Baby Boomer’s Transition From Corporate to Internet Entrepreneur

Do you often wonder how another person started in affiliate marketing?

Well, let me tell you my story.

My career in technology started way back, past many of your birth dates, and in the computer dark ages, if that is how we could describe it today. Although I know that when you get to my age, today’s technology would also get described as the dark ages for computers.

The world is changing so fast.

Ok, let me get back on track.

I started in computers as a programmer and did that for many many years. I absolutely loved it. But as life went on I got involved in implementation of software systems and slowly my career evolved to taking over these implementations, by being appointed the project manager. So a little less programming got done. And as the years went by I started climbing the corporate ladder and got more and more involved in taking over the leadership of technology teams.

So over the years my leadership expanded from not only leading software teams but also the hardware side of technology. Sure learnt a lot about communications and network technologies.

In any event, this all led to a time in my life where being at the top of the game, were the loneliest and most political place to be.

Now, that’s when I realized that my passion for technology had evolved to a place where I started hating my days, my job and my life.

So there I was one morning feeling as if I was an egg, shell intact but all the juice sucked out of me. Now What?

Got up, got dressed (normal corporate stuff, stilettos, which I love and the ever present black suit!). Got to work, called my boss and said ‘I am out of here, can we talk’. My boss being the good person that she is, understood, that it was time for me to go. We agreed and I left the corporate world for the unknown world.

In my last years in my job I had also qualified as a coach and when I left my corporate job I thought that that was what I was going to do. I will go on and complete my masters in coaching and do professional coaching for a living.

It felt good to be free and for a few months, 3 to be exact, I got up late, fooled around on the internet a bit, went to gym at 11 in the morning. Read countless books, all this whilst doing coaching as well.

Ok, so I like people and I like to help them, but coaching? Naw, not for me. Not full time in any event. Phew that was a relief; at least that was sorted.

But, something was missing. I still did not feel as if this was what I really wanted to do.

I came to the conclusion. It is great to do nothing, but us, we humans, like to have a purpose and a goal to work towards. So doing nothing was not for me either.

In my internet travels I came across this ‘affiliate marketing’ thing and started researching and reading about it as much as possible.

I sat down and started a bit of soul searching. Going back and writing down all the things I use to love doing and noting down the things that are so-so and the things that I really did not want to do.

This is what I got: What do I love doing?  

Dabbling in technology,

Researching,

Learning new stuff,

Creating and writing.

I loved doing research. I love creating ads. Oh, I forgot to mention I had started dabbling in Adwords, spend a bit of money, made a bit of money. Now that was exciting.

I went on courses, Html, Dreamweaver and SEO.

Started creating my own websites.

All this moved me into affiliate marketing and I love doing it.

It is very challenging as there is a lot of competition but that is also part of the fun. It is not an easy profession but it is creative, competitive, lots of money to be made and you learn something new every day.

Doing the internet travelling made me realize that here I can work, travel, chat, write, make money, 24 hours a day 365 days of the year.

Yes, there are risks. Scammers and hackers and just plain dishonest people were everywhere. You just have to know how to identify them, and sometimes you don’t and you get taken for a ride and yes sometimes you come across a virus. But you learn something new every minute, hour and day that you interact and worked on the internet.

You cannot ask for anything more exciting.

Do I miss my corporate world of big easy money and almost no risk?

Not for a nano second.

Are you thinking of getting into affiliate marketing?

Are you an affiliate marketer?

Love to hear your stories?

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