Who is Seely Clark?
I’m just a regular guy from Maine. I’m plain-spoken. Anyone who knows me knows that I have always loved animals! Dogs, cats, rabbits, groundhogs, chinchillas, hedgehogs, gerbils, rats, mice, fuzzy caterpillars, and almost anything fluffy and cute!
My love for animals.
My fondness and love for animals has been going on since I was old enough to say “Oooh! They’re SO FLUFFY!“
I am the guy who cheers squirrels across the road with “Go bubba GO! You can DO IT!”
I even talk to them when they get brave enough to come within earshot. They kind of look at me funny and edge closer. No worries, my fellow humans look at me strangely too when I talk to animals.
My family can vouch for this- I will probably die trying to pet something that I shouldn’t! They always joke that I like most animals better than I do most people. (Not true but kinda funny!)
They think it’s weird because I grew up hunting and fishing and since then I had opted out of active hunting and now would rather shoot animals with a camera only.
I love the outdoors.
I initially loved the outdoors from my exposure to fishing and camping with the Boy Scouts. It was a great experience as a young man and really set the tone for my future hobbies such as hiking and (very) amateur photography and videography.
I still hunt, but honestly, there’s a reason I call it “taking my rifle for a walk in the woods.”
My work life.
I have been a cook, a server, a security guard, Patient transport, Operating Room Attendant, and a housekeeping worker, all within a local hospital. Heck I’ve even been a bouncer at a couple of local bars…(Not my favorite gig, but I learned a LOT).
I was a nurse for 17 years at that local hospital that I mentioned. I loved Nursing but it was a HUGE source of burnout and I left active bedside nursing in 2017 and picked it up briefly again in June 2019. Then In March 2020 -Not long after COVID hit- my doctor pulled me out of bedside nursing.
I started marketing online.
So my 10-year journey part-time gig- online marketing and email marketing- became my full-time gig in 2017 and again in 2020
Wait…how did all this crazy start?
Well, let me back up a minute here-
It all started for me in 2010.
You see, at that time I was working full time as a nurse.
Problem is that my mom had a heart attack in 2006 that left her disabled and even though she was doing fairly well at that point I soon realized that even with my pay from being a nurse, I wasn’t going to be able to foot the bill for the care that she would need in the future.
The numbers just didn’t work.
So by 2010, it was evident that mom would be needing my help sooner rather than later, so I went to look at how I could make more money.
The idea of working online never even occurred to me (even though it was right there in front of my face!).
The idea kind of came at me sideways from somewhere I would have never expected. Goodwill. You know, the thrift shop chain.
The $2 book. “Get Rich Click”
You see I’m a thrifty (cheap) S.O.B. and while I was at my local Goodwill thrift store cruising the bargain books section, I picked up a 2 dollar book that caught my eye. It was called “Get Rich Click” by Mark Ostrofsky.
It looked a little “out there” mostly because of the title, but I figured, hey, I’ve been looking at every other way to make extra cash so I figured, the worst-case scenario was that I’d be out two bucks.
So, I shelved my skepticism and read the book. I got to reading and thought…
Does this say I can make a comfortable side income online to help with mom’s bills?
Cool, I’m good with that. That’s what I needed anyway.
Make enough to help with my bills too? Interesting…
Does it also say that I could leverage working online to make the same money that I do as a nurse? I thought, “Well now, that’s stretching it a bit, isn’t it?”
Do they also say I can be financially independent, even wealthy from working online?
Alright! NOW I am calling BULLSHIT!
Oh, wait, you have proof? Okay, I’ll keep reading…
Some of the concepts were outdated (hence why the book was 2 bucks at Goodwill) but some of the stuff he wrote about was GOOD.
Some CONCEPTS were solid and timeless.
Plus I saw examples in that book that this stuff WORKED (IF-applied correctly). I even researched and vetted a lot for myself. The stories were there. The figures were true. People had pulled it off!
I was HOOKED.
It all came together.
You see, the common thread on ALL the occupations I had had was for the same reasons.
Lifelong learning, keeping people safe and happy as best I could and helping other people improve THEIR lives.
And it is a good thing that I fell in love with it because, In 2016, my mom pulled a fast one on us and came down with her 3rd case of cancer– they found it because she had a fracture in her back that showed that it was broken from the inside out. This is called a pathologic fracture. They looked further into it and found that she had stage IV pancreatic cancer that had metastasized (spread) to her bones and organs.
This was NOT how soon I expected to be stepping in to take care of her using what I’d learned and earned…. But…
I was able to take time off.
Because of my marketing experience, I was able to take time off of work and be there with mom 24/7. All I needed to do was make sure my traffic (website visitors) was running in the morning (10 minutes) and send my broadcast emails to my list at night (another 10 minutes).
SO there were some ins and outs at the hospital that I won’t mention here (we just met after all).
But the short version is that she was diagnosed on my birthday on July 4 2016 and she passed in November of 2016.
Because of my mom’s wishes, and because of my skills from my former time as an Oncology nurse, and the fact that she wanted to spend her last days at home, my wife (at the time) and I did her comfort care at her home.
Doing mom’s comfort care –
That was the final straw for me. I got done full-time nursing and dove into my business whole hog and built it to a point that in October 2017 I said “Life is too short, I’m done with nursing and will go on the road and build my business even further whilst traveling.”
The good bad and the ugly.
So in November 2017, my spouse (at the time) and I went cross country down the East coast of the US and into a bit of the southern US as well…..
At first, it was fine and dandy until there were certain hiccups in the business – mainly the cultivation of leads – the end where and how you get interested people to join- then things went awry and it ultimately led us back to Maine from almost 2 years in Florida.
The downturn in business sucked. I had been rocking along and then- BAM! I was still making an income but it was cut down by at least half. This downturn was a contributing factor which ultimately led to our separation and divorce- As they say, when poverty knocks on the door, love flies out the window.”….
And that is why I walked back into nursing briefly in Pre Covid 2019. As a nurse, I made some good money and was getting back on my feet, going through a simple, amicable divorce and the future was looking up on all fronts then as I said BAM! Covid hit me in March 2020 and the rest, as they say, is history.
Life is good!
Since then I am happy to say that Life is GOOD. I do plenty of hunting, fishing, photography, some arbitrage of physical products (think yard sale to eBay or yard sale to Facebook Marketplace for a profit) I spend my free time hiking and exploring the coast of Maine with my new wife Tabitha.
We are in the process of hiking each state park in Maine in order from oldest to newest and we have a park passport to write it all in, complete the steps in the passport book and get our stamp for each park in the state of Maine.
Needless to say, It’s not perfect, but I am glad I went through what I did to get to this point and I really REALLY love my life!
That’s it about me for now. If ya like what ya see and want to follow along, feel free to comment and subscribe to my blog at the form somewhere around here. I look forward to hearing from you!
Until we see each other again,
-Seely Clark IV
Hit me up on Skype if ya need me at seelyc4
