Before I began on my current path to financial freedom and living life on my terms, before I left the Rat Race for good, I vividly remember the CEO of the company calling me at around 8:00pm from Florida where he was vacationing with his family one eventful Saturday night in December.
It was eventful, because it was the first time I had been able to spend time with my pregnant wife for over a month. A month that saw me get up before she got up in the morning and getting home from work well after she was asleep.
I decided to finally take some time from slaving for my boss to spend some overdue time with my wife and take her out this eventful Saturday night to celebrate her birthday.
So why did the the CEO feel he had a need to disturb me on a weekend night while celebrating my wife’s birthday?
As we were just about to be seated at the restaurant I began receiving a series of phone calls from my boss, which I will summarize and paraphrase.
CEO: “Felix, I am out with my family at a restaurant in Florida and just tried paying for our meal using the company credit card and the merchant said it was declined. Do you know why?”
Felix: “I have no idea. Have you tried contacting the credit card company directly?
CEO: “Did you pay the credit card bill this month”
Felix: “Yes, the credit card bill is paid on time each month to avoid astronomical credit card interest charges.”
CEO: “Then explain to me why the card was denied”
Felix: “It could be for any number of reasons. You may have exceeded the credit limit on the card or there may have been some sort of potentially fraudulent activity on the card, but come to think of it, did you or your assistant contact the credit card company to advise that you would be travelling outside of the country?
Sometimes the credit card companies block approval of transactions when you try to use the credit card abroad unless and until you advise them when and and where you will be travelling abroad.
Have you tried calling the 1-800 number on the back of your card? I am sure the credit card company representative would be able to advise you of the exact reason why the card is being denied.”
CEO: “Why would I need to do that? Is that not your job?”
Felix: “No, that is not my job.”
Needless to say, I constantly found myself day dreaming of a way out of my 12-16 hour per day job as the company’s CFO, regularly working 6+ days a week and being on call 24/7 with the CEO.
Apparently my boss felt that 24/7 support extended beyond my overseeing all financial activity for a group of 18 corporations, beyond even any valid company related business.
Evidently, my boss thought I was his personal assistant and travel concierge as well.
To be blunt, my work was my life back then and everything else in my life, including the people who were most important to me, took a back seat. Until one day, when I said enough was enough, time to take control of my life on my own terms.
Easier said then done, right? So I continued to dream about getting out of my voluntary slavery and achieving a level of financial freedom that would enable me to do so.
Problem was, that working 12-16 hours a day, 7 days a week did not leave much time to do anything about it.
So I kept on toiling and labouring for another month until an even more eventful day. The day my wife went into labour nearly three weeks before her due date.
That day my wife called me to tell me that her water broke shortly after I arrived in the office. She just left the hospital from her regularly scheduled appointment and was headed back.
But instead of dropping everything and going to the hospital to be with her during this momentus occasion, afterall we were imminently about to become brand new parents, I instead decided to do something insane.
I continued to work at the office for the next 5 hours tying up loose ends to ensure my department would continue to function effectively during my 2 week parental leave absence.
If that is not an example of going above and beyond at your job I do not know what is.
Like I said, pure insanity!
You see, I had previously scheduled 2 weeks off after the birth of my child but did not wish to leave my boss’ company in the lurch.
I finally joined by wife at the hospital in the afternoon and the next day my daughter was born to the most happiest parents in the world!
For two days, I received absolutely no words of congratulations on the birth of my child or thanks for my insane extra efforts, not one phone call or even an email from my boss.
Instead I received this letter.
This my friends was my life changing event!
Apparently, in addition to my normal duties as the company’s CFO my boss, the CEO of the company, also felt that I should have known the exact day that my daughter was to be born. Yes, I was supposed to know more than my wife’s own obstetrician.
I must have missed that class in business school or when I was working on obtaining my Chartered Accounting designation, not to mention the other 8+ years of medical school as well!
Apparently he failed to note the fact that my daughter had other plans and “decided” to pop out nearly 3 weeks before she was supposed to.
I realized then and there that this needed to come to an end. More importantly, I finally realized what I had to do.
For years, I was using “lack of time” as an excuse for not doing what I subconsciously knew had to be done to improve my life. It finally became crystal clear to me.
“If you hate the life you have, then change it!”
Simple as that.
For me this meant, going cold turkey. Only one week after returning to work, I gained enough courage to tell my self-centered boss off and I quit that six figure CFO job, where in actuality I was solely doing the job of 4 people.
I made the decision to leave the Rat Race behind for good.
Did I have a pretty, nicely laid out plan of what I was going to do next and how I was going to do it.
Nope!
But I was not going to let that be yet another excuse for not doing what I knew in my heart I absolutely had to do.
All I knew is that what I had been doing for years previously was not working for me. It was neither getting me any closer to financial freedom or any semblance of a life I truly wanted to live.
I had to break this nasty habit of killing myself working for a thankless boss while my relationships with those who were most important to me continued to suffer.
“Without money working for you, you will always be working for money!”
Looking back, I now realize how crazy this may seem and quite frankly if I had to do it again I would have at least developed a rudimentary plan of action prior to going to this extreme.
However, I would do it all over again, plan or no plan, given the chance. In fact, the only thing I would have done differently is doing this several years sooner.
I finally realized that anytime I made excuses or felt sorry about the sad state affairs at any point in my life, it meant that I was not directly in control of my own life.
It meant, I was dependent on factors outside of my control or on people, like my former CEO boss, who only used me as a pawn to better their own lives with little regard to the well being of my life or the life of my family.
Today, I consciously do my very best to avoid making excuses. In so doing, I have becoming accountable for my actions, or lack thereof, and my own life’s destiny.
Today I decide the path I wish my life to lead. No one decides it for me or no one will definitely do it for me.
Is it not time you start to truly live the life you know in your heart you deserve and are meant to live?
Or will you let others control and decide your destiny for you?
Remember the power to change your life for the better is within you.
“If you don’t design your own life plan, chances are you’ll fall into someone else’s plan. And guess what they have planned for you? Not much.” – Jim Rohn
