The rat race rebellion has already begun. Thousands of people have already left their full time jobs, meaningless careers and horrible bosses. How have they done this? What risks have they taken? Not everyone is cut out to be an online entrepreneur. I never saw myself as one either. But for me, the thought of spending my life in a dead-end job was the biggest risk of all…
Rat Race Rebellion
I didn’t set out to be a rebel, if I was one. I just wanted a job I loved. But when life caught up with me after school and I was thrust into working life, it was a nasty shock. Suddenly you need paid work and you’re trained for nothing! I did ok in my GCSE’s but then mostly failed my A-levels. I didn’t have a direction and so just floated from one dead-end job to the next.
Life was pretty miserable for a while so I flunked out of it all and went to live with some mates in an old dilapidated farm house in the middle of the countryside. Think of the film Withnail and I and it was pretty close! We all lived on benefits and held everything together by the skin of our teeth! It wasn’t perfect by any means but for a while I was genuinely happy. I had time, and that meant the most to me then. I wasn’t working in some crappy job, and that alone made me happy.
Rat Race Rebellion – The Pursuit Of Happiness
Me and a few close friends were part of a rat race rebellion of sorts. We were mostly societies drop-outs! I was training to become a stunt performer and spent a lot of time doing my qualifications. Everyone thought I was wasting my time, until I qualified to the Equity Stunt Register in 2002. I got my first film job 2 years after that doubling Rhys Ifans on Enduring Love.
In between I picked up building work, I worked for an Indian take-away and did a few driving type jobs. I was passionate about Kung Fu and pursued that as part of my stunt training too. It seemed to make sense to pursue some kind of dream, even if I didn’t know exactly what it was. Anything was better than working in a job I hated!
I knew a number of rat race rebellion types. I had climbing friends and martial arts friends – probably two of the ‘main stream’ rat race rebellion character type activities! They eventually grew up and got real jobs. One of my climbing friends joined the navy and since then has worked abroad and driven HGV’s. Another decided to live in a mobile home pretty much off grid! We all went our separate ways.
Just A Miserable Bugger
You would think working as a stunt performer would be one of the best jobs you can get! It was great when I was working, however, most of the time I wasn’t. That suited me for a while because I wasn’t used to working all the time, nor did I want to either. But eventually the lack of income caught up with me and I became disillusioned with my way of life – working from one pay check to the next and in between being totally stressed out about debt and overdraft almost constantly.
In my late 30’s I had picked up some work in a builder yard. I was being paid minimum wage for picking up rubbish from the floor. Many would have been grateful for the employment, and I was, it was just that it wasn’t the dream I had started out with.
As a rat race rebellion job, stuntman sounds like the perfect career to stick it to the man with! But as time wore on and things didn’t change I became frustrated. Friends were starting families and buying houses and I was getting nowhere in life. Most of my friends had moved away and were either working or somewhere abroad.
Perhaps I was just a miserable bugger. Just one of the ‘entitled’ people who expected the world to give him a living!
A Change Of Direction – Rat Race Rebellion
I knew I had to change things but I still couldn’t bear any normal 9 to 5 type of job. For a while I worked in a office doing an SEO content management style of job. But my boss really didn’t like me taking time off for the stunt work. Eventually one had to give and it was the 9 to 5! Over the years I had put in some time to develop an idea of working from home. It fitted in nicely with the stunt work when it came in, and allowed me to work from a laptop.
I knew I wanted to work for myself and not have a boss so I had been ‘trying’ to build up an eBay type of business where I bought and sold things for profit using the misspell search tool. Cheaper items which were not getting the exposure they should could be re-listed for a profit. Check out my full article on the method here.
The idea worked but it wasn’t giving me the kind of profits I needed. I downloaded the concept in the form of an ebook which I had bought from eBay too. This struck me as a great business model – downloadable products. Downloadable products seemed like the perfect answer to my lazy nature and my restless mind! I didn’t want to be in the rat race, working at something i had no love for, but I was always prepared to work incredibly hard at things I was passionate about.
The rat race rebellion doesn’t mean dropping out completely from society. It just means doing things differently – working smarter not harder. It means not trading time for money or accepting the status quo.
Ebooks And Automation
Automated sales online struck me as the perfect business model. When I saw how I was able to buy an ebook instantly and download it, it made me realise how easy it was to earn money for some people. They had automated the process. I wanted to be on the other end of this process, making the sales. So I looked into making some of my own ebooks and attempted to sell them over the internet.
I failed miserably of course several times over. But the idea kept me going and eventually led me to a clever business model called affiliate marketing. Affiliate marketing is what enables many to live very free and flexible lifestyles. It is a business model which lets anyone sell someone else’s product/s over the internet. By linking to a product or service via an ‘affiliate link’ you can direct customers to websites which sell almost anything. If your link generates a sale, you earn a commission.
Affiliate marketing is responsible, in part, to many of today’s rat race rebellion generation. By building a website which can deliver products on ‘autopilot’, affiliates are able to build scalable income sources and then use paid advertising or content to grow an ever increasing audience to that website.
Because the affiliate doesn’t need to be actively involved in the selling or delivery process, and can simply refer website traffic to products, they can focus entirely on building website traffic to drive sales.
Rat Race Rebellion – An Inner Journey
With a constant juggling of various income ideas, life had become pretty difficult. Life was far more difficult than a normal 9 to 5 job would have presented. I got some work as an HGV driver when the stunt jobs dried up. However, there never seemed to be enough money to keep me going and I was getting deeper and deeper into debt.
I delved into the law of attraction material shortly after watching the Secret movie and started to realise that I had some not so useful beliefs which were holding me where I was. I was working as an HGV driver at the time and feeling pretty lousy about myself.
Reading everything I could find on The Law Of Attraction – books like Think and Grow Rich, Working With The Law, The Science Of Getting Rich etc., I found some inner peace and decided I shouldn’t be ‘struggling’ so much, just to make a tiny income. I was conflicted in my mind between living a happy life and staving off the debt. However, I seemed miserable both at home and at work too! I was constantly worried and afraid.
When I noticed this state of mind was creating my outcomes and life, i stopped doing it!
Shortly after I got some work on X-Men First Class and then on Wrath Of The Titans. It worked out. However, working away had resulted in coming home to an empty house after my girlfriend had left! With each step forward I took two back! I couldn’t seem to get the balance between working and home life right.
Back To The Drawing Board
Although working away had saved my bacon financially, it also left me single again. Perhaps it would have happened anyway – I told myself! Since work went quiet I used the opportunity to get back into working on my online business.
I had some success with the affiliate marketing but just enough to keep me going! It certainly wasn’t enough income to allow me to completely give up everything else. After seeing an advert on Facebook which said “struggling with your affiliate business?” I clicked the link and it took me to a video series.
I started again after watching the series and immediately ‘getting it’. It was after all the same thing I had been doing – affiliate marketing. However, there were a few important differences. I had been doing everything on my own with my online efforts. This business model was different and there was a community and support which changed the way I looked at an online business.
Before long (only a few months) I had earned my first high ticket commission. Before I had learned about high ticket items, I was using digital products to earn small commissions. But I was chasing my tail mostly because I didn’t have any direction or support with it.
Since starting with an online community I have met other online entrepreneurs and found many other “rat race rebellion” types!
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