Remember me
Though it’s time to say goodnight
Remember me
Keep up the endless fight
For though it seems hard to navigate
Always clearly through life’s dark path
And sometimes when life seems so bleak
It’s simply hard to laugh
Remember me
When you see kale at the salad bars
And Know that I am with you
Even though Iād rather eat a Mars
I’m here to say I want to be a Hero to all men
But know outside the cyber world, I messed up yet again,
Remember…….me
Remember Me. If you didn’t see the Disney/Pixar movie COCO, that is what my song today was modeled from. I had a bit of a thought I wanted to convey here, and I am not sure if I will carry it out too well. The idea is how today’s world of Pinterest parties and living the dream out in Facebook land is creating a generation of people strung out, stressed out, and checked out from real life. And in this rat race we are trying to kick it up a notch, but already we are into maximum overdrive.
I admit I look good on Facebook and on social media – I am Mike-the-Pharmacist, and yes, it’s hyphenated. Someone in Cally-fornia designed that new flashy logo for me a month ago and I got a great discount. Will it look good 50 years from now, when I have white hair in my ears and my teeth are gone, and the little hair I have left (besides in my ears) is white? Would success at that age be me not peeing in my pants? Depends.
I have logos designed. I can have banners made. I have a Masterclass series that makes it look like I know what I am doing. I am rich and famous on Facebook, and that reminds me of when I was in Pharmacy School. Back then I was known as Pharmacy Boy through a Newsletter I wrote. I met someone at a social event in college, and their response was, “Wow, so you are PHARMACY BOY?” I felt famous. It was a good feeling.
I want to be rich and famous in real life, but in real life I see how far I am from my online presence and personal brand. Not that I am that successful online – but the whole thing feels a bit like a Scooby Doo mystery, “let’s see who you really are!” I want to be someone who is as impressive off-line as I am online. It’s challenging when your talent is writing, and you are an introvert at times. Maybe some of that is just fueled by insecurities. However, once people encourage you, you become a Ham-I-Am. Most of us are begging to be discovered as the next America’s Got Talent star for sure. But maybe I am not the only one to admit, I don’t do so well with the character side of developing that talent. I don’t have the wherewithal or discipline to go beyond the talent, beyond the ideas, and actually put them to good use. We all need to put work and effort into our goals, and make sure a taste of success doesn’t rush to our heads.
There was a famous pianist who performed a powerful concert. A man walked up to him and said, “I want to do what you do!” The man replied, “No, you don’t. When I was a boy, I watched the other children play football and go on dates and go on fishing trips, and I was forced to practice. I practiced, practiced, practiced, practiced, practiced. You want the success and the applause without all the sacrifices that went with it.”
I am convinced that Facebook Live has increased our 15 minutes of fame by at least a half an hour or more. Today we can all have our very own Podcast, and if we know how to use graphics we can look like a Pro. We can start a Youtube channel, and if we know how to use graphics we can look like a Pro. We can own our very own not-quite-our-own million dollar Network Marketing franchise for $99 enrollment until the 18th of June, and soon we can bombard family and friends with our amazing life changing opportunity. We can all be that one person who cracks the online code and makes $40,000 a month blogging. You just have to find the right niche, and the right training, and get the right mentor and coach, and find the right Amazon affiliates to add on, and learn all the traffic secrets and get the right funnel, and learn how to manipulate the secret codes of the magical search engines and never say anything that upsets the hidden bots that track your posts, and you are good to go. And a big rule I am certainly breaking here is if you want the millions of followers or the millions of dollars or both, you NEVER EVER reveal the kinks in your armor or your nerdy insecurity alter ego. Just be a shiny happy person day in and day out for 18 months straight, never skip a day, have your teeth polished and your smile on and your A-game going, and just fake it. I mean just do it. And never, ever quit.
I do have some problems with this process. First, getting started is exhausting. And second, after a certain point I can’t stand looking at my own videos any more or reading my own long-winded posts. If I can’t stand it, why would anyone else? Why do we do these things? To me this RACE that has us knocking, seeking, looking, reaching, searching, polishing ourselves up on FB live, whatever. It all seems to be the modern day California Gold Rush. Some of us will find gold for sure, most of us will die on the way.
I already spun my wheels for 5 years in 2 network marketing businesses. The first one was an energy company and the next one is a unique health product that happened to be an anti aging product. I texted and invited people all over the place. My OCD was working quite well. I did videos, I did meetings at restaurants, I went to Dallas Texas and Salt Lake City and Denver and bought oodles of books, I had a subscription for Success magazine and renewed it annually, I did launch calls with my own Conference Call number, and I did the 3 way calls as they instructed. I had Darren Hardy and John Maxwell daily sending me personal growth and development straight to my email. I had online mentorship with Simon Chan. I was a product of the product, drinking the energy drinks, having gas and energy through my business, drinking the protein shakes and taking $200 worth of supplements every single day. And I didn’t make very much, I stopped promising my wife I was going to win her a trip to Barbados or wherever the next incentive trip was going, and eventually I distanced myself from them and swore off network marketing. But it’s like the Mafia – every time I get free, they pull me back in. And I just recently looked at two guys opportunities and am trying to get two brand new MLM businesses going, and guess what they are in? One is with an energy company and one is a unique health product. Perhaps you’ve heard of them before.
I had posted daily for years on my health group in FB land and I got worn out. I took a break. I actually took a stress leave because once I start posting, I can’t shut my brain off. It then becomes like a leaking faucet though it soon turns into a flood. I get endless silly thoughts and I throw them on my Facebook page and then I end up with just more silly thoughts. They are funny, people have the nerve to go and encourage me by throwing me a few LIKES which just feeds the dopamine and keeps me posting – kind of like how those trained seals will do endless tricks for a sardine. Anyway, I needed a break. And after putting tons of posts out there, to leave FB land for a few weeks wasn’t rewarded by the FB analytics. All of a sudden when I came back, I had NO engagement and no LIKES. I say that to say how trapped they make us. I have some topics I am passionate about – but God forbid I say something that offends one of my members and they complain and I am shut down . The control that social media has on us I think is hard to fathom, but I think it really is something that has us on edge and feeling like we don’t measure up.
I don’t know. I used to like more people but I think I am worn out from people. It might not just be social media that has us anti social. If you aren’t sure where this post is going, join the club. I am not sure where it’s going. It’s a bit of a challenge because I have a thought. I had a thought. And when I started typing, all of a sudden I couldn’t freely write because now I have an audience to impress. I have not one shred of evidence that anyone is out there – kind of like searching for intelligent life in the so-called galaxy, but here I am writing trying hard to not simply impress you. The reader out in Cyber Space that just happens to be scrolling through new blogs with millions of dollars in their pockets and nothing else to do, so they must be on the look out for bloggers to send huge checks to. So things like that keep me from the freedom I thought I would have to blog.
Blogging – it’s more free perhaps than Facebook. But I think there is something to be said here about the fears we have of what people think. I am so worried about what people think of me, and then I fall off the deep end and cry for help and wallow and whine and whimper and find no one is thinking of me and now I am hurt as well as bruised from a fall off the deep end. There is real pain and anguish today that I don’t just think is me thinking it. This isn’t my intent to just leave people without hope. But I think an honest evaluation of where we are at and where we are going is reasonable.
I would love to think I have some answers for people I don’t even know who might be reading this blog and reality is they might be reading this thinking, “I wonder what he is thinking! This guy sounds like he is a few cookies short of a Bakers’ Dozen.” I am rambling a bit, but I am also trying to share somethings on my heart. I could write how to make a million dollars by blogging, and get a million followers and have them all buy my e-book for just a dollar where I reveal my secret (do the math!) BUT the passion is lacking to make money blogging by teaching others how to make money blogging. Yet, here I am on this platform, wanting to change the world,and I have nothing.
I have the stage. I have the microphone. I have the chance to wow and woo and make an impact and this is what I have been waiting for in chasing this dream. And now it looks like I was hiding behind it because I simply don’t want to get hurt again. By my career or by those I failed to get going in the last MLM I did.
I have no answers at the moment. Maybe the next blog post will be my Eureka moment. Just know I feel your pain. The isolation today where if you hear from high school friends, it’s because they just joined a new direct sales business and have an amazing opportunity for you. Oh, by the way, I have an amazing opportunity for you, much better than theirs. Just send me a private inbox. Hurry, operators are standing by.
I know of a certain hyphenated pharmacist blogger guy with 5 children and 2 puppies and he and his wife watch extra kids for free and give all they have and cry for help and people yell, “how do you dare to ask for help – what did you expect from that many creatures?” A hundred years ago, families lived close by and helped each other through life’s challenges. Everything seemed to be handled like one of those Amish barn buildings. The church back then rallied behind you. Now if you lose a job or have another kid, people don’t want to get in the way of the life lessons you are supposed to learn.
My wife and I got married in 2006. Shortly after we started having kid after kid. We know what causes that. We know they are a challenge. We thought it might be better to have them close together so they would be close growing up. We didn’t know they would hit each other over the head with pool sticks or NERF guns. We didn’t know they would fight over electronics or gadgets or fight over every unclaimed LEGO that we owned. We didn’t know my wife would get a barrage of illnesses and surgeries and have PICC lines and gestational diabetes and a hernia repair mesh and fibromyalgia and chronic migraines and restless legs and kidney stones and diverticulitis and panic attacks and gallstones and MRSA and everything else I am forgetting.
We didn’t know I would be forced out of 3 full time pharmacy positions from 2006 to 2011 and then spend a whole year opening an independent pharmacy, only to have it close a month after we moved into our dream home. Eighteen months later I lost 3 jobs at K-marts from store closings, was at another independent that laid me off, worked a job as a clinical pharmacist that paid maybe 60% of what pharmacists make and they laid everyone off except for a few, and started at a medical office but the doctor had to take a health leave.
Everything we do is like the book, “If you give a Mouse a cookie.” My wife fell in love with the puppy a coworker got so she had me meet the dog named Bandit. Yes, he was cute. Next, we were driving to Columbus Ohio to get 2 female sister puppies so they would be able to grow up together. Then the van breaks down an hour into the drive. We have a tow come, and he takes me to the Erie airport to rent a vehicle while he fixes the van. We get the puppies, drive home in the rental, and I have to drive to PA in a few days to get the van and return the rental. There’s the rental cost, plus van repair, plus puppies. Then we realize we need crates. And dog food. But then the trainer who my wife knows from the same coworker, says we can’t use Purina. So now we buy $80 dog food. And then we need a fence. And if you are going to finance for a fence, you might as well get the deck while you are at it to go with it. And friends visit, and instead of staying to help or wonder how we do it, say, “That’s too crazy. You need to get rid of a dog.”
We were accused of being evil parents to dare have 5 kids in a 1030 square foot house for years. We donated an inheritance to my kids’ school being built, and then gave more money to other people as well. When my Grandma died, I was sick of all the attacks people aimed at us for giving money away, so I used that inheritance on building a new home that had an office for my new business. (Did I tell you I have a great opportunity to share with you? ) So I build my family a big home with enough rooms for them and an office for me, and a month later my pharmacy closed. Then the same people who yelled at us for the small house are yelling at us for the large house. “You’re foolish to have such a big house! Go sell all your stuff!” they tell us.
I am still trying to figure it out. I could maybe sell one of my puppies and one of my kidneys to give me some time. I have a few jokes I can sell. My wife crochets, and sometimes they remember to pay her at least for the cost of the yarn. I will give you good Facebook content for a sardine, well maybe for Pizza.
I should probably spend my time learning how to make money online. Except every time I check my email, I have 3 new emails how to make money on line, a few invites for courses how to make money on line, some new videos on the latest breakthroughs on how to make money on line, everything under the sun. And once I figure out what works, of course, I can send you the training and sell you the same strategy, though now it’s 5 years later and millions more are now doing what you are attempting to do. Which, to me, is why this whole thing seems so elusive. I could get some special effects and sound like an authority and get the right funnel going and become another spinster who is sipping margaritas on a lazy river convincing you I have the answers. But because I am honest and saying I don’t know what works, I can’t trust anyone out there either. I don’t know who to start following, because I am scared of another 5 year detour. And I am convinced the Gold Rush is going to crumble and give way to something else by the time I crack the code. I won’t get the million subscribers.
There is always a new way to find a way to spend more money on the next class or course. I honestly do have a business, and I also market CBD oil. The problem right now is that everyone who has any business savvy about them is already doing 2 to 5 businesses. They are more likely to convert you to one of THEIR businesses. OR they have no business savviness about them; they still are on the fence from 5 years ago, and if they did join anything they wouldn’t do anything with it anyway.
When it comes to opportunity in cyberspace, it seems you are spammed if you do, spammed if you don’t.
So I don’t know the answer. Meanwhile, 10-year-olds have 1 million followers on YouTube and are making 6 figure incomes. Maybe I should turn my business ideas over to my kids and they can do it between their MineCraft.
If you are looking for a hero, I can’t help you. If you are looking for amusement and what not to do, remember me.
Good night for now.