What is Your Vocation?
Today, most people think of a vocation as what they do for money. I think that time and a century or so of misguided work environments has diluted that word. Many people interpret the question “What is your vocation?” as “What is your job?” I think we, as a whole, need to take another look at that word.
The word vocation comes from old Latin vocatio or vocacio, which means a call, summons, or calling. Quick reference here.
These days, it seems that whenever someone thinks of one’s “calling,” they are referring to a spiritual calling of some nature. While that definition does apply, a calling can be anything. And it doesn’t have to come from some higher power, either. A calling typically comes from within you.
What is your calling? What is it that you are calling yourself to do? Sit on the couch? Sure, that’s nice and relaxing, but it will get boring after a few weeks. You’ll have to do something or you’ll waste away to nothing. Do you know what your calling is? I just recently figured mine out, but I’m not going to share it here. You’ll have to listen to my next podcast for that.
To figure out your calling, you may have to do some deep digging into yourself. You might have to think back to your teenage years to learn what you did that made you happy. I heard someone once ask what you would be doing if no one was paying you. What would you be doing? If you have no idea what your calling is, start with this question and then dig deeper: “What would I be doing if no one was paying me?”
Self Employed or Not Self Employed? That is the Question…
Running a business isn’t for everyone. Some people are scared to death of it — the work, the responsibility, the investments. Others are just comfortable in their jobs and don’t want to leave. Some think that they are so far in debt they feel they can’t afford to take the risk of running a company that might fail.
These are all valid concerns. In my opinion, running a company isn’t for everyone. Not everyone’s brain is wired that way. I would venture to say that most people’s brains are wired that way at birth, but get unwired through the American education system. But that’s not really the point of this post.
What I’m really trying to get at is the fact that it’s not for everyone, but I still think you should give it a shot. In my opinion and experience, running a company and making money for yourself is much better than working for someone else to make them more money. In fact, that was my first clue that I needed to be out on my own.
At the time, I was working for a large, international corporation as a software engineer. I wrote a program that would save thousands of man-hours of work every year, making an entire warehousing operation more efficient. I thought to myself, “I wrote this program that is going to make this company more money, and I get paid how much?”
I didn’t get paid much. Not enough, at least. It was at that point that I knew I needed start my own company. Doing what? I had no idea. I just knew that I needed to do something.
Not everyone gets that feeling. Some people have, quite honestly, great jobs. Jobs that give them a fat paycheck and loads of personal satisfaction. If you fit into that group, then maybe running your own company isn’t the right step for you.
But I do still think you should give it a try. A little something on the side, if you have a little time and a little energy, can add some nice padding to your bank account. You might love your job, but if you can find some way to monetize a hobby of yours, then you can start a side business and earn extra money. If you live in America, you could always use some extra cash. The price gas, health care, and everything else that is out of control won’t cause so much stress with extra money.
Running a company is right for me. Though it’s not the sense of “I’m the boss!” It’s more a case of seeking personal freedom and satisfaction. I want to work on my projects that make money for my company. Additionally, I value the needs and accomplishments of the individual over those of the team. I’m also a very self-motivated, independent person. One thing I’ve noticed about corporate America is that they don’t care much for self-motivated, independent people. A manager looks for a good employee more often that a driven individual. At least as far as I have observed, that is.
Now that I’ve taken the plunge to working for my company full time, I wouldn’t have it any other way. Sure, it’s hard, and I have to work far too hard, way too often. Sometimes I don’t know if an invoice will be paid, or from where I’m going to drum up new clients. They usually just land in my lap by chance (higher power?), and then I work with them while looking for more clients.
I work for myself, and it’s almost everything I thought it would be. Almost everything because I still have to travel to the job site for my current big project. I would rather do the work from my own home office, but we can’t have everything all the time, can we?
What type of person are you? Do you fit in a job best, or should you start your own company? Do you love your job, hate your current job, or hate any job you’ve ever had? What about personal satisfaction? There’s more to work than money, after all. If there is anything inside that head of yours telling you that you might be better off on your own, maybe you should listen.
That voice in your head might be right.
On Organization
Working for yourself is great. I recently read an article in MacLife (I think that was the one — it was on a stack) that said a bad day working for yourself is better than a great day at the cube farm. That’s paraphrased, of course. While that is not universally true, I have found that it’s true for me.
Working for yourself isn’t without pitfalls, however. If you run your own company, even if it’s a one-man show, you have got to be organized. This is coming from a guy who started out disorganized and is now trying to do it in bulk. Sure, I had all the legal paperwork requirements met, held annual meetings, kept minutes, and so on. But basic bookkeeping, among other things, just piled up.
Now, after two years of financial struggles, I’m getting ready to hire my first employee: Me. Even though it’s me, I’ve got to do paperwork, pay monthly payroll taxes, and all that stuff. I decided it was time to stop organizing in bulk spurts once every two months, and devise a system that consists of weekly and daily tasks.
Since I’m one who favors chaos over order (by just a little bit), this is difficult. I haven’t devised any system yet, but I think it will be best if I could just do a little bit every day, so that it doesn’t seem like much at all. I’ll need to take some time and create a meticulous file-system, and get my new version of Quickbooks Pro set up properly to make tracking everything easy.
All of this would be so much easier if I had a large desk all to myself. But I would need a bigger house first.
Don’t Like Sports? You Might be Better Off on Your Own
A week ago, while eating pecan pie, I had a revelation. For it to make sense, however, I’ll have to explain something. You know all the sports that so many people in this country seem so obsessed with? I don’t like them. I find them incredibly boring. I never knew why, exactly. All I knew is that they bored me to tears.
Football, basketball, baseball, sports news, all of it — bores me. I never asked myself why, because I didn’t care. When I was young, I tried watching to see if I would get into them. My father would watch Monday Night Football every week, and just about any other NFL game that was on. Friends talked about watching “the game” all the time, as if I would just know what game that was. I tried watching, but I couldn’t do it. I would just say, “this is lame,” and then do something else or change the channel.
When eating my pecan pie last week, a thought just popped into my head. It’s because it’s a team. I don’t care about the team. I started to think about all the sports I didn’t mind watching, and even find a bit entertaining, and they are all individual sports. I value the goals, efforts, and accomplishments of the individual over that of the team.
I’ve been in large meetings in a large corporation and seen everybody in the room nodding their heads and going along with really bad ideas because it’s “what we’re doing.” If it’s what “the team” does, they did it. I don’t understand that. Well, I do know. Those people probably value the needs of the team more than the needs of the individual.
Which do you value more, the individual or the team? There is nothing wrong with either preference, but if you find that you just don’t fit in anywhere in the corporate world, that might be the reason. If so, you might be better off on your own, working freelance in your chosen profession.
I don’t fit, so now I work for myself. Others might not fit but keep at it because they have a great paycheck. And then there is that large group of people known as “team players,” who seem like such odd creatures to me. I work better on my own. Do you know where you fit?
Business Degrees Might Be the Most Useful Degrees Around
By Caleb Rogers
Business degrees are versatile. They might just be the best kind of degree you can get if you want to succeed either in the corporate world, or as an entrepreneur.
Imagine, for just a moment, a degree which can immediately give the you the basic qualifications for most entry-level positions in the non-labor work force. Some fields that immediately come to mind are: Management, Human Resources, Purchasing, Marketing, Sales, and even Accounting or Bookkeeping. When you think about, is there an industry that has no managers, sales force, or bookkeepers?
Whether you work in an office, a factory, in local government, or just about anywhere else, a degree in business can be very useful. This degree becomes even more useful when you realize that you can focus on particular aspects of business. Not only can you get a general business degree, most schools offer specialized business degrees as well. For example, business degrees can focus on management, sales, marketing, and just about anything else in business. The benefit here is that your degree choice will be more tailored to specific positions, making your chance for employment that much better.
Degrees don’t come cheap, but it’s important that you see this as an investment - an investment in your future. Like any investment, finding the right business degree for you is a matter of dedicated research. Unless your local community college has a stellar reputation, I would advise you to take your time and look at all available options.
Higher education typically gives you three routes from which to choose: Attend a local college, find an online school you can attend from anywhere, or relocate to the school of your choice. Research schools and programs, as well as online and traditional education campuses, and find a business program that is right for you. After you have found a few schools in which you are interested, find a way to make them work for you financially. Remember that government subsidized student loans are always an option.
When you decide on a school and a business program, whether it is generalized or highly-focused, make a plan that you can see through until the end. Then, once your degree is finished, doors will open, and your employment options will be great. Remember that just because you will have a business degree, you won’t necessarily have to wear a nice suit to work every day. You will have options. That is the value of a business degree. Options.
Find a business degree program in your area and create some options in your career.
Signs that it’s time to get out…
Not all work places are created equal. Here are some signs that it might be time to leave yours behind. Disclaimer: I have not personally experienced all of these, but I have experienced some of them. Others I have just observed or thought up in my brain.
- You count the days until the next weekend, but you start during the current weekend
- The General Manager is Bipolar
- You fall asleep at your desk every day, several times a day, despite the fact that you got enough sleep and have consumed five large cups of coffee during the day
- You walk around the office all day quoting Milton from Office Space
- Your company institutes a blanket surveillance and search policy, completely ignoring and violating your personal rights to be secure in your own clothes (Nazis didn’t last for a good reason)
- Your blood pressure spikes when you look at the clock and see that only three minutes have passed since the last time you looked at the clock
- All of your coworkers get excited every time the company has some new program or policy, and you can’t help but think that they are all completely insane
- You wake up two hours before your body is ready to wake up, and you do this every day
- The boss says, “Praying at the end of every meeting isn’t enough.”
- Every time you read a new Dilbert comic, you say, “That just happened to me last week!”
2008 - The Year I Retire at 31
I’m 31 and I’m going to retire this year. Bold claim, isn’t it? Well, it’s true. But let me back up just a moment so you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about. In general, the American work force is completely lame. Now, I’m not talking about any individual workers or groups of workers or anything like that. I’m talking about how we work in this country. It’s not natural, and I’ve just had enough of it. I’ve been in the workforce long enough. This year, I’m going to leave it.
I’ll be working until I die, but this year I’m leaving the “work world” behind. My business will make enough money so that I will leave the workforce forever and do what I want to do. Sure, I’ll still have to work, but to me, one can work and be retired at the same time. To me, being retired simply means you’ve left the silly American way of work behind and moved on to something wiser and more natural.
Enough of that…to my ventures! I’ve got my company set up to run its fiscal year along with the calendar year. So, with the new year comes new things. Here are some things I’ve got in store for 2008 (I’ve already begun, by the way): Music, writing, and teaching.
Chaoscube Music: An independent music shop for purchasing DRM-Free and Royalty-Free digital music, sound effects, and ring tones. The main purpose of this site is to provide royalty-free music for independent game developers and small shops. Sure, I’ll sell to the big guys, too, but my focus will be the little guys trying to turn out great games that also happen to have soundtracks. And ring tones are just added in as a bonus. Everyone likes them and they are fast and cheap.
Cynical Tutor: Web programming video training. This site will sell training videos geared to the newbie web programmer. The new programmer will purchase the videos, download them, and learn various tricks of the trade, from simple database interfacing to building fully-functioning Content Management Systems. Plenty of freebies, too.
Education Finder: This one isn’t new, but I’ll be making some improvements to it. It’s a decent site, but I’ve got to make it better. The informational and revenue potential for that site is huge, and I’m not going to let it fall shy of it’s potential.
Caleb Rogers Copywriting Services: Copywriting, ghostwriting, blogging, ad writing, web copy, and just about anything else that can be written shall be written. Well, maybe not The Great American Novel, but stuff that will help others make money will be written. The site is still in development, but look for it to go live in two to three weeks.
There are also some other ideas I’m toying around with. I’ll bring those up as they move from “toying around” to “going to do.”
Become a Freelance Web Designer
I’ve been where you are now… Stuck in a dead-end job just so you can get enough money to pay the bills (maybe not even that). You want out, but you don’t know what to do. Well, let me talk to you for a moment about becoming a freelance web designer.
Set your own hours, work in your pajamas, and enjoy the fact that your work is literally what you make it. You might have to work long, hard weeks, but you’ll also get to take a day off at a moments notice if you want to. Want to close up shop three hours early and go rent a bunch of B-grade horror movies? Go ahead.
You can do that with just about any freelance business, so you’re probably wondering why I mention web design. Well, I mention it simply because it’s easy to learn and there’s some pretty good demand for design skills. Web design falls into two broad categories: Graphic Design and Programming. I’ll talk about programming in another post.
There just aren’t enough good, trained designers out there. I can program my way around just about any database or system, but when it comes to graphic design, I’m just lost. That’s how a lot of the web is right now. Visually lost. If you have any design skills or a design eye — no matter how miniscule — get some design training.
If you have base skills and talent, professional training can put you above the weekend warrior web designer. Your work will look professional because you will be a professional web designer.
I’m a writer and a web programmer. I trained in those areas, and in those areas are where my strengths lie. Don’t just trust your insticts when it comes to design. You need to learn. Learn what works and what doesn’t, and what the design trends are now and will be in years to come. Do that, and you will be well on your way to a successful freelance web design career.
If you don’t know where to look for that kind of training, or if you don’t even know what’s out there, check out the art and design schools at Education Finder. There are traditional and online classes, so your chances of finding something are good. Find a school, learn more about it, and get started on your career. It sure beats working in a cube all day long.
Start Your Own Data Entry Business
I know you’ve heard of those “data entry scams” where you have to pay to work. I’ve seen complete articles that will tell you all those “jobs” are just scams to get you to spend money instead of make money. Well, that’s really not the right way to look at it.
If you are looking for an actual data entry job, go to monster or career builder, or your local newspaper, and find a secretary position. Those “data entry scams” you see all over the internet aren’t really scams at all. They are self-employment opportunities. Every work-at-home data entry offer that I’ve seen is really an offer of information to help you start your own business. The business information they are offering focuses on data entry(ish) tasks. But the majority of them aren’t scams. They are legitimate offers of business opportunity.
It’s not to be thought of as “paying to work,” but rather buying information or a kit to help you start your own business. What business is free to start? None. There’s always a cost, even if it’s small. These work-at-home data entry offers are more akin to buying a book than applying for a job. That’s how you should look at it. You are taking the first step into having your own business.
If you want to work for someone else typing in data, then grab the help wanted ads. But if you want to start your own home-based data entry business, then invest a little money and do it.
Make Money Online
Making money online isn’t as easy as all those commercials make it out to be. “It’s easy!” or “Visit this website today!” Yeah right. Like that’s all it takes. It’s hard work. There are no easy paths to a successful online business.
It’s just like a regular offline business, really. You have to have a good plan, and work your tail off to implement that plan. You have to invest time and money in both a good product and a good marketing plan. You’ll need to have accounting and perhaps legal advisors at some point, too. There’s a lot to it and you’ll have to work a whole lot to bring it all together. But that doesn’t mean it can’t be done.
Anyone can start an online business and be successful. Sure, you may try and fail a few times (as I have done), but don’t let that stop you. Just this morning I made $22…all from doing nothing! I set up a system online and it does the work for me. That is what’s so great about online businesses. You will have a large workload up front, getting it all set up, and then let it do the work for you. Just monitor it, make improvements and changes as necessary, and let the money roll in. Not bad a bad deal when you think about it.
To get you started, take a look at this Online Money Making Directory. On that site you will find information and opportunities you can use to create your own little online empire. Get started there and get on your way to having a successful online business.
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