How the tough but fun lessons that I learned growing up will lead me to success here

Can an Old (Entrepreneurial) Dog Learn New Crypto Tricks? Part One

Will the street savvy money hustling techniques that I learned growing up in a non tech world bring me success in the ever changing block chain universe? The following short summary shows how I landed here at a much older age than most crypto enthusiasts.

I was born in the late 1950’s and grew up in Toronto in the 60’s and 70’s. My dad used to give me $1.00 every two weeks as an allowance and in payment for my various chores. One dollar wouldn’t get me to the annual summer fair or buy the toys and gadgets that I desired so I had to use my imagination to get the money that I needed. Thanks Dad for being so tough because without that I wouldn’t have had the guts to take this new path at my age. Here are a few highlights of the road that lead me here.

Age 8 to Early Teen Years

Lessons Learned: hard work, imagination, organization, marketing, research and a love of freedom.

In the summer I’d knock on neighbourhood doors offering to cut the grass with a push lawn mower and in the winter I'd offer to shovel the snow from peoples’ driveways and walkways.

This taught me the value of hard work and gave me the guts to make those dreaded cold calls. In between these “brawn not brain” jobs my buddy and I used our imaginations to scrape together some more precious funds. One thing we did was to capitalize on the neighbourhood kids’ desire for fun and adventure by setting up our own version of the popular country fair ride “Laugh in the Dark” in my buddy’s garage.

We hung fishing line from the ceiling to simulate spider webs and then dressed in masks and dark robes. After marketing by stapling “posters” to telephone polls in the area we’d sell the small stream of arriving kids tickets for 10 cents a ride. After sitting two of them on our wagon we'd bring them into the garage and close the door which plunged all of us into pitch darkness.

One of us would then pull them around as fast as we could run while the other would alternatively plug and unplug a spot light from the wall socket thus creating a strobe light effect (one time I even got zapped to the ground as I held on too much to the prongs of the plug while inserting it). All of this while making as many scary vocal sound effects as the two of us could muster. This ride proved to be a huge hit until one kid flipped off the wagon and split his head open!

Oh well, there was more money to be made collecting bottles and turning them in for the refund. Pop bottles would garner 2 cents but if you could score some beer bottles there was a whopping 5 cents to be had! A little research would tell us where and at what time the men’s beer league softball games were being held and it was a simple matter of pulling our wagon to these games just as they were finishing up their evening and snatching up our prized 5 cent bottles. What a windfall that was Of course we had to be home before dark but the long summer evenings helped us along.

The next stage came when I learned that I could actually have a steady weekend job if I was old enough. The legal age for that back then was 16 and so I solved that problem at 14 by using some neighbourhood connections to get a fake ID which I paid for using my previously earned funds and I scored my first "time for labour" job as an employee cleaning and doing maintenance work every Saturday at an industrial laundry.

Although I felt pride at earning and receiving a paycheque I knew from that early age that I had a love of freedom that would "force" me to be self employed.

From My 20’s Until a Big Change In My Mid 30’s.

Lesson Learned: be humble, help others and hold onto your love of freedom.
After studying Industrial Design at college I immediately started doing freelance work and in about 50 years of hustling I have only worked as an employee for a total of less than 2 years!

Love and marriage took me from the big city to a tiny town in the heart of Europe about 20 years ago. At this point I decided that I would finally need to get a “real job” but I soon found that there were none to be had and that my “advanced age” and the country’s complicated pension plan fund made me virtually un-employable.

How did I survive and what lead to my involvement in crypto currencies? I’d like to tell you that in my next post and for that I've got some really cool photos of what I ended up doing!