Through running scooter competitions, I networked with founders of scooter companies to secure prizes for the events. This is how I met the owner of Unfair, a Brisbane-based scooter brand. This guy was on entrepreneur-beast-mode 24/7. If you knocked on his door at 9pm at night to buy a single bearing for $5, he'd serve you with a smile. On Sundays, he was at markets stripping and re-gripping razor scooters and bolting the folding mechanisms to properly withstand freestyle riding - for a cost, of course.
I knew this guy was my chance to make something of my newfound passion. I found out what train he took to work each morning and stalkingly aligned my schedule maximising my chances of sitting next to him on his way to work each day. I pledged my allegiance and begged to help him grow his business. I made it clear that I just wanted a job in scootering and I'd do anything to make it happen. I took order forms and product samples to local skate shops, begging them to place even the smallest orders. I volunteered at the Sunday markets with him, doing anything short of spinning a sign or wearing a costume. My plan was working, before long I was accompanying him and the team on cross-country road trips to interstate demos and competitions as the self-appointed Sales and Team Manager.
I must have gotten on his nerves one day, probably pestering him with wild ideas about how we could grow big enough to actually pay me, but he snapped at me and asked, “What do you want, dude! What do you actually want from all this?” All I wanted was a job in scootering, but I lied and said, “I want to be rich,” thinking this would convince him I was driven enough to help. He called me an idiot and explained what I actually wanted was financial freedom. It was a well-needed gut punch and it put me in my place, although it would be many, many years before those words would really make sense to me.
I levelled with him and told him that I hated my data entry office job and the idea of wasting days of my life working in a field I'm not passionate about just to make enough money to get the train to work and buy food from the lunch truck was killing me.
He was always talking about how he wanted to open a shop but couldn't risk leaving his job. I told him I'd quit my job tomorrow if he opened up a store, and he actually did.
Finding Freedom is meant to be read in the following order:
Petition, Dedication, Conviction, Exodus, Competition,
Treason, Funding, Physical, Virtual, Exponential.