You see a lot of scams about how to make a fortune while working from home. The truth is that millions of people really do make a living as their own boss while working from home. The sad truth is also that you’ll never be able to do this by taking a $250.00 seminar meant to get you excited and fired up.
So, because I’m a generous soul, I’ll tell you how to do it, and I’m going to tell you for free. Why? Because scams get on my nerves. I’m not selling anything here. This is my personal blog. I’m writing it mostly because cheesy sales techniques and promises of riches get on my damn nerves. I believe in real, so real is what you’re going to get here.
I am confident that if you follow these rules faithfully for a year, you will make a living. You might or might not get rich. But you’ll make a moderate living. I’m not going to promise you the world with this. I’m not going to wave as a success story all the people who made millions working from home. Yes, they exist. They’re also rare.
What’s not so rare, and is quite possible, is to be able to be self-employed and make an adequate living from it. This course will not tell you how to do taxes, get you to decide on a business form or any of that stuff. It’s important, yes. Crucial, in fact. But most of the books on self-employment out there talk about it. I’ll be listing books I think are useful. But for this piece it would be like having a cookbook that tells you to make a grocery list. What you need to understand are the principles behind making self-employment work before you start trying to set things up.
I know whereof I speak with this. Almost 20 years ago, I wrote my first (and for about a decade and a half, my only) professional piece for a client. It was a book on how to open a mailing and packaging business. It was a fun project, not only because I was writing something, but because I was researching how to open a small business and learning a whole lot from a small business owner. It was great!
A few years later, I started a business with three other people. We were very focused on incorporating, setting up the tax stuff and all that. Now, that wasn’t wrong. But the problem was that we got so into the administrivia that we didn’t spend nearly enough time on the parts of the business that would make the tax stuff relevant. We were nerds and found structure cool. What can I say? It made enough money to pay for the toys of a household of geeks and wound up being a pretty good tax shelter, which was nice. But it was never a way to support the family as we had been hoping.
We were not thinking like entrepreneurs and we were not focused on why we’d started the business in the first place.
Some years later, after having spent about six or seven years as an administrative assistant, I realized I have about as much talent for being an admin as a rock does, but that I enjoyed it less. My living situation had changed and I was in a position to take a bit of a risk. So I spoke to my housemate and said, “You know I don’t want to be supported by you, but if I have to face another day of being an admin, I am going to go bonkers.”
“And this is a change how?” he asked.
I shrugged. “Okay, fair enough. But I’m not happy. I just figured out how much money I’m committed to bringing into the household and I don’t think there’s really a chance in hell I’d fail to do so. I wanna quit my job and make my living being a bum.”
“Okay,” he said. “If you’re willing to take the risk, I have faith in you.”
Two years later, I’m still making a living as a bum[1].
This information isn’t really new, though. You’re going to read a lot of it and go, “But that’s just common sense.”
If you say “Yes, but I can’t do it that way because I’ve got a Special Problem” to more than one of the major lessons of this piece and are not already making the living you want from home, you might wanna examine why this might be the case.
If you’re already making a living from home and making enough to suit yourself what the hell are you wasting your time on this for? Go back to your success and enjoy it, dewd. I’m not trying to preach to the choir here! Congratulations on making it work in your own way.
The next lesson is going to be, “Have the sK1lZ.”
As a prep exercise, think of 20 things you’re good at. Not just the big exciting stuff. Write down the little, dumb stuff, too.
The next lesson will be next Wednesday!
[1] My children scold me when I call myself a bum. “Mama, you work,” they protest. Kids…
I just sent myself email with this “homework”. I happen to be starting a coaching series right now on manifesting financial abundance (to facilitate reconstructive surgery.) One of the areas the coach suggested I look at is to expand the way I think about ‘work’ and to figure out what I can do that is both “other” and “more” than what I do now that might expand my possibilities. Your timing is great. Thanks, Noel.
-Kim