I hope you find Him very soon. I’ve experienced life WITH Him and WITHOUT Him and I promise you that live with God by your side is so much sweeter. I promise!

Thanks for commenting! – Joi

In High School, I was open to take a chance. Took it, did well, and it set me in a “rut” / “groove” for the rest of my life.

When I was in Manhattan Prep High School, one of the Christian Brothers from Manhattan College came in towards the end of my junior year and said he was interested in hiring some of us to work in the Manhattan College data center. To qualify, we had to learn something called a “computer language”. He’d teach us for an hour in the morning before class, we’d have to give up our lunch, and a few Saturdays. After 6 weeks of torture, we’d have an exam. He’d hire the top people for his datacenter at the stunning sum of $4 an hour. (It was a long time ago!). We could then have up to forty hours a week assuming we got working papers. (I already had my for my various summer jobs. My Mom thought “idle hands”! And I got to keep HALF of what I earned. I called her share GRAFT! The split was AFTER tax. Any wonder I HATE taxes!) Despite all my peers telling me I was nuts to “give up” all that time, I signed up. (Surprising since I was very subject to peer pressure.) I was motivated by the money! I jumped thru his hoops, and surprise surprise, despite being a smart but mediocre student, I was the top scorer in his test with a 98. I later learned that this was CDC’s Systems Programmming Test, CDC used to decide if they would allow customers to touch their operating system. The Brother had only gotten a 96 on it. (I still think the question I missed was ambiguous. And, told everyone why! NO good.) From there it was like I was in a groove. I made lots of money, met the Engineering Faculty of the College, decided to go Electrical Engineering, and was the Number #2 guru of the computer center. Sophomore Year of College, I met the fellow running the AT&T Treasury datacenter and found out that they were paying $14/hour. So I started to do both. I graduated (surprisingly) with the lowest index 2.0106 [It was the 6 that won!], won the anchor pool (~$400), and had the highest starting salary (AT&T made my a Senior Systems Programmer making 65k PLUS OVERTIME!?!) I was happy. The best time in my life! It set me on a path that I have been following ever since. I wonder how things would have been otherwise?

But clearly, it was one of MY first conscious decisions (i.e., sacrifice time for training that translated to earning power). And, it turned out well? So I’d call it the best decision I ever made.

Thanks for letting me play in your “challenge”.

Ok.

One of the smartest things I did was asking people if they wanted to opt-in to my newsletter on a form for a paper.

It served as a platform for a 20,000 reader newsletter, a forum, a book and now a blog.

Never underestimate how one smart choice can have huge consequences down the road.

Mike