One of the things I wish I learned like 20 plus years ago was to never trade you time for money. When I was 14 and just barely old enough to work I was working as a dishwasher, prep cook and anything else I could do. Even though I learned that working full time is "noble" the ugly fact is that for most "paupers" its nothing more than a mouse on a treadmill.
Basically, when it comes to making money its either "active" or "passive". Do you work for the money or does it work for you.. I learned the "active" very early on and did it well.
However, a bit later in life I learned that was the foolish way at least for me. Unless, you get in on a pre - ipo company early on or get a C-Level role I just don't see why anyone would want to do 40 years as an employee after I had few challenges.
My attitude was changed abruptly after one bad "employee experience" years ago. I made a decision that fighting for a job was not worth it. I flat out had it and started researching what the "Smart" money does and even went to a Tony Robbins event..
My attitude changed not because I was greedy but because I realized time is precious and non transferable.
I basically wanted to ensure I had plenty of time to spend with my five year old daughter and being a pre sales architect, professional services engineer or FT technical trainer would not work. (No control over your life.)
Even though recently I went thru several interviews with companies like AWS and Palo Alto the fact is that the time for deflationary pay vs trade off is foolish, The reality is when they say "dance bubba" its really "freakin dance bubba".. Expectations for most roles are insane as well.
Can you Java with that ITIL document and then perhaps travel 75% plus.. Your off week is really a market event event week...LOL:)
The job market in IT is contracting not expanding Honestly, it just plain sucks..
The $140K or so a year is somewhat less than what I was making 10 years ago.. Its deflationary plus the influx of cheap foreign labor, technology advances, financial engineering its just not rewarding to be commuting or "getting into a slug line.. Its a sad life and you know most folks if they admit would everyday hate it.
Taking Action and Responsibility for my life. I started numerous ways to avoid having to work for the "man".
Even though I would be happy to do something I liked doing most roles in Info Tech especially with "Cloud" or "Data Storage" like AWS, EMC, VMWare, etc are essentially "wage deflationary" and overly stressing now. You may make the same for the last 5 years with decreasing benefits, higher cost of living, etc. Good for some people I guess just not for me.
So action had to be taken.. Its basically "do or die" a slave..
Here is a run down of some of the ways I create hundreds if not thousands per month in "Passive" cash flows.
Real Estate businesses -- About 10 years ago I become a real estate agent and a property manager. Created a PM business that had over 50 properties at the times.. Grossing and for that matter netting thousands a month all while playing professional services and pre sales architect for numerous companies. I still own the business and its hands off but I realized that its just too much headaches and there much easier ways to make money. You just getting tired of dealing with headaches. This is in the process of being sold off in two months.
Real Estate Referrals - Yes, as a licensed broker its easy to get business and just refer it out. Last year I had 4 referrals which paid for our Peru trip and my daughters school.
Neil has done amazing work for my customers so if your looking in Northern Virginia please reach out to him.
http://www.dwellus.com/agent/neil-evans/
Udemy- Easy way to create courses and market them. Do this from anywhere and get paid monthly.. I have over 8 courses and will add 1 per month.
https://www.udemy.com/google-cloud-certified-professional-architect-bootcamp/?couponCode=GCPSTEEMIT2018
Linkedin Learning - Newer learning platform for me so its hard to gauge if its profitable. Clearly, the name recognition is certainly there for me. The producers have been amazing to work with.
https://www.linkedin.com/learning/amazon-web-services-analysis
YouTube.. Its a fairly time consuming process to maintain it and clearly not much revenue from videos. However, Youtube is great for referrals to my courses and for my other links (Amazon Associates and Cryptosites.)
INE.com - This is a newer site for me and so far they have been great to deal with.
https://streaming.ine.com/c/ine-google-gcp-paas-app-engine
Genesis Mining Get rewarding for using the Crypto mining service. No need to get mining equipment.. Easy "As a Service" approach..
https://www.genesis-mining.com/a/1023226
LendingClub- This is a Peer to Peer lending platform. You invest and collect your dividends around 6% to 8% per month. This is about as risky as Ill get.
Contract Training and Consulting - Ive been certainly veering away from contract training...too many bad apples in my opinion. Here is my past article on the subject.
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/training-provider-shenanigans-advice-contract-joseph/
Ill likely start my own training company or just stay consulting on gigs that meet my requirements than do contract training.
Other Cash flows.. I also use numerous other sites and always looking for a new ICO to participate or another cash flow stream. Right now I am invested in "UCash" and several other ICOs. https://u.cash/
Id love to hear what you all are doing as well so please comment or reach out directly. Thanks for reading..
Joe Holbrook
The Cloud Tech Guy
