Buy Back Your Time – Dan Martell

INTRODUCTION

How Business Saved My Life (Then Almost Ruined It)
I STARED AT THE GUN
in my duffel bag.

If I just point it at these cops, they’ll end my miserable life for me.
Wiping the sweat from my eyes, I peered into the rearview mirror. Two
armed police officers were racing toward my car. I’d just led them on a
high-speed chase and crashed into the side of a house. They’d finally caught
up and had every reason to fire on sight. It was game over.

Hopelessness flooded me. Memories of a lifetime of troubled antics.
Shoplifting in grade school. Stints in group homes in middle school. Getting
booted from high school.

When my mom found drugs, money, and stolen guns at our house, she’d
finally had enough and called the cops. But my brother Pierre tipped me off,
so instead of waiting around to get arrested, I took the $63 he offered and
went on the run, hiding in hunting camps and crashing on friends’ couches.
Finally, after weeks of trying to stay one step ahead of the police, I decided
to leave my small Canadian town of Moncton, New Brunswick, and head to
Montreal, where my uncle lived.

I stole a car and left town—but I didn’t get far. I was on the road only a
short time when I hit a random roadblock. Feeding the cops a bogus story
about forgetting my driver’s license, as soon as they turned their backs to
look up my info in their computer, I gunned the engine and sped away.
The next few minutes were like a car chase out of a movie: slamming
the accelerator, pounding the horn, weaving in and out of traffic—before
finally crashing into the side of a house.

That’s when I reached for the gun.