How I deal with an Unfair World

The world is unfair. Period.

As much as you would like everything to be peachy, you will always face hurdles that other people seem to be able to overcome simply and easily because there is something or someone that has leaned heavily in their favor. This to me is unfair, but we live in an unfair world, things will always be stacked against you.

For example, the government funding Freddie Mac with millions of tax payer dollars, Freddie Mac fails miserably at their one purpose, then executives take 10 million dollar paychecks. While Newt Gingrich charges 1.6 million dollars to Freddie Mac for “consulting” fees. This to me is the epitomy of unfair, and it can make me very angry sometimes.

For people with a weak state of mind, this sort of unfair can be petrifying. People will say to themselves ”I will never succeed because the world is stacked against me”. That is obviously the wrong way to respond. The way you need to view it is that you will have to work very hard to achieve your goals, and as long as you enjoy that work “fairness” should never truly be a factor in succeeding.

I have found, the best way for me to deal with this is through a media fast, not looking at the news, at all, for a couple of weeks. It reduces the amount of exposure to negative things regarding fairness, and it increases my productivity two fold. By not having to look at how corrupt the world is for a couple weeks, it creates a little bubble that I can work in, and not even think about that stuff. This way I can truly enjoy my work, and not have to think about fairness.

You would be surprised what an effect ignorance has when you are trying to create a start-up or trying to be productive in general. Besides, you don’t waste as much time looking through the news and websites.

How to Change a Career and/or Lifestyle

This post will constantly evolve. It will be about techniques to help you change careers, or modify your life so that you can do what you truly love. Consider this a beta version, I could probably write 3,000 words on it, so rather than do all that at once, I will start with this.

Although I have successfully changed careers and am in the process of making my life much more flexible, I still have a lot to learn. Most importantly, the process of changing careers is never ending, so I will probably get additional information throughout the years. I may post this as a seperate page on my blog if the edits get too crazy.

1) Pick a career/lifestyle/Start-up that you will love

This is not an easy thing. What I did was came up with a list of things that I wanted in life (“goal” list), then I came up with a list of things reflecting the way I wanted my friends and family to view me (“ego” list).

I cross referenced these with a list of careers/lifestyles that I came up with, that I thought would be fun to do. The list was huge, and included things like being an astronaut, food critic, etc. I left nothing off of it.

I prioritized the list of careers/lifestyles into a list that made sense and matched the items in my “ego” list and my “goal” list to weed out less prestigious jobs (in my case, I wanted a job that people would respect me for, yes, I have a big ego).

In someone else’s case, they may eliminate a low paying job, or a job that takes up too much time (long hours), or the time it would take to transition (4 years of law school) etc.

I narrowed the list to two jobs, being a professor and being a CPA. Both gave me a lot of freedom with time, both took about the same amount of time to transition to, and both paid enough to make things comfortable while I messed around with other endeavors.

2) Decide the best path to get you there – Then NETWORK and NETWORK more!

You need a plan! Yes, you heard me right, you cant just pick up and quit to become the dentist that you always dreamed about.

If you choose more of a career style path: Using the dentist example. Lets say you need to go to school for 4 more years, and need to pass an exam to become a full blown dentist. Contact some dentists in the area and ask them if they employ dental students. If they dont, see if there is an interim certification that you can get to employ yourself during this time. Getting a license to be a dental assistant may be the way to go, this would kick start your learning, your paycheck and allow you some freedom to go to dental school. I have heard of many dentists hiring assistants with no experience or license at all for $8 an hour, just to save the $40 an hour they pay to hygienists. But in order to get there, you will need to network, offer services for cheap, and find out what business owners or dentists in this case need and want. Unfortunately, there will be sacrifices. There is no doubt in my mind about that. You will possibly need to go to night school for a while, or work for dirt cheap (more on this). But picking a path to get you there is extremely important.

If you choose more of a lyfestyle or Start-up path: NETWORK! Make contacts, ask business owners and people want they want and need. Find out how to fill that void. Work for free if you have to. Build up your reputation.

3) Be willing to work for little to nothing (at least for a year)

Alright, this is the hardest one for people to get, and it may be because people so so want for those instant rewards.

Lets say you decide to change careers/lifestyles and in order to get there you need some experience. Lets say you want to be a Yoga Instructor. In order to be a yoga instructor, you need to be really good (there’s a lot of competition!). At the end of the year, who do you think will have more business and clients:

1. Spends $2000 per month on rent for a top of the line studio, charges clients $70 per hour per client, has very little experience with actual instruction, has to advertise to get new clients (to spend that $70!)
2. Spends $300 a month sharing a modest studio with a dance instructor, charges clients $0 per hour, tells each client that if they really enjoy it to bring a friend. Asks for tips if they really enjoy it and have a good time. Gives out questionnaires in order to improve business. Once you get to 50 steady clients, start charging new clients a modest fee. Once you get to 100 clients, start charging the non-tippers to weed them out, or get revenue.

Scenario 2 briefly describes a way to build a thriving business by planning ahead, and be willing to sacrafice money in the short term to succeed in the long term.

Like I said in the first paragraph, I will be adding to this to flesh it out more, and as I get more experience, I will add more to it as well.

About Learning, and Growing

With this blog, I will (and should) never expect to have readers and subscribers.

A friend asked me the other day why I would do something like this. Why waste my time writing about things that affect my life to (currently) 3-4 readers a day?

I am doing this for myself, I care little about who reads this blog, or what people think of it. I learn more about myself, sales, marketing and business with every post than I ever would if I went to a lecture or seminar. You retain 90% of what you teach compared to less than 10% of what you hear.

I would hope that readers can take something away from what I write. A quote I once heard describes this best: “A smart man learns from his own mistakes, but a genius learns from the mistakes of others.”

Besides, seeing some of the blogs out there that totally sell out, asking for donations and placing ads everywhere, dedicating whole posts to profiting off of affiliates. Selling out is not for me, I choose to make money in other places.