Miles from your dreams, inches from success

There’s a lot of influencers online who talk about their success and brag about what’s worked for them and how you can follow along and do the same.

The problem is this is survivorship bias.

Why do we all get sucked into joining meme stocks, cryptocurrency, MLMs, snake oil, tech companies, you name it? We’re all chasing the fad of the day and hoping it will get us rich quick.

Why? So that we can kick back and start doing the things we really want to do.

And it’s a self-sustaining dream. A new person pops up every moment, spouts their books, shares their dreams, and promises courses on how you can do the same, all yours for the cheap price of selling your left kidney.

We all want to dream, though. So we keep stumbling forward, hoping, praying, that somehow we’re the one who makes it.

And some do. 

Like winning the lottery, dreaming about it, and hoping you’re next, we hear about those who found success and built a life of riches for themselves beyond belief.  

So we keep plodding along, hoping we’re next in line to be chosen. 

As a kid, I read Rich Dad, Poor Dad, and believed I’d be a millionaire in short order. I planned, schemed, made things, sold things, and generally just tried to position myself to be ready for the floodgates to open.

My brothers and I ran out into the woods and played games. We spent ages building empires, establishing civilizations, and chasing down pocket monsters. 

Success never showed up, though. 

So I kept plodding along.

I started designing things and was surprised that people were willing to pay me for it.  

And I kept dreaming.

I started a few websites, tried offering ads, tried selling products, and made some money along the way. 

This was going to be my success, this was going to get me the keys to happiness.

I then decided to go all in on starting a tech company with a few awesome founders, including my brother. This was going to be the dream; we were going to make it.

Then I found a cute girl, and we started dating. Then we got married and began building a life together.

I kept working at the tech company. 

My wife and I made friends, rented apartments, and spent some of my fondest memories chasing down Redbox locations for that perfect movie. 

My business had successes and failures. We danced through the Great Recession, tried to stay afloat, and kept moving forward.

My wife and I moved out west, closer to where I’d grown, but we landed in the top left corner of the country and stayed. 

The next morning, we found out she was pregnant with our first kid. We found more friends and continued building a life. 

I looked for success.

I worked on tech ideas, startup ideas, took whatever jobs came along, and just kept trying.

Nothing quite took off the way I wanted, but I was always inches away from the dream. 

Our son was born, and the bills came due. 

When he was two days old, I sat in the hospital cafeteria, laptop on the table, head in my hands, not knowing what to do.

I searched Craigslist, reached out to every contact I knew, and tried to find something, anything to help provide for this baby that we were hours away from bringing home.

Someone responded. We interviewed, and she offered me a job on the spot. I told her I needed the weekend to think about it. My wife and I celebrated till Monday.

Finally, we could start right-sizing our lives. 

But the startup ideas and dreams were still there. I kept tweaking, playing with things on nights and weekends. Success was just around the corner.

Our son started to crawl and walk. Spring afternoons filled with playtime at parks, pushing a stroller along the lake during nap time. Seeing the world through his eyes as he took it all in.

I doubled down, joined a remote tech company, and learned a bunch of new skills. I met a lot of awesome people, worked with really cool teams, and was just mere millimeters away from success.

Then a pivot. Things didn’t go as expected. Things went sideways. I accepted another job offer at a different tech company and started to dream again.

Our daughter, now born, started to laugh, run, and play. I held her during video calls while she slept; my son pretended to be at work on my computer, with big headphones around his ears and a grin on his face. 

I took a different tack with entrepreneurial ideas and started writing novels. It was a lot of fun and an obvious, clear path to wealth. It was going to happen this time. 

Work took a turn again, and I went back to the previous company I was at and spent a few years there. The people were kind, the work was great, and I kept dreaming.

My kids started school, and we took first-day pictures. We spent summers on the lake, winters playing cozy games in the kitchen and watching movies. Streaming instead of Redbox.

Success was just around the corner. Waiting for me. 

Another opportunity came, and I jumped for it, working at a new type of tech company with skills I hadn’t been able to try out yet. It was amazing. I loved it. We were solving interesting problems, and I was learning things every day. Eight months later, they were forced to downsize.

So I shifted again. I started working with a bunch of clients at once, and my business boomed, making more money than anytime before. 

We took a vacation, the kids played in the pool, we enjoyed the sun, and ate amazing food.

The dream life was just a few months away.

The business tanked, and I was offered two jobs. I chose one, but it didn’t go the route I thought, so I thankfully was able to go back to the first job. I’m solving interesting, challenging problems every day. Learning new things. 

My son is now a preteen, and my daughter is going into second grade. We’re enjoying the last days of summer.