Rich Dad Poor Dad and starting your dreams

Hi friends,

Well I decided to keep my business blog separate from my personal blog. It's best to keep business and personal lives well, some what separate. My goal is to share the process of starting two businesses as well as keep a journal of both my success and failure throughout the course of starting and running my business. That includes what resources I use to help me achieve financial and personal success.

As of Tuesday January 19th 2010, I signed up to be the boss of my own business with Arbonne. While some might say well now, your business is not a REAL business because you are only a consultant, I beg to differ. Yes some people think that oh no those Direct Marketing business' never really work, or you put way to much and get way to little out of it. Well I'm not in it to become a millionaire.

I'm in it because 1. I really do enjoy the products and I want to share them with other people because I believe if you really found a good product, why don't you share it with others. Any person who has worked in sales knows that the key to selling is having a product worth selling in addition to the fact that people will only buy what they want to buy. You can't make people buy anything. I did that with other products, movies, places I really enjoyed and "sold" them to others because I wanted to share what I enjoyed and the companies didn't even pay me to advertise for them.

2. I want to learn more about business. I have to admit, I've always fought against learning business because I didn't want to end up a business man/woman. My father is a business man, my grandfather was a business man, his father was a businessman etc. And same goes with my mother's side. I did not want to be a business man because I saw how my dad was not around growing up and he spent his time building the business, I was and still am a artist. I don't do business that is until I realized that everything is a business.

After graduating in the worst economy since the 1980's a few months ago, I've struggled to find work. I've been looking for work and even when I do seem to get the interviews and the few offers, I question is this really what I want to do with my life. Get a job in something that I don't really like but do it because I need the money to pay off my debt and only work on my artistic passions on the side and then die with nothing to show except for the fact that I was a good citizen and paid taxes?

I've talked to several of my friends who are on that route. Several of my family members are going that route. They are told that education is the key to success. While I don't doubt that a good education is something that shouldn't be looked down upon, I also recognize that while I was earning my undergraduate degree I wonder why I was really in it. What was my outcome? It made me realize that maybe what I was doing was not something I really wanted to be doing. Not that I don't value my education but it made me think.

I have friends who are computer scientist majors. They graduated a few years ago while I was busy on tour exploring Canada and the USA. They have jobs with a good income, but somehow they aren't happy with how they are living their lives. Which makes me even more determined to find a better solution. I don't want a job that I have to wake up and go to because I have to work because I need the money to feed and clothe myself. I want a job to go to because I love it. Simply because it adds to my life and my purpose. After listening to Rich Dad Poor Dad (the books were all out at the library so I had to get the CD, which is not too bad since it takes me longer to read than to listen because I have a bit of dyslexia) I'm beginning to see that I don't want to work for money, I want money to work for me.

While I was saving up for school between tour and actually going to school, I knew very little about investing, but I read a book that said you should have a 401K plan. That advice was the only little advice I knew about when it came to dealing with a financial portfolio. I knew my uncle was an investor with Edward Jones, and so I put a few hundred away for a mutual fund which I'm not going to touch until I get really really old.

Anyway upon my graduation from the Faculty of Fine Arts, I was really listening to the speeches. Now usually people tune out because really how much can people really gain from that? But I tell you, that was the starting point of getting my real education in life. School can teach you a lot of things from books, life though is a far harder teacher that can not be fooled. You either listen and learn from the lessons presented or you'll end up repeating the lesson until you learn it. The first lesson I took in was to listen to the possibilities.

Yes, I'm an artist. I graduated as an artists, but what do you do if there are no opportunities in the arts? You still need to survive so you need to find ways that you can give yourself the opportunity. I am starting to believe that's when you have to make your own luck. When opportunity knocks, answer the door, but if opportunity is not knocking than you might as well go out there and start knocking on opportunities door.

So when I, a unemployed undergraduate degree holding person was turned down for the Theatre Internship in Toronto, I had the chance to go to my sister's Arbonne party. I didn't even know what it was about. All I know is that my sister asked me to come, I had nothing better to do and I would be doing nothing better with my time. When the consultant did the presentation, what struck me was the product itself. I really support and like the idea of using herbs and natural ingredients since at lot of the natural stuff is really good for the skin. Not only that is that the company supports causes like the Red Cross and other noble organizations. I've done some research on health and frankly, I am tired of using so much chemicals. I love using products but I'm tired of putting chemicals in my body especially after being diagnosed with a medical condition that requires me to be and live healthier.

I'm also with a wonderful man who wants to focus on living a healthier lifestyle. He's a label checker and he's made me start wanting that in my life too.

Anyway when I looked at the possibility I talked to the consultant for more information. I did my research on the pros and cons and knowing that most people are turning toward healthier living this is an opportunity I'm willing to pursue. In addition it gives me the opportunity not only to pursue this business venture but to start up my photography business as well. What I learn from one business will give me the skills to grow the other. Even Rich Dad says that to build skills find work where it can teach you. He recommends working for a MLM company because it will force you out of your shell where you will learn about rejection, advertisement, public relations, and sales. I thought about going back to school for some business classes but maybe life is the best school.

So here I am taking out business tapes on home-based business at the library and requesting an education from my grandfather on accounting and well the rest of the story goes that regardless of how successful I get or in the other case "failure" that proceeds this, I will know that my life experience will teach me more in the coming months than I would at a business school. I guess you can say I'm enrolling in the REAL LIFE BUSINESS COURSE 101.

To be continued...