Unpack – Step Back – Go Big 2.0

As I look back at my life story, the failures I experienced were incremental. Each in turn was a learning experience and stretched my limits. Despite this, I often neglected to act on life’s education. Now, it is time to unpack my relationships with people I know, those whose trust I have earned. I need to step back and assess the time required for success. I need to unpack the basic skills I have acquired: my ability to read, write, speak, calculate, and process information. I want to unpack my specialized skills; the most important one of which is a healthy willingness to adapt to change and learn new skills.

Initially, I entered fabric fashion art as a scientist. As a scientist, I performed field geology tasks: contour mapping, drilling inspection, and classification of core samples. I worked with soils engineers for a decade. I met my mentor early in this period; later in my story, I complete the fruits of that seed in an unforeseen specialty; engineering psychology!

A liberal arts year in Europe and meeting a lifetime soulmate coalesced and sparked my art talents. I taught myself the art of fabric stenciling, and innovated a stencil technique. A national publication “Airbrush Techniques” featured me and my airbrushed fashion clothing. Despite the attention, my failed attempt to sustain the manufacture of my designer sweaters for upscale retail markets up and down the West Coast produced my next incremental adaptation.

With the published article on my fashion clothing and a portfolio of architectural concept sketches, I landed a position with a market leader in the budding personal computer after-market retail industry. The Portland manufacturer had over twenty-percent market share at the time. There, I apprenticed under a journeyman pattern designer. I seized the opportunity to assist in creating components of the Apple Inc. first laptop luggage prototype (the manufacture went to Samsonite). As owner of my own business I also created a line of successful OEM wool blanket soft luggage designs for Pendleton Woolen Mills. My second foray as an entrepreneur ended when the soft luggage industry and my accounts moved manufacturing overseas.

I reluctantly quit the design business to design and manage manufacturing for a different customer, this time as an employee. My past design expertise gave me the freedom to cast my future opportunities for growth. I failed to build and develop recruits in order to diversify services and secure a sustained specialist business model. My customer was overjoyed at the cost savings of having their fifth grossing product handled in-house. I thoroughly enjoyed the passive income I derived from my design expertise. Jose Ortega Y Gasset, What is Philosophy? would say it best:?“I am myself and my circumstance; if I do not save it, I do not save myself.”?During this time, I pursued a fine art sculpture education at PSU and taught myself computer engineering drafting and 3-D tooling design. My industrial designer career flourished for twenty-two years in the manufacturing world of culinary gadgets. Hey, I also became a pretty accomplished cook and levain bread baker…

As I looked to transition to a new career, I found my age a barrier and my design acumen too ambiguous; for my skill set seemingly irrelevant and too random for the not-too-unsubtle automated human resources agents to fathom. Long story short, I changed my focus and my mindset. The commercial baking industry, artisan bread and pastry wholesalers, recognized my design creativity, acknowledged my business acumen and people skills. I successfully baked and made presentations. For a period of time, I interviewed and maintained communications with food scientists, bakery owners, and renowned leaders in artisan bread world. I enjoyed the process romantically; however, my rational side could not accept beginning again as an employee with no upside earnings potential. Boldly, I took action and finished work on an artificial intelligence idea I had worked on and off on for a couple of decades: a unique utterance encoding device and substitution method for AI, patent pending(December 30, 2022) was a culmination of research born from the mentorship I had received coupled with the fueling support from my wife brought it full circle.

If you are still reading my story, you have heard about my personal resources. I have made new relationships with people who trust me. I listed a range of businesses I know from direct experience, the time that I devoted to each is easy to surmise. I enjoy writing and expressing my?“voice”?in matters which concern me. I have published work and others have published articles about me. I am quick to learn new concepts. I adapt well to new challenges (some may call that a coachable attribute.) I believe the latter statement is a testament of my acquired skills.

Recently, I achieved and acquired licenses and agency in Life and Health insurance and training status in the finance industry. Full circle, I am back to owning my own independent business. This incremental change has a new platform: financial services education and direct marketing. The client base is most American families: the list of represented prestigious product providers is in near excess of 150 and counting.

In the parlance of screenplay writing, my return to owning my own business is, for me, what is known as the plot point at the end of the second act, the challenge act. This plot point marks the transferring of all my skills, growth mindsets, and experiences into the successful third act. This could be you ~ what do you bring to your next act?

In my next act, I’m learning to adapt to new technologies to assist in relationship building and entrepreneurial recruiting. All of which comprise new hybrid communications; evolving internet presentation tools; and real-time social media, html-style email, and virtual online business transactions. My education includes preparing spreadsheet analysis in real time during client interviews; fleshing out potential income gaps in financial budgets rather than bills-of-materials for luggage design and manufacturing; and working with provider financial illustrations best suited for client wealth accumulation rather than calculations of slippage plane projections at landslide remediation sites. No more draw-down testing at dam sites for soil permeability; rather, I now assist families, businesses, and individuals with securing asset protection solutions to achieve peace of mind.?Can you identify with this call-to-action? If so, checkout my Instagram @michael.taylorsullivan

The incremental choice is clear; the timing could not be better. I could test the waters part time or I could dive in headfirst. The platform is there to leverage. The scripts are written. Course work is systematized. Come visit or commit to your own incremental change. A team to communicate with is at-the-ready. Thanks for reading this :-)