How I Broke The Chains Of Corporate Slavery, Gave Myself A Raise And Cut My Stress

Don’t Skim This Post: As we move into the “stop settling for less, start changing your life” theme of this blog, I’m going to talk about finance for a while, because it’s really, really hard to focus on improving your life when you’re stressed about the bills. Let’s talk about how to start reducing that stress today.

Longtime readers will know that even though the bulk of my blogger friends are full-time freelancers, I’m not one of them. In fact, “firing my boss” isn’t on my real list of priorities at all. And since I know that a huge portion of my readers are freelancers, that’s probably going to come off as heresy – “What? Office life is hell!” I hear … “No, no, no … working for “the man” is for suckers!”

Frankly, I’m a little bit tired of people getting on a high horse about “Corporate America” and how soulless it is, and how being your own boss is the One True Path to salvation. Like most extremes, it’s flawed because it assumes that everyone in the world has the same goals, the same opportunities, the same circumstances. But don’t tell that to some people. They’ll burn you at the stake (but I’m not naming names).

Wake up, people. There’s nothing wrong with working for “the man.” I’ve worked for the biggest of the big as well as small startups for over a decade, and it’s given me opportunities to do things that most people will never do (and play with cutting-edge gadgets so expensive I’d have to change my identity and run away if I broke them). I like my day job in the tech sector. It’s got a lot to offer.

But what it doesn’t offer is merit-based raises that I can live with – and that’s stressful.

Why Letting Other People Choose Your Salary Enslaves You

You know what really sucks? To work your ass off all year and then hear “Sorry, money is tight. There’s no raises for anyone this year.” Or to have a boss downplay your achievements and award you a weak raise on a whim. Or to have inflation drive prices up … and have your salary stay flat. It’s frustrating sucks, and feels completely unfair. Why should your salary be some crap shoot?

This is probably the number one reason people jump ship from the corporate world – but that doesn’t make freelancers immune to it, either. I’ve heard more stories about bad clients who won’t pay someone what they’re worth, or how the economy or some other factor is pushing rates down than I ever wanted to hear. But whether your corporate salary or your freelance rates are flat, it all comes down to one thing – you’re letting somebody else control how much income is streaming into your life.

And that’s dangerous.

To let other people control how much you’re worth is one of the most sinister forms of slavery. Earlier this year I decided I’d had enough, I broke my chains, and I’m never looking back – and I did it with no risk to myself, my day job, or my mortgage at all. And if you’re not getting paid what you’re worth, I’ll show you how to do it, too.

How Tiny Multiple Streams Of Income Saved My Bacon

Most people don’t start their own business because they worry about how tough it will be, or think they’ll have to quit their day job to find the time.  But I didn’t believe it had to be that way.  I took what I had, at the place where I was in life, and focused on generating small, manageable streams by waking up early, or sitting in my car on my lunch hour, working on my own stuff.

I did a little eBay (and my wife did, too). I did some phone and email coaching. I made an ebook and tried to sell it (with mixed success, though I got much better at it this year). I was making $50, $100, $200 a month, and it was sporadic, but it was something. And something is damned important when you have 3 kids, a mortgage, and a job in an industry that’s feeling the crunch more than many others (tech companies close down at the drop of a hat).

I’m like a lot of you – I spent far too long living paycheck to paycheck, worrying like hell what would happen if another one of my employers closed down, or if the hot water heater needed replacing, or market demand for my job went away. It’s unbelievably stressful, and I think you probably know how that feels. It’s slavery again – having your fate be at the whim of circumstances that you have no direct control over.

In a lot of ways, that $50 or $100 a month saved me from financial disaster. When my clutch went out, ($640) or when an unexpected tax bill came in ($150), those little chunks of income saved me (since most of my credit cards were maxed out). Since I was working multiple angles at the same time – eBay, the coaching, the ebook – if I had a bad month with one, the other streams picked up the slack.

And every so often, we’d come up ahead and could actually do something nice, like go to the beach with the kids for a weekend (though admittedly my wife’s eBay earnings were more responsible for the fun stuff). There’s just no way to describe just how much stress melts away when you can give yourself a raise – even as little as 5% a month. 5% is huge when you’re living paycheck-to-paycheck.

How I Grew Those Tiny Multiple Streams Of Income Into Bigger Ones

At the end of last year, I realized that I was hitting a wall with my side businesses. I wasn’t sure how to grow them past the few-hundred-dollars-a-month level, and I really, really wanted to cut back the hours and spend more time with my family. So I started looking around for freelancers who were really good at business-building, who could advise me on how to streamline what I was doing.

I started taking advice from people like James and Harry at Men with Pens, Naomi Dunford of Ittybiz, Michael Martine of Remarkablogger, Christine O’Kelly of Self Made Chick, and Sonia Simone of Remarkable Communication. I asked them what to do to so that I could work fewer hours on my side business, make more money, and protect myself from a fickle economy.

They showed me. They helped me find opportunities. They taught me how to take the streams of income I already had and build them into bigger ones – without killing myself with crazy hours. And at this point, I’m averaging around the four-figures-a-month mark, and it was all because of hanging around people who could tell me better ways of doing things. Credit cards are being paid off. Vacations are being taken. I’m able to take my family out to Olive Garden and not worry that my kids will choose something that costs more than $3.99.

I’m not rich – not even close. But I’m not stressed about money anymore. That’s huge. If my company closed today, I now know how to pay the mortgage and the power bill while I find a new job. That’s a gift I’m unbelievably grateful for.

What You Need To Do Right Now If You Want To Give Yourself A Raise

If you want to take the stress out of your life and give yourself the a raise you deserve, you need to spend more time listening to people who will teach you how to take control of your circumstances. People who are experts at teaching someone how to go from $50 a month to $500, $1000 or more. Not the scammy, hype-ridden, get-rich quick internet marketing crowd, but the real people who have started from scratch and built their business up month after month without doing anything shady to make it happen. :

The best thing you can do right now is listen to Naomi Dunford’s short video on how to give yourself a raise using 6 web-based income streams that you can start making money on this month. I’ve used 5 of these streams this year, and Naomi’s personally coaching me on the 6th. Good times.

So forgive the big link below, but I know some people will scan right down to the end of this post and skip everything I spent the last hour typing. Here goes:

Hey Skimmers:  Click Here If You Want Naomi
To Tell You 6 Ways To Give Yourself A Raise
Without Selling Out Or Working Yourself To Death.

Yay. Big link out of the way. I hope you clicked it.

More soon on how I’m using what Naomi taught me to – gasp! - actually start putting money in my savings account for once.  Enjoy the video.