It’s the fall of 2000. I’m living ten thousand dollars below the poverty line, and working four jobs while attending college – alternating between Barnes & Noble and Blimpie in the afternoons, to a night shift at a local gas station, and then produce delivery in the morning before class. I don’t remember sleeping very much, except for the occasional snore during classes. Even so, I could barely keep afloat, and remember begging my landlord to let me split the measly $ 190 I owed in rent into two payments. Pathetic.
Even though I’m in such a financial mess, I still can’t believe that my only option is to work in the corporate world for the next 40 years, so I turn to the first option that presents itself – network marketing.
Though I fail miserably at MLM, I do learn a lot of very valuable lessons. Like the fact that I was responsible for where I was at in life, and it was up to me to change it – and even more important, that it could be changed!
I decide to sell my car and transfer to the University of Hawaii to study Japanese. I go there knowing absolutely no one, with no place to stay but ready and willing to make things work.
And they do – I find great, cheap housing right next to campus. Apply for and get financial aid so that I don’t have to work four jobs again. And after graduating, I move to Tokyo to start a research program at the University of Tokyo – the “Harvard” of Japan.
Sounds great, right? Except that I’m not happy. School is nice, and I got a great scholarship, but I still don’t see any other options apart from working a “job” at a company once my research program is finished.
I manage to scrape by doing odd jobs like acting in TV commercials and the occasional movie, but finances are tight, and I’m getting desperate about where the next paycheck is going to come from.
It’s at that point, after the strangest series of events, that I stumble upon a great opportunity in a niche market that I really enjoyed. And even though I knew absolutely nothing about that niche, and was the ultimate newbie (really), I started developing the skills I would need to help make me an “expert” in that area.
And today? My life is my own. I don’t have a “job”, but a passion that I pursue everyday – not because I have to, but because I want to. And the money has followed.
Imagine – ten years earlier I was begging my landlord to let me split the $ 190 I owed in rent into two payments. Fast forward to just a couple of weeks ago, when I send a couple of emails to my customers, and net more than $ 9300 in just three days.
And this, my friend, is just the beginning.
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