| The alarm clock jars you awake at some insanely early hour.
As you hit the snooze button you think, "there's gotta
be a better way to make a living." As someone who rolled
out of bed this morning at 8:30, I'm here to deliver the good
news: there is.
A lot of people dream of escaping "Dilbert's world"
and being their own boss. Perhaps the biggest reason these
dreams get derailed is money. Or, more accurately, faulty
thinking about what it means to "make a living."
I'm no exception. For a long time I thought before I could
take the leap to self-employment, I had to first figure out
a venture that would generate the same amount of income as
I was then earning.
Develop Multiple Profit Centers
Not so, says Barbara Winter, self-bosser and author of Making
a Living Without a Job Winter is an enthusiastic advocate
of what she calls "multiple profit centers." Instead
of thinking in terms of a single income, i.e. a "job,"
Winter recommends aspiring entrepreneurs develop several income
sources.
Outdoor enthusiast and neighbor Bob Sadowski is living proof
that you can have your cake and eat it too. Bob lives on 80
acres in rural Plainfield, MA where he's parlayed his life
passions into his livelihood. When not running New England
Bob's Snowmobile Tours of Quebec snowmobiling tours throughout
Quebec (one covers nearly 1,100 miles) this vintage car enthusiast
specializes in buying and selling antique car and truck parts
out of his barn.
Today my income comes from six sources:
1) I consult with other people looking to "take the
leap."
2) I've established myself as an expert on the so-called
Impostor Syndrome. Now I am a professional speaker for organizations
as diverse as American Women in Radio and Television and Cornell
University.
3) I turned my Overcoming the Impostor Syndrome workshop
into an e-Workbook that can be purchased online.
4) I get paid to deliver other people's seminars on a per
diem basis. My biggest client for freelance training is a
former employer that hires me to fly around the country conducting
a one-day seminar called Time Management to Focus Management.
(Never burn those bridges!)
5) I produce and sell eBooks for people who want to work
at what they truly love.
6) I get paid to write articles like this!
Keep Your Day Job
Maybe you aren't interested in quitting your job but you
like the idea of not having all your eggs in one basket. When
traveling to San Francisco, I stay in an apartment in a lovely
hilltop home in the Ashbury Heights section of the city. The
owner is a Bay area native who, in addition to teaching reading
to grade schoolers (which she absolutely loves), has set up
several additional sources of income.
For one, she rents the in-law apartment to tourists through
the local B&B association on per night basis earning considerably
more than she would with a year-round tenant. For weekend
and summer time income, she parlayed her knowledge and love
of the city into a personal tour guide business with a steady
stream of customers right in her own home. She even takes
in a few extra bucks renting videos to her overnight guests.
Maybe you don't really like your job but can't afford to
just up and quit. Say your long-range goal is to make $50,000.
You don't need to be a math whiz to know there are different
ways you can slice and dice this. For simplicity sake, though,
let's say you decide to set up five income streams, each generating
$10,000. Since you'll be building your multiple income streams
while you're still gainfully employed, starting two side businesses
simultaneously is probably about your max time-wise.
What you now have is a monthly goal for each business of
just over $800. That's $200 a week. If making $20,000 a year
seemed daunting, Winter says, psychologically earning $200
is more feasible: "Knowing what your financial goal is
makes it easier to determine what action you'll need to take
to accomplish it."
So what are you waiting for? It's you life!
George Elliot once said, "It's never too late to be
what you might have been." Which is why former corporate
cubicle-dweller Valerie Young got off the fast track to become
the Dreamer-in-Residence at http://www.changingcourse.com.
Changing course offers inspiration and information to help
you find your life mission and live it. Barbara Sher, best-selling
author of I Could Do Anything If I Only Knew What It Was calls
Changing Course "wonderful, inspired and informative."
| 
