There’s A Good Reason For You Not To Knock

It’s a bit crazy. I’m sitting here in a really nice room at the Embassy Suites just outside Washington DC, and the most interesting thing right now is their version of a funny “Do Not Disturb” sign hanging on the inside of my door. “There’s a good reason for you not to knock right now,” it says.

Yeah, I don’t think I’ll be needing that.

Quite a bit has changed in the two months since I last wrote anything. And of course, much is also the same.

I’ve only been gone nine hours and I really miss Allie already. It’s fricking weird. I’m gone longer than this for work every day and somehow right now I miss her a lot. Maybe it’s cause I’m all alone in a strange city for almost four days, I dunno.

So yeah, I’m getting pretty sick of driving a damn truck. I’m getting even sicker of barely being able to pay the bills, which pretty much shoots to hell any dreams of being able to somehow get to a better place financially and being able to take care of Allie better and be with her more and give us the lifestyle that I think at least she deserves.

Back in March Allie and I were up late as usual and watching TV. There was an infomercial on there for a company that will teach you to trade stocks and become financially independent and all that. I was half joking when I told her I should go to the free seminar and learn how to do that so I could quit driving a truck.

A week later, there I was sitting in the ballroom at the St. Louis Park Sheraton Hotel.

The free seminar wasn’t really where they teach you to be a good trader and make lots of money, since the stock market is WAY too complex to explain, let alone figure out, in just a couple hours. So I spent $400 to go to the introductory class.

The next class was actually a three-day deal. Eight hours a day for three days, I learned about what makes things go up and down (which really isn’t that complicated), but the thing that totally blew me away (because I never knew about it) is that there are ways to make money on a stock no matter what it does. In fact, there are many times you can make more money on a stock going down than when it goes up.

I was a bit skeptical the first day. I was like, “I know they’re gonna try and sell me more, I wanna make sure that what they’re telling me is legit.” That night I went home and hopped on the computer and checked out some of the things that I had learned that day.

They were right.

Suddenly I felt something, concerning my financial situation, that I haven’t felt in years and years, if ever. I felt hope. I thought, “I KNOW I can do this.” Somehow I knew that if I went through with this and learned everything that they had to teach me that I wouldn’t have to just keep dreaming about all the things I wish I could do or have.

As I drove down to the Millenium Hotel in Minneapolis for my last day of class a funny thought kept scrolling through my head, “Nothing ventured, nothing gained.” I think it was Benjamin Franklin who said that (or at least made the saying famous). As many business people today will tell you, it takes ,money to make money.

That was the day that I pretty much threw all my chips on the table. I used most of the rest of my available credit to pay out around $20,000 for a few more classes (the package price for all 10 of their advanced classes was around $50,000, which I couldn’t quite swing), as well as a mentoring and coaching program.

I also had a lawyer draw up some forms so that I can actually be a business, and I pulled $10,000 out of my 401k as startup capital.
That pretty much brings me to now. Sitting at the Embassy Suites in Washington DC, waiting for the first of my advanced classes to begin tomorrow.

In the back of my mind I know that if this doesn’t work out and that if somehow I can’t make money like they say I can, that I’m pretty much fucked this, that, and the other way. To the logical part of my mind this makes no sense and this is a HUGE risk. Here I am, with a new family (Allie, Suki, and Paco) and I’m starting our life together with an all or nothing deal to try and make it. Then again, if I was to just keep driving a truck all my life I’d still be just as fucked, it’d just take a little longer-because eventually the bills would get to be too much (especially if my adjustable rate mortgage goes up).

So this is my one shot. This is my attempt to give myself and my family the kind of life that none of us has ever had. This is my one endeavor to be able to stop being gone every other day so that I can see Allie more (because I really like being with her and getting to go places and do stuff with her. I like it a lot). In a way, part of me is a little bit uneasy and yet…I’m really not.

I know I can do this. I know I WILL do this. Everything is finally going to be alright.

*
“Take the longest day
Throw it all away
I can’t stand it
But I can’t do anything
Every day’s the same
Nothing ever change
I can’t stand it
But I can’t do anything.”
*
Toad The Wet Sprocket