"I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now."
Bob Dylan wrote and (sort of) sang it, The Byrds made it popular, but I prefer the Dick Gaughan version of same. Great song...amazing that Dylan wrote it in his 20s. Makes way more sense to me these days. In fact, My Back Pages is the theme song for my 50s.
I am lifting a part of a post I entered on my Success in Sweatpants blog to provide some of my back story here. A lot what I will write about here will refer back to or be rooted in my experiences and the realizations and personal growth that resulted from them. So, here is a portion of my story and timeline:
Sometimes I think I'm a one-off, but then I think, no, that's incredibly egotistic. Born into an Army family that was kind of a mobile "Father Knows Best" in culture, I was introduced to the idea of life beyond the U.S. at the age of 7. Lived in Iran (where my sister married a Persian) as a kid; have also lived in every region of the U.S. and been in every one of the 50 states. Graduated high school from a small American school in a small town in Italy.
Tried to fit into the "way things are supposed to be" once I got out of college, but never succeeded. I hated corporate life, and I still don't have the talent for schmoozing, patience, and savvy politics that are required to make it in that scenario.
My passion for a better world and my love of playing a big game led to my work for Werner Erhard and the est training in the late 70s. I worked in the Philadelphia center (producing events, leading groups, and lots of other intense work), then moved on to the 6-Day course for a season. Met my first husband here, and that's a whole other story.
Based on first husband's promptings, I became a cruising sailor, and stayed tied to the sea by a bowline knot for over 20 years and through 2 more husbands. I can now confidently claim to be the ultimate first mate, after three boys, three boats, and three different cruising experiences (First husband - cocaine/sex addict; second husband - verbally/psychologically abusive; third husband - wonderful person and now just a friend).
The high point of my cruising career was a 3-year cruise on a 36-foot boat from San Diego, through Mexico, Costa Rica, Panama, and Colombia. Lots of stories, lots of learning experiences.
Then.....
In 1994, I returned to the States from the Caribbean, ending a sailboat cruising life with my second husband (and ending the marriage as well). I arrived in San Diego with two duffel bags and $1,000 in cash—the sum total of my portfolio. I was four months shy of my 40th birthday.
For the first six months, I didn’t own a car (a difficult thing to be without in Southern California), I bought overripe vegetables at steep discounts from the neighborhood produce stand (I had lots of home canned veggies for a while there), and I used my decrepit laptop computer with a sloooow dial up line to figure out what had happened in cyberspace while I’d been sailing in the tropics.
In 1995, I declared bankruptcy because of outstanding debts left over from my first marriage.
Then things turned around.....
In 2004, after ten years of corporate gigs, I had a decent sized IRA, savings in a money market account, and I bought my very first house.
In 2005, I started 4R Marketing. It was a stretch financially, but I went for it.
In 2006, with the support of a great team, I broke into six figures in company revenue, and in 2007 I increased revenues by another 50%.
This year, I rented my house out and bought a new home in the Texas hill country—my own evidence that the law of attraction works. I’m living the life I used to dream about, and now I’m spinning new dreams to reach for.
In a way, these are sort of credentials. I've been through ups, downs, sides--and want to share my stories in ways that make a DIFFERENCE to the people who read them.
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