Bismillah-in the name of the Most Merciful
Seth Godin was right. Reject the tyranny of being picked. Pick yourself.
And that’s exactly what I’ve done.
After deciding that I’m really not corporate employee material(but a damn hard worker who would rather do what’s right and think for myself–something that doesn’t boast well in the corporate world), I’ve decided to go self-employed.
What does that mean?
If you can’t find your dream job, create one. And that’s exactly what I am doing. God willing.
Am I scared? No because I understand that wealth and provisions are something that come from God. You are merely a recipient. I’d rather be paid for performance based results rather than an hourly wage and works well for me.
Why do people work for others?
Is this how it’s always been?
Jim Rohn mentioned in his lecture “Walk away from the 97%” that when it comes time to retirement only 5% of American(let’s pretend he’s talking about N/A) can afford it and be independent. 95% of the population is dependent on some sort of government assistance.
What does this tell us?
1) People don’t to think for themselves.
2) People want to be taken care of by someone else
3) People haven’t been show how to be independent
4) Security, comfort and a steady income may be more important than following your dreams and creating a system-based business to help you fund it.
Most of us have been socialized that we MUST get jobs and work 9-5 hours. But who made this all up? Is it not true that we are living in the reminence of the Industrial Revolution and our ideas around work and income need to be MASSIVELY disrupted?
Why do we think in terms of ‘working income’ and not ‘net worth’?
Why do we sacrifice money for time instead of having money work for us?
Again, because we’ve been SOCIALIZED that way. Yes, you’ve inherited from your environment a very passive worldview that you have the ability to change right now.
Now, the question becomes: Do you have the desire to escape this?
An amazing real estate investor and someone I look up to once said:
“An EMPLOYEE trades his time for money. Regardless of the shift, he effectively trades his time for money. He then SPENDS the money and repeats the cycle so he will have to work forever to keep that cycle going. An ENTREPRENEUR invests his time in a way that will REWARD him many years from now. An Entrepreneur knows that TIME is the most valuable commodity, and to spend it wisely on strategies that will keep the cash flowing in whether he’s present there or not.”- Jeff Kowalczuk
I’m not advocating giving up your jobs but to THINK. Why do you live the way you live and have you consciously chosen to live that way?
In other words:
ARE YOU DOING WHAT YOU LOVE? AND CAN YOU MONETIZE IT? IF YOU CAN’T, IT’S A HOBBY.
What gives you the idea that the way you are living right now is the ONLY way to be? Can there be another way that puts YOU at the center of deciding what you want to experience and get out of life?
Working for myself isn’t something I choice because I was bored of working for others or because I didnt want to put money in other people’s pocket–although it was definitely a part of it.
My time overseas taught me two things:
1) Most wealthy people I met didn’t do anything good to help their fellow (albeit, very poor) citizens. Throwing money at a problem doesn’t work and isn’t considered philanthropy(at least in my books).
2) Being Canadian gave me the opportunities some people would only dream of receiving. And the more you have, the more responsibility I had. It was an obligation for me to help others.
But the real reason?
I realized that I was unemployable.
Not that I couldn’t do the job, but that I just was incapable doing things that I thought could have been done better. I always had better ideas but no one wants to listen. But like most entrepreneurs, I needed to be passionately invested.
So, if I can’t find my dream job, I decided to create it
That’s a scary prospect. No job=no steady income. But it’s incredible how you start to think more creatively when most conventional options are shut off. Now you HAVE to make it work. You NEED to do something. You are no longer relying on someone else to make decisions for you.
But I want to clarify, working for working sake is wrong. Tim Ferris, in his book, The 4 Hour Work Week, described laziness as just being busy and doing a lot of things without truly being productive, not sitting around all day.
However, to get paid to learn is necessary. Avoiding jobs that suck the soul out of you is the point. But, needless to say, taking on jobs that can help you gain experience and learn more about your passion is a must.
Again, a tip: work at jobs that paid you to learn. That’s key.
How did I know that, perhaps, entrepreneurship, has been my calling?
The status quo tries to keep you in line but I always end up just going the other direction. I have a very strong sense of what’s right and what can be done–better. It’s a psychotic personality–bordering on manical. I am sure most entrepreneurs are like this.
Here are some of my traits (Do you share some of these?)
1) Control. This is the unwillingness to be controlled by others. But will only be led by competent people. I love competent people.
2) Wanting to do things a certain way because you know(you don’t think) it’s better
3) Autonomy— You need the space and chance to be able to make decisions
4) Independence– the need to know you decisions are being trusted
5) No respect for authority– You probably view authority has being the main obstacle for stagnation. The status quo is only upheld by those too afraid to innovate and take risks. And that brings me to…
6) Risk tolerance-– You win some. You lose some. You feel that you will get over it and know you’ll just give it another shot. You can kill a business but not your passion. If it doesn’t work out, so what? It was for a reason.
7) Ambition– You have no shortage of it. You will purposely pick the tallest mountain to climb–every time
8) Confidence-– You have total belief in yourself and your abilities.
10) Breaking rules–It’s part of your DNA. As soon as someone tells you that you must do something, it’s effectively inviting you to go the other way. We prefer for people to talk to us, not to talk at us. And you have no problem defending yourself.
—
The idea of being self-employed has to do with creating a future based on lifedesign. It’s about freedom.
It’s being able to do what you want, when you want and how you want.
It’s about independence and control over your own life.
Sure, this doesn’t work for most people because not every one can be in business. But for those who can easily handle the stress and the initiative of hustling in the real world rather than hiding ourselves in years of unnecessary schooling, then all the power to you. Because this is the route I’ve chosen to go. Alhamdulilah.
Being in Egypt has made me realize that many of us North Americans have opportunities to build and grow so that we can provide opportunities for other who will never get the chance. I believe it’s our duty not to waste that opportunity and create business that can create jobs and bring benefit to many others around the world.
I’ll leave you with a video that completely changed my life and I hope it will do the same to yours. “Working will not make you rich” by Bishop Renato.
Hodan Ibrahim 