How I Left Home at 18 and Ended up Living in Russia

tonypeacock (57)in #tonypeacock • 8 years ago (edited)

This is my first introductory post. Like most of you I have been using facebook but Steemit could end up being where I put most of my posts. We shall see how things roll out. Now for a little about me.

My name is Tony Peacock. I'm 48. Born in May 1968. This is a photo of my wife and I.

I grew up in Brisbane, QLD at 12 Talwong Street. Here is a map of the general area.

I had a pretty good childhood. My parents provided a good education, music lessons and I was right into the Scouts.

You can see in the picture that I lived near Morten Bay. Often I would go fishing with my father in our 12 foot dinghy. We'd head out early in the morning and be back for lunch to eat fresh fish. Dad would do all the fish and we'd also get fresh salad straight from the garden. Yum.

Mt parents were very strict and of course I was very rebelious :)

I wont go into to much detail about my childhood but I had some good times. I had good mates.

At 18 I left home and started travelling all around Australia doing door to door selling.

I worked for New Image Photographics it was then called. When I first got the job I would ride my push bike several kilometres to the Wynumm Train Station then catch a train to Wollongabba, right near the famous cricket stadium.

Then I would walk to the office to then be driven to some suburb in Brisbane and get dropped off in my area. I would have a map of the streets and a picture frame of a baby and I had to then go and knock on doors for a few hours. The idea was that I would sell someone on the idea of booking an appointment for $7 to have a Professional Photgraper come at a agreed upon time and do a family photo session. The photographer would then show up and take photos and he was able to produce black and white images using a thermal printer. This way everyone could see how the photos looked and they would order the photos, laminated and framed and I would get 10% commission.

I did this for two weeks and never made a sale :(

Then one day I left my picture frame in the van. So all I had with me was a reciept book. I actually made my first sale and collect the money.

Then the next day I nearly lost my job as I had made a sale without having my picture frame. But the boss was so impressed that I made a sale and that I was committed to turning up everyday that I was invited to join the traveling team.

I then packed up my things, took my black and white TV and my Mum drove me into Brisbane to the main train station. This was the last day of me living at him and the beginning of my new adventure.

It was pretty tuff as I had also a cast on my left hand having broken a few bones in my wrist my Kung Fu.

But that did not stop me. I then spent the next years travelling around knocking on doors.

It was the tougest and the best thing I ever did. I learn about persistence. I learned how to survive.

If I didn't make sales I didn't eat. If I came back and the end of the day with no sales I was given the exact same streets to door knock the next day. The bosses idea was that there was sales in that area and it was my attitude that was stopping me from getting them.

I met some amazing people in my travels. I learnt how people lived. I learnt how to communicate. I got bitten by dogs. Got chased by cars. Became a brilliant pool player and played for beers at the local pubs in each town we went too. I saw some amazing sunsets and landscapes around Australia. One that always got my attention was the Devils Marbles in the Northern Territory.

I was living the dream so I thought. I wanted to party. I wanted to meet girls. I wanted to get drunk. I wanted to get stoned and I did it all.

In fact when I first announced to my friends what I wanted to do they jusyt laughed at me. They said I would never make it and I will come back. Well that just made me even more determined.

And so began my Sales Career.

I travelled all around Australia knocking on doors and living day to day.

Eventually I ended up living in Perth, WA. Perth is the most isolated city in the world. Ocean on one side and Desert on the other.

I was often unemployed and lived for pot. I jumped from sales job to sales job. I was for sure around the wrong people.

I got into advertising and here I seemed to bloom. I had 100's of contracts all over my wall and in one company my sales volume was greater than he total sales of 16 other sales reps volume combined.

I bought and sold a few houses. I was very much into meditation, clairvoyancy in fact anything to do with the spiritual side of life. I was a regular visitor to tarot readers, healers, American Indian Sweat Lodge and clairvoyants. I was looking and searching for something. Always looking for the answer. Waiting for someone to tell me I will be rich etc.

I did bungy jumps, 6 free falls from 10,000 feet I even did a fire walk and was called the fire walking peacock.

After all this I had a serious problem with Pot. I basically lived for pot. All I wanted to do was get stoned all the time. I was on a dwindling spiral despite my interests in the spiritual side of life.

It was then I was introduced to Scientology. I ended up doing the Purification Rundown and got myself cleaned up and off drugs. In fact I ended up working on staff at the Church of Scientology in Perth. For 10 years I worked Monday to Friday 9-6 as a volunteer worker.

At night I walked the streets delivering fliers to peoples letter boxes on behalf of local businesses I had sold on the idea.

Then I got a sales job on the weekends selling Tuckpointing for Federation Tuckpointing. I remember clearly my first sale. I had been out to someones house and measured everything up and the price came to $7000. I rang them back a few days later and they said YES. I had just made $700 commission. Now I tell you I was jumping for joy. $700 would have taken me 2-3 weeks to make delivering fliers a few nights a week and on weekends.

Now that I had made that sale I was on fire. Some weeks I made over $3000. Not bad for a guy who only worked on Saturday and Sunday doing quotes and following up Tuesday and Thursday nights.

I even bought a house doing this. If you are not sure what Tuckpointing is check out this before and after of a chimney.

Eventually I got a bit bored with this and I watched a few other guys start their own businesses. They were also staff at the church like me and we all had the challenge of working voluntarily during the week and creating income on the weekends.

One of the guys was into building fences. I liked the idea and so I placed an add in the local paper. Sure enough I got a call to come and do a quote. I was so nervous as I had no idea what to do. One of my mates Paul came out with me and kind of showed me how to measure up and what to look out for. Guess what. I got the Job :)

But the problem was I had a deposit cheque and no tools and never built a fence.

So I went and bought all new tools and my mate Paul turned up and helped me get the fence started and from there I grew a fencing business. I loved doing it but man it was hard work.

I would arrive at night to someone's house with a torch and check out their fence. Then measure it all up and send them a quote. Then I would follow them up and try and win the job. Then on a Saturday morning I would get up early and drive an hour to a special fencing place to get all my materials. Then I would drive to the job.I would then rip down a 30 metre fence and then have the new one up by Sunday night ready to work voluntarily on Monday morning at the church. I built some amazing fences in Colorbond, Picket Fences, Pine Lap, Gates etc. You can even see some of my old videos here https://www.youtube.com/user/flashfences/videos

I did this for a while but while all this was going on one thing was missing. I was alone. I had had several relationships that were all quite serious but never tied the knot. I was in despair.

I worked 5 days a week doing voluntary work and worked all weekend. I thought who would even want to be with a guy like me. Most of the money I made I donated to various life improvement programs to help others less fortunate and I even had a fair bit of debt from doing so.

But then I got advice from a good friend and he said what you need to do is name out your ideal woman. He explained that he did this and wrote out 99 points describing in detail his ideal woman. So I got busy and I wrote out 104.

Two weeks later she appeared.

I was doing my daily search. I had worked out by studying Chinese and Western astrology that my best match was going to be a Libran born in 1972.

I saw this photo

I thought OMG. She is beautiful. I read her profile. She was Russian, I wanted a Russian as I had heard they know how to be a woman and aren't trying to be a man, she had her own business, she was Libran and was born in 1972 and she had similar beliefs to me. I was getting really excited. :)

I called over my house mates Rob and Todd and I said, "Check out this chick. She's beautiful. I'm going to marry that woman"

Now you have to understand something. I had never met her or spoke to her. All I had was her pictures and profile to go by. But I had made a decision.

3 Months later she was on a plane visiting me in Australia. :)

Now we have been married over 5 years and I am living in Russia with her. Is that an amazing story or what?

In fact we are an example couple for many people who have had problems in trying to find "The One".

I always refer to my successful action which is to name out exactly what I wanted and didn't want in my ideal woman. It really does work. It's kind of like you are telling the universe what you need and want and the universe will provide. But I also know the power of decision is also key. When you have first made the decision and then go about putting things into action you will always get what you put your attention on. There is no such thing as failure. People want there to be so they can have an excuse to fail. But really the truth is that if you didn't get what you wanted you didn't really want it.

Anyway coming and living in Russia presented a new set of problems. I didn't speak Russian :)

That is how I got into Video Marketing. I needed to generate income so I started by making videos for me wife's business and to this day she still makes videos every week and now has over 400 videos.

I did a few contracts with businesses and created channels, videos, mobile sites etc.

Then last year I got the bright idea of starting a Video Marketing Group. If you are interested in Video Marketing then go here and I will add you.

That has now grown to over 2000 members. I started by personally inviting people. Not one person has been added that had not been invited or requested to be added. I hate being added to groups without being asked. Its bad manners. That was one of my policies to only invite. Some folks say its one of the best Groups on facebook to do with Video Marketing.

Then I realized that there were a lot of guys needing help. That there was no real services out there offering niche related blogs for embedding videos and maps. So then I got really busy. Instead of building fences like I did in Perth. I started building blogs. I have 36 virtual computers and now have over 700,000 Blogs which you can see here

I also started to create Gigs on Source Market and have earned my way up to the status of a Level 6 Seller with 100's of 5 Star reviews. Check out my Gigs here. Just click on the image and it will take you to my store. This is just some of my Gigs and I will be adding more. So if you are into Video or Local Marketing check it out.

Okay so that pretty much brings things up to present time. I'm now 48 having had my birthday in May. I live in Russia. Married to a beautiful Russian woman. Spend a lot of time on the Video Marketing Group and have recently discovered cryptocurrency. Which has lead me to YOcoin and #Steemit.

I am still very new to all this stuff but I hope that I will get my head around it and be able to add some value to all the users here in Steem.

I hope you enjoyed my introduction post please give it an UpVote and leave a comment of what you think of my post.

Thanks to MichaelX https://steemit.com/@michaelx who introduced me to Steemit.

Best,

Tony Peacock

P.S. If you want a great course on how to make cash with Steemit then check this out. Its really comprehensive - http://vmgtools.com/steem-cash/