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RE: Have you ever had to Start Over?
Wow dude. Take some time for yourself to figure out what you wanna do. You should be financially OK for a while with the money that you do have. If you need my help with anything in China, let me know.
Good luck!
Hey what's up buddy. Yeah it's quite a change. I knew I wouldn't be doing what I'm doing forever, but I guess I thought it would be more of a slower wind down.
I both anxious, nervous, scared and also excited all at the same time. Even more so than just a change in jobs, kind of trying to figure out what kind of life I want to carve out for myself. So many people do the traditional get a job thing. I really admire people like you or @brianphobos or others who do their own thing.
Even though I've been running a business for a number of years and working for myself, I still somewhat feel in the employee mindset in the sense that my business didn't have a lot of great systems and processes in place which would allow me to take more time off, and/or spend more time on the growth of the business as opposed to working on day to day things.
I did have a partner so if I wanted to go on vacation for a couple days he could run things and vice versa but it was never the type of thing where I could take a couple weeks off and things would run on autopilot or I could have employees run things so I've actually wound up taking less time off the past few years working for myself than I did when I was working a day job and had 3 weeks of vacation. One thing I will say is I do enjoy the flexiblity of being able to do things last minute and when I wanted and not having to request time off and things like that.
I think I'm gonna give myself a few weeks just to kind of chill out and fall inot a routine, get some projects done around the house, etc. Then maybe give myself til the new year to try to get some things going on myself, maybe try to scale up youtube and some other small little hustles I got going see where that takes me.
After the new year maybe evaluate whether I want to get a job, I wouldn't be opposed to getting a job even if only for 6 months or a year to maybe develope some new skills, maybe a marketing or design agency or something like that, there's a lot of options here in Chicago.
I've also dabbled with the idea of either starting to sell merchant processing or maybe getting a real estate license.
I may try to roll out a product, if so I'll definitely reach out to you for some assistance on the China front, appreciate the offer.
Sounds good man. This could be an opportunity for you to develop something that gives you more financial freedom. At the same time, I think a lot of people are quick to bash all 9-5 jobs or jobs where you work for someone. These jobs are not all the same. For example, I am employed as a teacher in China, so technically I work for someone, but at the same time I have a lot of free time to travel and do what I want because when I'm not teaching, I can stay in my apartment or go out. I usually only have 2-4 class per day (45 minutes each). That essentially means that teaching is my only responsibility while some entrepreneurs work harder than me in order to live a lifestyle that I already have, yet might bash me because I "work a 9-5".
In many cases, being an entrepreneur takes way more time and effort to sustain, while some 9-5 jobs actually provide even more freedom. For that reason, it is important to simply find out what provides a lifestyle that is in line with your values. Being an entrepreneur doesn't always mean more freedom. And working for someone doesn't always mean you'll be miserable and live a life of enslavement.
Hey buddy, thanks for the insights. I'm in total agreement with you about 9 to 5's. I don't have anything against working a job if I can find something that I enjoy and that works with my schedule and the life I'm trying to live.
In a lot of senses while Entrepreneurship and doing your own thing is great, at the same time it can be incredibly stressful and in some senses whie you may have a bit more flexibility with how you use your time ultimately I think you spend more time working than working a job, at least that has been my experience. I used to get 3 weeks vacation a year where I 100% tuned out from work. I bet you in the past 3 years I havn't had more than 10 days of vacation outside of holidays or something like that and even then I'm normally taking some calls or communicating with my business partner in some fashion, not 100% tuning out to work.
I had chatted with brian in another comment about being a teacher. I used to teach some after school programs and enjoyed it and found it rewarding. I have a couple cousins who are teachers and really seem to enjoy it, they got summers off and stuff too and just really seem happy. Unfortunately unlike some states where anyone with a bachelors can start teaching in my state it would require me going back to college, taking education classes, then doing student teaching for 6 months where your technically not allowed to work a second job and on top of it have to pay a university to oversee it and then doing all the testing and stuff. With all those hurdles just doesn't seem worth it unfortunately.
If I was single I'd be all over doing something like what your doing but I have my house and dogs and girlfriend so am tied down a bit. I'd love to maybe do the nomad thing for a while or something and rent my house but my girlfriend isn't really into online hustles or anything like that so I'd likely have to support her and at least at this time with the change in income not something I'd be comfortable doing, plus she's kind of finally worked her way up from the bottom at her job so I think she'd kind of like to see where that takes her.
I think your life sounds ideal though, doing something you enjoy, in an interesting place, flexible schedule and sounds like not overworked or overstressed.
I'm excited to get these next couple weeks ahead behind me so I can kind of start finding my new path. I'll keep you updated and again appreciate the offer about haivng a contact in China, I'll probably take you up on that. Talk to you soon.
Good stuff man. All the best!
Dude yes so true. Being an entrepreneur takes ALL THE TIME!!!
Being an entrepreneur doesn't always mean more freedom. And working for someone doesn't always mean you'll be miserable and live a life of enslavement. << that's so well put
Thank you @nomadicsoul. Nice channel you've got there.