If I hear another person whining about how the economy is preventing them from succeeding in life or keeping food on the table I may lose it on them. Sure, the economy may not be as robust and flourishing as it once was, but my belief is that many people are unconsciously happy the economy is failing because now they have a genuine excuse for their lack of action and hustle.
Right now I’m sitting here watching a young kid wash and detail my RV. He was knocking door to door throughout the RV park I’m staying at yesterday trying to muster up some business. Well, he got some. He quoted me at $225 for a thorough wash & wax. Considering the RV place 
But I’m not the only job he’s had today. Before he started working on my rig he polished off the Alfa 5th wheel across the street from me. I reckon he pocketed a couple bills on that job too. And guess what kind of tools this kid needed? A brush with a boom extension (couldn’t cost more than $30-$50), a ladder and some supplies he picked up at Auto Zone.
By the end of the day he’s going to walk home with about $400 cash, minus some minor expenses for materials. Now that’s hustle. And that’s some damn good money for an honest days worth of work. So don’t give me this shit about… “there aren’t any jobs out there”. Oh yeah? Go make one then!
Let’s face it, many Americans are just straight up lazy. Heck, even I’m lazy at times. Thankfully I’m smart. Nobody wants to take the time to go out and hustle up work. They want some employer to show up to their doorstep and say… “Hey, do you need a nice overpaying job that requires you to do jack shit?”.
I’m so glad that I started doing door to door sales at the age of 12 for the Oregonian newspaper. I’m pretty sure the guy running us to different neighborhoods had an illegal child labor racket going, but I was stoked to make $15 to $20 a day as a wee lad. What was even more important was learning that if I wanted money, I could go out there and get it. But I had to go ask. I had to go sell. I had to do something more than sit in my room and wish my mom would buy me that Nintendo.
I did all kinds of things to hustle money as young kid. I remember mowing lawns, raking leaves, asking people for their recyclable cans and bottles so I could play the Excitebike video arcade game at the local store, washed cars and more before I was ever 14 years old. I remember one Sunday morning I had this genius idea that I’d get rich by being a caddy at the Rose City Golf Course down the street from my house. I awoke at the crack of dawn and hung out near the first tee waiting for golfers to show. It took me about 10 minutes to score a gig.
The guy asked me how much for 18 holes and I replied… “$5 bucks!”. I had no idea what I was getting myself into. I thought that was a good deal and I’d be out of there in no time with enough money to play video games all day. After the 6th or 7th hole I realized I had made a big mistake. I could barely carry the dudes bags any longer. Thankfully he bought a golf cart on the back nine and let me drive it around a bit. It was a blast.
The guy only paid me $5 and offered no tip. Lesson learned. The next hustle me and my buddy came up with was to find golf balls in the bushes and sell them back to the golfers. We dug through bushes and found a few here and there but not enough to build a empire. We were a bit discouraged until… WE FOUND THE JACKPOT!
All the sudden there was golf balls everywhere. Everywhere we looked we found more balls. Then a ball came flying in and almost hit one of us. We were at the end of the driving range! Hahahaha.
The moral of the story is… don’t give up. Keep asking. Keep hustling. And create your own damn jobs if the economy or your company somehow downsizes you. With the invention of the internet the possibilities are literally endless. You may not strike riches overnight, or even next week but there is no limitations to what can be done.
And there are usually dozens if not hundreds of odd jobs that can be done right in your own neighborhood with limited start up funds for someone who truly wants to work. The work is out there. Sometimes all you have to do is go ask!
Brillz! You hit the nail on the head! The secret to success is INSIDE of us, not tied to the economy or our genes or our family or anything else on the outside of us!
Cool site by the previous poster. (Click on his name to visit it). J-Mo you hit the nail on the head I believe this is possibly your best post ever.
It’s NEVER about externalities; people use externalities to absolve themselves of their own incompetence (don’t take that the wrong way ppl, use it to your advantage). It’s ALWAYS about how good are you, how valuable are you to the marketplace and how good of a value contributor are you.
As Tony Robbins has said over and over, your income is in direct proportion to your contribution.
If you are providing value, this means that your income is only a small fraction of your contribution.
For example,
The dollar net worth that Bill Gates has accumulated from his entire life is provided to the world in value every 2 weeks and these are using extremely conservative numbers.
Get (back) to work!
A bad economy might help a start-up business as it can help keep costs down and limit the opportunities to go and work in some place. Opportunity, as you say, is always there in every situation. We just need to go out and find it.
To the previous poster, no offense meant whatsover, but I’m not certain what “bad economy” means: I believe it means nothing. I believe it is an excuse made by the 97%. In fact I know this to be true. As Kern has stated, the ‘economy’ is not something you can drive up to and look at; at its essence it is not real; If there could be a definition for some kind of “economy” it would be this: person a sells something to person b for substantially less than its real value. If you want to be rich, be person a. And how could it be any other way, this is how all wealthy folks became wealthy.
To quote the great Jim Rohn, “Don’t go where the 97% go. Don’t do what they do. Don’t talk like they talk. The 97% won’t even take the time to refine their philosophy for a better life. Walk away.”
Right on. People complaining that there are no jobs rather than going out and creating those jobs gets to me.
Then they want the government to create a ‘jobs package’ (despite the fact that the government doesn’t create wealth, it just redistributes it… after taking their cut).
After the 2008 debacle, Frank Kern was asked how to survive in the tough times. He said ‘make offers’. Simple, but effective.
Exactly what your RV cleaner did to you.
Regards
-Simon
Fuck yeah!!
Every body wants a good economy.