When I started this blog, I intended to teach others the path I took to financial freedom. I saw the potential in building an online presence, starting blogging, and generating passive income. The goal was and still is to teach others how to build slow and steady wealth over time to work less and not more.
Well, it turns out I was onto something after all!
Working Hard Doesn’t Last Forever
Let’s say you’ve been following this approach for around 15 years now and have come to the realization you don’t have to do it anymore? I’m here and it’s scary. I’ve reached a milestone I internally never thought would come to fruition but here I am.
For almost 15 years now, I’ve worked my ass off with a full-time job and a side hustle with the last 2-3 being self-employed. Throughout this time, I’ve put in many 80-100 hour weeks with the average hovering around 65-70 on any given week. All this work was to finally sustain me and my family and buy a few toys along the way.
When you work that much day in and day out, it becomes routine. It becomes your reality; your identity almost. When I was in the trenches cranking out another online course, writing a blog post, or presenting at a conference, it was just another day. It was all to be more successful without an end goal in sight.
You get in a work mindset that when you’re not “doing something productive”, you get fidgety. You feel guilty when you’re not answering emails, working on some project, or thinking about the next best thing. There is always something to do and it’s your mission to get shit done!
But what happens when you suddenly realize you actually don’t have to do anything anymore? You’ve built up a nest egg and passive income where you’ve made it. You no longer have that financial burden hanging over your head. You’ve won the career game and are at such a fortunate place where you and your family can live a great life without the need to work at all.
I’m there and it’s more uncomfortable than you might think.
You Gotta Have Purpose
When we’re working to survive, we all think that we won’t have to think when the time comes to “retire”. We’ll piddle around with hobbies, travel, sit on a beach and just enjoy life. What’s there to think about? We don’t have to work! We’ll do anything we wish and life will be grand. Maybe for some…
Many entrepreneurial types like myself have to always feel a sense of purpose. We must be working towards a goal and that goal for my entire career has been to find activities that were fairly enjoyable that make money. All along the goal was to simply sustain me and my family.
I’m now finding myself wondering what millionaires and billionaires actually do and what drives them now. It’s not money. They’ve checked off that box. What next? Not everyone can be solely driven on a mission to Mars like Elon Musk.
To discover the next chapter in my work life, I’ve reached out to Reddit and have bought a couple of books (The Big Leap and I Could Do Anything if I Only Knew What it Was. I’m hoping these resources along with getting back into blogging again will help me figure this out!
I’m so fortunate to be in this position in my life and I’m thankful every day but looking forward to what’s next!
-Adam
