The guy in the kitchen

I'm Jay. I started my first job at 17, in June of my senior year of high school. Married young, bought a house at 23, became a dad at 23 too. When you do the math on a mortgage and a baby at that age, you learn fast that a paycheck is a fine thing and a fragile thing — and that lesson never left me.

Over 40-plus years I've worked my way up through big corporations, and on the side I chased extra income the way a lot of you have: real estate, the stock market, direct mail, direct response, network marketing, and eventually the internet. I made real money in some of them. I made real mistakes in all of them. The mistakes cost me plenty, which is why the lessons on this site are free — I already paid for them.

Why this site exists

Somewhere along the way I noticed a pattern. The people getting rich in the "home business" world were mostly the people selling home businesses. Meanwhile, good, hardworking people — stay-at-home parents, folks working two jobs, people staring down a retirement account that wasn't going to make it — kept getting sold dreams, cars, and countdown timers.

I got tired of watching it. So this site does the opposite. It tells you the boring truth, gives away the useful stuff, and treats you like an adult who can handle real numbers. That's the whole business model. Novel, I know.

What I believe about this work

• Heart. Nobody who comes here gets talked down to. You're not behind, you're not broken, and you're not "not committed enough." You're just early.
• Humor. I've made enough mistakes to fill a second website. You'll hear about them, because a lesson with a laugh sticks better than a lecture.
• Help. Most of what's here costs nothing. When you're ready for more, the coaching door is here — and it'll still be here next month, because nothing on this site expires at midnight.

The other half of my life

By day, I'm an engineering and reliability manager, a leadership author, and an executive coach — I wrote a book called Leadership Between the Lines and I coach managers and teams. That side of my life lives at JayOlivo.com. Different house, same guy, same rule: no hype in either one.

— Jay
Long Island, New York