I decided to document my journey as a student in the Tim Sykes Millionaire Challenge with the hopes that I can help others also starting out like me. On my profit.ly page, I will be posting regular accountability entries and thoughts about the process as I continue my journey. Hopefully it can help someone out. It is also a “time capsule” for me, which I can look back on when I have achieved my goals in the program. I am beginning with my story which helped me to decide to enroll in the challenge.

 

 SJO Airport immigration line in Alajuela, Costa Rica   

 

     My family and I traveled to Costa Rica on March 11, 2020. This was a vacation we had been planning since June 2019. I was eyeing potential places to retire to, and this was the first one we decided to visit. The coronavirus panic was only just starting to ramp up, and considering the media's track record of blowing everything out of proportion, we went anyway. We had no problems getting there, and the first couple of days were amazing. We went shopping at the grocery store for our AirBnb, enjoyed a small cocktail party at our host's house, and went zip lining in the Braulio Carrillo rain forest.

 

 Zip lining in the Braulio Carrillo rain forest in Costa Rica

 

    The next day, I got a text from a coworker. He said that they were laying some of us off at work. I work as a slot machine technician at a prominent casino on the Las Vegas Strip. Our occupancy was down to 9%, so they were cutting staff levels to accommodate for the lack of business. I was one of the techs laid off. Now this was disturbing news, but I tried not to let it ruin our vacation. We went to the Manuel Antonio National Park in Quepos the next day. We saw a bunch of wildlife and played on the beach. The next day we went to La Paz Waterfall Gardens. The cloud forest has to be the most beautiful place on earth!

 

Sloth sighting at the Manuel Antonio National Park in Quepos, Costa Rica

 

 La Paz Waterfall Gardens in a Costa Rican cloud forest

 

     It wasn't until the next day that I finally heard from my boss. They were going to close the casino down. A few employees had tested positive for COVID-19, and they were taking precautions to keep it from spreading. My layoff was recalled and I was put on furlough, given 2 weeks pay, and I was told that they would pay for my health insurance until June 30. My boss said that I would need to file for unemployment. The next day our Nevada state governor closed all non essential businesses which included all of the casinos in the state. For the first time in history, the entire Las Vegas strip was closed. There is a really cool video on Youtube called “Coronavegas” that looks like something out of a horror movie. Someone filmed the Las Vegas Strip and Downtown Fremont after everything closed down. There are very few people in places that were previously crowded. It is very sad and surreal.

 

     The next day, we heard that Costa Rica was going to close their borders. This is when I really started to worry. Things were going crazy! We flew out of Costa Rica the first day that they closed their borders to incoming tourists. We had a layover in Mexico City, but our flight to Vegas had been canceled due to an air traffic controller at the Vegas airport testing positive for COVID-19. We had to stay overnight in Mexico City. We almost didn't make it out the next day either. As we were taxiing down the runway to take off, the pilot came on over the loudspeaker to tell us that the Las Vegas airport was still closed! They managed to get someone to let us fly in though. There were about 20 of us on the plane, all of us US citizens. When we landed, the airport was nearly empty. I've never been through customs so fast in my entire life!

 

     As I sat at home social distancing, I began to ponder the reality of the situation. I've worked at the same casino for 23 years. I've survived two layoffs, September 11^th and the 2008 recession. Very few people came back from those layoffs. I recognized that this coronavirus disaster was a lot worse than both of those events. I know that I am number nine out of just 11 techs in our shop. My job is awesome, and the turn around is really, really low. Most of us have been working there since the casino opened in 1993. The benefits are great. The work is interesting, because it changes as new technology emerges in the field. No one ever leaves. I have a feeling I won't be asked to come back to work. They are probably going to need to cut staff because of the lack of people coming to town to visit. It's going to be awhile until most people will be comfortable hanging out in a casino again. I don't think that I will make the cut.

 

     What was I to do? I haven't had to look for a job in 23 years. The last time I filled out an employment application, it was on paper. The internet was a novelty for most people back then. My skill is fixing slot machines, and I didn't want to start all over again. I thought that I was in this job until retirement. There really is no guarantee that I will be able to keep the next job either. Something else might happen. Everything was looking grim for me.

 

     I started thinking about what I could do. I am a smart person, I figured I could learn something during this quarantine to help me find a new path in life. I knew I didn't want to work another 9 to 5. That's the one thing I hated about my job. I worked swing shift and my days off were mid week, so I hardly ever got to see my family. I wanted something I could do at home during daylight hours while my daughter was in school.

 

     I started looking up passive income, and that steered me toward investing. I am in decent shape financially, but I'm not rich enough to make money investing long term. I saw a Youtube video that recommended Timothy Sykes and penny stock trading, so I googled his name and watched some of his videos. It was exactly what I was looking for. A way to take my small savings account and grow it exponentially until I could trade enough to make what I made as a slot tech. I wanted the fast track though. I was afraid if I waited too long, that I wouldn't have the means to do it. Plus I had the time. I can collect unemployment for 9 months until I will need to find another job. If I study my ass off, I could at least make back the tuition to the program by then. So I signed up for his Millionaire Challenge.

 

     I don't expect to become a millionaire overnight. But I do think I'm at least capable of turning a $70,000 profit in the next year or so by day trading, and that is my goal right now. It's in the back of my mind every day when I sit down at my computer to study the material. I am hoping to look back on this story one day, and be proud of all that I have accomplished on the journey to my goal.