Mental gears spinning

So, there I was, armed with some interesting knowledge from my first business adventure. My mind is spinning with all sorts of new ideas and things I wanted to try. Just one problem. I am 20 and broke. The phrase, "shoe-string-budget" came up a lot. I brainstormed with a friend of mine and my mother and my first personally driven business was born. We created Marooned Shirts. Yep, you guessed it, a T-shirt business. We had a great setup too. There were 3 partners in this business. My friend who was the main artist, my mother who was and still is very good at book-keeping, and myself who handled a lot of the "running the businesss" type stuff. I managed the licenses, made contacts, hooked up deals, found the vendors... all that stuff. It was working out well. I learned a number of things while in our short lived shirt bizz. Among those things were, how to deal with vendors, how to analyze your business strategy, the basics of dealing with other people who are in business. Our business failed, which you will find is not actually such a bad thing. There was a bad step in our process. Because we were operating on a very small and limited budget, we couldn't mass produce our shirts which means we could not take advantage of the cost breaks for purchasing larger volume. There are many businesses out there that do really large volume in sales and make pennies on the dollar, but they make a whole lot of pennies which is why it is worth it. A small operation like we had depended on cutting costs where ever we could. Because of the type of art we put on our shirts, we had to pay for an extra step in order to get the pictures from the drawing board to the screen printer so the image quality was kept in tact. this plus other minor obstacles basically caused us to break even at best. Each of us had jobs, so we could not spend a lot of time showing our wares to vendors who would sell T-shirts. In all, it was a great learning experience. You should always try to pull out the things you have learned from your past experiences. The key is not only to try your hand in business, but to pay attention and grow from the experience regardless of win or lose. Because I tried my hand at the little shirt business and subsequently closed shop, I was much better than the average fellow who just plugs along day in day out at his job. Now with more tricks in my bag and a bigger business brain I was ready to move into the next adventure. More to come.

Education can be key

I am reminded, as I stroll through the local Barnes&Noble, that educating yourself is one of those valuable tools I eluded to in my last post. It is a fact that rings true in almost every aspect of our lives, especially in business. It is one of the biggest reasons you hear stories about the millionaires who never finished high school. Now, I am in no way promoting anyone to drop out of school. I just want to illustrate the difference between school and education. Just because a person went to school does not mean they are educated in a way that will make him or her financially successful. It is the content of the education that makes the difference. There are many books written on the topic of finance and business. Many can be found free in the library. If you are just starting out, it will do you well to start reading up on the thing you are after. Until next post...

In the beginning, there was light.... bulb.

My very first introduction into the world of independant financial success was AMWAY. Don't worry... I'm not going try to convert you. Hahaha. I was in AMWAY for about a year. I learned a lot of things, but found that it really wasn't my cup of tea. I'm not saying they are a good or a bad company. I was just not able to get with the program and I didn't feel comfortable with their ways. Now, a lot of regular-Joe type people have become millionaires in that business. It is a huge business. In my opinion, it is one of the biggest reasons people are scared away by network marketers even if the network marketer is not selling AMWAY. If I'm not mistaken, the tools and tactics used by many network marketing companies were largely pioneered by AMWAY.

I mentioned before that I learned a lot of things from being in AMWAY. Many of those things are not AMWAY specific. They are the basis for most businesses and for most people who are successful in business. After I quit AMWAY, those things that I learned stuck with me and reverberated in my head. The one thing that stood out from the others was, "You will never get rich working for someone else". I'm sure you have heard that many times. If this is somehow the first time you have read it, be sure to burn it into your head because it is true. We are taught to be poor and broke from day one. This thought was my lightbulb. It started my gears spinning and lead me to many more interesting things that successful people know and live by. To be in business for yourself is to set yourself free. Now, of course, you and I both know that is easier said than done. Some of the pains of that part of my journey will be unfolded as I continue to blog, but I wanted the main message of this post to be that you will never be free working for someone else. I don't care what the salary is. The even sadder truth is that it is harder for someone making a lot of money working for someone else to break free. People who are poor and broke and desparate are more willing to take a chance and try something new especially if it has the slightest notion of getting them to a better place in life. When a person is doing pretty good or is living among the wealthiest of the middle-class, it is very very hard to take a chance. This has been one of my own biggest hurdles. I started what has now turned out to be my life's carreer so far at age 20. Much valuable time has been lost on being too comfortable to take a chance. Try to always keep in mind what is truly valuable in your life and it will make it easier to take those chances and not waste time.

until the next post...

The Journey Begins...

And so, here begins a journey. I will be posting various types of things here. I want to try to outline and describe what I have learned and experienced on my way towards achieving some sort of financial success. On the way I am sure other topics will arise. I will also be sharing some of the opportunities I have taken part in. My big goal is to hopefully leave a path that others can learn from and benefit from.

With that, I will just say, stay tuned. There is more to come and if you have any questions or want to run something by me, please feel free to leave a comment and I will try my best to respond to you as soon as possible.