TWO WEEKS OF EATING SHIT-HUMBLE PIE & STILL SMILING AND ASKING FOR MORE

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(Edited)

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Shit can get crazy sometimes. I don't even know where to start with how the last two weeks or so has went. What I can tell you is that has been a true test of my ability to remain positive in the face of constant pressure to negative influences.

The JOB

Let's start where we left off with my last post here in #freewriters where I talked about how the wife and I decided on me leaving my regular JOB to pursue other endeavors. Well, we got that all worked out and decided on pulling the plug after the first of the year. So that got all worked out and now moving on to planning for the next steps.

So what are the next steps?

The next steps are ITSM Rhino. It is an idea that has been bouncing around for some time now.

Let's Rewind

Back in early 2020 I started a consulting business, JoeBrochin.com (we will come back to this) for ITSM procesess and IT policy. It was just taking off and I had a couple of clients and more hot prospects in the hopper when I was hit by a stroke. I guess working a fulltime job, starting your own consulting business, and pursuing a doctorate, all the while meeting obligations of a father and husband just caught up with me. Burnt the candle at both ends and my ass got burnt in the end.

During my recovery JoeBrochin.com basically died, I was ghosted by clients once they found out what happened. Once I started recovering, the ones who didn't ghost me suddenly lost interest in a stuttering consultant who had a hard time finding their words. Understandable I guess. But being the hard charging Rhino I am, I wasn't about to give up.

That's when when, around Feb 2021, the ITSM Rhino was born. I already had the nickname for the most part, why not just take my knowledge and resources and put it all to work on the web through a membership site?

Fast forward to now. The ITSM Rhino website has been a work in progress and is almost finished. I just hired a security and penetration testing consultant to push my shit in. They are finished and I have the report, it is in the hands of a developer to fix all the security findings and once those are fixed we will be going live.

Back to Present Day

Now I am really glad I had this done, because while this testing was going on a funny thing happened. I started getting emails and voicemails from strangers asking why I was emailing them and asking for their personal information. You remember JoeBrochin.com? Well, I hadn't touched that ole' website for months. The hosting had been paid up for a year and was set to expire next month actually. Well, it seems the WordPress site was hacked, they got to my website, made some changes and started doing some crazy email forwarding stuff from it that redirected folks to fake sites that collected personal information.

Luckily the site didn't contain any client or other sensitive data. It is just a black eye for a guy who is big on cybersecurity and IT policy and processes. I should have shut that site down the minute I didn't use it anymore. Instead I let it sit, fall behind on updates, and this is what happened. That and I used WordPress in the first place for the main site.

Anyway, it was a punch to the gut. I wanted to crawl into a hole. Super embarrassing for me and still hard for me to write about now, but I like being transparent, honest, and hold my integrity to be my most solid trait. I also want to share how simple it is for the little things to be taken advantage of by cybercriminals so others can learn from. The other positive out of this is that it reinforced the decision and expense of hiring someone to conduct a security and penetration test of my ITSM Rhino site. It reinforces that I am making the right decisions and my stroked out brain is still semi-functional.

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Damn Content Block

Another challenge is that I have sat in front of this laptop several times over the last couple weeks, screen glowing on my face, nothing but a blank expression, equally blank mind, motionless fingers, and frustration.

This is not like me. I can usually knock out a post in no time flat. Once I have an idea in my head it is just a matter of minutes to get it typed out, do a little proof reading, some editing, then do some images on Canva, and WHAM!

Recently though, the ideas are there, the outlines are there. I just can't motivate myself to write. Maybe it's because I can't get out of my head enough. I don't really know what the block is right now but I hope it ends soon. What I do know is that I have plenty of content already completed and that can repurposed, it;s just a matter of motivating myself to do so.

Why is something I used to look forward to and enjoy so much seem like such a chore now?

Anyway, enough of the word vomit and my bullshit. Only a couple people are reading this anyway. Probably narcistic and just therapy for me.

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Note: All graphics within this post, including their images and elements, were sourced and generated from Canva.com, except when otherwise identified on the graphic.



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2 comments
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I bet more people read it than you would expect.
Lots of lurkers here.

That's some good perservering you got there.

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Yeah, maybe so. I think I've been removed from the auto-bot "curation" trails (after my rant about them). Now it gives a truer idea of how many people actually view my stuff. I like it better that way. More organic.

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