Joe Rogan Podcast with Gary Vaynerchuk

I'll be honest, Joe Rogan was completely off my radar until this past spring.  Yeah, he's a podcast legend, but I've spent the last 11 years creating content, and consuming mostly business/marketing and news content.  So I wasn't looking for entertaining podcasts to listen to, I just didn't have the time.  Even when a friend talked about Rogan's podcasts back in April, I didn't bother listening. 

A couple months ago, I ran across an interview with Graham Hancock, talking about his new book, America Before.  It was really interesting, and I went looking for more interviews, more in depth stuff.  That's when I found Joe Rogan's podcast with Graham, which was amazing.  In it, they spoke of Randall Carson, and I listened to Joe's podcast with him.  So now I'm a Joe Rogan fan, he's smart, has a wild point of view and background, and just does really great interviews.

So when I stumbled across this podcast with Joe interviewing entrepreneur Gary Vaynerchuk in 2017, I had to listen to it.  This is fucking hilarious, gets really into some of Gary's thoughts and ideas, much deeper than the 100 pieces of content a day that Gary puts out.  And that's saying a lot.  If you're a Gary Vee fan, or just want to make more money, or maybe start or build your own business, watch/listen to this, it's freakin' awesome.

My best and worst storage unit auction buy

I was hoping I could find a video of a Sleekcraft by Nescher 23 foot jet boat, like the one I bought at a storage unit auction in Huntington Beach in 2007.  This not only looks like the one I bought, this looks like the very same boat.  It's that close.  The exterior seats had some tears, but were in a lot better shape, but otherwise, this looks identical.  I looked at the timing of this video.  This, possibly, could be the exact boat I boat I bought, it looks that close.  Crazy

From 2003 to to 2007, I got stuck in the the taxi business.  I came out of full homelessness in 2003, got my driver's license straightened out, got my taxi permit again, and went from being a guy living in the bushes and working in a restaurant at a mall, to a taxi driver working 7 days a week and sleeping my cab.  I planned to save up for 4 or 5 months, and then rent a room in a decent apartment and get back on track. 

Unfortunately, a month after I got going again, the taxi company took out the old CB radios we used to communicate, and put in the new dispatch computers.  I had just got back in the swing of things, I figured out which nightclubs were best which nights, and was making about $400 week for two weeks straight.  Then, literally from one day to the next, our business dropped to almost nothing, because of the new technology.  I struggled, like every other driver, to pay $550 or 600 every week for my taxi, and pay another $300 a week in gas.  All I had after that was food money for quite a while.  12 hour days turned to 14, then 16, then 17 or 18 hours, six days a week, and only 8 or 9 hours on my "day off."  I got a cheap motel room one night a week, bought a pizza, watched a little TV, then slept for 12 hours straight and did it all over. 

I made a little extra money buying storage units at auctions, and reselling the stuff, but not enough to leave the taxi business.  By June of 2007, I was burned out, I was having serious health issues, and looking for an escape from the taxi business.  One day there was an auction at the place where I had my storage unit in Huntington Beach, California.  I parked my cab, and joined the other 15 people walking around to bid on units. 

In the parking area right below my second floor unit, was a boat, one full of clothes and random junk, that I'd walked by many times.  It was a big, weathered jet boat, with a little cabin area inside, under the piles of junk.  The boat was up for auction that day.  Bidding started at $5, and a homeless man, who I knew spent his days in a storage unit in that complex, and made a little money helping people move, bid $5.  Someone else bid $10.  $10 on a 20 foot + boat, sitting on a double axle trailer, with weather and time flattened tires.  It looked to be in decent condition, in a sea worthy sense, it just needed work to clean it up and probably get it running.  I couldn't fucking believe it, without thinking, I said, "C'mon people, it's a BOAT."  I bid $15.  The homeless guy bid $20.  I bid $25.  One of the guys standing there, not bidding, said, "The trailer alone is worth $1,000."  Another guy jumped in, and we bid back and forth, and I wound up buying the old boat for $95. 

Over the next few days, I took some photos, did some research, and tried to find someone who would buy it for $500 or $1,000, just for trailer.  I learned it was a 1978, 23 foot, Sleekcraft by Nescher, made by the premiere jet boat maker in the 1970's His company was later purchased by AMF sporting goods, and 2 or 3 years after that they split again.  The boat had an inboard Oldsmobile 455 engine, I didn't know if it worked.  There didn't seem to be any oil leaks, it just looked weathered.  My research showed that for $95, I bought a $22,000 boat and trailer that needed about $2,000 to $4,000 of work to get it back on the water, even if the engine needed to be rebuilt.  It would take another $3,000 or so to completely re-cover the seats and stuff.  By the time I figured that out, it was the beginning of July, 2007. 

The taxi business in Orange County sucked 9 months out of the year, but the summers were decent.  Working my standard 80-100 hours a week, I could make $350 to $400 a week in June and July, and maybe a bit more.  I spent a lot on food, but not much else.  In August, the best month, I could usually make $600 to $700 a week in my pocket.  With this info in mind, I formulated my plan. 

I paid $200 to rent the parking spot where the boat was parked, right outside my own storage unit.  I cleaned all the junk out of the boat, mostly clothes and random junk that people who were moving from units had dumped in it.  I cleaned the whole boat, and took some Armour All to the seats.  I used gaffer's tape to cover the rips in the seat for the time being.  It was a fucking cool boat, capable of over 60 mph, once running, and carrying 6 or 8 people.  I was happy with my purchase.

 I paid another $200 for the parking space in August, planning to pump of the tires, and find an friend in the desert somewhere who'd let me park it cheap, while I had a mechanic go over the engine, and a boat expert get everything else up and running, while I drove the cab all day.  My plan was to get it water ready, maybe take it out once of twice, and then put it up for sale for $16,000 to $18,000, and come down to maybe $12,000 to $14,000 for a quick sale.  That would be enough to get me away from taxi driving, and start doing the storage auction thing full time.  I thought I was finally about to escape the miserable life that taxi driving had become.  I actually liked driving a taxi, but the dispatch computers killed the industry, and worked us all into the ground, even before Uber and Lyft entered the picture. 

But business didn't pick up, in fact, August 2007 kinda sucked.  The only month a year I made decent money fizzled in to $300 weeks.  As it turned out, the first inklings of trouble in the stock market, what would eventually become the Great Recession, hit investors in August 2007, and apparently a lot of people I drove were day traders, or took a quit hit in their investments, and partying at the local bars and clubs dropped off dramatically.  So I never made enough to get the boat repaired.  I didn't have the contacts to find a partner to work with, and get it done.  I was working 80-100 hours a week, I didn't have time to mess with it.  I had to put those hours in just to survive as a taxi driver then. 

I went into the office of my storage place, I knew the lady there well, and told her the story.  She now knew it was a $22,000 boat sitting out there, if fully fixed up.  Rather than not pay the parking space rent for three months, she said I could sign the boat over to her, and she'd find a buyer, and get her parking space back.  So I did that.  The boat, MY $95 jet boat, was gone in a week.  So my biggest opportunity I ever bought while buying storage unit auctions ended up costing me $495.  That was the only time I ever lost money buying a storage unit at auction. 

Gary Vaynerchuk's Trash Talk #5

It's spring time, and that means entrepreneur Gary Vaynerchuk is driving around New Jersey harassing deer, and snapping up garage sale deals on coffee mugs, stuffed animals, collectible toys, and whatever else looks flippable.  And you knew it was coming, limited edition Mug Life T-shirts are out.  #muglife.  Entertaining, informative, and inspiring, like usual. 

How my friend had a $1200 garage sale every year

I just picked a random garage sale picking video for this post.  But this couple scores some good finds here. I just needed a garage sale video to catch your attetnion.

In the mid 1990's I burned out, after spending five summers as a TV show crew guy on shows like American Gladiators.  It was pretty fun to work on, but I was sick of working on other people's goofy TV show ideas.  I wanted to work on my own ideas, but didn't have what it took to sell an idea and make it happen.  I went back to Huntington Beach, and wound up working as a furniture mover for a local company called Happy Movers.  Yeah, every freakin' morning we'd pull up in a big truck that said Happy Movers, and a woman would ask, "Are you guys happy?"  We'd say, "No ma'am, we're movers, it's an oxymoron."  Moving other people's furniture and crap is a hot, brutal, hard, torturous job.  I was without a strong direction at that point, so I just rolled with it.

Since we did mostly local moves, in and around Orange County, California, we had one big tractor trailer, and 7 or 8 bobtails, also known as box vans.  Our Class A, tractor trailer driver was a skinny guy, with longish rocker hair.  He was a really cool guy to work with, had a great sense of humor, and amazingly strong for how skinny he was.  It was Dan who showed me how he managed to have a $1200, one day garage sale every single year.  That one garage sale paid his and his wife's rent one month each year.

Here's how he did it.  When we would show up to move people's houses or apartments, people were stressed.  It's a big day for most people.  Suddenly people realize just how much junk they have, because they have to pack it all, we'd move it, and they they'd have to unpack it all, and reorganize in another house or apartment.  Since we moved at least one house, and sometimes two or three in a day (really, 3 a day), we ran into a lot of people who had stuff they just wanted to get rid of.  Sometimes they'd have us haul some junk to the dumpster for them.  Or maybe set it on the curb.  But often, people would say, "Can you guys get rid of this old washing machine for us?"  Since I lived in a small apartment, I usually turned it down.  But Dan and his wife rented a three bedroom house with a two car garage.  Dan would just put all those giveaway items against one wall, and leave them on the truck when he and his crew unloaded.  On the way back to our office, he'd stop by his house, unload the washer, refrigerator, end tables, or whatever people gave him.  If the wife liked it, it might wind up in the house.  But most of the stuff he just packed into the garage.

Then, at least once a year, they'd have a big garage sale.  He'd have four washing machines, five dryers, usually working.  He'd have two or three fridges.  He'd have 20 or 30 cabinets, coffee tables, end tables, and chairs.  He'd also have boxes of random little items he'd been given, everything from dozens of ballpoint pens to dishes, to knick knacks, antiques, and toasters.  Dan said the annual garage sale always brought in over $1100, usually it was in the $1200 to $1300 range.  This was back in the '96-'97.  Their rent was a little under $1200 a month, and so the sale paid a month's rent each year.  And everything they sold they got FOR FREE.

OK, most of you are not furniture movers.  But many of you reading this may be pickers and flippers.  So here's where you can profit form this idea.  First, if you want to find deals on furniture and appliances, contact your local furniture movers.  They get free stuff all the freakin' time, like Dan and I did.  Most movers just want some extra cash, they don't want to store stuff  like Dan.  Have them call you when they get a piece of furniture or something that's decent.  Meet up, they may even deliver it, and offer them an amount that will pay for their time and effort.  Movers will often sell a $200 piece of furniture,that they got for free, for $40 that day.  It's very little work, and like a tip for them.

A word of caution, DO NOT buy electronics, tools, jewelry or video games and small items from movers, there are a lot of thieves in that business, and you don't want to be buying stolen property.  Or, you can give movers you number, and have them call you when their cutomers are giving stuff away, and you met them on site, and maybe pay them $20 for the phone call.  Most movers would be down for that.

The other way to use this idea is if you're a picker, someone who buys stuff at thrift stores, auctions, garage sales or where ever, you wind up with a lot of low end items.  If you have the space, just store those items somewhere.  Put them aside for a few months, until there's a lot of that stuff.  Then have your own garage sale, or take the stuff to a flea market or swap meet.  You might be surprised with what you earn for the "leftover junk."

Back in 2006, I was trying to get away from the downward spiral of the taxi business.  But I was homeless and living in my taxi, working 80+ hours a week in the cab to survive.  I stumbled into buying units at storage unit auctions.  I rented a big 10' by 30' unit as my "warehouse," and I startee buying units, and selling the higher end items.  That left me with a lot of junk.  Garage sale type stuff.  So I had my own storage unit half full of random junk.  This was before storage unit auctions ever appeared on TV.  Things sold for much more reasonable prices back then.  In effect, I had collected the random stuff, like Dan the mover did.

One day, there was a storage unit auction at the place where my unit was.  About 12 buyer were there, but there were only two units were up for sale.  After the those two units were auctioned off, the buyers were disappointed.  I spoke up, "Hey everybody, I have a bunch of stuff in my personal unit I need to sell, anyone who wants, follow me, and I'll auction that stuff off.  Here's the thing, I had already sold enough from my buys to make money from the stuff I'd bought.  Everything I was auctioning off had been paid for, it was all free to me.  Mostly I just wanted to get rid of it.  So everyone checked the stuff out, and I auctioned it off myself.  I wound up getting $250 for my "leftover junk."  And it all got cleaned out that day.  That's about what I was making for 80 hours of taxi driving at the time.  I was happy to put $250 cash in my pocket for stuff I just wanted to get rid of. 

Gary Vaynerchuk's Trash Talk #4

Gary Vaynerchuk, known for taking his family's liquor store from $3 million a year to $60 million a year with Google Adwords and a YouTube wine tasting channel.  Now he runs a $200 million digital agency, VaynerMedia.  He puts out a ton of content, and gives keynote speeches around the world, telling big business types they need to realize nobody watches TV commercials anymore. 

After a winter hiatus, Gary hits the spring 2019 New Jersey garage sale season, the first Trash Talk of this year, and scores big on Nerf guns, a vintage Jets jacket, some Zelda games, and more.  Yeah, he cusses a lot, but he makes some great finds. 

Gary Vaynerchuk's Trash Talk #3

Here's episode #3 of Trash Talk from multi-millionaire digital agency owner, Gary Vaynerchuk, and posse.  Stuffed animals (OK, "plush toys," that name just sounds so dumb to me) vintage coffee mugs, and Thomas the Train toys are some of the key finds this episode.  Gary goes back to his hustling roots in Jersey, bargaining for deals at garage sales, then reselling the stuff on Ebay for bigger bucks.  He's funny, entertaining, and he wants to show everyone who needs a side hustle how he did it back in the day. 

Wheelin' and dealin' is now "Flipping"- and it's still fun and profitable

 The toys above are half of a thrift store purchase that cost me $1.90 in Richmond, Virginia, at the Goodwill Outlet store, last fall.  Dumbo was from about 1975-1980, and sells for $12 or so on Ebay.  I paid about 20 cents.  Ernie was from 1980-85, and was selling for $6-$8 then.  Since I was homeless at the time, Ebay was difficult, without an address, a bank account, and a place to store these things.  I tried to sell them locally, on Facebook Marketplace and Craigslist, But had no takers.  I ended up giving them away.  Yes, I lost my $2 that time.  But the deals are out there, that's the point.

 Wheelin' and Dealin'
I'm a kid of the 1970's, my dad was what people called a "packrat" back then, what's called a "collector" on American Pickers, and what some people a hoarder now.  We didn't have the crazy hoarder houses you see on TV shows.  Even though we moved nearly every year our basements and garages were full of shelving units, boxes, and cabinets, all piled with pieces of machines, tools, gun parts, motorcycle parts, and random mechanical things, that my dad intended to fix or build, "some day."  Most of this stuff he either traded a friend for, or picked up at garage sales and gun shows.  So I tagged along with him, learning the fine art of "wheelin' and dealin' as people called it then.

Buying and selling was a hobby for my dad, and for most people into garage sales, back then.  The factories in Ohio, where we lived, and the whole country, were booming.  Most people made solid, Middle Class incomes, and making a living off of garage sales wasn't necessary.  But my dad nearly always made a little bit of money on his deals.  When my mom was a little short for food money or whatever, my dad would always tell her he'd try to "borrow $5 or $10" from somebody at work.  It wasn't until I was 14 that my dad told me all that "borrowed" money came from his gun money, well over $2,000, a few dollars at a time. 

Though my dad hated violence, he was an avid target shooter and gun owner.  Once I was about 8, he'd take me to gun shows, where he'd buy and sell guns, gun parts, reloading supplies, military surplus stuff, and whatever seemed interesting.  He taught me to walk the whole show, see what was there, and scout out what seemed like good deals.  He taught me to talk casually to people who had something he wanted to buy, and not seem to eager.  He taught me to walk away when they wouldn't come down to the price he wanted to pay.  That walking away, in a polite and friendly way, often was the trick that got the price to a decent level.  He also taught me to bundle a few things together at times, or add something in trade to sweeten a deal.

My favorite deal I saw him do was when friend, a guy from work, another avid gun owner, had a little suitcase with 30,000 pro gun bumper stickers.  Yes, I know a ton of people are anti-gun now, because of all the horrible mass shootings.  Those are terrible tragedies, and there is no easy answer to solve that issue.  But those incidents were rare when I was a kid, and target shooting was a common recreational sport, and many people in Ohio hunted as well. 

In any case, my dad paid $30 for the case of 30,000 bumper stickers when I was about 5 or 6 years old.  That's 1/10th of a cent each.  There were 6 different bumper stickers, and he had 5,000 of each.  For the next ten years, I watched my dad sell those stickers for $1 each, 1,000 times what he paid for each one.  I watched him add a few stickers to a deal to sweeten the pot.  He didn't try hard.  Bumper stickers were a natural trading item at gun shows.  Ultimately, my dad made well over $300 cash for his $30 investment, and got another $300 to $500 in trade, maybe more.  Then, with my mom sick of seeing that little case in the basement, he sold the case, and the 20,000 or so remaining stickers, to another guy, for $30.  Watching him milk that $30 investment for a decade, in my childhood, was a great lesson.

In today's world, the high paying factory jobs are mostly gone.  Tens of millions of people are struggling.  More important, we have the internet, computers, and smart phones, which offer a whole bunch of new ways to both buy an sell things, to a much, much wider audience.  Flipping, as wheelin' and dealin' is now called, and retail arbitrage (buying consumer goods at one store and selling somewhere else), is a huge industry.  Ebay, Amazon resellers, online stores, and all the other web platforms  and apps, have tens of millions of items, new and used, that people are buying cheap and reselling somewhere else. 

My own main experience in this was mostly from buying units at storage unit auctions, which I discovered accidentally in about 2005.  I tried to turn this into a business to escape the downward spiral of the taxi industry, and I did make money consistently.  But I was working 80 + hours a week in the cab, and I didn't make enough to make it a career.  The funny thing is, the Storage Wars TV show started a couple of years later, and Daryl, "The Gambler" on the show, is from Huntington Beach, where I lived, and he was at the first storage auction I ever went to .

This is a Snoopy/Peanuts colorform set, where you have the little, rubber, flat people inside, and you stick them on the background scene in some way.  This version, with the circle seal in the lower right corner, is the 35th anniversary remake of the original set.  I bought this for about 20 cents (paid by the pound) at a Goodwill outlet store.  These sell for $9-$10 on Ebay, and the 1972 originals sell for about $20.

I'll go into more detail in future posts on flipping ideas.  But here are some places you can buy items to flip: garage sales, thrift stores, auctions of all kinds, online auctions, Craigslist, and Chinese distributors like Alli Express.  

Here's where you can sell these items at a higher price (hopefully)- Ebay, a Shopify or other online store, your personal website, Facebook Marketplace, Let Go, Wallapop, the local flea market or swap meet, or Craigslist.  

You get the idea.  For more ideas on how to make some extra cash, or how to help get your own small business going, check out WPOS Kreative on Pinterest. 

Gary Vaynerchuk's Trash Talk #2

Mug life bitches!  No that's not a typo... MUG, not THUG.  America's favorite garage sale hunting multi-millionaire hits the driveways and garages of New Jersey on a rainy Saturday last fall (2018).  He finds the cheap coffee mugs, he scores big with Matchbox and Hot Wheels cars, stuffed animals ("plush toys" these days), and lands a huge collection of collectible Olympic pins.  All told, his $75 in garage sale finds turns into about a grand on Ebay.  Why does a guy who owns a $150 million a year digital agency do this?  To prove to everyone out there that hustling can make virtually anyone some cash.  He's a hustler from childhood.  #fliplife #garyvee Check out his content, it's everywhere.  Gary's entertaining, and gives you ideas on how to make some cash when you're starting out. 

Check out WPOS Kreative on Pinterest for more ideas on making money and building a small business in today's crazy world.

19 Ways to LEGALLY put Cash in your Pocket TODAY

So... you're in a bind, this thing happened, that money didn't come through, money is stuck in some account you can't access because it's on hold or something.  You just need a little money in your pocket, wallet, bra, or on your card, TODAY!  What do you do?

Nearly everyone gets into this situation at some point.  Crazy ideas may pop into your mind.  You think about selling a kidney, but that sounds really painful, and you don't have a black market organ donor in your Snapchat contacts.  You could put Grandma on the corner to turn tricks.  She's got dementia, she wouldn't remember, anyhow.  But that's mean... and she was the Grandma that always made you cinnamon toast as a kid, you don't want to do that to her.  You could start selling crack, but, let's face it, you're not as street as you pretend to be when you sing along to old gangsta rap songs, and Biggie and Tupac got shot.  You don't want that.  You need a LEGIT way to put a little bit of cash in your pocket TODAY.

Here are some real ideas...

1. Get cash a advance on your credit card.  Yes, you have to pay it back, it's a loan, usually with hefty interest.  But it might be necessary of you're really in a bind.
2. Draw money out of a line of credit you already have set up.  Again, this is actually a loan, and you have to pay it back, with interest.  But it can help in tough times.
3. Go to your bank, talk to the manager, and ask for a line of credit that you can draw on today.  If you've been banking there a while, and are in good standing, it's likely you may qualify for a line of credit.  Again, this is a loan, and you have to pay it back, with interest, over time.
4. Sell something you have laying around to a friend, family member, or neighbor.
5. Sell something you have laying around on Craigslist.  Yes, we've all heard bad stories about Craigslist.  But those are rare.  Use your head, take a friend to the meet up, meet in a public place that has video.  You can even meet in front of the local police station.  Be safe, but it works.  I've done this many times myself.
6. Sell something you have laying around on an app like Let Go, Wallapop, or a similar apps.  Same thing, be safe, you know the drill
7. Cash in a jar of change you have.  Coinstar machines take a HUGE cut, nearly 12%, but they're convenient.  There are similar machines, with no fee, at most bank offices now, and the money goes right into your account.  If you roll up coins, old school style, you may be able to sell them to a local store.  Hint:  If you actually use money, like real, old fashioned paper money, to buy things on a regular basis, take the change left over and put it in a jar somewhere.  We tend to forget about these things, until we really need them.  See that change in the photo above?  Guess where it came from.  That's right, my "change for a rainy (or broke) day" jar.
8. Cash in recyclables.  Here in California, these add up pretty quick.  Most other states they don't have the same deposit they do here, but aluminum cans are always worth a little.
9. Pawn something of value (power tools, jewelry, musical instruments, guns, bicycles, your kid sister, etc.) at a pawn shop.  Pawning something is a way of getting a short term loan.  The pawn shop gives you a tiny loan, usually about 10% of the resale value, for an item, and you pay them back with a little bit of interest, usually in 30-60-90 days.  See all that stuff sitting in the pawn shop, that's mostly stuff people pawned and never picked up.  Don't be one of those people. 
10. Sell something at a pawn shop.  Pawn shops buy stuff, too.  They'll pay you a low price for it, but it's cash in your hand on the spot.  In tough times, it can be worth it, especially if the item is something you don't use anymore.
11. Have a garage, yard, or inside sale.  This takes a bit of planning the night before, and you can post your sale online, and make actual signs to hang up, directing people to your sale.  This, obviously, is mostly a weekend thing.  An "inside sale" is a garage-type sale when you live in an apartment.  Direct people to your door, and set stuff up in your living room or kitchen.  This has some risks, but in a decent neighborhood, with friends there to help you keep an eye on things, can be done safely. 
12. Sell plasma.  Plasma is basically the fluid in your blood.  It's almost the same as giving blood, except that you're hooked up to a machine for 45 minutes or so.  If you don't like needles, this isn't for you.  There are basic health criteria you have to meet.  If you have a recent tattoo, have been in jail in the last 30 days, are homeless, or have spent lots of time in foreign countries, you probably won't qualify.  This can be done twice a week, generally, and you get around $20 the first time, and $40 or so the next time.  Drink lots of water the day before, and get to the place an hour before it opens, and get in line.  Yes, I've done this before.  It's not bad, actually, if you have the time.
13. Sell jewelry, gold, or silver coins to one of those "Cash for gold" places.
14. Sell jewelry, gold, or silver coins to a local jeweler.
15. Sell an old cell phone in one of those "Cash for phones" machines.  I've seen these most in Walmart entry ways.  I've never done it, but it's another possibility.
16. Sell vinyl record albums, CD's or DVD's to an old school record shop.  This isn't near as big a thing as it once was, but there are still record shops in most large cities that will pay cash for good music.
17. Sell old CD's and DVD's to a pawn shop.  You won't get much, but it is possible.
18. Do some kind of small job for someone.  It could be a friend, family member, someone in your dorm, or whomever.  Clean out the garage, walk the dog, clean up the dog poop in the yard, paint their kitchen, whatever.  You get the idea.
19.  Drive around your area, check the curbs, the dumpsters at local apartment buildings, and pick up the things people are giving/throwing away.  Then sell those things on Craigslist, Let Go, or similar place.  Curb giveaways, and dumpster giveaways.  You'd be surprised what people give away.  True story, I actually found an antique, oak dining table, handmade in France in the 1870's or so, by the dumpster at my storage unit.  This was in 2006 or so.  It was in two pieces, and needed work, but was really high quality.  So I put it in my storage unit, and I took  some photos of it, and took them to 5 or 6 antique shops.  One shop paid me $150 cash for the table, about 4 days later.  If I would have spent $1,000 getting the table repaired and refinished, I could have sold it for $5,000 to $8,000, on consignment, in a few months.  That's how good of a table it was.  But I didn't have a grand to drop repairing it.  There are some really amazing things being given away.  People give old pianos away all the time on Craigslist.  They need work, and they're hard to move, but there's money to be made for the right person.
20. Go to the Craigslist section called "Free," and find something that has a little value that someone is giving away.  Go pick up that item, then sell the item on another site or platform, like Facebook Marketplace, or LetGo.  Yes, Gary Vaynerchuk made this idea famous a couple years ago.  But it's a variation of the idea above, which I actually did before I ever heard of Gary Vee.  His content rocks, by the way.  Check it out.
21. Babysit for someone.  
22. Panhandle.  This is for the really desperate people out there.  Get a piece of cardboard and a marker.  Write "down and out," "homeless," "just lazy" or whatever applies on it. Then go to a local freeway off ramp, or urban street corner, look pathetic, and stand there until someone gives you a little money.  I've been homeless where I had to do this to survive.  People panhandle because a small percentage of strangers will give you a little money (or food) to help you out.  ONLY do this if you are homeless or truly in need.  I'm talking to you, you young hippies who travel this way because you don't want to get a job.  You can get a real job, but many people can't.  Always be polite when panhandling, and always say "Thank you."  When you get back on our feet, give to someone else in need.  Keep the circle going.

Check out WPOS Kreative on Pinterest for more ideas on building a small business and to see my Sharpie art, #sharpiescribblestyle

Why I think highly creative small businesses are the future of America

These two are old friends of mine, and BMX freestyle pioneers from the NorCal scene, Mike Golden and Chris Rothe.  They are flipping through the brand new, second edition, of The Birth of the Freestyle Movement, a catalog-sized book chronicling the rise of BMX freestyle, now a worldwide  series of recreational and competitive sports.  In the background, you see huge photos, iconic in our little world, from 1980's BMX magazines.  Mike, Chris, myself, and a few hundred other weird kids in the mid 1980's, were drawn into the obscure new sport we expected to go nowhere.  Thousands more joined us over the next few years.  By learning and inventing tricks on "little kids bicycles," we inadvertently became part of the action sports movement, one of many sprouts that have grown into worldwide sports and industries, in about 35 years.  We are a part of the huge cultural changes that have shaken and reformed human society in our lifetimes.

The biggest changes over the last 40 or 50 years are due primarily to new technology.  As we all know, this technology now allows an average person access to most of the information collected in all of human history, at any time, with a small device we carry in our pockets.  With this same device, we can instantly communicate, by text, by voice, and even by live video, to much of the human population, anywhere in the world.  This technology, and all the associated technologies, have changed everything in our world... in our lifetimes. 

The original Apple computer, shown off at the Home Brew Club in San Jose, and the birth of Microsoft, were 44 years ago.  These massive changes in human society have happened in the lifetimes of The Greatest Generation, the Baby Boomers, and most of Generation X, my age group.  We've watched this happen.  We've seen massive disruption spawned by these technologies and related social changes.

Think about going to a financial advisor back in 1989, just before the 90's recession.  He (it was a traditionally male industry then) would have advised investing in the blue chip stocks, mutual funds, and maybe real estate.  All of those things crashed in price in the few years after 1989.  What he would not have advised investing in was a BMX or mountain bike company, a snowboard company, a tattoo and piercing shop, a custom-built motorcycle business, or even Google.  Google didn't exist for several more years, and the other things were weird, fringe activities then, not something a person should invest in.  Yet any one of those businesses, properly run and managed, could have made you wealthy in the time between 1989 and now.  And those "blue chip" stocks?  There is a single person, Jeff Bezos of Amazon, worth more than many of those entire blue chip companies are now.  Think about that one for a minute.  That's serious change.

But, a huge number of people, well over a hundred million in the United States alone, are being left behind, by the changes to everyday life, to work, to business, to social norms, to housing, to education, and to our world at large.  Most people use their smart phones to communicate, yet most don't use that same technology to anywhere near its full potential to earn a living.  Whether shackled by insurmountable college debt, or balancing family with two service jobs, MOST of our population is struggling to survive day to day.  Poverty and homelessness are soaring, at a time where there are grade school kids making million dollars a year with a YouTube channel, and high school age millionaires in the social media influencer, entrepreneurial, and high tech worlds.

I'm a pretty smart guy.  Futurist thinking, real world economics, and big picture social dynamics are the things that really fascinate me.  I've spent most of my life reading about these things, observing what is predicted, and then what actually happens, and working to understand this huge transition period we're in now.  I literally wake up in the morning, even on my worst days, thinking about these things.  Yes, I'm weird, even in today's weird world.  

I've come to the conclusion that our best hope in these fast changing and and highly turbulent times, is huge growth in the number of small businesses.  

We need MILLIONS of new small businesses.  Here are the main large trends I think lead to this conclusion:

-An Oxford study 2013 said 47% of American jobs could be replaced by new technologies by about 2035 or 2040.  That's roughly 92 million MORE jobs that will likely disappear.  Yes, other new jobs will be created in that time, but not near enough to employ everyone who loses a job.

-With the research of Richard Florida and his team, we've learned about the Creative Class, and that high tech businesses are clustering in about ten major metro areas, which causes a couple of huge shifts.
     -The huge salaries and stock wealth in the tech world lead to surging real estate prices in those tech hub metros.  This leads to massive wealth inequality, and a struggle for affordable housing by most of the people, from lower end tech workers, those with massive college debt, and the large number of service workers, in the tech hub cities.
     -In the huge expanses of land where mid-sized cities, small towns, and rural areas are, most of the United States by area, civic leaders are struggling to attract businesses that can create living wage jobs for their populations. 

-The esteemed futurists, the late Alvin Toffler and his wife Heidi, described "The Third Wave," (title of their 1980 book), the shift from an industrial-based society to an information-based society.  They describe this shift as being as massive as the shift from hunter/gatherer society to agriculture, or from agriculture to industrial society.  But this big transition is happening much, much quicker than those transitions did.  The disruption, as we can see nearly everywhere, is causing most of the population to struggle on low or mid-level paying jobs.

-The massive wealth inequality, the loss of high paying manufacturing jobs over the last 30 years, the continuing loss of jobs to new technology, and the resistance to new ideas by local leaders, has led to the huge populist movements on both the Right and the Left, and political polarization.  This political polarization has led to gridlock and downright incompetence in the the political realm, at the very time when we most need smart, fast, effective change to help people, and society at large, to adapt to the rapid technological and social change.

-The huge rise in student debt is due, in large part, to the fact that Wall Street has structured, packaged, and resold much of the $1.5 trillion in U.S. student debt in SLABS, Student Loan Asset Backed Securites, nearly identical to the CDO's that triggered the 2008 economic collapse.  In the next major economic downturn, the faucet flowing money into colleges and universities will be hit incredibly hard. That cheap money to enable students will slow down dramatically.  This will mean college towns, much of the U.S., and most of the "Red State" economy, will be hit incredibly hard.  The concept of college itself is about to be disrupted, and will have to be re-invented for the 21st century, over the next decade or so.

-All this is in the economic/social dynamic sphere.  I'm not even talking about massive disruption caused by global warming, and the more intense storms, hurricanes, and floods that will disrupt tens of thousands of lives at a very fundamental level.  Losing your home or business to a major weather event is another massive form of disruption happening at the same time all these other things are happening.

I've been thinking many years about these things, and I'm always looking towards the future.  We're looking at some really intense and really tough challenges ahead.  With all these things in my mind, after many years of thinking, I think a massive surge of people going from an employee mentality to a small business/entrepreneurial mentality, is really our only long term hope.  I'm not talking about having an idea and finding an angel investor whose money you can burn for two years.  I'm talking functional, PROFITABLE, small businesses, high tech and other kinds.  There will not be major top down changes happening quick enough.  The true answer to all these massive changes will have to be D.I.Y. and grassroots responses.

I believe that there are people in every rural area, every small town, and every mid-sized city who already have the ideas needed in those areas.  But those people are fighting against their own personal fears, people resistant to new ideas, entrenched local power structures, and at least a few, powerful local curmudgeons.  If we can empower the people throughout the country, who already  have the good ideas, to make the leap from being an employee to being a FUNCTIONAL small business person, to build what their local area needs, we rebuild America, and the economy, from the ground up.  These millions of new small businesses are the only hope I see to put the remaining employees to work in the future that we're heading into.
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A month ago, I got tapped to use my blogging and social media skills to help promote an old friend's bike business, and help it transition from upscale bike shop to viable online bike business.  At the same time, I'm now back in Southern California, I have to rebuild my own life, and build my own income back up to a reasonable level.  I'm actually doing what I'm talking about here, on a day to day level. 

This is where I'm putting my effort, building my own small business while sharing what I've learned to help other small businesses.  The biggest thing holding back our economy, in my opinion, is the mindset that kids (and adults who've lost jobs) need to learn to "find a good job."  Half of the jobs may be gone by the time today's infants hit working age.  Kids, and all the older people left behind for one reason or another, need to find meaningful work, much of which will not be traditional jobs in the future.