I Was Happiest Making $60,000 a Year

The cool thing is to talk about billionaires. Most of us will never be one.

Working towards that goal will probably ruin you in the process. If it comforts you to know, I used to dream of being one step down on the money ladder: a millionaire. It was something I spent my entire day working on.

Meanwhile, romantic partners would enter and exit through the revolving door. Family would become upset with the person I’d become. It was a sucky life.

So I left it all behind.

It started with a job interview.

The interview led to an entry-level job.

The entrepreneur worshippers made fun of my new life.

They sent me nasty messages on Facebook.

They told me I was stupid for failing at business.

They tormented me with their opinions. I let them.

I got paid $60,000 a year. It barely covered my living costs.

I ate Heinz Minestrone Soup. (The variety is here for the canned soup fans).

I did it for a few years.

I worked from 7 AM to 9–10 PM most nights to impress my boss.

My life went from focusing on money, to so much more.

Here’s why I was happiest making $60,000.

Work Friends Are Better

The best part about making $60,00 a year was the people I met.

I’d spent my whole life worshipping Ferrari-driving heroes who smoked a lot and hung out at nightclubs where they could flip their car keys on one hand while touching the opposite sex’s butt without permission.

The $60,000 salary bracket changed the people I hung out with. They didn’t have car goals. They were motivated to come to work for much more than money. I met Skeggs the movie guy. He could name every Hollywood movie and recite lines from classics like The Terminator. On free dress day, he wore movie t-shirts.

Then there was Marbs. Marbs was OG (Original Gangster). He always had the freshest looking kicks I’d ever seen. The guy wore G-Star watches and was proud of it. Marbs didn’t sit on a chair either. He’d sit on the desk, shoes up, and listen to his beats. He was in his own world.

Then there was Pabs. Pabs was one of the best actors I’d ever met. He could act like he cared about a customer and make funny faces at me that said “stop wasting my life you moron.” Pabs would make me giggle. I hadn’t giggled like that ever in any job or former failed business I was a part of. Laughing every day was a new kind of work life.

A normal workplace is full of interesting characters. What made them interesting is they were completely oblivious to money. You could offer them a $100 gift card to make more phone calls and they wouldn’t.

I went to work for the friends I made, not the $60,000.

You Can’t Afford Alcohol

There’s wasn’t much left over after rent, groceries, and bills. This sudden drop in income meant I had to find better forms of entertainment than $20 bourbon and cokes I bought from nightclubs, after paying $50 entry.

A forced minimalist approach to money causes you to get creative.

One thing I did was borrow my mother’s iPad and download the Kindle App. I started reading finance books recommended to me by my friend. I read books like “Rich Dad Poor Dad” and “Beating The Street” by Peter Lynch. These books taught me how to invest some of the money I made rather than drink my paycheck every week through alcohol.

Less alcohol meant more time to think. My thoughts became clearer. I had less brain fog. I started waking up earlier.

When you can’t afford alcohol, you’re forced to face your life as it is, and dare to work on it.

Leadership Opportunities Become a Motivator

In my new career, even if I got a huge promotion there wasn’t much change in income. One step up resulted in about $5000 more money annually before tax. I had to find other ways to be motivated by the work I did.

I discovered this mythical opportunity that startup land blinded me from: leadership. The next level up in my career was taking on leadership challenges. It started with running a training session for new starters. Then I got to leave the office and go out into the field with the infield sales team.

I then got the chance to process extra applications for a new customer. Nobody wanted to do it. My boss said it was time for a real leader to step up. (Perhaps that was a way to manipulate someone to do it. Still, I said yes.)

Hidden Opportunities Can Unexpectedly Find You

After taking on the extra applications, my colleagues said “boy, you’re going to have so much extra work now. We tried to process those applications as a team and it failed. You will never be able to do them all by yourself.”

I took on the challenge. I did the extra admin work. It was hard. The company I was helping was a crappy little startup called Braintree. Nobody had ever heard of them. People in the lunchroom called me “The Brain.”

That little unknown startup ended up getting bought by PayPal for $800M in cash. Saying yes to that extra admin work changed my entire career.

I will never be the same again after doing that extra work. It led me to a lot of what I have today. And at the time, I had no idea — that’s the beauty of a job that pays you peanuts.

There are hidden, non-financial opportunities to meet people, learn new things, and alter the work you do for the rest of your life. All you have to do is keep your eyes open and say yes occasionally.

You Can Find the Homeless

My entire life before earning $60,000 a year was about me. It was the most selfish existence you can imagine. Saying hi was a transaction. Answering the phone was a transaction. Having a friendship was a transaction. Women were nothing more than a sexual transaction.

I always had to get something, to do anything.

The new job took me to another world. My boss walked in one day and said “why haven’t you done your mandatory volunteer leave?” The corporate life required me to spend some of the year doing volunteer work. There was even an online volunteer portal.

I frowned at my boss and went on the website. I looked at all the listings: shine shoes, be an usher at a ball, do gardening for the children’s farm, help the elderly. Then I stumbled across one listing: volunteer at the homeless shelter. For some unknown reason this one took my fancy. It seemed like another world, and curiosity got the better of me. I ticked the homeless box.

A few weeks later I rolled up to the homeless shelter to volunteer. I was serving food to start with. It was my job to take the meals and hand them out to the needy. It was also my job to fill up their cups with coffee and tea.

The job required me to interact with people I used to think were beneath me — or worse, failures who were to blame for their stupidity. There was no screwing up. I was representing my employer and had to do the right thing. When I was a teenager I worked for $6 an hour making and serving pizzas. I switched on my hospitality skills again.

I walked around to each table and smiled. I made sure everybody had what they needed and their cups were never empty. I overheard stories from people who’d dealt with the roughest of circumstances.

There were people living under bridges, crashing on friend’s couches, and sleeping in their cars. Some were arguing until 2 AM in the morning with their partner who beat them up. Others were taking drugs like heroin and could hardly stand. Some hadn’t showered in a long time. Some had trolleys with wheels that contained their entire life full of memories and belongings.

In comparison to the people I met, I realized I was a jerk. Once the forced volunteer leave was up I decided to keep going back. I wanted to learn more about my fatal faults by observing people who had nothing.

Takeaway: Your problems look smaller after working with the homeless.

Final Thought

So yeah, I don’t make millions of dollars a year and don’t intend to. I’m not trying build the next billion-dollar app anymore and high-five Zuckerburger.

Making $60,000 made me happy again because it made me realize there is so much more to life than money.

If you’re trapped in the money game, take a step outside. Take a shit job like I did and see who you can meet and what hidden opportunities can find you.

The millionaire life is overrated.

When you make a lot less money, you focus your time elsewhere. That’s when you turn your life upside down and find unexpected joy.

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Disclaimer

The original version of this story was published on another platform.

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