Highlight #1. - - - - The Past
Spent over 50 years of my life figuring out what to do. During that time, I had spent almost 11 years on active duty with the US Army, owned numerous businesses , raised 2 children with the help of my beautiful wife of 30 years, had seen success and failure., amassed a net worth of close to a million USD and able to somehow reduce that to a negative net worth. Like many I have had my share of up’s and down’s.
Highlight #2. - - - - The Event
Was working in the family owned business ( a janitorial company), vacuuming carpet, late one night at the end of April 2009, when it hit me. Not an idea, but a massive pain in my left shoulder and arm and other areas. Being the stubborn fool , I tried to see if this might just go away with a little rest. 24 hours later, I made it to the emergency room, with what the doctor’s said was about ten minutes to spare. After being morphined up, they took me to the cath operating room and proceded to put a stent in one of the arteries to my heart. I did see a bright white light, not the one that is mystic, well that’s for another post in probably a different blog. Sixty hours later, and another 60K in debt, I was released.
Highlight # 3 ----The Decision
The doctor advised me not to do much of anything for 2 weeks and that unless I had serious issues my first visit with the cardiologists was for 6 weeks from the date of being released. 100’s of thoughts and ideas raced through my cranium. Would I recover? Would I be back 100%? What type of work could I do? How hard did I want to push myself physically? So many questions and no real answers.
The answers started to come within a few weeks. Even though I was resting , I felt tired and had trouble breathing (COPD). I was starting to realize that physical labor of any length of time could no longer be part of my work schedule. I had been performing duties as the General Manager of the family cleaning business , which was a hands on position that required part janitor, part salesman, and part bookkeeper, and part deliveryman all rolled into one. A decision had to be made and I knew it would affect everybody in my circle of friends, family, and employees. I would step out of the family business ( except for some minor paperwork related duties) and pursue something that was more in line with my reduced physical capabilities.
Highlight #4 - - - - The Forest
Started to get stir crazy after 2 weeks, I knew I wanted to still be productive and bring meaning to my life through working at something I could truly love with a passion. I also knew I could work for nobody else. It was at this junction of my recovery that I started to formulate a concept of an endeavor that could be rewarding and not require a huge financial outlay. Although I didn’t have a large amount of free capital to work with , I rearranged some finances and billings and was able to free up about 500 USD a month to invest in the enterprise. Although , I hadn’t worked out the particulars, I wanted to some way have a positive and meaningful influence on America. I was determined to stick with anything I started for at least 3 years. That gave me until June 2012. I had always been intrigued by how public opinion was being formulated in the U.S. The news cycle seemed to be always having this poll or that poll as justification for whichever slant they seemed to want to put on a story. Although I had no formal schooling in statistics or marketing, common sense told me that some of the polls seemed to be quite questionable. I decided why not start a research company that was behooving to no one and see if raw data could be used to reinforce and steer public policy. It was at this point that I determined that a online company versus a brick and mortar enterprise is the way I wanted to go. I had a lot to learn. I had let myself become technologically ignorant. Heck, I couldn’t even program my cell phone. I could however sometimes remember how to cut and paste properly.
Highlight 5 --- -- The Goals
Any enterprise should have goals. I thought carefully and determined that I would not look for intermediate or easily obtainable goals, I would set one goal and let it ride. The Goal - have this enterprise make one million dollars within 3 years. This is the blog that will document that journey. It’s at this venture that I would like to explain my handle- rebwithacause. When I served in the U.S. Army, I was in an organization called the Army Security Agency. We were the Army’s NSA, kind of. Many of us had operational signs(op sign) as well as nicknames. My op sign was Reb1, it was a combination of the first letters of my nickname/alias (Rocky) and my actual name. Now that I had a new cause or purpose in my life, It was logical to me to reinstitute the opsign with a civilian twist. I was going to write again, not as Reb1 but as rebwithacause. More to follow….. In about 3-5 days.
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