While You’re Building Someone Else’s Dreams Why Not Build Your Own Too?
I was reading an article today about all of Elon Musk’s failures and not everyone has a dream to change the auto industry, disrupting the payments industry, or colonizing another planet.
But the fact remains. If you’re only working on someone else’s dreams, then you’re probably not building your own…
Why not?
What’s stopping you from spending 5 or 6 hours a week working on your dreams?
Most people consider 5 or 6 hours too much time… I hear excuses like
“I’m tired from my job”
Or
“I don’t want to work that hard”
Or
“I just want to enjoy my life”
But the truth of the matter is, if you rely on the manager you report to tell you how to build your dreams or tell you when it’s ok to take time off, you’re going to be sorely disappointed.
So, what’s the answer?
Consider this…If you spent the first hour of each day, instead of staying up late the night before watching that Netflix show for 3 hours, and invested that time into learning a new skill, in one year you will have 365 hours invested in that skill.
Now it could be computer programming, marketing automation, auto repair, bookkeeping, law, copywriting, a language you name it.
But if you spend time doing that by the end of the year you will have more knowledge than most.
Now some of you reading this aren’t going to want to go that slow, so why not make it 2 hours.
Ok so 2 hours a day, that’s 10 in a normal work week, and you can still enjoy time with family on the weekends, keep your Sundays.
So now you’re talking 730 hours in a year. In 14 years, you will be an expert at what you do.
At about the 3- or 4-year mark you’ll likely be able to stop working your job and instead focus on your thing but build up to it.
So, then what happens.
Well, when you spend 40 hrs. a week on something that shortens the curve.
Now it’s 2080 hrs. a year.
So, year one — 730 hrs.
Year 2–730 hrs.
Year 3–730 hrs.
Year 4–2080 hrs. (4270 total — you’re nearly halfway!)
Year 5–6350
Year 6–8430
Year 7–10,510
So, the sooner you can go full time the faster you can reach that mark.
Now think about how much time and effort goes into being a doctor, or a lawyer, or a PhD.
These people spend 10 years sometime longer to make it to this point and they’re usually well compensated (not always in the case of PhD, but regardless)
Anything you do will take time, it will take practice and study, thinking and failing.
So, don’t be in such a hurry to get done, try a few things along the way, experiment a little, save money along the way and invest in yourself, your own learning and development and just watch what happens in a year or two, or three.
If you need help deciding what a good side hustle would be to start, here are just a few I’ve done while working my corporate job all those years ago:
Blogging as business — I use siteground to host my blog, and semrush to find profitable keywords to rank.
Reselling offline to online — I use the ebay and amazon apps to find profitable product anywhere. Just check the price online vs. the price in store and if there’s a 3x over what you pay, do it.
Marketing services
Facebook ads — facebook advertising courses
Google ads — free google courses including ads, analytics and youtube ads
Website design — wordpress.org has free workshops
Email marketing — mailchimp.com
Handyman services
Property management
Investing in Real Estate
Uber/Lyft: signup to drive using this link and get a bonus $5 in ride credit
Renting out a spare room on marketplaces: signup with this link to host and get $400 bucks when you sign up. (Signup using my link and receive my free hosting resources to help you get your listing live and cash-flowing quickly. Once signed up send an email to millennialreigroup@gmail.com and I’ll email you the host resources)
Renting out household items: I rented out a paddle board and weight set I owned and made $1,000 in a month with little to no effort besides taking photos. Signup with my link on Ruckify.com and you’ll get $25 bucks in your account to use and I’ll share a free mini course on how to maximize your revenue in your first 30 days (just email me the confirmation page to millennialreigroup@gmail.com and I’ll send over the free mini course).
Translations: if you know more than one language you can get paid to bridge the gap between two languages.
For example: English — Chinese or Chinese — Spanish
Here are a couple other ideas you can do:
Copywriting
Social media marketing
Branding
Selling digital products
Creating YouTube video tutorials
Reselling physical products from wholesale companies
Options trading (not as risky as it sounds)
Consulting (on something you understand well)
Lead generation (offline) for agents, investors, lawyers, CPAs
Part time sales
Drop shipping
For more ideas just go look at fiverr.com and check out the categories, there are lots of ideas.
But whatever you do just remember to ask yourself, is this a gig or a career?
And if it’s just a gig to help you pay some bills that’s fine, but if it has career potential just remember it may make sense to not give up on it just yet because the rewards often don’t come immediately.
If you don’t believe me just look at compounding interest.
95% of the rewards are in the last 4%.
So, you decide.
Are you going to start selling jeans on eBay, a YouTube channel detailing trucks, a real estate marketing business, a paralegal document business on the side?
Whatever it is just remember, not all businesses are equal.
Some have a finite cap to how much you can earn without having to trade more time for money, hire employees, or invest in physical real estate.
I like digital businesses because they are virtually limitless in scale; however, not everyone does.
It’s for you to decide but thinking about it before jumping in headfirst and committing tons of capital is always a wise decision.
Till next time, stay classy.
Cri (Cree)
About Cri (pronounced cree like the aliens from avengers): Cri is an internet entrepreneur, real estate investor, and financial strategist who believes everyday individuals can build lasting wealth through business ownership and real estate investing.
Cri started selling online back in 2009 and took a short hiatus to attend university and gain an engineering degree from Clarkson University. After finishing school Cri returned to his home state of Texas to pursue business and entrepreneurship.
After many failures and years of heartache, Cri finally launched his first successful business offering Marketing services to local businesses. Next Cri started investing in real estate and operating short term rentals helping landlords and property managers increase their NOI and decrease economic vacancies.
Now Cri helps teach and train the future entrepreneurs by sharing his experiences and knowledge gained along the way in business, finance, entrepreneurship, marketing and real estate.
To learn more visit CriChilds.com and find out how you can start your own side hustle or business with as little as $1,000.
Disclaimer: there are affiliate links in this post and I MAY make a tiny referral fee for inviting you to the programs. It doesn’t cost you anything to use these links and companies plan for these costs in their marketing budgets, hence why affiliates refer people to the programs. If you got value from this post then consider clearing your browsing history and using my link after to give me credit, it helps me write more content like this. Cheers