2 Years. (Finding Your Own Way).

For a long time, I thought success meant following the path that was already laid out in front of you. Work harder than everyone else. Stay later. Become indispensable. Climb properly. Eventually, someone notices.

But truthfully, this story starts long before any of that.

When I was 22 years old, I opened a restaurant with a dear friend of mine who has always been like a brother to me (and ironically is now still one of my clients all these years later). My father helped me get it off the ground after he became too ill to continue working himself. We had to figure something out, and together we built something during a difficult chapter in our lives.

I ran that restaurant for five years.

After my father passed away, I sold it.

That was the beginning of everything that came after.

The years that followed taught me that hard work alone is not enough if it’s being poured into the wrong places, the wrong people, or the wrong version of yourself.

After the restaurant business, I began working for a large automotive dealership group with more stores than I could count. I started in one of their used automotive finance brands and became very good at what I did. If there was garbage on the floor, I picked it up. First one in, last one out. I treated the business like it was my own.

After a year and a half, only myself and one other person were left from the original group we started with. That alone tells you everything you need to know about the automotive industry. It is a revolving door. People burn out, move on, get replaced, and start over somewhere else.

By the time I became assistant finance director, I was generating serious money for the company. When the finance director role finally opened up, they brought someone from outside instead.

At the time, it felt personal. Looking back now, it was probably one of the best things that ever happened to me.

I eventually left corporate automotive and joined a smaller family-run dealership, but it was the same story. Same pressure. Same politics. Same feeling that no matter how hard you worked, somebody else still controlled the direction of your life.

Building Something of My Own

So on the side, I started a jewelry business.

I researched gemstones, learned how to smelt silver and gold myself, sourced real stones, built a website, designed branding, and taught myself everything from scratch. I thought maybe building something of my own, even as passive income, could create stability.

It failed.

After that, I started my own used automotive finance operation. I ran that business for about three years until COVID hit and everything changed.

Then came detailing.

And not glamorous detailing either. I mean disgusting dealership vehicles that most people would not even want to sit inside. I would sometimes clean two full vehicles a day just to make enough money to survive and put food on the table.

But even then, I refused to half do anything.

I built a website. I had uniforms. Business cards. Appointment scheduling. I even got my own transport plate so I could pick up and drop off vehicles for customers. Most detailing companies expected people to bring the vehicle themselves. I wanted the service to feel professional even if I was rebuilding my life from the ground up.

When that slowed down, I tried selling used RVs for about a month.

Then I worked at my cousin’s fast food restaurant for six months. Flipping burgers. Frying fries. Cleaning. Closing.

During all of this, I was also writing my first book. Looking back now, I think it was my way of trying to process the grief of losing my father and all the things left unsaid afterward.

Every single word of it.

I wrote that book over two years. Chapter by chapter. Cover to cover. This was before AI became what it is now. (Funny enough, nobody could have imagined that only a few years later AI would become capable of writing entire books itself).

When that chapter ended, I went back into automotive one last time.

It lasted a month.

That was the moment I knew I could not keep going backwards.

Long before any of this, I had graduated from NAIT’s School of Business with a major in marketing, but somewhere along the way life took me in a completely different direction. Looking back now, maybe I was always slowly finding my way back toward something that fit who I actually was.

(If you’ve read my blog post “One Year,” you probably already understand what I mean.)

Then something unexpected happened. Years later, my original business partner and dear friend from the restaurant reached out to me and asked, “Are you still doing marketing?” He remembered I used to build websites and work on branding, and he gave me the opportunity to build his company’s first website. He even bought me a computer so I could keep going and help grow his business.

Then my cousin, who is like a brother and one of my best friends, loaned me some money to start my marketing business. (Along with him, I was fortunate enough to have people around me to help carry me through some difficult years).

That became Unicorn Pony.

Learning How to Keep Going

Two years later, I’m still figuring things out like everyone else. But somewhere along the way, I stopped chasing the idea of a perfect path or some final destination. Life changes too quickly for that.

What matters more is learning how to adapt, how to rebuild, and how to keep moving forward when things don’t go according to plan.

The last five years of my life were some of the hardest years I have ever experienced professionally. At times they felt completely lost. But looking back now, I think those years were teaching me things I could not have learned any other way.

Strangely enough, I’m thankful for all of it.

The dealership years taught me realism. The detailing years taught me humility and persistence. Writing the book taught me discipline. Failure taught me adaptability. And every strange chapter in between taught me that nothing in life is permanent, good or bad.

Sometimes all you can really do is keep going long enough to become the person capable of carrying what comes next.

To anyone out there wondering where life could take them, understand this:

You may not know exactly where you are heading yet, but that does not mean you are lost.

You just have to dig.

If you ask God to move a mountain, expect to wake up next to a shovel.