Hello my YouTube friends it's Richard founder short-term rental university and
Airbnb super host it's Monday you know what that means today we're gonna talk
about whatever's on my mind share a little bit more about myself get to know
me a little bit and today's message is about what I learned when I lost my job
working on Wall Street when I ran a large hedge fund
I think some of you know this about me my first career was in finance and Wall
Street I worked down at the Mercantile Exchange and I went to business school
ran some billions of dollars at a hedge fund investing in other hedge funds and
so a lot of my identity was around this prestigious path I was on I went to the
right College in the right business school and I got recruited by the right
company and I worked at this big job with this big title and a big paycheck
and it was great I really enjoyed it unlike a lot of people that are in
finance that did it solely for the money I did it because I really enjoyed it and
also to be fair the money was quite good but that said what I didn't realize
until I lost my job was I had a lot of my personal identity what I thought of
myself or how people viewed me was around that title and that company and I
sort of assumed it now I worked really hard and diligently I'd been at these
firms for extended period of time my last job was there for almost nine years
so I lived breathed I traveled I ate with people I had clients I had
co-workers I ran a team of 40 people underneath me and it became sort of who
I thought I was and then one day in 2009 the very first trading day of 2009 after
letting many people very good people that we had spent a lot of time and
energy recruiting to come work with us we had no choice but to cut cost we had
to let them go and then on the very first trading day
of 2009 I thought I was on the inside making those decisions until I was very
evidently on the outside and I received a little notice in the middle of a
meeting I was heading along with the co head of investments the Monday meetings
got a little note that my boss needed to see me and that was it nine hard years
of labor gone all my dreams and aspirations of being a partner in his
firm gone and I was just turned upside down and didn't know what to do with it
I'll never forget that day I've written about it in Forbes but the lesson over
time was that job that firm that career is not me that was a
portion of me it was me at a point in time but me grew evolved changed had a
whole series of things that I want to accomplish that I was unable to do in
the prior life and so when I was given this opportunity and that's the way I
view things we talked about mindfulness I got laid off it was really
embarrassing it was very costly but instead of viewing it as I feel sorry
for myself for blaming people are saying how could this be blah blah blah I
viewed it as an opportunity the opportunity to find myself figure out
what I wanted to do in the next stage of my life land on my feet
and achieve it and I can tell you this being an entrepreneur for the last eight
years or so has been fantastic it's had its ups it's had its downs it's been
very financially rewarding it's been very financially challenging but at the
end of the day I'm learning every single day I'm my own boss I do what I want to
do what I want to do it I've created a life filled with opportunity and
flexibility and I wouldn't change it for the world so if you were to ask me what
I like to go back to that guy and go work for another company and collect
that paycheck I would say well the paycheck wouldn't be bad but I would
never do it the money is not enough I'm doing so much more and enjoying myself
so much more and learning so much more in growing so much more that there is no
paycheck commensurate enough for me to give all that up
so in closing what did I learn I learned to find myself and respect myself and
make my own decisions for myself and I couldn't do that before even though I
had a great job and I ran a team of people and we made big huge investments
and it was very prestigious I was one of many and now I'm focused on the
individual and optimizing myself and growing myself and that's incredibly
rewarding so that's what I learned so I'm gonna encourage you if you've ever
lost your job or faced a really difficult life challenge comment below
what happened what you think what you learn from it because again the more we
share with one another and just create this community of where we're helping
one another the more somebody's facing a similar situation is going to find
validation and help from your comment so go ahead take em all
it won't take too long we'd really appreciate it in the meantime if you
haven't subscribed to the YouTube podcast channel it's also available on
iTunes I would encourage you to do so lots of great content there people are
really enjoying the podcast and Charles and I are enjoying making it so check us
out over there I would also suggest and encourage for you to please subscribe to
the YouTube channel now now thank you
you