I promised to share some excerpts from my book here to get you excited about getting your hands on a copy. Here’s the next installment in that series I’ll title “Making Something Happen.” I hope you enjoy it!
In 2011 I changed day jobs. An opportunity presented itself that allowed me to work in a less supervisory role in a lower stress environment and I jumped at the chance for a change of pace in my eight to five. It also included much less time commitment after hours on nights and weekends and I found myself oddly missing the intensity of the late night pages, phone calls, and weekend morning conference calls of my old job. My new job required me to be on call, but it wasn’t nearly as intense and it created some holes in my weekly routine that I struggled to fill with something that added value to my life. I wanted to fill my time with something fulfilling after the kids went to bed rather than allowing my day job to expand and creep back in and take over. That’s when Portland Boat Tours re-emerged in a big way.
If I was going to do it right this time, I needed to figure out what it would really take. Detailed research revealed to me the exact requirements that I needed to make it legal. By now, I had obtained the remaining sea service time I needed to apply for my captain’s license. I could see that it wasn’t too much of a stretch to make my dream a reality and it seemed like as good a time as any to actually make it happen.
With all of the looming requirements, it would take some money to get started. With two young kids there wasn’t room in the budget to start up a small business. We run a debt free lifestyle that is extremely important to us. Dave Ramsey’s Total Money Makeover taught us to get out of debt and stay out of debt and it’s a concept we have embraced and has given us no small measure of peace in our financial lives. It’s this freedom from debt that allowed me to change day jobs and even think about pursuing my dream job in the first place. However, I needed a way to fund my dream job and get it off the ground without a loan. Luckily, crowdfunding and Kickstarter had come along and was gaining steam as a way to do just that.
Watch this space for more sneak peeks at some of the book while you’re awaiting delivery of your copy. If you haven’t ordered one yet, head over to www.PortlandBoatTours.com/book to take advantage of the discount (only available until March 10th).
