Well, here we are!  I gave everybody a little background of Shaun last week.  If you haven’t seen it, feel free to take a look at “Stephen Hopson Interview with Shaun Boyd Coming Up!” before you dip in here today.

 As we move into the new year with the interview series, I will be changing, adding, deleting and enhancing the list of questions, adapting them as I go along. 

For the most part, most of my questions are pretty much the same for Part I except for question #10 (What would you say was the defining moment that forever changed the course of your life?  Was it someone who made an impact on you or was it a spiritual revelation?) was moved to #9 at Shaun’s request. 

Well, let’s not delay any further!  Today it’s my pleasure to welcome Shaun Boyd of LifeReboot to Adversity University.  I’m pleased to have you here as a guest and look forward to learning more about who you are and what you’re all about!

Shall we?  

1.  One of my favorite questions when I want to learn about someone is by asking them to give me their 5 second introduction when I pose the question:  “What do you do for a living?”

I’m a former computer guy who left the industry to start a new career as a writer.  Was that within five seconds?

(Stephen:  Yes, that sure was!)

2.  Tell me in 3 to 5 sentences something we can’t read in your bio or at the “About Page” at your blog “LifeReboot.”

Judging from my blog alone, one might think that I am a self-proclaimed know-it-all, and that I spend every waking moment of my life telling other people why they should be more like me.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  In real life, I am often considered shy because I like to listen and observe more than I like to talk.  In other words, I’m not the guy who takes his personal philosophies and forces them down the throats of everyone he meets.  Instead, I give advice only to those who seek it (namely, the people who choose to read my blog).

3. How long have you been blogging at “LifeReboot”?

I got the idea for LifeReboot in December 2006.  I created the blog design in January 2007.  I quit my job and moved out of state in February, the domain was transferred to me and the blog went live in March, and the blog was finally “popularized” by Digg in May.  So my answer really depends on what stage you consider to be the true act of “blogging.”

4.  How did you come up with that very interesting and eye catching title?

It was inspired by David Hume’s Bundle Theory.  Hume says that life is not one singular entity, but a series of perceptions.  In other words, a lifetime is a collection of small, individual, “packaged” lives.  You start a new life when you land a new job.  You start a new life when you enter a new relationship.  You start a new life when you move out of state.  With the start of a new life, you are simultaneously ending another one.

This notion of reinventing yourself as a new person due to your own choices fascinates me.  Consequently, when I left the computer industry I recognized that I was ending one life and starting another.  The name “LifeReboot” just made sense.

5.  Why did you start “LifeReboot”?

For moderately selfish reasons.  I wanted to see if I could “Write to Live.”  That is, I hoped that my blog could eventually earn enough advertising revenue that it covered my living expenses.  If LifeReboot were to reach that level of success, then my life would be my own personal paradise: I would be doing what I love to do,and I could afford to do it forever.

6.  One of the reasons why you were invited to be interviewed is because your writing style has been so authentic, so engaging that I find myself touched with your personal stories.  How did you learn how to write so well?

LifeReboot is not my first blog.  When I was in college, I daily recorded my trials and triumphs as an undergraduate student.  I “published” everything that I wrote using a web server that I set up in my dorm room.  I called the site my “Web Journal” (since the term “blog” was mostly unheard of in 2001), and I wrote in it for at least one hour every day for two years.  So I suppose it’s like anything else — if you  do something long enough, you’re bound to get good at it.

7.  The reason I find your blog so engaging is a sense that there’s a real human being behind LifeReboot. You allow yourself to be totally vulnerable, honest and transparent.  I get this feeling there are no false pretenses with you.  Naturally, this makes me more curious about you.  So, if I were to ask you, in an effort to dig a little further, how would you define who you really are, what would you say?

What can I even say?  I’m Shaun Boyd — just an extraordinarily ordinary human being.

8.  What is the best advice you’ve ever received?

Find what you love.

Given?

I have no clue.  One person might say it was the time I taught them how to send a shortcut to their desktop.  Another might say it was the time I inspired them to quit their job and pursue their dreams.  It really depends on who you ask.

9.  (Formerly 10.)  What would you say was the defining moment that forever changed the course of your life?  Was it someone who made an impact on you or was it a spiritual revelation?

I’ve put a lot of thought into this question, and I’ve finally arrived at an answer.  The defining moment that forever changed the course of my life happened five years ago.  I was working for someone who was taking advantage of my talents, and was raking in a fortune on account of my ignorance and naivety.  The course of my life changed forever when I found out exactly how much profit I earned for this person.

Let’s call this person George, and let’s call George’s company Big Consulting.  I had been employed at Big Consulting for a few years, and I thought it was a great job.  Big Consulting provided over 400 small business networks with professional computer services.

Every day, I’d get to act like a hero — when computer problems would crop up, Big Consulting would save the day:  A technician (such as myself) would be sent on-site and do whatever it took to resolve them.

On an average of at least once every month, Big Consulting would also perform computer network upgrades for new clients.

One technician from our team would be assigned the lead technician for the upgrade, most often based on where the client was located (it made sense for the lead technician to be the closest geographically, because he would be the one working the longest hours).

I was assigned to be the lead technician for a small business network upgrade consisting of over 50 computers.  The upgrade was scheduled to take place over a three-day holiday weekend in order to minimize the amount of interruption to the client’s business.

I performed the majority of the upgrade.  I worked 10-hour days for all three days:  Migrating company data, replacing and reconfiguring each of the fifty workstations, and corresponding with the office manager in order to work out the particulars of any custom requirements for their business.  When the upgrade was completed, I worked a fourth day in order to assist the users with their new system.  

It was on the fourth day that George made an appearance.  Although he hadn’t been on-site to help out with the upgrade, he acted like he had done it all himself.  He strutted around, shook hands, and took credit for my hard work — all because he owned Big Consulting.

Of course, that’s the owner’s job, isn’t it?  To represent his company, to schmooze his clients, to pat his peons on the back and say “Great job!” once the job was done — so why was I so mad at him?

Because I saw the invoice George sent them.  I saw it when I was upgrading the office manager’s workstation — Big Consulting’s letterhead caught my eye and I glanced down to see the amount on the invoice.  They paid fifty-thousand dollars for the upgrade.

Now I admit, ten-thousand of that sum was to cover the cost of new computer equipment.  Still, that means that they were being billed for forty-thousand dollars worth of labor…

…for only four days of work…

…and I did all of the work.

It definitely clued me in as to how much I was being ripped off with an annual salary of $35,000/year with no benefits, no vacation, and no sick time.  In only a few days, Big Consulting made enough profit to pay for me for the entire year — and off of my own hard work!

George and I left the building together.  He thanked me for my hard work, and handed me an envelope containing my bonus as lead technician. 

He got into his Mercedes and drove off.

I got into my pickup truck and opened the envelope.

It was the first and only bonus I ever received working at Big Consulting:  $200 in cash  — or about 0.5% of the profit I just earned for George.  I suddenly understood exactly how his business worked.

George powered the business on naive computer experts who were at an age where they still think $200 is a lot of money.

Suddenly things made sense:  For as long as I’d been working there, Big Consulting had been a revolving door for young, enterprising employees.  I never understood why so many people left until I saw that invoice.

It felt unfair.  I was the computer professional that the client paid for, but I didn’t cash in on the profits.  I was part of a money making system where my talents were being exploited, and I couldn’t do anything about it.

That’s when it happened.  At 20 years old, sitting in the driver’s seat of a hand-me-down Mazda pickup truck, clutching an envelope full of money, I started to cry.  The feeling of complete helplessness overwhelmed my entire body, and tried working its way into my mind.  “I can’t do anything about it,” I thought.  “Can I?”

I suddenly stopped crying.  My eyes opened wide as my thoughts brought forth a revelation.

“Of course I can,” I said.  I started my truck, drove to George’s home office, and rang the doorbell.  When he answered the door, I asked if I could speak to him inside.

Seated across from him in his office, I told him what I had seen, and how I felt about it.  I explained that I thought the lead technician should receive a set percentage of the profits.  Five to ten percent would be more than adequate.

George disagreed.  He explained that’s not how he ran Big Consulting. 

He fed me a line about how he didn’t want to create competition among the technicians because he didn’t want to rock the boat — he preferred to work as a team.  Furthermore, he insisted that the longer I worked for Big Consulting, the more money I’d make.

I stood up, shook my head in disbelief, and said “You mean the more money I’d make for you, George.”

I left without saying goodbye, and never returned.

It was the first and only time I ever quit a job on the spot before, and it was an  empowering feeling.  Never before had I ever realized that I had the power to do such a thing:  It was the power to choose.

On that day, five years ago, I made a choice that forever changed the course of my life.  I ended a relationship with an employer who didn’t respect me, and I learned an important lesson:  You always have a choice.

Stephen:  Wow, what a very interesting story and fantastic way to end the first part of our interview!  Your response to the last question was by far the longest and most comprehensive I’ve seen in an interview situation.  And you turned your answer into a very compelling story.  Thank you so much for coming to Adversity University and sharing with all of us your heartfelt story.  You bet that we are all looking forward to the second part next week (Wednesday, January 30)! 

(Update:  Click here for Part II).

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