After being held in captivity for too long, animals released into the wild tend to die due to starvation or attack. They no longer know how to hunt for their own food or use their claws to fend off predators.
Are humans who've worked a day job all their lives like the animals we see at the zoo? Is the zoo keeper who brings out a bail of hay every day, the employer who cuts a bi-weekly paycheck? From what I've observed since leaving Corporate America in 2012, it sure seems that way.
When you're guaranteed a paycheck every month, unless you're making minimum wage, there's a natural tendency to stop thinking about other ways to make more money. Why do you think companies tend to cull older employees who no longer have the desire to hustle? I need all of you guys to guard against getting soft!
THE GUCCI ZOO OF AMERICA
If you've got a job in America, it's like having one of the cushiest jobs in the world, second only to those in Europe, where its difficult to fire anybody. We've seriously got it all here. And with the rise of the sharing economy, the zoo keepers are now throwing over extra slabs of ribeye for us all to feast!
My post on how I made over $100/hour driving for Uber was meant to show people three things:
- The importance of developing a platform to leverage.
- The importance of always trying new ways to make money.
- To make people realize they don't have to be stuck in a bad financial situation.
I could have used different angles to demonstrate these three things, but I just happen to be in my Uber experimentation stage. Life is a journey. Remember?
Telling people what to do is a big waste of time. Instead, it's better to just take action and let others come around if they want to follow. Developing a platform through a website is huge. From this site, I can rent out my vacation property, gain 1X1 consulting clients, sell a severance negotiate book, make new friends, find startup consulting jobs or earn Uber referral income. Now that is leverage!
I'm always trying to figure out new ways to make money because I completely realize everything is temporary. My job didn't last 20 years like I thought it would. The stock market isn't going to go up forever. Clients go out of business. And people die. In order to ensure my existing pipeline of multiple income streams continues into the future, I've got to develop new income streams NOW.
If your current financial situation sucks, please don't just passively accept your bad situation. I'm not too proud to experiment with close to minimum wage jobs or earn lower pay in a new field, and neither should you. Almost everybody starts at the bottom and must figure out a way to work their way up.
When I first started driving for Uber, I was making $28/hour. Now I'm at $42 – $49/hour gross after four months of testing. The increase is due to experimenting with different routes, times, and pick up strategies. Nobody handed me anything. I had to figure things out on my own.
MENTAL BLOCKS
The biggest net worth killer is a poor attitude. Here are some comments from my $100/hour Uber driving post that focus on the wrong side of things.
Very interesting. But are you forgetting the bite that the taxman taketh away? Isn’t take-home more like 63% or 75% of your total?
Unless you're regularly making over $250,000 a year, taxes shouldn't be a big factor in your decision to make extra money. I've seldom ever heard a discussion where people talk about net income instead of gross income. When news reports say the median MBA salary is $150,000 a year, they are talking gross salary. When economists talk about the median wage of $52,000 is down from the year 2000, they are talking gross. Everybody talks gross salary because it's a closer apples-to-apples comparison.
I’m a little disappointed the income wasn’t purely from driving from Uber, but good haul nonetheless.
Why would I want all the income to come from driving? Driving is hard work! I'd much rather have most of the income come more passively. Yes, active income is more enjoyable than passive income, but only up to a certain point. That point for optimal work is around 25 hours a week.
I guess 5 yrs at the earliest, for Google and Apple’s fleet of fully automatic self driving cars to arrive in 2020. What is Uber doing about this? Replacing it’s own Uber drivers with its own driverless self driving cars!
I suggest you take that fact into consideration before believing this good $100/hr pay is here to last over the long haul.
We should all be afraid of Skynet (from The Terminator), but give me a break. Before robots rule the world, reasonably intelligent people should figure out new ways to make money. Always be experimenting. Try and get on the disruption train instead of getting disrupted out of a job. Be willing to try new things because the good times will not last forever!
In my opinion, the readers' comments above represent mental blocks that may prevent them from making more money. There's always a “but” or an excuse somewhere as to why they can't make more. After millions of datapoints on my site over the years, only ~2% of people actually ever end up doing anything more than their usual.
MENTAL TRIUMPHS
On the flip side, here are some enlightening comments that are for sure going to result in much more income, and probably greater happiness over time.
My biggest takeaway from this post is to always position myself in an hourly wage mindset, rather than a salary wage mindset. This way I’m more motivated to be innovative in my time and find better ways to make money.
Exactly. Break down your precious time into hours. See how many hours you want to work and figure out a way to maximize those hours.
A hybrid way to think is by asking what side hustles you can complete while at your salaried job. Most people have a ridiculous amount of wasted time at the office. If you learn to be efficient at work you can up your hourly rate by finishing side hustles on the clock or during breaks while being more productive for the man.
Bingo. As one smart woman commented, “Most of us in corporate America actively “work” less than 25 hours a week but get paid for 40!” Use that extra time to hustle on something else.
I just had an interesting idea. Since I go out of town on business trips almost every week, and my rental car already paid for, it would cool if I could rent out my rental car to make side income.
This is how new businesses are formed. Everything starts with an idea. Then some tinkering. And then some full on execution.
Couldn’t agree more with the hourly vs salary mentality. I am fortunate (or unfortunate) to be doing both. Currently working corporate pharma for 40 hrs/wk while maintaining my side hustle as a locum pharmacist (hourly rate much higher than corporate). Get lots of vacation/stat holidays (5+ weeks) so sometimes I work on those days and get double income. I look at my corporate colleagues and most often they have no concept of how the other half works and sleeps. They have no idea how easy/lucky they have it as a salaried person.
Can we blame people who have no idea how the gig economy works if they've never tried making side-income? All we can do is show folks the other side of the world.
I’m doing something very similar to you, at least in regards to working extra hours on a side hustle. I’m in the process of getting a second job. It’s a work-at-home job (before anyone asks, no it’s not a scam and yes I did the research). It only pays 15 bucks an hour with no benefits, but I can work up to 29 hours/week. Pair that with my 40+ hours/week at my day job and the other passive income work I do, and I’m hoping to really supercharge my income.
Here's someone who is not taking his underpaid commercial banking job lying down. He's doing something about it!
Finally, here is an awesome comment from a reader after this post that perfect incapsulates a fantastic positive attitude about money!
My first reaction to Sam’s article about making over $100 per hour for Uber was “But that’s only because of the referral bonus, which is not part of your hourly rate, so that’s not really $100 per hour.”
Then I read some of Sam’s comments afterwards, and then I thought about it for a while, and I think he really has changed my attitude.
Let’s say I am able to make an extra $50 on the side of my day-job. Maybe I drove a tourist around town, or maybe I sold a piece of junk I found in the trash, or maybe the bank gave it to me for opening a new account, or whatever.
The ’employee’ would say “Yeah, but is that $50 sustainable? Can I rely on always making $50? If not, then it doesn’t count.”
The ‘contractor’ would say “Hey, cool, an extra $50. Now I’m $50 richer.”
You see, it doesn’t matter whether a source of income is sustainable, recurring, or stable. Nothing is sustainable in the long run. Over the course of our lives, we may get raises, pay cuts, bonuses, unexpected cost, all kinds of fluctuation in our cash flow, and then eventually we die, having made whatever net amount of money that is left over.
So it doesn’t matter whether I can ALWAYS make an extra $50, because nobody can always make anything. What matters that I DID make an extra $50.
DECIDE YOUR WORTH
Our jobs are going overseas. Our wages are getting compressed. Nobody is clicking banner ads anymore. We can either adapt, complain, or suffer. I choose not to suffer, but to adapt! To work while others are playing. To experiment when people think such a job is beneath them.
Develop a stronger attitude if you want financial freedom. As soon as you start happily expecting your food to be thrown over the fence every day at noon, it's game over. Don't let your mind grow as soft as your growing belly. Having a positive attitude is at least half the battle!
Related:
How Much Should My Net Worth Be By Income?
The Average Net Worth For The Above Average Person
Recommendation
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Updated for 2020 and beyond.
This underpaid commercial banker thanks you for the shout out! ;)
I actually started the second job a week ago and it’s been pretty good so far. I’m going to see how far it takes me and I’m honestly pretty excited.
Reading about how bloggers start out making pennies and become successful after persevering where others quit gives me hope for Angry Retail Banker. I enjoy what I do, especially since complaining about my job and typing up long posts about stuff on the Internet are two things I’ve always done a lot. So I think I’ve got a LOT more in the tank to keep going. I prefer spending my time on side hustles than being in servitude to my employer for the rest of my life.
Sincerely,
ARB–Angry Retail Banker
With can-do mentality, people can do anything. Positive minds really have huge impact on how far people can go. That’s what we all need. There is no limit!
Cheers!
BSR
My first reaction to Sam’s article about making over $100 per hour for Uber was “But that’s only because of the referral bonus, which is not part of your hourly rate, so that’s not really $100 per hour.”
Then I read some of Sam’s comments afterwards, and then I thought about it for a while, and I think he really has changed my attitude.
Let’s say I am able to make an extra $50 on the side of my day-job. Maybe I drove a tourist around town, or maybe I sold a piece of junk I found in the trash, or maybe the bank gave it to me for opening a new account, or whatever.
The ’employee’ would say “Yeah, but is that $50 sustainable? Can I rely on always making $50? If not, then it doesn’t count.”
The ‘contractor’ would say “Hey, cool, an extra $50. Now I’m $50 richer.”
You see, it doesn’t matter whether a source of income is sustainable, recurring, or stable. Nothing is sustainable in the long run. Over the course of our lives, we may get raises, pay cuts, bonuses, unexpected cost, all kinds of fluctuation in our cash flow, and then eventually we die, having made whatever net amount of money that is left over.
So it doesn’t matter whether I can ALWAYS make an extra $50, because nobody can always make anything. What matters that I DID make an extra $50.
Thanks Sam.
I’m very happy to read this Todd! WTG! This is exactly the attitude I’m talking back that will help you and others with similar attitudes go farther.
I found I was so focused on making it in my career out of college that I pretty much had blinders on to the rest of the world. I was more concerned about career than money. Once I realized that the business I was in was changing I stepped back for the first time to look outward on what other people were doing and discovered a world where people wanted to pay me a lot more and it gave me freedom to think and act for myself. All of a sudden I didn’t have a career I had a future that I controlled full of investment money which made me think as an entrepreneur instead of a 9-5 worker.
Great post. The difference between financial independence, and being a wage slave / dependent is really just attitude / hustle. All you need to do is try something new that is outside of your bubble and comfort zone. No need to be the smartest person in the room, the hardest working, invent a new product, or work 120 hours a week. There are endless opportunities. I meet Uber drivers who earn $80k + a year. Cleaners and painters making $70k, all well above the average wage. I also know administrative type staff in Finance companies making $45k a year. Because they are following what society tells them is the right way to live life.
Some people are terrified of failure, so just won’t try something new. Others are too lazy due to TV, drugs, etc. Others again prefer get-rich-quick / the easy button and continually fail in making the next million.
We aren’t taught the importance of attitude enough in our schooling. We aren’t taught that multiple failures when trying something new, will more likely lead to success and fabulous wealth, that never trying at all. Building wealth is easy, just try new things that can generate money, don’t steal or cheat, and don’t get discouraged if something doesn’t work out the first time.
Your comment reminds me of this post:
Do You Make As Much As A Union Worker Electrician?
Most people don’t!
Awesome post as usual.
I started a website as a hobby back in 2008. For several years it was barely paying for itself. It now represents 20% of my total monthly income. Hustling, not giving up, working extra hard when everybody else is having fun, this is the path to success.
Excellent post! I definitely agree that one must always find side hustles to supplement their income. It is never safe to become complacent! Myself personally, I have days where I’m exhausted from work, but it comes with the territory of being a physician. Last month, I was able to work 3.2 weeks (regular job and moonlighting) followed by a nice 6 day vacation with the family, and made $17K. Only $2K was spent on vacation. The rest went towards the good stuff (i.e., high-yield savings accounts, tax-advantage brokerage account with Vanguard, etc.). I contribute towards my 401K, ROTH IRA, and HSA from my regular salary. This month I’ll have cleared $12K by the end of the week, because I’ve taken more days off when compared to last. But it never hurts to supplement your income. Stay focused, stay motivated, and never greedy!
I’m asking this with zero snark. How can you contribute to a Roth IRA with a physician’s income? I’m sure I make less than you do, but I’m over the income limit.
Perhaps a Backdoor Roth IRA.
Yes, via a backdoor ROTH IRA.
Impressive. I’m still trying to build up a pretax monthly haul of >$15,000. There is such a wide range of physician incomes depending on your specialty. Obviously, the higher paid specialties do command either a higher level of training or higher stress.
But, it is indeed easy to become complacent if you are in an employed position instead of being your own boss.
Re: taxes
I always find it funny when people say taxes dissuade them from trying to earn more, the fact that you are paying more taxes means you are making more money!
Exactly! But if you are killing yourself to make more than $200,000 a year and are not happy, then stop striving so hard. A 28% / 33% marginal Federal tax rate + state income tax makes earning much more less worthwhile.
Thought provoking post, Sam. I’m in my fifties, currently not in employment and, believe me, trying to get back into corporate with the kind of salary and benefits packages that they bring is pretty damn hard. I can name a dozen white collar, senior management blokes in the same position as I am (and we’re all European, so don’t believe the hype. We still have redundancies!) Having a positive attitude is vital and you have to keep your options open. You also have to pretty much forget about your past record while remembering the skills that delivered it. Pride is a big hurdle. It’s hard to be a Board Director in January and be driving a taxi for a living in July -but it’s only your outlook and attitude that will get you past that.
Hi Jim! I didn’t realize there were such a thing as redundancies in Europe! Yes, it is very humbling to fall from such lofty position, but it’s important not to let pride get in the way of progress! Even if progress and starting over and hustling to make ends meet.
I used to go to my day job, come home, eat dinner, and just want to watch TV all evening. I felt I needed that time to unwind. What I later realized is I was watching almost 40 hours a week – practically the equivalent of the number of hours I was working. I was addicted pretty bad. I could have been using that time so much more productively and thankfully started to kick the habit. Nowadays I use TV time as an occasional reward but have lost a lot of interest in it. I feel much better about using my extra time to pick up new projects and freelance. Being productive is a great feeling – even if I’m not making a ton of money per hour, it’s money I wouldn’t have at all if I wasn’t taking action.
I remember the times of your TV addiction! Now, doesn’t it feel so weird so wasteful to watch TV when we could be producing something? I feel this way all the time, which is why I try to do something when the tube is on.
For example, I like to do push-ups and set ups when I watch football or basketball. Or I like to apply to incubators applications or jobs online that might take a long time. One incubator application took about 2 1/2 hours to complete. It was perfect because the football game typically last about 3 to 3 1/2 hours.
I feel really really stupid if I just spent 3 1/2 hours washing TV and doing nothing else.
“When you’re guaranteed a paycheck every month, unless you’re making minimum wage, there’s a natural tendency to stop thinking about other ways to make more money.”
So true, Sam. And I’m never falling into that trap again. That’s why I’m earning income from investments, blogging, freelance writing, and social media consulting. In the future? Rental income. Relying solely on the income from one job is an incredibly risky move.
Nice job! At some point you will notice this crossover point when it comes to side jobs becoming a significant portion of your overall income. That is when you gain even more momentum because you get more motivated to hustle. Eventually you’ll be free to do whatever you want and that is a priceless feeling.
Great article- I have always had ‘3 jobs” starting at age 11 lol — even sold printed Christmas cards door to door and loved it when I was in elementary school – along w working at the local penny candy flower shop ! How do you make $100 gen y finance guy on 1000 followers? Clicking on a sponsored link like Uber might get you $40 but unless you’re selling a product w an online store ? Or a blog w multiple ads that would send you commissions – IF the person actually buys the product? I am convinced I can do this I just get overwhelmed by which way to focus – look at fiver for example — can you believe there are so many talented starving extremely talented artists and graphic designers out there willing to work for $5.00 to produce a fantastic logo or design a website? I noticed that quite a few are over seas – nonetheless extremely talented and know their way around the web – making it so inexpensive to get started -,so the next step is with what and what direction? And when a company gets lazy and rests on their laurels there is plenty of room for an entrepreneur to take it to the next level. I am currently starting a new “side” business myself – and am determined to find multiple streams of passive income — I have a Masters in Education – not an MBA and trying to learn my way around the financial world is difficult w so much information coming at me I could spend 24/7 trying to play catch up. That’s why I read this blog -,to try to understand what makes Financial sense and is feasible for those of us who spent our working careers in other fields
@ East CoastBC
There are many ways to monetize from an online platform. You touched on a few like affiliate links, ads, digital products, coaching, freelancing, etc. Sam has done all of those and probably more.
It doesn’t happen over night and takes time…Sam can attest to that, as he has been at this thing for something like 6 years now. Like you money compounds in the market, so does your effort online.
At first it may appear that you are making little to no significant progress…which is why so many people quit. They don’t understand the Slight edge (power of compounding). You see to the untrained eye there isn’t much noticeable difference in the person who does nothing to earn extra money and the one who is hustling. But because compounding is exponential and not linear, if you stick with it, one day you will wake up and look like an overnight success.
See my favorite image below that sums this up nicely.
A personal example for my blog. I made pennies during my first 6 months of blogging ($2.73 to be exact), and then earned $804.29 during the next 6 months. Still nothing to write home about…but that is still 300X more in the 2nd 6 months. Imagine what is possible in other 6 months and then in 6 years.
Cheers!
Fiver is interesting. It’s all about the upsell. You may pay five bucks to get a project done but then the artist or freelance will ask whether you want XYZ for $10 to $20 more. Again having the entrepreneurial mindset is so much different from the full-time employee mindset.
As Gary Vaynerchuck would say “always be hustling.”
There are infinite permutations to make additional money in the world we live in today. I think creating a platform to create leverage and scale is one of the best things someone can do right now. Just don’t forget your ABC’s (Always Be Creating).
You never really have to worry about competition because most people are lazy and will quit in the dip (Seth Godin reference). The internet made the 1,000 true fans a reality, meaning that all you need is 1,000 loyal followers in your tribe to make a decent living online. Collect $100 for 1,000 fans you just earned $100,000.
The internet has squashed the normal distribution curve, and now makes it economically feasible to get rich in just about any niche.
But in order to take advantage of it you have to spend more time creating change then complaining about change.
Fortunes favor the action taker. Always have and always will.
Cheers,
Dominic
p.s. Regarding banner ads. I know you say people don’t click them anymore…at least not as much as they used to. But honestly I am still so surprised that they click then at all. I can’t help but wonder who those people are that click on my banner ads.
People click ads, but it’s more like 1% or maybe 2%. Therefore you need massive traffic to be able to monetize a banner ad. With the rise of ad blocking software even less people click at banner ads because I can’t see yo people click better ads, but it’s more like 1% or maybe 2%. Therefore you need massive model traffic to be able to monetize a banner ad. With the rise of ad blocking software even less people click at banner ads because they can’t see it. Business is always evolving and it’s best to continue experimenting and trying new things before you get crushed out of existence.
Testing, experimenting, hustling, feeling the acute pain of loss and the triumph of victory are the greatest things for lunch partner. If you work a day job and do the same thing every day you will have no idea how to fend for yourself in the wild. The difference is incredibly Stark.
I wonder how many of those 1-2% are clicking the ads on accident. It is easy to fumble around with your mobile phone and click a banner on accident. Some anti-ad-blocking software are making things a bit better for advertisers. Hulu’s ads are difficult to block. I wonder how much they pay their software engineers to keep circumventing the latest ad-blocking software updates.
I completely agree that it is all about attitude. I can come up with an excuse to not do anything but finding away to talk yourself out of everything doesn’t make you better off. Instead it hinders your growth. My side gigs are lacking at the moment but it is an area that I am shooting to improve over the next 6 months to a year.
One of the best strategies to get started is to just wake up very early, like at 5 AM. Once the alarm goes off get up don’t snooze or sleep in. Just get up and get going. Over time you will run circles around your competitors because you’ve got a one hour to three hour Headstart it’s a no-brainer .
Especially on the weekends! Sleeping in on your ‘days off’ can easily waste 6-8 productive hours over your weekend. You could fit an entire side hustle in those hours. Even if you just drive for Uber those 6-8 extra hours, you can make $200 (even more if you leverage a network for referrals like Sam). You could start a blog or a small side business in those hours. If you really want to get ahead of everyone around, you should wake up early on weekends and get hustlin!
Even if you are not trying to get ahead. I feel so much better when I wake up early on the weekends. It means more time to spend with loved ones, enjoying the weekend weather, and spending time on hobbies or doing something you love. Too much sleep is the secret enemy of a happy life! :)