The American Dream, that idea of upward mobility, has survived some of the most turbulent times in world history and is still around today. According to a YouGov poll, only nine percent of Americans would say they don’t believe in the American Dream. The remaining 91% do, even though just slightly more than half of the people polled, some 54%, believe that their version of the American Dream is attainable. And if asked, Paul Alex would say he falls with the believing bunch, having attained his.
“My parents were immigrants, and my mom’s American Dream was for her kids to finish college, get a good job, buy a house, start a family, and go to their nine-to-five,” Paul Alex says. “That wasn’t my American Dream. I wanted to travel the world, live in different cities, and have enough income where I don’t have to worry about finances.”
Today, Paul Alex is the CEO and founder of ATMTogether.com, a company that provides services to ATM investors who want their machines to be a passive income source. Paul Alex started his first “real” job in corporate America a couple of days before he turned 21. He’s worked before that, too – he was reselling toys as a kid, had summer jobs as a teenager, a part-time job while in high school, and even worked as a nightclub promoter before he was 21 years old. Even though he’d be the first to admit he didn’t have much direction, his passion for achievement and positive outlook on life was evident from the start.
The serious corporate job showed him the power of having full benefits, an opportunity to grow his income, and the beauty of traveling. “Growing up, my parents did not have the finances to take us on vacation; we come from humble beginnings,” he recalls. “So being shipped out for training to different states and cities, Chicago, St. Paul, Minnesota, Florida, I got to experience what it was like to be outside California.”
His next big career move was a shift that’s not a common path for most people. After two promotions, he decided to give up chasing sales and dealing with customer issues and become a police officer. During his duty, Paul Alex learned some of the most important lessons about life and himself. He found serving the communities where he worked an honorable calling. Making sure the serious violent criminal offenders end up in jail and areas become safer for residents felt good. Then again, so did getting promoted, moving on to more exciting and dangerous assignments, and eventually getting better pay.
Even though his day job was filled with adrenaline-pumping moments and financially rewarding due to the sheer amount of work and time he invested in it, Paul Alex’s ambition guided his entrepreneurial spirit. He was a detective with a passive income stream from owning automated teller machines (ATMs), learning new skills like digital marketing, and finding ways to implement them. When he decided to leave the police force, he was already into digital marketing and on his way to starting ATMTogether.com.
Now, having a successful company on track to becoming an eight-figure business within the first two years, Paul Alex can say he has achieved his vision of the American Dream. He doesn’t have to worry about finances, and he can live the lifestyle of a digital nomad – work and live anywhere he likes. Even though he’s had a unique professional journey, one ripe for a Netflix treatment, Paul Alex’s work on achieving his version of the American Dream was coincidental.
Corporate Sales, Police Investigations, Full-time Entrepreneurship – Paul Alex Shares How to Succeed in any Profession
Based on his biography, there are two things one could say about Paul Alex with complete certainty. The first is that his current career as Founder and CEO of ATMTogether.com isn’t his last. The second is that whatever he chooses to do next, he’ll excel at it.
Paul Alex has made more drastic career changes by his mid-thirties than most people make in their lifetime. Starting with summer jobs as a kid, he had a stint as a nightclub promoter, a chemical product sales manager for a Fortune 500 company, a part of being an award-winning Investigator in law enforcement, an ATM business owner, and finally, the CEO of ATMTogether.com.
In each of his careers, Paul Alex hit all the milestones of success. He delivered results, earned promotions, and got into the most enjoyable places his career could take him to.
Even though his career choices were so contrasting, he found a couple of traits and strategies that helped him through his endeavors. It starts with having the right mindset.
“I’ve always had a positive and goal-oriented mindset,” Paul Alex says. “I successfully transitioned from sales to law enforcement and from there to full-time entrepreneurship, and it’s been one of the greatest contributing factors to any success I’ve had.”
When he was working in sales, his positivity and drive helped him achieve the metrics that saw him advance in his work. The same carried over to his police work. The metrics might have changed, but Paul Alex’s sense of drive didn’t.
He chose to serve in Oakland, a city with one of the highest crime rates in California and the United States. He worked 60+ hour weeks, joined various task forces, and advanced his career to become a detective.
Once he decided he needed more financial freedom, he used the same drive to pivot into ATM ownership, digital marketing, and entrepreneurship. His road would have been much harder to achieve if Paul Alex didn’t have transferable skills that saw him through all these changes.
Knowing how to communicate well helps salespeople, police officers, and entrepreneurs. Remembering faces is excellent for networking and for recognizing people from wanted posters. Police reports and AD marketing copy might not look the same, but writing quickly and concisely is crucial for both.
While his mindset and skills saw him through it all, Paul Alex is the first to admit he’s had some help along the way.
“Growing up, I didn’t have a mentor to teach me entrepreneurship, with my family being in the medical field, so I had to learn things on my own,” Paul Alex says. “But then, when I got into my first specialized investigation unit as a Detective in Oakland, I had great mentors. And then, when I found interest in ATMs, I hired a business mentor to show me the ropes of growing the business.”
Paul Alex’s mission wasn’t to reinvent the wheel; it was to make sure to get the most significant impact for his effort, measured in sales for corporate America, arrests in law enforcement, or money he earned from his ATMs. He’d eventually take on the mentor role, helping other people achieve their goals of passive income and financial freedom. The major success witnessed with ATMTogether.com is all the proof that people can move mountains with a couple of pointers, some skills, and the right mindset.
Members of the editorial and news staff of the Daily Caller were not involved in the creation of this content.