Last week, I laid out the timeline of events that led to me leaving the public sector. For anyone looking to make a quick buck, I don’t recommend freelancing as the way. Maybe you should focus on flipping worthless crypto shitcoins before they burst. But anyway, my focus has been on writing, and I am glad for this. Writing is recession-proof, always in high demand, and is relatively easy to learn.

Also, speaking native English is the ultimate hack. English is the language of money, period.

Just a little bit of success changes your mindset entirely

As long as you don’t let it go to your head, having some level of monetary success completely shifts your mindset. I know for a fact that I will figure out a way to continue growing beyond where I’m at now, even though there will for sure be setbacks.

Don’t worry; I’m going somewhere with this.

When I took the plunge two years ago, we were not ready. Not even by any stretch of the imagination. To be honest, I don’t know what in the hell we were thinking.

We had practically zero dollars in savings, and my clients were not really producing.

What we did have was a fairly steady income stream coming from my wife’s hustle. But that bubble burst shortly after I resigned.

That’s right.

Her checks were steadily in the $5k-$8k range, so we weren’t worried. At first, my only goal was to make the mortgage which was around $1,700 per month at the time.

But here is where our journey veered off: her checks dropped as soon as I quit, and I mean that month. A lot. Since they were directly tied to the company and not her output in terms of sales, there wasn’t much we could do about it.

Lesson 1: save money

This brings me to my first and most important lesson: stash cash. Hoard the stuff. Don’t spend anything on anything. Seriously. You need to have thousands in savings. Seriously.

We had basically nothing. Time for some #real talk: we had like a grand in savings. Maybe. So stupid. But we had seen all this money reliably come in from my wife’s work, so we were basically spending like carefree idiots.

Times had always been tough for us. We were always living just a few dollars from empty, which is a terrible way to live your life. I regularly had to scrounge for cash and change or use a credit card for gas money the day or two before payday just to get to work.

Don't walk with no savings unless you are actively getting pushed out the door. Stick it out a little longer and pad your savings account. Those first months are really hard.

Lesson 2: lower your standard of living, at least for a while

Going along with lesson 1, set yourself up for future successes by lowering your standard of living today. No, I don’t mean living an impoverished lifestyle (unless you’re into that sort of thing).

But ditch the SXS that has a $400 per month payment. Get rid of the jet skis. And if you have a steep car payment, I suggest you find a way to ditch it and buy a car with cash. Yes, I know this is basically Dave Ramsey’s plan, but he is a mega-millionaire for a reason.

And remember: Statistically speaking, entrepreneurship is the fastest way to wealth. You need to cut costs to make it in the beginning. The funny thing is that now that I have the means to buy what I used to think I wanted, I don’t even care. I spend way less money now than I did when I was broke. It is a mindset shift.

In the beginning, cut your costs as low as you can. This might even mean leaving a high-cost-of-living location for a low one. Location arbitrage is a real thing. Kansas City, Oklahoma City, and other decent midwestern cities are about half the cost of living of the coastal hubs, with no shortage of amenities.

Lesson 3: don’t burn bridges

We can talk all day about trudging through until we make it, but many of you won’t. You will fail along the way.

If this happens, you will need to go back to work. Don’t see this as an indictment! It might be just for a period so you can get back on your feet. Or you may realize that the stress of being self-employed is too much for you. And that is fine! You can live a great life working for someone else; most people do. But you might have learned a few things that make you better at that, or you have started a hustle that couldn’t sustain you full-time but is great on the side.

Those are total wins!

Parting thoughts

When you decide to check out of the rat race, please remember this: it is not all wine and roses. Most people fail. Some fail spectacularly. Prepare yourself for the fact that you may end up back in the workforce someday. You might not even enjoy working for yourself; some people need to be instructed. I had a guy who would not motivate himself, and I had to walk him through every day. I wish I could say that is the exception, but I don’t think so.

But if you are determined to do that, you must prepare yourself better than I did. I succeeded through sheer grit and determination, but if I could return, I would be smarter about things.

Next week I’m wrapping this up with a talk about how to scale up. If you are struggling with getting out of the cycle of low-pay gig work, you’ll want to read it.

Also, if you need help just getting over the hump of either getting yourself on the market, coming up with something that works, or figuring out how to raise your rates, check out my one-on-one consulting so we can get you stacking cash.