PeteA

I am a 22 year veteran firefighter/paramedic for the county fire rescue department in Miami, FL. I am a husband and father to a great 24 y/o daughter that is a marketing director at a firm in Austin, TX. I'm a veteran of the U.S Navy and Army National Guard. I attended college at SDSU, MDC, and UF. At SDSU, I majored in business and finance with a minor in marketing. At MDC, I studied landscape architecture and design, finally, at UF, I studied horticulture. Since I was a child, I had 2 dreams, one was to become a fireman, (check!) second was to be a business owner, (check!). But that wasn't all, I was even more specific as a child, I wanted to be the business owner that created or resolved a need for people. As a firefighter, I have helped countless of people from dire emergencies, yet, after all these years, I have been the victim of the slow lane hustle.... I have started several different businesses, most I sold and made some decent income on and others, well, they were more like experiments than anything else. I have been involved in several different MLM's thinking they were the answer to all my headaches just to find out, IT was more of a headache than it was worth. Most of them when I would go to a convention, I kind felt just like MJ did as he mentioned in the book looking skeptical and thinking, what coolaide did these people drink? I have always taken risks in starting a new venture, but as of recent, I find myself in a very fearful world. My family and friends telling me to stop trying to reinvent the wheel, what are you doing this week, what are you selling now, what new crazy business idea have you come up with now, or how are you going to lose money this time? So, I have over the years learned to slow down my unwavering desire to move to the fastlane as I didn't have the proper road map to do it. I will be honest, I am only half way through the book, but I have seen my life flash right before my eyes as I read it!! I am however a proud franchisee owner of Cruise Planners a franchise based travel agency, within the first year, I earned a very small but modest income, going from 0 to over $100k in gross sales. What does that translate in actual take home? After royalties and everything else, just under $6k... Yeah, not great, but my second year looks more promising... BUT, THIS IS NOT WHAT I WANT!!!! I am currently working with someone to create a new company that fills a need in my area that could serve countless of thousands of aspiring new business owners. The experiment for the need has been done and the need exists, now I am working to create the process in which I can control it and scale it. My biggest fear right now is what will my friends and family tell me when I tell them here I go again with another idea?