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It Is Clear Now

<john>

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Greetings from CT, United States.

I listened to both audiobooks (TMF & Unscripted ) last year. Those books resonated with me so strongly in fact, I kept annoying my wife rewinding and playing back parts and then telling her why that particular excerpt was so important! I’ve never been “normal” and finding myself trapped in a regular job teaching at a public school has never been a proper fit.

Having a 20-year inside view of public school I have come to the conclusion that public schools are bloated government entities mostly filled with fools that think money grows on trees, all corporations are evil and the government should keep growing and subsidize everything. I cannot stand it. I’ve been trying to “get out” of my teaching job for over a decade, but it’s been difficult to build a business that replaces both my salary and healthcare benefits.

Because I went to school to study Art and I came from a very negative family I can look back now and see how my mindset was all wrong when it came to building businesses. I’ve had numerous failed attempts, mostly due to the wrong markets/niches not a lack of effort on my part. This is what I loved so much about TMF … MJ calls BS on all that “follow your passion” nonsense that was pervasive in my mindset for a long time.

So in short I’ve had many side-hustles that didn’t prosper. They ranged from a brick & mortar art studio to website developer, blogger and everything in between. I can see now that they didn’t meet the C.E.N.T.S. model of course. I wish I read this book 15 years ago;) I actually do regularly sell paintings for surprising amounts of money (thousands each) but I’m always trading time for money and it’s hard to scale so it’s more like an incredibly lucrative hobby.

I’m super grateful for all the skills I’ve picked up along the way through all my failures: computer programming/full-stack dev, SEO, email-marketing, graphic design, videography, copywriting, marketing, etc. but really wish I knew 20 years ago what I know now: if it cannot be scaled or automated to some degree it’s not worth pursuing as a business.

In summary you can describe me as having an introverted, engineer’s brain stuck in an artist’s body with digital marketing skills in search of an automated business.

Thanks for reading.
 
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MJ DeMarco

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Welcome John! Congrats on the painting hustle, selling something you creatively birthed for thousands is impressive.
 

AmazingLarry

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Welcome from one CT resident to another!

Awesome that you can sell your art for that much. What kind of paintings do you do?

My wife is a teacher in CT as well (inner city), and I don't blame you for wanting to get out haha. The amount of incompetence and bureaucracy in her districts education system is insane, as well as the teachers who think it's their job to tell kids what to think and not how to think. She loves helping the kids, but dealing with all the other garbage and drama is just draining. I've been trying to help her come up with something she could do education related that helps kids, but that is scalable and under her control.

Best of luck!
 

Saavedra

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Welcome John

Sounds like you could switch jobs pretty easily to something other than teaching with the right portfolio.
 
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<john>

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Welcome from one CT resident to another!

Awesome that you can sell your art for that much. What kind of paintings do you do?

My wife is a teacher in CT as well (inner city), and I don't blame you for wanting to get out haha. The amount of incompetence and bureaucracy in her districts education system is insane, as well as the teachers who think it's their job to tell kids what to think and not how to think. She loves helping the kids, but dealing with all the other garbage and drama is just draining. I've been trying to help her come up with something she could do education related that helps kids, but that is scalable and under her control.

Best of luck!

Yep, school is 95% a waste of time and resources @MTBnamja . I'm the highest paid babysitter in the country. Since you asked, I make paintings in the "classic realism" niche. I'm not going to share my work or links here because the risk/reward ratio doesn't benefit me at all as I have a high enough public profile and I doubt anybody here would drop $10,000 on a single work of art. (I'll send you pm or whatever it's called in this forum @MTBnamja to satisfy your curiosity ) Until you've been punched in the face and sued it's hard to grasp how greedy and unscrupulous people can be. (I've had both happen but fortunately not at the same time)

Thank you @MJ DeMarco it's refreshing to see you actually participate here!

Thank you for the warm welcome @Saavedra ... switch jobs? Sure I could if I wanted a big pay cut, non-teaching/full year employment all while continuing the rat race. No thanks. At least with teaching I have summers off, and get home early to work on my businesses. It's "golden handcuffs" for sure, but I've been able to grow some wealth and have a few profitable side-businesses to show for it. I used to moonlight as a full stack web developer nights and weekends...made some good money working from home but again, it's trading time for money and is not scalable. Hopefully this is making C.E.N.T.S :cool:
 

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