My own story is a history of twists and turns, detours and roundabouts. I wish that somehow I could've had the wisdom or discernment about careers or business that I am starting to develop now, back then in my teens and 20's. It seems that my dreams and goals didn't really start blooming until I was nearly 40. I'm grateful for all I learned previously, and certainly not regretful of my past, however ho-hum it might've seemed in retrospect. I became like many people : lacking any kind of motivation or concept of a better life, I settled into a lifestyle of mediocrity, accepting whatever was dealt to me as my destiny's lot, and not questioning my pay scale or my lackadaisical attitude about my jobs or work.
Following in the Footsteps
Let me tell you about my father's background, and perhaps this will help you understand my background and development. My father worked in the retail sales environment for 45 years. He was the youngest store manager in his company's entire chain at 21 years old. He typically won all of the chain's sales contests, beating store managers that were 25 or more years older than himself. Before he was 30, he left the department chain to go to work for a small town men's specialty store as Assistant Manager. Within two years, he was Manager of the store, and remained in that position, for two different periods, from the late 50's until 1971, and from 1972 until the mid 90's, when he retired. In the intermittent year (1971-72), we moved about 200 miles to my aunt and uncle's hometown, where my dad had heard of a job opening at the same chain that he left back in his early days. He accepted and worked a position of Assistant Manager, until it was apparent to him that his main job was to help train the manager's nephew, and it was proposed to him to take a Store Manager's job in Oklahoma. For some reason, moving that far away did not appeal to him or to my mother. So we moved back, and he took the same job that he had before.
I need not go any farther for you to see that my dad was very knowledgable and capable at retail management. In fact, a college professor gave my father a copy of his Business book, autographed with the words, "To Bob, who could write his own book about business management." I always wished that my dad would've done just that. He knew and read people very well, and loved interacting with them. He had the "gift of gab" and loved selling and being able to please his customers.
Early Years
It was in this environment that at about 21, I started out in the work world by working for my dad. I worked off and on for several years. My
dad helped me get a job with the same chain that he started with, and
worked there for a couple of years. While working these jobs, a friend
of mine got me interested in computers, and I began taking a few courses at the local community college, which eventually led into an associate's and then a bachelor's degree. I felt newly energized, putting all of my time and energy into learning and developing a new career path in technology. While in school, I managed to secure several jobs in the field, working as a computer operator at one organization, and then as a computer help desk operator. As I was finishing school and after graduation, I worked as an assistant to a Network Administrator, and as a Computer Tech at my college.In about 2000, after the last company I had worked for closed down the local office, I found it more difficult to find a job in this field, and began a job search which had degenerated into finding "anything to do". After being so driven to find a new career, it was a terrible awakening to realize that I might have to leave what I had felt so excited about, to go back to the routine of working a menial, ordinary type of job. After a few months of searching, I wound up at a local hotel, and worked at two different ones over the next five years. In the meantime, I was still interested in computers and the possibility of returning to that market, but the right opportunity did not immediately present itself, and over time, I settled in again to accepting the status quo.
A Brand New Direction
I ended up working at a printing shop for two years, and then back into retail department store sales for another two years. I had picked up a habit though, while working at the hotel jobs. I was a customer service / front desk clerk, and while waiting for guests to arrive or for a phone call, I began letting my mind "wander" and imagining things that I would like to do with my life, and areas that I would like to explore as a career. I popped a disk into a computer, and began typing up these different ideas. Over a period of a few months, I had amassed what was probably the equivalent of 50-75 pages of ideas. These weren't just one-liners; they were fully developed business plans, with bulleted lists and short and long-range goals. And it wasn't just a handful of ideas. There were probably dozens of them. You can see that this was a time of letting my spirit out of its cage and letting it attempt to fly into unknown territories.
Goals and Dreams
Just about five years ago, a friend had given me the idea of starting my own business. The idea came from us throwing around word puns, and laughing between ourselves. Then one day, he said, "That would be good on a tee shirt." And then, "I bet that would sell, if you put it on a shirt." The original idea was to print up tee shirts, and put them on consignment in different shops around town, and eventually other areas. But along the same time, it became aware to me that a lot of companies were springing up online, ones that somehow were able to offer free services to just anyone that was interested in
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| Browse My NovelTees Tee Shirt Store |
Another idea of mine which has become a reality is my guitar teaching. I began playing the guitar when I was a teenager, never with the idea of teaching anyone else. In fact, at the time, I wasn't sure that I would ever really learn to play. But in the 90's, while I was working those other jobs, I started teaching in a guitar shop, and did so for two years, developing about 20-25 students, working two days a week. I also taught a guitar course
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| Go Check Out My GuiTarHeel Website |
It was in this context that I took the local library's offering of a "Blogging for Beginners" class in June 2013. This class allowed my past technological background and my newly fertilized visions for various online business ventures to fuse together into an amalgamated, unified path. I had developed a personal website while taking a class in HTML and web design back in the 90's. It was mostly for my class,
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| Visit "The Bob Page" |
More later.. as "My Story" develops more.. & more.. & more.. Stay in Touch..
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