Reid is an Author, Speaker, and Commentator who focuses on encouraging average people to define and live a good life
Hi Readers,
By the numbers, I had a higher probability of ending up in jail than the wonderful, average life I live today.
I spent my early life in poverty, so I know what it is like to live with the uncertainty that comes with financial instability. I had nearly no formal education, unstable family environments, few role models for success, and very few opportunities to change these things. Despite my environment, I was exposed to a great deal of love and experience.
Fast forward to today, I have since achieved a college education, a moderately successful career, more than a dozen happy years of marriage, and some great kids. To achieve these things, it took learning cornerstones of financial principles, conscious attention to relationships, and devotion to living life with integrity and dignity, even when it wasn’t the easy thing to do. I won’t tell you that I have it all figured out, but I have developed a talent of identifying pitfalls and avoiding them. Sometimes not making big mistakes is all you need to experience some success.
I started writing in 2024, coming out of a particularly tough time in my life. My second child was just a few months old and I found myself in deep moral quandaries involving work and existential angst related to some personal experiences. For the first time in my adult life, I found myself struggling to get answers to my questions of meaning and the right thing to do. I never had many male influences in my life, but the one person that might have the answers was my grandfather. I knew he had been through many of the exact same things and may have some wisdom for me to apply. The issue was that he was in the final stages of Alzheimer’s and could no longer help, though he was right in front of me. I had officially missed my chance to receive wisdom from one of the best men I would ever know.
In my grandfather’s absence, I turned to the internet and quickly realized the chasm between two narratives. One message says to work hard, start a business, and become successful, because that is all that matters. The other said that no matter how hard we work, we will never be able to afford a family, comfort, and retirement, so better to not try. There was little information in the middle. I knew how most people lived and it was in neither of these camps.
I have quite a few younger siblings who would undoubtedly face the same quandary I did. Moreso, I had daughters who stood a strong chance to face the same with me. I hated the thought of leaving the young people in my life without access to sound and caring advice to find out how to progress and be successful. I knew success wasn’t simply material, but would they if they are just fed what the internet serves them?
So I wrote my first book, I started my blog, and now I am publishing more and launching my social media presence with the sole intent of helping young people navigate life by providing ideas around living a good life as an average person. While I am not able to speak to getting rich quick, I can talk about how to obtain an average life and make it work in a world that no longer values a simple, good life. 65% of us will fall into a the average. That means that only 17.5% of people will fall in the wildly above or below categories. The average must work, because if the majority of us cannot find a productive place in this world, then what hope does humanity have?
I aim to present ideas to help young people gain financial knowledge they can apply, strategies for redefining success, hope from better relationships, and ultimately find a sense of meaning that can sustain them through the current challenges of life. We can do this together. I only hope I can make my little corner of the world a little brighter.
Thank you for being a part of this project!
Reid