Admittedly, I spent 7 years in college simply for the chicks.
I got a degree that I didn't believe in and had no clue about what I was going to do with it.
I had shit jobs after college. The first one I recall well. $8 per hour doing help support for a call center. The kind of call center that you THINK is the official company support, but rather farmed out to a warehouse of college kids who literally read the manual while they answer your questions.
Then there was the sales job where I sold high-end networking hardware. I dealt with a 25 year old boss that would fake-golf while talking to you. What the hell is up with that? I hated that they posted our sales numbers. I hated the people that I worked with. I hated my life.
I had no prospects and was on the path to 30 years of mediocrity.
Somewhere in the middle of this I went out to have a beer with my current roommate.
And I met a guy he used to go to high school with. He was enjoying a beer with his laptop and we struck up a conversation. He worked from home and created a little book teaching people how to generate leads for their businesses. He sold the book online.
I recall vividly when he leaned forward and showed me the screen. As we were talking he was making sales for this book. 30 bucks a pop. The list scrolled down the screen. He was pulling in something like $1000 per day at the time. (Now he owns an empire online and is truly self made crazy wealthy.)
I sat back with my head swimming. Making money while you sleep, eat, drink. It blew my mind. I befriended this guy asap and hung out with him a few months.
His views on money and life were new to me. I met others like him. The silently rich folks who sold stuff online. And the people that helped the cogs flow smoothly. Webmasters, copywriters, etc.
I quickly began reading the books they recommended to me on marketing, copywriting and personal development. I started playing with my own ideas. Writing sales letters and testing them online. I got good results.
At this same time I took the networking aspect of this new life just as seriously. I met others and rubbed elbows. I quickly learned to close my jaw when they would mention things like making $50,000 in one day.
Through my networking and quest for new knowledge I got a job working for a prominent direct response marketer in Austin. One of the best copywriters in the country. I was underpaid and I was drawn and quartered with to-do's.
But I saw the innerworkings of his business. His model for success. His patterns of thought. I worked for him for 2 years. It was like school. But this time it felt real.
I digested his copywriting. His emails to his prospects. I got to spend his money testing various sources of online traffic. I met other gurus through him. I would sit in on lunches with them and hold my own conversationally while they casually talked about things that I would have never dreamed possible a few years ago.
Now I sit here in my room, working from home. I have just acquired a new client totaling 3 for me. What is now simple marketing common sense to me, I am getting paid to show others. They are happy to have me. Thrilled. One client calls me a rainmaker. I have a long way to go to a life of passive income, but today I am proud of myself enough to write this blog.
I think about how that moment of going out with my friend altered my entire life for the better. I never had an answer for those kind of questions before. But that night is clearly one of those moments that sent things off in a completely new direction.
The only other time I can think of is right around the same time when I realized that music was something I was completely ignoring and put a craigslist ad for the band. The very first post of this blog was right around that time actually. Ive come a long way in 3 years. Looking forward to more years of surprises and twists. (mostly good I hope!)
