This podcast contains descriptions of violence and harsh language.

Listener discretion is advised. The bench. little picture. I was really trying to make something of myself.

I didn't really have what everyone. I was really trying to make something of myself.

I didn't really have what everybody else had.

You tend to think that other people's lives are better than yours,

and everybody goes through their struggles.

And you tend to think that your struggle is the only struggle

that's really there.

This is Colin Thomas. He was born in Ridgewood, New Jersey, and had kind of a tough go of things. His father died when he was 13, and after that his mother and stepfather moved the family a lot.

New Jersey, New York, Texas, back to the northeast.

Constant change.

For a teenager still mourning his father.

It took a toll.

There were moments when they had thoughts of suicide.

Because it was hard. You know, I didn't get the best grades in high school.

I did a little bit of college, but as we come to find out nowadays, college isn't

for everybody. He was in his early 20s and like so many at that age.

Colin didn't really know what he wanted to do with his life.

I don't want to say I was completely aimless but I didn't really have like a coherent strategy. I didn't have that. The

strategy was bad. I really wanted to strike on my own path, be the entrepreneur. I

wanted the life that everybody wanted because I didn't have it.

And I didn't have a car at the time either.

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