A millionaire went homeless to prove he could make $1M in a year. He lasted 10 months.

In July 2020, entrepreneur Michael Black (known online as @mikeblack) made a radical decision. To prove that success is about mindset rather than resources, he voluntarily drained his bank accounts, gave up his apartment, and walked onto the streets with nothing but the clothes on his back.

His goal was audacious: launch a business from scratch and generate $1 million in revenue within 12 months.

He called it the "Million Dollar Comeback." However, with just two months left on the clock, the experiment came to a sudden, painful halt.

Black's motivation came from a place of empathy. During the height of the pandemic, he watched friends lose successful businesses overnight.

"I knew a lot of people who lost everything during the pandemic and they got really depressed," he explained in a Nas Daily video. He wanted to document a blueprint for resilience, proving that it was possible to bounce back from absolute rock bottom.

The beginning was brutal. He faced immediate homelessness, relying on the kindness of a stranger who let him sleep in an RV. He slowly clawed his way up, selling free furniture on Craigslist to generate seed money. By day five, he had bought a computer. Within two weeks, he had secured office space.

But while his business acumen was sharp, his body was breaking down.

Four months into the challenge, tragedy struck. Black’s father was diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer. The emotional toll of managing his father's chemotherapy while trying to survive on the streets (or close to it) began to mount.

Simultaneously, Black’s own health collapsed. Viewers of his YouTube series didn't know that between his hustle-focused uploads, he was secretly visiting doctors. He was eventually diagnosed with two autoimmune diseases that caused chronic fatigue and excruciating joint pain.

In a somber 2021 update, Black announced he was pulling the plug.

"I have officially decided to end the project early," he told his followers. "Now, as much as it hurts me to do this, especially with just two months left, I feel like it's the right thing to do."

By the time he quit, Black hadn't made a million dollars, but he hadn't failed completely, either. Starting from zero, he had generated $64,000 in revenue—a respectable salary for ten months of work, though far short of his seven-figure goal.

Ultimately, the experiment taught a lesson different from the one he intended. He set out to prove that "hustle" conquers all, but he learned that health and family are the ultimate non-negotiables.

"We have been through a lot together," Black said in his farewell to the project. "We walked miles together and spent late nights in the office... [but] health and family come first."

This article originally appeared last year.