Believe in Yourself First

So I was in a conversation last week with a friend of the family who said the following… “working less and earning more sounds great, but for some people it’s really not possible.” I’m a big believer that anyone can create this lifestyle, so I just had to ask… “who are these people who can’t build the lifestyle?” What followed were three seemingly compelling answers:

1. Some people just don’t have any skills that could be truly marketable in the marketplace beyond the job they hold.
2. Some people don’t have the mental makeup to go-it-alone and build a working less, earning more lifestyle.
3. Some people prefer to slowly build wealth over time in a more safe and secure job rather than risk everything for a shot at making it big.

I’ve heard these three arguments before. In fact, I had to defend my own decision to leave a corporate job by arguing against these three points myself. So allow me to share with the world what I’ve said before on these three topics:

1. If a company is willing to pay you every week to do something than it’s clearly a marketable skill, not something that only that one company would pay for consistently.
2. Working less and earning more is not about having an entrepreneurial mindset. It’s about finding the intersection of your skills and passions and then finding the people willing to pay you for those services.
3. The safe and secure job is a thing of the past… just ask anyone on Wall Street. So while it may seem safe to sit in your cubicle day-after-day, we all know you’re one recession, one reorganization, or one bad performance review away from the pink slip.

At the end of the day, believing in yourself is so much more important than convincing those around you that you made a good decision. So go for it, and let the naysayers come around when you succeed. They always do!