It's Time to Pivot
Seven years.
That's how long my wife's family hadn't seen the kids. For our friends, it was nine. COVID and whatnot was part of the reason. Money the other.
No more excuses. Too much time passed. We went.
Six weeks overseas. You'd think it would be enough. It went so fast. Catching up with friends, spending every mealtime with someone. Church and preaching too. Just like the old days. The kids loved seeing their cousins, they loved the snow, they loved the language. So good.
But while we were away I was able to think. Work had stopped. The grind was on pause. I got honest. Looked at what I'd been doing with the blog.
From Here to There
The blog was always about what I was living. This is what I do. What I write about helps others. So I write. It's not about me, but about the discoveries I make, the things that actually help. It's cutting through the noise.
I started writing here while in a health phase. That meant I wrote a lot about health. Since NRF2 made a massive difference in my life, I definitely wrote about that. But what is it? I needed to explain that. And the company behind it. And the network marketing model they use.
I wasn't building a money machine. Maybe one day, but not now. This was focused on wins in life with a quiet hope that maybe, one day, it would generate some income. Who wouldn't want that?
The problem was I had focused on health. Great topic, but not something I have a lot of authority in. Only the lived kind. Research, credentials, authority. That's not me. Not in this topic. I'm not a doctor. I'm someone telling you how it is. Lived experiences. That's me. That's what this blog is about.
So instead of pretending in expert territory, I have stayed true to the ethos of this blog. Lived experiences only.
But I realise that I need an income now. So clearly I need another way to earn. The blog can stay as it is. Stories. Insights. And links to things that really work so you can look into it yourself. NRF2 is one of those. If it ends up helping someone, that's more than enough.
He's Gone.
When I got home, news had come that my cousin was unwell. Really unwell.
A couple of days ago, he passed away.
Cancer. Pernicious, nasty, unrelenting, dastardly #$@#! Disease. He was a friend, kind and funny, interested and gentle, and a very loving dad. I'm gonna miss him. Everybody will.
His brother told me that he'd only stopped working because of the diagnosis. He didn't tell me that. We talked of alternative jobs, stuff he could do to make money without having to return to his old job. He thought he'd get through it. Still making plans.
He didn't make it.
He did leave a legacy though. A financial base. So that when the worst happened, his family didn't have money problems sitting on top of grief. His wife doesn't need to worry about how they'll survive. She could stop working tomorrow if she needed to. What he and his wife built together over the years is something I keep thinking about.
That's a beautiful thing to leave behind.
It's something I don't have. In my late 50s now, most of my working life was voluntary missionary work, self-funded. Now I'm back, it's like starting from scratch again. Prices are high and debt is deep. Our retirement fund is piddly. Insignificant really. And it worries me.
What happens if I'm the one who goes first? I think about my wife and my kids. What have I left them to help them? These are important questions. None of us have a guarantee in life. My cousin was so nice he should have lived to 100. Instead he died at 50. That used to feel old to me when I was young. Now it is only half-way there.
So what am I going to do about it?
Bruce
About a week ago I sat down with a friend, Bruce. He runs his own small business and had made it pretty clear he wasn't interested in AI. Too many horror stories.
So we talked.
I told him the problem isn't AI. The problem is what people ask it to do. Put it in charge of important decisions and you'll get burned. Treat it like a capable junior assistant and you get a very different result.
Then I gave him examples.
A system to filter his calls so he can actually get work done, and only urgent calls reach him. Automation to handle the quoting and paperwork he does on the weekends. Tools to spot patterns in his business he'd probably never find himself.
We didn't even get to half of it.
By the end of our chat, Bruce was interested. He started to see how it really could help. Suddenly it wasn't some abstract thing in a news article. It was a direct answer to a problem he has every single week.
I'd been thinking about helping people in these areas before. This conversation sat with me. Everything that I'd told him was here and able to be used. He could see advances in his business almost immediately. The cost would be low compared to the savings.
So why wasn't I doing it?
Early Success
I've always been around technology my entire life, well before the internet existed. AI is one more step in the process.
I have held workshops teaching leaders to use computers when they were new. Set up networks, built systems, and taught videography and editing when it was still on tape. I've helped rebuild the servers and networks in a TV station, and improved the systems in a book wholesale business to increase efficiency in their order processes, and helped a medical clinic go from constant outages to zero downtime.
Always dealing with efficiency and systems.
And the tools available now are extraordinary, if you know how to use them. What needed a team, can now be handled by one person. Small business owners often send invoices out on the weekend, or late at night. I watch their work slow as they stop for every call. Most of what they're drowning in has a solution.
I can help. This is my area of strength.
But there is one problem.
The Problem
Everything is ready.
Over the last number of days I have built my scripts, frameworks, report structure, processes. I have the knowledge, clarity on who I am helping, and how I can do it. So the next step is obvious.
Pick up the phone.
Should be easy, right? After all, I call people all the time. All sorts of people in any situation, from any walk of life, without hesitation. But the idea of calling someone to say I think I can help their business produces an actual lump in my throat. Weird.
This is internal. Identity. An incongruence between what I know to do and who I think I am. Probably caused by always giving valuable things away for free. Now I am planning to charge for them, it is hitting me hard.
How to get through it? Move forward.
What's Coming
That means you get to be a part of my struggle.
I'm starting with free sessions. No charge, just a conversation. This still produces resistance, but it feels easier in my head.
In fact I have now talked with three businesses:
- First said, "maybe."
- Second didn't answer their phone, so I sent a text message. No answer either.
- The third said, "No." They didn't need my services, free or not.
Each time it was hard. Each time I did it anyway. It's like bungee jumping. It feels ridiculously dangerous but once you reach the point of no return you do it anyway. I just press the dial button. That's my point of no return.
So things will progress, or digress, or regress. Whatever happens, I'll probably write about it here. For sure it'll make a good story. There may even be some lessons in it.
Who knows.
