Career Change? My Painful but True Story!
"My name is Tim Madigan, and I'm an FFL. Nearly my whole career was spent working for others, which was an incredible waste of time, and never got me anywhere. The harder I worked, the lower my credit rating went, and the higher my bills stacked up. You might think I am the type of person who is afraid to try new things, or get out of a bad situation when you feel stuck. It is just the opposite!
"You see, I DID TRY everything! I spent a fortune on web and home based businesses, only to have great sites, few clicks and hardly any sales. I tried ebay, I tried online lotteries, I tried every type of product and business, from real estate to publishing to multi-level, and each one just ended up a bust. I counted Carlton Sheets courses instead of sheep at night.
"They say 'do what you love, and the money will follow'. That didn't work for me for nearly 40 years of groping from job to job, and failure to failure, and making all my bosses richer. They said get more education. So I went from not finishing high school, to an online master's degree, and I ended up making less than when I was a roofer! I've been in accounting, auto sales, retail, medicine, graphic arts, the military, the martial arts, health food, food service, construction, real estate and nearly every other "career" you can imagine. I stated out life studying to be a priest, and when that seemed wrong, nothing else ever seemed like "my" unique path, career or calling. It was becoming way too late to go back and become a veterinarian to make mom and wife happy, although I do love animals.
"Staring at 50+ years old, I found that I could have a great conversation with nearly everybody about their job, because I'd tried nearly every one, but never hit the big one, and never was really happy. I have lots of little skills, but no really big ones that jump out at you. I was headed for a zero retirement nest egg, and ending up dying a Wal Mart employee, from what I could see. A good friend noticed I liked collectible knives, hunting, fishing, etc. He asked if I ever considered being a bladesmith.
I had taken a few correspondence courses for an "online degree" as a gunsmith (and nearly every other profession on the planet), but found I didn't really have the mechanical skills. That's when I accidently ran into ETI!
"While looking at bladesmith resources on the web, and getting more and more depressed because it looked like just another job working for others, I came across one of ETI's FFL and PSU's bladesmithing sites. I drove them crazy with 50 or more emails before even getting my first guide. They were kind and patient with me then, just as they have been for the past 12 years now. The FFL process sounded terrible, and heavy with paperwork, but it struck me as something that could REALLY be my own business. I knew that ebay and paypal outlaw gun and some knife products, yet I could immediately think of dozens of other related areas like home defense and security products, and custom knives, including switchblades, that were bound to be huge.
I liked to collect guns, and loved beautifully made knives, and that is really the closest to a "hobby" I'd ever had, other than the hobby of trying to survive from paycheck to paycheck.
"I joined the ETI team as one of their network dealers and bladesmiths, and have never looked back. That was more than 10 years ago. Getting the FFL was a lot of paperwork, and there are certain people with certain views I just can't talk to anymore, but I am finally working 100% for myself. I naturally had hundreds of web ideas, and ETI had to keep reigning me in, and teaching me to focus. But I learned without having to work two separate "day" jobs to keep my web sites going. Your FFL is not a scam, you stock and ship real products from knives to pepper spray to tasers to guns to self defense videos, and people are crying for these products due to terrorism and our uncertain planet. So many people don't trust that the government will protect us, that I'm making over $300,000 a year just on my preparedness products alone.
"ETI is really about your FFL and getting you started with a small office or home based business, but the "part" of the business I really liked personally was getting people to be independent. Maybe all my pain in so many jobs over the years made me hate dependence on others. So selling things like freeze dried foods and other home defense and survival items to "be prepared" was a natural. Heck I'm not some kind of end-of-the-world type, but I was a Boy Scout, and I feel that I'm really doing good to get people "prepared" in their own homes with food, home defense and security should the U.S. oil supply get shut off, even temporarily. My gun, taser, alarm products and dried food sales doubled after 9/11, and haven't slowed down since. Yes, I am making over $2,000 each on my custom knives. But what PSU teaches you is that you need to "fill in" with their network, or you will just be one more starving bladesmith! Their auctions, free custom sites, free store listings, trade references, wholesale dealer approvals, city and state licenses, and much more, allow you to start a BUSINESS, not just a TRADE.
BEST OF ALL, I AM NOW RETIREMENT AGE, AND DON'T EVEN WANT TO CONSIDER IT! INSTEAD OF Wal Mart, I AM MAKING OVER HALF A MILLION A YEAR NET, AS AN ETI NETWORK DEALER, WITH MY OWN UNIQUE NICHE, AND CAN RETIRE ANY TIME I WANT, WITH ZERO DEBT. You might think this is no big deal-- but not when you find out the punch line: The day I applied for my Easy FFL Guide, I had over $112,000 in credit card debt on over 20 cards, and was making under $29,000 a year! Do you think any other distibutor would have taken a chance on me? ETI gave me more than some online course or career opportunity-- they gave me a new life."
|