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Thirty years ago, I remember attending a women’s networking meeting. It was at a regional, award winning chapter of NAFE, (www.nafe.com), the National Association for Female Executives. I was working at IBM at the time, and the network was a wonderful place to meet and discuss challenges in the workplace with other women, who had been dealing with workplace issues for much longer than I had. I remember sitting at a table with some women, more aged, presumably wiser, banking executives. I was discussing a strategy I had developed for creating multiple streams of income, using the same logic an investment portfolio manager uses when they tell you not to put all your eggs in one basket. When one stock tanks, the ones that are doing well will carry your portfolio through the peaks and valleys. I maintained that I had a strategy to do the same thing with my income.
Back then, having a job, being dedicated to the job, and assuming that your company or corporation would have the same loyalty to you as you had for them, was the status quo. I never assumed that loyalty was a permanence reserved for anyone, and believed it was folly to think so.
I could see the body language emanating from those women reflecting what appeared to be the internal emotions scoffing at my idea. What could this young kid possibly know about income and finance? I brushed it off like a duck shakes off water.
But I persisted with my idea, and plan, and began dabbling in building these income streams.
My philosophy allowed me to manifest and create exactly what I had planned — a portfolio of income streams that would allow me to survive a corporate layoff that came suddenly and unexpectedly many years later. Additionally, it allowed me to do something quite unique. I have 30 years experience in multiple income generating business activities. It would be the equivalent of my being able to have career after career, 20 to 30 years in duration for each one, in 6 different fields. Now, no one lives to be 200 years old, but I literally have hundreds of years of experience and knowledge in this one package of a body I travel around in. It’s not something that you run into every day.
What are those experiences?
Briefly —
Receptionist, secretary, self taught computer programmer, systems engineer, helped to build the internet in the days before smart phones and browsers, sales and marketing and mediation — in my corporate career.
Health CNHP (Certified Natural Health Professional), inspired by the need to save my life from a cancer that doctors announced I would die from in 1995. (I did not die by the way)
Successful network marketer, having worked with multiple health companies, as well as Mary Kay Cosmetics (!). This experience with network marketing (or MLM Multi Level Marketing) allowed me to build an income that was a lifeline after the corporate layoff.
Retail store — both traditional brick and mortar physical storefront, as well as very successful million dollar business online, leveraging platforms eBay, amazon, etsy, branding and creating my own web presence in Elf Works Lane. This also contributed to my income lifeline after the corporate layoff.
Contract work under the 1099 structure, working in the transcription field and transcribing documents for numerous federal agencies, Congress, World Bank, IMF, Veterans’ Administration, NYS Unemployment Board, and the construction industry at large. That typing class I took in high school really paid off.
Hospitality, with over 20 years experience hosting aspiring student and professional chefs from around the world, and most recently, as a SuperHost with AirBnB.
It is important to note, that what I had intended to set as a goal for a career in my life, when I was 18 and in college, was to become an investigative journalistic reporter. My interest in playing the “connect the dots” game provides a convenient theme to all the activities I engage in, while creating experiences leading to new income streams.
During all these experiences, I have leveraged what I know to be my very addictive personality, to fully immerse myself in the experience. I am addicted to being an autodidact.
Recently, because the internet has really become my home inside my home, having really grown up in the creation and development of the internet, I have been discovering and uncovering numerous “opportunities” for people to participate in free “live” webinars wherein they can learn a “system” for leveraging the webinar hosts’ extensive “knowledge” and “expertise” in a field. I would propose that many, if not most, of these flying around out there, taking thousands and thousands of hard earned dollars from innocent and naive consumers, are scams.
I’m highly aggravated by the proposal that most of these webinars are “live”, when in fact they are not — and cleverly constructed to fool the participants into believing they are live, when they are not. I’ve helped code and build the foundations of what exist today on the internet, and I can smell a fraud and recognize a crook when I see one.
I don’t want to dwell on this point, but I do want to make mention of it, because it’s frustrating for me, when I know I have so much experience and knowledge in so many areas, through legitimately slugging through the trenches.
And it is for that reason that I’ve decided to write this article, and offer my services to assist people who are seriously contemplating how to add new income streams, or figure out a way to replace an income stream that has evaporated suddenly.
There are pro’s and con’s, of course, to each method of producing income.
A traditional job provides supposed security — as far as the loyalty goes in any company or corporate culture — and potential benefits by way of paid vacation time and medical benefits. The paycheck can be great while it lasts. The cost for all this is of course, personal freedom. You sign up for a pair of handcuffs when you decide to take on a job — and family time, free time, and your own ability to control your schedule can become challenging at best. Still, for many people, that’s a happy sacrifice in exchange for some peace of mind regarding income. What’s scary though, is if it suddenly disappears. And many now have faced that reality or are even newly facing it.
Running an online business can be a time commitment that is even worse than having a job, for many many reasons. I wish I had the ability to write a letter knowing what I know now, to myself of 30 years ago, just to be able to circumvent and ease the pain of learning some of the lessons I learned, and tricks that would make life easier, if I had known how to set up the systems I needed to scale my business up as it grew. These lessons were learned through trial and error, by making mistakes and tweaking as we went, along with serious collaboration with the team that assembled and re-assembled over the years to make it so. Eleanor Roosevelt said, “Learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t live long enough to make them all yourself.” I wish I had taken that advice earlier. I’m not convinced I would have started on this particular path, had I had access to a qualified mentor in this area.
Network marketing was something I had been enamored with while very young, and I had an opportunity to attend an early Amway meeting while still in my teens. I’m glad I didn’t get swept up in the hype back then. I think the concept back then was so new, and so exciting, that so many people got involved because the concept of overpromising and underdelivering was not yet part of the common conversation. It was just so darned exciting believing that EVERY one could be a millionaire if they just dreamed hard enough. But the construct was still new, and needed to “bake” a few more decades, before it could be refined. Ford didn’t make the BEST car, he just had the big idea for mass production FIRST. First does not always equal best. Millions of people are making a faulty decision about what is possible for income production, based on a story in history that today has no connection with reality, and what has evolved. Today, millions are able to pay bills because they started networking a decade or so ago. I am among them.
Knowing what I know through my experience with surviving cancer, learning about health options, and sourcing vital health product solutions through network marketing companies, helped me save my life. Network marketing companies often bring products to the market well ahead of mass availability through more traditional outlets, and sometimes they literally can be life changing. It would be a mistake to ignore that fact, both for physical health, and for financial health.
The world of the 1099 contractor offers SO many possibilities for earning much needed income, and typing is one of these things that amazingly, is in great demand. I have much experience with all the pitfalls associated with this method of creating income. There are little known facts (all of which can be googled and read about in reliable sources) about what the legal rules are for both employers and employees, and I can tell you from experience, that many on both sides of these contracts are simply not aware and not performing according to the rules. This means that employers abuse their employees, and employees find themselves in abusive relationships with employers, simply because all the parties are uneducated about exactly what the rules of the game are, both federally and within their states of residence. The money can be great — working from home can be great — but it’s important to have your eyes wide open going into these arrangements.
AirBnB, uber, and other vehicles that are part of the “sharing economy” are great ways to earn extra income, and in some cases, if the participant excels at the work, they can become a single life line of income alone ( though I don’t recommend depending upon just one source of income, ever again ).
Many of us have learned that multi-tasking is important. I can throw a load of laundry in and while that’s working away, I can be typing on a computer, or conducting a phone call with a sales prospect, or packing and shipping an item in my inventory that just sold. Managing the seasonal ebbs and flows of all these elements of work, and managing the time demands in each day represents a strong challenge, particularly if your forte is to just focus on one thing at a time. But for the adventurous, for someone already playing with mutitasking either as a novice or expert, organizing time systems and, other types of systems, to make all this happen, is absolutely possible. It is not necessary to languish in your space, believing that if you can’t find a JOB, you can’t make a living. That’s faulty thinking.
So I’m venturing into the coaching space, and my intent here is to actually conduct REAL live webinars, with limited attendance, such that I can personally address and answer questions — the real questions that present themselves. Not everyone has the same questions — everyone is on a different path in their life. I recognize that there is value to hearing the questions and answers of others, but you also want to have someone to answer your specific questions. And in order to do that well, it’s important that the groups are small and limited.
With technology as it is now, the capability exists, within a webinar, for me to take you on a walk to physically see what our systems look like, what the reality is for building and doing what I do. If I had been able to see that in advance, back when I was first starting up, to have a mentor, to teach me and answer questions as they came up, it would have saved me so much time and energy and money. And I would have gotten a lot more sleep!
After reading this, if you are thinking of starting an online business, or becoming a 1099 contractor, or picking a network marketing company, or maybe you are already doing one or multiple things already, but you’ve got questions — see the links in the email I sent you pointing you to this paper. They will give you the details to becoming a client. And I promise, you won’t be bilked the way the “live webinar” hosts that are so rampant on the internet today, are doing. My intention is that the relationship works for both of us.
It’s said that when the student is ready the teacher appears. It’s a strong belief I hold, and I do also believe that as humans, we’re ultimately all here to be of service to one another. Whether my services described here are for you or not, depends on where you are in your personal path. If any of this writing resonates for you, you will know that this is a service designed for you.
If you found this paper not through a link sent in an email, simply email me at elfworks2@gmail.com, to discuss further, or sign up for my 30 day MasterMind and Coaching Services.
