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I went from selling three businesses to being homeless on the street. I don’t think, unfortunately, there’s a magic solution. I can provide some generic advice
by atdrummond 4y ago
I went from selling three businesses to being homeless on the street. I don’t think, unfortunately, there’s a magic solution.
I can provide some generic advice about what helped me:
1. Determining who my actual support network was. I invested in my repairing and strengthening my bonds with my friends and family who had been there for me - and while not cutting ties with fair weather friends, deemphasized spending time with them.
2. Repeatable daily habits are important. I forced myself to take multiple walks a day, set daily completion goals for my work, attend therapy/group sessions. It’s hard but I firmly think beyond the benefit of developing a good routine, it’s imperative to fill your time when depressed. The more you can lounge in your infinite sadness, the easier it is for said feelings to permeate deeper into your psyche and persist.
3. Consistency with sleep and diet are huge. I’m a short sleeper - which I’ve been lead to believe is advantageous but made it easy to convince myself I could run on essentially no rest. A tired mind is, in my experience, more likely to make the kind of mistakes that exacerbate a career and/or personal slump.
4. I made a concerted effort to read a new article or attend a talk on a topic I knew little about daily. This was extremely important in helping me find motivation to explore new career/intellectual pursuits as well as, I believe, improve my mental flexibility.
5. I gained quite a bit from attending church. This isn’t me advocating for you to do the same but I would try to find some sort of group setting (at least once a week) where you are not at all focusing on career-related items. I think even a gaming group (such as D&D) or a book club could fulfill this purpose.
I’m also happy to talk any time if it is at helpful. My email is in my profile. Good luck.
- tasuki 4y ago> I went from selling three businesses to being homeless on the street. If you don't mind me asking: Did you blow that money somehow? Or have you just sold the businesses for very little? Or was some other disaster involved?
- atdrummond 4y agoMostly medical issues and poor money management exacerbated by my mental health issues.
- WXLCKNO 4y agoAre these actually life changing exits for the businesses or did you mean it more as you were successful? Would love to get an idea on the numbers if you can share.
- atdrummond 4y agoI had enough in my Roth IRA to retire on in my mid-20s. I blew most of my liquid assets thanks to massive medical debt and bad money management.
- Schroedingers2c 4y agoThanks for the advice!
- atdrummond 4y agoOf course - please reach out if I can ever be of help. Even if that just means opening up my rolodex for positions post-PhD or simply chatting.