Hello Friends,
I’m on a mission to reinvent myself in the face of the rapid socioeconomic changes we are all experiencing. In my case, I have basically aged out of the job market in my field (digital marketing) with AI hot on the heels of my younger competitors. My prospects in the career I’ve worked in for the last 25 years have all but evaporated. And it isn’t looking any better for me in fields where I have no training, skills, or experience.
So there it is. That’s the harsh reality I’m looking at. And I know I’m not the only one.
But I want to tell you why I’m not (too) worried about the situation, and how I plan to not only survive this trial, but to actually turn it into an opportunity to thrive. Maybe there’s something in my story that can benefit you or someone you know.
The truth is that I never really wanted a career in digital marketing, or any other field for that matter. I never wanted to work for any company at all. By the time I had started college at Oregon State University in 1980, I had already decided that I wanted to be an entrepreneur.
When I say entrepreneur, I mean it in the purest sense of the word, that is, someone who creates something new — a new type of product, a new way of doing things, a new industry. I’m not talking about a McDonalds franchisee or auto repair shop. I’m talking about innovators, disruptors, visionaries. That’s the kind of entrepreneur I wanted to be.
With a killer business plan and a lot of belief in myself, I dropped out of college after two years and ventured out to make my fortune as an entrepreneur.
I poured my heart and soul into starting a few businesses throughout my 20s and 30s while supporting myself with miscellaneous jobs, mostly in food service. Unfortunately, none of my businesses ever broke through the start-up phase to become a going concern. I learned that for every Steve Jobs, there were 1000s of others who don’t make it — and I was one of them.
Eventually I was faced with a clear choice: Take a job and start a family, or keep chasing my entrepreneurial dreams and risk ending up alone. That choice was easy, and I have my two daughters, Sofia and Sasha, as proof that I made the right call. I’m so glad I did, and I would make the same choice every single time.
Since then, I’ve watched as the business models I once tried to pioneer each turned into multi-billion dollar industries. Meanwhile, I was doing a yeoman’s job for a string of employers and countless clients to pay the bills and support my family. And now, it seems, the job market has brushed me aside and I couldn’t get a job with a livable wage if I wanted one.
Which is fine with me, because I still don’t want one.
I want to be an entrepreneur — A visionary entrepreneur.
And I want to emphasize that my drive to be an entrepreneur is not so I can get fabulously wealthy or be some kind of big shot. (If that had been my motivation, I probably would have done much better.) I want to be an entrepreneur because my mind is constantly coming up with innovative solutions and cool ideas, and I just want to manifest them in the real world.
That’s all.
It’s like how a musician/songwriter feels about their music. I want to be a creator, and entrepreneurship is my art form. Or it will be anyway, if I can just make it happen.
Unfortunately for me (and the world IMHO), becoming an entrepreneur is an incredibly difficult thing to do without resources. Great plans and hard work often aren’t enough to get a venture off the ground. I can tell you that from hard experience. It’s like trying to be a musician with no instruments. Like a painter with no brushes, paints, or canvas.
But my desire to see my creations take root and blossom is so great that no matter how many times I have tried and failed, I am compelled to keep trying.
(And then there’s also the fact that I have no idea what else to do. LOL 😉
Whatever my motivations, I’m committed to doubling down (or tripling, or quadrupling, or whatever it is by now) on my mission to bring one or more of my brain-children to life.
To that end, I intend to start sharing a few of my favorite projects on a regular basis, along with my thoughts on a wide range of topics such as AI, crypto, the economy, politics, religion and spirituality, technology, entertainment, and a lot more. Just about everything but opera. 😉
I’d like to invite you along on my adventure with this project I’ve named Dane of Earth, as I venture forth on a quest to realize my visions.
I don’t know how this is going to turn out, but if I can have a breakthrough and experience some success at this stage in the game, it would make for a pretty amazing story! That’s what I’m all about these days — trying to turn my life into a story worth watching.
So check back tomorrow for the next episode of Dane of Earth, when I’ll introduce the first of the mind-bending projects I have been thinking about for decades that, I think, holds the potential to change the course of human events.
Until then, Ever Onward!
Dane of Earth