Make A New Plan, Stan..Just Get Yourself Free

 I sometimes joke and tell people "ten years ago I couldn't spell entrepreneur..now I are one..."

Brought up as an only child, socialized from day one to be uncannily sensitive to the expectations of others, and eager to please, I was perfectly launched on the road to becoming a "good employee". And so I was for nearly 40 years of my life. The classic overachiever..the college degree...the corporate job...climbing the ladder...all the way to a work life which yielded me a fine income and absolutely no time to reap the rewards of that income. It also yielded anxiety attacks, sleepness nights, lots of stress and related health problems, and a feeling that there just had to be a better way to live. My passion is traveling, and a few weeks of paid vacation a year was never going to allow me to travel the world and settle in long enough to really get the feel of the places I longed to visit. I could afford the tickets but not the time.

In my early twenties, I became very interested in antiques. Somewhere along the line, while attending auctions and antique shows and browsing through endless stalls at markets, a thought dawned....Hey! Instead of watching other people make lots of money buying and selling antiques, I could buy and sell antiques and use the money to feed my collecting habit. And so I did. Over the years, I always kept my little side business going, laughingly calling it my "pewter parachute". Little did I dream that it would ultimately become my "ticket out" of the corporate grind. It also became a great way to invest money and earn really nice returns.

Fifteen years ago, I met my life partner, who soon became a business partner as well...

Pretty soon, we began to encounter people who had wonderful antiques, but did not want to sell them. They did, however, want to know what their things were worth..with a little coursework and testing we became certified personal property appraisers. A few well placed mass mailings to attorneys, CPAs, and banks, and we began to develop a client base for appraisal work.

And then...we began to encounter people who desperately needed help cleaning out estates and liquidating the contents of houses...we didn't necessarily want to buy everything in these houses, but we found that we could broker the contents for a generous percentage of the proceeds... by managing an estate sale and/or by selling high end items on Ebay.

Sometimes, we felt that an auction might bring better prices for our clients...so, off to a week long course at an auction school and a membership in the various auctioneer's associations....Voila! We became auctioneers. Yes, I can talk really, really fast!

Slowly, we began to realize that we were becoming "full service personal property liquidators"...but one piece was missing....we often heard "It's wonderful that you can sell everything in my grandmother's house, but can you sell the house too?"..and so, off to real estate school and real estate brokerage licenses.

Of course, along the way we worked many, many long hours and weekends to juggle the demands of our traditional jobs and our fledgling business. Eventually, we were making enough money for my partner, and later, me, to leave our traditional jobs and work full time at our own business. Quitting my job was one of the scariest things I've ever done, and I thank God ever day that I found the bravery to do it. It was the best decision of my life.

The point of all this rambling is that, as much as I would like to tell you that we planned the whole journey to self-employment, the truth is that we set out on a journey and discovered the path as we went through trial and error. Once you start the process of recreating your life, things reveal themselves to you, opportunities present themselves, and you gradually grow, change, and adapt as you go. If something doesn't work, it's not the end of the world. You change it and try something else. Things evolve.

I am healthier, happier, and more free than I ever dreamed possible. I have the great joy of knowing that 100% of the financial benefit from the effort I put into my business comes back to me..not to an employer. The decisions I make about taking time away to travel or time for family responsibilities are mine alone to make. I can balance time, money and freedom in a way that works best for me.

What could be better than that? Perhaps mentoring others looking for a way to break free and create a business for themselves...hence, our interest in developing a web based info product to guide others down the path to an abundance of time, money, and freedom, balanced in the way that works for them!