Follow Your Passion, Success Will Follow You

If every day you go to someone else’s establishment, work on their schedule, do everything they say, and make money for them, then I’m sorry to bear bad news, but you might be a slave.  If you often awake to an alarm clock smothering your dreams to death with a pillow then you very well might be a slave.  If you went into debt so you could spend the best years of your life qualifying for a piece of paper to qualify for a salary-wage job, then you’re likely a slave.  Even if you work in a fancy high-rise building, a compartmentalized neck-tie drone in some sociopathic hierarchy, you might still just be an office slave, an expendable rung on the corporate ladder.

No matter how attractive the position, whenever you work for someone else, your financial means of subsistence, your ability to provide food, water, and shelter for your family, is completely in the hands of another person.  Regardless of pension promises or signed contracts, the real fact of the matter is there is no “job security” in working for someone else.  If at any time for any reason the boss has a problem with you, the market goes south, your contract’s over, the clientele fades, the account goes red, or the business goes belly-up, then you’re high and dry on your way to becoming an unemployment statistic.  Tenures get overturned, pensions get sucked away, and promises of rich retirements are rarely worth the wait.  Real job security and financial freedom means owning your own business (and refusing to pay any taxes, fees or fines from the mafia government that wants to keep you their slave).

The only true success that exists is when we find a way to make a living doing exactly what we want.  When you wake up every morning and create your day exactly how you dream it to be, that is success.  When your passion and your work are aligned, when you would do your job for free because you like it so much, that is success.  The root of “work” and “worship” are the same, and if you’re living your dreams aligned with your passions, doing what you were placed here on Earth to do, then your work really is like your worship, your service to the world.

Slave jobs are great for when you need quick reliable short-term income to get back on your feet or gather start-up capital for your next venture, but remaining someone’s slave for too long, even high-paid lap-dogs will eventually wish to leave their master. No matter how attractive the position, whenever you work for someone else, you will always be selling your time wholesale to someone who is profiting from you retail.  No boss can afford to pay any employee the amount of money which that employee brings to the company, as that would cause the business to bankrupt.  The only way to run a profitable business is to pay employees less than they're worth, usually far less.  So if you are working for someone else, your financial stability is completely in their hands, and it is guaranteed that they are paying you less than you are worth.

You can’t just up and quit your slave job without some serious planning and hard work though.  There are several steps that all wage slaves must take before riding the entrepreneurial underground railroad to financial freedom. 

The first step to quitting your slave job and manifesting your dream lifestyle is getting a clear picture of your life’s purpose.  What were you born to do?  What makes you happy?  What is your true passion?  What would you like to spend your days doing?  If money wasn’t an issue, what would you do with your life?  Once the answers to those questions form a clear image in your head, step two is imagining and creating a product or service aligned with your purpose.  For instance, if your absolute favorite thing in life is skateboarding, always has been and always will be, it makes you happy and it’s your favorite way to spend your time, then your step one is simple and complete.  Your step two would be deciding what marketable aspect of your passion appeals most to you.  Would you like to open a skate shop?  Would you like to manufacture skateboards?  Would you like to design them?  Would you like to teach skating?  Would you like to make skating videos or start a skating magazine?  How would you most like to express your passion and how can you use it to enrich, inspire, empower and add value to others?

Once your vision is clear, step three is to get free of all debt.  If you quit your slave job but still owe debts to the bank or anyone else, then you are no less of a slave.  So it is crucial that you pay off all your debts (and don’t take on any more!)  To pay off your debts, you must make sure your monthly expenditures always remain lower than your monthly slave income.  If your expenditures are too high you must find ways to thriftily cut corners so that you can always stay in the black.  Calculate your slave salary minus your monthly expenses equals the amount you can put away each month towards your debt.  Also note that if you are able to pay ahead on the principle (and not just the monthly minimum) you can exponentially cut down the total interest due. 

Once you are debt free, step four is to take the difference between your slave salary and your monthly expenditures and start saving it!  You will need to save up enough money to cover two important costs:  the start-up expenses for your entrepreneurial venture, and a savings safety net to fall back on.  To calculate your start-up costs add up all the expenses you will need to create and get your product or service on the market.  This includes things like materials, advertizing, transportation, consultations, shipping, rentals, any and all potential expenses necessary to start your venture.  Beyond this you will also need a savings safety net, enough money to cover your living expenses for several months kept away as an emergency fund in case any unexpected problems arise (which they will).  Calculate your average monthly living expenses and save at least 3-12 times that for use if you’re ever having trouble living off your business’ income alone.

While in the saving phase, now is the time to start your business.  If you quit your job first then try to start your venture, it will likely fail to bring in enough reliable income to sustain you, since building a reliable, sustainable income usually takes time.  So you will essentially have to work two jobs for a while; your slave job from 9-5, and your dream job from 5-9 (and make sure to get enough sleep in there somewhere).  If your business sells a product then you will need to start manufacturing, advertizing, and making sales whenever possible in your down-time.  If your business sells a service you will need to refine, advertize and start providing your service on nights and weekends (or whenever you are free).  This process of promotion and building a loyal customer base could feasibly take anywhere from a couple months to a couple years. 

Advertizing and self-promotion is usually the most difficult, most time and money-consuming part of growing a successful business, but it is also the most important, because without finding some reliable and effective advertizing methods, you will never secure a stable customer base.  Once word spreads and repeat sales start coming in, the final step to financial freedom is growing the monthly income from your business until it exceeds your monthly living expenses.  When you’re making all the money you need to sustain yourself from your own business then you’re ready!  It’s time to quit your slave job and live your dream life! 

Life is too beautiful to waste living for someone else.  Work and play are too important to be separated.  If you love your job so much that you would do it for free then you are certainly on the right path, but anything less than that is selling yourself short.  When people say “there just aren’t enough good jobs,” or when governments and corporations act like they’re economic saviors by “creating jobs” for us, I can’t help but laugh at the fact that there are, have always been, and always will be just as many “jobs” as there are people on the planet!  If you have two functioning arms and half a brain then there will always be work that you can do.  What the governments and corporations won’t tell you is that it’s up to you to create your own job, find your own niche passion, add value to the market, and that’s the reality of “job creation.”  Being “employed” means being a slave, so don’t worry about the ever-rising “unemployment rate.”  In a perfect world every single person would be unemployed (and unemployable!) because they are already making an income doing exactly the work that they worship.