Isn't it weird that when you reach a certain age, everyone automatically assumes it's time to go out and get a job?

Just because everyone assumes it, does not necessarily make it such a good idea. In fact, it's a downright dumb idea in my opinion.

Why?

Because...if you're intelligent enough not to pick your nose in the better sort of company, save your best burps for when you're half in the bag with your best friends, and can manage to stay awake long enough to finish a ham sandwich; you're probably better off working for yourself. Why sell yourself willingly into slavery just because other people think it's a good idea?


While getting a job sitting at a desk staring at a computer screen, and getting paid for it might have seemed like a good idea at the time it's probably the stupidest way to earn your daily crust. The problem with this scenario is you only earn an income when you're sitting at that desk staring at that computer screen. Do you really think it's a reasonable and intelligent use of your resources to only get paid when you're working?

Take a look around you.

Do banks make money only during business hours? Why should you only earn money for the hours you spend at a physical place of work? Does anyone really care how much time you spend at the office? I bet the only people who care are the minions in charge of you, the bean counters and the people who call themselves your bosses. The guy who owns the company you work for probably spends his time on the beach worrying about not getting unsightly tan lines. He doesn't have time to be concerned with how much time you spend slaving away earning him money. He's too busy enjoying life.

Imagine having to consciously breathe all the time. If you had to concentrate on breathing all the time you wouldn't have time for anything else. (By the way, If you don't believe me - take up scuba diving. Until you learn to breathe comfortably underwater you don't really have time for anything else. It's only once you can stop concentrating on staying alive that you start to notice the beautiful stuff around you.) And it's only once you can stop worrying about meeting your next mortgage payment, or gas bill or whatever, that you can start enjoying life.

Once you start to earn enough as a wage slave to start enjoying your life  - it's too late. Your life is over. Or do you think that life is going to give you a whole bunch of second chances at the age of sixty-five? Think you'll be able to stay up all night at a party, sleep with the hot chick you met on the beach, and be ready to surf all day the next morning - at the age of sixty-five?!

Nope, you'll probably fall asleep during dinner, never see that hot chick all night and be ready for a nice nap on the beach the next morning. That is if your pension check covers more than basic foodstuffs. Which it probably won't. You might have to eke out your food supply with dog food the last few days of every month. Depressing thought, isn't it?

And if you think it can't happen to you, think again buddy.

Your life has only so many hours, why spend all of it working? Don't you rather want to spend that time experiencing all the beauty that life has to offer? Play with the kids, take the dog for a walk, go skydiving - whatever!

Don't you think it would be better if you didn't have to concentrate on living from one paycheck to the next? If you got paid even when you weren't working? How about getting paid 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year - every year?

Hell, why not? Your plants don't grow only when you look at them, do they? Why should your bank account be any different?

While lots of people start out on the income for idiots lifestyle, there is good news: You don't need to keep on doing it forever. The whole system has been set up to fool you into thinking that it is the only way to make a living. It's not! The key is to realise that your time and your income shouldn't be joined at the hip. The value you offer people cannot be measured in time. If you provide something of value to people who are willing to pay you for it, they won't care how much time you spent on creating it. All they care about is whether or not what they are buying is worth what they are being asked to pay.

Intelligent people create systems to create their wealth for them. Investing money wisely will ensure that it earns you an income 24/7. The system delivers the ongoing value to people and generates an income. The beauty is that once you've started it, it can run irrespective of whether you look after it or not.  From then on, you can invest your time in fine-tuning the system to increase the income you already gain from it, or start something new to provide another, additional income. Working for someone else merely means you are maintaining one single source of income for yourself. Pretty dumb if you ask me. Also pretty suicidal. How does it feel to be at the mercy of some schmuck who can cut off your entire income with two words? 'You're fired' Great. Now what?

It will take some time and effort to design and implement your own income-generating system. However, you don't have to start everything from scratch. Lots of the stuff you need has already been done. You just need to adapt it to your particular circumstances. In other words you have to find you niche.

Once you get going, you won't have to spend so much time making someone else rich just in order to support yourself. You can take the wife to dinner, and earn money while you're eating. If you're a workaholic who enjoys working long hours and you want to keep on doing it, knock yourself out - no one will stop you. If, on the other hand you just want to surf every day, as long as your system continues delivering on its promises, you'll still get paid.

Nobody is born knowing how to start a business or generate investment income, it's something that people learn. Whether from their parents or from some college doesn't matter. The point is that they learnt how to do it and so can you. How long it takes you is immaterial because the time is going to pass anyway. You might as well learn something in the meantime and emerge at some future point as the owner of an income-generating system as opposed to a being a wage slave until you retire or pass away, whichever comes first.

And the great thing is that you've got nothing to lose by giving it your best shot. You can start working at generating an alternative income (or incomes) in your spare time with the security of an assured income from your job to pull you through. If you start something that generates a few hundred bucks a month towards your retirement fund you're already going in the right direction.