“Who you DON’T listen to can be just as important as who you do listen to.” Joe Randene
Me: “We will be financially independent by the age of 40.” Girlfriend (now wife): “Awesome.” That was that. What a great woman, she has always had nothing but blind faith in me and when I tell people that all of our achievements in life were absolutely a 50% – 50% effort, I mean it 100%! Here was the uh…, how should I put this, REAL situation at the time I made that statement. We were two very young people that were discussing getting married and planning a future together. She was going to college and working at Blockbuster Video (do they exist anymore?), and I was selling whole life insurance door to door to make ends meet. Collectively we were about $3,000 in debt.
Not everyone had the optimism that we did when we shared our goal with them. In fact, most people looked at me as if I had just told them that I saw a unicorn. “Lie down and sleep it off Joe, you’ll be ok when you wake up.” But I didn’t listen. You can call me stubborn, smart, and stupid. I don’t care, but I knew that I wasn’t going to achieve my goal listening to people who thought that it was impossible. So, I stopped listening. Instead I read about people who did become financially independent and educated myself on what they did and how they did it, and like so many things in life, the answers were simple. NOT easy, simple.
All of our friends were buying expensive cars; we drove our 1993 Ford Escort in to the ground. When we found a little extra money at the end of the month, we invested it instead of going out to eat or buying an item of expensive clothes. We set our 401k up to get the company match and then set it to auto increase with each pay raise. Like I said, this stuff is simple, but it is not easy. That’s ok; we became financially independent at the age of 42. We missed it by two years but I’m not complaining! But this is not a blog about finances, it’s a blog about achieving more than you think is possible, so here are some more examples of how not listening to people who thought I was crazy helped me to achieve some of the largest goals in my life.
My degree is in business, but my educational background from the US Navy was nuclear engineering. Due to the strong chemistry background this gave me, I landed a job as a supervisor at a factory that made soap. This was a huge factory and we produced 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Therefore I worked rotating shifts, which meant afternoons, nights, and weekends were all on the schedule. This was a great entry level position with good pay, but rotating shifts can be difficult on a marriage, so I wanted to make a change.
Everything at the factory was automated and the engineers that maintained these systems all worked Monday to Friday 8 am to 5 pm. But I never programmed anything in my life! You know what, good. What a great opportunity for me to learn something new. One morning after I worked all night, I went down to their office and I said, “Hey, if you guys are interested, I have a list of four or five suggestions that could save us about $100,000 per year if we tweak the process a little.” These guys all had goals on their bonuses to save the company money, so I knew they would be interested. “Yeah man! That would be awesome, give us the list.” “Ok, no problem, but here is the catch. I’ll come down after my night shift tomorrow and work off the clock. You guys will teach me how to make all of the necessary changes to the code and let me do the updates all under your supervision. I don’t want any of the credit for the savings; you can have that for your goals.” “Fine with us man.”
And so it went, I would work for free for about an extra eight to twelve hours per week and learn about our automation and controls systems and how to write code. When my buddies found out that I was working without getting paid, they gave me so much crap. “Let’s get a beer after work today. Oh, that’s right; you’re working overtime without pay!” “Dude, no one cares that you are working those extra hours.” I heard it all, but not really. I didn’t listen, and I just kept doing what I was doing. Then one day the boss walks in to the engineer’s office and sees me sitting there. “Randene, what the hell are you doing here, you’re not on the clock are you?” “No, no. I’m not on the clock. I’m just helping these guys improve the process. I have the soap making knowledge and they program everything, so I’m just trying to make my life and their life easier!” “Oh. Ok.”
Three months later one of the engineers resigns and wouldn’t you know it, I applied for the job. The other guys loved me because with my knowledge of the process, I had plenty of ideas to save us money and keep them hitting their goals. So they go to the boss and beg him to hire me and send me to a three week course in Austin, Texas, pointing out that my starting salary would be much less then a senior engineer. Presto, I get the promotion and I am now working days! This is when it occurred to me that you very often need to help others first before you get helped back.
To close this post I’ll give two more condensed examples of when people thought I was insane and it paid off big time. My company was looking at acquiring a company in Italy, so I started to study Italian six to eight hours every week for over six months. There was no guarantee that we would buy the company, and if we did, there was no guarantee they would ask us to go. In July of 2010, we did buy that company and in December of 2010 my family and I moved to Florence, Italy. The result of that move is that my kids are bi-lingual, multiple family members have travelled here and had that experience, and my entire family has seen the world and made friends in many different countries! AWESOME!
Finally, I was 330 pounds and I told people that I was training for a marathon. To be honest, even I had some doubts! But I didn’t listen to anyone, including myself, and I just started to do the work. In 2015, a 195 pound “Joe the Runner” crossed the finish line at the Florence Marathon in 4 hours and 5 minutes. In the time that I have been running, I have raised $5,200 for various charities as well.
Amazing accomplishments that would never have happened if I didn’t have selective hearing. I encourage you to go after your dreams, and remember who you DON’T listen to can be just as important as who you do listen to.
E-mail me your success stories at joe.randene@joerandene.com
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