Start-Up & Personal Transformation

But John, what if I just want financial independence just enough enough money to stop worrying about it. Can you be little more specific about the lifestyle echo? 

The plaint reveals the problem. "But" is a reservation.  "I" is orientation.  "want" is self-referential. "independence" is lack of responsibility.  This anonymous question reflects a well-indoctrinated American.  This person is trained to be a tax-paying drone.  No wonder he wants out.  But he is heading the wrong way.

What are you thankful for today?  All the good things are the result of people who indeed did start with a problem they themselves experienced, but then related it to the world around them.  Solving problems not only for oneself, but others too.

Easier said than done.  The big challenge in life always comes from within.  So personal transformation is key to success.

I am not in the personal transformation business.  It is more than I can handle just looking a the process of start-up.  But I do understand that integral with start-up is personal transformation.  But that topic is well covered by so many others.  Publishing has Houses devoted to the topic, every book store has a section on it, and what is religion except a format of personal transformation, with Truth claims?  My best advice on picking this important component is "we are obliged to respond to the religion to which we are called."  Especially atheism.  As part of this effort, get a personal transformation regime in place.  if so, then that in part is also lifestyle element.

Money is a medium of exchange, and in the measure it is also a commodity, a store of value.  It is only there to pay for things.  Love of money is the root of all evil.  If you worry about money, something is wrong.  If that is your focus something is wrong.

A lifestyle has to be paid for, but most of life is exchange of some sort, obligations formed and discharged.  Donuts and coffee are no charge at fellowship after church service, but you are expected to  meet and greet.  To sweep in, grab a donut and coffee and flee is to violate the implied obligation.  (Nothing is really free).  If you order a Starbucks, when you pay your debt is cancelled.  No further obligations.

In both instances, it is about a cup of coffee, and relationships.  At church you are developing relationships with like-minded souls, for support.  At Starbucks you are availing yourself of a caffeine jolt so you may love the morning.  In both instances you got your coffee.  But each represents a very different lifestyle.  I make no recommendations, just to illustrate differences, two options within an infinity of options.

It is adding your own unique contribution, which no one else can, that creates the + 1 to all known options available.  It starts with you and it relates to all others. or as many as you are able to reach.  There is a feedback loop.  Do this, please more people.  See computers, Apple.

You have to work, no matter what.  Without customers, you've got nothing.  An employee has a customer, his employer.  The employee provide vendor financing as well, working a week or two before being paid, extending credit to the employer, in violation of biblical teaching, and worth hundreds of billions to industry every year.

Employees work to get money to pay for lifestyle.  They work to make someone else's hopes and dreams come true, and then go home, cook dinner, watch TV and go to sleep.  Weekends they do laundry and run errands.  What little time is left for living they desperately borrow money to approximate a life.  They need money to pay for things that say to others "Man, am I living!"

The shift to self-employment is "Here is the problem I am working on.  What do you think?"  With everything oriented around that, the question of money does not come up.  To be short a few C notes is just life, so go unload some containers on the docks.  No doubt you needed some time in the fresh air.  After you've done that, get back to work.  With everything oriented toward the problem you are solving, everything else becomes secondary.  Where you live, what you eat, how you dress, what you read, what you call entertainment, who your friends are.  Self-employed see a nice house with a pool and think "debtor's prison."  Now the irony is the self-employed make so much anyway they pay cash for a house just to shut the wife up.  All kidding aside, when I hear founders complain about no time to sail their yacht, ski out of their chalet, or whatever ever else,  I understand it is their choice, they run the business, they prefer the work to the money.

To say "I want just enough money for financial independence and to stop worrying about it," well, that is why we have places like Google and Boeing.  That is just living for the city.


But that ain't livin.  Life is about seeing the problems around you and responding to them, and finding joy in that.  Money can be A problem in life, but it is not THE problem.  There is meaning in suffering, that's the paradox.



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