Or how to do more of the things you love doing...
I'm lying to you. Self help books are lying to you. And pretty much everybody else out there talking about following your passion, following your dreams and all of this self help B.S. is basically lying to you.
And the more you read this kind of stuff (including my stuff) the more you'll start to believe it. But the truth is that almost everybody follows an agenda. People want to sell you their stuff. The stuff that helps you to become free. To live your dream. And be able to follow your passion. I want to sell you my stuff. It's a billion dollar industry.
But the most important thing you need to be able to follow your passion, your dreams and to be able to do more of the things you really want to do is money. If you don't have enough money in the bank it's going to be hard. Really hard. Not impossible. But really hard. And no one really talks about that.
Here's the thing...
Following your passion, your dreams and only doing things you love doing won't help you to make a living. Maybe it might in two, three, four or maybe five years from now. Maybe never. No one knows.
The truth is that life is expensive. And you've gotta be able to pay for food, rent and all of this stuff. So just quitting your job to follow your passion and to live your dreams is a bad idea. A really bad idea.
Because the only way you'll ever be able to make a living following your passion and your dreams is to become one of the best of the best in your field. And getting there takes a hell lot of time. And patience. Which you don't have when you have zero cash in the bank.
People say it takes 10,000 hours of practice until you master a skill. I think it takes even more than that.
I wrote more than 900 blog posts over the last four years and this is my tenth book. And I'm still at the bottom of the entire curve. Because it's not just about these 10,000 hours of practice. It's probably another 10,000+ hours of reading, watching and analyzing other people when they do their thing. 10,000 hours of analyzing how the best of the best out there do it.
And that's something no one usually talks about when people talk about following your passion and your dreams. Because it doesn't sell as well as follow your passion and live your dream. 10,000+ hours of practice and enough cash in the bank for the first couple of years doesn't sell as well.
Maybe it'll take you three years until you can make a living following your passion. Maybe it's going to take you four years. Or maybe even five years. Or maybe you'll never be able to make a living.
In any field only the best of the best are able to make a living. In any field the top 1% will be able to make a decent living. And everybody else will barely be able to get by. So if you think you can make a living following your passion and being mediocre, it's probably not going to happen.
That's why you need enough cash in the bank. To be able to invest in yourself. To buy yourself some time. And some freedom. To master your craft. You need some sort of safety net. Or a freedom fund, as I called it earlier in this book. Or a side business that generates enough cash to cover your expenses.
Here's the thing...
We all have to follow our passion, live our dreams and tell our stories. We should all at least try. Because we owe it to ourselves. We owe it to the entire world. And I truly believe in it. I really do.That's why I' doing what I'm doing...
But the way it's portrayed out there just doesn't work. Most of the stuff out there is flawed. Because no one prepares you for the fact that it's going to take you many years until you'll be able to make a living following your passion and doing the things you want to do.
So instead of quitting your job, try to keep your job as long as you can. Try to make as much money as you possibly can. Get the highest paying job out there. If you don't have an expensive piece of paper proving that you can follow orders, get a second job. Or a third job. Build a business on the side. Build up multiple streams of income.
And then save as much money as you possibly can. Put it in your freedom fund. Start working on your safety net if you don't have one. And then invest that money in yourself. Buy yourself some time. And freedom. And invest in yourself. And your skills. So you can become better at your craft. So you can become one of the best of the best at your thing.
Because that's what you're going to need if you want to be able to make a living doing the things you really want to do. No matter if you want to become an author. A designer. An artist. A singer. A famous YouTube star or whatnot.
Before I started doing all of this stuff right here I worked a job for almost two years and saved around 70% of my income and have enough cash in the bank for two years of expenses. Now you don't have to save that much. Maybe you can't save that much. But you should try to save as much as you can. It's not a sprint. It's a marathon. So take your time if you have to. Don't buy useless and expensive stuff. Try to keep your fixed cost as low as possible.
And whenever you wonder why you're even doing this, what you're even saving that money for, why you're even getting up in the morning, now you have a proper answer. You do it so you can buy yourself some time and freedom in the future. You do it to build up your safety net. Your freedom fund.
But the problem is that you need a lot more than that. You need hundreds of micro skills to be able to succeed at anything. No matter whether you want to become an author, a singer, a dancer, a magician, an artist or whatever.
So what are these micro skills?
That's what I'm going to tell you in tomorrow's post...
