| Have you ever started out on any kind of | | | | cards and ATM machines. Actually, we barely had |
| journey, whether real or figurative, and ended up | | | | gas money to get back to Charlotte. It was |
| someplace entirely unexpected? | | | | getting kind of late, but we had no choice but to |
| It happens a lot to me. Let me tell you a story, | | | | start driving home. |
| then we'll connect the dots. | | | | That night, there was a total eclipse of the moon |
| In the mid 1970's I had two young children and I | | | | and we got to watch it as we drove along. Any |
| was living in Charlotte, NC. I didn't have a paying | | | | other time, we would have missed it because we |
| job as I had chosen to be a full time mom. Hubby | | | | would have been sleeping. We arrived home |
| wasn't making much money and we had to rely | | | | around 5am, tucked the sleeping children in bed |
| on cheap entertainment. So, one Saturday | | | | and caught a few zzz's ourselves. All in all, it was |
| morning, we packed a big picnic basket and | | | | a great day - 30 miles at a time! |
| decided to head on over to Park Rd. Park, across | | | | Last year, I launched a new company along with |
| town. The park was set in a lovely section of The | | | | a business partner. We both come from a |
| Queen City, and it was spring and the park was | | | | background of consulting and training and we |
| full of azaleas in bloom. | | | | thought it was a wonderful idea to take our |
| While on the way, I said, "Why don't we just go | | | | training know-how, and the expertise of many |
| 30 more miles and we'll have our picnic at Kings | | | | others, and put it online - offering training via |
| Mountain State Park?" We made the turn onto | | | | webinars. And, it has been a good idea. BUT, we |
| I-85 and headed south. When we had almost | | | | didn't know what we didn't know about online |
| arrived at Kings Mountain, I was studying a map | | | | marketing, and it seems like we're constantly |
| and discovered that Black Mountain was just 30 | | | | having to go "just 30 more miles" to get it all |
| more miles. I'm sure you can see where this | | | | figured out. |
| story is going...by mid-afternoon, we were | | | | For instance, I didn't know I would need to have a |
| somewhere near Asheville, NC, in the heart of the | | | | personal blog to tie back into our main site. I didn't |
| Smoky Mountains. Somewhere along the road, we | | | | know I would need to write articles to submit to |
| stopped at a roadside picnic area and fed the | | | | article banks. I didn't know I would need to study |
| kids, who were about to pass out from hunger. | | | | auto-responders, membership site software, |
| Well...pretty soon Cherokee, NC, was just 30 | | | | blogging plugins, and all manner of other |
| more miles, and then we started dreaming about | | | | tech-related things. I had thought that if I could |
| those luscious candy apples made in that little | | | | produce a good video webinar, I was in good |
| shop in Gatlinburg, Tennessee...which was only 30 | | | | shape. My journey into online marketing has been |
| more miles from Cherokee. We stopped, took a | | | | a journey of "just 30 more miles," and I'm not all |
| short day-hike (by now, daylight was running out) | | | | the way there yet. Twitter? I thought that was |
| and then polished off the remainder of the | | | | for people who had nothing else to do. I was |
| contents of the picnic basket. We walked around | | | | pretty well-developed in terms of my Facebook |
| Gatlinburg, which is one of my favorite little | | | | use because of connecting with family and friends. |
| mountain towns (it was much less commercial | | | | The transition into using it for business purposes |
| back then), and then we stopped to consider our | | | | was easy. |
| choices for the evening. Since we had just been | | | | Now, I wake up every day and wonder what |
| going to Park Rd. Park, we didn't have any extra | | | | new roads I'll travel in my learning process. I can't |
| clothes to spend the night, and when we looked in | | | | think of anything I'd rather do. My husband calls |
| our wallet, we didn't have the money, anyway. | | | | me an "Info-Hog." Bit by bit, I'll make it...after all, |
| This was way before we had credit cards, debit | | | | it's "just 30 more miles. |
