1003. A Meager Christmas Bonus Sets Him on the Path to Becoming a Successful Entrepreneur

In the early 1990’s and early in his career, Jim Kukral joined a “new media agency,” the first name used for companies that built websites. Very few people knew anything about the internet, so the people being hired were learning on the job. For Jim, that meant getting a first day assignment to read a book on how to use HTML to build websites. “It was a great job in many ways. Two of the first websites I ever built were for Ernst & Young and Sherwin Williams. These were their first websites, too. But, the day I decided I was going to become an entrepreneur, was at an office Christmas party. “I had just spent three to four months sleeping in the office, busting my butt to help the company make a lot of money for their biggest client. Christmas party time came and I thought, ‘Boy, I’m going to get a huge bonus!’ And that day the two owners of the company went to a furniture store and spent $50,000. And I thought, ‘Wow, this is going to be great.’ Well, they spent $50,000 on furniture for their offices upstairs. And then I thought they were going to give us money as a bonus. So, I went to the Christmas party and they gave me a check for $250. That was the moment I knew I was never going to work for anybody ever again, because I did not like not being in control of my own income, my own finances. I was gone within three months to start my first company.”

For 25-years Jim Kukral has been writing books (10), keynote speaking (150+), and building successful lifestyle businesses as a marketing entrepreneur. But the pandemic and a near-death diagnosis of colon cancer changed everything for Jim in 2020, so he threw away all his past success to start something completely different, a new brand called Life Apocalypse. As an almost fifty-year-old successful businessman, husband, and father of two, Jim realized that he needed to spend his remaining days on this planet helping people figure out how to live a life of significance, impact, and purpose.