Chris KoernerSerial Entrepreneur and Content Creator

How to persist through a crappy time of life.

6 Sept 2024 · 1 min

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0:56

Short personal vignette by Chris Koerner describing a period when he worked nights as a jail guard while attending the University of Alabama and waiting tables to support a pregnant wife; the core message is perseverance—endure temporary hardship, avoid quitting, and let small consistent efforts compound into better circumstances.

Questions this video answers

$14.50 per hour.

Approximately 36–48 hours per week.

The University of Alabama.

Chapters

So if you're not content with your life right now, then these 42 seconds will serve you well. That's me in the tan right there. I was a guard for the Tuscaloosa County Jail. I got paid $14.50 an hour. But I had health insurance benefits, which was key because my wife was pregnant with our first kid and we didn't have health insurance. So I'd work all night, 36 to 48 hours per week, go home and sleep for five hours, go to classes at the University of Alabama, and then I'd wait tables on the nights I wasn't working at the jail. I hated my life. I was guarding inmates, booking them in, fingerprints, getting in fights. It's not me at all. I'm not confrontational. But sometimes you just got to eat crap for a while so you can have the life that you're hoping to have. So if you've been in a job that you hate or relationship or a life that you hate, just keep progressing. Keep getting through that, and compounding will work its magic, and you will get out of it. The whole key is that you don't quit. Don't interrupt compounding. Just keep learning these lessons and getting through the crappy parts, and you'll get to the good parts.