There were many life-changing catalysts that happened in the middle of Year Two. Where to even start? A big disclaimer that when writing this, the dates and times of when and how things started are kind of messed up. I’m not sure why everything is so confusing, but perhaps that’s the fun of the story. I’ve divided the story here into segments, but the segments are not chronological. They all happened intertwined throughout the year.
Well, in the entrepreneur route, I learned how to design websites and blogs, I also learned to create products from China, and ended up creating an online store that did so poorly, I woke up one morning to find out Chinese pirates stole my inventory. I am not making this up. In hindsight, it was a hilarious novice mistake. But so you learn.
That was in the beginning of the year, and that gave me a reality check to lay off the entrepreneur pill for a while. At least study some more. So I read a lot of books about marketing. A big reason my first thing failed was that I didn’t know how to market. I thought the magic of the internet would get people to buy my product.
So when did I get back on track?
I was applying to different jobs and got an in house interview at Isagenix. I had to lie to the HR lady that I had to visit my grandfather in Fresno that Friday. The day before, my Grandpa passed away unexpectedly.
At a bar, I broke down and I drank a lot that night. I called my mentor and he said “drop everything and comfort your loved ones”. So I did.
My Grandfather was amazing. He came from China, became an entrepreneur, raised chickens and a family of four, he was something I could never be.
Yet somehow, that supercharged me into starting something significant again. I didn’t want to go back to physical products so I decided to think a bit more and go digital. At first I started with a “how to make friends” website, where I wrote an ebook (it’s still in my hard drive) and I had 50 articles ready to publish, but I could never pull the trigger. I also did the same with a drop ship website for wine and cat accessories dubbed “Cats and Glass” (I still love that name). Eventually, I was going out to a lot of Asian restaurants and when I was finding reviews on them, I realized they all suck. So I decided to write myself, take high quality pictures, and start a blog. I did this for maybe 5 months just posting my favorite Asian restaurant and reviewing it. Eventually, I got Yelp Elite by copy and pasting my articles and then eventually, featured in the New Times.
If you’re a regular listener of the blog, then you know the story of My Food Job Rocks. Nicole started Foodgrads at the time and started to post an article where I simply reached out to the fledgling startup asking how I could help. Then that started a diligent process of building My Food Job Rocks, which can be found in this article, that article and this other article.
As for my social life, it got better.
I told someone I played bass and I ended up playing in a cover band with a bunch of people from the “shy guys and girls” meetup. I liked this group a lot because it was a bunch of introverts who wanted to meet new people, with the occasional creeper or two.
This was probably my first group of real friends in Phoenix. We would play alright cover songs, goof off, and go places. We had these monthly open mics that were really fun.
With that group, I got to explore Phoenix, and appreciate the beauty of Arizona. Sedona, Flagstaff, the Grand Canyon, this made me realize Arizona isn’t that bad. I also started helping out with the meetups and did these monthly new member meetups, where I would talk to awkward shy people and be the one who was awkward first.
After a while, I got bored with the band and started investing my time in this Asian Meetup Group.
It was a crippled group that had sporadic events, so I wanted to help out, so I did a monthly Dim Sum event where we could all just eat Dim Sum. This was really fun! So I kept on making events. Eventually, the organizer didn’t like the events I was posting and took away my power. We had a fight, and I think I made her cry. She disseminated the group.
One of my friends at the time called me saying the group disappeared so I hopped on at lunch and made a new group. So technically, I started a meetup group.
I decided to put a lot of effort into this group and hosted weekly meetups from restaurants to festivals. I got some people into drinking events, it was a fun time. I made a lot of friends, fast as I would sacrifice everything to hang out with them for the integrity of the group. The friends and relationships that were formed in that group still go on without me, and I’m pretty happy that the meetup group was the cause of all that.
I got the job at Isagenix after what had happened to my grandfather. Perhaps it was fate. The two weeks they needed to check if I wasn’t a felon was torture at my granola bar factory job. Funny enough, I got the job offer while traveling for two weeks on company dime.
What this means is that the knife goes deeper because they are investing a ton of money into me and I’m going to leave.
Distraught, I called both my mentor and father and essentially, the same advice concluded with the fact that companies don’t care about you, look out for yourself. So I left.
People were happy for me except for the people who didn’t like me. My manager didn’t even talk to me for the next two weeks. But I tried my hardest and wrote everything I knew down for the next person in line.
Isagenix was an amazing job because I got an office cubicle, I had coworkers who spoke food science, and I achieved my dream of becoming a product developer. I loved my job, and I thought I could be there forever.
A few months later, I got kicked out of my house because the couple there decided to get married. I moved in with a 50 year old Thai lady who was living alone in a big house. It was a comfortable house and had a garden. The lady was super nice and we quickly became good friends.
We especially bonded when I almost died when my car hydroplaned into a wall. This was all fine and dandy but when I told her, she said her second son died at that exact same spot. This was crushing to me. Life is valuable, so make a difference.
The lady was not very good with money. It’s not like she wasn’t responsible, but she could not maintain the house because she had a low paying job, and needed to leave to Thailand to take care of some business for three months. So she decided to sell it.
At the end of year two, I bought the house at a discount from my roommate. I thought I was going to live there forever, and she would be my roommate forever.
Well, everything fell apart.
Good day! Do you use Twitter? I’d like to follow you if that would be okay. I’m absolutely enjoying your blog and look forward to new posts.
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