I wasn’t always a tower technician. I wasn’t always a private investigator. I wasn’t always a busboy at a restaurant or a mental health tech at a hospital. Before it all, I was an armed security officer and boy was I good at it. Almost daily I would have altercation and one of these altercations allowed me to come up with this quote and I have learned that I can use it in any situation.

Long story short, I was in a very bad part of town in Tampa, Fl. I was working at an after hours night club and when I tell you, it was an animated crowd. You name it, it was there. From out of place tourists to dope boys “reppin” their part of town with a flag hanging out their jeans pocket. From old guys getting their late night fix for the night, to young girls building up a name for themselves in the worst of ways.

Every crowd would show up and everybody was welcome. Well, as long as you didn’t start anything with anybody. This night in particular was one of the off nights. A man was kicked out of the club by the bouncers and was handed to me. While I assessed the situation, he started belligerently taking his frustration out on me. Coming from a former Army veteran who was present in both Iraq and Afghanistan, I could see that this man was only acting on his pride and how it was hurt. Trying to reclaim any dignity that he could have lost by being loud and obnoxious.

I calmly asked him why he was so angry. The story is that he saw a woman in the club that he liked and tried to get her attention. The woman’s boyfriend intervened and introduced himself and the new guy didn’t like being rejected. It led to them getting into a small scuffle but the bouncers were able to get them situated.

The dude cursed me out for about 20 minutes saying everything that he could to try and get me angry. Threatened on killing me. Said I was nothing without my gun. Made fun of the hourly wage that he thought I was making. The whole nine yards. I eventually told him that the club would be closing in a half hour and that he would have more than enough time to stop to the gas station across the street and buy some beer before they stopped selling for the night. He didn’t care. He wanted me to get angry. So he decided to do exactly what I hoped he wouldn’t do. Threaten the patrons safety by claiming he would leave and come back with his car full of his boys and shoot up the club as everybody was clearing into the parking lot.

And that’s when it hit me. “Sir. If you were to wake up craving to have a $1,000,000, and decided to go out and search for it, how would you feel if you found it?”

He said more slick remarks. Saying that he would pay some of my bills because he knew that I couldn’t afford it blah, blah, blah. I then asked if he would be mad if he found it. Of course he said no. So I hit him with the “Well this morning you woke up craving for attention and you are doing the most in trying to find it. I’m telling you that you are about to receive the attention that you are clearly looking for but know that once you get it, you cant get mad!”. Lets just say that he didn’t like that response and definitely didn’t like the attention that he ended up receiving.

I quit that job that night. I realized that what I was searching for in life I would not be able to find working in the security industry, but I learned a huge lesson that day. I learned that we tend to be looking for things in our lives on a daily basis, not really evaluating what it all entails and many times we get what we are looking for, but we get it in a way that we didn’t expect nor want. Even though I quit that job, I was able to walk away with understanding. Understanding that this young gentleman had to find out the hard way. Be cautious on what you are looking for because you may just get it in the end.