Quentin Super

Quentin Super is an account manager at Catalyst Supply, and he writes articles about business owners and entrepreneurs that are designed to tell their stories in 5-7 minutes.

From Osseo, a suburb of Minneapolis, Super didn’t have to walk far to learn his ABCs. 

“My elementary school was literally across the street from my house,” says Super, who today is generously listed at 6-5 and 190 pounds on his driver’s license.

“I liked growing up in Osseo. It was very wholesome. Looking back, I was very shielded from a lot of reality because my life revolved around going to school every day, and then my dad came home from work at the same time each night, and everything was very systematized, very predictable,” he adds.

Put bluntly, Super’s childhood contained no real adversity. 

“The hardest part, that I can remember, was getting scared on the rare occasions that my parents got into an argument,” he recalls.

“So props to them because they really insulated me, without depriving me of the accountability and discipline that I think is lacking from a lot of parents today.”

As Super got older, his walk to school got longer as he made the trek each day to high school, located just past main street in Osseo, a town that has only 2,600 residents.

For Super, high school wasn’t easy, but it wasn’t hard.

At times, he felt invisible, unseen and devoid of the attention he would have liked to receive.

“Like a lot of kids, I thought I was going to play professional basketball. and then when I got cut junior year, it quickly became clear a dream like that was never going to come true,” Super says.

“Also would have liked to get some female attention, but that never materialized. The girls I liked probably didn’t even know my name, so my only real prospects were girls that most would not deem conventionally appealing.”

As far as education is concerned, Super admits he never saw himself accomplishing much, despite the fact that his parents constantly told him he would be going to college. 

“It’s interesting because I was actually rejected from the only state school that I applied for, and my dad pretty much said that I was going to go to North Hennepin [community college],” he describes.

“But North Hennepin wasn’t a place you wanted to go to. It was stale, boring, and the thought was that if you went there, it was because you couldn’t get in anywhere else, which in my case technically was true.”

Once at North Hennepin, Super was in college, but he believes that going there seemed like a continuation of high school.

For the next three years, Super toiled around, flunking math and science courses, but also discovering that he really liked film, especially because those classes were more abstract, with room for interpretation, and perhaps most crucially, easiest to obtain good grades in. 

His appreciation for the fine arts was so great that he ended up majoring in Film Studies at St. Cloud State after graduating from North Hennepin. 

“I definitely wouldn’t recommend that someone go get a film studies degree if they’re trying to stack cash post-graduation, but I was fortunate to not have to pay for school, and so I wasn’t going to school to get a job,” Super reveals. 

“I was going there to explore subjects I was interested in.”

As a Husky, Super watched movies and wrote papers during the week, and then on the weekends he would indulge in Grey Goose and swiping on Tinder.

“Degenerative behavior,” he bristles, “but my friends and I, we were just having a good time. It was mostly innocent fun, but I lost my way a little bit.”

Within two years, Super had earned his bachelor’s degree, but even then, he wasn’t quite ready to enter the real world, so he started working toward a master’s degree in English Studies.

“I thought that a master’s degree would be more marketable,” he lists as the reason for his extended stay on campus. 

It didn’t hurt that his closest friends were all still in school, giving him an opportunity to continue having fun while many of his peers had moved on to gainful employment.

A couple years later, Super had another degree, but still no real idea what he wanted to do, so he and a friend rode their bicycles out to New York City. 

“This wasn’t just on a whim though,” says Super, who two years earlier had ridden to Canada in the dead of winter during spring break.

“We had actually wanted to do this trip a year earlier, but I had other commitments that prevented me from doing so.”

The ride out east took seven weeks, and is well chronicled in The Long Road East, a memoir that casts Super not as a superior athlete pushing his physical limits, but in many ways as a lost and hurt individual struggling to reconcile what he wants out of life.

“I’ve written three books on my various adventures, or misadventures, depending on your perspective,” Super says with a laugh while talking into his phone, the meta nature of this article not lost on him.

Once the wheels stopped spinning on his bicycle, Super again was without a defined roadmap, so he got a job as a dishwasher at a Mongolian restaurant.

“Did that for about two months. Hated every second of it, except for the fact that there were cute servers there,” says Super, who quickly left the back of the restaurant and moved to the front, as a bartender, albeit at a different place.

“I was doing some ghostwriting for extra cash, and then I also got a second job bartending. I was staying busy. Paid off some credit card debt and began saving some money.”

His stint as a bartender didn’t last long either, as he quickly accepted a teaching position, in China of all places. 

“Lost my soul a little bit over there, but I had a damn good time doing it,” he notes of his time in Beijing, authenticity but not glamorization attached to his words. 

After a year abroad, he came back to the United States, landing in Florida.

“I was actually supposed to go back to China with a different company, but they asked me to come to Florida for a little bit to help with a project,” he says. 

At this point, details become less vivid, Super clearly uncomfortable with outlining his time in the sun.

All he would share was that period of his life was illuminating.

“It had to stop,” he says.

“It being the debauchery. I didn’t even want it to stop, but the universe ripped me away from what I thought I wanted, and looking back, I was extremely fortunate that happened.”

Adds Super, humbly:

“That was a period where I got a lot closer to my family and really matured. The reality was that I was out of control, not living with any sort of real purpose.”

His perspective altered, but his thirst for adventure unquenched, Super found himself in Bogota, Colombia, the long road leading him once again away from where he didn’t know he needed to be.

“Three months later, the pandemic happened, and I left South America and returned home, relatively broke, nowhere to live, but I was back in Minnesota,” he recalls.

“As soon as the plane landed, I felt a sense of relief. There is something about being close to family that just brings out the best in you.” 

Several weeks later, he landed a job at a media company that highlighted the various events in the roofing industry.

“Riveting, right?” Super quips.

“Why talk about anything else when you can talk about shingles?” he adds, facetiously. 

Gainfully employed and stable for the first time in a long time, Super spent the next eighteen months learning more about roofing and general construction before he was unceremoniously let go.

“It’s funny where life takes you because I never would have thought I would work in roofing, in any capacity, but I’m grateful for that job because it taught me about the industry, and that’s actually how I first learned about sales,” he explains. 

“I basically knew that if you treated people the right way, and acted with integrity, that you could make a lot of money selling roofs.” 

Finding a reputable company to work with was made easier by the fact that he had already learned which type of companies were good to work for.

“I mean, I didn’t go into roofing because I was fascinated with shingles,” he mentions, sardonically, but he did like sitting down with people and solving problems, which made for a nice segue into sales.

Initially, roofing sales was a grind.

“I was terrible,” he proudly admits.

“I essentially just went to people’s houses, smiled, and did my best to answer their questions. The problem with that though was I didn’t know much, and so I wasn’t able to actually offer guidance to anyone. Rather, I was simply giving them a price and then hoping they went with us.”

Super says it took a full year from being let go by the media company to earn enough money to feel financially secure again.

“I was walking around a lake by my apartment, and I remember being so happy because some of the commission checks from the roofs I sold had started to roll in, and that validated my decision to get into roofing sales,” Super says.

A surplus of time and capital at his disposal, that winter Super returned to Colombia. 

“I kept having this burning desire to get back out there, so my buddy and I went down to Medellin,” he says.

While there, Super and his friend were robbed at gunpoint up in the mountains on the outskirts of the city.

Of course, at that moment Super feared for his life, but soon after he quickly was able to downplay the incident.

“I don’t think the guy actually wanted to shoot us. I just think he wanted our money,” Super plainly states.

“He took my phone and some cash, but luckily my passport was back at the Airbnb. My buddy lost much more, materially, but I want to emphasize, especially in retrospect, that what happened down there was entirely avoidable.”

Stunned, I ask Super to clarify, to which he says:

“There was a review that said someone else had been robbed up there [on that mountain] about a month prior, but I disregarded the review because it was like, this can’t be real. You know how people will write fake reviews on Google? That’s what that reminded me of. Almost like, did the restaurant really serve you tomato soup that has ants in it, or did you just make this up because they wouldn’t comp your meal, you know?” 

His affinity for travel unblemished, a month later he was in Cancun, and the next winter, thanks to the benefits of roofing sales in Minnesota, he was down in Argentina, seeking camaraderie more than anything.

“I love speaking Spanish, but I also wanted to immerse myself in a culture beyond just renting an Airbnb and having casual conversations with locals when I go to a restaurant,” he says.

Courtesy of an old friend who lived in Argentina, Super was able to stay with him and his family, who immediately welcomed the Osseo native with open arms, and an open refrigerator.

“I drank so much Coke that my teeth started to hurt,” Super notes.

“That azucar excesivo [excessive sugar] label they have on the bottles down there is no joke.”

After two weeks with the host family, Super still struggled with the Argentinian accent, the neurons in his brain working overtime just to comprehend that particular Spanish dialect that circulated around the dinner table each night.

“I was then supposed to go back to Buenos Aires to meet up with my friend, but the day before his flight was slated to leave he contracted COVID and canceled his trip,” Super remarks.

The Airbnb in the capital city already paid for, Super left the comforts of rural Argentina and returned to the metropolis, only to find isolation and misery. 

“I’m sitting in this really nice condo, in a super developed part of the city, and I hated it because there’s only so much reading or writing I could do to fill the day before it was like, wow I’m bored,” he explains. 

“For those two weeks, I felt trapped. I’d walk around the city, try out various restaurants, pretty much do anything to pass the time, but it was terrible. In many ways, it was probably the longest two weeks of my life because I just wanted to go home and be part of something again.”

Logic would suggest that Super could have simply changed his flight and left sooner, but doing so would have required a level of maturity that, quite frankly, he didn’t have. 

“In hindsight, I think a lot of it was me deluding myself into thinking that I was happy traveling around the world as this lone wolf-type character,” he says, mentioning how various excursions across Asia and Europe were often done sans companionship. 

“But in Buenos Aires, it was the first time where I realized that eventually this Long Road bullshit has to end.”

Asked to elaborate further, Super draws comparisons between alcohol and fraternizing with women.

“That first Grey Goose Redbull, or that first time you find some success with women, it feels amazing. It’s a type of euphoria you never want to end,” Super explains. 

“But there always comes a point when the luster fades, to the extent that if you try to make the Grey Goose taste good, it won’t, and it will be excruciatingly painful to try to recapture that initial sensation because you’re in many ways fighting destiny, and you don’t ever want to deprive yourself of the life you’re supposed to live.” 

The next winter, Super and his brother went to Italy, the idea being to tap into their Italian ancestry while simultaneously growing closer as siblings. 

“It had been like five years since I was in Italy, and so we went, and there were moments where we had an absolute blast, but when we weren’t having a good time, I was painfully paranoid and anxious, because I’m in this foreign country, and I’m not really accomplishing anything,” Super details. 

“What it is, is I’m just trying to appeal to my ego. What I’m trying to do is convince myself that I’m doing something productive by leveraging my SkyMiles to become more cultured, but that’s not what’s happening at all.”

Adds Super:

“No, when I really think about it, I’m in Italy because I’m lonely. I want to meet a nice woman and start a family, but I can’t, so I fill the void by ordering gelato every night, eating pasta at a fancy hotel, and doing olive oil tastings in the countryside because I think it will validate my existence and make me more desirable as a life partner.”

Entering 2025, Super could hardly be faulted for thinking he would once again sell some roofs and then bolt out of the country as soon as the snow flied, but, as he would soon find out, facilitating roof replacements in 2025 would prove to be an arduous task. 

“It was a terrible year in roofing, and it really affected my confidence because I would look in the mirror every day and ask if I was doing something wrong,” he shares. 

“Professionally, I was depressed.”

Agonizing over his sales numbers notwithstanding, things actually began to come together for Super, romantically.

“Met a great girl, and since those are rare, I asked her to marry me,” he says with a chuckle.

By September, roofing sales had soured to the point where Super was let go, but it wasn’t long before he was interviewing with the owner of building materials company. 

“I had a two-hour meeting with the owner and felt really comfortable and confident that I could help the company,” Super says.

Switching from a B2C to a B2B sales position hasn’t been easy for Super, but he wouldn’t expect it to be either.

“I’m grateful for the opportunity to have a job where I’m constantly challenged to be better in all facets,” he says.

“I say that because I would hate to hate going to work, if that makes sense. Like, I couldn’t imagine driving in every morning and already knowing how things would go. I need the adversity that comes with B2B sales because I know that if it hurts, chances are I’m growing, and that’s all you can ask for from a job, besides a paycheck, obviously.”  

There is still so much to be done for Super, fatherhood on the horizon and myriad lessons that will undoubtedly test the resiliency of the former degenerate. 

That in and of itself is a gift. 

“I’m still only 33 years old, even though some days I feel like I’m creeping closer to 40 because I’ll strain a muscle playing pickleball or I’ll see a hardship and not recognize that how it’s going isn’t how it’s always going to be,” he says. 

“And the point there is that there is still a lot of life left to live. A lot of highs and lows to experience.”

Adds Super: 

“Parenthood is going to challenge me in ways that I can’t even imagine, but with that will come growth, and hopefully the opportunity to continue to learn and impact people in a meaningful way.” QS

**

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