The Aeliad Journey
Below is a long and winding account of my journey through all sorts of ups and downs on the road to my dreams. As you’ll see, it is full of zigs and zags, successes and failures, false starts, and some ongoing initiatives—always with an unrelenting optimism and tenacity.
The following contains A LOT of sharing and tons of ideas that, even to me, often seem a bit all over the place LOL! I’ve tested and tried many things and I wanted to lay it all out in one article, kind of as a Captain’s Log, or a time capsule. I hope you won’t be too bored. It starts at the beginning, when I was a very young man, and continues up until 2022.
Here we go:
My first business idea came to me when I was a teenager. It was a flipping business. I built an inventory of used guitars and amplifiers to sell to local musicians. Since we didn’t have the internet or smartphones back then, I just took Polaroid pictures of the items and carried them around in a photo album like a catalog. I actually made some sales, but I couldn’t keep my momentum.
Then, a girlfriend and I got an idea to put together a Dining Guide. It would showcase all the best places to eat in town, and be sold from the newsstands in hotel lobbies, so people from out of town would know exactly where to go out for dinner. These days people can just google that information, but again, this was before the internet. We got pretty far along on our idea, but she left for boot camp, and so I dropped it.
Next up on my list of business attempts was the music netlabel that my two buddies and I formed, called Metanoia Media. Between ourselves and the handful of artists on our label, we put out exactly 50 releases before we shut down Metanoia. We were full of passion, but the other founders and I had too many disagreements. After a few years, we realized it was over.
Closing our netlabel down was difficult for me to process. I felt rudderless. That label was all I had thought about for years, and it left a void inside me that I filled up with reckless fun. Drugs and alcohol grabbed hold of me pretty badly in my twenties. My entire life got derailed. The way I was living back then—let’s just say that I’m lucky to still be alive. As it went on, I sunk into a pit of despair and desperation.
I needed a way out.
Even though I was struggling, I knew I still had a purpose. And I was keenly aware that I needed to go after my purpose with everything I had. So when I was 34 years old, I got completely sober. It took some time to find my balance. But I put in the work. I was on a quest to find myself again.
My new mission became personal growth—and beyond that—how to help others revolutionize their lives. So, I began my professional training. I became a Certified Recovery Specialist through the Pennsylvania Certification Board. But I didn’t do anything as a CRS right away . . .
Life took me on an unexpected, and very important detour. One day, I found myself in a random conversation with a guy who was an economics major. He was telling me about his excitement for the stock market. He started showing me some of the dynamics of the market that he was trying to capitalize on. I was utterly fascinated. I immediately started my own research, then opened a trading account with TD Ameritrade.
I became obsessed. I studied relentlessly and ran my trading account like a business. I rearranged my entire day job schedule so I could be up analyzing the pre-market at 7:30am, and ready to trade at the opening bell. I wasn’t afraid to test theories and risk serious money on live trades. And I lost money at first. Eventually, I developed a day trading strategy that tracked price action and candlestick patterns to trade the opening range. I started to break even on my trades.
But after 6 months, I started to fall out of love with the stock market. And day trading just didn’t seem like a sustainable way to create income. Even so, that time of complete immersion into the larger world of commerce changed me forever.
It was then that I decided to use my CRS credential to work in the addiction field. Over the next 6 years, I worked in every level of care from detox, to residential inpatient, to IOP, to transitional living. I managed a Sober Living Home and helped take it from a business that could barely keep two clients, to 6 full men’s recovery apartments, and then we added another full men’s house as well.
During that time, I also began an e-commerce business called Westbrook Supply, which focused on selling personal care items. After figuring out how to keep shipping costs low, I did consistently well with that.
During all of my other work, I found time to set up Ocian Studios. Ocian is an entertainment company that started out releasing fiction writing, then some music. It took over a decade for me to come back around to working on a creative platform again, but I finally got there.
Then, I began my consulting business called Aeliad and I helped to build a brand new Intensive Outpatient Program facility from the ground up, side by side with the owner. I was so heavily involved with every aspect of that startup company, that I eventually became the Director Of Operations there. I gained real-world experience in every aspect of business, and it positively grew my reputation in the recovery industry. More importantly, I am able to say that I helped a lot of people.
But deep down, I knew that I wanted to work full time on my OWN ventures. I found myself at another crossroads.
2019
In January of 2019, I formed Aeliad LLC, and one month later, I resigned as Director Of Operations at the Intensive Outpatient office. The owner was shocked, but he understood my goals and what I had to do. We wished each other well.
I took a huge leap of faith by resigning. But I knew that it was time to go back to the drawing board and find my way.
2019 became an entire year of experimentation, as I tried to uncover my true direction.
Aeliad LLC acted as the parent company while we developed and mutated a portfolio of projects to see what would stick.
Here is a quick, simplified play-by-play of it all. A lot happened in 2019 and it all moved quickly through a series of contortions. Hang on to your hats—here we go!
Just after leaving my work at the I.O.P office, I began the early stages of setting up a Resource Referral Management system for recovering addicts called Crystal Outreach. It was designed to help addicts and their families navigate the complex matrix of services needed to address their issues. Besides just locating services and cleaning up their lives, clients also need good clean options for recreation, which tends to be one of the most detrimental, yet elusive pieces of early recovery. So we built the website and Crystal began to offer free recreational group events to current clients. We then had an idea for our first paid event which was the Crystal Outreach Sober Skydive and we also offered it to the larger recovery community. It was at this stage that we started a Facebook Group called Firestarter Club so that the wider community of people who were interested in bettering themselves could have a place to meet and discuss topics.
We then began development on Luxe One which was designed to be a full-service digital marketing agency. I found a great team of freelancers to outsource the work to so my only job was to sell the subscriptions, I signed the agreements with the team. I still needed to build a better version of the services page on the website and make marketing materials to begin.
Right around that time, we started to change Westbrook Supply. We transitioned it completely out of e-commerce and instead specialized exclusively in bulk liquidations for private owners and companies.
We also started a company called Avalon Peak, which then opened a Sober Living House for recovering addicts under the name Avalon Peak Transitions.
Crystal Outreach began to take in money from ticket sales for the Sober Skydive. But Westbrook and Avalon began to require so much time and energy that it began to displace Crystal. Then Luxe One completely stalled.
I knew of no better way than to be realistic about how things were going, so I handled it by refunding all the ticket sale money several months ahead of the Crystal event and canceling the skydive. Over time, as Avalon and Westbrook progressed, Crystal and Firestarter Club lagged, and Luxe One never got past the signing of the agreements. So I finally put those three projects to bed for good.
Then I got married.
I had been doing some research and I wanted to experiment with Airbnb, so I brought up my ideas with my wife. Together, we turned the Sober Home into an Airbnb as I partnered with another company to move Avalon Peak Transitions downtown.
Our Airbnb opened and immediately reached 100% occupancy, which continued month after month. My wife and I were awarded Super Host status.
My business partner and I began to renovate the new downtown Sober Home and we purchased all the furnishings and supplies needed to open it.
Something important had also happened at Westbrook Supply. Through my sales work, I met a lot of people. And more than a few of them had investments in real estate. Over the past year, I had already been doing extensive research on real estate investing, and I loved conversations about it. Two different investors asked me if I could help them find buyers for their properties the same way I found buyers for equipment and vehicles. I looked into the legality of this idea and quickly realized that I couldn’t touch real estate sales without a license. So I never went any further. But I did start to consider getting my real estate license, and I eventually made the decision that real estate sales and investing was the main direction I wanted to take for generating income.
After making this decision, it became apparent that I needed to downsize my commitments in order to focus on my new path. I took the time it required to make sure all of our clients were happy, and then we closed down all operations at Westbrook Supply. (You can read more about Westbrook Supply on the remaining page at: Facebook.com/WestbrookSupply)
I enrolled to take my Real Estate courses.
Renovations at the new Avalon Peak Transitions Sober Home had already extended past our deadline, and they kept dragging on.
2020
Then the pandemic hit.
The global health crisis sent shockwaves through everything. The new Sober Home became impossible. The Airbnb cancellations started pouring in and we went to zero there. I couldn’t focus on studying my real estate courses.
As I write this, it is early June 2020. So far, we have blocked out our Airbnb calendar through this time next year, just to be safe until we know what’s going to happen with the coronavirus. I have also decided that I want to completely move away from work in the recovery industry.
In business, the things I care about are investing, sales, marketing, building relationships, and real estate. I believe all of these things can be fulfilled as I become a licensed real estate agent, and also build my own investment portfolio.
The other project which has remained a constant through all of this is Ocian Studios. Besides the writing and music, we now have our first screenplay ready and have begun the research and development phase for our first short film.
This is my story, for better or worse. As you can see, it has been a winding road of testing and trying things, always hoping to get closer to what I am on this planet to do.
2021
In 2021, although I have completed the course, I let getting my real estate license go to the back burner while I focused on building our media and entertainment company. I put a lot into it over 2021, most of which were infrastructure, legal, marketing aspects. Some production did begin. Some of those projects are still being completed and a few small projects were released. We changed the studio name from Ocian to Wulfkind Studios.
2022
Wulfkind is still the main focus in 2022. I am hoping to get my real estate license this year. I have dug in my heels on the creative projects, not wanting to go to a real estate office until I have certain projects more solidly underway with Wulfkind. We all must make choices and that is mine. I hope it is the right one.
A special message to all the creatives who we’ve worked with over the years:
I personally really appreciate all of you! You know who you are! This brand and these projects wouldn’t be what they are without you!
Thank you all so much,
S.H.