Hey guys. How is it going?
So today we have a special episode. Special episode for me because I want to open up a little bit about the way I am and I mean, from the get go I can tell you that I have absolutely no control over how long this podcast going to be. So the other ones were reasonably long but this one I have no idea how long it's going to be I'm going to try and keep it around, maybe 40 45 minutes or something.
So the first thing is I'm not a millionaire. And I can't tell you how to make a million yet. Maybe I might be a millionaire at some point and then l’ll be able to tell you about that.
So if those are the kind of answers that you were looking for then I can't help you. But if you do find the answer please share it with me OK!!!!.
But you know making a million now like this I can't do that right. But what I can teach you is what I've done so that you can reproduce it. And what I have is systems that will run without me and that will generate enough income to have what I call peace of mind. So basically I can do anything I want and I can buy anything I want without worrying about it.
I don't need much. I don't want much. So everything I need is based on who I am. Everything I want, I could just get it without worrying about anything. That's a subject that I want to touch base on. At the end of the podcast we're going to discuss the subject of money right. Because it's a subject where everybody's really confused.
There are a lot of misconceptions around money. How much money you actually need and stuff like that. What I'm going to tell you at the end of the podcast might actually shock you and blow your mind.
I've made more mistakes and I've tried more than others have. And you know every time you fail you basically eliminate one of the possibilities until you find the right one. Maybe I'm where you want to be but it's just that you're not there yet. It doesn't mean you'll never get there it's just you're not there yet.
I'm grinding like everybody else. I'm trying to find the answers. So that's the myth that I wanted to bust for you. So now let me tell you, you’ll know where I come from and what my struggles were and how I got to this point because a lot of you guys don't know that.
So I was born in Cameroon. And I grew up in Cameroon because of my dad's job. We moved a lot, so I actually grew up in a lot of different countries. I lived in Cameroon for two years then went to France for four years. Then I grew up in Italy for like nine years and something in Italy in Rome. And then I came back to France for high school.
Of course, while traveling I got exposed to a lot of different cultures and languages. So I grew up speaking different languages. Speaking just grew up speaking those languages. In my family I'm the last of seven kids.
We were horrible kids. Yeah we did crazy things when we were kids.
When we were kids, my mom actually stopped working to take care of us. But you know things change and then my Dad actually lost his job and went to consulting and my mom had to go back to her previous job or a previous career. She was a midwife which you know is a beautiful job but it's a hard job as well.
So she basically had to work in Paris which was two hours away from where I live. So that meant that I actually never saw my mom because she was working nights. I don't think she finished until 6:00 a.m. or something. Then she jumped on the train for two hours to get home. Then at 5pm before I actually came back from school, she was gone.
For my dad, his job demanded that he travel. He was gone for like three months and then he was coming for 2 weeks and then he was gone somewhere else. So basically kind of grew up without seeing my parents much. I saw my mom once a week or something. It was pretty hard for all of us.
When I reached the age of 14 or 15, a lot of things changed for me. I was a horrible kid. I was running everywhere. I mean you couldn't get me to shut up. I was always talking really loud and doing kids’ stuff. But once I arrived in middle school, I became the shyest person on the planet. It was crazy, it was really bad. So my experience of middle school and high school for me was horrible. It was nightmarish. School was horrible. I became this really shy person but shy to the point where it was impossible for me to be spontaneous. So I could just picture it. Every evening I was rehearsing what I was going to say the next day so I basically had this scenario in my mind of how things were going to go down.
So I ended up spending a lot of time by myself. Actually like my own company, so this experience really helped me shape who I am and gave me this advantage in what I'm doing here in business that allows me to spend the time necessary working and stuff by myself.
All these years when I was horribly shy and having this horrible miserable life, there was one thing I focused on. Basketball. Because I was very good at basketball. I was so good that some people actually took trains and came from other cities and regions just to play on the same playground that I was playing.
And so that was my escape route because in the normal and everyday world I was nobody because nobody knew me. I was just a creepy guy sitting there not saying anything but I was a star when I was playing basketball. And the reason why I'm telling you about this basketball thing is that it’s going to play crucial role afterwards. So after I finished university and graduated, I studied foreign languages and international trade and after my masters I wanted to specialize in international negotiations so I did post master's degree in that field.
So my expectation was that, “after my diploma I'm going to find a job and to find something really cool be a manager straight away and then that's it I'm done”.
But yeah I didn't go as planned because once I had my degree there were circumstances that were not necessarily in my favour. You know just because of what my name sounds like and what I look like, there are countries where you're black then you have to work extra hard right. So I started looking for a job. And you know normally when you have your diploma, like a five year degree and stuff. You find a job pretty easily. Everybody found a job in one month or two months. For me it took a year and a half!
I looked for a job and I didn't find anything. I was applying and sending CVs every day. I was spending most of my day looking for offers. You know, changing my CV and changing the cover letter and blah blah. So most of the time, you didn't get an answer from anybody. Sometimes when you somehow managed to get an interview, you know sometimes I would show up there. And so the boss is coming out of their office with a big smile, saying “OK so who's the next one?” And when they saw me, the smile just wiped off their face. So yeah for a good year and a half that's what happened to me.
I was living off of three hundred euros a month given to me by the state. But in my mind I didn't want to live at my parents’ house because that's the easy route right. I wanted to be able to be independent and I wanted to make it. I wanted to make it happen somehow. So what I did is what I had at some point had to be realistic to go back to my parents for three months.
So, long story short, I managed to find an apartment. We got six hundred euros for the deposit. So eventually, I found a job which was just calling up people and selling them cable. You know like telemarketing stuff because the thing is I needed to be able to pay my rent and then I'll did whatever it took to find a job even if it meant that I had to sleep less.
It wasn't my dream job but you know it was paying the bills. And then when I was there I didn't even consider that as a mere job just to pay bills. I tried to get good at it and I became quite good at it. Upselling people cable and I was actually making decent commissions. So my salary was maybe like a thousand Euros a month.
And so everything changed afterwards. So two and a half years after I graduated, I was still in that job trying to find something and then something happened to me that that changed everything.
My take is that nobody is nobody owes you anything right? So if they don't want to give the good jobs to me, then I will find a way to get it myself. So I thought, you know what, if I can't find a job in France because these companies don't want me, I will go somewhere else. You know there are hurdles in life and it depends on how you approach them. So I decided “I'm going to start my career somewhere else!”
