001 How I discovered FI [story]

I don’t know when I became a product of corporate America. I imagine it slowly happened between college and graduating, as that was the societal expectation. At some point, working corporate jobs became my identity. My career aspiration was to be a CEO one day. Working hard, getting promoted quickly (with pay raises following), and being the youngest in my title were marks of success to me. I once fantasized about being featured in a “30 Under 30” or “40 Under 40” list.

While it has only been eight short years (at the time of this writing), I think there were two key times in my career pre-COVID that really eroded my mental health and led me here.

2015 - 2 years into my career - Breaking Point 1

To give some context for those eight years, I worked at two companies and held six different roles by the time I discovered FI. The first extremely negative experience was my second role out of college. It was a vendor manager role on the retail side of Amazon. Even in 2015, it was a highly corporate and highly competitive environment. To date, I’ve never worked with so many Type As in my life, and that’s coming from a major Type A.

As a young professional, I was eager to make my impact. However, I was still breaking out of my shell and was a little shy, not yet used to operating in a corporate environment. Now that I am more of a corporate veteran, I can say this about my past self - I had qualities that would make me a successful employee. I was a critical thinker, I learned quickly, I was committed to excellence, and most importantly, I had grit.

I don’t remember when the negative feedback started or if I was taken by surprise, but at some point my manager placed me on a Performance Improvement Plan (PIP). For a Type A overachiever, this broke me. My manager had hired me, so he must have liked me enough at the time, but in our first year together, we never clicked. At one point, I had the opportunity to take a corporate personality workshop that placed you in one of four quadrants. The results explained a lot, as I learned that my manager and I were on opposite quadrants. I tried to adjust my working style to his so we would gel better together, but I wasn’t successful. It was probably too early in my career for me to learn how to adjust effectively. Also, like I said earlier, I was more shy at the time, meaning I wasn’t aware that I should be asking for more help or putting more time into strengthening peer relationships to support me. I definitely think that contributed to my manager’s perception of me.

By the time of the PIP, every conversation was filled with tension and dread. The PIP was a grueling 30-day period. I really wanted to overcome it, so I committed to working a 60-hour week and even took Adderall to see if I could perform the way he expected. I couldn’t. I didn’t know it then, but the reason I couldn’t was because I had lost all motivation and drive to contribute. It was impossible for me to care or think because I wasn’t in the right mental state. But because I didn’t know who I was, because my identity was too coupled with my career, because my manager was convinced I was an underperforming employee... I was then convinced I wasn’t smart enough, I wasn’t good enough, I wasn’t the star employee I thought I could be. Being put on a PIP alone broke me, but the process that ensued afterward with my manager’s poor leadership capabilities crushed my spirit to dust. You’ll come to learn later how I had to restore myself and recover from this work trauma. But by the end of this chapter, I was managed out of the company, with a scarlet letter branded into my self-perceived identity.

Quick note - while these are genuine feelings I had in 2015, this is not how I feel today now that I understand myself and corporate personalities better. I genuinely believe my manager was focused more on succeeding himself than improving those beneath him. He was a fantastic individual contributor who got promoted for those recognitions (which I have seen happen often). While I do wish my time at Amazon was longer, my path led me to my next company, which catapulted me into digital marketing analytics.

2017 - 4 years into my career - Breaking Point 2

The second time my mental health was challenged was at my second company, a digital analytics agency. I do thank everything to that team because I rebuilt myself and my self-esteem during my six years there. The low point, however, was in 2017. I learned this new industry quickly and was promoted twice in two years. I was an Analytics Manager, someone accountable for a client portfolio and overseeing a team of five digital analysts to help execute the work. Our company was growing so quickly that we were signing 3-5 new clients per week. Every account needed an Analytics Manager, but we only had five at the time. Soooo you guessed it! While it was cool to say I oversaw 20% of the company, it also meant I was getting 1-2 new clients per week atop my existing load. And these were not small accounts you could deliver in 15 hours over two weeks and call it good. These were accounts in their first level of service (the most important time for us to demonstrate value so they would renew) and required at least 100 hours per account. At the height of it, we were managing up to 25-30 accounts each.

We were working 50-60 hour weeks to try to keep up. I remember coming home at 7-8 p.m., barely having enough energy to make dinner and eat, then sleeping just to wake up and do it all over again. It was impossible to deliver the level of service I desired and my clients deserved, and impossible to fairly manage the workload for myself and across the team. No surprise that giving it your all only to fall short whittles away your motivation. And to top the growing burnout, my salary was $70,000, and many of us felt we were unfairly compensated compared to the amount of value we were providing the company. If any one of the Analytics Managers left, company longevity was significantly at risk because we were each overseeing 20% of the business. My limits were exhausted, but to also be undervalued for my time and effort? It was frustrating.

Before sales slowed down and we could actually hire to staff these accounts appropriately, my peers and I fought and endured. 2017 became “the year we do not speak of.” Yet, I stayed for four more years. Why? First, we got acquired in 2018 and the new CEO did right by us, providing raises to those in my situation (which helped achieve a milestone of a six-figure salary). But foundationally, I actually enjoyed the work and loved my colleagues.

Today, I still grimace thinking about that year. Most importantly, that year taught me that I can’t give 100% of my all 100% of the time. It conflicted with what I thought delivering excellence looked like. I’ve learned over time that it’s possible to deliver excellence while operating at 70-80% and knowing which moments deserve your 100%. While it’s a lesson I continue to practice and teach, 2017 was too expensive. By 2021, my endurance had significantly waned.

2021 - 8 years into my career - Pivot Point

At this time, it had been a year since George Floyd’s murder and a year since the pandemic started. And since 2016, I had gone through many personal losses: multiple family members, a close friend, and even three family pets in a single year. We were all worn. I was worn. Time was my single most valued commodity, yet I didn’t seem to have enough of it. What was I doing with my time? Did it bring me joy? The same questions were running through so many of our minds.

While I had thankfully rebuilt my self-esteem since my first breaking point, I never returned to 100%. By April 2021, I finally realized I wasn’t happy. My body was showing physical reactions to the anxiety I felt toward work. My chest was often tight, and it was difficult to breathe. Sunday Scaries were a consistent lived experience. This was not okay. And yes, there were value-based issues I had with my company, so I needed to make changes. But was getting another job going to make me feel differently?

I really wish I remembered the moment I discovered FI because it’s such a huge part of my lifestyle today. I’m pretty sure I just had another day questioning my existence and what I was doing with my time when I decided to Google “how to retire early.” It’s what I shared earlier in this post. How could I possibly work 36 more years? I didn’t have the endurance to last. SOMETHING NEEDS TO CHANGE.

In that Google search, I believe I found an article talking about early retirement podcasts. I read the descriptions of 2-3 options and decided to listen to ChooseFI. I think I started with Episode 1, but I quickly fell in love with the hosts and the content and continued to binge-listen to tens of episodes per month. Many of the values I already had around being a minimalist and not deriving value from things, or being Chinese and living frugally because why spend more when you don't have to, to unlocking FREEDOM through financial independence...I was hooked. I’ve been on this path for 2.5 years now (since the time of this writing), and I’m not slowing down. Freedom through financial independence is my “why” for life. This blog is an attempt to share my learnings with others whose passion may be similarly ignited through FI.

This post is not intended to explain what FI is or why it's important, just my journey to get here.

• To understand what this community is, read "My FI Starter Pack"

• To see specifics of how we deploy personal finance strategies in our own life, read "Our Personal FI Strategy" (post TBD)