Life Lessons From a Cash Poor Millionaire

It's early for me where I am right now, but it's late to everyone else. I just lost $1,300 on a business investment that went south. The IRS has requested I pay $2,200 dollars before the end of next month. I owe $4,500 to an old friend who has generously paid my half of a venture that I believe will change my life once again. I owe one months rent to my roommate, and all I can afford to fill my stomach with is ramen noodles I purchased months ago.

Yet, I still believe. I still believe in God. In the Universe. I've come this far with my beliefs backed by action of course. Something I used to hope for was that it would get easier along the way. You know being faced with an impossible challenge, and smiling in it's face. Feeling the walls close in around you, and knowing that someone will throw down a ladder just in the nic of time.

When I woke up today I felt the air around me stand still. Almost like it was coming to visit me, and didn't mean to wake me. It wasn't the air I've grown accustomed to here in the city. No, instead it was an old familiar air. One that I had forgotten about as time has flown by. I don't speak of the air from my childhood, or my glory days... it was the air from that wretched place. That mechanic hell that broke even the strongest men, and laughed at the bravado we threw on every single night. I speak of course of "Blue Rhino".

If you're not familiar with "Blue Rhino" here's a synopsis. It's a propane/gas company. They have facilities where people take in old empty tanks, and send out new filled tanks. People buy propane to cook out or heat up their surroundings. It sounds simple enough right, and it is. However, simple doesn't always mean easy.

I found myself standing in their midst after a few months of being unemployed. I was 22 years old. It was a "temp job", and I was thankful to have it. I made an okay amount at $17.50 an hour. For most jobs where I'm from that was excellent. For this job it felt like a spit in the face. Now I'm not here to throw shade onto my former employer as some people genuinely liked it there. They loved the fast paced environment mixed with the rewarding three day weekend as we only were required to work four days out of the week. For me though it was my own private hell. We worked outside, so we were all confined to an imaginery fence. Our hopes and dreams just on the other side. Our realities keeping us from reaching them.

My first day there crept by at a slow pace. The tanks were heavy and bulky. By lunchtime I had already touched and lifted nearly 1,500 pure white tanks all by myself. At an average of 35 pounds a piece my shoulders and arms burned every time I moved them. I was put at the very end of the plant with a man who didn't speak english. I speak only english. Needless to say it was a very conversationless 5 hours.

When I came back from lunch I was escorted into the plant to my next station that I would work on. I began to see that most people there didn't speak english either, and of the ones that did most of them spoke few to none. I remember staring at the ground, and feeling the noise die down. I remember feeling the wind touch my face. I remember asking God and even myself "Why am I here?"... the only answer I received was a shout and whistle from my fellow crew member. As I looked up he threw me a knife, pointed at the tanks with plastic around them still, and said "cut".

That part of the night when by a little faster. Mostly because I didn't have time to look at the clock, or even think about how I let myself fall into this position in my life. This station required heavy lifting, but added in speed and endurance. After a few hours that felt like years finally the men in front of me signalled me to them. It was amazing. They hadn't stopped moving in that whole timespan. They just kept going. It was like sprinting for 5 hours straight.

At the end one man came, and said "We're done. You did good. You coming back tomorrow?". Obviously I would be going back. Not because I wanted to, but because I had no choice. There were two men working with me that night. The one that didn't speak to me was gone within a week. On the day he turned in his resignation my boss scoffed and laughed "Another one bites the dust.". How many jobs have I had like that. Where we're all just numbers in the grand cog of a corporation...

Anyways the one that spoke to me that night became my best friend at that plant. I shared my beliefs with him, and even my most vulnerable experiences, and he did the same. A few days after I left that job he would go to prison for 16 months on a plea bargain for a crime he had committed seven years prior. I had just accepted the job that would change my life forever.

It would take me all of a year to type out every life changing moment that occured to me at that plant on that dead end road. So I won't try. Instead I'll fast forward through with a brief timeline of my experience there.

Within my first month there I was promoted to work in the most dangerous part of the plant. I began to speak to my peers even if it was through broken english and broken spanish. I experienced the heat of summer, and the cold of winter. I felt the rain and snow fall on me from the sky above. I learned that people yell and curse and fight for no good reason at all other than to show you they're not scared. But the most important thing I learned there was that when in doubt, God or The Universe if you will, will always make a way.

Throughout our time together I imagine I will tell you many stories of people, jobs, and places who made it clear I didn't belong there with them. I always agreed. I always searched for my way out knowing there had to be a reason why I was there in the first place right? Maybe just ignorance on my part. Maybe divine reason on someone elses.

I received two opportunities while working there. Both of them centered around my dream. Around my destiny. I remember feeling my stomach drop when they were presented. I remember looking around at what I had to lose... nothing. Absolutely nothing.. besides my ability to live of course. Without hesitation my mind was made up. I took them. With nothing to lose I had everything to gain. Both opportunities were small, but I felt their potential.

My ability to risk it all always made me smile. It was the cornerstone of who I was. Who I had become. I felt ready to find out if I was indeed ready for the next chapter of my life... I recently hit that same point in my life. Opportunity came knocking, and asked if I was still that man. It challenged me to be that man that would hide among the propane tanks that seemed to never end. I responded by taking the risk. This time I felt better than before... I felt stronger. I have even more to gain from saying yes. My dream right in front of me. My calling realized before my eyes. My purpose exposed to all who believed in me, and to all who didn't.. The only difference is this time.. I have everything to lose.

I owe thousands of dollars, yet I'm not stressed about money. I have no food, but I'm not stressed about hunger. I'm about to leave behind the world I know once again... Of all the things I don't have there is one thing I do hold in my grasp. Direction. My path has been placed before me again. All I have to do is walk it. I don't know how, or what will happen, but I know one thing. Faith as small as a mustard seed can move a mountain. I imagine that two mustard seeds worth of faith can create one.

You might say "You're a millionaire. Of course you don't worry about money." Well my friends as it stands right now you could consider me bankrupt of funds. With no capital in my pockets other than faith, hopes, and dreams. I'm cash poor after all, but never poor in the mind. A wise man once told me "Fix your faith. Fix your stress. It's okay to worry from here to there. It's okay to bend under the pressure. Just make sure that whatever you do... you don't crack."

Upon sitting down to write this article that many or possibly even nobody might read below are the first words that escaped my mind.

"I still jump awake sometimes whenever it's too quiet. It's almost like the silence is louder than any noise or commotion outside. Sometimes my own breathing will wake me up. Not because I breathe heavy, but because I feel the relaxation carefully walking down my body. This is the scariest feeling I've come to know. The feeling of "calm" in the storm. The weight being lifted off my shoulders. Some would say they love it. I would say "I've entered the calm before the storm". If this burden has been lifted that means I'm prepared for the next one"

Now, I know I wasn't speaking to you. I was speaking to me. I can say confidently that I have once again entered the storm. I will also say I can't wait to see what victories are hidden there. God. The Universe. They don't give us storms to be ruthless. They give us storms to remind us that without them we'd be lost at sea. It's not all gloom and doom how some might percieve storms. There is a time to celebrate once you've conquered one. Thus it is the wise man who knows how to conquer an even greater one after he has celebrated.

Keep chasing your dreams, and when you walk into the storms of life smile. They're only there to remind and grow you to who you're meant to become. After all grass needs the rain to grow just as much as it needs the sun..

Embrace your storms whether it's a hard labor plant located on a dead end road filled with people who can't speak your language, debt, or simple struggles. They aren't there to prevent you from success. They're there to make you ready, so that when the time comes, you'll say "yes" to the leap of faith that success requires of you. But what do I know... after all I am a millionaire without any money.