12 REAL LIFE STORIES

1. Lessons Learned From COVID-19 That Can Radically Improve Your Future Real life stories from real people around the world who are taking charge of their own future in the wake of COVID-19 and the stay at home orders to create an unprecedented new normal for themselves and their families. The first wave of COVID-19 left a wake of emotional, physical, and financial destruction that makes talk about seeking an unprecedented new normal seem challenging. The pain was real and so was the loss. Yet, from those tears and ashes have emerged one story after the other of human resilience, compassion, and creativity. This is an important aspect to realize, because the global pandemic is far from over. Cases are on the rise and new lockdowns seem to be on horizon. However, just as COVID-19 is getting another crack at the world, you too are getting another crack to conquer that second wave that is to come. To speak of misery without the hope would be to deny the true nature of the human experience. Loss is real, but so is life. As such, this book is free to you and free for you to share to whomever you believe may need to hear a good word in the midst of one of 21st Century humanity’s greatest struggles to date. The human experience is loud and consistent when it tells us that “ in every adversity there is a seed for equal or better benefit” , if we only know how to look for it and recognize it when we see it. That’s the heart behind this book and why it’s free. I may not be able to undo the damage COVID-19 has placed upon the world, but if I can live my life as a contribution to the human effort to create a new and better normal, then my time has been well spent. If the 2nd, 3rd, or perhaps 4th wave is to come, it is my heart that you and those you love are ready for it. I spent the better part of my lockdown searching for stories of inspiration and I found more than enough. Here are a few of those stories ranging from the mundane to the magnificent that just may inspire you to that end. Let’s jump right in as I’ve received countless stories from around the world. Were I to chronicle them all, this would cease to be an e-book and turn into an epic novel. So here are a few common themes that were repeated time and time again through my chronicles of the human experience in the aftermath of COVID-19.

2. 1. Friends Mean More than Ever: As the stories poured in, I was awestruck at just how much humanity had taken each other for granted. We are meant to live in community and when that was stripped from us all, we truly felt the loss of one another. Thankfully, we do have technology, but nothing replaces the boisterous laugh of an old friend, or my goodness a hug. So many people missed a hug from their friends, which has led me to believe that the most powerful hugs in all of human history are taking place as these lockdowns end. If the new waves come and the lockdowns return they will be cherished even more. 2. Old Hobbies Become New Again: One gentleman spoke to me about his love of reading as a youth. In his early days, he would read 10 books a month, but as the drudgery of adult life took over, that dwindled to 5 books a month, then two, and finally zero. During the lockdown, he recovered his love of reading. The stories vary, but the same was said of cooking, painting, exercising, and more. The old is new again and we are all a little more youthful as a result. 3. Making Sense of Finances: When you are forced to focus on the necessities, it is fascinating to consider just what is necessary and what is not. Granted, none of us saw the great toilet paper crisis of 2020 coming, but our financial priorities were realigned for the greater good. Toilet paper became more valuable than the $20 dollar bill and that is a lesson that we will not soon forget. 4. Writing in a Journal: With time on our hands, one story after the other recounted how we as humans began chronicling our experience. Whether that was with traditional pen and paper or a blog, we shared with each other our deepest feelings. Moreover, they shared them with me and that was the genesis for this ebook. You have to hear what they have to say. 5. Learning Became Cool Again: From French to marketing skills to copywriting and the violin, online learning became the new normal. It was as if people knew the world would be different after COVID-19 and they knew it would require new knowledge and new skills. Friends, the world around you was consuming knowledge at a furious pace during COVID-19 and if you didn’t get in on the action, don’t worry as sadly, COVID is not going anywhere anytime soon. What you read above are the consistent themes that recurred more times than I can count. Keep in mind, this was just during the first outbreak and initial lockdowns. The stories that you will read below were chosen because each one came with an actionable step that is within reach of the common person. If one inspires you to action, then it is my sincere hope that you will take the next step to pursue it further. First, what better way to speak of change and opportunity than to lead by example. My name is Craig Stephens and the next story that you will hear is my own.

3. A Boating Revival in the Making It took a long time for me to get where I was at the start of COVID-19, but living in the Florida Keys and selling boats in a region where boating is a 12-month industry was about as good as it gets. I’m also an internet marketer and run several businesses, which was my avenue to collect stories from around the world about unique COVID-19 experiences. The year 2020 started off like any other for me and then, with the force of a hurricane, COVID-19 made landfall. The boating sales industry was deemed non-essential and just like that, my income dropped 95%. Keep in mind, I was making multiple six-figures before COVID-19 and this was a heavy hit to take. Truthfully, even if the industry had remained open, no one was thinking about a boat in March of 2020 which was a day and age where people were fighting over toilet paper. To cheer me up, I started sourcing stories from around the world on how others were dealing with the crisis. While one story after the other came in reporting hope and opportunity, I had failed to see the opportunity that was opening up right before my very eyes. March and April were dry as a bone and then May rolled around and the unthinkable happened. May of 2020 was the best single month in my company’s 22-year history of selling boats. It turns out that families were pent up for so long that they began dreaming about freedom. Boating was a safe and socially distanced method for families to continue to live life in the COVID-19 era. This revival of recreation was not limited to boating. Bicycles, RVs, and motorhomes also flew off the lots at an unprecedented pace. Unbeknownst to me, my fellow Americans were pondering ways to live life like never before during the COVID-19 lockdowns. I knew our experience was not unique, so I began to source additional stories and what I found was truly remarkable. While COVID-19 did, in fact, bring terrible tragedy, here are the stories of a few people who rose from those ashes and found a new and better normal for 2020 and beyond. As for the actionable step that you can take after hearing my story, sign up to learn more about emerging markets and unique business opportunities coming to life as a result of COVID-19.

4. Elaine’s Work from Home Renaissance My name is Elaine and when I was told that I had to work from home, it felt as if everything I knew about how to thrive in the workplace went out the window. The first day was less than promising and the second day didn’t seem to be any better. That’s when I did some deep COVID-19 lockdown thinking. You see, it is rare that life gives you enough time to pause and reflect on everything that you do and why you do it. Thanks to COVID-19, time was the one thing we had plenty of during a lockdown. I put myself in the mental position of being brand new to the workforce and assumed that working from home was the way professional life had always been. I built my own processes around what works, versus what I had always done. Within one week, I was getting more done in a day working from home than I ever did in the office and it wasn’t even close. Remarkably, when I was able to finish my work in less time, it opened up more time to complete tasks around the house. Most importantly, I built my new processes for productivity in such a manner that they can be translated when I return to the office. During one month of lockdown, I created a new professional version of myself that will be a corporate rockstar. Elaine from New York, NY If you would like to find out how Elaine remade her professional image and mastered the art of productivity from home, sign up here and create a new and better you during this challenging time.

5. A Homemade Fitness Revolution Prior to COVID-19, I was a fitness instructor and personal trainer in Dallas, Texas, and I was crushing it. Needless to say, when gyms were deemed nonessential, my income dropped by over 70%. I had some savings, but hardly enough to wait out the lockdown. I had been searching for ways to make money at home and simultaneously wasting away my lockdown on social media when I started to notice a pattern. My friends and family were complaining about the “coronavirus belly” they were getting from eating their emotions while on lockdown. That’s when it dawned on me that fitness was becoming more important than ever, but people felt like they had no options. So I gave them one. I did some creative marketing and landed my first few “workout at home” clients almost instantly. Those clients started referring me to their friends and though on their own they may not have been able to afford personal training, together they could pitch in and have their own personal fitness class in their homes. We met in small groups, always socially distanced, and still got in some amazing group workouts. Because they had little else to do, their focus and determination led them to produce better gains than they otherwise would have achieved. As the lockdowns eased up, they were hooked on personal training. I came out of the lockdown with a stable of fitness clients and I’m actually having to refer some out to partner trainers as I can’t possibly see them all. These personal connections never would have happened in the “old normal” fitness landscape and the lockdown, as crazy as it might seem, revolutionized my personal training career. Antonio from Dallas, TX If you would like to take action and get your virtual or at-home fitness career ready for the next wave of COVID-19, sign up here and follow Antonio’s lead. Or if you’ve decided not to go back to the gym ( yet) then maybe you want to find an effective workout that you can do from home.

6. From the Bar to Making Bank from Home I used to enjoy telling people that I spent most of my days and nights in a bar, just to see their reaction. It was so funny because they couldn’t tell if I was being serious or sharing a cry for help! The truth of the matter is that I’m a bartender and because I was bringing home between $250 and $700 bucks a night, I didn’t need much help from anyone. That was until COVID-19 hit and all of the bars closed. Like, every single one of them. I had lost jobs before, through no fault of my own, but there was always another bar looking for a skilled bartender. Not this time. Unfortunately, I took my income for granted and had leveraged a few credit cards because the monthly payments were always easy to meet. Now, I had dabbled with the idea of making money from home before as my bartending schedule left my mornings wide open. The problem was that there were far too many scams out there and I was never sure what was legit and what was not. That’s when I came across Craig and because he had been in this world for sometime, I started to bounce my ideas off of them. Well, long story short, here I am four months later and I’ve almost replaced my bartending income in its entirety while working from home. As it turns out, Craig’s work as an internet marketer meant he had seen a thing or two and done a thing or two in the world of making money from home. He was able to point me to the ventures that actually worked and told me the one where I needed to keep my distance. They say necessity is the mother of all invention and it’s true. I never would have pursued this path were it not for my bar getting shut down. The cool thing is that once I return to bartending, I can keep making money in my spare time now that I’ve got it down. I’ll never go back to relying on bartending again, certainly not in an era where they are talking about more cases and future lockdowns. Brian from New York, NY If you would like help wading through the countless make money from home ventures, your actionable step is to sign up now and cut through the clutter. Forget dreams of getting rich quick, this is real people making good money with real online work.

7. COVID-19 Cooking for the Win My name is Brenda and I am in the real estate mortgage banking business. I’ll confess that I felt a little guilty as COVID-19 rolled around as it truthfully didn’t affect me in any direct manner. I did have to work from home, but my income was secure and I never missed a paycheck. My heart breaks for those who went through so much during this time, but I just can’t pretend that I was one of them. I did miss going out to my favorite restaurants and therein was the silver lining the COVID cloud for me. I didn’t fully realize what going out to eat was doing to me, but my first week on lockdown and I started to lose weight. You see, since I had more time and I was spared the dreaded LA commute, I decided to cook for myself. I started researching healthy recipes and it was only then that I realized how much butter and fattening ingredients the restaurants were putting into me. It’s a shame really as the healthy versions taste just as good! Fast forward to today and I’m down 26-pounds and 2 waist sizes. Keep in mind, this was all because I discovered the time to start cooking for myself. So when restaurants started opening up again, it just was not as appealing to me. Were it not for the lockdowns, I never would have discovered that I had this much time. Now that it is part of my daily life, it is remarkably easy to find the time. I’m never going back to the way that it was and as crazy as it seems, I have COVID to thank for it. Brenda from Los Angeles, CA If you would like to explore how cooking delicious meals for yourself can transform your health, your actionable step is to sign up to see some of the very same recipes that transformed Brenda. You’ll be glad you did.

8. Building a Pandemic Body for the Better I’m not arrogant and I’m not trying to brag, but fitness has been one of my strong suits my entire life. I’m a gym rat and I’ve been told I can take it too far at times. Yet, the past few years, I really had not experienced any new gains. My six pack wouldn’t land me on the cover of a fitness magazine and my shoulders and pecs never hit professional grade. So when COVID-19 closed the gyms, I figured I was done for. I didn’t work out for two weeks and I could start to feel a difference. So I decided to do a little running or a stationary bike while dreaming of working out like I used to do all the time. One day on the bike, I had an epiphany that perhaps the reason I couldn’t reach peak fitness was because I had been doing exercises the same way for so long. So I hit up YouTube of all places and found a guy with a cool personality that hit up the abs, pecs, and shoulders in a way I had not previously seen. The results were quick and decisive. So I did the same with the rest of my body and I look like a new person emerging from lockdown. I’ve shared a lot of the unique exercises and approaches with Craig, because he told me he was writing this book and I thought they could help. COVID-19 gave me an opportunity to rethink much in my life, and fitness was just one of them. I still wish COVID would just go away, but making the best of it all seems the only right thing to do. Raphael from Miami, FL If you would like to reach your peak physical performance the lockdowns are forcing you to think outside of the box, your actionable step to sign up for these unique workouts and try a new approach in order to build your pandemic body.

9. Raising the Roof of Possibilities during COVID-19 My name is Eric and I’m a roofer by trade. I served four years in the United States Army and after I got back from Afghanistan, my time was up and roofing was the first gig I could land. The work was hard, but the pay was decent, so I kept on with it. When COVID-19 hit and construction was deemed non- essential, I was hard up for money. However, COVID-19 gave me the time to realize that one of my hobbies could be quite profitable. I’ve always enjoyed social media and I’ve been responsible for building up some fairly large veteran oriented pages. Originally, it was just a hobby to connect with some of my veteran brothers and sisters. As it turns out, I had more influence than I thought. I discovered the world of affiliate marketing during the lockdown. Because I already had an audience, the money started to flow fairly quickly. Now that the lockdown is easing, I’m debating never stepping on a roof again. The money I can make at home is too good and a lot easier on my knees and back. I’ve shared the affiliate programs I use with Craig and as an internet marketer himself, he knew exactly what to do with them and with whom to share them. Best of luck to all of you out there trying to make it during COVID. Eric from Carlsbad, CA If you would like to explore your future as an internet influencer and affiliate marketer, your actionable step is to sign up to receive vetted affiliate offers and let your social influence build you a better future.

10. Counseling Others through the COVID Era Since I was a teenager, my friends had always come to me for relationship advice. It’s just sort of a role I assumed with my friends and as life progressed and my friends got married, it stayed the same. However, when one of my closest friends became the victim of domestic abuse, things got more serious. I decided to start volunteering at a shelter for abused women. I had always wished it could have been my full-time job, but I needed more money that it could provide. Well, the lockdown sent me home and though the extra unemployment bump was nice, it still didn’t replace my income. That’s when I came across a powerful message that showed me how I could turn my passion for helping battered women into a career. Essentially, I was able to become a coach and motivator for women looking to empower themselves. It turns out, I could make good money helping others and I only discovered because the lockdown gave me enough time to take the courses. Sarah from Des Moines, IA If you have a unique passion, but are unsure how that can make you good money, then your actionable step is to sign up to learn about opportunities to turn passion into payday.

11. Virtual Shopping Becomes the Societal Norm I knew online shopping was always hurting the retail industry, but when COVID-19 hit, it finally killed it and my job along with it. I have worked in retail for nearly 15 years and just always assumed this would be my lot in life. I liked it as I have a passion for products and shopping, but I think it took me as far as it was ever going to take me. So when all the retail shops closed with no hope for opening anytime soon, I panicked. What’s worse than panicking is that I went on my own online shopping binge to spend my feelings away. So now I had no job and more credit card debt than I needed. However, my binge of online shopping did set off a light bulb in my head. The whole world was shut down and everyone was shopping from home. I started paying attention to the finer details on many of the websites I shopped from and realized that half of them didn’t hold any inventory. They were simply ecommerce fronts selling other people’s products. So, I took a few courses and realized that was very doable. I followed the directions and infused them with my love of shopping and voila, I’m back to selling beautiful things to beautiful people. I’m just doing it all from home! The bottom line is that this is something that never would have happened without the lockdown. So in that sense, there was a silving lining in all this madness. Angela from Memphis, TN If you would like to explore building your own ecommerce store and new income stream, your actionable step is to sign up to learn more about ecommerce and passive income streams.

12. Freelance Writing for the Win My name is Jeff and I currently run the blog UnprecedentedMediocrity.com which is a veteran oriented opinion website. Prior to starting the blog, I had never made a single penny writing. Fast forward to today, I’ve made some serious money writing as a side-hustle. So when I saw my friends and family start to lose their incomes during the lockdowns, I looked for a way to help. I realized how dangerous it was for them to rely on their paychecks in the modern era. So I set them free. I built a writing course to tell any who would listen how you can make really good money writing. Most had never heard of copywriting, which is strange, because they look at it every day. Copywriting is writing for others and every word you read on the internet had to be written by someone. Moreover, the majority get paid to do it. I was one of them and now my friends and family are too. COVID gave me the motivation to create the opportunity for others to build wealth and financial freedom. Moreover, it gave them the motivation to pursue. I’ve shared the course with Craig and I hope all who are looking to break free from the tyranny of a paycheck give it a look. Jeff from Spokane, WA If you would like to explore how freelance copywriting can make you good money right now, then your actionable step is to sign up to learn more about Jeff’s copywriting course.

13. Finally, It’s been a Long-Time Coming My job is to work in a hospital administration department .I see the difficult job that the hospital staff, nurses ,doctors and truthfully the entire hospital staff have to do each and every day. I often have to be in the emergency room for my role of admin, keeping the patient information accurate and organized.I have been in this job for more than 20 years and have always been in awe of the commitment from the nurses, doctors and support team that it takes to witness and dive in tossing caution to the wind to help a perfect stranger that is experiencing a traumatic event . Finally the world is seeing them as the heroes that they are. Finally they are beginning to get a tiny bit of the recognition that they deserve. I am so grateful . As we all do , I hate the difficulty that the Covid 19 has caused.The goal of these stories was to find something good in this horrible time. I think people will admire the nurses, doctors and staff more in the new normal, or at least I hope so. I think the same will happen to first responders .I hope the feeling that these people are truly heroes becomes the new normal. Monica from Phoenix, AZ If COVID-19 has gotten you down, your actionable step is to simply slow down and see the common good taking place right now. Look for those that are helping in any crisis and you will remember that heroes exist.

14. Never Forget What Matters Most My story is about the kids. I have 3 from the youngest at 8 to the oldest at 16. Being in a lockdown and having to learn to do home schooling has been a real awakening . I , like everyone else, do not expect the old days of classrooms and crowded events to return for a long time to come or even ever. My good thing that came from Covid is to see the changes in my kids and my friends’ kids . It is hard to describe how they become more social , more responsible to get their school work done and how much more I learned about them with them right under foot . I learned about homeschooling and how they took on the challenge. I learned about them due to the lack of sporting events like soccer and girl scouts . They grew . I grew , and we grew closer together. They grew closer to their siblings . I found new things to admire about them and they made me very happy. Covid forced us to spend so much time together that we had totally new experiences as a family than would have not happened without the lockdown. I’ll bet there are many people like me that learned a lot about their own kids during this time together and are proud . Michael from Cleveland, OH If you love your family, your actionable step is to stop what you are doing and go hug them. Assuming you are free from COVID, of course. Remember what matters most in times of trouble.

15. Emerge from the COVID Ashes with a Better You This is Craig again and I hope you found something that could inspire hope in at least one of the stories above. Again, I could publish more as the stories of revival and restoration in the wake of COVID-19 were many. From health, to finances, and family, people truly are finding a new version of themselves that they like better as a result of this unique season of life. It’s not over my friends and if you can’t say that of yourself after this first wave, just know that it is not too late. I don’t know how long this COVID thing will last, but I do know that you can add your own story into the mix. You just have to make a decision and take action. One step, that’s one click, or even just one lesson learned to create that new you. It’s been my honor to share these with you and if I can be of any help in any way, feel free to (insert personal call to action or social media following)