The logistical preparations for my future independent sideline activity are completed at 98%. As for the administrative prerequisites, they are completed at 80%.
I take the time to lay the foundations before starting, with an anti- Rat Race, so as to be as little disturbed as possible afterwards. The idea is that the ten hours a week that I will devote to this occupation will be as pleasant as possible, with the least amount of additional hassles. The cumbersome nature of the professional system is one of the notable causes of my desire to escape. So I am not going to let myself fall into the same trap all by myself.
My goal is to arrive at a well thought out system that is ultimately as simple as possible, both for me and for my future clients. I try to apply the concepts of lean management by eliminating:
- "Muda": namely, above all, waste and loss of time, by using simple and minimalist infrastructures.
- the "Muri": the work overload linked to unsuitable processes, by simplifying management as much as possible (via equally minimalist and computerized processes).
- the "Mura": variability, particularly upward, by setting myself a maximum threshold of customers (yes, I do the exact opposite of the others).
If I were to notice along the way that things were not going in the right direction, and therefore that things were starting to smell of Rat Race, I will then give myself a chance to rethink the system once. If it fails, then this time I will definitely pull the plug on the traditional concept of work.
If I am indeed embarking on this path, it is much more for my head than for my wallet, as I have already explained. The goal is therefore not to recreate around me the universe that I am precisely fleeing. I have good hope that it will work, but one should never underestimate one's adversary. I am of course talking about the rat.
The experience I have gained with this blog for ten years tells me that very often income does not come from where you expect it. If I were not passionate about the subject of the stock market and financial independence, I would have stopped everything a long time ago. Of course, I have sold e-books and I have members registered to my wallet. I also generate traffic and therefore advertising revenue. However, this income is ridiculous compared to the passive income I receive from my investments. When you see the time a blog requires, it really is work paid at a rock bottom price.
The funny thing is that the biggest money earners on this site come from free personality tests, via advertising. Some pages are even more read than my home page...
This means two things:
- The public is more interested in knowing the facets of their own personality than in investing their money wisely... I respect this point of view, but it is therefore not surprising that there are so many people who cannot make ends meet.
- A job that took me a few hours back then still generates more money today than the rest of my site that took me ten years of "work". I put that last term in quotes because as I said I don't consider this to be work.
All this is consistent with the conclusions of my e-book. Work does not pay. For this reason, in my future side activity, I am not looking to earn money, but just to have fun. If it pays, so much the better, if not, so much the worse. And if I should not get any pleasure from it, then bye bye.
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"If it fails, then this time I will definitely pull the plug on the traditional concept of work."
I sincerely hope that this will be successful! But if you quit your job completely and then decide to abandon this independent activity, have you ever thought about a plan B?
Even if you could live financially without depending on a "job", whatever it is, I imagine that you don't plan on moving so young to a retired life, of the TV in the morning, TV in the evening, with a little TV in between? 😉
No, that's not my style. As frouzback said, I have "time-consuming" passions. For a long time, sports, finance and blogging have kept me quite busy. On top of that, I must obviously add my family. When I worked at 100% I was constantly frustrated at not having enough time to devote to all these points. By reducing my activity, not only was I able to fill this gap, but I also opened myself up to new interests, including cooking and DIY. Maybe it's due to my curious INTJ side, maybe because I had the opportunity (the time). Certainly a bit of both. So, even if I had to give up this side activity, I think I would find new hobbies very quickly. But for now I am very motivated to make this project work that I have been working on for several months.
Good luck!
Indeed I found this site while doing a search for a free MBTI test (I am INTP). And being also very interested in the stock market and financial independence, I come back regularly to read the posts.
Good luck Jérôme, and have fun in your new life!
And thank you again for the "work" (I'm using your own quotation marks) that you provide to publish your analyses and other financial, stock market, economic and entrepreneurial considerations on your site dividendes.ch.
Regarding the MBTI, it is an interesting approach, but it must still be put into perspective by trying to understand what is behind it and how it is designed, while remembering that it is not an exact science. It can in any case give some indications, but the mistake that many people make is to consider themselves without nuance of one type or another. In the end, it is mainly about tendencies. For each of the IE, SN, TS and JP axes, we can lean more or less to one side; the cursor is never at 100% on one side, and it may even reach a certain balance that makes it difficult to separate the tendency on a given axis. Furthermore, one of the biases is that the test depends on our own vision of ourselves when answering the questions or trying to determine which side we lean towards for each of the 4 axes; However, in my opinion it is difficult to self-evaluate objectively.
For my part, it seems to me that I lean rather clearly towards the I (compared to the E) and even more towards the T (compared to the S). Between S and N, I still have a doubt, even if I think that the cursor is rather towards the S. As for the J (compared to the P), it seems to me to take over, even if I have the impression that the P could come out in certain circumstances. That said, as interesting as this "evaluation" is, it does not bring me anything concrete, in the sense that I do not see how to use it.
Thank you Laurent. It remains a test. It is interesting, entertaining, it can make us open our eyes to certain facets of our personality, but in any case it never teaches us anything transcendent about ourselves.