I grew up in Michigan and have six other siblings. My Father was a hard working farmer and my mother stayed home to help on the farm and take care of us kids. We lived in a drafty old 4 bedroom farm house. Times were tough.  My Father was eventually forced to take on a full time job to help pay the expenses. We didn’t have a lot for possessions and worked hard for every little thing we had. We didn’t go on vacations, we didn’t have cable TV, we had an old rusty station wagon that we all piled in to go to the lake too cool off after a long day of hard work on the farm.  Today even though we have dispersed far and wide across the United States, we still remain at close knit family.

I was the youngest and I like to think the most ambitious one in the bunch. Each night before going to sleep, I would lay in bed  and picture the accomplishments I would achieve in my life. At a very young age I realized that having very little was not what I wanted for myself or my future family. This motivated me with a drive and a passion to succeed and to provide my family with the things I did not have as a young adolescent.  Nothing was going to stop me from succeeding. I was determined even as a young child and refused to accept failure.  I would find a way.

As I graduated High School, the realization of the worlds opportunities was never more vivid in my mind. After working for two years to save up a little money, I was able to attend college. I just knew that an engineering degree was the ticket to my prosperous future.  I worked my way through school working 2 jobs at times and attending classes full time. After college I was on a highly motivated mission to begin building my career.  Little did I know that rising unemployment and a declining economy made it very hard to find that high paying job to catapult me to success.  I found myself in an entry level laboratory support position that the job description included taking out the trash and washing laboratory glassware.  Talk about starting at the bottom.  But I grasped the opportunity and performed my duties with great enthusiasm with an extreme attention to detail. I was the best darn laboratory support person the company has ever had. My efforts and enthusiasm did not go unnoticed.  Within two months I was promoted to Air Quality Technician and within a few months I was promoted to Project Manager, then Project Director and then Department Manager.  At the young age of 26 I was well on my way to a successful career in  the Environmental Consulting industry. I was young and single and had plenty of cash. I was living it up! New cars, expensive vacations and fine dining were only a few of the indulgences I was experiencing at that time in my life.

Living the bachelor life was great but there had to be more to life than this. Then my perspective of certain aspects of life began to change. I got married and began a family.  At the same time my career was advancing. I was recruited to a much larger and more diversified firm in 1989 and yet another in 1994.  With each change came more and more money. Yes, everything was coming into place.  A great job, a beautiful family and we were settling into a very prosperous and decadent way of life. However, with a high level management position came a big challenge. Managing clients, people and departments that were spread over vast areas of the globe required a great deal of travel, not to mention the long hours and weekend work. Then came an opportunity of a lifetime. My employer decided that the company was going to go in another direction which put me smack in the middle of a fork in my career path.  I had two options, stay with my company and take on still more responsibilities, or split off and start my very own environmental testing and consulting  company. The short story is 1999 found me in the position of a brand new business owner with my own employees and a promising future servicing the automotive sector including the “Big Three” and all of their suppliers.

Oh Yeah!  This was exactly where I wanted to be.  Although it was a great deal of work in the beginning, my business allowed me much more flexibility and the freedom to make my own schedule and spend the much needed time at home.  This truly was the dream I was picturing as an adolescent back on the farm.

UH OH!!!

Now with the  automotive industry suffering, the prosperity of my business was becoming an issue. It was a rude awakening. All my dreams and hopes and ambitions were now being crushed by the economic downturn. It was time for yet another shift and a big one it was. I entered a new realm and a new territory.

Network Marketing…