It Was All a Dream...

"As far back as I could remember, I always wanted to be a gangster." A famous quote from a famous film, but without a doubt a mantra that many have lived by their whole life. Why a gangster? because they demand respect, they live by their rules, and they certainly aren't sitting at a desk for 40 hours a week waiting to see if their annual leave request gets approved.

For the millennial's a "gangster" to us is an Entrepreneur. you see it everyday online, the people who took a risk, worked hard, worked smart, and are now in charge of their own destiny. They travel, they have money, and, most importantly, they answer to nobody.

For many people, this is seen as a pipe dream. They would rather play it safe and work for a company 5 days a week and "live for the weekend", which by no means is a bad thing. They have families to support, they have mortgages or rent to pay, they want to enjoy their free time to do whatever they want, and they have one or two holidays with the people that mean the most to them every year.

For the people that are happy with this life they have hit the jackpot! At the end of the day, life is about being happy and if you're happy then you've made it and that is unbelievable!

But there are people within the offices who aren't satisfied with that life. They want to be able to do what they want when they want and not take shit for being 15 minutes late to a job where you're never going to feel truly fulfilled. You work with good people, you have a laugh every day, but there's something missing and you can never seem to get over that feeling.

So you decide you're going to start your own business while you have your safety net job and this is where my story begins...

My business partner and best friend Taylor and I have tried a variety of things in the past two years to find out what our calling was (stories to follow in my next post). Taylor was already his own boss in the scrap metal industry and made a more than healthy wage doing so, but, like me, he wanted to grow and be more than what he was then. After two years of not seeing each other, we reconnected back in 2013. Before the two years, I was a 17-year-old slightly overweight kid working in an office working 9 to 5 while Taylor was a 17-year-old starting out in the scrap business with no experience, no real capital, and no real clue. But, like I said, the boy is relentless and if he has a goal he ain't stopping until he gets it.

Puberty hit us like a mother....

So we fast forward two years and through a friend we all head out together on a night out. At this point, Taylor is smashing it within his business. I mean he never used to have cash when we were teenagers. All the wages he had would go on petrol to pay for his college and travel to work, and all of a sudden he's got more cash than I thought would be possible to get for a 19-year-old! And me?...I'm still at the same job, more than a little obese at this stage (tipping the scales at around 252 lbs/114 KG). I was already thinking about how soon I could retire from work.

Everything was different. My mates were growing up getting serious money in their fields and I was skint after the first weekend of payday. I remember Taylor and I talking about putting money away each month and investing in a property. Taylor worked out he could save over £20,000 for the year and I worked out I could save.... £900 for the year. It was embarrassing, to say the least.

One day Taylor sat me down and said, "Look, Dom, you can do better in your life. I really believe that and now you gotta believe it too. I want you to download this app called The Secret. It's £5.99 on the app store. Trust me you can do this." At the time I think I had two weeks until payday and had £11 in my account so to pay £6 for an app almost made pass out, but I trusted Taylor and I downloaded the app.

And So it began....

Everyday I would read the daily scripture in the app and I started noticing after a while my mindset would change and it motivated me. I started to think maybe I could be more than a 9-5 worker. Maybe I could lose this weight. All these ideas started flowing through me and trust me this isn't a post to say The Secret made me some amazing person who never gets frustrated. It's not, but what it did do is made me realize that I control my thoughts and quite simply you ain't getting anywhere with a negative mindset.

Hangin with the boyyyyyys.....

So what did I do next? I re-wrote the script.

Before I continue this adventure I don't even know if I know if this is too long or too short or just right? I don't even know how this gets viewed if at all so I'm gonna stop here, take a minute, and continue through to the next chapter. Trust me. You're probably going to want to read the adventures we've gotten ourselves into along the way...