Whatever happened to Mike Rodman of the Marketing Forum?

[GordonJ]

Originally Posted by Randy

Hey Everyone!

How is everyone? Great I hope and healthy & prosperous too.


I know as in other areas of life we all move on and sometimes in different directions to pursue other interests. As for me, well I have gone through a few changes as well but I still enjoy working with local business owners helping them find their marketing and advertising solutions.

Talk with you soon.

Hey Randy,

Thanks for bringing up those days gone bye. I sold one of my first products online at the old Dave Bancroft forum. SowPub is now in it's ninth year, small, steady and chugging along like the little train that could.

Which brings me to my once again retirement post. Let's see, I think I've retired from online at least 4 or 5 times, maybe more, HA!. Like a bad penny I keep coming back.

But, at the end of this month, as I wrap up a few projects, tie up loose ends, and begin my fade out; I'm going to go BACK to MY FUTURE. With a tip of the hat to Michael J. Fox.

Back to 1996. In a very weird Deja Vu sort of way, since I have just wrapped up and not renewed my contract with Ben Suarez and SCI, I am about to go back to 1996.

In 1996 I was just finishing off my contract with SCI as a writer for the NPGS UPDATE HOTLINE, an Entrepreneurial Newsletter published by Ben Suarez. I quit running my ads for my HOTSHEETS in what was then called the "circular pubs" or "inner circle", those small monthly newsletters for the "mailorder" business. My most popular HOTSHEET at that time was the I'M BUYING and also the SQUARE ONE WORKSHOPS as was seen in many of the those circulars.

I had come on line and was smitten with the new technology. And I've been online (mostly) ever since, with a retirement announcement about every couple of years or so. I'm like the kid's jack-in-box, I get pushed down and stay there until suddenly I pop back up.

OK. So anyhow, this month I'm wrapping things up. I just made a committment to Dien Rice to write for the SeedZine, which we've decided, due to personal and health reasons to publish twice a month instead of our planned on twice a week. Other than that, and a few of the auto pilot sites I've set up and don't have to do anything with...I too will follow the footsteps of those mentioned, who have seemingly faded from our Internet view.

I'll be publishing HARD copy HOTSHEETS, and moving to FL, and working the Four Hour Work Week that Tim Ferriss wrote about in his book by that title. It was the lifestyle I had in 1996.

The reason for my latest retirement is simple. I had a heart attack last Sept. and its been a difficult recovery. My daughter took me to the ER after I had been complaining for days about stomach pains. The triage nurse hooked me up to an EKG machine, and 10 minutes later I was on the operating table where they put 3 stents in.

They told my daughter that I had the "widow maker" type of heart attack, the kind that killed Tim Russert of NBC News, and the doctors said if I had not come in that day, I would have been dead by dinner time.

Sobering stuff.

While in ICU recovery, I read Tim Ferriss' book, the Four Hour Work Week and realized that WAS the lifestyle I had in 1996, BEFORE I got fully engaged with the Internet. I thought that I was in pretty good health and shape, having "licked" my diabetes, on a good diet and exercise regimen...I guess I didn't factor in the STRESS of deadlines and working and email and etc. etc.

So I've made the decision NOT to renew my contracts with SCI and other people, to go back to a low stress, fly low collect the dough lifestyle, away from the Internet and closer to the beach.

I won't be gone, just far less active. I'll write for the SeedZine and keep my badge as the "bad cop" of SowPub who would rather delete and ask questions later than to give the spammers the benefit of the doubt...and to keep the board clean...

But I'm not going forth wtth any programs, I've done my part and I'm off to sandy beaches, fishing from the pier, and doing email once a week.

There are cycles in all of our lives, we've shared a journey online which has been FUN, frustrating, fantastic and at times frenzied (I'll be practicing my alliteration at the beach, where I hear, Sally sells sea shells; we'll see about that)...

So Randy, you've given me a good opening here. And that is to say a somewhat GoodBye (again)...only this time I'm NOT leaving, only cutting down the amount of time I have to give to the Internet.

I WILL be working on my REAL, mailed via USPS, stuffed in an envelope HOTSHEETS, just as I did in 1996.

So, I am going BACK to MY FUTURE at the end of the month.

I'll answer questions and finish up my business here til then, and I'll be a regular contributor to the SeedZine.

Thanks for your time, attention and comaraderie for these many years.

Gordon Jay Alexander