Why Hitting Seven Figures at 25 Broke Me

BenI was 25 years old. My business had just hit seven figures. I thought I was in a place in my life where I would finally have my own permission to say I was okay, or I had made it, or I had been successful. And the only thing that did was expose the fact that I had so much work to do as a person and really show that I was missing so much in life. What are the areas of your life where you're climbing the mountain, you're heading toward something, you have this picture on the wall that you're envisioning you're gonna go and get?

That picture is an illusion. You think that's what you want. You think the view from the top of the mountain top is what you want, but you're lying to yourself. You think you want it, but you're in a place where you're using that as a distraction for yourself so other people won't see what you really want. And I really feel like it's important for you to know and understand that it's okay to admit to yourself what it is that you actually want in life, what it is that you're actually chasing. What is the mountain that you're actually climbing?

What is the picture that you want to put up on your wall? What does it have in it? What's the picture that sits behind the picture? The picture that you look at secretly when nobody's looking. Not the picture that's on the wall for everybody to see the first thing when they walk into your house. I'm talking about the picture that sits beneath the picture that when the lights turn off and it's dark and everybody leaves, you hold your flashlight to this picture and you're like, this is what I want. I want this. This is the life I want to live.

And for me, the picture was on the wall of seven-figure business, success, dinners, watches, cars, money, access, I want to be in high-status rooms. But the picture underneath it, the one that would only come out when everybody left, was acceptance, love, and respect. And I had to start finding that within myself. So this is me today, 30-year-old Ben, giving you permission. Pull out that picture that sits behind the picture and put that one up on your wall. And go for that picture. Climb that mountaintop. You can hold that picture up in the air for all to see.

The crazy part was for me, I was sitting there, I was 25 years old, my business had just hit seven figures. I thought I was in a place in my life where I would finally have my own permission to say I was okay, or I had made it, or I had been successful. And the only thing that did was expose the fact that I had so much work to do as a person and really show that I was missing so much in life. But I really had no idea what I was missing. And I got to a place where I had to keep take a few steps back and really just evaluate my life and see where I was going and what I was doing and what I wanted to do and what was I here for? And here for, as far as like, what am I here on earth to do? Like, what is my purpose in life? Because it sure as hell isn't to make an amount of money that'll make me comfortable, so I can sit by the fucking pool. I want my life to be meaningful. And if I can't make my life meaningful, what am I here for? What am I doing?

And I kept asking myself that. And there seemed to be a certain level of pressure or urgency to figure it out. I worked very hard in my early 20s and I wanted there to be something to show for it. But the thing that I thought would show for it was, hey, here's what I'm doing financially or did I upgrade my watch or did I upgrade my car? Did I upgrade my lifestyle? Am I going nice to nicer places now? Am I eating nicer dinners? These are the things I thought I wanted. But looking back at it, it's like you need food, you need a bed and a roof over your head. You need a car that'll get you to a certain place.

And most importantly, you need to love yourself. You need to accept yourself and you need to respect yourself. And the journey for me at that point was how can I get those three things? How can I learn to accept myself for who I am as a person? Because there wasn't an amount of money that could fill that void. And the void that I had was I don't feel that other people accept me. And there was often times where I would blame other people for that. When really nobody was able to actually accept me as a person until I learned how to accept myself. Once I was able to get to a place where, hey, I could look at myself and accept myself, the journey became to love myself. And that was a really tough one because I grew up believing that love is earned and love is earned through performance and tying back to business and revenue. And that's performance. So I might have my own permission to love myself if I performed a certain way, my balance sheets showed certain numbers, had a certain type of stake on my plate. And to me, the meaning of love had to change because it couldn't be all of these superficial things

that I thought other people wanted. Because I didn't want those things for myself. I wanted those things so other people could see me, so other people could accept me, love me, respect me. And that was really the root of all of it. And it took me a good couple of years to realize that that's what I was truly looking for. And I have no regrets on the level of work ethic that went into building the business, the amount of hours that went in, the level of discipline. I worked 365 days a year for since I started the business. Like even when I was in college and the business was day one, like there were no parties, there were no social events, there were no days off. It was simply what can I pour into this business to keep it alive? And by keeping my business alive, that meant that I had a chance, I had a chance to make a living, I had a chance to not get a job, which didn't want to get a job out of college.

I thought I may need to, but I didn't want to. And if my business could stay alive long enough, I might reach a point of success. And if I reached a point of success, I was now worthy of acceptance, love, and respect. And for me, what I had defined as success was let me get up to a seven figure business because then I'm undeniable. Like that's a number that nobody can take away from me. And I worked to build my identity on that. I was the guy who worked. I was the guy who would say no to drinking. I was the guy who would say no to going to a party or going to a simple dinner with friends or even hanging out. There were days I wouldn't even want to go exercise because that would take time away from me working. And my boss was my work. And I really started this business. I wouldn't have a boss.

And then I had to ask myself, do I own my business or does my business own me? And I wanted to get to a place where I owned my business. And yes, revenue is essential in a business. Your business will not survive without it. There's no question about that. But the thing is, is that doesn't directly tie to who I am as a person and my identity as a person. And I was not mature enough to know that when I was 25 years old. I thought that I could be in this place where I had some external success. Everything looked good on the outside. People thought I was successful. People are like, hey, look at that guy. He's going places. He's gonna do something. Maybe we should try to be friends. Maybe he can take me along with him. Maybe I can taste some of that. And I really got to learn that a lot of the people that I thought were my friends were not actually my friends. And that hurt because I wanted friends. That was tough. I learned a lot of lessons along the way. Today, I'm grateful for it, honestly.

But as I was navigating through it, if I could just get some acceptance and love and respect from somebody else, not because of what I was doing or achieving or producing, but because of who I am, that's what I truly wanted, but I didn't realize I wanted it. Like I didn't know. Those concepts were just foreign to me. And my identity just became, I'm Ben, CEO, founder, seven-figure business. And if you're 25 and I'm 25 and you're working the job that you went and got your college degree for, which by the way is totally normal, I'm better than you. If you're not an athlete, I probably have more money than you. And I worked to basically be in a place where I don't have to look at somebody my age as an equal, and I get to separate myself. I can now look down on people. And that was really just a reflection of how I viewed myself. I was truly looking down at myself because my identity was tied into performance, production, external validation. But I hadn't built anything internal. I built all these walls. I built all this infrastructure. It's like I was surrounded, like completely.

And all I wanted was to break those walls down, break free, and really just be myself and feel safe being myself. But I had to keep things going. I had to keep my business going. I had to make sure my rent was paid. I had to make sure my employees were paid. I had to make sure my business continued to grow because if it didn't continue to grow, that would hit my self-worth. And then I'd feel even worse. So my business owned me. And it really took all these years to get to a place where I owned my business. And today, I own my business. My business does not own me. And getting there took the work of understanding the external stuff in anything I do in life is simply that. It's external. It's not a reflection of me or who I am as a person. Could be a reflection of my work. Could be a reflection of the time I put in. It could be a reflection of my creativity, but it's not a reflection of me as a person. Because that's where we really struggle. When we get to a place in life where we take something that happens in our day that isn't going right,

and we blame ourselves for it, that's a tough trap to get out of. And for me, I blamed myself for being in a place in my life where I had built all the external success, validation, image, all this stuff that I thought people would want to see in order for them to accept me and love me and respect me. And realizing that that wasn't the right equation was one of the greatest realizations I've ever had in my life. And that there's only one way for people to love you, for people to accept you, for people to respect you, that's for you to find that within yourself. If you want someone to accept you, accept yourself. Because if they accept you and you don't accept yourself, you won't accept them because they accept you. You'll blame them. You'll resent them. You won't look at them favorably because they accept you. And how dare you accept me in my broken state? You can't accept me. I don't even accept me. And once you reach that level of self-acceptance, which takes a level of breaking down a lot of what you've built,

then you can get on the path to self-love. And for me, that was a hell of a journey because I realized that I had to take all of the external success that I had built and break down the identity that I built on top of that. And breaking that ego and breaking that identity and the person that other people thought I was was difficult for me because what if now people saw me as a, the person who doesn't accept himself and is broken and also I now don't have the piece of I'm a successful founder and CEO? Now I'm nothing. I have to get judged purely on my own essence and who I am as a person. And that was my greatest fear. 25 years old, I did not want to be seen even though I wanted nothing more than to be seen. And to sit there and think about that, all I wanted my whole life was for people to see me, for people to accept me, for people to love me, and for people to respect me. But when I got to a place where I thought people would see me based off of the external accomplishments I made and I didn't get that, it shattered my whole world.

And I'm truly grateful today that I've taken the time to explore who I am as a person. So I could find it within myself that I did just want to be seen and I did just want to be accepted and I did just want to be loved and I did just want to be respected. Because each one of those is its own separate journey. And each one of those I have defined within myself for myself. And then I could start accepting others and I could start loving others and I could start respecting others. And more importantly, I could start allowing others to accept me and to love me and to respect me. And I feel like that was one of the greatest lessons I learned from becoming a seven figure founder at the age of 25.