Day One – Deuces

I wish I could say I always had eyes on being a brand owner, I didn’t.  After college, my goals were straightforward climb that corporate ladder, get that paper, get a nice crib, nice car,  a couple of kids, and a fine ass wife to come home to.  In college, I envisioned going into a high-rise building, waving at security, hopping on the elevator to head to work.  I imagined chopping it up at lunchtime with the other uppity ass black folks over a Caesar Salad.  I would watch TV and see people sitting in meetings and think to myself, that was the definition of success. Once I hit corporate, I was in for a rude awakening.  That corporate ladder was a lot higher and more treacherous than I had anticipated.  Don’t get me wrong. I accomplished just about everything I wanted to accomplish but bruh, that rat race is something serious.  After spending several years spinning my wheels, there was one incident at work that told me I would have to make a move if I wanted to accomplish my new “mature” goals of financial freedom and not having to play politics.  I am a black guy raised in the streets of Cleveland, Ohio. I don’t do politics well.  See, the funny thing about goals is that they change, or at least should change as you grow.  

Before I go into the story, let me ask you a question, ever been asked to be a director or CEO of a company? Nope, me neither.  The idea of me needing to strike out on my own started with five simple words “F#$% this, I’m Out, deuces.”  It all started with me working for an apparel company that sold baby clothes.  One day everyone in the company was called to the 15th floor to celebrate the promotions of about four people.

Now picture this, there are about 250 people on the floor. We are celebrating the promotions of 4 managers who were being promoted to directors.  We were also celebrating the rise of the Director of IT being promoted to VP of E-commerce.  As everyone stood around clapping, a dark realization came to me. Out of the 250 people in the room, only four people were getting promoted.  What these promotions meant for the rest of us mere peasants was that for the next several years, at least 240 people in this room were going to have their dreams deferred.  If they had any desire to move into management, it wouldn’t be at this company.   At that moment, something switched in my mind that said, “f#$% this, I’m. Out, deuces!”  Although that wasn’t the start of EBWS,  that incident began to lay the groundwork for the path that would eventually lead to me starting EBWS.  In the next episode, I am going to dive into more details about what drove me to start EBWS.

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Until next week….deuces.