My Story

If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be.  Now put foundations under them.
-Henry David Thoreau

I am, in one sense, a highly unmotivated person. The part of my brain that forces me to work on things I don’t care about stopped working – for the most part – when I was 15 years old (that’s when I left high school to start a software company with my friend Sean).

By some miracle, I managed to (1) graduate from college, and (2) get good grades. But that’s where the traditional success ends. From there it was a series of jobs I didn’t like (and general frustration).

I tried liberating myself from dead-end jobs by creating companies (on the side) and dabbling in various business ventures. But none of these ventures ever got me over the “hump.” My ventures would make enough money keep me going, but not enough money to allow me to quit my job.

It was frustrating.

Over time and with a lot of persistence, however, I started to accumulate a group of friends who were self-employed and living life on THEIR terms. Some of these people were internet marketers, some of them were small business owners, and some of them were vagabonders travelling across the world.

I made a conscious effort to meet and befriend liberated people, and I found myself asking all of them about their “liberation story” (i.e. the process by which they freed themselves from their 9-5 job).

The liberation stories were varied and fascinating. The bizarre thing is that many of my friends found their success by doing counterintuitive things that actually worked. Things I would have never tried.

What I noticed was that the liberation paths of the people I interviewed all shared many of the same steps and phases.

I also noticed that these liberated people shared very similar ideas and philosophies about making money.

What I learned from these “liberation stories” compelled me to rethink my approach to self-employment. And I promptly quit my job AND graduate school.

I once wrote a blog post about how I was going for broke, quitting my job, and possibly eating rice and beans forever? Well, it took me two weeks to get to the point where I was making more than I was making before I quit my job. Just two weeks.

I also started spending 4+ hours each day learning everything I could about internet marketing and making money online. I’m a little embarrassed to admit this, because internet marketing and the whole “making money online” thing has a bad rap. But oh well — I’m just happy about about not having to go into work every day.

Anyway, I now have this income thing handled (I’ve actually have had it handled for a while now).

Ok, so that’s the extent of the bragging.

So I’ve documented the common stages and phases that nearly every “liberated” person I’ve talked to has undergone. And I’ve organized these phases into a set of principles. Furthermore, I’ve taught these principals to a handful of friends (and coaching clients) and many of them are starting to have the same results that I’ve had.

Something about this information seems to get people crystal clear on what they need to do and motivate them to act in effective ways.

I don’t have a magic bullet, but I’ve found some stuff that works.  And I try to share it with others through this blog.