Business: is there Opportunity for Under Achievers
Not that I believe you or anyone else is an under achiever, it’s just a matter of perception.
What happens with most of us is we get drawn down into a downward spiral very quickly, leave school with not quite the qualifications we should have, drift into a job that does not pay enough and shortly afterwards the cycle starts, relationships, buying a home, children, redundancy, retirement and death. I am sure you understand this route to where you are now.
One key to a successful future is education, not the kind of education that is delivered by schools that will only ever get you so far, give me a BA hons in Life and People over anything.
If you are a highly educated Doctor/Surgeon or in another profession you will only ever get so far, after 5 years training you could expect to earn around £95,000 per year (with some GP’s earning 3 times that, source Wikipedia). Accountants – somewhere in the region of £70,000 after a similar time training and gaining experience. Source http://www.payscale.com/research/UK/Job=Chartered_Accountant/ Salary Payscale is an interesting site for comparing what you could or should be earning.
For many of these professions there are a lot doing the job for a lot less.
- Teachers for example earn around £27,000 in London for a first post/job.
Interesting salary’s are increased for a longer period of training.
3 Years or so for Teachers (salary around £27k) when compared with GP’s (around £95k).
From my perspective we should be taking careers advice from GP’s and not Teachers, you would certainly not take investment advice from someone who had no money.
Off topic a little now so let me pull it back. The clear fact is this, the more you learn, the more you earn. One of things I have always focused on is learning new skills (I rarely read fiction, only factual stuff, I also rarely watch any of the TV soaps, but watch a good number of documentaries). When I left School my income was average, and it stayed like this until I realised that all my employers wanted was more for less and I wanted more for less, the same just the other way round.
From there on in it was a grind, drifted from one job to another, then to a franchise (job I paid for) from there on in I managed to pick up some new skills and ended up with senior positions within Nationwide Building Society and Natwest Bank where I was for most of my mid 20′s and 30′s.
I was bored out of my mind but along the way I learned a load of new skills and moved forward, got divorced, had children later (I was 35 when my first child was born) and decided that working for someone was clearly not for me.
It was this simple, why trade my valuable time and skills for a limited wage and still struggle to have the cash I needed, as most people will tell you, there are far too many months without enough money (the word job is an acronym for Just over Broke, and that is what it feels like).
Forced change is never nice so I started to work towards working on my own business, back to self employment, earning my own money and being in control.
My first online business set up in 2001/2 www.2bigshoes.com I sold oversize Italian Shoes from size 10 and upwards, it was a reasonable success. Remember at the time, taking money online was damn near impossible. But it made money and of course I did not need to move from home to make it.
In those heady days I managed to learn a lot about this early technology and started to work with other small firms on their marketing and their online presence whilst working on my own business. During this time I was working on my knowledge and business in order to make the money I needed, whilst also watching my children grow up.
Whilst not earning a fortune, I was not working hard either, yes of course I could have worked harder an earned more than the GP or Accountant, but I was very happy with 50% of their income, only working 10 hours per week. It’s all about choices.
So why am I telling you this?
At some point in your life you will be faced with some choices, choices to move forward or not. Education (not the stuff they teach in Schools) is valuable, provided you take action with it, use it. Or you can sit back and take no action the choice is yours.
but before decide that change is not for you, take a look around at the people who surround you, those you work with, brothers and sisters, good friends. Now I am not saying that these are bad people.
But if you do the same as them, you will end with exactly the same for most suffering, and certainly not enjoying themselves every minute of the day (you can ask any commuter how they feel about the 3 hour grind to work).
Most of us don’t like change, most of us really can be bothered to learn any new skills, most of us don’t like new stuff. However the philosophy of the new rich is to take on board new skills, in new technology.
Mr Branson can’t fly planes but that does not mean he can’t manage a very successful airline, you don’t know how to use the internet to sell stuff, but that does not mean you can’t do it. Richard Branson did not know he could run an airline before he started it.
Not one of you could drive a car until you learned. My point is that education is the key to your future, the more you earn the more you learn. Which is why in all of the work I do with my clients are left knowing how to do new stuff which moves their businesses forward and they love it.
For those who are part of the various online groups I am involved with all get this learning stuff, and are enjoying fantastic lives. Others are still working for someone else and are miserable.
Your friends will tell you having your own business is not possible, that it’s not possible to make money online, that it’s not possible to learn how to be creative with your ideas and to learn marketing. The evidence is overwhelming against them, fact is I know loads who are. People just like you and me living extra ordinary lives and they seem to coast through it.
The choice is simple. There is a short video below of me talking about a recent seminar I went on. It’s true, I learned one thing that really does make me a lot of money, not everyday but often enough to be statistically important.
How about you, how is it going really? Do you understand that the world of the future is going to look different to the one we are in now. Are you going to take advantage?
As always I am happy to talk about any of the above, you can call me on 0845 226 9106.
Richard Smith