After my third season in Finland, I worked hard during the summer again building websites for various people and companies but still not enough to call it a full business. So as the summer passed I found myself in a new country playing basketball in Spain. There it took me time because I had to learn a new language in order to live and survive. Unlike Finland where everyone spoke fluent and perfect English, Spain I found that all my teammates, coaches and practically everyone only spoke Spanish. A language that I did not study in high school or college. I took classes and courses in French but that did not help as they are quite different languages.
In my contract I was offered to take classes at the local university where it helped me a bit but I struggled a lot. The classes took away a lot of time to work on my business. Also it did not help that I did not have connection in home until November. In Spain, I learned that “manana” meant it would take weeks or months for things to get done at the time. I was not happy with the situation however it made me focus on the language.
Once the internet was finally installed in my apartment I begin to look for a type of business or extra work online. I stopped looking for clients at the time because I just had no clue how to find people to work for. In Decemember 2002, I found a new opportunity online where I would recommend people to sign up for a particular service and would get paid a commission through their sign up. I was very skeptical because I had to pay as well and I wasn’t sure how it was going to turn out or if it was a fraud. However, I took the risk of trying and promised myself that I would at least work back the initial cost of the business. I believe it was between $0.15 – $45, which wasn’t much but it was a risk.
I worked very hard and I learned many things along the way about marketing, mlm, scams and persistence during this time. During the new year of 2003 I earned my first lead commission of $0.15 with this company and I was really excited. I know its not much at all, well it was something. It gave me motivation to work and earn more and soon after two months I earned my membership fees at the time which I don’t remember. But I made it and things were looking positive that I could earn money online while playing basketball!
Things were positive and so I decided to look for more opportunities. I still had the goal of trying out for the WNBA and in fact did that summer however I was not chosen during the tryout camp. But I was discourage however excited about this new online opportunity.