Get your own Free Home Page04/20/2006 9:41:45 PM Here I go! I can almost hear the Universe whipsawing to adjust to my changing desires. I am going back to system administration, my strong suit, where I can serve the Universe most effectively. Why the change? After a full quarter of devoting my attention and energy to our business, I still had not seen positive cash flow. I had believed that I would see positive cash flow after a couple of months, but the average business takes about two years to break even. Every start-up goes through the J-curve. But on the 10th I was taken to a point of serious evaluation. The LTSS jar was empty. What did that mean? There were no longer any long-term savings for spending. We were down to the wire. Now the nice thing about Harv Eker's jars was that there were plenty of others to pull money from to keep going. We could keep going without income for quite some time. That could get us through the start-up phase and into the highly profitable growth phase. Our advisors on the conference calls encouraged us to keep going, to risk everything, to get through the start-up phase. That was what they did, and they were the millionaires we were listening to for advice. Some of them started to make money after two months, some after eight. Time did not seem to be the determining factor. "Don't quit" was all they were saying. The expenses continued to climb. For example, we would like to learn marketing to make this work. The education jar had money in it, so we could actually take the class. I was also using education money to learn how to make a functional web site, and there was some progress in that department. I built my own Windows-Apache-MySQL-PHP test platform for Dreamweaver development as part of that progress. Now, breaking the LTSS jar had significance to me. It meant that we would have to start using money in other jars to get through the start-up phase. That would mean breaking the jars entirely. Either we had a plan, or we didn't have a plan, and breaking the jars would mean we didn't have a plan. The whole idea of using the jars was to have financial freedom at some point -- to use organization to make retirement inevitable. It looked to me like we were going in the wrong direction. I also had learned a concept in stock trading called the stop-loss order. The people who taught me to use stop-loss orders were also millionaires. Breaking the jars was my stop-loss order. It was time to find another income stream. I meditated for two days. What other income stream would suit me? It had to be something I enjoyed, and it had to be something that would reward me well for my time. It would have to bring me happiness. The original reason I got into computing was because it was fun. Computing brought me joy and happiness. It brought me good grades, and it brought me high pay rates. I really enjoyed my programming classes, really enjoyed playing with digital circuits, really enjoyed playing with massively parallel database servers and with supercomputers. Perhaps there was a message here. In the Silicon Valley I was a generalist, and in the financial services industry I have also been a generalist. The strongest point on my resume is managing WebSphere, a software package from IBM, but it is only the last 3-1/2 years. Operating systems, communications software, firewalls and all the rest have kept me interested for a long, long time. I like computing, and I like system administration. So it is time to go back to work at my true calling. What brings me joy, peace, and happiness is what has been bringing me these things since my undergraduate engineering days. There is a question, then, whether my old belief system is limiting me. Am I running to the safety of what I know, to avoid the unknown with unlimited potential? I return to my bliss for the answer. I am happier, and that is not about safety. Have I abandoned direct sales altogether? Probably not. Margaret is happy doing it, and she will keep the business going. She has sworn that she will bring it to profitability. I, on the other hand, have decided to follow my bliss and bring in another income stream. Often couples do it this way. One will stay on a job while the other develops the business. Once the business is profitable they reassess their strategy. We are going with a balanced portfolio, multiple streams of income, covering the downside but leaving the upside unlimited. Here's another thought, then. Once the business is successful, will I quit whatever job I have at the time? That remains an open question. Perhaps, by the time the business is successful, I will be in a more successful position professionally. Perhaps my job at that time will be in management. Perhaps I will be a principal. Maybe there will be options or restricted stock that will give me a shot at making millions in an IPO. All of that remains to be seen. In the meanwhile, I intend to enjoy myself contributing my expertise to the success of my client or my employer. Is a job bad? Is it as bad as these millionaires say it is? Perhaps the problem occurs when a person believes that his job is his only income stream, and that there are no alternatives. Perhaps a job becomes oppressive when a person believes there is no way out. Perhaps a job becomes intolerable when a person compromises all his other desires to keep the job. Perhaps that is the true meaning of Jesus' saying, "You cannot serve both God and mammon." God supports your desires, your fulfillment, your best ability to serve the Universe in the most joyous and effective way, while mammon represents subordinating everything in order to make a buck. If you "seek first the Kingdom of Heaven, and all will be added to you," then following your bliss assures that the money will follow. For when you are doing that which you enjoy most, your success is assured. I cannot call a job bad when I can see people like Ken Lewis, the President of Bank of America, making upwards of $7 million at a job. That's a contract job, I might add. Yes, I am considering both contract and regular employment. The form of employment is not the primary consideration. I have thought about what I would like in an ideal work situation. First of all, it will be in San Francisco. Right downtown would be ideal, but anything within the city limits would qualify. The company or the workgroup would be cooperative, supportive, and inclusive. They would respect each other. They would have fun together! The work hours would resemble something normal, like 9am-5pm. That's the kind of situation I was in when I worked at Schwab, at Microsoft, and at San Francisco State University. I know not only is it possible, but it has happened in my own life, in recent years! The environment should be dynamic, and the management should value the ability to learn new technologies more than they value current expertise in whatever technologies they already have. And, of course, everyone would remain cool under fire. I now release this declaration into the perfect action of the Law. I know that, having published this statement, the perfect employment comes to me naturally. I know that whoever recognizes my skills as beneficial is grateful for my presence. And we DO HAVE FUN! And so it is. Ashe. Aho. Amen.
April 6, 2006 6:44 PM The story of my new career, so far: Last year a major financial company shut down a project mid-way through a contract, so I was able to take Christmas off permanently. Of course I did the usual: I floated my resume to my recruiters and started looking for the next opportunity. The trouble was that the current crop of customers wanted me to lower my rates to those I was charging back in 1996, even with a skill set they said was "almost impossible to find." While I was searching, Margaret showed me a new opportunity that wasn't in computing, but that had a feature that I truly admire: unlimited upside. So on January 9th I said "I'm in," and I started working with my new business. Since then we've seen "Cats" at the Orpheum, we've flown to Orlando for a weekend at the Mariott World Center, and we've flown to Cancun for a seminar on prosperity consciousness. More interesting things are in the future. I'm looking for leaders to join my team, with a future where "contracts" don't expire suddenly and where there are no limits to our income. By the way, if you're interested in unlimited opportunity, take a look at http://www.prosperitymaster.com and enter your contact information. Our trip to Cancun was fantastic! The weather was sunny and hot, a welcome change from the cold, rainy weather in San Francisco. Now when the sky is grey I remember that in Cancun the sun is shining! Margaret and I visited Chichen Itza and Tulum. The parks were clean, the restrooms were clean, the food was clean! It looked to me like the Yucatan peninsula was cleaner than California! The people were friendly everywhere. After the hurricane last year, there has been a massive rebuilding effort. The whole peninsula was a giant construction zone. Even before the hurricane the official development policy called for about a 20% growth rate. The Moon Palace resort has been reconstructed, so everything was new. There were more staff at the airport and the resort than I could count, and they were all thrilled to see us and very eager to serve us. I really felt the luxury of the first-class treatment. Since the Moon Palace was all-inclusive, it was a revelation to walk into a restaurant and look at only the left side of the menu. They didn't publish the right side; I had no idea what the food cost or what its price would be outside the resort. I can say that the food was delicious! I've put together an album at http://www.DavidDull.com/Cancun-2006 so you can get a visual of our experience.
| 2006: | January | February | March | |||
| 2005: | July | August | September | October | November | December |
| January | February | March | April | May | June | |
Return to David's Home Page
Your comments are welcomed by David R. Dull,
ddull@netcom.com.
(C) Copyright 2006, by David R. Dull.
All Rights Reserved.
Get your own Free Home Page