The Journey Begins

Well this is my introduction to the world of blogs. This is my first blog and I hope that those who are reading this enjoy reading about my journey and can learn from what I share.

To start, I would like to state my reasons for writing this blog. First of all I am 24 years old and I have been struggling to find my place in life. I know where I want to end up but I just don't know for sure how to get there. For the past two years I have had a strong interest in real estate and I really want to get into investing. That's kind of hard to do with no money and not so good credit. I was tempted to become a real estate agent (and still might) but I'm not sure that is something I really want to do. I do know that I want to own my own buisness and work on my own terms and I have felt this way since I was 18.

My interest in becoming an entrepreneur started a few months after I had turned 18. I was a freshman college (I had started in August of 2004). My goals at the time were to get a degree and to graduate as soon as possible and to get a good job. I had become good friends with a classmate and we would hang out on campus in between our classes. One day she introduced me to who would soon become my best friend. The guy was someone she knew since she was in middle school and they weren't really friends but they spoke when they saw each other. After meeting him, she began to talk negatively about him so of course, me not knowing him, I wasn't too fond of him myself.

Well one day we ran into him again in front of the library. He kept asking her to come take a look at a presentation but he wouldn't tell her what it was about. We both thought it was something for school, but she kept declining. So then he asked me did I want to come and at first I hesitated, but me being curious I decided to go. The presentation was upstairs in one of the study rooms and when I walked in there were like three other people. One of the people was a guy who I would also become good friends with. What struck me about this guy was that he was young like I was but he was dressed in a suit and tie. Most college students walked around in jeans (shorts at the time of the year), a t-shirt, and tennis shows or sandals. His appearance piqued my interest in what he had to say. I came in late and he was already talking. I sat down and I realized that the presentation was not at all like I had expected.....it was better. He was sharing with us an opportunity to become business owners with a company called Excel. Excel was a network marketing company and for those who don't know what network marketing is, think of Amway, Tupperware, or Mary Kay. Excel didn't delve into products like those other companies. They were into services. When I was introduced to it they were marketing long distance services.

Once I saw the presentation I decided that this was something that I could do part time while I was in school and I so I got started. I worked with Excel for about 5 years and made some decent money, but in 2004 their parent company, VarTec got rid of the network marketing aspect of the company due to filing bankrupt. During my tenure with Excel I learned a great deal about being an independent business owner. I attended many seminars and events about business, investing, and real estate. Although I am no longer affiliated with Excel, I am glad to have been a part of the company. Business owners and network marketers often look at life a lot differently than regular employees and that's how I began to look at life.

Once Excel closed, a lot of my business partners in my hometown, Augusta, went to various other network marketing companies. I did too, but after putting the time that I did into Excel, I really wasn't sure if network marketing was for me. Sure I liked the lifestyle that you could get by being a network marketing, but I wasn't ready to get into selling services, or products and finding other people who wanted to do the same. Not only that, I had begun to realize there were several other ways I could make money on my own, without having to do network marketing. I was most interested in real estate investing and decided that that was what I wanted to do.

At the same time I began doing research on the internet about making money. I have seen hundreds of ways to make money on the internet, but here's the problem that I have encountered. There is so much information that it's hard to determine which information is accurate and legitimate. There are so many people who use the internet to scam people and I just want to make sure that don't become a vicitim to these scammers. Another thing is tha there is a lot of legitimate information but a lot of it is not as detailed as it should be for those who are brand new to buisness on the internet. Also , a lot of it is exremely repetitive.

That brings me to why I decided to write this blog. A few weeks ago I decided that my goal was to make at least $2,000 per month online and that would require a lot of trial and error. I am going to be posting in this blog my journey to making a living online and I hope that those who read it can learn something from my experiences.

Thanks!!