It took me 20 years of working
from one place to another to realize that you can never be financially free if
you remain an employee. For shock effect, let me give you an idea of what
I am talking about. I started out working at a very young age of
15. All of my educational pursuits after my High School was done on part
time basis. By the time I was 22, I had reached the first basic base of
Higher National Diploma (HND) almost at par with a B.Sc. from a
University.
As far as I was concerned, the
world was at my feet. I was a senior staff at a multi-national company;
Personnel Officer with many pecks. A few years later, I was poached by a
bank and I ended up in the banking industry for 8 years. By the time I
had logged in 20 years of hard labour working from age 15, I did an average
check of my total income - all time. Guess what it came up to:
N2,700,000.00 (Nigerian Currency) and in US dollars it came up to
$17,647.00! That was what I was working 8 hours daily and over 40 hours
weekly in 20 years! I looked myself in the mirror and felt sorry for the
person I saw standing there. How was I ever going to become financially
free? At that point, I knew the best thing to do was to quit the job and
use my skill set (and I have them in quantum) to create multiple streams of
income.
I took a look at myself and I
discovered I could write professionally (I had published 3 books and edited
tons of publications for other outfits), I had the capacity to train people in
management and leadership, I could speak, I have organizing skills and could
become an event manager; I am a whizkid on the keyboard - I type more than 100
words per minute - that is a skill set all in a class of its own. I had
over the years acquired skills for professional proposal writing, feasibility
studies and general consultancy on how to erect and manage a business.
These were enough to get me
started and the first attempt I made at earning income was a consultancy job
with a Church. I was already an ordained minister and it was easy for me
to fit into the system. I had the task of starting their leadership
institute and run it in its first few streams; it was done and I was on a
monthly allowance for 12 months - the duration of the contract. During
this period, I maintained a client base for training, freelance writing and
media consultancy - having also a skill in broadcasting. By the time I
was through with the Church contract, I found another stream of income to
develop - eCommerce. This is a whole world waiting to exploited in our
climes and millionaires are being made in their numbers in the Western
world. I am at the moment positioning myself with relevant knowledge in
this area.
Why for heaven's sake should I
look for a job again? I didn't need a capital to do all these. The
best capital I had was the skill set I had developed over the years while
working with the different organizations. While I was an employee, I went
beyond my call of duty because I had an inkling that one day I was going to be
off the employee status and run my own show. This made me a valuable
employee even though it did not attract rapid promotions. But wherever I
had worked, I left a footprint and a vacuum that is difficult to fill.
Are you a graduate fresh from
school? Don't dream of climbing a corporate ladder, think of building a
ladder yourself! The beginning may be daunting and hard, but would you
prefer the comfort zone of a salaried job than a future where you determine
when you wake up and when you go on vacation? Think of the future and pay
the needed price today. Are you an employee slaving it out for someone
else? It is time to put an exit date on the calendar.
No nation's economy is ever
built around salaried employment, but on the strength of the small and medium
scale enterprises of that nation. The GDP of every nation is predicated
on the amount of entrepreneurial activities in the country. Yes, we all
cannot be business owners at the same time, but we must aim to own our lives
eventually and employ others too. Make that move today! Challenge yourself to action and start with what you already have which is in YOU!
For more help about how to get started, send me an email on essang.victor7@gmail.com
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