I’m a bit late in celebrating my fireversary this year (see year 1 and year 2), but nevertheless another year has passed and it’s time for an update.
Right now if you’re reading this, are burned out by your current job or just need a change I want to offer you some encouragement. I’d like to share my story of getting fired 3 years ago as an illustration that with time, effort and hustle you can turn things around and make a better life for yourself. (Corny sounding? Maybe. But it’s true.)
6 years ago I earned $13 an hour testing video games:
I got married in 2006 and we lived in a pastor’s basement apartment unit paying $500 a month in rent. During that time I got my “dream job” (or so I thought) of working in the games industry at the lowest level job available – game tester at Microsoft. I worked on two games both of which I had previous experience playing. The first game was a port of Halo 2 over to the PC (Halo is in some ways what I credit my online income to now). The second game I worked on was an expansion pack for Age Of Empires III called Age Of Empires III: the Asian Dynasties. In technical terms both of these projects were incredibly easy because they were built on engines that had already been tested a lot. So there were times when we would just play Halo 2 all day to do “network testing” but the pay was crap and I had to drive 80 miles round trip every day to get to work!
Life lesson 1: Sometimes just because something is fun like playing video games doesn’t mean that it has to be your occupation as well – especially if the pay is crap.
3 years ago I was fired from my $60k per year job
After Microsoft I got a job doing inside sales in the technology space with a base starting salary of $31,850. After winning some awards (best new inside sales rep of the year for my position) and being promoted twice in under two years I managed to earn $60,000 in my final year before I was fired from my job. I was fired because the outside sales rep I worked with wanted me to spend more time at the office beyond the 50 hours a week I was. At the time my online income that I was growing on my time off was becoming too much to ignore so I was unwilling to spend more time at the office than I already was.
Life lesson 2: Getting fired isn’t the end of the world, there are always jobs if you’re willing to hustle and differentiate yourself from other candidates. Or you can always just create your own job.
Now in 2012 I’ve continued the growth of my six figure income
This marks the third straight year I’ve been able to completely crush my $60k a year 50 hours a week day job (and by working less too). In fact in 2012, I made nearly as much as I made in my best year at my old job at $54,746 in only one month during a record month for my business. Now admittedly I’ve had some much lower months this year as well, but overall in 2012 I’ve had a lot more fun simply doing what I’ve been teaching on my blog and by focusing on the three pillars I outlined at the beginning of this year. That’s also part of why I’ve written less this year (27 posts so far vs 59 in 2011).
Life lesson 3: The best way to building wealth while maintaining freedom to do what you want is not as an employee but as a business owner.
None of these lessons or advice can substitute for you taking action in your own life yada yada yada… unicorns and rainbows.
But seriously, it’s up to you to decide if you want to watch another TV show tonight, find out which friend is eating at a restaurant or complaining about their spouse on Facebook or take steps toward improving your financial livelihood.
You don’t even have to create your own online business – you could even just try to get a better job as well, because after all self employment isn’t without it’s downsides as well.
Chris,
I’ve enjoyed getting to know you over the last few years – I actually remember when I first met you at the HasOffers meetup in 2010 and you telling me about getting fired and how it was one of the biggest weights you’ve ever had lifted off your shoulders.
Having had a somewhat similar past few years myself I can honestly say I know how good it feels to find the right thing to work on and get paid for it all while living a better quality of life. Congrats on your continued success – I’m sure you have a lot of readers who would love to follow in your footsteps!
Thanks Travis! Yah I’m excited for the projects you’ve been building and the successes you’ve been having as well.
Great lessons learned from your experiences here – especially the lesson of simply taking action!
Thomas
Thanks Thomas
Hey Chris!
Congratulations on the continued success! It’s been a pleasure following you along your journey, purchasing your products, participating in your membership program, and overall, just getting to know you!
I wish you much more continued success!
All the best,
-Alex
Hey Alex, thanks for leaving a comment – appreciate it
Hey Chris, congrats mate. 3 years is massive in self employment where most people don’t make it past the first 6-12 months.
I’ve recently made the leap full time as well, I’m 6 months in and going strong. You’re right, it’s a massive weight lifted (though, I didn’t get fired and contrary to most people did actually like my old job).
$54k in a month is huge, care to share what one of those not so great months looks like now that you’ve setup all your systems?
Hey Josh, thanks – yah I suppose from that standpoint my business has lasted longer than many others that first get started so that’s a win by itself. Happy to hear you’re doing your own thing as well.
Well part of my problem is that I pay federal estimated quarterly payments and the way I track the income on my board now is that the month I pay my taxes in (which is always $XX,XXX) usually decimates a lot of my income for that month. I should probably be amortizing the tax payments over the months of that specific quarter but it’d require me to constantly update the monthly numbers on my board.
Worst month would have been below five figures (on one of the months when I had to pay taxes i.e. April)
Chris,
Great inspiration as always.
You have written that the biggest (or one of the biggest) boost for you was to go to a meetup or a convention of some sort. How important is it to connect with other people in this market? Do you also belong to a some sort of mastermind group?
How essential is it to your success?
I just want to know what steps to take to get my business to another level.
Thanks!
Hey Kris,
I think it was really important, but just going isn’t enough because when I went to these I already had an existing online income stream. If you don’t have that already it’s more difficult in my opinion.
I am in about 3 paid masterminds right now with varying levels of commitments for each one. One is paid, one is sort of paid (I paid to go to the conference and that gave me access to the mastermind) and the other is sort of paid – also related to a conference I attended.
I’ve thought about starting a smaller (sub 50 people) paid mastermind around something very specific – i.e. authority websites
But I know it’d be a lot of commitment for people / I’d kick them out if they weren’t keeping up type of thing.
Just not sure if I wanted to do that yet though.
Chris
Hi Chris,
It’s my first visit to your nice blog, and I’d like to say congratulations for the achievement.
I have a same question with Kris: do you also belong to a some sort of mastermind group?
I’m in 3 – all of which “technically” cost money to be a part of.
$50K+ in one month is big bucks Chris! Well done. Has it stayed consistent or is it cyclical? In the PF sphere, it’s pretty cyclical with summer being the worst 3-4 months.
Sam
Hey Sam, it really varies. I’ve had negative months because I bought a website for $10,000 (although I suppose technically that’s not a negative month since I’m buying an asset). Other down months might be when I’m spending thousands of dollars on software development etc. but usually it’s around $20k with very little of that coming from this blog.
Ultimately I’ve been able to make more money every single year since I lost my job nearly 4 years ago. I personally pay myself $10k per month (post tax) and use that to pay personal bills etc such as mortgage, food etc, a foolish car I shouldn’t have bought, and my wife’s student loans she knows she shouldn’t have gotten at $90k (but she’s not working anymore because I make more than enough for her not to), and I’ve been paying out of pocket for the remodel to our entire house (no construction loan). Sure I could have gotten a construction loan at a low interest rate to do the house so I could free up the capital to invest in other things or just my business but ah well I can’t change it now and I’m almost done.
I’ll have to hit you up re: your blog monetization I’d be happy to tell you some stuff you might not have tried that could help increase your income since that’s a chunk of what I also do for a living (analyze income potential of websites that I’d like to buy) in this case I’m not looking to buy your site of course but I’m always happy to help others earning money online.
I’ll follow up with an email.
Chris
I’d love to trade emails and chat Chris. Hit me up when you are free.
Cheers,
Sam