This cartoon by the creative genius of the blogging world pretty much sums up what my career path is all about.
Everywhere I look, I see sheep. People going to their 9 to 5 jobs, living out their lives in corporate slavery. I see this constantly because that is exactly where I am trapped right now. Working 40 hours per week plus, doing something I’d rather not be doing.
The sheep are boring. They are not looking for ways to build a business or make money like I am doing. They seem to be more content to daydream about winning the lottery. They would rather have a fortune handed to them on a silver platter without having to work for it.
I’m not a sheep. I don’t want the “safety” and security of a 9 to 5 job. I am not cut out for 35 more years of this drudgery.
I love working online and making money with it. I love typing out about a thousand words each day, adding content to my websites and checking the hundreds of visitors that I get every day. I like the comments, the interaction, the authority that comes with having a high-traffic website.
I can see that my online income is going up and up over time. It is increasing at a rate of about 30 dollars each month in increased monthly earnings. Right now it is making around 300 to 400 per month. In another year I am confident that it will be at least $700 per month in profit (my overhead is absolutely tiny, expenses total less than 20 bucks per month). And I’m also confident that within two years, I’ll be hitting $1,000 per month in income.
I might get there sooner than this. These estimates are based on my last 6 months of growth. The network effect could accelerate this process a bit as I gain popularity. Right now I average 400 search engine visitors each day and I have just under 700 RSS subscribers. That is a decent amount of eyeballs for a smallish website, and it is growing steadily.
I like online income. I dislike day jobs.
The sheep show up every day from 9 to 5 and discuss American Idol at the water cooler. This is not the life for me.
The wolf needs a bit of solitude each day to crank out his online marketing ventures. Write articles, build links, repeat. You can do this much faster and make more money if there are no distractions. Hence, the loneliness factor.
On the other hand, online marketing is exciting. Generating passive income streams is exciting. Putting your entire income on auto-pilot and creating it all online gives you the mobility to go anywhere, anytime, and work from where ever you like. You are not confined to a cubicle or even to a specific country. You can travel as you please and make your living with a laptop.
That is the reward for being a wolf. Plus, you get to escape the American Idol discussions. But, you do pay a price. The price is loneliness.
I am OK with that and I have been now for a long time. Other people have tried to convince me that being a sheep is the right path through life. I have finally figured out that they are speaking only for themselves. They are merely reinforcing their own life and the fact that they are a sheep. Entrepreneurial success in others is a threat to them.
I am no longer confused about this. I am a wolf and I have always been a wolf. When I quit my day job sometime in the next couple years, the water cooler people may or may not miss me. I don’t care either way. This is my path and I’m going to keep on keeping on with it…….