From $400/hour to $0.09/hour
In 2010 - my best year as a wholesaler I made just over $811,000.
An amazing blessing as this was an incredible amount of money to make.
When broken down to an hourly rate based on a 40-hour week, it is just under $400/hour ($396.83 to be exact). Life was great at $400/hour, as you would assume.
Running to the mall or walking around Best Buy - it was easy to drop $1000 on some new duds from Nordstrom’s men’s department or a new surround sound system for the house.
My wife had a credit card to run the house. This would not only include groceries, but also paper goods – napkins, paper towels, and lots and lots of TP as we have 4 daughters. We had a weekly cleaning woman. Our dog Riley was not cheap to feed, and as she aged vet bills got higher and higher (the dog took almost as many medications as my aging father did!). And despite my attempts, United Healthcare repeatedly denied my requests to add Riley to our insurance.
I always wondered how we spent $3000 per month at Target and Stop & Shop – but we did!
In fairness there were other items on my wife’s Capital One Visa adding up to the $3k/month.
In addition to Target, Stop & Shop and the Vet - all of the “kid’s activities” were usually on there. These, like I am sure with your family, would include dance lessons, sports fees, music lessons, My Gym (“socks and shoes and stamp-a-roos”), and about 206 other places and things for kids to take part in.
No matter what went on there, the credit cards were always paid off monthly, never carrying a debt.
We belonged to the nicest Country Club in the state. That was another $2000+ a month; between my golfing, and drinking, and the kid’s tab at the pool snack bar every day of summer (so many chicken nuggets!).
Again, paid in full every month.
At $400/hour life was good. Real good. We were blessed. Very blessed. I had landed with an amazing company run by some great people. My territory and thus my income flourished every year.
Then addiction took over my life. I had left wholesaling at the end of 2012 to start my own practice. I was now making $0/hour - and in reality I was now inverted: spending hundreds of dollars per hour between investments in my business ventures and buying narcotic pain medications on the street (as the surgeons had stopped giving me scripts).
Fast forward to basically bankrupting myself and the family, and to a complete moral and ethical shutdown leading to my arrest on 2/14/2106 for Armed Bank Robbery (2 counts). This ultimately led me to a prison cell for six years (more details on kevinbakerpresents.com/about).
In prison, I attended Vocational Ed. classes, and was paid $0.75 per day, or just about $0.09/hour.
Earning just 9 pennies an hour seems third world on the surface.
In a vacuum, going from $400/hour to $0.09/hour in just about 5 years would be a catastrophe, a life-altering event.
It was both.
After completing the Voc. Ed. program I was asked by the teacher to stay on as the Tech. As the Tech, my salary skyrocketed from $0.75/day to $1.75/day - now $0.22 per hour!
I was later accepted to the CT DOC Industry program. There, I started at $0.30/hour and worked my way up, through 10 cent raises each month, to $1 per hour!
In life, at $400/hour I was in the top 1-2% of earners in this country. And now in prison at $1/hour – relatively speaking, I was back in the top 1%! I was in the only program that paid inmates hourly. Comparably to other inmates, I was back in the top tax bracket!
On the surface it was great to be back in the top 1%.
But that is not the point, or the true lesson here. With perspective, I started to understand some really important things in my life, in my new reality.
The difficulty I put my wife and children through, going from THAT lifestyle to having nothing left – that is the tragedy of my life. To have failed them so profoundly is difficult to think about.
Thankfully my wife had the ability to navigate the girls through the massive wake of destruction I left behind in my failures.
The lessons of humility through the fall of my hourly wage from $400 to $1 per hour were much needed in my case. Making $400/hour allowed me and my family an amazing lifestyle.
Earning pennies per hour was a profound reminder of my failures that led to all of this.
In time, I would come to understand the lesson intended;
I was not what I made (in financial terms), but who I was, and could be, as a person.
With love and forgiveness from my family – and through the gift of PERSPECTIVE – I am happy as I have ever been.
Regardless of what my financial life looks like right now –
I know my VALUE. I now understand my true worth as a person, as a man.
Albert Einstein said “Try not to become a man of success, but rather a man of value.”
I am a father again, a son and a brother, a friend and a colleague. All of that matters greatly to me know. More than it ever did prior to my life spinning out.
The financial success is still possible, even desirable. The $400/hour lifestyle was amazing in so many ways. We were truly blessed. There is a part that would love to have that life again - who wouldn’t??
However, now - with a new PERSPECTIVE - the basis for my existence is in My VALUE to the people in my life.
Regardless of what I make an hour; $400 or $0.09 - I have learned through PERSPECTIVE that while nice to have that lifestyle – what matters is the acceptance and love of the people around me.
Just remember, life is truly about you and the people in it.
They will love you no matter how much you make or don’t make.
PERSPECTIVE is awesome.
