Done lurking...

[Roger FS]

My Intro: (unabridged...apologies for the length)

Just over a month ago I purchased the Audible/Kindle of Unscripted , and was blown away. Within a couple weeks I purchased the Audible/Kindle of TMF . I wish I'd come across TMF long ago, but no dwelling/regrets, now is the time for action. I've listened to both at least 4 times, currently listen almost 2X speed because the material is familiar. That said, even after multiple listenings, I still have "ah-hah" moments, because of other material I'm also studying, and with my FL reprogramming...but getting ahead of myself.

I'm 54 yrs old, was a typical slowlaner until late 2011. Wife & 2 younger children, home schooling. Was making good money in a tech job, was laid off in 2011, right when our younger daughter started showing bad symptoms of a chronic disease. I didn't like what I was doing anyway for work, came across an "entrepreneur" venture doing a type of swing trading with your own monies. This allowed time to try to help use natural methods to try to get our daughter's disease stabilized (unfortunately, a non-pharmacological approach hasn't worked over the years.)

The company teaching the swing trading methods doesn't recommend doing the trading full-time for income until you prove your ability to profit consistently. I considered myself above that (BIG MISTAKE), jumped into it full bore, took virtually all the expensive training I could while whittling away life savings. "Operational Excellence" was surely was lacking, as well as sound financial planning.

When I ran out of funds and then some (maxing out credit), stopped trading & did paper routes while I confirmed that those with my specific IT skill set generally had positions outsourced overseas. Depression. Bankruptcy. Managed to keep our home. For the last 2 yrs, I've been working at a low-pay hourly job (I'd call it "blue-collar technical") that pays about 30% of what I was making before, but often with optional OT. A few times I was virtually doubling my income; yes, selling my most precious commodity, time, for a few OT hours.

In April 2018 I had my right kidney removed with a small football sized mass; kidney cancer, 21cm long. It was discovered because I was severely anemic due to the renal cell carcinoma. It explained my chronic fatigue in recent years (estimated the tumor was 2+ yrs in growing.) I am tall, not overweight, but somehow it went undetected; apparently most kidney cancer is discovered by accident, often too late therefore. Fortunately mine was almost entirely self-contained, praise God, except for a tiny bit that therefore raised my rating to a strong stage 3 kidney cancer.

When OT ended at my job beginning of August, I had my FTE, and decided to pursue entrepreneurship again, continuing to work in the interim. My (non-OT) job doesn't quite cover the monthly bills, but we have enough in savings to cover, and it's keeping my family from being homeless. But a huge plus with my work: most of the time I can listen to audio books, and more recently, have Udemy courses playing on my phone on my desk. Getting paid for an education! I am feeling physically better than I have in years, and looking forward to the PROCESS of entrepreneurship. Interestingly, the company I work at is the fruit of entrepreneurship: founded in the owner's garage in 2005, in 11 years reached 100 employees/$30 million in sales. Who knows, maybe the owner could be one of my early financial backers...hmmm.

There's zero chance this is a fake FTE - I don't have time for fakery. Even though all the cancer was surgically removed, statistically based on my cancer staging, I have a better than 50% chance of recurrence and death within the next 5yrs. I'm fighting the odds as best as I can. I'm working out consistently, taking a boatload of appropriate supplements/ neutraceuticals , a general low carb diet, etc, and am very optimistic about the future. Just had my quarterly CT scan on Monday, will be given the results this coming Monday (to watch for cancer recurrence), optimistic it's still clear based on the CT tech's attitude.

My goal is to create a financial legacy for my family...and not just life insurance. And to enjoy the fruits of my success as well.

I have reading the forum infrequently, but will increase now that I just upgraded to INSIDERS. I bought lots of Udemy courses on sale relating to many facets of entrepreneurship (...unfortunately a few too many about Amazon FBA ... one early consideration...less likely now.) No clear business idea yet, but tilling the soil, in full-tilt self-education mode, looking forward to adding value with my next business venture, as well as adding value to this wonderful forum.

 

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[MJ DeMarco]

Incredible introduction and thank you for sharing your struggle.

I am feeling physically better than I have in years

So good to hear this. I wish you continued improvement in health my friend.

Welcome aboard.

 

[Roger FS]

My Intro: (unabridged...apologies for the length)

Just over a month ago I purchased the Audible/Kindle of Unscripted , and was blown away. Within a couple weeks I purchased the Audible/Kindle of TMF . I wish I'd come across TMF long ago, but no dwelling/regrets, now is the time for action. I've listened to both at least 4 times, currently listen almost 2X speed because the material is familiar. That said, even after multiple listenings, I still have "ah-hah" moments, because of other material I'm also studying, and with my FL reprogramming...but getting ahead of myself.

I'm 54 yrs old, was a typical slowlaner until late 2011. Wife & 2 younger children, home schooling. Was making good money in a tech job, was laid off in 2011, right when our younger daughter started showing bad symptoms of a chronic disease. I didn't like what I was doing anyway for work, came across an "entrepreneur" venture doing a type of swing trading with your own monies. This allowed time to try to help use natural methods to try to get our daughter's disease stabilized (unfortunately, a non-pharmacological approach hasn't worked over the years.)

The company teaching the swing trading methods doesn't recommend doing the trading full-time for income until you prove your ability to profit consistently. I considered myself above that (BIG MISTAKE), jumped into it full bore, took virtually all the expensive training I could while whittling away life savings. "Operational Excellence" was surely was lacking, as well as sound financial planning.

When I ran out of funds and then some (maxing out credit), stopped trading & did paper routes while I confirmed that those with my specific IT skill set generally had positions outsourced overseas. Depression. Bankruptcy. Managed to keep our home. For the last 2 yrs, I've been working at a low-pay hourly job (I'd call it "blue-collar technical") that pays about 30% of what I was making before, but often with optional OT. A few times I was virtually doubling my income; yes, selling my most precious commodity, time, for a few OT hours.

In April 2018 I had my right kidney removed with a small football sized mass; kidney cancer, 21cm long. It was discovered because I was severely anemic due to the renal cell carcinoma. It explained my chronic fatigue in recent years (estimated the tumor was 2+ yrs in growing.) I am tall, not overweight, but somehow it went undetected; apparently most kidney cancer is discovered by accident, often too late therefore. Fortunately mine was almost entirely self-contained, praise God, except for a tiny bit that therefore raised my rating to a strong stage 3 kidney cancer.

When OT ended at my job beginning of August, I had my FTE, and decided to pursue entrepreneurship again, continuing to work in the interim. My (non-OT) job doesn't quite cover the monthly bills, but we have enough in savings to cover, and it's keeping my family from being homeless. But a huge plus with my work: most of the time I can listen to audio books, and more recently, have Udemy courses playing on my phone on my desk. Getting paid for an education! I am feeling physically better than I have in years, and looking forward to the PROCESS of entrepreneurship. Interestingly, the company I work at is the fruit of entrepreneurship: founded in the owner's garage in 2005, in 11 years reached 100 employees/$30 million in sales. Who knows, maybe the owner could be one of my early financial backers...hmmm.

There's zero chance this is a fake FTE - I don't have time for fakery. Even though all the cancer was surgically removed, statistically based on my cancer staging, I have a better than 50% chance of recurrence and death within the next 5yrs. I'm fighting the odds as best as I can. I'm working out consistently, taking a boatload of appropriate supplements/ neutraceuticals , a general low carb diet, etc, and am very optimistic about the future. Just had my quarterly CT scan on Monday, will be given the results this coming Monday (to watch for cancer recurrence), optimistic it's still clear based on the CT tech's attitude.

My goal is to create a financial legacy for my family...and not just life insurance. And to enjoy the fruits of my success as well.

I have reading the forum infrequently, but will increase now that I just upgraded to INSIDERS. I bought lots of Udemy courses on sale relating to many facets of entrepreneurship (...unfortunately a few too many about Amazon FBA ... one early consideration...less likely now.) No clear business idea yet, but tilling the soil, in full-tilt self-education mode, looking forward to adding value with my next business venture, as well as adding value to this wonderful forum.

My Intro: (unabridged...apologies for the length)

Just over a month ago I purchased the Audible/Kindle of Unscripted , and was blown away. Within a couple weeks I purchased the Audible/Kindle of TMF. I wish I'd come across TMF long ago, but no dwelling/regrets, now is the time for action. I've listened to both at least 4 times, currently listen almost 2X speed because the material is familiar. That said, even after multiple listenings, I still have "ah-hah" moments, because of other material I'm also studying, and with my FL reprogramming...but getting ahead of myself.

I'm 54 yrs old, was a typical slowlaner until late 2011. Wife & 2 younger children, home schooling. Was making good money in a tech job, was laid off in 2011, right when our younger daughter started showing bad symptoms of a chronic disease. I didn't like what I was doing anyway for work, came across an "entrepreneur" venture doing a type of swing trading with your own monies. This allowed time to try to help use natural methods to try to get our daughter's disease stabilized (unfortunately, a non-pharmacological approach hasn't worked over the years.)

The company teaching the swing trading methods doesn't recommend doing the trading full-time for income until you prove your ability to profit consistently. I considered myself above that (BIG MISTAKE), jumped into it full bore, took virtually all the expensive training I could while whittling away life savings. "Operational Excellence" was surely was lacking, as well as sound financial planning.

When I ran out of funds and then some (maxing out credit), stopped trading & did paper routes while I confirmed that those with my specific IT skill set generally had positions outsourced overseas. Depression. Bankruptcy. Managed to keep our home. For the last 2 yrs, I've been working at a low-pay hourly job (I'd call it "blue-collar technical") that pays about 30% of what I was making before, but often with optional OT. A few times I was virtually doubling my income; yes, selling my most precious commodity, time, for a few OT hours.

In April 2018 I had my right kidney removed with a small football sized mass; kidney cancer, 21cm long. It was discovered because I was severely anemic due to the renal cell carcinoma. It explained my chronic fatigue in recent years (estimated the tumor was 2+ yrs in growing.) I am tall, not overweight, but somehow it went undetected; apparently most kidney cancer is discovered by accident, often too late therefore. Fortunately mine was almost entirely self-contained, praise God, except for a tiny bit that therefore raised my rating to a strong stage 3 kidney cancer.

When OT ended at my job beginning of August, I had my FTE, and decided to pursue entrepreneurship again, continuing to work in the interim. My (non-OT) job doesn't quite cover the monthly bills, but we have enough in savings to cover, and it's keeping my family from being homeless. But a huge plus with my work: most of the time I can listen to audio books, and more recently, have Udemy courses playing on my phone on my desk. Getting paid for an education! I am feeling physically better than I have in years, and looking forward to the PROCESS of entrepreneurship. Interestingly, the company I work at is the fruit of entrepreneurship: founded in the owner's garage in 2005, in 11 years reached 100 employees/$30 million in sales. Who knows, maybe the owner could be one of my early financial backers...hmmm.

There's zero chance this is a fake FTE - I don't have time for fakery. Even though all the cancer was surgically removed, statistically based on my cancer staging, I have a better than 50% chance of recurrence and death within the next 5yrs. I'm fighting the odds as best as I can. I'm working out consistently, taking a boatload of appropriate supplements/ neutraceuticals , a general low carb diet, etc, and am very optimistic about the future. Just had my quarterly CT scan on Monday, will be given the results this coming Monday (to watch for cancer recurrence), optimistic it's still clear based on the CT tech's attitude.

My goal is to create a financial legacy for my family...and not just life insurance. And to enjoy the fruits of my success as well.

I have reading the forum infrequently, but will increase now that I just upgraded to INSIDERS. I bought lots of Udemy courses on sale relating to many facets of entrepreneurship (...unfortunately a few too many about Amazon FBA ... one early consideration...less likely now.) No clear business idea yet, but tilling the soil, in full-tilt self-education mode, looking forward to adding value with my next business venture, as well as adding value to this wonderful forum.

UPDATE 11/7/19: I decided spring of 2019 to pursue one of the statistically worst paid professions: authorpreneurship. Like with sports, everyone is familiar with the big names (Stephen King, etc), but on average, writing is one of the worst paid professions. That said, like any entrepreneurial venture, you can't go into it half-cocked. I'm pursuing fiction writing, when I hadn't been reading much fiction in recent years. A recipe for failure, since two recurring writing maxims are "Read a lot. Write a lot." Nobody is successful writing in a fiction genre they don't regularly read. My problem is reading makes me tired - actually, most non-activities have always made me groggy. A big plus - most of the time I can listen to audio books while working. I'm used to listening to audio books at 1.5-2X, depending on the narration (some female narrators take on too much of an Alvin the Chipmunk quality even at 1.5X.) Our local county library system (MPLS area) has an endless supply of audio fiction that can be checked out online, so I try to listen to 2-3 fiction books per week. At other times, I listen to books on writing craft.
For those in the writing world, November is NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writers Month), when you aim for writing 50K words of a first draft novel. That averages to 1667 words/day. Today is day 7, and I'm on track, have just short of 12K words written. I spent weeks in October thinking and doing some rough planning & scene brainstorming, less completed than I had hoped, but enough to keep the keyboard active each morning before work, starting shortly after 4AM. My words per hour is pretty pathetic, but will improve over time. My first novel will be a thriller, with some aspects of my time in IT support as a basis for the main thread. "Write what you know" is by no means a fiction requirement, but for my first novel it seemed to help cut down on research. Baby steps, but getting a first draft done will be a huge milestone. Then working through the editing process on a non-existent budget will be interesting, but not insurmountable. There's plenty of self-editing before it will be ready for anyone else's eyes, all part of the process. Listening repeatedly to books on fiction craft while going through this process is helpful beyond measure, and I feel confident it will help me improve quicker.
It remains to be seen if my first book will be of publishable quality, even though posting on Kindle is essentially free (not including costs for book cover, etc.) I'll certainly be making use of pseudonyms for a while until I feel comfortable with the work produced.
There's the old-school camp of authors that tout that fiction writing cannot be learned. There are also plenty of very successful self-taught authors who refute that, and even teach the craft themselves. James Scott Bell is in this second camp; I highly recommend his course as a good overview of the craft of writing commercial fiction (1 Audible credit, comes with a sizeable pdf.) Amazon.com: How to Write Best-Selling Fiction (Audible Audio Edition): James Scott Bell, The Great Courses: Audible Audiobooks I listen to this course (about 6hrs at 2X speed) at least once or twice per week lately. I have dozens of audio books on writing craft, rotate through them with some regularity. Have plenty of kindle and hardcopy as well.

No quitting the day job anytime soon. The health insurance benefits needed for our daughter are significant, but at least I'm able to do a lot of self-teaching while on the job.

Just wanted to give a quick update, before dropping off the radar for the foreseeable future...there's stories to be written!

 

[MJ DeMarco]

Thanks for the update, lots of fiction authors here at Fastlane, and many with great success. Unfortunately some of them have reported (after many years at the lathe) that it can turn into a grind, a churn and burn. Let us know when you get that first novel!

 

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