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If you work and take risks, it's possible to build a good life for yourself
Monday, 11 September 2006
When I consider my life at the moment, it's really pretty good. I'm happily married, make plenty of money, and live in my favorite place in the world. For years now, I've been in a position where I can do pretty much whatever I want. It wasn't always that way though.
Just over ten years ago, when I first finished university, things weren't that great for me at all. I had no girlfriend, and didn't know any women who wanted to be with me. My work prospects were poor, with Australia just recovering from the worst recession in fifty years. Most of my friends were unemployed or had badly paid jobs. And I lived in Canberra, a place which I thought was pretty boring and didn't appear to hold many prospects for me.
Of course, all my basic needs were taken care of. My parents are solidly middle-class and I could live with them and get all my meals there. I made enough money from part-time jobs to go out to movies and bars and the like. And I knew enough people that I was never short of company.
But despite that I was pretty miserable. No matter how hard I tried to talk myself out of it, I couldn't get over the feeling that I had basically nothing. I was young and free, but apart from my education, almost everything I possessed had been given to me by my parents.
I think almost everyone feels this way at some point in their lives. They look around and think: "Things aren't horrible right here, but they're not great either". And a miserable longing for something more satisfying comes over them.
At that time, I knew I wanted something better, and I was prepared to work and take risks to get it. I took the best paid job I could find, working in a library, and started to save money for a big trip to Europe. Lots of my friends were the tough-guy types, and they laughed at my job and my ambitions. They'd spend all their money straight away, while I carefully saved.
Finally, almost a year out of university, I managed to save about $15,000. - more than enough to start putting my dreams into action. I bought a ticket to England and jumped on a bus to Sydney airport to catch it. As the bus left Canberra, I remembered thinking "At last, I start out on my real life".
After that, I spent six months travelling around Europe and the Middle-East - mostly alone. I would have liked to have gone with a friend, but none of them had the money. And I wasn't prepared to wait for them. This also gave me a good chance to find myself and think about what I wanted, away from the distraction of family and friends.
At the end of my travels, I settled in England for a couple of years. I found a nice place to live in Windsor in a residence where a lot of women lived.
At that time, I was young and arrogant and thought I knew a lot about what women wanted. Living with a big group of them soon cured me of that fantasy. I learned that what men think women want is completely different from what they actually want. I realized that my friends in Canberra, who I'd admired for their romance-skills, had actually been completely ignorant.
I came to appreciate the female mind and point of view very well. Because of that, I did much better in the romance market than I think I otherwise would have done. After two years of living in Windsor, I met my wife. And our relationship has been really good, partly because my maturity level in dealing with women was quite good. If we'd met two years earlier, I think I would have blown it with her for sure.
At that time, most of my work-experience was also pretty bad. I wanted a career, but had no idea of how to get a good one. My first few casual jobs in Windsor were just doing data entry, which is about as boring and low-level as you can get.
So I started reading a lot of books on how to improve your career. I talked to recruitment agents, and asked successful people for advice on how to get ahead.
One thing I learned is to be a bit stubborn about what type of work you'll accept. While many people just stick with the first job they get, whether they like it or not, I started to take a few risks. I'd quit jobs which had no obvious prospects and insisted on only being put forward for those that did.
One week, I printed off a hundred copies of my resume and walked to about 30 different recruitment agencies looking for the best job available. Rather than applying though newspaper ads, I'd turn up and talk face to face with the recruiters. Many of them tried to sell me jobs that I knew were no good, but I insisted on something better.
As a result of leaving the bad jobs, I spent about a month and a half being unemployed. My savings were dwindling, but I was willing to take the chance of ending up broke. Many of my friends thought I was making a stupid decision. For them, any job was better than no job, but I was determined to get something good.
Finally, I got a responsible position with a big chemicals company. It was working on an information technology project for the marketing department. The pay wasn't that great, but the prospects seemed excellent. I put in more work than was expected of me, and had soon impressed those in senior management.
As a result, I was sent to offices all over the world advising people on how best to use our new IT system. The experience was excellent and helped to kick-start an IT career for me. Within two years, I was being paid $150,000 annually for my expertise.
Meanwhile, my friends who stayed back in Canberra putting in little effort and taking no risks stayed pretty-much where they were. When I'd meet them for drinks five years later - they were in similar jobs, most of them were still single, and they'd barely been anywhere. Meanwhile, I was being paid big money, had a beautiful French wife and had seen the world.
Most of us, even those from good homes, start out our adult lives with nothing. But with a little effort and risk, we can build something great for ourselves. Take the path that's a little more difficult and chancy, but with greater prospects of reward, and you too will likely end up in a good position.
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