“Hello, yeah, it’s been a while. Not much, how about you?”
Wouldn’t you know it took a global pandemic to bring me back to blogging? That and a little nudge the other day from a friend on Facebook.
You see, I happened to post about what I’ve been up to during these times of “social distancing.” An old friend who I worked with when I still had hair, commented that I should start banging on the keyboard again, pontificating about life, and bitching about everything around me.
After some thoughtful consideration and trying to figure out why I actually stopped, I decided it was time to come back. My musings and ramblings were something I looked forward to putting out there on pretty much a daily basis.
So why did I stop?
I really don’t know.
It certainly wasn’t for lack of time or subject matter.
So for the “welcome back” post, I decided that I’ll bore you with the details on what I’ve been up to since the last time I wrote.
In March 2018, I officially hung up my hat after nearly two decades of working at the company I co-founded, Solid Cactus. I miraculously (and sometimes begrudgingly) managed to stick around after we were acquired by web.com in 2009.
It was great to finally be done with conference calls that went nowhere, meetings about meetings, and working with bankers masquerading as the smartest people in the room because they knew what the acronym ROI stood for but not PPC.
After cleaning out my office in Boca Raton and immediately deleting Excel from my laptop, my next move was to figure out what I should do next since I was now semi-retired, yet not old enough to ride the bus for free.
I took golf lessons for the second time.
I quit taking golf lessons for the second time.
I did some traveling and found out that Southern California has my name written all over it.
I returned to Florida wondering how people in Southern California can afford gas, let alone rent.
I walked a lot.
A real lot.
I got bored.
I realized that full retirement wasn’t in the cards for me and needed to do something to keep myself busy.
I started working part-time at SeaWorld making as much an hour as I was when I was 17 years old. But hey, playing with roller coasters, making people happy, and cleaning up stranger’s vomit is better than those conference calls I mentioned earlier.
Yes. I’m still there!
No. I’m not there anymore, although I do miss it, another opportunity pulled me away.
Walt Disney World.
One of the questions I was often asked as a serial entrepreneur was, “what are you going to do next?” The answer always was, “put on an oversized white glove, wave at people, and tell them to have a magical day.”
After paying into a massively overpriced, extremely broken health care system that somehow got the word “affordable” thrown into its title, I decided it was time to stop letting the insurance company insert a mid-size car up my rectum each month.
I became a Cast Member, that’s what Disney’s employees are called, at the most Magical Place on Earth where fantastic benefits and perks are just part of the deal that makes me happy to go into work each morning.
Plus, who wouldn’t want to work for a mouse and a duck that doesn’t wear pants?
But then there was that part of me that wanted to stay connected to the industry that allowed me the opportunity to now labor less as I approach 50.
Don Cole, who many in the eCommerce space know as one of the most popular Yahoo! Store developers, was looking for someone to implement a program called the Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS) for his business. Having never heard of this, I researched it, read books on it, and threw my hat in the ring and eventually said I was up for the challenge and signed on in October 2018.
Don’s company, Your Store Wizards, was a friendly competitor to mine and we worked well together over the years, sharing many clients like most in this crazy space do. We both built companies from scratch, suffered through economic ups and downs, and had the battle scars to prove it.
I implemented EOS, (which if you’re a small business owner looking to manage growth, streamline operations, and make sure your team is performing to the best of their abilities, I highly recommend looking into it) and have remained on the team as the go-to person for operational, marketing, and partnership initiatives.
While I haven’t been blogging here in quite a while, I’ve been busy over at the Your Store Wizards blog writing about what else, eCommerce.
So that’s what I’ve been up to.
I’m thankful that Suzanne gave me that little push and “spark of inspiration” needed to get back to writing about the things that piss me off, people who make me scratch my head, and situations that only I can get myself into.
Now get back to doing whatever you were doing, and don’t forget to wash your hands.