Stop looking for a JOB and look for Opportunities!
***Make Money Online - Series***
Stop looking for a job and focus on your entrepreneurial spirit!
In the past, it was the norm to slave away for one company and carve out a 40-year career in one chosen field. Even long after you started to hate the JOB, you would still keep grinding away with your eyes obsessively fixed on the carrot in front of you. A golden handshake in the form of a relatively small lump sum, an inflation-related pension, and maybe they would throw in a shiny watch so you know what time it is while sitting on the veranda reading old Wilbur Smith novels.
Those days are no more.
The world has changed.
Now, don't get me wrong, it is still possible to get a JOB in many different industries. It's just that in the last few years it became more and more of a reality that most blue-collar workers will have 3 to 4 different career paths before they would consider retirement. Those that chose to pursue different careers during their 'working life' somehow managed to take little mini-retirement sabbaticals in between the career paths. Some of them were lucky enough to have enough savings for them to travel for a year before they tackled another decade of slaving away for another employer just to repeat the process once again.
So, in scenario 1, the employee worked approximately 40 years for one employer and enjoyed an annual vacation of 21 days normally over the so-called festive (silly) season. You know, the time of year when everyone eats and drinks too much and many women fall pregnant soon after the ever-popular end-of-year office party. Then after four decades, the golden handshake follows and our hero gets to travel the world (at the age of 75) or sit on the veranda and spy on the neighbors.
In scenario 2, the employee was willing to work hard for a decade, saved a lot of money, and then resign to enjoy a year of care-free travel and happy days in the sun on some amazing beach resort. Once the sabbatical is over he would seek employment again and repeat the process. This looks great on paper, but is it practical? How easy would it be to find top-class employment again after sitting on a beach for a year listening to ABBA? Well, if you have a certain set of skills that are hard to come by then it might be easy because you will be in demand, but for the vast majority of people, it will be more difficult, right?
In a 3rd scenario, we have an individual that was willing to put everything on the line and started a business. Luck was on his side and after a decade the business is still standing and doing very well. The owner implemented systems and frameworks that would allow him to go on vacation and his team will still be able to run his business like clockwork even in his absence.
This is hard to do, as the majority of start-up businesses fail within 5 years of opening their doors due to various factors such as cash flow and poor management.
However, some individuals do get it right and within a few years of very hard work, they can sit on the beach next to the guy that's listening to ABBA. The difference is that the guy needs to go back and look for a JOB again. The guy with the business will go back to a solid foundation he has built and he will not have to start from scratch. Our hero listening to ABBA might find a JOB again and when he does, he will be 'The Dancing Queen' for his employers for another decade before he sees the beach again. Our businessman can go to the beach whenever he wants as long as he has a great management team nurturing and caring for the systems and frameworks he has put in place.
Zane Persaud
Where am I going with this? Owning an established business that provides an automated income for your family is the holy grail of many entrepreneurs at the beginning of their business adventures. Is it easy to achieve? Absolutely not.
Could this be the reason that most people don't even try to start a business? Most people are content with scenario no 1 and end up with a 40-year blue-collar JOB in some cubicle answering to a manager that they hate.
Some people are rebels and are willing to take the risk after trading their time for money to spend it all within a year just to start again, but they enjoyed some form of early retirement long before they were supposed to enjoy retirement. (I like this crowd better)
Society tells us that we should retire at an old age, but won't you agree that it will be a lot better to travel the world at a younger age?
Our businessman got it right, he took a big risk, pulled it off, and established a company that's looking after his family while he is sipping cocktails on the beach.
Now here is the irony: In the past, our so-called system was geared towards the 40-year career path and only some people got to taste the sweet nectar of owning businesses and all the freedom that comes with that. Today in the information age, however, it became a lot easier to entertain the idea of having your own business and avoid the manager waiting for you in the office cubicle. Yes, of course, there is still a lot of regular jobs that need to be filled, but we all know that the robots are coming and sooner than later the AI revolution will claim thousands of jobs from unsuspecting salary-hungry individuals that dream of beach holidays that will never happen.
Business success in the past was focused on farming, manufacturing, import, export, and professional practices such as medical, accounting, and law to name a few of the big guns and nobody even knew what a 'Social Media Manager' was supposed to do. Oh, how the world has changed. A 20-year-old kid from Cameroon can run a digital warehouse and supply clients in Singapore while attacking his laptop's keyboard, sipping on a margarita, and getting irritated with his beach bum neighbor that's listening to ABBA all day.
You see my friend, we all want the beach bum, laptop lifestyle while our bank accounts grow and the vanity metrics on our social media accounts skyrocket to Mr. Beast-like status. But working in a cubicle and smiling at your excuse for a manager will not get you there. 'Working' for the bank and selling your soul to the evil debt cycle will only widen your circle of despair while the bankers get rich and the masses become poorer.
Looking for a JOB is almost like flogging a dead horse. You will get nowhere slowly and when you get there it's time for golden handshakes and Wilbur Smith novels on the veranda. No beach, no margaritas, and no sunshine to kiss your skin.
Now that's all doom and gloom and nobody wants that, but maybe there is hope...
Let's look at scenario 4:
Stop looking for JOBS and start looking for opportunities. Light your entrepreneurial spirit and take the plunge into the adventurous world of running your own business! No, you don't have to hire a big warehouse and start manufacturing electric cars, build rockets, or fund wars, that's for the kid in Cameroon with his laptop. You need to take your skills, talents, personality and figure out if it could help someone else. Are you able to solve a problem for a person, a community, or maybe the world, if you can then you have a business! Take your passion and turn it into a money-printing machine.
At this stage in our adventure, I have to add that you need to be clear on your goals. What exactly does success mean to you? Yes, I know, we all want to get out of the cubicle and kick the manager goodbye, but what then? Do we want to create a business that provides enough to enjoy an OK existence or do we want a level higher where we can travel a little bit or do we want the high flying lifestyle with boats and cocktail parties on secret beaches with the actual band members of ABBA sitting next to us at black-tie dinner tables? This is all up to you, but we can all agree that the cubicle lifestyle is not for us, definitely not.
Keep in mind that I am not trying to give you business advice, I am trying to light a fire in you. If by some unfortunate event you are 'in-between' employment opportunities and while standing around the BBQ fire someone asks: "…so, what do you do?" Don't tell them that you are unemployed, tell them you are self-employed. Remember, you are the book, you are the product and the platform. Get it?
Promote your skill, talent, and personality. Monetize yourself for yourself.
Remember, employers want to get the best employees while paying the lowest salaries. You can employ yourself and pay yourself the best salary.
If you are an entrepreneur at heart and you are about to start a big business adventure then consider becoming part of a community of like-minded people and pop me an email at Jacques77@zoho.com and become part of the growing number of start-up entrepreneurs that are taking hands to create a strong team of future business owners!
We will take hands, and together with the rest of the team, we will walk into this great jungle called entrepreneurship.
Would you like to become an online entrepreneur?
Consider the YOU-24/777 Academy FB group. An interactive online meeting place for start-up entrepreneurs. Gather knowledge and find inspiration while boosting each other’s businesses with likes, shares and comments!
