"Kyle, WAKE UP. Hurry."
My wife shook me as she said these words. There was real urgency in her voice. Confused, I heard a fire truck. Or a police car.
“What’s the ruckus?
Then it hit me like a ton of bricks. Those were air raid sirens. That could only mean one thing: Russia was here.
It was February 24, 2022.
Maryna was pregnant with our first child.
And I had a decision to make with about five minutes to make it.
But to understand how an American ended up in Kyiv with a pregnant Ukrainian wife, a corgi named Hulk, and a business on the line…
We have to go back a few years.
The Cushiest Job In The World
In 2011 I graduated college early with an economics degree and got a job at Hitachi Data Systems. I was 21, making $56,000 a year, and with overtime I could push it to $75,000. I was the youngest person they’d ever hired.
I liked the job. It was intense. I learned fast.
Then I got passed over for promotions I’d earned. Not because I wasn’t qualified. Because someone else had been there longer.
So I jumped ship to a government think tank in Santa Monica, one block from the beach.
Here’s what my day looked like:
- 9:30: Walk in, 30 minutes late. Check email.
- 10:30: Roof. Coffee with my buddy. 45 minutes overlooking the beach.
- 12:30: Gym for an hour and a half. Sometimes Chipotle.
- 3:30: Nap in my car in the underground parking.
- 4:15: Boss is gone? I’m outta there. He had a 2.5 hour commute home.
I was 24 years old making six figures for that.
And I was miserable.
Everyone around me was decades older, and they all said the same thing: “Just waiting on that retirement and pension.”
To me…it felt like a slow, inevitable death.
So I Did Something About It.
In November 2015 I took a trip to Colombia and met some internet friends in person. They were freelance writers making about $800 a month.
$800 a month. And they were the happiest people I’d ever met.
I was making six figures and napping in a parking garage to get through the day.
The math wasn’t mathing.
In December I called my parents: “When I come home for Christmas, we’re going to have a conversation. I’m leaving the corporate job. Think about it for a few days, then ask me anything.”
To their credit, they backed me completely.
At the time, all I had was a blog. I’d started it anonymously — a men’s lifestyle site I built nights and weekends. My rule was simple: Publish something every single day for a year. If I couldn’t make it work at that pace, I didn’t deserve to make it.
It worked. That site grew to over a million visitors a year.
I bought a one-way ticket to Europe and never worked for anyone again.
For the record: This wasn’t my first time starting over. When I was 17, our house burned down. I got my mom and our dog out and watched everything we owned disappear in an afternoon. I learned early that you can lose all of it and still be fine — as long as the people make it out.
Keep that lesson in mind. It comes back.
Second year abroad after putting down some roots — building my first desk. We lived in a small, one-bedroom apartment with a broom closet that I used as my office. It was freezing cold and I had to wear gloves to type properly.
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