Hey Brooke! Here’s the deal: As a kid, I wanted to be self employed. At 15, I stumbled upon the “business opportunity” market – and quickly learned that “Selling Get Rich Stuff to People Who Want to Get Rich” was a lucrative business model. At 21, I found a mentor who was very successful in that industry and with his advice, my business took off. Over the years, I made millions in sales (best year $3.3M). However, as I got older – and spoke at their events – I started to see the dark side of this industry. We were selling low-quality, over-hyped stuff to desperate people who would do nothing with it. They’d buy every month… some new “get rich” thing they thought would save them. I spoke at my mentor’s regular live events – and it was a sea of hopeful, older adults – looking for the no-work, get-rich fix. Ultimately… my disillusionment with the market, my worry about the gray legal/ethical issues, the growth of “get rich” stuff on the Internet (massive competition), the 2008 recession, and my growing hatred of this industry/my business… caused me to crash my business. It now makes just barely enough to keep my head above water. I’m still “self-employed” – but I’m just treading water.

Personally, I’d love to bury that business and become an awesome Life Coach – helping entrepreneurs and people who want to take their lives to the next level. For years, my bizop friends told me that “personal development” wasn’t a money-maker and Tony Robbins was a fluke – and I’d be crazy to leave the lucrative bizop market. However… they’re all now in the same boat I am… barely making ends meet, looking back on the 1990’s and early 2000’s as the “golden times”, thinking that life is over for them. I’ve done a bit of that, too – until January of this year when I decided that at 46 (in June 2017), my life isn’t over just yet – and I can still have a great, more uplifting second career.

My challenge: Well, the logistics (and mental game) of transitioning into a new career as life coach. Plain and simple, I need “now money” – but I don’t want to ramp up my “get rich” business. I’ve thought that… in order to make “now money” to afford to move into life coaching… that I could start a more legitimate biz of blogging about marketing for network marketers and the like – then offering them training/tools. But that means a real commitment to basically what’s a “brand new business”… which (of course) takes time/energy away from a life coaching business. On the other hand, starting a new life coaching business would mean an investment of time/money in new skills, new sites, new everything – and probably a period of time with no income, which I can’t afford right now. So it feels like my choice is… A. Launch a NEW business in an area that I’m familiar with but don’t want to do long-term so I can make “now money” – in order to maybe fund a future transition into what I really want to do or B. Go broke while I pursue the business I really want to be in. 🙂

AND – All of this “what to do” stress has also made my work on overdrinking and overeating a fun challenge, too. 🙂

I’m curious what your thoughts are. I now hate the biz I did for 30 years (and I think there are legitimate reasons why). I want to transition to something I’ve also studied since 15 and love – but feel like there’s a learning/biz growth curve. And I’m feeling a bit stuck between my “wants” (new biz) and my “needs” (bill money). And I’m afraid of the consequences of making the wrong decision. Any thoughts/insights on this would be incredibly helpful. Thank you. 🙂