doing not just - you have to do the bit you have to do, you have to do
the job and take care of what you're doing, but then there's also that extra that you
have to do - you have to fight the good fight and think, I'm gonna get out of this stage,
I'm gonna go to the next thing.
Even though nobody around me is doing it.
I believe in fighting the good fight.
I believe that one of the reasons why I love talking to you guys on the live stream and
through the comments is because we're all like-minded, we're all trying to improve each
other and we're doing things that may not work!
If we knew for certain it was gonna work putting an app on the app market, it would be easy!
In fact, everybody would be doing it, but we don't know it's gonna work.
We're putting things out there and we're gonna market, we're gonna push and we're gonna push,
and if it doesn't work out, at some point we might have to say we need to try something
else but we are in the arena and we're gonna do what we have to do, and the people out
there with the safe secure jobs, they don't get it.
Anyway, just some of my thoughts for today.
I'm glad to know you guys, I'm glad you're here!
Let me know what you guys think.
Anyway, that's it for today, i'll talk to you guys again tomorrow!