In this service like in many others, the better you are, the more clients you obtain. This is great for making money. However, the more people that want you to work with them means more time spent writing emails, answering phone calls, fixing problems, and much more. As you grow the problems become increasingly difficult and the time to solve these problems become significantly shorter. I have nothing against construction or the service industry, I have just had a realization that I do not want to live a lifestyle where I can be on call when I am finished work, on vacation, enjoying the weekend, or many of the other activities that I love. I am 25 years old and I do not want to be in a constant state of stress until I retire.
In the best engineering firms people work 50-80 hours a week to keep up with their clientele. I have realized that working this many hours from 25 to 60 will leave me very little time to explore the beautiful world we live in. Since realizing this is not for me, I have started to read every book I can get my hand on that involves entrepreneurship. For the last year I have been educating myself by reading philosophy, biographies of influential people, and instructional books to help me achieve my goals.
In the last month and a half I was introduced to man name Timothy Ferriss. This man has become my idol. He is the man I would like to be. I started listening to his podcast and then listened to his book "The 4-Hour Work Week". This book clicked with me on a level that I never expected. This man lives a life that I have dreamed of since childhood. By the time I finished his book I realized that I wanted to emulate his life path.
This book did a great job breaking down product based companies, but did little in the way of automating a service industry. I have my own thoughts on how to do that, but that will be for another post. In this book he writes about something called "Muses". These are small side ventures that sell a product and do so an efficient manner. This allows the owner of the "Muse" to spend as little time on it as possible while obtaining the largest outcome possible.
This is what I plan on doing. The reason for me writing this post at all is to mark the beginning of this journey. I have found a product that I would like to sell. This is the early stages so I will not spill the beans as to what product is, but I will say that it has something to do with my obsession with beach volleyball. This is my first time ever starting a business. It is also the first time I will be experimenting with selling a product. I am out of my mind nervous, but I have never been more excited.
My goal for LifeDesign's page is to be my public journal. This page will be my personal business journal. I will be sharing everything that is happening in my business. I will share the excitement I feel, the obstacles I face, and hopefully the success I have. This business very well may fail, but I know that if I don't get over my fear of failing I will never live the life I dream of. Hopefully if this fails then I find out what I did wrong, put myself together and go find another product that I could possibly sell.
If you read this and I have sparked any interest please leave me a comment. I would love to read any insights that you may have or and suggestions as to how to make my writing more appealing.
I truly hope that this posts and the ones to come will inspire not deter and that they will promote action instead of inaction. I am so excited for what the future holds.
-Stephen S.