Introducing myself and my dog to the community

Hi all, My name is Rhys but most people know me as William (my middle name) I'm from a small town in Wales called Caerphilly, I spent a few years living in Bristol and then Lulworth Cove in England. I moved from there when I was 23 and have been living in the US for about 10 years, currently living in Las Vegas. Who knows maybe I will meet some of you in person at some of the conferences that pass through.

I moved here to set up a franchise with a telecommunications direct selling company and during that weekend met my wife (Bridget) who was visiting from nearby Flagstaff AZ. We were invited to go and visit them in Flagstaff a few days later and the rest is history. Within 6 months of meeting each other we had eloped in Vegas and have been traveling around ever since. We have moved back to the UK twice in that time and lived in Eugene Oregon, Anchorage Alaska, Prescott Arizona, Flagstaff Arizona, Brooklyn New York, Anthem Arizona, now we are back where it all started in Las Vegas with our dog/child Isabella who is a coydog that we found at the pound in Flagstaff who was 6 weeks old when we got her and its only a week away until her 7th birthday.

The picture above is me with Isabella and two of her friends. Isabella is the one I have my hand on. Mojo is the Ridge-back and Inda is the Basset Hound. Inda is her best friend and first dog she got to know. Isabella is VERY vocal and growls like crazy if another dog comes up to her but Inda was so dumb acting and friendly that she just ignored Isabella's attitude and because of that they became really close friends. Anyone would think she is crazy when she starts barking but she is the sweetest dog in the world. I'm sure I will be sharing lots of her antics over time lol. The one below is Inda and Isabella the first day they met, awww!

For the last 7 years Bridget and I have been working for ourselves online but have been interested in internet marketing and affiliate marketing for a little over 10 years. I got into IM when I saw the power of social media. Not sure if many of you remember when Facebook changed their layout for the first time, it was pandemonium. I started a Facebook page called 1,000,000 against the new Facebook layout that grew to 5.2 million fans in 10 days!! I was hooked. I tried to monetize it being the person I am (my business teacher used to call me Del Boy to give you a clue) I added some people to help me manage it and they ousted me and were cited in a BBC article saying that i was trying to profit from the pages popularity lol. Oh well you live and learn. Anyway since then we have been online making a living and are very happy that we get to live how we decide.

A few years ago my wife started a cosmetics shop on Etsy which grew to be one of the fastest and top selling shops of all time climbing to 4th top selling shop of all time at one point. We also started a few other shops and started some teams on the site that have grown to be some of the largest with hundreds of thousands of members who we still interact with daily. Our shop is technically still in the top 100 selling shops of all time even though it has been closed for two years. We did reopen it just before the holidays last year but had several offers to purchase the company and we are still in talks with one of them which is why the shop is still closed at the moment. In all honesty it does not look like the perspective buyer has the same commitment to quality of the product and to our customers that we have so it does not look like we will sell. If we don't hopefully we will relaunch soon if we settle in one place for long enough.

We are honestly thinking of leaving that whole business and lifestyle behind though to do more traveling and working online exclusively so its wonderful to find a community like this where people are thriving in the online world. I can't wait to get to know the community more over the coming months and years :)

I'll leave you all with some photos I just dug out of some of our travels.

Walking around the beach in south Wales.

Snowball fight around the back of Caerphilly castle in Wales on one of the rare occasions that there was enough snow.

Messing around in the snow in Flagstaff.

Friendly wild burros at the Red Rock state park in Las Vegas. Some run away but some will come and let you stroke them.

Another day out at the Red Rock in Vegas with Isabella.

Thanks for stopping by and I hope you leave a comment introducing yourself below. All the best
William.