Hi! My name is Suzanne Thomas, and I'm the author and creator of the article series "People Skills for Entrepreneurs," and I own the business CCP Net Success, LLC. If you are anything like me, you followed the traditional career path (go to school, get good grades, graduate, get a job, and work until you retire with a cushy retirement), and discovered that what worked for our parents no longer works for us in the information age. They changed the rules, and didn't ask our permission! I became a healthcare professional because I wanted to help people , and worked very diligently to care for my patients. But I got a wake-up call after reading "Rich Dad, Poor Dad," and knew that radical change was in order if I was going to be able to take care of myself . I knew I would have to become an entrepreneur, AND I love the Internet. So I will tell you about how I combined the two to make money!
I grew up in Des Moines, Iowa, and followed the traditional career path formula to the letter. Not only did I get an undergraduate degree in nursing, I got a graduate degree as well, and I got good grades while doing so (most of the time!). I worked part-time in the summers in undergraduate school, and FULL-time while I went to graduate school. That was incredibly stressful. In my clinical year, I was working 7 days a week – 4 days for my job in the hospital, and 3 days for my clinical rotations in school. That almost drove me crazy, literally. I needed a long vacation when my clinical year was over.
Then I experienced the culture shock that goes with launching full-time into your chosen profession. It was crazy! Not only did I have to deal with actually managing the care of very sick people, I discovered that frequently my co-workers were very sick people (NOT medically), as well. Add to that the fiscal pressures of working for an employer whose allegiance was to the bottom line rather than to providing excellent care for sick patients, and that was a recipe for disaster. I was not handling the stress of this very well, and to this day I have more than one stress-related disease (i.e. high blood pressure) that I will have to cope with for the rest of my life.
If you work in healthcare, or any profession where you advise and/or counsel people, you may have experienced some of the following humiliations. I have been yelled at, threatened, put down, spit upon, sexually harassed, smacked, and manipulated by patients. The amount of frustration and hostility expressed by the patient's family members is often worse than the patient's. In school, we were taught to expect such behavior from patients and families and how to deal with it. That still didn't make it easy to deal with.
What was worse was the soul-sapping indignity of verbal abuse and office politics from doctors and co-workers. This hurt the most. We were supposed to be united in focusing on the best care for the patient, and without clear and civil communication between caregivers this was difficult if not impossible. I remember being yelled at by the physician in front of the patient, while on the phone with him, and in front of my co-workers. I remember not being able to count on my immediate supervisor for assistance or trouble-shooting because she was jealous of my Master's degree and she put me down in front of my co-workers as "not a REAL nurse." I remember having my clinical judgments criticized by people who were not there in the heat of the crisis to take all the factors of the emergency into consideration when making a decision. I was frightened by the sexually inappropriate behavior of co-workers and was intimidated when I tried to report it. (This has changed for the better, thankfully).
The list goes on & on: shift work, regulatory hassles, mounds of paperwork, poor pay, weekend work, lack of resources for patient care, required overtime, etc. I was burned out very soon. I didn't know how I was going to be able to continue to work in such conditions until I was 65. I also noticed that not only did I not have enough saved in my 401(k), I was watching the declining value of the dollar erode the value of what I HAD saved. I was feeling very desperate. I was living paycheck to paycheck, didn't have the money to travel or to have a horse, and knew that one accident or temporary disability would drive me into bankruptcy.
In the year 2000 I picked up "Rich Dad, Poor Dad" to read and I had a radical paradigm shift. My brain went TILT! My life changed. I was taught that a house was an asset, and that home ownership was the pinnacle of the American Dream. Well, after moving to California, I knew that home ownership was a dream I would not be able to attain on an RN's salary. Kiyosaki's definition of an asset is clear: "something that puts money in your pocket." A primary residence doesn't do that; it takes money OUT of your pocket instead.
I read "The Cashflow Quadrant" and learned that I would need to own a business (one that would work when I was not there) or become an investor to have financial success. So I began to learn, to plan, and to make the inner changes necessary (such as purge myself of the negativity common to workplaces) to become an entrepreneur. I tried Amway/Quixtar first. I was in it for 4 years, and signed up only two people in my downline. I enjoyed the tax benefits of business ownership, and I learned a great deal about entrepreneurship from my upline. But I had difficulty with selling. The next business I started was one in which I helped people who won in court collect their judicial judgments. I enjoyed that, but did not do well with that, either. Then I took a course that incorporated all the skills of my career in a business and became a legal nurse consultant. I enjoyed that, too. It was a S-Quadrant business, though, and would not provide me with an income if I didn't work.
All of this changed early this year. I was researching an entrepreneurial trainer online, and I saw a Google ad for a business that said, "Kiyosaki endorses this business model." Intrigued, I clicked on the ad, and it took me through a series of webpages that told about a business system that solved all of the problems that I had when I was in the other businesses . Each webpage was an opt-in - at any point, if I didn't like or agree with what I was learning, I could just not take the necessary step to move on to the next page. But I kept moving on. I was so excited! Each page revealed that this was what I had been looking for!
Now when I get into business with people, I want to be certain that the products, the systems, and the people have integrity . No doubt you have been burned by something that went bad because of greed and/or dishonesty, just like I have. Doing my due diligence, I was very pleased to discover that the founders of this business, and the founders of the business that provides the products to sell, are people of integrity, and a high caliber of people are attracted to the business because of this . I have attended 3 conferences/trainings so far, and have been delighted to observe this. I have met many, many great people, and have developed mutually supportive relationships with some of them. The "big-wigs" are human and approachable.
The product line is awesome as well. It provides the financial education that has been lacking from just about everyone's schooling, formal or informal. I am learning how to get out of debt, how to incorporate, how to get my credit cleaned up, how to save, how to invest, and how to provide a legacy for the future. We are taught not only about money, but also about health, and about how to develop wisdom, too. That way we won't blow all the money we make with this business like the lottery winners do within the first three years after they win, AND we will have the good health to be able to enjoy our prosperity.
Knowing that there is light at the end of the tunnel about my J.O.B. has really changed a lot for me. I have a plan to go part-time at work in the near future. I have started taking riding lessons so that I can pursue my dream of horse ownership. Since I will not be tied to a certain geographic location, thanks to this great home-based business, I have been researching and looking for the place I want to relocate to when I am finally free from the J.O.B. I am making travel plans. I am seeking out more life-changing education in entrepreneurship via seminars and coaching. Now I can seek out alternatives to improve my health. I don't have to squeeze so much out of a little-bitty paycheck anymore. I have breathing room. I am sleeping better. I am more relaxed .
I'm not saying that this journey is easy. It's hard for an employee to become an entrepreneur . We learn how to work for someone else and do what we are told when we are an employee; now we have to be responsible to ourselves and work for ourselves. The mindset is radically different . It's not something that's unattainable – it CAN be acquired. It's a great adventure! Sure, I get discouraged, but I am NOT giving up! The alternative is too awful to contemplate. I want a future where I don't have to worry about money , or about how I am going to afford healthcare, or children, or food and shelter (to get extreme). It has given me hope again. That's important for everyone, to have hope for their future.
So that's why I revised this MySpace page. This has really changed my life and my future, and I would love to network and to work with like-minded people and to really get the word out about a great way to secure your financial future. So check out Carbon Copy Pro by clicking on the banner, then email me here on MySpace. I would love to email you back and to hear your story.
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