How to Make GOBS of Money at Home

I'm no more special than anyone else, I've just had different experiences that have shaped who I am. So here I am.

When I was four years old, my parents moved from sunny southern California, i.e., Glendale, Ca. to sunny Sao Paulo, Brazil. By the way, Sao Paulo is the largest city in South America with over 12 million people. So one day I'm talking English with my best friends in California and the next day I'm talking English to my new friends who don't have a clue to what I'm saying!!! Talk about a cultural shock in the 1950's!

All the cars were black in those days and it looked right from the movie sets of the 30's and 40's. Since my father's car was a brand new 1954 Bel Aire two tone light green with a powder puff cream top paint job, crowds of people would surround our car when we parked. Many thought we were with the embassy staff or whatever. Those were the days when everyone worshipped anything American and I felt like a little celebrity.

Well eventually, that is in about a month or so, I started speaking Portuguese and started to get a feel of things. I never thought that I was going to be there that long until I graduated from an American high school in Sao Paulo. But when I did, I was out on the 1st plane to California to find out what I had missed%u2026 and that was that we were embroiled in the middle of the Tet offensive in Viet Nam.

Boy, life can be a living hell.

The Brazilian people are the most fun loving and friendly people you will ever find on this earth. Their beaches are to die for and for many years we had an apartment right on the beach. Some of their beaches, like "Praia Grande" could be over 500 yards of sandy beaches before you reached the warm waters of the Atlantic Ocean. If you don't know already, the beauty of their women is legendary, and so are their striking string bikinis.

What I miss the most from Brazil today is the pizza they make there. You have not tasted a pizza until you land in Sao Paulo and eat a pizza cooked over a wood fire brick oven. I even brought two of them on one of my last trips from there and you should have seen the faces of the custom officers when they opened my bags and wondered what I was up to. Who in the hell brings a pizza in their baggage?! They had to bring in a supervisor to inspect it and he was puzzled too. Finally I said to them," If you guys don't believe me that it is the best pizza in the world, then try a piece and let's get this show on the road". With that, the frustrated custom officers waived me through, probably saying to themselves that they've now seen everything.

I can't say that the US had changed, because I had been cloistered in Brazil for all those years, but things sure were changing here in the good old USA. You don't need me to tell you what the late 60's and 70's were like, do you?

Well, I went to college and got married and my brother-in-law got tired of me telling him that I loved to fly and be a pilot. You see, when I moved to Brazil, we flew in a TWA Constellation all the way from Los Angeles to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. I was so taken by this experience that the pilot let me fly in the cockpit of the plane for as long as I could stay awake. I promised myself I'd be a pilot some day!

Well fast forward that 20 years later and my brother-in-law said that if I bought a plane, he would teach me how to fly it. You see, he was a charter pilot for his family owned business and I got to fly everything up to a Cessna Citation jet. I asked him why I had to buy a plane instead of renting one. He said, "If you own one, you are committed". So I bought a used Cessna 172 and got my license in 30 days and have enjoyed flying ever since! I averaged two flights a day, but that was when gas was under a dollar a gallon!
Well like everyone else, I had kids, 5 of them, and had to make a living if I wanted to support a family and my airplane. I did what my father did, and that was to work from 8 to 5 and found out that was boring and a dead end way of life.

One day the company closed, I can remember the exact day that happened. It was May 18th 1989. Why can I remember that day, you might say? Because on that day my daughter was born and I remember my manager calling me to be at work or I'd be fired. I said go ahead, I'm not leaving my wife in the middle of her labor. The next day I met with my boss only to find out the company had locked everything up and said that if I wanted to keep my job I had to move from San Diego to Los Angeles! I was born there, but hell would freeze over before I'd consider moving from "America's Finest City" to highway gridlock and smog. No, I'd prefer to stay right here in San Diego where I can watch the ocean from my back yard and enjoy the cool breezes off of the Del Mar beaches!

So now I lost my job and had four children to support and entered the sales force with no experience other than a hard working ethic I learned from my father. I worked my pants off but finally succeeded in becoming the top producer in several companies. I made a lot of money but I also worked 12 hour days with no rest. Sounds familiar? Now my kids are either finishing or starting college and I realize that what worked for me is not going to work for them. My dad, probably like yours, worked for a company until they could retire. Now you better make your own company up or you are going to get fired with no long term future or job.

As a commissioned salesman, I'd only get paid if I went out and made a sale, but after that I was out of a job. You can make hundreds of thousands of dollars doing this, and I did every year, but I got tired of the rat race. Gas is getting too expensive and rush hour is now all the time not some of the time. I want to spend time with my family and extended family, not on the freeway. So I've decided it is time to enter the ranks of the rich professionals that use the Internet to make a living.

Boy I wished I'd done that years ago.

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