This post is also available in: Español (Spanish)

“Success is a lonely road, only few dare to take it.”

—Unknown—

Date: 08-15-20

Time: 11:46pm

Place: The club in the ATX

Max here…..

So this post is a little hard to write. Fuck that, the truth is that it’s actually extremely painful and  hard to write. It’s hard to write because of how I must find ways to explain feelings and thoughts that haunt me no matter where I go.

It’s Saturday night at the club, and oddly enough for the “Covid-19” times, the club actually has people here. But me (Max), I’m here in the DJ booth desperately trying to shake this monkey off my back. My journey to my millions has become a very lonely road. Extremely lonely. It’s been about a decade or less since I have officially started my journey but yet it feels like I’ve been doing this for 20 years or longer. Over the last 7 to 10 years I have been learning a lot about “personal development” “Personal Growth” and all things related to personal self betterment.  And thru this process of self betterment, it is very natural to lose friends and family along the way. It’s bad enough that growing up I didn’t have very many friends to begin with, but now, and at least for me, the number of friends that I currently have are about as many as the number of times that Donald Trump has publicly said the words “I’m sorry”. And honestly for about the last 7 to 10 years I really haven’t minded about losing people along the way.

Facts are this, when you truly get down the road to personal development and really dig for goal attainment you learn that most of the people that surrounded you in the beginning of your life really don’t care about what you care about. And somehow they just magically leave. And because I was so submersed in learning real estate (the construction, remodeling, landlord, management) side of things, and learning as much about business, leadership, personal happiness, health etc, that during the learning of things, there is just so much to learn that I didn’t mind being lonely. It was study time. I didn’t mind going home to an empty home. I didn’t mind eating alone at a restaurant, I didn’t mind not having anyone to share my thoughts with, I didn’t mind not having anyone to text or call, I didn’t mind not having anyone asking about when I was coming home, I didn’t mind not having anyone wonder where I was, I didn’t mind not having anyone to spend Christmas or New years with. I didn’t mind not caring about Valentines, I just didn’t mind about being lonely during any of the holidays, odd as that sounds, and for the most part, I almost…… just almost didn’t mind not having anyone to share my life with. I was so consumed that I didn’t notice how lonely this life of mine truly is. idk. at least that’s how it at least seems as I now look back on things.

But it’s been a journey, a long journey, that’s for sure.  Its been what feels like a lifetime. And not a fun one, It’s bad enough already that I had a shitty childhood, and what so called “family” I do have is all fucked up. And even though it feels like a lifetime, and even though my early childhood version of the word “family” is all skewed sideways,  I know that I still have another decade, maybe two decades before I get a true taste of my goal true goal attainment. Something that encompasses real family, real friendships, real love. But here’s the conundrum…… I am now needing friends in my life…. I am also now needing and ready to share my personal space with someone. I am ready to practice things that I have learned and read. But because of this job…. this alter ego job at the club, it is both a blessing and a curse all at the same time. It’s a blessing because on one hand it painfully provides the money I need to get my real estate business off the ground. (This doesn’t mean that this job doesn’t come without its’ own hurdles on how I try to make sure that I do whatever is necessary just to keep the damn job) But on the other hand, finding friends and companionship is literally fucking impossible!!! Think about it… the men and women that work in a strip club…. how many of them, go home after work and then begin working on their dreams? After more than 20 years in this business, I have only met 1….. read that again…. After over 20 years in the club, I have only met 1 girl that became a doctor. I’ve met a very small few other girls that have become nurses and one became a psychologist. But those are the very few exceptions (like less than 15 of all the girls I have met…. less than 1%).  And the men in the business????…. Most  men in the business (managers and all others) accomplish even less than the dancers. And the DJ’s in the business???? Pshhh…. How often have you ever heard of a strip club DJ that went from rags to riches by working in a strip club? From my knowledge, I will be the first. Most DJs in the business either live a larger than life lifestyle and never truly plan for tomorrow or they drink their life away with some girl who is also wasting her life away. This will and MUST NOT be me. I MUST be the first that I know to accomplish many great things. So my point…. It’s just fucking lonely where I am right now.

You ever see that old movie called “Castaway” with Tom Hanks? Its a really great but weird movie….Tom Hanks gets stranded on a deserted island. And his only friend is a soccer ball that washes on shore. And he later named the soccer ball “Wilson”. He literally almost went crazy from having no one to talk to. I think if it weren’t for the soccer ball, I think Tom would have either killed himself or literally went coo-coos. And so for me…. I am now at a stage in my journey, and I don’t know if it’s because of my age, or maybe just because of straight loneliness… I just feel completely empty on a daily basis. Like void of any joy, it’s just a weird and painful empty feeling. And I don’t mean empty as in hungry empty, or loss of God empty (I know he’s still there), or even motivation empty, (although this is severely affecting my motivation)…. Instead I mean  friendship empty, and companionship empty. And isn’t it odd for me Max, a strip club DJ, a guy with a couple of properties and a man with nightly access to beautiful women, and an endless amount of men that would say that I have the greatest job in the world, and others who would say that my life should be great because I have apartments, isn’t it odd how amongst all the beauty, from human beauty to property asset beauty that I still can’t sleep at night because of one word…. loneliness.

The question…. how do I fix this emptiness? How do I fix this loneliness? It should be as easy as……. just find new friends, or just meet someone to spend time with. Where that becomes difficult is that now that I have raised my standards on myself, it has also caused me to raise my standards on those around me. Now this doesn’t mean that I don’t have tolerance or that I won’t be open minded to friends or companionship, it’s quite the contrary, but what it does mean is that I am having to live a night time life here at the club and then turn around and live a daytime life…..It means that raising my standards, means having to be extremely more selective in all aspects of my life. Which after time, when it comes to how I must conduct my current life, as in having to be awake at night and then turn around to stay awake during the daytime, is a part of my life that I have, for the most part mastered. But what still eludes me is finding like minded people in both of these areas. (the night time area and also the daytime area) Finding like minded people from the club scene so far has proven to be fruitless. And during the daytime, I think that because of my bills and debt and the endless amount of projects that I have put before myself that I am now somehow allowing myself to be so consumed with managing the logistics of personal things (projects) at home that need to get completed and or the business of things to be done at the 4-plex. And worse… Even if I did make time to find friends/companionship during the daytime, where would I go? I wouldn’t even know where to start. Currently I am part of a Rotary club, (which I love btw), the only drawback to finding close friends and or companionship at the rotary is that most of the members of my club are a little older and the amount of those my age are few and far between. And most of them are already deep into their own life and or personal relationships. and worse…. The club members will plan and have club socials so that everyone can get together and find ways to grow together, but for me, the problem… and currently it is a problem, is the fact that, most of the personal gatherings for the club (where they just get together to talk and hang out and create memories) typically happen on a Friday or Saturday night, which is the very night that I work. So my ability to make time to bond with Rotary members really only happened when we met in person on Tuesday mornings, and now because of Covid everything is now online. Even right before Covid, I had went to my very first toast masters meeting, and I loved it. I was looking forward to those meetings, and now with Covid, all shit is online. I am just not ready to bend my mind to enjoy online friendships, at least not when I am within a short drive of meeting them. And as far as companionship….. that just seems like an even harder task. Where and how do I find companionship during these times? The club itself has many (not all) but many attractive women, many of them when all dolled up would easily be considered a goddess in their own right. But for me, remember I raised my standards. So the ability to look like a goddess (in my mind) is supposed to be a given, your supposed to look beautiful. And so its not just the ability to look amazing that is part of my criteria, I also expect someone that can mentally intrigue me in conversation, you know, the ability to laugh and smile with, this thing that people call “connection”. And as a great friend of mine named Josh Stern would say….. Someone to have “great times” with. but when it comes to girls at work…. raising personal standards is not high on the average stripper’s to do list, for most of them, their life prior to stripping has been some form of shit or great difficulty, so raising standards while trying to stay alive is extremely hard work. So for me to find someone that I can have long fun conversations and also consider her worthy of being in my personal circle outside of work is truly a great rarity. And where I work, over the years, sadly management has decided that hiring a large amount of Cuban women that don’t speak English is actually a good thing for the club. And it’s truly sad because almost none of them speak English. And painfully, for me, at least for my personal standards, speaking English or at least truly trying to speak English is a requirement for me. It’s part of the way I communicate. Now luckily I can speak some Spanish, but in reality, the people around me should be raising their standards or at least always trying to raise their standards, so in the end, there should not be a language barrier, or at least not one that would inhibit the connect and growth of a relationship. And so if I can’t find friendship or companionship at work then I must find it somewhere else. And in a world of Covid, where we are being told to not congregate, for me to find that which plagues my heart and soul is just really fucking difficult.

Again, I don’t know how to properly put it into words the depth of loneliness that this journey has so far caused me, I know (or at least I am really trying to believe) it won’t last forever, but damn!!! its just really lonely and empty right now.

I just hope that Jim Rohn is right… that after the storm, after the rain, that there will be sunshine and a beautiful rainbow….. cuz right now, the thunder and lighting and rain just doesn’t feel good.

Please wish me luck,

I’m not giving up….. but damn,  it’s no lie, it hurts.

Max.