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SPOKE stands for Sustainable Profitable Optimised Knowledge Entrepreneur. It is a system designed to create a new form of business online that gives you freedom AND a great income.My Lifestyle Design Plan : A Review
I just thought I would spend today giving everyone a bit of an update to my current situation. I am currently working towards my ideal lifestyle. It is amazing when you look around how many people are not. People think they are, but what they are doing is chasing the next promotion, in order to get more money, in order to buy more things.
I am after more then that. I want an independence of the 9-5, sit in an office workday. I want to be truly rich. Not monetarily rich, but time and experience rich.
Slowly my plan is starting to become real, as I am directing my life and making choices on work habits and situations based on my “lifestyle design.”
Just to get everyone up to speed, my lifestyle design plan is
- To have a variety of interesting work.
- To set up autonomous systems in order to make passive income.
- To have the freedom to work hours of my choosing, in the location of my choice.
- To be able to travel for at least 3 months of the year with my family.
The steps that I have taken so far in the last year have been to :
- Establish a network of consulting clients while still holding down a 6 - 4 (10 hour days plus 2 hour commute) job. This was the hardest part, and one that I will write about in more detail soon. I was working 18 hour days for 3 months there getting things off the ground. Not an ideal lifestyle at all. But people have to consider a small amount of hard yards, a couple of hard months if they want to seriously work at breaking the 9 -5 rut. I’m not talking about the years of corporate grind / deferred lifestyle plan of the usual wage slave, but the ability to make small scale sacrifices for massive long term gain isn’t a bad trait to have.
- Quit the job with a steady net of clients. This gave me 4 day steady work a week, 2 of which working in the city, 2 of which working quite close to home. The other day deliberately left free in order to source more contracts and work on passive income earners.
- Develop 2 sites with passive income earning potential. One is a video sharing site that should attract some advertising revenue, due to it being in a specific untapped niche.
- Develop partnership agreement with one consulting client, resulting in equity share if project goes well. Large passive income earning potential
- A growing network of web development, graphic design and internet marketing clients that I consult with purely over the phone and internet.
- Starting to develop efficiency and knowledge management tools to compress the work day down to a smaller time investment.
So I am starting to get things off the ground, and although I have deviated from my plan a few times and fallen back into unhealthy work habits, I have had the piece of mind to look back at my plan and remind myself that life is for the enjoyment and experience, not the dollars.
February 6th, 2008 at 1:46 pm
Anyone else working to a lifestyle plan?
February 6th, 2008 at 5:40 pm
Hi Steve.
Sounds like you have lots of complimentary initiatives on the go. Few hard-core, driven people feel comfortable if they put “all their eggs in one basket.” A confidence like yours can have a very positive influence on moving forward. The more aware you become of your emotions and their triggers, the more likely you are to grasp your true motivations and achieve your underlying goals.
February 7th, 2008 at 9:27 am
Hi Steve, thanks for your comments on my website. If you have any feedback based on your experiences with my contact form application, please send it to me through my site.
I thought I’d return the gesture, since this post is relevant to me too.
I’m not in any rush to give up my day job, because I’ve found a creative environment with good people - but I am making steps towards longer term goals. As you can see, I’m working to build a portfolio of software projects that I hope will deliver the kind of passive income that you speak of (support and maintenance notwithstanding).
I’d like to use that as a foundation upon which I could do freelance projects to keep life interesting, while working where and when I choose. If possible, I’d like to focus on projects with rather more social value than consumer marketing i.e. trying to persuade people to buy more stuff.
I admire individuals like Shaun Inman (of Mint fame), and companies like Happy Cog and Miskeeto.
February 7th, 2008 at 9:36 am
@ Liara : Thanks for all of the great comments on the site Liara. You make a good point about understanding the triggers to your emotions, do that and you are on the path to self mastery
@ Alex: I think that you have a well thought out plan, and admirable goals. I too don’t want to “give up my day job” 100%, that is to say I don’t want to sit around with a lot of idle time doing nothing. I am focusing my life towards interesting, meaningful work, with fun adventurous interludes of recreation and vacation with those I love.
Consumer marketing is a bit soul-less at its core I agree, I co-founded a business called Greenmortgages.com.au early last year which is starting to pay dividends and do some good work. We give a % of our commission from banks to Environmental causes like Greening Australia and Trust for Nature. We also show people how to carbon neutralise on their home, and save money by putting green improvements in.
February 7th, 2008 at 11:00 am
Your green mortgage company sounds like a very clever idea. When it comes to behavioural triggers, financial self-interest is a powerful one for many people. Sadly, maybe even more so than the moral argument for environmental reform.
I reckon there will be many opportunities in future for the smart entrepreneurs who can persuade the public to take action on the basis that they can make / save money.
Consider yourself subscribed
February 7th, 2008 at 11:33 am
Thanks Alex, it is just starting to get off the ground now and get some customers, as well as some support from some large not for profits.
It really is all about finding peoples behavioral triggers, and working out what it would take to get them to do the right thing. It really is about finding a win - win for your business, and the customer. They feel good because :
a) they have saved money on their mortgage
b) they have made a sizable contribution to an environmental charity (about $3000 over the term of the loan)
and I feel good because I have directed money that once would have just lined the banks pockets to helping to save the planet.
February 7th, 2008 at 5:16 pm
Hi Steven. I think this is a great goal and that quite a lot of bloggers out there would love to be able to reach it. I for one am fedup with the whole work for someone else and make their life better, get by each week on a piss poor wage.
I really hope you achieve this goal.
February 8th, 2008 at 3:01 am
Hi Steve,
Thanks for sharing your plan and vision for your future. Likewise I share the same vision of enjoying life as life should be.
I’ll be reading your blog from now and thanks for your comments on mine.
By the way is that Port Douglas on your header?
Regards
Cornelius
February 8th, 2008 at 10:21 am
Hi Cornelius,
Thanks for the comment. Yes that is Port Douglas in my header. Far North Queensland is a place where I like to go and relax for a few weeks of the year and enjoy the fruits of my labor. Beautiful spot and great people.
February 8th, 2008 at 4:08 pm
You’re so right about the goal. Money. Too many people start off on a journey to the wrong destination.
Money aint it. It could be a side-effect of doing the right thing. And the right thing is doing something you enjoy. Ending up in a place where you have done something vocational and created time for you and your family is laudable.
Good luck on the trip!
February 9th, 2008 at 4:44 pm
Steven,
Thank you for sharing your story. I love reading people go into detail about how they are changing their lives for the better. I’m particularly interested in the way in which you increased your workload for 3 months or so. I am currently going through a stage where I am flat out working 9-5 and doing blogging in my spare time. Hopefully, though, it will be worth my while. I don’t think I can travel at this pace forever, but for the moment I think it is worth it…..
Peter
February 9th, 2008 at 5:52 pm
Hi Peter,
I definately takes a lot out of you increasing your workload the way I did. It is not a long term option in any sense of the word, as it takes time away that you usualy use to recharge your mental batteries, and spend time with those that you love.
It is certainly worth it if there is a payoff on the horizon, like a new job, or a project that will reap big rewards, but 18 work hour days is certainly not a lifestyle that I would aspire to for any length of time.
The uspside to draining my batteries down to almost empty was that I did learn some fantastic time management a work processes that compressed my working time dramaticly, and allowed me to get what I had to achieve done in the limited time that I had. I will be sharing these with readers of the site very soon.
Thanks for the comment
Steve