I grew up relatively poor (I use that word carefully because there were many people worse-off than us). I didn\u2019t quite live in a war zone \u2014 but we certainly weren\u2019t blessed with nicely-manicured, green grass and automatic turning signals at each crosswalk either.<\/p>\n
So somewhere right in the lower-middle I guess you can say.<\/p>\n
Basically, I grew up in the hood. The more universally-accepted word for it is the \u201cinner city.\u201d In many interviews, I\u2019m known as the inner city kid who did this ___ and did that ____.<\/p>\n
Now, there\u2019s nothing wrong with the hood. I know many successful people that refuse to leave the hood, despite their abilities to buy million dollar houses in the hills.<\/p>\n
But having lived in situations where on the way home in the car with my mom and sister (usually after dark), the only thought in my head would be how fast we have to walk to get from the carport to our front door \u2014 well, that can make a kid dream of life on the other side of the tracks.<\/p>\n
Other kids couldn\u2019t wait to get home to play Nintendo and here I was \u2014 the man of the house at a whopping 10 years old. Perhaps, I wouldn\u2019t have been so worried if gangs of 30 or more weren\u2019t meeting at every corner of our housing complex. This was the \u201cLBC\u201d (Long Beach City) you hear about in Snoop Dogg songs. Heck, it wouldn\u2019t be uncommon to see Snoop himself hangin\u2019 out.<\/p>\n
Where were cops in our area? We had some guys that walked around as security but they might as well have been a part of the gangs. Things got better over time, though.<\/p>\n
Anyway\u2026 so having come from there, I\u2019ve always had this huge drive to be successful. Some would have called me precocious. I was always a dreamer.<\/p>\n
I remember joining this national organization called the \u201cOlympia Sales Club\u201d when I was 9. (I recently googled them and it appears they are no longer with us). Back then, I\u2019d sell stuff out of a catalog and make $2 per item. So if I got an adult to buy 3 items, I\u2019d make $6 bucks.<\/p>\n
It wasn\u2019t long before I had family and friends buying from me. And then, having absolutely no knowledge of network marketing, I had started something strikingly similar without even knowing it\u2026<\/p>\n
I had kids selling outta these catalogs (I\u2019d make black and white copies of the original catalog for $.02 cents\/page) and I would give them $.50 cents to $1 per sale. In my mind, if I made $2 an item and I gave away $.50 cents – $1 to my \u201creps,\u201d then I could make money without working. And if I chose to work, I\u2019d get the whole $2.<\/p>\n
Needless to say, I was in business! All in all, I probably made just shy of $200 bucks with that venture. I would start it up every summer for the next two years, in fact.<\/p>\n
When that got old, I recruited my next door neighbor to start a business with me. We would connect our bikes to one wagon, which was borrowed from the other neighbor on the left side (leverage \u2014 other people\u2019s stuff). We\u2019d connect both of our bikes to one wagon using jump ropes.<\/p>\n
Since our complex was pretty big (like it\u2019s own little community) with over 200 apartments, there were bench stops all throughout it. Probably around 8 or so.<\/p>\n
We\u2019d get kids to pay us a quarter for a ride from one stop to the next. If they paid a dollar, they\u2019d get a round trip. We made some good money in this biz and then spent all the money buying pogs.<\/p>\n
I got a little mature and wanted to start something that I could make more than $75 bucks with. I was around 12 when I started flipping through penny saver booklets. I mean, every Wednesday when they were delivered, I got a kick outta looking at the business opportunity ads in the back.<\/p>\n
\u201cMake $12,000 in 3 weeks\u201d Call 555-555-5555.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo experience. No requirements. Make $50 an hour\u201d Call 555-555-5555.<\/p>\n
\u201cStop working. Live Your Dreams\u201d Call 555-555-5555.
\nThese ads made me feel good. I really enjoyed reading them (\u2026call me weird, I don\u2019t care). In fact, when we\u2019d go to office supply stores, I would love to run back to the office furniture department and visualize how my office would look when I become a big businessman. I loved the classic oak look of the desks and bookshelfs. Oddly enough, today, I have the same kind of office I once dreamed of.<\/p>\n
One day, I said to myself, \u201cI\u2019m tired of reading these ads\u2026 I\u2019m gonna call one.\u201d The recruiters on the other end were so surprised a 12 year-old was interested and invited my mom and I to a meeting. It turned out to be Avon.<\/p>\n
My mom signed above the dotted line for me. I was the rep, but she was responsible since I wasn\u2019t 18 yet.<\/p>\n
I actually did quite well with Avon. I started building my downline (that means getting people signed up as Avon reps under me so that I can get commissions when they make sales). My grandma signed up under me. Then my mom signed up as her own rep under my grandma.<\/p>\n
I was headed towards President\u2019s Club!<\/p>\n
This got old, especially in high school. It\u2019s hard to explain to my guy friends that I sell cosmetics and perfumes (even though their mom\u2019s started being really good customers before I lost interest). Plus, I was growing up. I honestly didn\u2019t know what leverage was back then but something in my mind told me that I could do better with less work involved.<\/p>\n
Now there\u2019s nothing wrong with door-to-door sales. In fact, it taught me how to be a powerful salesman today! That and speaking in front of church congregations at a young age (I\u2019ll save this for another post).<\/p>\n
I was also a childhood musician. Yup yup, I had been playing piano since the age of 7\u2026 all by ear. No sheet music. Never had a teacher. I was able to hear a song and could pick it out in about 20 minutes. Then as I got better and better, I\u2019d be able to play a new song in 10 minutes \u2014 then 5 minutes. Nowadays, when I hear a song, it\u2019s not uncommon for me to play it for someone right on the spot.<\/p>\n
So of course, being invited to play at churches caused me to gain some local visibility in the church as the \u201cyoung musician who can play anything.\u201d Parents started asking me to teach their kids. I had about 10 students at one point.<\/p>\n
Again, having not read many business books, I didn\u2019t know what leverage was but I had this natural inclination to do something once that could be used over and over.<\/p>\n
So I basically started making these little workbooks that taught them the same chords and scales I had learned on my own. I researched \u201ctechnical\u201d ways to explain what I had knew and played naturally. By that time, I was on AOL 2.0 crawling on a 28k modem. Eventually, I had created 5 workbooks.<\/p>\n
Now I could make them pay for a book and teach them out of it. This way was much better than going off the top of my head or just teaching them songs and skipping all the basics.<\/p>\n
Then a crazy idea came to me. What if I can write my books so that people could learn on their own? Then they wouldn\u2019t even need ME. I could go play pop warner football or something. And I did.<\/p>\n
(Don\u2019t get it twisted. People tend to question young business kids. They think we didn\u2019t have a childhood. It\u2019s the opposite. We don\u2019t live and breath our businesses \u2014 cough cough, ok we probably do \u2014 but in my situation, I was also in student government, band, gospel choir, and youth groups. Instead of wasting time watching a lot of tv, I devoted it to researching and writing workbooks).<\/p>\n
I started putting fliers in grocery stores and laundromats. The phone never rang.<\/p>\n
I even tried an ad in the same penny saver that got me interested in Avon back in the day. The phone never rang.<\/p>\n
So those piano workbooks just sat around while I focused on other things like a new shopping site called Shop2x.com. That didn\u2019t last too long but I\u2019m still grateful for my first $800 check, which came from sales of products I had recommended through my site. Shop2x wasn\u2019t my passion though.<\/p>\n
I had something going with those piano lessons I had abandoned for a good year \u2014 so I was led to focus back on that. That\u2019s when I started HearandPlay.com in August of 2000. I was 17-years old.<\/p>\n
What would happen over the span of 2 years would begin to change my life forever. Then what happened the next 3 years beat that! Every year continues to beat my previous year.<\/p>\n
You\u2019ll just have to watch out for future posts to see how Hearandplay.com evolved. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n
What is your passion? Are you living it? Have you tried other things that could pay off financially but just didn\u2019t interest you? What have you dreamed of?<\/p>\n
See ya next time!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Ever wondered how HearandPlay.com got started? How I got the idea to teach “playing by ear” over the internet? Well, here’s the beginning of the story…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[179,341],"tags":[358,359,360,357,1426],"class_list":["post-145","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-founders-blog","category-motivation-self-improvement","tag-beginning-of-hearandplaycom","tag-founder-of-hearandplaycom","tag-how-hearandplaycom-began","tag-jermaine-griggs-story","tag-olympia-sales-club","post-wrapper","thrv_wrapper"],"yoast_head":"\n