Apologies

A reader has taken me to task for the “gloaty tone” of the last post which launched my ADHD MLM book.

I did wonder whether I should add it to the blog or just leave it as a personal Facebook post – after all, it hasn’t got much to do with sailing. But then, one of the most common traits of ADHD is the total disregard for other people’s feelings.

So, apologies for that.

Also, the reader was confused about my various sources of income – and since another symptom is “a compulsion to share inappropriate intimate details” I can tell you that by far the largest slice comes from Network Marketing which is why I take the opportunity to mention it whenever the occasion arises.

But the money from that goes straight to Tamsin back in the UK. I live on what I can get from the books, the food supplement, which is not Network Marketing but Affiliate Marketing (you can look up the difference) and we mustn’t forget my dear little UK Old Age Pension…

So, as you might imagine, it does make sense to plug whatever is appropriate – as long as I don’t do it too often. The thing that I find really offensive is those people (YouTubers mostly) who refuse to talk to anyone or to answer emails from people who don’t pay into their Patreon account every month.

I hope I shall never be reduced to that.

Meanwhile, as you may have read in my Faster, Louder, Riskier, Sexier book, I do have to make up the £342,500 I lost by being too bored to read a contract. Anyway, I regard having to work as good for the soul.

For instance, here I am on my way back to the San Blas islands and so far I have met an American who has been there for five years and a German who claims he has not left the islands – not even for a day – in the last eight! I know there are said to be 365 of them, but they are all packed into an area 30 miles by 10. That doesn’t sound much like cruising under sail to me.

So instead, I am planning a trip of 15,000 miles. There will be nine stops and I reckon I can get three “Voyage” books out of it.

I won’t say any more about that now – I might change my mind about the itinerary. Afterwards, I could spend a year in the San Blas to recover.

3 Responses to Apologies

  • Interesting that someone objected to the different tone and departure from your usual style. I liked it, and felt intrigued…all power to you

  • Well done John you are a inspiration to many

  • I also have been living with ADHD: your book, “Faster, Louder, Riskier, Sexier” helped me a great deal to see that through the lens of humour. And as for bragging about your latest book being published, you have every right to do a little self promotion. Every one of your books is an inspiration to look at life as a treasure trove of adventures and possibilities and not to focus on one’s limitations. At the age of 76, that is a precious gift: thank you!

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The new book

This is the new book – the ninth book – and by far the most expensive.

The Kindle version sells for £20. It’s £25 in paperback.

But then it’s worth a lot more than that. To be precise, it’s worth £546,893. That is how much the information it contains has been worth to me.

In 15 days time, it will be more.

How much more, I cannot predict. That’s what makes the 20th of the month so exciting for Network Marketers like me – when the residual income from the little part-time thing I started back in April 2005 drops into the bank account just as it has every month since May 2005.

On that very first payday, the figure was only £90 – but of course, that was still more than three or four times the price of the book today. Now, for the same amount of work, it would be a hundred times as much…

So, I have felt the need to explain in the blurb: “Either this works or you get your money back…which is just as well, because it is a very expensive book. There’s a reason: I could have put the same information into an online course and charged $999 for it. But I think the people who publish online courses probably make more from them than they do from Network Marketing. I am a Network Marketer, not an internet entrepreneur. Also, I want people to value the information – that’s why there’s the money-back guarantee. Anyway, you can always download a sample and find out what it’s all about before you spend any money at all…”

Another thing: I need to know it’s going to be worth publishing – because I am aware that it could get me into a lot of trouble.

Every Network Marketing company in the world – every MLM business – tells its new recruits to start by talking to their family and friends. Who else would you start with?

But the trouble with that is that the new recruit is so excited about having their own business, so dazed with the prospect of untold riches, that they don’t just talk to their families and friends, they pester them – say all the wrong things. I know, because that’s what I did – and that’s why it didn’t work. It’s why it doesn’t work for most people – why MLM companies have such dreadful reputations as “dodgy schemes” or “pyramid scams”.

But somebody must be making money – how else can the industry be bringing in $1.6 trillion a year?

And there has never been a time when people have needed an extra income more than they do today. Inflation is rampant around the world: Wages have been stagnant for decades – and, of course, at the bottom of the pile are the people with ADHD – the people who don’t fit into the world of work as it has been designed by the other 80% of the population.

That’s right: 20% of people have ADHD – that’s 1.5 billion people who struggle to keep a job (who don’t even get paid enough when they’ve got one).

So, whether you have this peculiar mental kink or you just don’t think you have enough money coming in, here is your answer. Don’t take my word for it. Don’t buy the book. Instead, just download a sample for nothing and then decide.

Think about it: How different would your life be if, on the 20th of next month, you were to see one hundred times the cover price drop into your bank account – and then, month after month, that figure continue to rise – until in 20 years time, you are able to click on the company app and see a grand total of £546,893?

Or, in your case, considerably more…

https://amzn.eu/d/8VjZP2W

4 Responses to The new book

  • I wasn’t sure if you were saying that writing about your sailing adventures or promoting your magic stuff is the source of your great income. Perhaps one serves the other? However, the gloaty tone of this latest blog was a bit off, I am not quite sure why it bothers me. Anyway, I have enjoyed reading your regular sailing stories for ages, so thanks for sharing that with us armchair sailors. Fair winds.

  • Nice one John . I also have a lovely cheque every month and haven’t done any real work for ages. Oh how I remember the paper forms ( in triplicate) now I don’t have to leave my sofa to help a customer keep well pete

    • I know what you mean. It still surprises me that I can sit on my boat in Panama and help someone in Cornwall – and then get paid for it while I’m in the beach bar with a cold beer, watching the surf break on the coral reef.

  • Congratulations on finishing another possibly epic book…..I know I’ll try a sample and probably add the entire work to my John Passmore kindle collection… all your writing is good reading !! As an aside, if you watch YouTube, take a visit with Christian Williams another adept solo sailor. .Best …..Phil A

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Dragging

 

This is The Graveyard in Linton Bay, one of the most popular anchorages on the Atlantic coast of Panama. You can see four wrecks (not counting the one in the middle sitting upright on its bilge keels with just the mast sticking out vertically like a lamp post).

All of them dragged their anchors in a stiff northeasterly at one time or another and bounced across the rocks and coral to end up in front of the Casa X restaurant. Nobody bothered to do anything about them and now they provide the clientele with a salutary view over their $10 Platos Completos.

Samsara might have joined them yesterday.

Fortunately, it appears that although I can be very forgetful about taking shoes when I go ashore or running the watermaker with the inlet closed or (as has just happened) boiling the kettle dry and only realising because of the funny burning smell) I do seem to be more reliable about the important routines.

For instance, it may seem pedantic and annoying for my neighbours but every time I set the anchor, I have a habit of backing up until the chain is taut and then gradually increasing the revs until the little Nanni 21hp is screaming in reverse with water boiling all around the cockpit.

When this happens, the boat is supposed to stay where she is, transits of buoys and trees and boats and houses all steady on their bearings. Only then do I let it idle for a bit to recover and then shut down (to everyone’s relief).

It’s a trick I learned from Shane Acton when he returned to the UK after setting the record for the smallest boat to sail round the world. He had an outboard but couldn’t really afford the petrol to run it, so the only time it got used was to set the anchor.

“Only thing it’s good for,” said Shane.

I’m not sure I’d put it quite like that, but using the engine to dig the anchor into the bottom has got to be just as important as getting out of a marina in an onshore Force 6.

Or, in this case, I arrived nicely on schedule from Porvenir in the San Blas and found a vacant spot equidistant from the Casa X and the Marina’s Black Pearl Restaurant. I let go in 13 metres, allowed the boat to drift back while I organised the snubber, put the chain on the cleat to spare the windlass, stowed the autopilot, switched off the electronics… and finally clicked the gear lever into reverse.

We backed down gently until we were level with Lulu the Swedish cutter I last saw in Curacao – although I hadn’t thought I’d end up so close to the American Westsail behind me. This was the first clue that something wasn’t right. We weren’t stopping.

Putting the engine back into neutral, I nipped up to the foredeck and planted my foot firmly on the “Up” switch (which is actually the “Down” switch but I wired them up back to front and couldn’t see the point of changing them all over again just for the sake of correctness.)

With the usual grinding and screeching from Mr Lofran’s machinery, 45 metres of chain crawled back aboard – and at the end of it, the anchor emerged backwards. That is to say: upside down – with the chain wrapped tightly around the crown and then back over itself so that I could have dragged it backwards all the way to Colon and it wouldn’t have shown the slightest inclination to dig in.

I got very muddy hanging over the bow, sorting it out – all the while feeling very glad I have a small boat with an anchor I can lift on deck with one hand (while holding on to the other side of the pulpit for dear life with the other).

Magnus from Lulu turned up in his dinghy just as all this was coming to an end – kind of him to offer to help but, as I say: small boats have their advantages.

So, by the time I had gone through the whole palaver all over again and Samsara showed no sign of shifting no matter how much the gearbox protested, the evening had advanced well towards the hour of the beer.

And guess what: At two o’clock in the morning, I was awakened by the wind charger screaming with delight at being able to produce 400W from a 30kt gust – right out of the northeast.

3 Responses to Dragging

  • Thanks for the tale John. I had an incident last August in the Outer Hebrides. Big storm, my anchor dragged and I couldn’t reset it.

    After four hours I was on the rocks on a deserted island , only just holding onto my mind. I’ve learned a lot, dragging anchors can lead to losing everything. Miracles do happen, though, Soldemar, my Rival 34 has been salvaged and the insurance is covering repairs in Scotland. I’m back up there in 10 days to get her launched and sailed back to her mooring in Helensburgh.

    I think I’ve got a reasonable dose of PTSD to deal with, but I’m about to see Soldemar come alive again.
    ( I will be publishing, the full tale in due course)

  • Well, well. What a palaver. Another great read John. Just love hearing about the everyday, mundane. Far more interesting than facts, figures and boasts of high life super boats. You are the real vagabond, with real stories to tell. Thanks for keeping us so amused..

  • thanks for the salutary tale well told

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