What selling drugs taught me about entrepreneurship

I struggle with the word “mistake” because when we knowingly do something wrong, chances are we did a pretty good job breaking the rules. So, in my case, my “mistakes” were really “on purposes” that I regret. I’ve learned from those wrongs, but I have also learned a lot while doing those wrongs — skills that made me a successful entrepreneur. So while two wrongs don’t make a right, it is possible to make something right of wrong.

Hurt people hurt people.

And broken people break rules.

I broke them all because I was hurting.

Desperately trying to kill the pain of a childhood that had gone very wrong for me, I began drinking alcohol at the age of 12. I was sexually victimized at the age of five, and forced to watch my little sister get raped. My sister and I were molested by several babysitters, tortured by one, and abandoned by our father who should have been there to protect us from these monsters. And though he wasn’t a pervert, our stepfather, whose name I unfortunately bear, was both physically and psychologically abusive.

I spent nearly every day of my teen years gacked to the nines on marijuana, meth, cocaine, LSD, and other hardcore drugs. My self-esteem was so damaged, I could not be with friends unless I was inebriated, for fear they would hate the real me. After all, I hated myself.

To insulate myself from negative feedback, I should right now, right here denounce drugs, take a stand against substance abuse, and declare myself forever clean and sober.

While it feels good to break the rules, there’s always a toll collector to pay at the end of the highway.

But I am who I am and that’s not who I am. Hypocrisy is a horrible lifestyle and I never again want to go back to that place. The fact is, drugs gave me a warm safe place to run. A place where I could escape the pain for a little while. And a place that kept me from killing myself.

I’m an addict whether on a binge or sober for 18 years, as I now am. Give me anything and I just get addicted fast and hard. I will forever have a love-hate relationship with drugs. Be honest, if you ever been to the other side, you know it’s not fair that life doesn’t always feel so good.

But the first fact of life is that life doesn’t always feel good. And while it feels good to break the rules, there’s always a toll collector to pay at the end of the highway.

Planning

Goal setting

Customer service

Play the part, but be yourself

Do what you love, not what makes money

Summing it up