Severance, Sweat Equity & Sex

Got some great feedback & tons of really kind words last week regarding the first send of Trust Fun (which you can read here… Birddogs, Barstool & Bummers). It looks like over 5,000 people read it which is insane. So so so excited to keep this going & please subscribe if you haven’t yet.

I want to first address the elephant in the room. Yes, there were typos. I cannot and willnot promise or deliver perfect grammar & spelling… I’m just a man (who simultaneously writes these while I watch reality TV with my girlfriend).

Anyways, here we go… The unemployment & entrepreneurial train steams on & we’re nearly 1.5 months after my lay-off from Barstool Sports. I still don’t have a job & I still haven’t secured an equal amount of supplemental income that offsets my former salary… So the next few weeks are going to be interesting & critical to avoid having to move into my parents basement. Here are a few unfiltered thoughts on unemployment so far:

1. Severance Rules: Getting severance [aka sevvy] is awesome. Obviously, losing your job sucks. It sucks it sucks it sucks & I feel so much for everyone who’s ever had to unfairly deal with the circumstances of unexpected layoffs. HOWEVER, getting sevvy fucking rules, don’t kid yourself. Money is still coming in & you have to work zero hours a week for the business that is providing your paycheck.

2. Here’s Why Severance Rules: You’re playing with house money. On day 1, maybe day 2 after your lay off, of course you’re allowed to feel shitty about it all. Cry, eat junk food, mourn, watch Love Is Blind, go through the stages of “unemployment grief”, whatever… But please make it the abridged version. You’ve got a rare opportunity to get paid to do whatever the fuck you want. Hang with your kids more, go travel, get in shape, go to a movie at 10am on a Tuesday, literally ANYTHING… And still be getting paid.

3. Use Severance Time To Up Your Market Value / Net-worth: If you get 3 months of sevvy and travel for 2 of them, that’s awesome. But when month 3 starts & you spend 2 weeks ruthlessly applying to hundreds of jobs on LinkedIn & hear crickets in response, I won’t feel bad for you. Rarely do jobs happen via a resume & “EasyApply.” They take hustling, copious networking, hundreds of cold DMs, awkwardly asking a former roommates older brother for a favor… And sometimes that’s not even close to enough. Anyways, this was a roundabout way of saying use sevvy time to make yourself an elite candidate. Start something yourself (like a newsletter, lol), learn photoshop, become an AI expert, work for free at a start-up, or even better, try & get some “sweat equity.”

As you can tell, I’m loving severance & we’ve had a beautiful, magical relationship so far. But soon, the honeymoon phase will be over, and Barstool will no longer be paying me to do absolutely nothing for them (honestly I still don’t get it, haha). So, what am I doing to prepare for the inevitable & messy divorce from severance?

1. Consulting

Club Cael is my consulting business I started in the wake of my unemployment. I am not going to justify the seemingly ego-rooted name, Club Cael. It’s a bit lame & vain, yes, but alliteration rocks, so just shut up about it. Anyways, it’s important to remember that all of us are a quick LegalZoom, a Delaware LLC creation, & a shitty Wix website away from becoming a business owner & founder.

It can be intimating getting all of this freelance & consulting stuff up and rolling, and for the record, you do not need an LLC or website or anything to actually do contractor work… I only created one because I wanted to name a company after myself. Again, shut up about it.

The goal is to find a business that has a need for something only you can bring to the table. I’m going to be consulting with a ton of sick brands over the next few months (some even starting today cc. Mugsy Jeans)… And I can’t wait to rip it. Freelance consulting is an awesome way to create supplemental income and/or sweat equity, & can very often times lead to a full time gig.

Also, hmu if you’re interested in my services. The Club Cael roster is filling up fast. 👀

2. Looking For Full Time Jobs

The current job market sucks ass. There’s no if or buts about it. More and more companies are laying off legit talent because these idiots haven’t been thinking about their bottom line, & the endless pool of VC money has dried up like the Sahara.

Also, remember when I said you don’t get jobs by recklessly applying to postings on LinkedIn? Well, even tho I am guilty of doing that a bit (to which I’ve literally heard back from zero), I can with full honestly say that is NOT how you get a job right now. This is not to come off as braggy or gloating, even though it probably will, but I have received 3 full time job offers from 3 amazing companies so far… And NONE of those companies had jobs posted online or were even looking to hire someone.

Your goal should be to get a company to CREATE A JOB AROUND YOU… Prove to a biz why you’re invaluable (which I recently learned means super valuable) & force their hand in building a role around you. Every single job I’ve ever had (2 jobs) have been created for & around me. This happens more than you think. Figure out what the perfect job for you is (which will also be the job you do the best) & then back into a company that needs that specific role (which only you can do) the most.

3. Scratching My Entrepreneurial Itch

Lastly, I’m most obviously leaning into entrepreneurship. And I don’t mean just not getting a W2 job & going all in on 1 idea… Entrepreneurship lends itself in many many forms. In my opinion, at it’s most basic level, entrepreneurship means creating something out of nothing that is entirely yours. This can be starting a newsletter, making a movie, building a website, starting a podcast. All of these things are multidimensional. Let’s use a newsletter as an example:

1. Concept: An idea that is different enough to stand out in a crowded space.

   An irreverent newsletter that speaks to the honest truths about layoffs, unemployment and the journey into entrepreneurship.

2. Brand: A logo, colors & fonts that are eye-catching & interesting.

   

   Logo I created in free trial of Photoshop

3. Infrastructure: Technology needed to execute the idea.

   

   Beehiiv is a free software that allows you to send newsletters

4. Marketing: Eyeballs on my brand & product to drive customers & subscribers.

   

   Leveraging free social medias like Twitter/X and LinkedIn

5. Product: The product itself. Go make it. In this case, writing the damn thing.

   You all can decide if the product is good. This is the product.
   

The barrier to entry to all of this has never been lower. As you may have noticed, everything I’m using is free. Thanks to technology like Beehiv and Shopify, anyone with internet access can start a business. It doesn’t need to take quitting your job or getting laid off to do it. If you’ve got an hour a night or an hour a week, try and start something. It’s insanely rewarding.

Thanks for reading. See you next week.

PS... Nothing about Sex here. Just put that in the title to increase open rate & continue the alliteration theme. I’m a natural at this thing.