Sunday, January 12, 2014

Working for Others

Working For Someone Else Is The Worst Way To Make Money

I find it hard to believe that some people still buy into this whole employment safety thing.

It is much safer to work for yourself than to be employed. By being employed you have only one income source and it is never smart to have only one way to get paid.

When you work for yourself, you can create many income streams and if one stream dries up, you can create many more of them. This is as safe as it gets.

When you work for someone else, you are paid for the time you spend in the office. That’s the worst way to measure your worth because everyone’s time is limited. You cannot expand or shrink the time, therefore there is a limit to what you can earn.

When you are self-employed, the amount of money you earn depends not on the amount of time you work, but on the quality of ideas you think of. Ideas can be worth billions, as you can see in many great success stories such as those of Richard Branson (no introduction needed) or Larry Page and Sergey Brin (google founders).

When you are an employee, the company decides when you come to work and if you can have holidays on particular days. You can only go on holidays for a limited time period. It is as though you have a strict parent who regulates your every move.

Of course, it is much easier to get employment than to make your own company successful. But even though you would spend a year building your company, the rewards you get are so much worth it. Yes, you have to work harder than just by working for someone else, but it does not feel like work because you know that you are building something for yourself. That feels more like a pleasure than a chore.

For example, sometimes I work on my products, coaching and this website from early morning till late evening, but I feel so proud of myself once I accomplish something great. It is so worth the effort that I put in.

Employment is a lazy option to earn money. Yes, it is easier to get employment and the rewards are instant – you get paid after a month or even less for your effort. But such benefits have a limit and you become a slave doing everything you are told to for the company’s benefit.

When you are working for yourself, you are free. Free to do everything you can think of, free to express your creativity. Of course, if you want to start working for yourself, you will have to be okay without earning any money first. It takes time to build something great. But once money starts rolling in, you earn increasingly more income. You establish more and more income sources, those income sources get stronger and you become financially independent.

Most people will not be patient enough to wait for their businesses to become successful. Depending on how dedicated you are to building your company, it may take a year or two, or sometimes more, to earn only from your own business. But for me that seems more than worth it, even if it would take 5 years for a person to become financially independent. It is better to spend 5 years building something great and finally becoming free than to spend 40 years working for the company you hate and owning nothing that you can be proud of.

We are so used to instant gratification. We all live it, getting served within minutes, watching any program we want, ordering online – that is all good, but it keeps shortening our patience. So when you finally decide to build something of your own, you are faced with previously unknown problem – it takes time.

So there are two choices available for everyone: you can either easily find employment and be instantly rewarded, but be a slave for all your life. Or you can start making something great out of your life and get rewards (freedom and money) later.

To me, freedom is much more important than money. Like my friend said, “I would rather be homeless than ever work for someone else” – I completely understand that. Once you experience freedom, there is no turning back.

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