Well, I’m two months into my new project.  I find that I keep getting off track from my original program.

Before I began the project, my business ventures included a tax strategy business (only initial strategies), a CPA referral business and Tax Loopholes (online tax education company).  The 5 years prior to that point were very different for me.  In 2003, I had a very busy CPA referral business, a very busy tax strategy business and Tax Loopholes.  Then, in 2003, I co-founded a new company called Maui Mastermind.  We made money from it, but more importantly to me, it fed my soul.  I thought this was my life’s purpose.  I closed down my tax strategy business which choked the life out of my CPA referral business.  

I missed the CPA world, but felt that I was truly fulfilling what I was put on this planet for.  The participants became my family and through this company, my husband and I found a boy who became our son. 

Over time the 5 initial partners reduced to 2 and one day, (a day I’ll never forget) my partner told me “I don’t want to be your partner anymore” and with no further explanation exercised a very old Buy-Sell agreement.  (Note for the future:  make sure your Buy-Sell Agreement is dynamic or at the very least, readdress it as your business grows)

My son lost his extended family and in his short lifetime, he’s had so much loss that the pain I feel for him (and guilt for losing it for him)  is almost too much to bear.  I lost my purpose, at least for awhile.  

But the stress that kept me going (this is the good stress that pulled me out of bed every morning) was that I needed to find a way to replace my active and passive income that I had just lost.  But I didn’t want to do it the same way I had before.  I wanted to do something new and different and leave a trail along the way, so others could follow later.  

My rules for the new venture:  to use new technology (and learn about it), create some earned income to replace the lost other income, but concentrate at least 50% of my time on creating passive income, and rather than have one big income source, have a bunch of smaller ones ala “The Long Tail.”  I also was going to work only with people I wanted to work with and do it using what I considered my best asset - my tax education and experience applied to wealth-building with a no BS approach to real, sustainable growth and income.  By no BS, I don’t mean that I’m going to yell at people, it’s that this will NOT be smoke and mirrors, it’ll be the real deal.

So, that’s what started all this.  My initial thought was to create 25 websites, averaging $2K/month and then sell a couple in the 2nd year to get me to that million dollar mark.

Two months into it, here’s where I am:

A website targetted to past CPA clients I had, hoping to bring them back as clients if they weren’t happy where they were.  This didn’t work as well as I had hoped.  I am slowly picking some up at my FCL forum and my seminars.  I suspect that when I sold my practice years ago, I alienated some people.  Now that I’ve experienced that kind of abandonment and loss, I have a better appreciation for the confusion others might have felt.  It’s not “just business” when your heart is involved.  And planning for your future does involve your heart.

This blog.  I wanted to get it up so that I could capture the steps and epiphanies I had.  I also want to create a place for others to come and talk about their progress.  We’re still in the baby steps of it, all of us feeling our way in this new medium and new public way of changing our financial lives.  It won’t create income for a few years at least.

Landing page to capture leads and interest from my campaign to doctors. I’m currently doing a blog for a financial mag for MDs and will be speaking at some CME seminars in 2009. I need a place that is just for Docs to send them to when I do these thing.  This will likely bring the most revenue ultimately, but it needs to grow first.

I’m working on a few other projects to sell on new web pages to come.

I want to raise some money for my son’s charity.  He’s been hurt more than I have since the loss of my old company, as he didn’t get some contributions for his charity that had been promised PLUS he had the tremendous loss that occurred when people he had called family don’t return his calls anymore.  So, I figured the least I could do was find a way to replace the money for the charity.  A friend of mine made a call and voila!  I had a private ampitheater for the event.  And, the tickets for the seminar are selling like crazy.  It’s a brand new type of seminar, so I get to put together new materials and weave together all the techniques I’ve used to build my businesses over the years.  

And, in June, I’ll be announcing that I’m back doing a full service tax practice.  I’m excited about the new company.  But, it has pulled me a little off track from the passive income companies from websites.  So, back to those!