{"id":8020,"date":"2010-02-10T05:00:45","date_gmt":"2010-02-10T12:00:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/getrichslowly.org\/blog\/?p=8020"},"modified":"2023-10-02T16:21:09","modified_gmt":"2023-10-02T22:21:09","slug":"outsourcing-life-unconventional-advice-for-when-youre-financially-secure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.getrichslowly.org\/outsourcing-life-unconventional-advice-for-when-youre-financially-secure\/","title":{"rendered":"Outsourcing life: Unconventional advice for when you’re financially secure"},"content":{"rendered":"
You’ve pulled yourself out of debt, are saving a reasonable amount of income for your retirement, have built an emergency fund, and your daily needs are easily met with your income. Congratulations!<\/i> Now what?<\/p>\n
That’s exactly where I was in 2007. I sold my business and generated a huge windfall \u2014 over a million dollars. I paid off all my debt. And then I looked around and said, “Oh, crap.”<\/p>\n
I had absolutely no idea what to do with my money. Previously, any extra money I’d earned was immediately stuffed back into my business, and I had been running deficits nearly everywhere. This was the first time in my adult life I’d ever had my head above water, financially speaking.<\/p>\n
Over the next three months, I proceeded to blow over $50,000. Oh, don’t get me wrong \u2014 it was fun!<\/em> I bought a new car<\/a> (that I still drive), some really beautiful artwork from artists I loved (that looks great on my walls), and thousands of dollars in clothes, new furniture, and other indulgences, such as $4,000 custom hand-made stereo speakers (that I’m listening to right now.)<\/p>\n It was fun…for a couple months. Then it got boring.<\/p>\n Like many lottery winners, I spiraled into depression. The business I had spent six years of my life building was gone. I felt adrift \u2014 like I had no purpose. Despite having been “successful”, no one knew who I was. I had marginalized most of my personal relationships in favor of growing my business and working myself to death. And money wasn’t going to buy me out of the situation.<\/p>\n Slowly, I pulled myself out of my depression. I realized I had the opportunity to make myself into anyone I wanted to be. I could do anything I wanted. I had complete freedom. The thought was both exhilarating and terrifying.<\/p>\n I bought a shelf full of self-help books and read them all, relentlessly seeking to answer the many questions I had. Some of them were philosophical, like “What made me successful when so many others have failed?” Some were practical, like “How do I invest my money?” But all of them led back to one deeper question: “What should I do to be happy?” I soon realized the latter question was incorrect. The better question was, “Who should I be<\/em> to be happy?”<\/p>\n In December 2007, I started blogging. I exposed a significant amount of my business life and thoughts. I wrote about my successes and my mistakes and failures.<\/a> I enjoyed writing, doing videos, and interacting with my readers. Helping others figure out their purpose, their businesses, and their websites and blogs was a fantastic experience.<\/p>\n I made a point of trying to achieve greater states of happiness on a daily basis. Instead of being merely content \u2014 or even apathetic \u2014 with my current state of being, I realized I could be happier daily. And suddenly it hit me: I understood what I wanted to do with my money. I wanted to outsource pretty much everything I hated doing.<\/b><\/p>\n In order to live a simpler, calmer, but more effective life, I had to drop the shackles of wanting to do everything myself. To allow time to meditate, think, write, and create, I had to get rid of the drudgery of daily tasks. I realized my money could serve a fantastic dual purpose: To allow others, whose passion is cooking, cleaning, or assisting in various ways to help me \u2014 while I supported them by giving them income to do what they loved.<\/p>\n My life fundamentally changed that day. I started hiring people to do everything I didn’t want to do. The first step was to hire a cleaning service. Then I hired a personal assistant to work out of my house, filing papers, doing laundry, and organizing. I hired virtual assistants<\/a> to do all the menial tasks I hated doing: bookkeeping; video editing; audio editing; even setting up my Facebook fan page. (Lisa, my VA who set up the Facebook page for me, said happily: “I can’t believe I get paid to do this!” And I realized…we’re both<\/em> lucky.)<\/p>\n I wake up in the morning and my VAs have sent me their updates. I am building a business where I create how-to videos for small business owners and bloggers who want to drive more traffic to their sites and get more customers.<\/p>\n I learned meditation, and currently spend about 40 minutes a day relaxing. I also spend a few hours a day doing the parts of my business I love, from creating videos to writing to programming. When I walk down to the kitchen, it’s clean; Elia, my housekeeper<\/a>, comes in every week to make sure it’s spotless. She spends 2 hours cleaning our kitchen; total cost to me: $30.<\/p>\n My VA in the Philippines edits my videos and does a fantastic job for $3.33\/hour.<\/p>\n Whenever I do an interview with another entrepreneur, I send it to another VA in the Philippines, who, for $9\/hour, edits it perfectly, getting rid of all the strange pauses and “um”s. I send the edited interview off to a transcriptionist. For less than $30, I get back an excellent transcription, often 12-16 pages long.<\/p>\n Lisa, my VA here in the U.S., has set up an entire website and integrated it with a shopping cart for my customers to order products and access them once they have ordered. She charges $30\/hour (my most expensive staff member) and she’s worth every penny.<\/p>\n I treat my staff members well, and they love the fact that they can work from home and get paid great wages ($3\/hour in in the Philippines is equal to about a $65,000\/year wage here in the U.S.) They are happy \u2014 I can see it in their emails and text chat messages.<\/p>\n My partner Richard and I fight less. There’s no scrapping over who will do a certain task. If no one wants to do it, we work together to figure out how to hire someone.<\/p>\n<\/span>My Spiral Into Depression<\/span><\/h2>\n
<\/span>Spending With a Purpose<\/span><\/h2>\n
<\/span>My Daily Routine<\/span><\/h2>\n
<\/span>A Disease Opens My Eyes<\/span><\/h2>\n