Let’s try something a little different.
I know this is a personal development blog and it’s intended to always be that, but I want to write something a little different today. This is a post about literally anything and everything that comes into my mind this morning.
I fancied practicing my typing skills again and so as I transition into my new lifestyle of being self employed (more on this in a bit) I really need to get used to typing fast! So there’s a very good chance no one is going to read this as it’s not targeted around any keywords.
I’m (When I first typed this sentence, there was a spelling mistake, and for about 20 minutes I didn’t notice! I’m an expert I promise!) an SEO expert meaning I can get posts to rank well on the search engines.
If you do a search right now in a different tab for ‘benefits of rock climbing’ you’ll see my post ranking very nicely above the Huffington post. This was no accident and usually I focus on keywords, content layout and a bunch of other things but this time I want to do something a bit different.
I want to write this post completely free of any thinking about ranking on search engines. This is a post that only people who actually read this blog will probably find.
Chances are you’re reading this because you’ve either been sent it in an email or you’ve clicked on a related post from another blog post. Either way you’re here and that’s the main thing.
If you stay with me hopefully I’ll be able to inspire you in some way.At the very least, you can have a little glimpse into the mind of a 22 year old full time blogger. (Possibly soon to be digital nomad)
Very recently, I transitioned from a full time agency job to doing the odd day for that agency as a freelancer and spending the rest of my time doing my own projects, websites and ventures. If I didn’t have a superstar of a boss, this would have been a difficult transition.
My boss was very understanding of the whole thing and we now have a great relationship and continue to be friends and work together. Good stuff! But switching from full time work to full time working for yourself can be confusing.
With no set schedule (yet) it’s a challenge to know what to focus on next! Now to avoid this blog post turning into a giant wall of text and not many images (I’m not actually sure if I’ll put images in this at this point because it’s just not a focused post!) I’ll include little headings as I usually do so that you’re not going to get bored and click off this post!
There’s a high chance that you’re thinking ‘what the hell is this blog and why am I here’ but I promise you if you just stick around long enough you’ll grow to like my writing style and the fact that it’s a little bit different to most of the personal development blogs out there.
So how do you focus when you’ve left your job? I read a book…
The one thing (A great book)
The one thing is a little yellow book which explains why it’s very important to focus only on ONE thing at a time. Literally just one thing, hence the title. Oh, also check out my summary books about money, it’s good).
In fact, the author is so sure of this that the entire boo is literally just about one thing as well; getting you (the reader) to only think about one thing.
It’s very clever and the whole idea is brilliant. Basically, what you do is you wake up in the morning and ask yourself the focusing question which is ‘What is ONE THING I can do right now such that by doing it, EVERYTHING ELSE becomes easier or irrelevant’.
Wow.
The first time I read that it made no sense, but then the second time I just has a sudden moment of realization. There is always going to be one thing that when you really think about it is more important than all of the others.
If you just spend a few minutes thinking about it, you can narrow down an entire to-do list to ONE thing that makes all of the other things easier. Of course, the one thing will be different as time goes on, and every time you complete your one thing form a to do list, there will be another…
But that’s not a problem.
Once you know how to focus on one thing at a time and how to pick the most IMPORTANT thing, everything else just… happens.
If you’re a young man and you want to get a new job, what’s your one thing?
First, think about the type of job you want.
Then what?
Probably make sure you have a great CV.
Then after that, sign up to loads of job search engines, and so on…
But lots of people mix things up and will apply for any and every job, while at the same time thinking about what they want to do, balancing interviews from the jobs they applied for a week before, (while forgetting WHICH job they applied for as well!) and also wanting to tweak their CV.
You’ve got to streamline.
I owned 35 websites at one point, and I was trying to make ALL of them work as businesses. It was too much! Even in my full time agency job I was trying to balance about 5 other projects on the side on the weekends and in the evenings!
Attention and mental energy is actually a resource and it DOES run out! It’s easy to think that you can just focus on things all day long but you can’t. Your brain is like a muscle, and because I can’t really remember where I found this out, you’re going to have to take my word for it, but there have been studies done proving this!
You can prove it to yourself, actually.
Try and focus on things all day long 7 days a week, with no breaks. You’ll find that at the very best, you’re just not as effective towards the end of the days, and towards the end of the week.
Your attention is not unlimited.
Focus on what you need to focus on early on in the day.
The first 2-3 hours of your day from the moment you wake up are usually your most productive hours! There are some people who are more productive at night, sure but for most of us it’s the mornings!
Even if you don’t think you’re a morning person, that doesn’t mean you’re not most effective in the mornings. If you really make an effort to try and get up at a decent time and work, you’ll find that you’re able to get a fair amount done. It’s now 10AM and I’ve done more work on my own sites in an hour than I’ve done in the last 2 weeks.
And it’s not because I’m lazy, it’s just because I work better in the mornings. I get things done and I can focus.
I can’t really do that in the evenings, because at that time, especially after the gym or dinner I just want to chill out and listen to piano music in the bath! (I don’t even care that people know that, it’s very relaxing!)
So I think you’ve got to really look at your week and think about the things you want to get done, and then try and schedule in little time blocks in the mornings, to get that shit done!
What is this post actually about?
To be honest, it’s more of just a vent for me and hopefully a bit helpful for you.
It’s meant to be about getting things done. So there’s the topic of this random blog post; getting things done. By the way, since writing this I’ve decided that I’m going to try and rank for a keyword with this post – Can you guess what it is? 10 points to griffindor if you work it out.
I feel I have to write this, if for nothing else to serve as a reminder to myself that I’m following my heart and doing the right thing. I want to be able to look back on today in a year and look at how far I’ve come.
Why don’t you do the same?
If there’s something in your life that you’ve been really thinking about doing or starting, why not just do it? Play along with me starting today, 19th May 2016 (random date I know) and see where life takes you?
Follow your heart and just take the chance
I watched a video by Elliott Hulse a few months ago about following your heart and it really struck a chord with me. I feel like lots of people don’t follow their heart and do what they REALLY want to do, and most of the time, it’s because of money.
Is it about the money?
Money makes the world go round.
It’s not true that money automatically makes you happy but it DOES make life easier.
It does make things easier to manage. If you’re depressed when you’re broke, there’s a good chance you’ll be depressed when you’re rich.
If you’re happy when you’re poor, there’s a good chance you’ll be happy when you’re rich.
You can be poor and happy, (or sad) and you can be rich and happy (or sad).
The two things are NOT always linked.
That being said, it’s easier to be happy when you’re rich because you can avoid some of the things that would contribute to your stress, and affect the quality of your life.
If you don’t HAVE to worry about paying bills, you’ll be that little bit less stressed and you’ll be that little bit more able to be happy and focus on what you want. But not all money is created equally.
HEADS UP – Going off on another random tangent, buckle up!
Not all money is created equal
What the hell do I mean by this?
I mean that one persons £1000 can affect his life in a VERY different way than another person.
Let’s look at two people –
Person A – Makes over £500,000 per year and works 60 hours a week for a giant corporation. He’s ALWAYS in work mode and has a very annoying boss who he doesn’t get on with.
Person B – Makes £1500 per month from a small YouTube channel. The channel is him talking about something he loves, and the income is passive.
Now, the MASSIVE difference here, is that person B has passive income.
He doesn’t NEED to physically be in an office, and although he earns MUCH less than person A, he’s more free.
He’s so much more free in fact, that it’s ridiculous to think about. Person A could make what person B makes in a month in a few DAYS yet he’d still feel trapped. Whereas, person B with the passive income of £1500 per month can be in Thailand enjoying the beach lifestyle.
Because the money is passive, it GOES FURTHER than the money that is earned by being in an office physically. It’s worth more in terms of REAL life value.
Sure the AMOUNT of money that these two people make is vastly different.
But, when person B makes £1000 passively, it’s WORTH more than Person A making £10,000.
Why?
Because person B (let’s call him mr passive) gets to spend the most valuable commodity of all, TIME, how he wants. He can earn that money while DOING what he wants with his time. And that’s fucking priceless.
Sure the first person earns far more but what can he do with it? He’s probably more stressed because he’s got his big sales targets to hit, shareholders to impress, boring meetings to sit through etc…
Now this isn’t ALWAYS the case, but in almost all cases, passive income is more valuable than active income even if the active income is 10 times the AMOUNT of the passive income. You with me?
So there are lots of ways you can make passive income. In fact, I’ve got a post about making money doing what you love if you want to read that, but the most important thing is to think about WHY you’re doing it.
Don’t get mad!
I know there might be a few people reading this (if anyone actually is) who are getting angry at the fact that I’ve essentially told them that they’re making money the wrong way. It’s not like that, let me explain.
Passive income is something that I personally think is the best way to make money. It allows you to be free of having to be in a location, or having to do one thing with your time.
That being said, if you ENJOY what you do for work, that’s fine too! It’s a choice. I think that’s the point I was trying to make here, is that it’s a choice. You can choose to work full time in a company, and if you enjoy it, that’s great!
Or you can choose to work for yourself and try and pursue passive income. But don’t get the wrong impression here, passive income is DIFFICULT to get started and it really takes a lot of work. In fact, it takes a lot of work at the start.
Often at the start, you’re putting in hundreds of hours without getting paid ANYTHING for your work, so it’s really not for everyone. Ideally, you do both.
So if you have a full time job, put aside some of your savings and invest into things so that in the future, you’ve built up a passive income situation from your investments. Things like crowdfunding and property investments are great ways to build up this passive income.
Now, where were we?
Why do you want money in the first place?
(I told you this blog post was going to be random didn’t I!)
Maybe someone somewhere is reading this and getting some sort of new perspective on life and money. Who knows. Maybe I’m just sitting here at half 10 in the morning writing nonsense that is never going to be read.
Either way, let’s continue.
Why do you want those little pieces of paper with numbers on them?
Why do you care about a number in your bank account?
Well, for the most part, you need it to buy things like food, and to pay for things like having a house. These things are fairly important, and until the climate turns into some sort of beautiful perfect system where it doesn’t get cold at night, we need shelter.
But beyond a few basic things like food, water, shelter and clothes, we don’t really need much. We need hardly anything, in fact.
You could (if you’re not already) move to Thailand next week and live very comfortably on less than a third of what you spend now on things like rent and food. (I’m assuming when I say that, that you live either in England or America because there are some places in Europe where it’s just as cheap to live).
The cost of living is very different depending on WHERE you are in the world. You could have a lifestyle in America where you just about cover rent, buy some nice food, and occasionally go out for a meal in a fancy restaurant.
For the SAME income, you could live in thailand like a king. Let’s talk about this in more detail shall we? Is anyone still with me?
Taking advantage of WHERE you are
Or ‘geoarbitrage’ as it’s otherwise called.
Different parts of the world cost different things to live in.
Different parts of the world PAY different things for things.
By being in a PLACE that’s cheap and selling things in a PLACE that’s expensive, you create leverage.
That’s the most basic explanation of a concept known as geoarbitrage. Taking advantage of what you’re selling, and where you are. If you sell something online in, say, Prague, you’re not going to make as much money as you would selling it to the American market.
If you’re selling something to the English market and living in Thailand, you don’t need to sell much to be able to live very comfortably. Money goes further out there, and if you’re selling to the English market, you’re making a lot per sale.
It’s a game and you’ve gotta learn how to play it.
I realize at this point I’ve covered some big ideas that really could have been their own blog posts and they probably will at some point in the next month. Good stuff. See what I said before about ideas flowing in the morning?
It’s an effective time of the day.
Before you close this tab
I know when you get to the end of a blog post, you’ll usually click the x button on the tab and go back to looking at memes on Facebook or something but stick with me for a second.
If you did actually like what I’m saying here and felt it’s useful, I’m sure there’s one person you know that you could share it with.
That one person who you know likes these sorts of ideas and this way of thinking. I’d love it if you could just send it to them. There should even be some beautiful share buttons on the sidebar of this site that are just waiting to be clicked.
Have a good one, and crush it today!