I Quit My Day Job 12 Years Ago
Since then my family and I have spent half our year at our home, and the other half of the year on our boat that we are slowly sailing around the world.
I work from both locations. And the kids do their school work from both locations.
How have I been able to do this?
I first started as a professional internet marketer back in the mid 1990’s (I know I am dating myself here).
I was studying Electronic Music Composition at university. I don’t remember it being called the Internet back then.
In any event, Han Zimmer was attempting to do online collaborative music composition, and so I logged on to the Internet with an unbearably slow dial-up modem to see if I could join in.
All I remember was messing around and not really hearing any music. But it was a start.
Fast forward eight years and I have a degree in music. When I got out of university I tried composing for CDROM games, but what a horrible gig that was. I was under paid and over worked.
“I want the music to sound countrish” the client might say. So I would go off and stay up late working on a composition only to find out they changed their minds the next day.
I hated it
I drove a taxi to support myself while I was at school and that gig was much less stressful and more lucrative than writing music on demand ever was. At least for me.
When the Internet took off in the mid 90’s and I learned how to make a basic website, suddenly I was in high-demand. In one year I went from having eviction notices regularly posted on my apartment door, to making a six figure salary (and this was almost twenty years ago now).
In no time at all I was managing the web development for some of the largest financial institutions in the world – pretty good for a guy who up until recently had been living hand to mouth.
I started my web development career at a large-scale services company, but over the course of a few years I went from one small start-up to another. There was tons of money around then for Internet start-ups. I, along with others, were flown to exotic islands and wined and dined.
Life was good – that is, until the dot.com bubble burst. In the course of 5 years I was unceremoniously walked out the door five times by HR staff as each company went bankrupt.
I ended up at Scholastic Canada as the Executive Web Producer. I had a young family, with my second son on the way. It seemed a good place to be. However, I realized that:
- There was no challenge, and
- My fate was still in the hands of someone else
At the end of the day, no matter how big and secure the company you are working for is, they still have an HR department well trained in the correct procedure for walking you out the door at any time.
In 2002 I decided that I would rather have my fate in my own hands. My brother and I had been working on a company that would make website design software tools. Those tools became WebDwarf, SiteSpinner and SiteSpinner Pro.
Leaving the corporate world enabled me to take charge of my own destiny. It bought me freedom to spend time with my kids, travel the world, and to not have to worry about someone who I did not know deciding whether my job was or was not necessary.
Gone are the days where you could stay at the same job until you retired and then expect to collect a good pension.
As Seth Godin says in his highly acclaimed book Linchpin, you can either be a cog in the machine, or you can take charge of your own destiny.
I have been walked out the door too many times, as have a lot of very talented and hard working friends of mine, to ever again trust my future to someone else.
The way we support ourselves is changing rapidly – just ask anyone who has owned a brick and mortar bookstore, or a travel agency, or driven a taxi…
These days it is more important than ever that we have the skills and tools to embrace our own fate, or in other words, to become solopreneur.
The Office
If you have a skill or talent, there is a good chance it can be made to work for you. You just have to promote yourself the right way.
With every change comes opportunity. The upside is that you buy yourself freedom and security in a quickly changing world.
I would love to hear from you.
- What are your goals online?
- What is the hardest thing you are struggling with online?
Images: Kalyan
