Today I want to tell you a true story about a dear friend of mine that I can honestly say made it on his own. He started life out rough, but through countless months of hard work, he became a very successful online businessman.
For his own privacy he asked me to not use his real name or disclose his identity in the article, which I will respect. For the sake of this story I’ll refer to him as John.
A bit of background
John was brought up in a lower middle class family. His family was definitely not wealthy, but they had a roof over their heads and food on the table for every meal. John was an only child to two people that were not quite fit to be parents. Like I said before, they put a roof over his head and fed him, but other than that they had no real connections with John. If they ever went anywhere he was left at home, they would not support him in any of his activities, nothing. Other than the food and housing, John supported himself with part time jobs since he was 12 years old. John eventually became very depressed because of the rejection he felt from his parents. By the time he got out of high school, John knew that he would no longer be able to live at home or he would end up killing himself because of how miserable he was. John moved out into a 1 bedroom apartment on his own after he graduated. He was barely able to pay for food and rent with his job at a nearby market. After about 3 months out on his own, John lost his job. The market he worked at closed down and left him jobless. After weeks of searching for a new job unsuccessfully, John decided he may have to move back home. He went to his house to talk to his parents about this, but shockingly they no longer lived there. He had not kept in contact with his parents while he was on his own for obvious reasons, so he had no idea that they moved away. John was now 3 days away from being homeless, and 3 days later he was.
Being homeless sets in
John was literally homeless now. He lived out on the streets just like you would imagine. The thing about John is that he had never been lazy by any means, he was a very hard worker. He spent his days looking for work. Within a week he had found some opportunities that looked promising, but he didn’t have any reliable mode of transportation and this was not attractive to employers. After about a week and a half of not finding work, John had nearly given up. He literally didn’t have a penny to his name. With such depression and discouragement setting in, John found himself in the local library looking for self-help books because this was the only thing he had access to without paying for it. Since John wasn’t much of a reader the book thing really didn’t work out for him, but the library offered something else that was of interest to John, free internet. Free internet access was great to him, he could keep himself entertained and get his mind off of all the problems he was having in his life.
Finally some hope
After a couple days of hanging out at the library, John stumbled upon an advertisement stating “Click here to make money.” Normally he wouldn’t have been at all interested in something like this, but at the current state of his life, he certainly was interested. Now this ad he clicked really wasn’t any good for him, it was just one of the millions of get rich quick schemes which he figured out after about 2 minutes. But the idea of making money on the computer really got his brain thinking. John hadn’t ever been very computer savvy, but he really was interested in the idea of making money while sitting in front of the computer screen and had all the time in the world to learn how to do so. So he began researching on the internet how people are making money off of their websites. Luckily for John, he was a quick learner. Within a couple of days he had started his own website using a combination of free utilities he read about while researching beginner methods of making money on the web. Although still homeless, things were really starting to brighten up for John. He had something on his mind all day to replace a lot of the thoughts he had about being homeless. For the next couple of weeks John would spend most of his day at the library learning everything he could.
John finally landed a part time job at a restaurant washing dishes and clearing tables. He was able to make enough money to finally get a place to live, but this did not stop him from pursuing his online ventures. Being the hard worker that he was, John would work his day job and go to the library immediately after work to continue his online work. He had to do this for several months until he had saved up enough money to buy a computer of his own. Once John had enough money to buy his own computer, he really began to get things going for himself. His day job was now full time, and he spent at least 8 hours a day working on his online business. This meant very little sleep and very little fun for John. He really didn’t mind though, the online venture he had kept him very excited and eager to learn.
Success feels so good
After a year of working non-stop, John was finally making enough money with his online business to quit his day job and concentrate solely on the internet work. This was the greatest accomplishment John ever had. He worked his way from off of the streets to being completely self supported by an online business. At this time he wasn’t rich by any means, but he made enough money to pay his bills and have a little bit of fun. He always tells me that feeling is much greater than anything he has ever felt.
Today John is extremely successful at the age of 26. He owns hundreds of websites and even bought the restaurant he worked for after being homeless. Making over a thousand dollars in a day is nothing uncommon for John’s online business. Although John could literally sit back and not work ever again, he chooses not to. The struggle he went through instilled a sense of hard work and drive in him that he’ll never lose.
