Although I did a lot of accounting work and considered ROI to be critical, I've focused more on my ROE. I've always been on the search for more knowledge and believe that I can learn to do anything that my heart desires and I have.
Congratulations on this, Carol! It's wonderful to hear that. I'd love to learn more about how you've kept that focus on ROE, even through the lens of ROI. We could learn a lot from you, I'm sure.
I love this Eric. This speaks to me so much. The work part. The friendship part. All of it.
I started finding moments to ask myself "Is this getting you closer to your dreams?" which I think is a precursor to "What's the ROE on this." It's such an important thing to ask ourselves when it's so easy to mindlessly take actions. Love it. And it you spend les time on substack because of it? Well done.
I dropped out of college in my junior year to move across the country and become a whitewater rafting river rat in the summer and a ski bum in the winter. On my 3rd day in Salt Lake City, I met a woman who was making high end custom powder suits with amazing artwork appliquéd on the back of the jackets. I started sewing at 8 years old and was pretty proficient. I suggested that I could sew the suits and she could focus on just doing the art. For the next few years, I made a living sewing on weekends and at night so that I could ski during the week. I got a locker in the lodge at Alta and skied 60-70 days each winter then rafted all summer. When I left SLC, I moved to Idaho and sewed for a while, got married to a fellow river rat and we bought a whitewater rafting and steelhead fishing company. We had an investor that gifted me a computer in 1985 after noticing that I was doing the bookkeeping by hand. My brother was a programmer and taught me MS Dos over the phone. When I got divorced and moved to Boise, I was given a job as a receptionist at the law office of one of my kayaker buddies. A few months later, I was offered a job as a technical support agent at Hewlett Packard. That is the only corporate job I ever had and I stayed for 4 years until they downsized and paid me 18 months voluntary severance. From then on I would occasionally work for someone else, but some of the time I would sew from home so that I would be free to do whatever else I wanted to do. For 10 years, I had also had an accounting consulting business. I referred to it as drive by accounting because my clients were small businesses that couldn't afford to have a bookkeeper on staff, so I bopped around town and worked for numerous folks. There again, it was so that I could play when I wanted to. Eventually, I got roped into working for a CPA. After the housing bubble popped and the recession hit, I noticed that the small businesses that were thriving were contractors. I had often worked as a house painter off and on when sitting behind a computer became boring. I realized one day that I was repeating, "I want to be a contractor when I grow up", so I quit the CPA and started a painting business with a good friend who was a carpenter. We named it A Coat Above and only took high paying jobs. That was my encore entrepreneurial business. I retired at 57 and have been doing whatever suits my fancy from then on. Now I'm 65 and happy as can be with enough of a nest egg to make up for having a very small Social Security check because of all the years that I worked for myself. And that is the abbreviated story of my quest for ROE. LOL!
Although I did a lot of accounting work and considered ROI to be critical, I've focused more on my ROE. I've always been on the search for more knowledge and believe that I can learn to do anything that my heart desires and I have.
Congratulations on this, Carol! It's wonderful to hear that. I'd love to learn more about how you've kept that focus on ROE, even through the lens of ROI. We could learn a lot from you, I'm sure.
I love this Eric. This speaks to me so much. The work part. The friendship part. All of it.
I started finding moments to ask myself "Is this getting you closer to your dreams?" which I think is a precursor to "What's the ROE on this." It's such an important thing to ask ourselves when it's so easy to mindlessly take actions. Love it. And it you spend les time on substack because of it? Well done.
I dropped out of college in my junior year to move across the country and become a whitewater rafting river rat in the summer and a ski bum in the winter. On my 3rd day in Salt Lake City, I met a woman who was making high end custom powder suits with amazing artwork appliquéd on the back of the jackets. I started sewing at 8 years old and was pretty proficient. I suggested that I could sew the suits and she could focus on just doing the art. For the next few years, I made a living sewing on weekends and at night so that I could ski during the week. I got a locker in the lodge at Alta and skied 60-70 days each winter then rafted all summer. When I left SLC, I moved to Idaho and sewed for a while, got married to a fellow river rat and we bought a whitewater rafting and steelhead fishing company. We had an investor that gifted me a computer in 1985 after noticing that I was doing the bookkeeping by hand. My brother was a programmer and taught me MS Dos over the phone. When I got divorced and moved to Boise, I was given a job as a receptionist at the law office of one of my kayaker buddies. A few months later, I was offered a job as a technical support agent at Hewlett Packard. That is the only corporate job I ever had and I stayed for 4 years until they downsized and paid me 18 months voluntary severance. From then on I would occasionally work for someone else, but some of the time I would sew from home so that I would be free to do whatever else I wanted to do. For 10 years, I had also had an accounting consulting business. I referred to it as drive by accounting because my clients were small businesses that couldn't afford to have a bookkeeper on staff, so I bopped around town and worked for numerous folks. There again, it was so that I could play when I wanted to. Eventually, I got roped into working for a CPA. After the housing bubble popped and the recession hit, I noticed that the small businesses that were thriving were contractors. I had often worked as a house painter off and on when sitting behind a computer became boring. I realized one day that I was repeating, "I want to be a contractor when I grow up", so I quit the CPA and started a painting business with a good friend who was a carpenter. We named it A Coat Above and only took high paying jobs. That was my encore entrepreneurial business. I retired at 57 and have been doing whatever suits my fancy from then on. Now I'm 65 and happy as can be with enough of a nest egg to make up for having a very small Social Security check because of all the years that I worked for myself. And that is the abbreviated story of my quest for ROE. LOL!
Thanks for this, Carol!!
You're welcome :0)
my r.o.e. is out of whack. i'm going to have a talk with myself dr e.s.
And then talk to me about what you talked about with yourself!