Thats when I launched my own brand, Lifeboat Scooters, with 20 pairs of locally made and hand-painted scooter handlebars. The response from the community was incredible. It was clear from the start that I was on to something and had made the right decision in starting my own company.
My employer was hardly as excited as me though. It turns out doing sales, marketing and design for one company while doing sales, marketing and design for your own company in the same industry is what employers call a “conflict of interest”. In hindsight it’s fair enough, but at the time i couldn’t fathom why it was an issue.
I was doing the work they paid me to do and doing it well. In my spare time, after hours and on my days off, I was building my brand, designing my own products, and filming my own videos. I just couldn't shake the feeling that I needed to have my own thing, something that nobody could take away from me or one day force me to walk away from.
I was trying to have my cake and eat it too, and they knew it. As my own brand started growing noticeably they had no choice but to let me go.
Just like that, I was shut out of everything I had spent the last few years of my life working on.
Luckily, not everything was lost, because I had a Lifeboat.
Finding Freedom is meant to be read in the following order:
Petition, Dedication, Conviction, Exodus, Competition,
Treason, Funding, Physical, Virtual, Exponential.