Since it’s my birthday today, I wanted to share some of my story with all of you.  -xiaoyi

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Hello, I’m xiaoyi Drake, at one point in my life Diana Bristol.  I was born and raised in Colorado, mostly as white-trailer-park-trash.  It was not expected that I nor any of my sisters would go to college and we were told rather young that with so many girls and being so poor that my parents would not be able to pay for our weddings.  They would then joke, “ So find someone rich honey! It’s the only way out.”

I often struggled in school and even at my best could not maintain a 4.0 GPA.  When I graduated high school I had managed to drag my GPA up to a 3.75 which was just enough to be three people under the top 10% that got to graduate with honors.  In many ways that was the story of my life.  Always good but never quite good enough to break through to the life I wanted on the other side of that barrier.

I struggled to work my way through college.  It took 13 years and agreeing to huge student loan debt to get my Bachelor’s degree. I thought that degree  would get me out of debt and working at a job I loved.  One of the reasons it took so long was that I was constantly in pain and lost many jobs as well as having to miss a lot of class and do make up work.   Three years prior to my graduation, I had lost yet another job due to attendance issues but the doctors were finally able to figure out why I was in so much pain all of the time.  Fibromyalgia.  At the time I was diagnosed, there was very little known about this chronic pain condition or how to treat it.  We had a name for it but that was all.

I did marry during this time.  I met a wonderful man, Dominic, with a passion for learning that equals mine.  I am with him still today and look forward to sharing the rest of my life with him. It was hard on him to see me in pain and not be able to help.  On really bad pain days, I think he is in more emotional pain because he cannot help me, than I am in physical pain.  Now there are treatments and medications but like with diabetes they have not found a cure and we can only treat the symptoms.

One of the hardest things about having fibro is that it has prevented me from being able to work 8 hour days at a traditional job. Some days I hurt so bad i can’t get out of bed.  If you imagine a body-wide migraine with really bad arthritis in your muscles as well as all of your joints and you have a pretty good idea of what a bad pain day feels like.  That really isn’t conducive to a steady work environment.  I have been able to maintain a small house-cleaning business where I schedule a day off between clients to recover.   I have dealt with depression and guilt over being such a financial burden to my husband even though he has never complained about it.  I have looked for many ways to bring in a little bit here and there for us and tried to bring him joy.

Now there is a way for me to stop being a burden to him and to make enough money, even on pain days, to help support us instead of him having to do all the work.  Michelle Pescosolido did it using the same system we are.  While many people poo-poo network marketing and internet income, we are making it a reality.  I found a company that promotes self-growth and learning even as it sells travel.  I get to learn from Ray Higdon, Tyson Zahner and Cesar Chavez among many others who have made network marketing and internet income a reality.  And Dominic and I are going to follow in their footsteps and share how we do it step by step along the way.  We are going to share our joys and trials with you and let you learn with us and from us just as our teachers have done for us.

I am going from a “dependent” and “financial drain” to an “asset” in my own mind and in my own life.  It’s a big change and there will be hurdles.  I know I will overcome them and Dominic will be by my side as he always is.  Please follow us here and on our blog at www.WithTheDrakes.com and follow our journey into success.

-xiaoyi

Life’s too short to have bad days!  What are you doing to make today FANTASTIC?