The Magic of Being Your Own Boss

Today, I’m going to write about something a bit different from my last posts, but related to them in a way. First, as you know from the blog post “Echoes Of A Last Tear” I mentioned my professional crisis, existential crisis, trauma, grief, and unfinished business from losing my father. Along with the way I was born—a stubborn, entrepreneurial know-it-all—led me to find healing in writing a book. No matter where I was in my life, what I had accomplished, or had yet to accomplish, or wished to accomplish, no matter the mistakes I made, or continue to make, the people I have hurt, those who have hurt me, those who have yet to forgive me, or whom I am yet to forgive, all lead to the crafting of that book.

And what is that book? It’s not only a way to “be like Jim,” but every design in it, from cover to cover—the various typefaces used, the layout, the chapters, the pictures. The intentionality of every quote, every picture, all of it was me.

“Row, Row, Row Your Boat, Gently Down the Stream, Merrily, Merrily, Merrily, Life Is But a Dream.” (The photo for the chapter: Your Time On Earth)

Nobody did it for me. That book is the embodiment of the spirit of entrepreneurialism in me. I think it’s a blessing and a curse. A blessing, in the sense that the entrepreneur in me answers to nobody, sets the schedule of my life on my terms, and is not confined to a linear career path. The curse? The curse is that nothing is given to me, my days are not preplanned, or guaranteed to bear fruit. There are no health benefits, awards, overtime pay, or bonuses. It’s scary not knowing if you will make money today, but you have to try.

You have to be everything for the company and know how to do everything. As I wrote in my book, “The entrepreneurial spirit that asks the question, ‘How do I do that?’ springs from the desire to learn. How do I get to Canada? How do I survive? How do I thrive? How do I rebound after losing everything? How do I build a table? How do I find hope in times of darkness? How do I live life?”

I recently went to a job interview. Well, it wasn’t really a job interview. It was more like an interview just to meet me and size me up for a job that may or may not be available. It was a reminder of who I am and what I am—an entrepreneur at heart. I went to it because I now find myself at another one of my many self-employed crossroads. Do I keep trying to live the life I envision, perhaps losing more time in securing a stable retirement for my children (a retirement that never came for Jim)?

I had everything at a time, everything that most people, I think, would dream of acquiring. And it seems as fast as I acquired it, I lost it all. I had so many great years, and so many difficult ones. Essentially, I guess, that’s what entrepreneurialism is, figuring out how to survive when your back is against the wall.

Sometimes, I wish I could go back in time and climb the corporate ladder because I know I am smart enough, strong enough, bright enough, to have done it, and succeeded. I wouldn’t have had to run on fumes like I have in the past, and even now, when business gets slow. Perhaps I would’ve given more to my wife and children. But then again, since I write that we are already dead, what’s the difference? Nobody’s going to remember me, maybe my kids will remember how hard I worked and sacrificed for them, but after that?

I have often told so many people over a glass of wine, scotch, beautifully crafted BC IPA, that many of us don’t know our great-grandfather or our great-great-grandfather. I’m sure they had possessions, heirlooms, keepsakes, diaries, hopes, and dreams. And where are those now? Everything becomes erased eventually.

That’s the only thought that keeps me going sometimes. Science will tell me I possibly have a disorder, perhaps I don’t fit in because of unhealed childhood trauma. Perhaps. There is some there from childhood. And even some from my teen years. And even more from my early 20s, whatever those are called.

My first introduction to work was my family’s restaurant, The Red Chimney, in Smoky Lake. I vividly recall my dad’s jeans, particularly his black ones that he always wore to work. There was always a worn-out square shape in his front right pocket. I vividly remember that because, when I started my own business, thanks to him in his last years, I had that same worn-out square outline. It was because of the cash I had in my pocket. I got that from him; he always had cash in his pocket because he worked so hard. He came from nothing and built himself up into a man that could more than provide for his family, that is, until he was diagnosed and could no longer work.

That’s where I come in. It was never instilled in me to climb the corporate ladder; it was always, “Oh, you will just get a business; that’s how we make money. That’s how we can live the life that we envision. Our life, shaped by us and nobody else.” That’s not to say that is the right way or the only way, but it was the only way I was taught. Especially toward the end of my dad’s life, it was sink or swim for us, and he gave me his last bit of money in hopes the business I would start running would keep us afloat. I had no idea what the hell I was doing, but I figured it out on the spot. I learned how to run on fumes before I could thrive with a little bit in the tank.

A few years after my father’s diagnosis, we had to sell our family restaurant. I tried selling phones for a little while, but that could not keep us afloat, considering we moved to Edmonton and had taken on a large mortgage. Through a friend, I found an opportunity at a small lounge and concession in Spruce Grove. From 2007 until 2012, that place instilled in me this addiction to being my own boss. At 22 years old. There’s nothing like it. Even when you know you need to walk away from your business, such as I had to do post-Covid while running my own automotive business, the feeling of wanting to start again on something else, perhaps anything else, is a strong drive.

I made a terrible employee at other companies because of the entrepreneurial spirit in me. The one that drives me to answer any question, the one that drives me not to give up until the job is done, the one that drives me to do it today, not tomorrow. At the job ‘interview’ I mentioned earlier, I was explaining to a vice president that it would be a challenge for me to start at the bottom again in the industry they were in. Precisely because of that drive to do things when they need to be done, how I know they need to be done, the fastest way they need to be done. They told me I was arrogant (it was not a good interview). I don’t blame them, though what they perceived as arrogance or ego, to me, was entrepreneurialism.

So, as I write this now, I begin another journey of entrepreneurship: Book selling, professional marketing services, and even perhaps the occasional car detail. As I write in the book, “Sometimes, you just have to do a job to survive until the day you find a job that lets you thrive.”

That’s entrepreneurship, the desire to live life on my own terms. It has helped me to achieve the things I have always wanted to achieve, such as buying my home, car, going on vacation without ever having to schedule time off with anyone, or exercising my right to free speech without the fear of reprimand. Yet, it has also hindered me when that desire to hold on even during slow times, bad economic circumstances, where I should have let go, I couldn’t.

Of the many things you could take away from my book, let one be this: you may not be an entrepreneur, or entrepreneurship may not be for you, but like the book itself—an embodiment of entrepreneurship, of creating something from nothing, of working long hours after your normal job is done to complete a project or goal—let it inspire you to do the one thing you’ve always wanted to do, even if it takes a little bit extra work, and even if you make no money from it. Doing it yourself, magical. There’s nothing like it.

Sometimes we have to do what we have to do, as I said above. I am at a crossroads now, is it time to wean myself off entrepreneurship? Maybe. Bills still need to be paid. But there may be a time where I fall off the bandwagon again. A blessing, and a curse.

Thank you for reading.