Dumb, Lucky, Successful

Hello again friends. I know that everyone has been curious as to how things are going for myself and our little family, so I'm going to catch everyone up. To make the story less scary, I'll tell you the situation in reverse cronological order. I start work on Monday with AgReserves, Inc in SLC (Right next to Temple Square). They manage a lot of the Church investment/agricultural real-estate. I'll be their Help Desk Administrator. It's taken them 5 interviews over 2 months to "offer" me the job. Great benefits, starting at about 37K, the works. It's a mystery to me, and I don't want to sound like I have the Midas Touch or anything, but I've only sent out two resumes in my life. The first was an assignment for school, the other was to AgReserves. As most of you may know, the best way to get a job is by networking your way to it (Fact). So I didn't want to play "the resume game". Part of it was that I was too prideful to do it, the other part of me didn't even know where to start. My greatest disadvantage is I don't - nor do I ever - plan to build any kind of career, so it was going to be hard being honest when anyone asked me "so, where do you plan to be five years from now?" What I have planned would sound like a slap in their face, and I don't even feel comfortable sharing it here. But knowing that the future is uncertain, I could also honestly say "I don't know WHERE I'll be in 5 years, but I can tell you the kind of person I'm working on becoming."

The short truth is that I knew whatever job I got, no matter how great it may be, it is my goal to make it as temporary as I can. Not that I'm going to quit as soon as the oportunity comes up, but my goal is to continue slowly replacing my fultime income with passive income from my PPL business and other investments. At that point - no matter how much time it will take - I'll happily quit my job. After my first Major failure (what I've come to call this summer's experience), I've learned that to rely soley on my PPL income is too stressful on our finances. Buisnesses work better if you can earn the bulk of your money from a job while building the business part time. I've tried to make things work anyway, and I don't know how the Lord has made things work for us over the last year, but things have worked out. But I've learned only now to put that part of my pride behind me, and allow myself to work a job fulltime.

I've been risky, but we've been aware of the risk. It's bitten us hard this year, but Melanie and I are grateful for having passed through it. We now know what it's really like to go 7 months with absolutely NO INCOME and NO MONEY. It's been one of the greatest blessings of our life together. Randy Paucsh said in his book THE LAST LECTURE, "Experience is what you get when you don't get what you want." ... and we've been gainning a LOT of it recently. But it's liberating to know exactly how wonderful life is to those who keep a positive attitude, and posture themselves accordingly.

Just so you know, I'm not planning to open our shop for business until mid 2009. We are organizing ourselves and taking care of preparations. We already have investors lining up, one for sure who is giving us about $50K. I spent two hours with our attorneys yesterday, and things are looking great.

Everything is going well, because we have so much to be thankful for. I wish you all the same wellness, and hope you are all taking steps that lead you closer to your own dreams. (And if you know anyone looking for a business to invest in, we're offering a return of 8% to 15% depending on the amount of their investment.) Good luck my friends.