Truth Blog - What I Do
I suspect that most of my friends, and pretty much all of my family, would have little idea of what exactly it is that I “do”. I want to clear that up, as this honesty kick isn’t just about revealing things that I’m ashamed of, but also things I’m proud of. And I -am- proud of what I do. But for various reasons, I’ve never really been straight about it with most people.
Whenever I meet someone new, or catch-up with someone I haven’t seen in a while, they inevitably ask me what I do, or what I’m doing. I tend to give them an over-simplified version of the truth, or I liberally cut bits of it out. Admittedly it is hard to explain to someone what I do in under half an hour, but I think a big part of the reason I’ve done that is because I’ve been afraid that if I told people the real ambitions and goals that I have, they would think they’re dumb, and that I’m silly for pursuing them.
So without further ado…what I do:
1. For money
I’m going to get rich. I’ve always known this, and I feel as certain about it now as I ever have, even though I’m 25 and still a “nobody” with no “real prospects”. I won’t be doing it with a job, I’ll be doing it with an enterprise of my own. I’m expecting I’ll be rich within 1 to 5 years.
To explain how I’m going to do this, and also to explain some of the seemingly strange things I’ve been doing since I left highschool 7 years ago, I’ll give you a bit of history.
After I left school, I started a music degree. I entertained the idea that I could be a professional composer and make money like that, but it eventually became clear that getting rich that way would take a very long time. I still loved music, so I didn’t quit, but I knew I’d have to find another way of reach my financial goal.
About half way through the degree, when I was 21, I read ‘Rich Dad, Poor Dad’ by Robert Kiyosaki. That was when I was introduced to the idea that employment was not a smart means of getting rich, but business was. But when I finished my degree, I wasn’t sure how I’d get a business started, or what sort I should start.
Robert also said in the book (or one of the sequels perhaps), that the 4 fundamental aspects of business are accounting, law, sales and marketing, and that an aspiring business person should know something about all of them. This made allot of sense to me, so I decided that I’d learn the four aspects, beginning with sales. That’s when I took my full-time job as a sales rep, where I worked for ten months. I left that job because I was sick of it (co-incidentally I also became redundant), not because I’d necessarily mastered sales. I did learn though that that would be the first AND last time that I’d ever give up forty hours of my week to anyone for any reason. If I did ever did get a full-time job again, it would be to raise money for a business idea, or if I was met by some unforseen crisis and was forced to. Or if I needed it to learn about something again.
I then got a part-time job at Dymocks, where I am now (kind of…), which would keep me alive, and allow me to get back to working on business ideas. But not long after I’d started that, I begin feeling lost and confused again, so I figured I’d be best to tackle the three remaining aspects rather than waste any more time. Since I figured there was no way I was going to get hands on experience in accounting, law and marketing, I decided I’d have to study them formally, hence my current B Commerce at Sydney Uni. I’ve been a little hesitant talking to friends and family about why I started doing this degree, as I figured since I’ve already done another degree that there’d be an implication that I was ‘lost’. Since I’m anything but lost, I was very uncomfortable with the label.
Anyway, I’ve recently figured out why I wasn’t able to get a business running before to start making my riches. It was’t that I didn’t know how to, or that I didn’t have the right “idea” (I always have had an endless supply of those….). It’s because up until now, I’ve been extremely poor at implementing these ideas. I’ve always thought that “knowledge is power”, and if I just learn enough about wealth that I was bound to wake up rich one day. Obviously that hasn’t happened. I’ve come to accept that knowledge is worthless, APPLIED knowledge is power, and that I’m going to have to start making these ideas HAPPEN if I want to get rich.
So I don’t know if I’ll finish the degree or not. It’s a means to an end, and if I can achieve that end without finishing it, then that’s what I’ll do. For example, right now, I’ve got impending exams, but I haven’t been studying because I’ve been busy setting up a website that I’m trying to make money from. To my fellow students that may seem stupid, but the fact is I know my priorities.
2. My real purpose
What I do doesn’t end with money. For me, money just represents freedom. Freedom to spend my time working on things that are actually important. For me, my gift and greatest passion is music. I love writing and producing and playing guitar and bass.
I’ve defintely had my ups and downs with it, I’ve even given it up a few times. In the last few years I’ve been so slack with writing, that recently when someone asked me to show them something I’d written, I gave them a listen to my four piano miniatures…which I wrote in 2003! The good news is I’m back on track with it (thanks to immense inspiration from ‘The Fountainhead’ by Ayn Rand, and to a lesser extent ‘Power vs. Force’ by David Hawkins), and am very excitedly preparing some new things to offer to the world.
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