I Graduated, Now What?Notes for a nonfiction book by John Wu How to Make Money WITHOUT a Job...
(The following are a series of notes for an upcoming book about achieving success without a traditional job. Check back for updates to this page, or feel free to contact me directly.) haven't graduated yet? there are lots of things you can do right now to prepare for the real world even if you're short on time and getting close to finishing put aside a tiny bit of that senioritis and be productive reducing costs keep on living your college lifestyle for now maybe even consider staying in the same apartment or live at home temporarily while you get setup figure out a budget, it's not that hard! first look at the past year and see what you spent money on the power of little things do a tiny amount each day you'll be amazed at the progress over time learn how compounded interest works financial money management start saving and investing now! look what a huge difference it makes to start early put away $1 a day in the beginning with business ideas, especially intellectual property the compounding can happen daily or even hourly what would it look like if you got 10% interest per day? how to figure out your ideal career path especially for those with supposedly "unmarketable" majors start with the ideal! then work your way back don't worry about 30 years down the line let's try 10 years then 5 years, then 2 years, 1 year, and 6 months the world is your oyster how about grad school? engineers can make money while going to school grad school can be easier than undergrad you can also use the time to start other things a note about med school or law school being a self-employed professional vs. owning a business in-depth case study the evolution from dream to reality taking control instead of waiting for someone to find you how can these lessons be applied to finding any career path? on relationships and the struggle to maintain one after college long-distance relationships (LDR) the yearning to be single and free find my novel and you'll get the full story note all the famous successful people who didn't graduate from college see the list in The One Minute Millionaire so then my lesson is: "how to graduate from college, and still end up wildly successful" rather than calling it a "Special Report" call it a "Cheat Sheet" how to get all your studying in for the test tomorrow and still go to the bars tonight tips of how to be more effective, more efficient Puts Music into Your Life = $80k Put Music into Your Life = $10k stupid people succeed because they have no other option Sylvester Stallone - he couldn't be a doctor or lawyer he was dumb enough to turn down $330,000 but he believed in his gut instinct which won out smart people wouldn't have done the right thing also smart people have too many options MS, PhD, MD, JD smart people can think of all the possible problems with an idea they know that 9 out of 10 businesses fail a dumb person might just go ahead and try it anyway even though the odds are 90% against them they may also be bad at learning when to quit so they might try again and again and again and eventually... they might just succeed smart people can live a rewarding life doing booksmart things like they could win the Nobel Prize but what if a booksmart person wants to succeed in business? will they be able to network or generate creative ideas and market them? one solution is for booksmart people to do what they're best at, read books read tons of books about business not textbooks, but books written by real life entrepreneurs smart people can learn quickly, so take advantage of that skill study and learn why it's okay to attempt a business with a 10% success rate it's hard to argue for that logic, you have to either be stupid and just do it or you have to understand it so you know how to succeed despite the odds you don't learn about money in school! it's learned from your parents, later from real world experience so booksmart people might be financially stupid a good financial statement is more important than a straight A report card don't worry if you get a bad grade on a test it's only a test, it's more important what you learn from the big picture don't let the drama get you down if you're successful in business, other people will criticize you the more successful you are, the more criticism you'll endure you know you've made it when you're in the tabloids drama means you're doing something that others pay attention to no matter what you do, you'll never please everyone 1/3 of the people will love you, 1/3 will hate you, and 1/3 won't care your job is to ignore the third that hate you and convince the undecided third to love you learn from your mistakes mistakes are the best lessons in life just because you fail doesn't mean you are a failure the more you fail, the more you'll succeed don't make excuses when you fail, don't blame others take responsibility and learn from your mistakes in school, you learn that making mistakes is bad you get a lower grade if you make mistakes but if you learn from your mistakes and do better the next time the lower grade sometimes weights your GPA down or the teacher has already moved on to the next subject in real life, the person who makes the most mistakes wins not just making the most mistakes, but learning from those mistakes the person who plays it safe never makes mistakes... and also never wins maybe everyone comes out even in the end the jock in high school ends up the janitor at work the cheerleader prom queen bags groceries now the social outcast spent his days practicing and is now a rock star if this can all happen, then maybe stupid people are more likely to be financially smart maybe academically smart people are more likely to be financially dumb can a great athlete be a smart businessman? can a brilliant academic researcher also be a great CEO? everyone comes out even if they do nothing to change it but your goal is to improve your weak areas and capitalize on your strengths that will raise your overall average level above everyone else so you can be smart, and still be successful and maybe even have a great relationship too! the fallacy of picking a college major based on what you enjoyed in high school if you liked math in high school, you don't want to be a math major you're more likely to end up in engineering or you might end up in accounting or finance it's really hard to know what you want to do until you do it that's one of the primary difficulties with picking a major as an incoming freshman statistically, what percentage of students change their major? focus on general job skills rather than specific courses graduate students can learn to manage and complete a large project it's highly unlikely you'll ever use anything directly related to your thesis unless you go into academia and pursue tenure as an assistant professor in the real world, it's about being able to adapt and overcome what to do if you are graduating with the wrong degree start now before college ends to prepare for your true interests develop a business in music while getting an engineering degree get an internship in advertising while completing your degree in chemistry look for ways to leverage your existing knowledge maybe you can work on marketing for a scientific company you'll understand the chemistry aspects and learn the marketing angles here's an alternative to the old school, boring, idea of: "study hard, get a good job, and work hard for the next 30-40 years" study hard, or "work hard, play hard" why does everything have to be so hard? how about easy classes, easy job, or "easy, fast, cheap" being lazy is a great way to succeed because then you'll want to do something once and have it pay you over and over for the rest of your life instead of working hard over and over for the rest of your life talk to alumni and working professionals they are much more accessible than you might think successful people want to help those on the way up they were all once where you might be now, starting from the bottom too many options statistically, people with fewer options are happier because they don't second-guess their choice if you have too many options, you need to learn to prioritize and filter the opposite is too few options this is never true, but you may feel like it right now here's how you go about solving this think big, dream, think about 5 years from now, then work backward don't limit yourself initially, you can analyze and restrict things later the difference between successful people and people who settle for less the successful people think big and they ignore others who say it's impossible every great idea is born drowning drowning in "you can't do that"s and "but what about"s the idea of job security all the things you do for "security" you go to college so you'll get a better job with more security you work for a boss you hate doing work that you despise for the security you settle for a relationship that doesn't work because it's secure when i talk to millionaires, they all tell me the same thing if they were to lose everything they had, they could make it all back they could walk out the door with the clothes on their back and make a million dollars on the other hand, what happens if you lose your precious job when you're fifty? can you really just go out and get another job? if you're in business, your company can fail and you can go make another one there is no age discrimination in success there is no gender discrimination in success there is no glass ceiling how well you deal with company politics has no effect on your financial success you can take control if you want it think of business or investing like fast food a job is like eating at McDonalds every single day for the rest of your life you know what to expect, you get good tasting food that is cheap and easy to order but how hard is it really to find a really great restaurant what are the risks? you might eat some food that's not so great at a restaurant that's sub-par but all you do is learn to avoid that place and try another eventually you try enough places that you find good food to eat once you know where all the great restaurants are for a good value you might eat at McDonalds some of the time, but certainly not every day you wouldn't have to eat fast food anymore unless you chose to similarly, a job is your choice you don't have to choose a job you don't have to choose to work you can choose to play, and in the process make more than any job the only drawback is that you might have to look around a little but why wouldn't you want to find great food and great success? RISK business is risky investing is risky the truth is that anything is risky if you don't know what you're doing crossing the street is risky what if you never learned to "look both ways" or "obey traffic signals"? similarly, all you need to do is learn the rules what's even better is that you can screw up in business or investing and you won't get run over by a bus a recording artist in the music industry is more like an employee a songwriter is an entrepreneur publishing income is way more than the touring income here's some little known information Dianne Warren, bet you never heard of her well here's a list of some of her hit songs she makes more than the artist on many of these the record label makes lots of money from album sales because they own the company the artist is really just an employee of the company the artist has to pay for all the costs in a regular corporation, the employee is also a cost the salary is an expense for the corporation benefits are an expense retirement matching is an expense the office, the lights, the furniture, the utilities to run the building these are all expenses that the owner is paying for employees have no expenses so why should they get profits? similarly, artists have zero expenses the work they produce and the product they help create earns income that income needs to be reduced by the expenses of recording and marketing just like the product sales that an employee contributes to are before expenses you don't need time and you don't need money you get rich by spending time when you don't have time how do you do this? you start with the mindset it's much more about the awareness than the actual time spent doing think about all the creative inspiration kicks they brew in the back of your subconscious and when you tap into the stream of consciousness, the best song flows out often the best song is written in the least amount of time why is this? because you didn't overanalyze and force out a formula song you did have all the skills and the experience built up inside you and once you got out of the way of yourself, it all flowed out the same thing can happen with money amazingly a business idea can be a spark of inspiration, the best ones are recognizing a good investment requires having the built in experience then you just need to be aware when it passes right in front of your nose secondly, you don't need money to get rich this is a common misconception people think you need lots of capital to invest in real estate or business you can buy a million dollars in real estate with zero money down what's more important is your knowledge, planning, and creativity for instance, intellectual property is often your most valuable asset just like a hit song is worth millions in publishing royalties a great business idea can be worth billions speaking of business ideas though you don't need a brilliant dot-com idea to succeed what's more important is learning business systems the classic example is McDonalds McDonalds doesn't have a great idea everyone can make a burger better than McDonalds but McDonalds has a great business system they have a system that can be operated by high school students that is because every aspect of the business is so well defined Walmart is another example of a successful business that doesn't have a great idea how fast can you succeed in the information age? Michael Dell became a billionaire in 3 years and he did it from a part-time job out of his dorm room! forget the 30 year retirement plan 401k may go bankrupt just like Social Security the market will go up and down you may happen to be unlucky if the market crashes when you retire the 58 year old Enron employee who is now broke take control of your financial future, don't leave it up to the government don't leave it up to Bush! Colonel Sanders age 66 didn't have enough from Social Security to live off turned down 1009 times became a multimillionaire busy people are often the laziest what does that mean? they are so busy doing unimportant things like working in a job they hate taking care of errands learning about a 401k getting a small return on your money in 30 years is pointless if you're gonna be rich why do you want to be rich? how about freedom? after you graduate, you won't have any more classes no more 8am lectures, no more labs, no more tests, no more finals but do you really want to replace all that with a 9-5 job? how about a mortgage, and a 401k, and car insurance? well then how about freedom to travel anywhere in the world with your friends freedom to fly to paris for a weekend and party with no concern about cost staying in the best hotels, going on a cruise to the Bahamas, eating the best food what if you had the potential to be rich, but you never achieved it? what if you had the potential to create a corporation that contributed to society? what if you had the potential to raise a family and spend all your time with them? you do have the potential right now but the path you choose can set you on a course at least take a look at the road less traveled before you follow the crowd the less you work, the more money you make laziness is the key to success! =) to clarify, if you move in the right direction, you save both time and energy the right direction is to build business systems, not to do work yourself the system should work without your direct involvement once it's setup the goal is to take risk without being a gambler that means taking educated risk you want to hate losing but not be afraid to lose win by taking the chance that you might lose be an expert but rely on experts learn everything you can, but don't do everything yourself own nothing and control everything keep your personal income small and your corporation large everyone says you have to focus, focus, focus i have a different viewpoint it's not that you can't succeed by focusing but you can also succeed by having multiple points of focus the key is something i call skill integration, or skillmix for short skillmix is simply the process of leveraging your different skills and talents the combination of the parts becomes greater than the sum it's more like multiplying the value of each skill an example is combining web design and music but another example is combining accounting and music if you already have a job, think of how you can use it for what you really want to do if you majored in something you don't really like anymore, use it anyway business owners in particular can benefit from this in business, you want to know a little about everything accounting, finance, taxes, marketing, manufacturing, distribution you don't need to be a specialist specialists are people like lawyers, experts in law or tax accountants, experts in accounting and tax law or doctors doctors may make high income but that doesn't mean they are rich, in fact on average they are not rich who are the richest people in the world most are not born into wealth, that's a myth most millionaires are self-made through business a common excuse for not building a business or investing is that it's hard it's too much work well, how much work are you going to do in your job? let's see... 40 hours a week roughly 50 weeks in a year, so that's 2000 hours in a year 30 years of work means 60,000 hours of hard work you'll put in and for what? why not invest 1000 hours in something that can get you set for life? 1000 hours sounds like a lot but it's 3 hours a day over a year or an hour a day over 3 years to make a million dollars, is it really that much harder than working 60,000 hours? job searching sucks everyone knows that the job search sucks if you haven't done it yet, just ask your friends you are begging with the person interviewing you to do work for them you are essentially saying, "please will you allow me to work 60,000 hours for you and get paid much less than you make off my work? please?" remember that companies make a profit, after they pay all of the salaries but the owner or owners of the company don't do any actual work they just own it so they essentially take some of the money that you created by working hard do you still want to work hard to make someone else rich? why not just be the one getting rich off other's people's hard work? remember, i'm not saying don't get a job a job is good for many people there are people who love their job and know how to invest their salary a job is perfect for them there are also many people starting out who prefer to start in a job a job can be a great place to learn about how your company does business in fact, the rich owner of the company is doing a favor to society they are providing jobs and lowering the unemployment rate they are helping those just starting out to earn a paycheck while they learn the rich are not greedy, the rich are generous a big part of getting a job is being able to move out of your parents house it sucks living at home, arguing with your parents, living with all the rules not being able to go out much and see friends having your parents constantly ask you when you're going to get a job it's okay to get a job just remember, you are choosing a job you aren't being forced to take a job you could also choose to be rich one of the amazing things about living at home for most people after college is that you have zero expenses trust me, you'll never be in that incredible situation again for the rest of your life, you'll have lots of expenses car payments, house payments, credit card payments (maybe you already have those) if you've lived in an apartment you know about some more: utilities, groceries, supplies so what's the problem with living at home? you have no money as i said earlier, you don't need any money at all to get rich you don't need a single penny to make a million dollars what you do need is focus and motivation that can come from time, which is one thing you do have you may say as an excuse, "but i don't have any time" "i have to do all these errands for my parents" "and then i have watch Oprah every day, and Maury, and Days Of Our Lives" remember that once you start working, you'll have 2,000 fewer hours each year if you can't make time to do anything now, i promise it'll only get harder when you work so take advantage of your opportunity right now remember that rich people make the most money when the stock market crashes successful people learn the most when they are down when they have no money and no time and they feel the worst they may not have to worry about pressure from parents anymore but they might have even more pressure from investors and creditors especially when they owe a million dollars do you have $200? do you have even more than that maybe? take advantage of the time you have right now you can still do your job search but let's just say it happens to take 2 months to find a job you could have made a million dollars in those 2 months why not at least try? BELIEVE IT TO ACHIEVE IT what is the most important building block of success? it's not money, and it's not time it's not the education you learned in school or the things your parents taught you the most important building block of success is BELIEF it's a weird thing, and i'm not sure i can explain why it's so powerful all i know is that what creates the most success is believing you can succeed all of the successful people believed in it now again, maybe this is because they were actually stupid stupid to believe that they could succeed where 9 out of 10 people failed stupid to think that at the age of 66 (Colonel Sanders) they could still make it stupid to think that they could fail thousands of times and still succeed in some ways, belief translates into CONFIDENCE you have to be careful of the fine line between being confident and being cocky but it's just like picking up someone in a bar the odds are against you most likely you'll fail and you'll be embarrassed if you get shot down but think about it if you believe you're going to fail you'll approach the person and you'll subconsciously send out bad signals you'll be timid, or maybe even brash but abrasive your methods won't work because you don't believe in yourself on the other hand, there are people who meet girls (or guys) very easily they make it look easy they aren't even trying that hard but if you look at them, they aren't always the best looking people in the bar they may be some of the most confident though and the people they meet can somehow recognize that, they can somehow feel it the confidence may be unjustified, they aren't the tallest ones, the biggest ones they probably aren't the richest ones in the bar and the funny thing about all of this is that you have to believe it FIRST you can't wait until you see the success you can't say, "I'll believe it when I see it" because then you'll never see it you have to take a little risk right up front take the chance that you might get shot down who cares? who cares if you are denied what did you lose? did you really lose all your dignity for the rest of your life? is that person really so important that they can destroy your entire life? you are the most important person to you and how you think makes all the difference in how you act and the truth is, if you THINK like a rich person, you will BE a rich person and that's all you have to do forget money, forget time, forget all the get-rich-quick schemes you can become rich overnight by just gaining the confidence and BELIEF focus on that first, and the rest is easy picking up someone in a bar is easy once you believe in yourself you don't even have to know all the techniques you don't even have to have tons of money somehow you'll naturally just hold a comfortable conversation just try it, take a chance for once you might lose, sure but you also might win and you might win BIG but if you never believe, you're blocking yourself from millions of dollars and you're blocking yourself from a successful and fulfilling life to the ladies you can be taken care of for the rest of your life but you can also have the security to back you up you can get this security by gaining financial intelligence it doesn't mean you'll have to do the bills it doesn't mean you'll fight over where to spend money you can still go shopping for clothes and shoes but someday when you're married, you'll understand investing you'll understand the difference between a 401k and a business investment you might be a little threatening to some guys the tough guys who want to handle the money they want to bring home the bacon while you raise the kids well you can live your life however you want but knowledge and wisdom about money won't hurt you in the end you can always act dumber, but you can't act smarter when it comes to money you have a huge advantage right now in college your expenses are low some of you may be working to pay your way through college in that case, i have the utmost respect for you some of my friends worked their way through college and they were also some of the most generous people i've ever known on the other hand, if your parents are paying for college you have minimal expenses beer, pizza, movies, cover charges, and other small costs these may seem big to you now but they're nothing compared to payments on a condo in the city or the amount of income tax you'll be paying to the government later so why is this such a big advantage? because you can start small in business right now it's not that hard to start a business that makes $1000 a month in the real world, you'll be struggling to live off $1000 a month but right now, what would you do with an extra $1000 a month? how much fun could you have with that money? many businesses were started out of dorm rooms especially now that we are in the information age you can make millions off an online business and again, the huge advantage you have is that you don't have many expenses yet so you can try a business idea and maybe you'll only make $100 a month at first that's ok, because it's all free money anyway you don't have to survive off it, so there's nothing to lose more importantly, you'll be gaining valuable experience and you'll be learning things that will make you millions later it's hard to jump into a million dollar corporation with no experience but if you get started on a small scale now, you can go big later right now your parents might be writing you as a dependent on their taxes so you're not really going to be able to save much in taxes but you'll be prepared for the real world later you'll be ready to make lots of money the minute you graduate rather than finishing school and then saying to yourself, now what? What do you want? No, really. If you could have anything you wanted in the world, what would it be? Money? Power? Fame? Love? The truth is you can have it all. And by that, I mean EVERYTHING. Everything you ever wanted is within your reach. All you have to do is know HOW to get it. It's that easy. read a lot! start with the short books go to the library and find the topic area maybe use the online catalog to find a book you like by searching keywords just think of it like Google better yet, use Amazon and type in keywords to find book titles you like then look up the Dewey decimal number in the library catalog then get up off the computer, go the library, and browse that section you'll find tons of other books you never heard of, but that are short and useful one section might be on the different types of majors you graduate in for example, the "non-practical" major like political science, media studies, etc. these are only good for grad school normally but remember rule #1, challenge all of your assumptions so in this case, don't assume that you have no options because of your major here are a bunch of options you might not have known about you can go into a completely different field than what you majored in most people won't use the direct knowledge from their school classes anyway another option for the "non-practical" majors is to start your own business I'll go over this in detail in another chapter, but the basic idea is described here you have total control over your destiny, no HR department can say you can't do it no one can tell you that you're not qualified, or worse yet, that you're overqualified overqualified is a great thing in business, it means you're gonna kick butt the capitalist market will pay you what you're worth explain this in detail, your product or service will succeed if it's good if you create something good, customers will pay you money based on its worth if it sucks, you won't sell anything and you won't make any money this is in sharp contrast to a salary job, where many of my friends are slackers they avoid doing work, and spend their day on xanga, blogger, myspace, facebook but they still get the exact same salary as the guy who works his butt off! all the bad stuff this is a preview of what you have to look forward to most people who buy a book or check it out from the library never read the whole thing starting out in the real world stuff like taxes, medicare, social security, car payments, house payments statistics on twixters, how many live at home how many people end up crying at work from the stress how many jobs do people go through what is the commute like, get some quotes from people to use here that sound awful get quotes about the boss, about working long hours maybe end on the bright side, well at least you have your weekends but then you have to run errands all day, and you only get Friday and Saturday night so you party hard, that's the good part but the key question is, how do you feel on Sunday? a lot of people dread Sunday because it means they'll be going back to work if you get this feeling, know that you have other options! Sunday can be as much fun as Friday and Saturday i know it's hard to believe, but that's how it is for me and many of my friends now some people dread work on monday so much that they can't enjoy the weekend at all that's when you know you gotta do something or change something don't ever feel like you have a case of the mondays, to quote Office Space that's a great movie, by the way, definitely watch it to get an idea of what's coming so maybe you'll get to party hard on Friday and Saturday nights well you can party every single day, and sleep in every day, and enjoy your life read on to the next chapter to find out how... business ideas - where do they come from? monetize your friends! monetize your conversations! leverage your experience and knowledge about you and your friends don't try to be all things to all people, build a networking site for new graduates build something your friends would like, not something for everybody in the world wasting time when you have lots of it not true, challenge your assumptions! it's a mental challenge to be productive, but it can be done think of it like sports psychology a good example is when you play tennis you can practice with a friend and volley back and forth and you can hit the ball just fine when you're practicing but the minute you start a game, it's totally different returning a serve is so much harder than hitting a volley sure, some serves are difficult to hit, but even second serves can be hard it's psychology in many cases, not physical, it's a mental hurdle another example is pool you can play just fine when you're practicing maybe even run the table every other game but then you play in a tournament, and you lose your focus then you play for money, and you really screw up the critical shots why is this? study the sports psychology behind it we all know there is psychology in sports now for peak performance the same is true in the rest of your life to achieve success in business, in any long term project, you need focus but you need the right kind of mental strength, stamina, and focus here's a financial example of why businesspeople often have more money it comes from the field of behavioral finance, or the psychology of money it's easiest to explain by example let's say you just graduated and you have a choice of two apartments in Chicago (pick some realistic numbers for Chicago, this will make it more interesting) one is $1200/month, and the other is $800/month the $1200 place is better than the $800 place, but the $800 place is enough here's how you might make your decision scenario #1) you have a job that pays you $2000/month after taxes after you factor in car payments, food, and entertainment (i.e., clubbing and bars) you end up with $1250/month in available income you can spend on rent which apartment do you choose? a lot of people will opt for the $1200 place, because it's nicer and technically they can afford it, as long as they keep to their budget the problem is when unexpected bills show up, like car insurance, doctors bills, etc. all of a sudden, that $50/month buffer you left yourself doesn't cover it this isn't so bad when you're just starting out, because most of the time it'll work out your parents can help you in a pinch, or you can cut back on some expenses but here's some scary statistics X percentage of American households have only 1 month of savings that means if, by some odd chance, you lose your job (and thus your income) you can only survive for a month before you'll run out of money remember how many jobs the average twixter has? now let's take scenario #2) you own a business your net income after taxes varies between $1000/month and $3000/month the average is exactly $2000/month, just like scenario #1 so technically, with the same car payments and other expenses, you have $1250 if you budget properly, you can afford the $1200 place but now, most people would choose the $800 place instead what this means is that on average you'll save $450/month instead of $50/month and you won't feel like that money is wasted because your income varies this relates to the psychology of money management, and is well studied the net effect is that you have a much larger buffer for random events you have essentially prepared yourself for the risk of unexpected bills and expenses you did this because the business taught you to manage risk therefore, you actually have less risk than the person who lives off a salary and in fact, if you've properly built your multiple streams of income then you can completely lose one "job" or source of income, and still have others therefore, your risk of losing all your income simultaneously is very low now |
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