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Hi Folks. I’m Shane, currently 37, from New Zealand.

Last year I traveled for 6 months. I lived in Manhattan, New York City for 3 months and had the most incredible time in my life. I based myself right downtown in the Financial District so I could get a real taste of the City that Never Sleeps.   That photo is actually from Central Park New York, at the “Imagine” Shrine.  I love NYC so so much, the people are just amazing and I have so many great friends there now. People treated me so incredibly well. I went there not knowing one single person in the whole city and now I have a great group of friends whom I hope to see again very soon. I then went out to Colorado for the Winter and lived in Boulder for 2 months and that was amazing as well. A smaller place, different kind of people to New Yorkers but equally as hospitable and the skiing was incredible.

So then it was back home to a gorgeous New Zealand summer and the next trip away getting planned. I hope to head away for another 6 months real soon and see some more of our amazing world.  You may have guessed, but kinda like traveling.  Just a little bit, haha.  I also traveled for 6 years from 96-02. June this year was a week in Fiji, and in October a 2 week trip to Thailand or Vietnam is in the making. YAY

I now live on the Whangaparaoa Peninsula which a gorgeous part of New Zealand. 10 lovely beaches within 10 minutes drive, quiet, peaceful and the vibe of Auckland City is only 30 mins drive, perfect!

I was fortunate enough to find a great way earn a living.  I went through some amazing training and learned how to properly use the internet for marketing.  I knew I wanted to do it but I was so nervous about involving myself in all the pitchy, hypy sales crap that is plastered all over the place.  That’s not me.  Well ….. one of the rewarding things about the training I got was that, pitchy, hypy, sales crap was basically banned.  It is a huge no no.  The words of my trainer still ring in my ears today.  “The secret to marketing success is to NOT see yourself as a marketer.  You are a trusted advisor who helps people, genuinely, with no expectation of a sale.  You must see business as a possbile consequence of your interaction, not the reason”.

There are so many people out there who would love start an online business, work from home, earn a great living doing it but have no idea how to start, where to look, or what to do. That sad thing is, it is so accessible, but so few find it, and even less succeed because they don’t cross paths with right people and get the right training. I help people get the right training and help them get started and I love it. There is nothing better than being able to play a role (no matter how small) in helping someone out of the jam they are in, and into their dream.

Back to the beginning ………….

I was born in a small rural town in the centre of the North Island in New Zealand, Matamata. At the time Matamata was about 3,500 people and now I believe it’s about 5,000. My parents were grafters at the time. They had a bread delivery business which meant lots of travelling and all the work was at night. My sister and I used to go on the bread run sometimes and I have fond memories of those times. I remember the smell of the bakery and my favorite bread was the round white loaf called Concertina, (at least I think that is how it is spelt). Isn’t it funny what we remember

Mum and Dad often mention the bread run in terms of its specialness to our family. Although the hours were strange, it did actually give us time together as a family, and at a very early age my sister and I were introduced the world of ‘work’. Although I only remember it as being fun, we are told my Mum and Dad that we were relatively useful and did pull our weight. I am sure though, the most important thing was that we were doing things together, be it the middle of the night when us kids should have been sleeping.

When I was 7, Mum and Dad bought a dairy farm so we were on the move. We moved 10 minutes drive out of Matamata to an even smaller country town called Walton. Walton is tiny place, in those days (late 70’s) Walton had a Gas Station, Post Office, Store and a School with about 70 kids. Now, all of those apart from the school have gone. Even the Bowling and Tennis clubs have closed, such is the way of life in rural New Zealand these days compared to when I was kid.

Walton was a great place to grow up. Living on a farm was wonderful. The school was great, the teachers were great. I still to this day stay in close contact with 3 or 4 friends from those days. I remember biking to the school rugby fields to practice kicking goals, and also biking to the tennis club to play. I remember buying ice cream after tennis at the gas station and putting it on Mum and Dad’s account; oops J

The farm in Walton was my home until I left home for University at age 18. As my age increased the number of sports I participated in increased. At one stage probably age 13-15, I played 5 sports. I was a swimmer all year round, and in the Summer on top of swimming I had cricket and tennis and in the winter on top of swimming I had squash and rugby. I was somewhat of an all rounder, pretty good at every sport I played but the elite at none of them. I always believed I had the goods to reach the top at some sport. I always wonder which one I could have made the top at if I have given all the others away. I will never know and looking back I still wouldn’t change it. All my sports gave me so joy, so many friends and taught me so many things about myself, about other people and about the world.

I got my first job when I was 13. Across the road from our farm was a horse stud and every school holidays until I left home I would work there. I am actually quite proud to look back on those days knowing at age 13 I was getting up 4am to go and shovel-horse shit in my school holidays. I was inspired by the work ethic of my parents I guess. They worked so incredibly hard for what they have. My Dad used to get up at 5.00am, milk the cows, come up to the house to have breakfast with my Sister and I before we went to school, go and do the farm work, come home have a nap, get up in the afternoon about 3pm and milk the cows again, have dinner with us and then head off in the truck and deliver bread all night, get home about 2am, have another 3 hours asleep, then up at 5am and it started all over again.

The work ethic of my parents is always something I have looked to and admired them so much for and family was everything in the world to them. It’s sometimes funny what we remember form out childhood. One of the most special feelings I remember as a child was hearing Mum tell someone about how her and Dad had a heated argument their Bank Manager. Farming was going through a tough time in New Zealand and Mum and Dad were feeling the financial pinch as well. The bank manager had suggested that they are spending too much money on the sport my Sister and I were involved in. Mum and Dad’s reaction to that, even though I was too young at the time to fully understand it all, I certainly understood how special us kids and our activities were to my parents. It was a special feeling for me and one I have remembered and treasured.

Academically I was above average I suppose. Always passing but never setting the world on fire with my results.

My high school years were wonderful and I still see many people from those days. There is a group of about 10 lads who get together once a year for a weekend away. It’s a special time for us all each year and a weekend we all look forward to immensely. It’s really neat how after all these years that we all take the time out to get together and stay in touch, especially that we are now dispersed over different parts of New Zealand.

After high school I went off down to the South Island for 3 years to do my University Degree. I have a Bachelor of Commerce and Management from Lincoln University. My university transcript was very unflattering full of C’s and although it was a pass, just, I did worry about my ability to attract a good employer with such low grades. I then changed Universities and went to Waikato University in Hamilton to do a Masters Degree. I worked really hard at Masters level and ended up with a A- average and a Master of Management Studies “With Distinction” which is pretty cool.

I always had a huge desire to travel and after I had graduated I headed off to Canada for 1 year originally and that turned into a 6 year trip all up. After the year in Canada I had 5 great years in the UK, mainly in basing myself in Scotland and travelling around from there. I love travelling and meeting new people. Everybody does I guess, but for me it’s a real passion. We are only here once and despite some of its troubles, our planet really does have an incredible amount to offer. I am incredibly determined to experience as much of its riches as possible while I am here.

Due to needing flexibility, mainly I worked in bars and restaurants and then moved into sales jobs. It was during these roles that I developed a real insight into the ‘techniques’ required to be good at selling. It was such a strange time in many ways. Getting trained by industry leaders in certain fields and feeling totally inspired at times by those who have truly mastered the art of selling and been incredibly successful at it, but also wondering about the ethics and the motivation behind it all. Was there ever a genuine concern for the needs and wants on the buyer or was all the ‘passion’ coming purely from a desire to fatten the wallet? One of my managers used to say,

“I don’t care what they say, I didn’t put a gun to their heads, sure I closed them and I closed them hard, but they said yes, and they signed it, the product does exactly what I told them it does, I’ve got my commission and I don’t care anymore. I am the best in this industry because I only care about how much I earn, if I was worried about what people thought of me after I sell to them, I would be in public relations. So long as I haven’t told lies, I don’t care what they think, if they weren’t strong enough to say no to me, that’s their problem, not mine, I’ve got my money and I am gone, next please”

At least he was honest about it, I suppose. That kind of mentality, I didn’t share, and my passion for sales eventually waned.

I returned home to New Zealand in 02 and whilst I was away Mum and Dad had sold the farm and bought a Wedding and Conference Centre on a nine hole golf course just north of Auckland. I ended up helping Mum and Dad run their business for about 3 years and we were a great team. Saying that, most of the hard work had been done before I got there but it was nice for me to contribute to Mum and Dad’s business and take some pressure off them.

Next was venture into the property market in New Zealand. With the boom going on it was pretty easy to make money in property in those days but like many others, I got caught out when things changed suddenly. Then came a move into Futures and Foreign Exchange trading. This was a disaster. I got really competent at it (I thought) and then when the markets went into free fall in 08 I just didn’t have the experience to cope with it. Things calmed down in the markets and I started to do really well again, but I soon realized (despite this success) that I was not passionate about trading. It’s very unfulfilling unless you are totally driven by money because that is all it is about, Nothing is created, no value is added to anything, and no matter how much money I ever earned doing it I knew that I would never be fulfilled by trading. Also, I am bit of free spirit and trading did not suit that because I was locked to my seat at my computer for every minute of the markets being open and I began to struggle with that. Working in New Zealand on USA and UK time would have become an issue too long term. Maybe if I was making $3M per year I might feel differently about it, but I truly don’t think so, and the bottom line is, I realized it was not my passion.

Not being passionate meant it was unlikely I was ever going to be a huge success at it. Luckily at the same time, I was actually discovering my passion, online marketing. That is what I do now. The rest you already know now.

And …… that’s my story so far