REFLECTIONS: Growing Up in New England & The Northeast U.S. is actually a Blessing!

🙏🏼🌿😊 When You Finally Realize It!

Monique Rene C

Commodity Broker

FSG LLC

Growing up in the United States, and especially in Southern New England, is a true blessing & a privilege that many people who grew up in this region don’t even realize until they are much older, and life’s trials & challenges begin to take over. While I am certainly very grateful for all that I had when I was a child, I was definitely one of those ignorant people for a while too lol 😂, but not really any more!

WHY? To make a quick point & this part of my very long story short . . . . all people that are blessed to be born and raised right here in the United States 🇺🇸, or even those that have been immigrated to America from other countries, regardless of what their background, gender, religion, race, color, or class, and also somehow end up in this New England region, are also being blessed to be able to live in some of the most beautiful spaces, places, and oceans, along with access to, and eating, some of the most wonderful & affordable seafoods in this country! 

By default, we are & will also be associating with some of the world’s most respected higher education & learning systems, colleges, universities, & institutions in the country and the world. Some of the professors include some of the most educated on earth 🌍. Especially if someone is also considering gaining access to this areas higher level educational systems. Simple as that! 

I came to realize how lucky I was when I lost a lot, including my home, and got rejected by life in general, and felt more like Christ Jesus as I grew older. 

As employers continued rejecting my graduate education ability from a FT career path in corporate life, I drew closer to those who I was able to meet during my volunteer days = real people in a lot of places like food banks, animal welfare & grocers. 

Even during the few years I had the opportunity to work in a high stress corporate position, I always found myself serving in the community and serving others to help relieve the stress. 

Yes, the pay was great, but the stress was not great for anyone!

As a side note, one of my favorite volunteer projects was helping Barnaby Evans with the launch of “WaterFire” on the river downtown in Providence RI in about 2001. Back then there were also just about no visitors to see the show. Today, people drive & fly in from across the country to watch this event! 😊👍🏼

Between 2005, and up to today, since we have not found a long-term full-time position with an active, but aging, MBA in International Business, the major objective became figuring out how to make a sustainable business plan work. 

We are grateful to the Lord, and His blessings, for guiding us through some very long, painful, and difficult trials and tribulations. Through quite a few decisions of others, and through some of my own too, there have been some lasting differences made so far. 

See the list below ⬇️ along with the short story about each one.

We have hope with our Lord that things will continue with positive developments without having to rely solely on our current SSDI income system & any potential external funding, or any external capital, in order for something to thrive & work = a positive outcome or reward in order to achieve a sustainable cash flow 🙏🏼😊🕊🌿.

A. Leave Home To Learn vs. Stay Home Safely - was it a good idea?

After finishing interior design school, I was not able to find any relevant work in RI / MA area for females that looked anything like me! I decided to keep getting educated.

For my undergraduate degree, I started in MA and finished my BA in Wash DC near my father’s workplace. Then my older sister talked me into going to Rutgers University & into leaving the area. She also made me promise to return home to Rhode Island to take care of our mother as she aged. I agreed 👍🏼 and left. Rutgers University GSM was a wonderful experience. I also enjoyed studying & traveling in Europe, and made some great memories with good friends that I still have today as “online friends” via social media. 

I do hope & pray to one day get to visit Europe & see them all again🌿😊👍🏼!

B. Was It the First Wireless Telecom Company Launch or was it The Water 💦 = Sudden Petit Mal Episodes ?

I graduated from Rutgers University GSM and received my MBA - Masters in International Business and then returned home 🏠 in mid 1996 as promised to my family. My first position was accepted rather quickly after this, within the cellular wireless industry as a marketing demographic analyst for the first cellular phone launch in Southern New England, United States 🇺🇸. 

My recommendations were supported & successful. This company was called Cellular One and it was eventually acquired by ATT, and then I was laid off after that, in approx October 1999. 

At this time 3 things happened to me that were significant:

1. I was hired as marketing manager for a telecom digital landline product launch with no real direct product marketing launch experience & no mentor given to me 
2. Purchased my first home 🏠 in a Blackstone Valley 19th Century Renovated Textile Mill in an area known for “water quality” issues. 
3. Petite Mal Episodes suddenly started. 

C. Gastric bypass surgery in 2003 - 

I was 125 pounds overweight and had diabetes II when I started this journey. No insurance coverage whatsoever would cover the surgery costs. 

I had been put on all kinds of diets and diet pills 💊 since the age of 5yo and in gyms starting at age 16yo. I weighed about 215 pounds and sized 22 - 24 at 12yo. My body weight was up and down for years, just never stable. 

Before my life started going downhill, I made the decision to use the extra equity in my home condo & pay for the surgeries up front & in cash 💰. 

It’s been 22+ years since my weight loss bypass & fat removal surgeries. Have they helped? I believe that it all has actually has been quite successful. Successful not for the media, or diet industry or medical community though. I have just finally found the point in my body & my life where:

1. I don’t need to eat a lot of anything in order to be completely satisfied.
2. My cravings get saturated easily with one or two servings.
3. I’m actually tired of eating the same things. I crave more quality food & meal variety types. 
4. Daily calories are much more difficult to exceed > 1800. Why? Because it’s still difficult to overeat! ( Except maybe gluten-free        Peanut Butter Pretzels 😊👍🏼)
5. I enjoy exercise, the gym or biking and walking. But I also don’t know if I can do both = workout + eating enough calories 🤔?!
6. My body has been pretty stable. I have clothing from < year 2010 that still fits. I could definitely use some new clothes though Lol 😂!
7. SNAP kicked me off of the program but my food bill really hasn’t increased monthly or significantly since. 

D. Selling Before a Foreclosure & Moving to Mothers Home / Condo -   This probably was not the best decision for either me nor my mother. 

WHY? While I am extremely grateful for her support, and I likely would have been homeless without her support, I have been living with my mother since 2009, for 16+ years now ! 🙏🏼🥹🌿🔥

My home, which was in the same condo mill building, on the 4th floor, was a 2bed / 2bath condo unit. It was double the size of my mother’s condo, which is about 765sqft and only a 1bed / 1bath unit. We should have sold her place if she was willing back then. Oh well.

Though I did try to get a bed for the living room when I moved in, my mother refused and has been sleeping on her couch ever since! She is currently 91 years old and she really does need a bed 🛌 now! 

We both would’ve been MUCH better off & happier if she had sold her place and moved upstairs with me, instead of me selling mine, wouldn’t you agree 🌿😊👍🏼? 

E. Former President Biden Admin - This Administration was a pure blessing to me personally for one 1️⃣ major reason and issue = My accumulated & deferred outstanding P&I in student loan debt was up to $180,000 and climbing! 🥹🌿👎🏼

I was continually deferring my Student Loans, every year, for almost 20 years due to EEOC issues, no FT long-term position, and/or no real salary and no sustainable income. The Biden Administration paid off the P&I student loan debt as of Aug 2023 in full. Thanks so very much again for your help & support 🙏🏼🌿🕊!

F. Setting Up FSG llc for the Future + a Book 📕 - I initially set up Front St Global llc ( FSG llc ) for my book that’s been on-line since 2016. However, It hasn’t made any significant revenue & needs a new name and update. FSG llc permits are set up in two states in the Northeast U.S.

G. FBA / Crypto = Losing All Remaining Liquid Assets -

More as FYI - the last time that we had liquid currency it was lost in an instant via two 2 overnight transactions that were mainly my decisions: 

1. $500 Bitcoin purchase on Instagram back in approx 2002 that I made when this crypto was a new currency. I was talked into buying it, all good 👍🏼! 
2. But then came along an unexpected surprise = an Instagram ad from a “bankers”  that wanted it back?! They said it was just temporary & they were going to invest it for us and we were going to get it back + interest.  Okay 👍🏼! 
3. I was totally naive about this one! I handed over the $500 Bitcoin and never heard back from the “Banker” on Instagram or anyone else again 🥹👎🏼. End of story! 
4. Then in approx 2015, after I received my one-time pension payment, from my last FT local employer from 2005, and after giving most of it to my mother to thank her for helping me out with   a roof over my head, I put the balance of about $7500 into my FBAmazon e-commerce account to sell whole & organic food products. 
5. Then one of their drop-ship vendors basically took it all in very sudden & unexpected rush of 200+ “overnight sales” and FBAmazon process fee payments. 
6. HOW? FBAmazon requires that their drop-ship vendors get paid off in order fees first, before the customer gets the product shipped out to them. 
7. The fees overdrew my accounts liquid assets.

H. Build O Farm- Learning new Industry - I love this opportunity that has been offered to me by this course, and community, and the people in this industry. The challenges and the issues in this space and field are very real, and I am a problem solver. There are a few reasons why: 

1. We expect to build relationships, build bridges, market & search for new projects & solve project problems in order to help get more projects completed!
2. We have an affinity with many people in this space.  WHY? The projects, and the people, especially those that are near the Middle East region, are close to my heart due to my experience when I was younger. My family and I had helped rescue a doctor, his wife and three children - family of five 5  “The Maksads” out of a Lebanese war zone back in the early 1970s. It’s was an Amazing experience! Thank you for allowing us to assist both then & now 👍🏼🌿😊🪴! 
3. Major international needs - After 20 years post grad from Rutgers with my MBA, I am now finally starting to work in an international business capacity. It took awhile!
4. The cultural impact - As stated above ⬆️ I love the opportunity to work with people from all over the world 🌎 😊🌻👍🏼! I just wish that my iPhone could get calls & make calls in the WhatsApp App. The phone settings won’t allow me to turn on the mic for anything including the app. Not sure why?
5. This industry is challenging but I believe that it’s going to be worth it in the long run. WHY? The people involved are more supportive than the Real Estate industry that I know quite well, and tried quite hard to educate myself about, and to understand how to engage and enter, but sadly I got absolutely nowhere with! I’ll leave it at that. End of discussion.            

Onward to the next chapter, thank you all very kindly for this honor 

🙏🏼😊🪴🌻👍🏼!