by Vago Damitio
Everyone around you probably wants you to keep working in your job. Your kids, your wife, your parents, your friends, your boss (especially him or her) and you know why? Because they aren’t you. They don’t know what makes you happy. They don’t know what brings you fulfillment. They don’t know that what led you to this point is making some bad decisions based on bad information.
It’s a rough spot to be in. I’m aware of that. I was there once.
I’m going to let you know though that you have to accept it. You have to deal with it. You have to admit your mistake and move forward. Lying to yourself will get you to exactly where you are right now.
And guess what, once you accept it, you will find that the one thing you want to do more than any other is to quit that job. I suggest that you let yourself. Damn the consequences. Never mind the bullocks. Just do it. Let yourself do what you want and see how it makes you feel. It’s your one and only life on this planet. Do what you know you must and do it quickly. You can blame me for the consequences but don’t forget to credit me with the good that comes of it either.
Finding Your Starting Point
There is one part of the business your boss doesn’t own. The part inside of your noggin. It’s true, you might not be able to quit today. Maybe you have to stay with it for a few months.
Sure, the ideal situation is to stop working for someone else right now, but maybe you need some time to prepare yourself. Some time to get ready. It’s okay. Really.
The important thing is that you know you can start working for yourself at any time you want. Can you imagine what it will be like to be your own boss? To have total freedom?
That’s what this is really about. It’s about having total freedom and being able to let go of the burdens of others that you have been dragging around for your whole life.
It’s the most important thing you can give yourself. If you are like most people, you don’t know if you can handle it or not. It scares you. It might even make you lose some sleep when you start thinking about it seriously. That’s okay.
Listen to all those reasons that tell you that you have to continue to be a wage slave and then think of all the reasons that you can be free. Just walk around for a while imagining what it will be like to be your own boss. Keep doing your work for as long as you need to but don’t take away the permission that you’ve already given yourself to quit. You are a free being. You were born free and you still are. You have the freedom to leave the job you hate.
If you plan on keeping your job, I wouldn’t tell the boss what’s going through your head. In fact, the more you focus on it, the more real it will become. As humans we tend to get what we envision. We focus on something enough and it becomes real. The sad thing is that most of us spend more time focusing on misery than on victory. And guess what? That’s what we get.
Making Up Your Mind To Be Free
If you want more freedom all you have to do is picture it. Determine your own future just like those who have done it before. Buckminster Fuller was a failure in everything he did until he learned this secret. So was Henry Ford. So was Steve Jobs. If you want more freedom, you are the only one who can give it to yourself. What are you waiting for?
If Bill Gates had kept working for IBM there wouldn’t be any Microsoft. FDR was right when he said we have nothing to fear but fear itself. The Wright Brothers were right when they decided they could fly. You are right when you make up your mind that you can do what you dream of. All there is to it, is to do it.
In his book Don’t Ask Stupid Questions? There Are No Stupid Questions, author Tim Brownson. says “People make money doing all sorts of weird and wonderful things, things they genuinely love. People actually get paid to go shopping, eat food, tell jokes, play with toys, design things, play sports, pretend they are other people, write stuff, daydream, drive cars, care for animals, fly planes, talk, coach people and more or less anything else you can imagine.”
His book is filled with common sense inspiration that has led many to discover what they love and what they want to do with their lives. I recommend it. The sad thing is most people that read his book just say “Yeah, but that won’t work for me. I’m not good enough to do that.” But the truth is that you are, you really are!
Other’s say that they don’t want to make money from their passion. That’s fine too, but you should still keep reading because I’m going to show you other ways you can leave the job you hate and find the joy you are missing. There’s more than one way to skin a cat.
Freelancing = Doing What You Love
For many people, passion and being good at something go hand in hand. If you are actually good at something, you usually become passionate about it. Even better, if you’re lucky, your passion is something you can actually sell.
Let’s have a look at some very sellable passions that are shared by a lot of people:
Writing, Web Design Skills, Blogging, Cooking, Computer Programming, Foreign Languages, Native Languages, Photography, Graphic Design, Teaching or Coaching, Sports.
Believe it or not, there are ready markets available where you can make money with these skills today! I’m not talking about waiting around. I’m talking about finding a way to make money today. Doing something you love and getting paid for it within the next 24 hours.
Don’t believe me? Have a look at craigslist.com and see if there isn’t at least one ad asking for writers. Ask your friends if they know anyone that is having a wedding, birthday, or party and would like a photographer, cook something delicious and see if you can sell it in front of a local business. These may sound absurd to you, but I’m telling you they are not. The only thing holding you back from making money right now is that voice in your head that is telling you that you can’t.
Or let’s say that you really like your work but you hate having to go to the office. In that case, you should look into freelancing in your field. Maybe you won’t find the same pay, maybe you will have to work harder, but you will make your life and your situation better.
Almost everyone I know who has a ‘real’ job hates it. And yet, these are the same people who tell me they are buying their freedom. At what cost? My friend Jeff had a heart attack and diet at the age of 39 years old. Luckily he had ditched his career a year earlier and started to live his passion, radio. Unfortunately the toll of heavy smoking, bad diet, and poor health from working in a job he hated for so long took his life before he could recover. Don’t let that happen to you!
Do you know who works for their freedom? Slaves do. Are you a slave or are you free? If the answer is that you are a slave you better get back to your master’s work, but if you are free, then what are you waiting for? In fact, none of us are slaves unless we choose to be. Do you really want to spend the next thirty years being a slave? Do you think people will respect you more if you continue as a slave or take the chance of a lifetime? Freedom is yours. I hope you are starting to understand the truth of that.
Ask yourself what it really is you want. What is it? Money? Fame? Time? Or would you prefer to have time and money? In truth, you really don’t want to be famous, you want the time and the money that fame can give you, right?
Look what you have been doing with your work. You’ve been working five days to give yourself two days off. You’ve been working 50 weeks to have 2 weeks off. Wouldn’t you rather have it the other way around? You can. All there is to it is to do it. Find your passion income.
Starting A Business Isn’t The Answer
A lot of people dream of starting their own business. I’m going to tell you something you may have never heard before. Starting a business is a lousy answer to freedom. When you start a business you chain yourself to the employees, the clients, and the idea. Most businesses fail and the reason why is because people have no idea just how much work they have to put into them.
My advice to you is not to start your own business. Maybe you don’t know what to do with all those hobbies you can’t figure out how to freelance with like w
atching soap operas, reading, or playing World of Warcraft, but the answer to having more time for your hobbies is NOT to start some other business so that you can have more time. If you can start a business around your passions, that just might work, but otherwise, avoid this bad idea like it is the bubonic plague.
You can find ways to make money doing what you love. Watch soap operas and then record a podcast about what happened for those who didn’t see it but want to stay caught up, learn how to gold farm in World of Warcraft and sell the gold for real cash (Check out the work of author Julian Dibbell to see how that can actually make you rich), or sign up for one of the many reading for dollars programs on the internet. Maybe you start slow, but you can do it.
Passive Income= Freedom From Worry
If you want something really great to dream of, think about how to set up passive income streams for yourself. There are ways that you can work hard now and profit from it forever. It’s actually not hard to do.
If you don’t believe me just look at how bloggers like Jeremy Shoemoney and Darren Rouse are doing it. These guys have done it and they will explain to you exactly how you can too. Not with their passions, but with yours. The techniques work. You might have to work your ass off at first, but the rewards are worth it and you aren’t working for someone else, you are working totally for yourself.
I don’t know about you, but I work harder when it’s for me than I do for anyone else.
Once you’ve figured out that you can make money consistently and for all time by using the skills you already have, you will find that quitting your job is one of the best things you can do for your family, your self, and your life.
In fact, you may not want to make your passion your income. You may be afraid you will taint it with money. That can happen. Indeed it has happened a lot, but it doesn’t have to. The key is to set up your passive income and incorporate these passions into it. You could even call it passion income.
I’m convinced that we all have our passions for a reason. It’s like digging a tunnel. As you start it seems like it doesn’t go anywhere. In fact, it doesn’t. You sweat, you toil, you get dirty. You wonder why you ever started in the first place. Of course, most tunnels are there so that you can go through the mountain instead of over it and in the process save yourself some sweat. But the tunnel doesn’t dig itself. Once you reach the other side though, you never have to dig it again. You never have to go over that mountain again. And you never know, you might strike gold when you are halfway through even though it wasn’t what you were looking for in the first place.
At this point it seems like maybe you are getting something for nothing as other people pay you to use your tunnel, but in fact, you worked your ass off to break through the other side. Your reward is that it continues to serve you. Just don’t give up!
The truth is by reading these words you have already picked up the pick and shovel. What are you going to make your passive income with? Where is your tunnel taking you? What mountain are you going under instead of over?
You’ve got to figure that out. I can’t tell you. Look at what you really love. Can you dig it? Can you dive into the work it will take. I know you can. Whatever it is you love the most is the key to making your passive income. I don’t care if you love teaspoons and bottle caps. There is a way. You have to find it. Dig man, dig!
What you don’t want to do is be dishonest about what it is that makes you happy. Maybe you are the fart king and nothing makes you happier. Don’t hide that from yourself. Just admit it and think about ways you can make those farts pay. Think they can’t? You’re being lazy. Want proof? Go to Google and look up ‘iFart’.
Nobody has to know what really makes you happy except you, but that thing is the key to your future prosperity. It may sound ridiculous, but it is totally true.
There are many buses that all lead to the same destination and in this case that destination is freedom from being a slave. I’m telling you, you’re passion is the key no matter how strange it may be. It’s you, accept it and go with it. It’s how to tunnel your way to happiness.
Here are three buses that can take you to the state of liberty you desire. There are more, but these are the ones that carry the most passengers to the state of grace. Read on oh mighty farter!
Unless you take the first swing of the pick right now, you will continue to be miserable. Now is the time for all good people to come to the aid of their own happiness. Do it while you still hate your job. The timing is perfect.
Let your hated employment shelter you while you dig the tunnel that leads to your enjoyment. Maybe your tunnel leads right to this hammock laid out under a lauhala tree in the Hawaiian Sunshine. Or maybe it leads someplace even better.
Bus #1 (Belle)
The first bus heading to destination freedom is freelancing. The term comes from back when men in shining armor fought each other to determine who would serve and who would eat. Those who were not affiliated with a specific house or Lord were known as free lances. Pretty cool, right?
Are you ready to get your freelance game on?
What does it mean to be a freelancer? Well in simple terms what it means is that you don’t work for anyone but yourself. The most common ways people break into freelance work is in the fields of writing, photography, graphic design, computers, web design, and illustration.
If you want to start out as a freelancer and you have these skills, you shouldn’t have a hard time finding work. Each of these fields have literally hundreds of websites dedicated to helping freelancers. You can find clients, learn about your trade, and even find out about the necessities of taxes, insurance, and the process of doing the work itself.
I can tell you from experience that you can do this. Some people say that freelancing is less secure than having a boss, but as a freelancer, I have many clients, none of them can take away my total income. Can you say the same of your boss? I couldn’t. I’m in complete control of my work. If I don’t like a client, I don’t have to work with them again. In fact, I have more than ten streams of income as a freelancer right now and none of them know each other. I’ve told two clients in two days that I can’t work with them any longer because their rates are too low. You can’t do that with a regular job. You know why? Because you are the expendable one.
So, what’s your passion? Do you really want to know?
It’s simple. If you could be doing anything at this moment, what would you be doing? That’s it. That’s your passion. Now comes the harder part…how do you turn Guitar Hero into a career? Hopefully very few of you actually chose this, but my friend Julian did. You know what he did with it? He started giving Guitar Hero lessons and people are paying him for them.
Don’t worry though, passions change frequently and as a freelancer, you aren’t trapped in just one passion. You can change with your passions. Once you figure out how to do it, it can never be taken away from you.
To start earning money this way you don’t need money, you don’t need employees, you don’t need a business plan, you don’t need anything but you and your passion plus a desire to find a way to make money with them. Get out of what is necessary and into what is fun.
Bus #2 (Turtle)
Although I still don’t recommend starting a small business, maybe it’s for you. I can’t know for sure and the fact of the matter is that there are a lot of successful small businesses out there. Personally, I think they succeed because of a combination of luck, resources, and tenacity. Maybe you have what it takes.
One thing is certain, you still need to make sure that the business is built around whatever your passion might be. While you don’t need a lot of capital to start up a small business, it helps. According to the Small Business Administration, most start ups don’t make a profit during the first 12-18 months they are in business. So having money to run the business with is important. It might be though, that you only have to invest in something as simple as business cards. Once you have the cards, you really do have a business. It’
s like magic.
You don’t need any down payment, no office, no car, no secretary. Trent Ham has a blog called The Simple Dollar in which he explains dozens of zero start up cost businesses. Maybe yours is there.
A good book to start with is Chris Guillebaeau’s $100 Startup. You’ll find more resources listed in the appendix.
Bus #3 (Paradise)
Now let’s just say that you don’t want to freelance or run a business. What in the world are you going to do? Well, the answer is hop on Bus #3 to destination Freedom and start working towards earning a passive income.
The main idea of a passive income is to reduce your hours and increase your income over the course of your life. Easy, right? In fact, it is. The main thing you will face when creating a passive income is determining which route is the right one for you. If you focus on each stream in turn, optimize it, and do a little maintenance now and then, you will be surprised at just how successful you can become. I recently met a blogger who earns $20,000 every month from passive income.
Usually if it sounds too good to be true it probably is, but in this case, it’s not. People are really doing it. Normal people. People who started with nothing. Here is an example that comes from my own passive portfolio. I bought a domain name for $7 a few years ago and parked it on Google Adsense for Domains. Today it brings in upwards of $500 every month. I don’t do anything except collect the money and look at the stats. That means I’m making $6000 a year for doing absolutely nothing. How would you like to have that situation?
Passive income can be found through blogs, affiliate programs, joint ventures, e-books, social media applications, Twitter, Facebook, and plenty of other ways. I’m putting a number of resources in the Appendix if you want to check out some of the opportunities that exist.