Wednesday, May 11, 2011

Quit Your Day Job... Now!

America Sucks! The industry standard for your working life is 40 hours a week, 50 weeks a year. You get 2 weeks vacation if you're lucky. Many people who choose to comply with this bullshit request from employers go through a period in their lives where they have little to no:

1. Self development
2. Personal/dating life
3. Fun
4. Vacation

Sound familiar? Are you a person who's crossing off days on the calendar 3 months before you go to Vegas for a weekend? I say fuck that, change it. It's just not worth it.


I'm not just recommending something blind to you! 2 and a half years ago I chose to quit my engineering career to become a dating coach. As you would guess, not even one person who I knew thought this was a good idea. Friends, family, teachers, college advisors all recommended I finish my last semester in college for my Engineering degree. I chose instead to flush 10+ years of college down the drain and move to Los Angeles.

Let me tell you what I experienced. After about 3 or 4 months of acclimating to LA, the dating scene here, and to the fact that I didn't have to beat my head against the wall doing homework everyday, a wave of relief washed over me as I realized I was now the sole owner of a new lifestyle. I had a job where I worked only a couple of weekends a month, and I wasn't making hardly enough money to support myself.

Fast forward to today. About 2 and a half years into my career I'm living comfortably. My salary is MUCH lower than what I'd be making doing engineering, yes. However, I have a TON of time freedom that I'm using to explore business opportunities that I believe will lead me to my goal of becoming a millionaire. So far it's lead me to losing a bunch of money, but I remain steady in my belief that failure breeds education and patience with failure breeds success.  I continue to press on.

Enough of the money stuff, since I've moved to LA I've also used my free time to do some much needed self-development. I've changed from an angry, unmotivated, emotionally unaware guy into a high quality man. I've used the resources around me to learn to control and process my emotions in a healthy way, to gain motivation to work on things in my life that I'm truly passionate about, and to fix my dating life once and for all. For the first time in my life I can say that I'm truly experiencing what it's like to have true happiness. What a fulfilling emotion.

What I'm getting at here is that when you sign up for 40 hours of work in a week, you're signing up for an unhealthy lifestyle that won't reward you in the long run.

If you're a courageous person who believes they can really have it all, if you want to be the happiest you can in life, I recommend the following:

1. Figure out what your monthly "nut" is. This is the minimum amount of money required to sustain your life. Your BMW payment doesn't belong in this.

2. Adjust your work schedule to work the minimum you can to cover your monthly nut.

3. Use the first couple months of your new-found time freedom to chill out and decompress from all the stress that you've been experiencing. Do a reality check and remind yourself that what you were doing was a terrible thing for you as a person.

4. Start exploring what you value in life through finishing a Value Heirarchy. This will give you a solid idea of what you value in your life and how to prioritize the way you spend your time.  I do this with most of my clients.

5. Start setting some goals for yourself. These goals should be ones that you can accomplish in 6-12 months. They should be measurable, and solely dependent on your action. In other words, instead of "lose weight," your goal might be "look up a local fitness trainer, schedule a free session, take body measurements and work with trainer to set 6 and 12 month goals for body fat %, etc." Next list the resources and role models you have to help you accomplish your goals.

6. Spend your new-found time on working on the things you value and would like to develop in your life.

7. Have sex with tons of chicks....jk...okay maybe not.

For me, this system has allowed me to finally give my life the substance I was seeking. I've been able to first and foremost master myself and my emotions, i've been able to develop killer skills with women, I am finally getting in shape, and I'm working towards my financially free future. I've gotten more in touch with who I am and what hobbies I truly enjoy spending free time on, and my relationships with others have grown stronger. I find myself loving waking up in the mornings to continue on this journey.

I challenge you to take a strong look at your lifestyle as it is RIGHT NOW. Are you a truly happy person? How could you change what you're doing to allow more time for YOU and YOUR development as a man? Caution: right about the time you do this, you're going to experience yourself being very creative. I'm certain that you'll waste no time in finding 20 reasons why "That couldn't work for me" or "This one thing prevents me from that." The reality is that you have the ability to change ANYTHING that you'd like in your life, so keep that in mind when handling your own objections to success and happiness. Cheers.

10 comments:

  1. Aaah dude, that can be so scary and it takes a lot of balls do that ... because you feel like you will fail really HARD. And most likely you will, but it's the people who get back up and learn from their failures that end up succeeding.

    I know exactly what you're talking about when you mentioned that "time period" in a person's life where they see days turn to weeks, weeks into months, and months into years.

    I'm COMPLETELY AWARE OF THIS, and, as evident from your post, I'm not the only person in America facing that dilemma where we want to have a certain lifestyle and achieve long-term goals to improve our life, but they require A LOT OF MONEY to achieve.

    Thus the 40 hour a week, slave work schedule ...
    And yet here you are, offering the solution to this dilemma. You're basically saying PATIENCE, PERSEVERANCE, EFFORT, SELF-DEVELOPMENT, and above all else BALLS/COURAGE.

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  2. @Irving -

    You're exactly right man. This decision took hours of Brad's guidance on the phone and about two months of mustering up my balls to finally go for it. My saving grace was that I knew I hated everything I was doing from the second I woke up in the morning until the second I fell asleep at night.

    Usually the motivation to change or to go out and reach for success comes from either INSPIRATION or FRUSTRATION. Mine was definitely frustration.

    The part you said about failure I disagree with though. I don't think that most people will likely fail! Rather, my opinion is that when put in difficult situations most people have an ability to adapt and very quickly change when they're put in a pressure-filled situation like I was in. Yes, it takes a some time (for me like 3-6 months) to get accustomed to the new lifestyle, but I think most everyone can handle it and does. After all, at that point it's the only option!

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  3. I just read Brad's post where he talks about the very same thing, and exactly a year ago too.

    Here it is: http://bradp.com/do-you-work-too-much

    So here's my question to you and I guess Brad P as well, are you guys telling me I should find a job that will allow me to work 25 hours per week/ 3 days a week and give me enough money to get by (in terms of food, water, rent, & utilities), so that I can develop myself into living the kind of life style that will make me happy?

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  4. This is going to vary person to person. If you're a guy who has developed himself all the way and then you decide to get a 40 hour job knowing what you're getting yourself into and choosing to do it for a specific amount of time, then maybe that's not a terrible thing. I've got peers who do this for money when they're in a pinch or something. Often they'll go work on contract for a few months.

    On the other hand, since it sounds like you're a guy who wants and maybe needs to do this, the 25 hour thing sounds like a great start. Just by doing it you'll already have changed your lifestyle for the better. You'll be surprised what two extra days per week will do for your well-being and self development too.

    Make sure when you do this that you've got a definite plan in mind for yourself. Again, i'd recommend at first just relaxing for a couple months while adjusting your lifestyle to one where you spend less. You can do things like live closer to work and walk, sell your car off if you've got a loan and get something with no payment, etc. Most people save $300-500 a month just by switching their car to no payment and changing their insurance to liability only.

    After that start trying to get in touch with where you'd like to grow your life, and get involved in day-to-day progress with the biggest things you'd like to change. I chose to fix my women situation first, then began working on money and fitness.

    When you've got the macro stuff down you'll start inching your way into less important long-term skill development. For me this is things like getting back into Karate, starting collecting wine and going to tastings, working on my old car, and developing social relationships with those I plan on (or already have been) being friends with for a long time.

    Again during this process, it's very important to take the focus of your want for things in the future and change it into being content with the work you did today towards your overall skill development. This means enjoying each day and the progress you've made in it. Starting up new things soon becomes a thing you just do every week, and when those weeks turn into months it's a very good thing. You'll look back and see your goals behind you and more happiness ahead.

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  5. It must take balls the size of boulders to do this.

    Happiness is important, but sometimes people make silly decisions. I joined the Navy last month and I'm starting to regret my decision. I seriously think I should get the %#@$ out and fast.

    So, I just did a search and it turns out that it's not too late for me to get out of the Navy.

    Therefore, since the Navy wont make me happy, I need to do something that I know will. That for me means going back to college and maybe changing my major to psychology (sexy m/f ratio).

    Jamaal_S
    (returning to 30/30 when I get a job) ;P

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  6. Right on man. The courage to do what you believe is right for you is a precious thing. Don't deny your instinct, trust it and act on it.

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  7. Jake, great posts, I'm a big fan of you guys. did you start teaching with Brad right after you got to LA?

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  8. Thanks man! Actually I started teaching for Brad a while before I moved to LA.

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  9. Thanks Jake for the answer. I'm very inspired after reading your posts. And on his new Inner Game material that i bought today, Brad talked about how you were assist-coaching early on, before moving to LA, and your path is definitely an inspiration to me right now, along with those Inner Game tracks. Today I decided to resume with an old passion that I wanted to turn away from for financial and comfort zone reasons that were all based on pure fear. Now I have the Inner Game tools necessary to start, get more skills, and continue.

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  10. This blogpost is more than 2 years old. I read it for the first time a couple of months ago and I come back to it often. A follow-up of where you are now would be great, Jake.

    I'm moving in the mansion next February. Except the actual pickup skillset, this is the other big thing I want to implement in my life. I intend to discuss this with you live when we meet in a few months.

    Amazing stuff, I would say top 5 life-changing posts I've read in the whole community.

    Thanks!

    -Jayce

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