Tom: The following is a post by Tez Gilbert, a friend of mine from the real world! He has agreed to become a guinea pig for Leaving Work Behind and will be sharing the trials and tribulations of his efforts to build a successful online business with us over the coming weeks and months.
I’ve known Tom as a friend of a friend for a while. I’ve always been interested in what he’s doing, and slightly envious of how he makes a living. Having wanted to leave work behind for the past six years, meeting someone who has actually done it has been a real eye opener.
Before I met Tom I didn’t actually believe it was possible for an ‘ordinary’ person to make a good living online. It was something I read about other people doing, but it was always so abstract to me. Meeting someone who’d actually done it made me want it more, but it also made me realise how far I was from reaching my dream. I wanted to leave work behind, but didn’t really have a clue where to start.
Why I Want to Leave Work Behind
Sometimes when I talk about leaving work behind, friends look at me with curious bewilderment. They think I have a great job. Most guys I know are jealous of what I do for a living. I worked hard to get where I am, and beat a huge number of rival applicants to get here.
I keep my community safe, and for that I gain the respect of my peers, the awe of children, and the occasional fluttering of eyelashes or inappropriate comment from middle-aged women. What more could a man want?
Much more.
I realise that I am lucky to be in the position I am, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want more.
Before I became a firefighter I worked all over the world. I spent three years on cruise ships in the Caribbean, was a tour guide in South-East Asia, a photographic assistant in Australia and a restaurant manager in Florida. My career has been varied to say the least.
Working around the world gave me something vital that my current job doesn’t: Freedom. Life was an adventure; a series of exciting situations and experiences. I had no ties and could move on whenever I wanted.
The grass is always greener though. I craved roots, financial security, and the identity that I thought came with a respected career. I came home, completed an MBA and joined the rat-race on a corporate graduate scheme. Within weeks I knew it wasn’t for me.
The fire service seemed like the perfect solution. Action, adventure and identity, with a half-decent salary and pension thrown in to boot. However, it soon became clear that I wouldn’t be saving damsels in distress every day. Fires happen a lot less frequently than they used to, and I found myself filling my work day with frustrating administration and too many cups of tea.
I spent a few years trying to get used to this normal life. I struggled every day with wanderlust: the burning desire to travel and see new places.
During my year in Italy I cultivated a great love for the mountains. Every day I long to open my curtains to a never ending Alpine vista, rather than the view from my city apartment stretching out to suburbia. I grew up in a city, but years of travel have created more than a little claustrophobia.
The Predicament
It’s obviously time for change. This time though, it needs to be a different type of change. It has to be lasting. It must be sustainable.
When I was younger it was ok to flit from one job to another, and I didn’t really care how much money I made. I was happy to work for other people, making money for them, as long as I was having fun. Now, in my thirties, I want freedom, independence and the ability to set my own schedule. I want to work where I want, when I want, on my terms. It’s time to leave work behind.
Making money online is the obvious answer, and I have made a couple of feeble attempts at this in the past. Projects that have all fizzled out without anybody really noticing. And when you’ve failed before, it can be difficult to get the motivation to start again.
What’s Stopping Me?
My problem so far has been that there is too much information available. I like to be well prepared so that I can make informed decisions. But when there is so much information and advice out there, it can be hard know which way to go.
I must have read fifty books on starting a business or making money online. Many of them share the same message. Find your passion. Do it. Make money from it. Easier said than done, right?
I spent weeks trawling the Internet looking for the ever elusive answers, but found much of the information to be vague and fluffy, without a clear methodology. And those sources that did provide structure seemed to contradict each other or be too simplistic. There were so many conflicting options available I just stayed where I was, paralysed by indecision.
I tried online poker, drop-shipping, share trading and information sites, but only ever dipped my toe in the water. I was too quick to give up when I didn’t see immediate results.
Eventually I started thinking about blogging, and it seemed like a good option. I enjoy writing, and there are so many blogs out there that make money. Why shouldn’t mine? I finally settled on the idea of a self-improvement blog focused on yoga and meditation, threw together a site, wrote a few posts and waited for the audience to arrive.
It didn’t.
As with my other attempts at creating an online presence, I was beginning to lose interest. Then I met up with Tom.
The Meeting
I had sent Tom a link to my blog, but when I saw him at a recent dinner party I was already prepared to move on and put it down to another failed attempt. He listened with interest to my tales of time wasted on unsuccessful ventures, and to my concerns and fears. I was out of ideas and felt resigned to a life in the Fire Service. But then he said something that surprised me:
I think your blog has potential.
That came as a surprise to say the least, and when he told me that he thought I have promise as a writer, I thought he must be winding me up. No one had read anything I’d written since I was at university, and here was a successful writer telling me that I was just a little rough around the edges. This was a great confidence boost, and it rekindled my desire to succeed.
We discussed the way forward and what my next steps should be. Tom had already suggested his freelance blogging guide, but I told him I already had information overload and what I needed was a bit of face to face coaching.
He took the bait. Or maybe I did; I’m not sure.
It turns out that Tom had been thinking about going into coaching anyway. This was perfect. We soon came to a mutually beneficial arrangement. He’d be my coach and guide, and I’d be his first student. He had only one stipulation: that I be eager to learn and complete every task he sets.
Goals
In order to seize the initiative we did what many men do when they want to be productive: we took a trip to the driving range. In between sublime pitches and dodgy drives Tom quizzed me about where I wanted to be, and what I require from my potential future blogging business. We did something I hadn’t really done before: we defined goals.
Before this my goal had simply been to make money online, without defining an amount or hourly rate. I openly wanted to leave my job, but I hadn’t yet determined under what conditions I would be comfortable taking that step.
It turns out that I’d be willing to leave the fire service if I could earn $1,600 per month from ten hours per week. This doesn’t sound like much, and it’s not. It’s certainly not enough to live on in Birmingham. I can however also earn $800 per month plus food and accommodation working as a hiking guide in Europe. I’d have the freedom of the mountains, and the blogging income could fund my retirement.
A bit of simple maths later and it’s apparent that I’ll be happy to leave my job if I can regularly earn $40 an hour through personal or freelance blogging. Tom thinks it’s doable. I think it’s doable too.
Where We’re At
After we finished punishing golf balls, we sat down had had a look at my writing. We both think it has potential, but we soon found the biggest barrier to a $40 hourly rate: my writing speed is slower than tortoise. A 1,200 word post on meditation had taken me nearly eight hours. If I’d earned 7 cents a word for that piece, my hourly rate would have been a mere $10.50 an hour. Definitely not worth leaving the day job for.
Tom has given me a few pointers on this. Most importantly he’s taught me to separate the creative process of writing from the practical process of editing. Or as Hemingway said: “Write drunk, edit sober.” This makes it easier to get into a creative flow, getting words onto the page to be refined later on. He has also taught me not to be too critical of my own work. It’s a blog post after all, not The Great Gatsby. At this stage, getting something good written is far more important that getting something great written.
The most valuable thing I’ve gained from talking to Tom though is focus. He’s provided me with some specific tasks for my own blog and for laying the groundwork for some freelance work too. After months of going round in circles I’ve now got some direction, and that feels good.
So here I am completing task number one: an introductory guest post for Leaving Work Behind (1,900 words in four hours, so we’re moving in the right direction). Over the next few weeks and months I’ll be updating you with my progress on the journey towards hopefully leaving my job. It’s a test for Tom as much as it is for me. The apprentice is a reflection of the master after all.
Take a look at my site and let me know what you think in the comments section below. It’s at a very early stage. I look forward to reading your thoughts!
And one last thing: I’d encourage anybody who is thinking of making a career in writing to seek feedback from someone they respect. I know from experience that without a reaction to your work, you’re simply treading water. A little bit of input and advice can make all the difference. Get it out there and see what happens.
Photo Credit: Of Corgis & Cocktails