About Me
This is me and my beautiful wife!
Greetings from small-town South Dakota! I was born and raised here but spent my college years (plus a couple) in St. Louis. I then moved to South Africa to propose to my amazing, beautiful, awesome, and now, wife!
I love to travel and explore the world and try new things. I have been to 9 countries outside of the United States and can't wait to visit more!
Don’t worry though…I am still a die-hard St. Louis Cardinals fan and a proud South Dakotan!
Check Out the Core Principles of Kirby's Marketing
A Little Background
So here is a little bit about my story. Like I said, I grew up in South Dakota and moved to St. Louis to attend college at Washington University in St. Louis. I received my Bachelors Degree of Architecture and went on to pursue my Masters of Social Work with a concentration in Social and Economic Development.
This is me working on an amazing design/build project we did for an elementary school in St. Louis. We raised money and materials and built a garden and play space valued at about $120,000 (not including labor) with a starting budget of $10,000!
These two degrees may seem completely irrelevant to each other, but I had a plan and a vision! I was going to combine my architecture skills with my social work skills to start a property development and property management company to work within the lower socioeconomic communities in and around St. Louis.
In essence, I wanted to go to war with the slumlords and be a landlord that actually cared about the community with the intent of, over time, transferring the wealth that comes with home-ownership back to the community members.
I am talking about this plan in the past tense not because I no longer have those dreams, but because life is funny and sometimes takes you in very random and unforeseen directions. Hence, my journey to South Africa and now back to South Dakota, USA!
How Can I Travel And Work From Anywhere In The World?
One thing I have realized was that, at this point in my life, I do not want to be tied down to a specific geographic location. I want to be able to get up and move from country to country if need be. Because of this, I decided to utilize my post-graduation unemployment/job-search months to move toward this a reality
The first thing I did was get my TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) certification and secured a job teaching English online to Chinese and Taiwanese business professionals. (This was not my long term plan.)
I also began to look into how I can create a sustainable and scale-able income online. Because I am a very independent and sometimes stubborn person, my plan was to do a lot of research and figure out how I can do this on my own.
I Knew Nothing About The Internet, Making A Website, Or Internet Marketing
When I first began this journey, I knew absolutely nothing about anything regarding the world of making money online! I quickly learned, upon doing lots of research, that I was getting in way over my head and needed a solid training ground to help me get started.
I performed so many Google searches looking for quality training resources that weren't going to cost me an arm and a leg and, most of all, weren't going to scam me out of my money. Unfortunately, as you probably know, it was really hard to determine if something was legit or not.
I Am Not Easily Convinced
Here I am playing with so lion cubs in a nature reserve outside Johannesburg, South Africa. Don't worry…they just wanted to play!
You have to understand that I am not the type of person that is easily convinced and am extremely skeptical when it comes to trusting anything I come across online; especially when they are asking for my money!
Luckily for me, I ended up stumbling across a review written about a website/social network called Wealthy Affiliate. To be completely honest, I was immediately turned off by the name as it sounded like just another scam site. However, since I am not easily convinced I continued to research and read review after review.
What I found was that there was not really any bad reviews from anyone. Most sites or services have tons of great reviews but also just as many, if not more, negative reviews. I was also surprised that I could access a large portion of Wealthy Affiliate's resources completely for free.
Surprisingly, I was convinced that Wealthy Affiliate was where I was going to learn how to build a website and work toward creating an online income. I jumped right in with all of the training resources and started building my first website with limited success.
Real Life Gets In The Way…But Only If You Let It
Unfortunately, shortly after getting started online I landed a full-time job working for a property development/property management company. This was good because I desperately needed the income; however, it was a great distraction from developing my website and future online income.
As time went on my job became more and more demanding, frustrating, and so all around depressing that I, rather unexpectedly and impulsively, put in my two weeks notice. I was fed up with working for other people and getting paid next to nothing.
Moving On To Work For Myself
At this point I started considering my teaching English online as a ¾ job and building my website a ¼ job. My plan was/is to gradually shift to making my online marketing business my full-time and only job!
While teaching English online isn’t technically working for myself, it does allow me great flexibility in my scheduling which makes it easier to focus on what I’m really passionate about: building my websites and online marketing business.
I Want To Be Honest With You
This is me with my two sisters at my baby sister's high school graduation. They're all growing up so fast!
This is a difficult field and not easy to get started in. All of those websites and programs you see that are offering you huge amounts of income are nothing but frauds and scams. You CANNOT earn $1500 in your first week. It’s not possible. All they are doing is tricking you out of your own money.
If fact, if you want to make money online it will take you a long time filled with lots of hard work. You will spend hours writing content, troubleshooting all of the problems you will run into, and reading and researching everything you can in order to get a better understanding of what you are doing.
In an attempt to demonstrate this for all of my readers and followers, I am actually keeping a record of my progress with this website. In fact, I've been working on this website for over a year now and am making a few hundred dollars a month.
It took me seven months before I made my first penny! Believe me, spending seven months investing my time and money into a website only to earn zero dollars was hard to swallow at times…but I knew and understood how this business works. I was in the “investment stage” of my website. The returns in this business don’t come for months and after lots of hard work.
I actually keep track of everything I have done since the beginning of this site. You can see my latests updates here:
Check out how far I've come from my first report here:
I am confident that as I continue to work hard, research, and learn from the experts in my field these income numbers will continue to grow. Eventually, I will be making a solid living from my online ventures…and I cannot wait!!!
You Probably Can’t Do This On Your Own
I want to be honest with you again and say that, in all likelihood, you can’t get into the world of online marketing on your own. Take me for example, I am a 25 year old who is always up-to-date on all of the technological advances and breakthroughs taking place. But when it came to how the internet worked and how you can use it to your advantage to make money, I was completely clueless.
As I mentioned earlier, I was lucky to come across Wealthy Affiliate. This resources taught me everything I know about building a website, internet marketing, and working toward generating an income online.
“It Takes A Village”
Here is my amazing mom 3+ years after being diagnosed with Stage IV metastatic breast cancer (her initial prognosis was 6 months at the most) cutting the ribbon for a huge community garden she created in my hometown! She really is my biggest hero!
You have all heard this saying as it applies to raising a child. The idea is that one single person can’t raise a child completely on their own. I believe this same principle applies to becoming successful online as well.
Luckily for me, I was able to find a “village.” to help raise me up from my infancy in the online marketing and website design world. I still have A LOT to learn, but I am making good progress and have been trained up well so far!
I am extremely grateful that I was able to find Wealthy Affiliate University and all of it’s wonderful and knowledgeable members to help raise me up into maturity. I’m excited to see what happens as I continue to grow in my knowledge and understanding of everything about making money online.
Just Like Me, Anyone Can Do This…Even You
If you’ve actually made it this far I’m sure you’re at least mildly interested in figuring out how you can create your own income online. You may be feeling extremely overwhelmed or maybe even discouraged at the prospect of building your own website.
Please don’t feel this way! Remember, I knew nothing about Internet Marketing and website building when I started. What I did know was that I needed help and resources and that’s what I found.
If you are looking to legitimately work toward creating and online income and are committed to putting in the work and the hours needed to make it happen, YOU CAN DO IT! Please go over and check out my profile within Wealthy Affiliate, have a look around, and see what you think.
Every Change Takes A Risk
Here I am taking the plunge from between two cooling towers from an old abandoned power plant in Soweto, South Africa!
I would like to challenge you, if you are serious about working toward an online income, to step out and take a risk by joining me and signing up for the free membership at Wealthy Affiliate. There is no cost to do this so you really have nothing to lose. Are you willing to take this risk?
Wealthy Affiliate literally taught me everything I know about building websites and internet marketing. It can teach you the same. If you would like to take a further look into what exactly Wealthy Affiliate is and what it has to offer, please check out my extensive review here: Wealthy Affiliate Review – Why It’s My #1 Recommendation.
If you’re ready to jump in headfirst and start building your first website, check out this step-by-step tutorial I put together to get you started: 4 Simple Steps To Build Your Website With Wealthy Affiliate.
I’ll admit that, because Wealthy Affiliate has helped me along so much, my review is probably a little bit biased. So, If you want even more convincing I would encourage you to search Google for other reviews and see what other people have to say. I’m sure you will be convinced!
Good Luck And Let’s Stay Connected!
I really do, from the bottom of my heart, want to wish you good luck as you move forward! I also really would like to stay connected with you. There are a few ways of making this happen:
- Follow me on social media: Facebook, Google Plus, Twitter, & Pinterest
- Follow me at Wealthy Affiliate (and make sure to leave me a comment on my profile!
- Subscribe to my email list to receive valuable content each week:
With that, I bid you farewell (not for long I hope)!
Peace,
Dustin!
26 Comments
Hi Dustin thank you for sharing you have giving me hope.