Photo by Charles Deluvio on Unsplash — Photo by Charles Deluvio on Unsplash

In 1999, I spent $20 to change my life.

I made my first online purchase.

It was an info-product.

It wasn’t some motivational, self-help eBook or video showing me how to be a multi-level marketer.

It was a printed guide with a VHS tape describing how to get a job on a cruise ship.

I lived in Chicago at the time. I was 24 years-old working for Andersen Consulting, which later became Accenture. It was my first job out of college. I started in Houston, TX working on SAP implementations for oil and gas clients. I met a girl from Indianapolis, and Chicago was as close as I could get with an inter-company transfer.

The girl and I didn’t work out, and I was left living in Chicago with a well-paying job but not much else. No friends outside of the ones I knew from work and no real interest in being a resident of the Windy City.

One day at work, I read a news story online about college graduates getting unusual jobs after school. One story was about a guy who got a job on a cruise ship. After a few years of working on ships, he created a website and offered his guide to getting hired into the cruise industry. The guide cost $10 and the video was an extra $10.

I had never purchased anything online before.

I was nervous.

Was this a scam?

I remembered seeing classified ads in the school newspaper offering lists of cruise ship jobs for $50. That always seemed sketchy.

Remember, this was 1999. Most people had never heard of Amazon or Google.

Online info-products weren’t really a thing yet. Blogs weren’t a thing yet.

I was worried about giving my credit card information to someone online, but I decided, “It’s $20. The worst that can happen is I lose $20 and learn a valuable lesson about the dangers of shopping on the internet.”

A few weeks later, my guide and my video arrived. The video was kind of cheesy, but since I had never been on a cruise ship before, it gave me a visual image of what it would be like to work there. The guide provided specific steps for how to create a resume and cover letter. It explained all the jobs on the cruise ship and which ones you should apply for if you weren’t already in the industry.

Nothing earth-shattering in the advice, but there were three things that stuck with me:

Send in a separate resume and cover letter for each job you want at each company.
Send in a picture of yourself, full-length, and all dressed up.
Be ready to leave on short notice.

In the back of the guide was the most valuable piece of information: mailing addresses for the HR departments of all the cruise lines.

In the previous century, most companies didn’t have online job applications. I was going to be mailing my resume, cover letter, and picture to each company.

Using the spreadsheet and mail merge skills I had acquired as a consultant, I created cover letters, resumes, and mailing labels for every cruise line in the back of the book.

A work colleague came to my apartment and took the same picture of me in a suit coat and dress pants 25 times on a disposable camera.

I printed everything out, got the pictures developed, and sent them off. I made sure I had a passport. In my mind, I had a timeline for a decision. If I got a job before the end of November, I would take it.

If not, I would let the cruise ship dream go.

During this time, I didn’t tell anyone about this. If I got a job, telling people would take care of itself. If not, no harm.

I received a few pieces of pre-printed mail. I got invited to a career fair for ship jobs in St. Louis. Then one day, I got a call from the HR manager at Celebrity Cruises. She had received my resume and had an opening on the entertainment staff. I did two phone interviews with her and she offered me the job, provided that I could be in Ft. Lauderdale in three weeks.

The timing couldn’t have been more perfect. It was mid-October. My lease expired at the end of the month. Three weeks was enough time to give two weeks' notice at my job, pack my stuff and move it back to my hometown in Colorado, and get to the ship by November 6th.

I couldn’t believe it. I was going to work on a cruise ship. I could hardly contain my excitement.

My parents did not share my enthusiasm.

They thought I had lost my mind. They knew I had just been promoted, just received a raise, and was starting a career in consulting.

To them, this seemed like career suicide.

But I was an adult paying my own bills and making my own decisions so they accepted it.

I quit my job.

You can’t imagine how entertaining it is to tell your big-time consulting employer you are resigning to work on a cruise ship.

My colleagues thought it was a prank.

Then they thought, “Why don’t I do that?”

I moved my stuff into storage and flew to Florida. I still remember my first day on the ship thinking, “I can’t believe I work here now!”

I spent the next 9 months living and working on the ship, sailing around the Caribbean. I played games with the guests, called bingo, hosted karaoke, and learned line dances.

When my contract was over, I decided to go back to consulting. Got my old job back and moved to New York City.

From Chicago to the Caribbean to New York City with an adventure on the high seas in between.

It all happened because I spent $20 on that guide and video I bought online.

I’ve purchased a lot of other online products over the years and none have had the impact that one had.

Why was it so impactful?

It gave specific instructions.

The guide was written to tell you how to get a job on a cruise ship.

It told you step by step how to do it.

How often have you ordered an ebook or a course that never got into the details?

All I had to do was follow the instructions in the guide.

I have a vision of creating digital products people can buy. I’m doing it to create another source of income I hope to have in perpetuity. But more than that, it’s a way to share what I know with the world.

As I’m creating new products, I keep going back to this guide and asking myself:

Does this guide solve the specific problem my customers have paid for?

Is it detailed enough to get them from where they are today to where they want to be?

Of course, the customer has to take action, but if they follow the steps will they succeed?

If I can answer yes to those questions, I believe I can be successful putting information into the world and getting paid for it.

In addition to the financial impacts to me, I hope that someone, somewhere will buy something I produce for $20 and it will change their lives the way my first online purchase changed mine.

By the way, the reason this experience was so life-changing?

I met my wife on the ship.

She worked on board as a singer.

We’ve been married for 20 years and have two wonderful children.

You never know how one single purchase can change your life.