If you don’t build your dreams someone will hire you to build theirs.
Tony Gaskin
Being self-employed isn’t a career choice, it’s a lifestyle choice.
Over the years, I’ve had the pleasure of working for both myself and others. Small businesses, big ones, overseas, and domicile. Do you know what was the best part of working for others? The moment you leave – freedom, excitement, fear, and anxiety all blended in a unison, like a beautiful cocktail of happiness and fear.
Having a job might be good for some people, but let me tell you something contrary to what everyone else tells you: working for someone isn’t for everyone. Long hours, boring tasks, asking for permissions before putting your plans into action seems like far too much for some people.
Most parents and the school system teach us (and train us) for the workforce. Our parents have jobs, all their friends have jobs, our friends want to get a job, advertisement tells us to buy stuff in order to be happier for which we need a job, etc. It’s a vicious cycle of wrong ideals.
Having a job is in many ways much easier than choosing to work for yourself. Someone at one point or another wrote the whole script for your life and all you have to do is follow along until the clock strikes 5, then pack your things and go home. And the next morning the cycle repeats until one day you turn 65 and realize that you didn’t live life according to your own script but only by following someone else’s rules.
I’ve been working for myself for a while now and let me tell you; working for yourself can be frustrating, intimidating, hard and a constant struggle. But it can also be so many other things. For every aspect of being self-employed that is a struggle, there are way more other things that are better than working for someone else.
I was able to quit my job and follow my dreams because of a life hack called minimalism. I noticed that when I removed most things from my life, I stopped needing so much disposable income to remain happy.
Because of this, I was able to free up some time and pursue work that I was truly interested in. Eventually, I noticed that working for someone else is not what I really want to do, one thing led to another, and here I am – working for myself, writing my own life script 😊
But really, for all of you who think it’s impossible to leave your job, just reduce your overhead, stop weekend shopping sprees, remove things from your life, and suddenly a huge amount of money and free time will be disposable for you to do with them what you really want.
I won’t spend too much time on how minimalism can help you because I have other posts explaining this, so let’s focus on the reasons why you should never have a job.
When you have a job, chances are you’ll be told exactly what needs to be done on a day-to-day basis. Do this, do that. Go to this meeting, print that, call this client, sit at your desk from 9 to 5, come on Saturday (but this Saturday I have other plans – well, not anymore), etc.
If you choose to work for yourself, you can choose your own path. Obviously, you can also choose the wrong one, but I would rather be wrong and learn from the experience than sit at a desk under fluorescent lights all day and listen orders from others.
When you get a job, you put your dreams on hold and work on someone else’s. The worst part is that you’ll never get paid enough and you won’t get remembered for all the great things you did to help them get where they wanted to go.
When you trade time for money, you’re actively trading your life. In a job, you’re trading every minute of your life in exchange for a dollar amount. Isn’t that sad?
I’ve never met an employee who is completely satisfied with the amount of money they get. Sure, there are people who are very close to what they want (CEOs, managers, etc.), but they’re still not there. Owners will always take profit on top of the value you bring. The truth is, no matter how much money you make at your job, you will never get what you are worth.
Having a job is extremely dangerous for your creativity. Even when I was working as a marketing manager for a large company (and marketing is considered a creative field), I couldn’t realize all my ideas. I can only imagine people who are working the same repetitive work over and over again without any touch of creativity needed for work completion. Sooner or later you will lose your creative spark.
A job is not required to gain experience. It’s like saying you should play golf to get experience playing golf. You gain experience from living, whether you have a job or not.
A job only gives you experience at that job, but you gain experience doing just about anything, so that’s no real benefit at all. As Steve Pavlina would say:
Sit around doing nothing for a couple of years, and you can call yourself an experienced meditator, philosopher, or politician.
Many employees believe getting a job is the safest and most secure way to support themselves. I hope you are not one of them.
Does putting yourself in a position where someone else can cut off all your income just by saying two words (“You’re fired”) sound like a safe and secure situation to you? Does having only one income stream honestly sound more secure than having two, three, or more?
You can’t have security if you don’t have control, and guess who has the least control when working for someone? If you have a boss, then your real job title should be professional gambler.
When you disagree with someone in the entrepreneurial world, you can turn around and head the other way. When you run into an asshole in the corporate world, you have to bow your head and say: “Sorry boss.”
If your boss asks you to do something, you have to do it. Even when you don’t want to. You don’t really have much of a choice. Having a job suck because you get ‘bossed’ around by someone else and you’re forced to do it if you want to keep getting paid.
When you want to increase your income, do you have to go and beg your master for more money? You are an adult for Christ’s sake! Are we serious?
If you have your own business and one customer says no to you, you can simply say: “Next.”
The first day when you start a new job you’re served with a weighty company policy manual filled with nonsensical rules and regulations. This turns you into an obedient new employee, fearing that you might be disciplined at any moment for something incomprehensible.
Does that remind you of anything? Maybe a slave? Oh yes, you are a slave to your master and his rules.
“Oh no, I’m not a slave! They respect me at my job.”
Really?
Do you need to go through training or wear specific clothes? Do you need to talk in a specific way? God forbid if you want to think for yourself… summon the enforcers.
You look forward to weekends and vacation days and cringe at the sight of Monday because your job is only an outlet to make money. You shouldn’t look forward to weekends and vacation days if you love your job, you should enjoy every day the same.
One of the best things in the world is to have a flexible schedule. Can you do that or you need to be at your job Mon-Fri 9-5 or some variation of that? Some people work best in the middle of the night, others in the morning or afternoon. Some can finish the same task in 8 hours, some need 2. Free yourself from enslavement, and create your own flexible schedule.
Have you ever seen an employee who’s a self-made millionaire? How about that guy who just got a promotion on his amazing corporate job? Is he a young self-made millionaire? No, he isn’t. And he never will be if he continues down the corporate path.
Jobs are a turtle-paced way to retirement. Work hard and invest your money for 40 years and hopefully, you’ll be able to enjoy retirement at 65. No thanks. I’d rather pursue my dreams now when I’m young, work hard for 10 years, and then retire for the rest of my life while passive income flows into my account, and I’m drinking a mojito on a beach in Mexico.
Smart people build systems that generate passive income 24/7/365. This includes starting a business, building a website, becoming an investor, or some other form of self-employment.
A good system delivers an ongoing value to people and generates income from it continuously whether you work on it or not. And if you decide to work on your system and refine it to work smoothly, or start a new one, you can get really, really rich. Something you won’t ever be able to do working for someone else.
…
Life is too short to live the same day twice. If you don’t like what you’re doing, change it. Find something you’re passionate about and pursue that. If you do what you love, you will eventually make money because your passion will guide you there.
Does that mean I won’t need to work hard? Certainly not!
There are no magic get rich quick solutions, there is only the hard work and many sleepless nights you need to invest to set yourself up for a successful little Me-business.
I don’t have all the answers, but I do know that working for yourself is so much better than working for someone else. Is it for everyone? Absolutely not. But if you want to pursue your dreams, be free, and earn more than ever before, then this may be the answer you’re looking for.
Cheers!
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