Breaking Free of 9 to 5

Description

If you feel trapped in a cycle of working at a job you don't like in order to pay endless bills, this video might be for you. Drawing from my own experience and from helping others to "break free", I'll share some tips and ideas for getting motivated to change, how to simplify, and how to create a debt-free life.

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Video Transcription

I've been hearing from some of you that you are interested in learning how to break free of the nine-to-five trap and I know that for a lot of us that's that's the reality that's our life is working for someone and having a structure our whole life around that schedule we get trapped because of debt I've talked about it before financial that emotional physical debt and once we're trapped in there it can start to seem like there's no way out and people come and say you know I wish my life could be simpler I wish that I could spend more time outside but but I've got a lot of bills to pay and it doesn't feel like there's a way out it doesn't feel like there's an escape but there is an escape it takes a fair amount of creativity it takes a lot of courage but it can be done today I'm hoping to share with you a number of ideas some different tactics for helping to slip yourself out of those chains and start living a life that is more in line with your integrity and your heart first of all we have to start to break free of the illusion of security that a nine-to-five job gives us it we've been told over and over it makes sense right we want a secure job and that regular paycheck and that's what is going to make life happy exciting I'm not quite sure secure that's what we're told and somehow we buy into the security and we let security Trump happiness sense of adventure a sense of fulfillment so does a nine-to-five really give us security

my grandfather is he's this amazing genius man a nuclear physicist PhD in and he was working with a company down here and he was telling me this is a couple years ago about how he was having to try to counsel in health a lot of the PhDs because the company had taken a downturn and they lost their jobs and they were so specialized that they didn't have anywhere to go they didn't know what to do PhD that should give us security right that's the illusion he's nine to five jobs they seemed secure but people are being laid off or losing their jobs every day is it really as secure as we think or is there a higher security that can be found learning to rely on our own ingenuity our own creativity our own skillset

another thing that can help us to start to motivate ourselves is to realize that you know for all we know we just have this one life this one life what are we going to do with it is it really gonna be okay we're really gonna be happy looking back at our life and saying I got a good sensible job and I worked for you know Intel retirement and and then I did some traveling and stuff when I was kind of too old to enjoy the traveling but hey and it's not really the story we want to write in our life or could we write something that is really going to be epic that is really going to inspire the people around us that is going to fulfill us and through fulfilling us that's gonna reach out so that everybody around us feels more fulfilled so let's look at the trap a little bit that trap consists usually of a what we think is a need for money we've got we've got our debt list right we've got our our bills we've got to buy food and so we have this this need for money and the way our culture has set it up we need to trade our time for money most of us have been lured into the belief that we need to trade that time for money in a way that's just on the edge so that we you know we're getting paid maybe you know 10 15 20 dollars an hour and we're just making enough to pay the bills and to maybe do a couple nice things but we're always kind of trying to play catch-up and Rebecca and I were right there I mean for a while we were living the American dream we had our house in the country we were paying a lot of money to Bank of America for our mortgage and to credit card companies for debt to credit card because we had gotten ourselves in way over our head with with medical bills and house repairs that money it feels like it's a trap but it's not and there's there's two ways to get out of that first one is to simplify our lives that's the route that Rebecca and I chose and we did it pretty radically you know we went and lived in a yurt for a year no electricity or running water and in that radical simplification allowed us to see what was really important for us but that's what simplification is all about it is figuring out what really brings you joy and happiness to simplify you need to start looking at all the things in our life that are requiring money so a car is a great example a car seems like something that we need right but it eats up a lot of money in insurance and repairs and gas and oil change you know if you're not using an electric car and so do we really need a car or could we do with running or biking to work using one of the the services that are now available for getting for getting rides places car sharing with somebody there's other options and alternatives especially if you're a household that owns multiple cars do you really need multiple cars I know that there's times in in our my life with Rebecca when when having two cars would make things easier but it's never necessary and in fact finding ways to creatively move our life around just having one vehicle made a lot more sense for us if we get radical and we ask this about all the things in our life that require money we'll discover that we start to come up with creative solutions because you are super intelligent you're super creative you can find solutions for your life that are going to not only make more sense will probably make your life more adventurous more epic more exciting more fulfilling the house do you need a house Rebecca and I we owned a house and it was eating us alive we loved it but by selling the house moving into the earth and now we rent a very nice tiny house from from a great friend of ours and that now you know because she's sharing her land with us we have all this land that we never would have been able to afford before but we have this this paradise that we can go out and hike on it's not because we saved up a whole bunch of money and bought a whole bunch of land it's because we started to think creatively about our situation buthe food is a big one most of us go to the grocery and get most of our food from the grocery but other less expensive ways to get your food like belonging to a CSA community-supported agriculture and farm or foraging hunting gardening there's lots of other ways to bring food into your life that don't involve going to the grocery as I said just look across the board at your life different areas any place you spend money and see does this thing really bring me the happiness and joy that I think it does and secondly is there a creative workaround or solution where I could get the same benefits or more benefits by doing things a little bit differently okay so you've simplified your life and once you do that that is going to reduce your cost of living a lot and already then you're not having to trade as much of your time for money in order to make your life function but still we're stuck in that nine-to-five job and we're going to work everyday and we're caught up in that structure this is where we have to start to see that with work there are other ways maybe it's within the existing framework of your life so you go to work 9:00 to 5:00 could you go to your employer and ask them you express to them that you're trying to simplify your life and you'd like to work part-time or you want to try working four days a week put on a couple more hours each day and then have a three day vacation secondly

if that's not viable once you've simplified are you at a point where you could make a radical shift in your life and really change things up maybe quit that nine-to-five job and find something else this could be a skill set that you have and you know you you've been making bows and you want to go full-time with that this could be a like a personal skill so maybe you you are really good at helping people to get in shape and you want to try your hand as a personal trainer maybe you're gonna start counseling people or you're gonna get yoga training and become a yoga teacher maybe there's a simpler job that doesn't involve sitting at a desk but it's I recently heard about someone who quit their big high-end job and was scooping ice cream for people on a beach and in some tropical place something decides that job and there are so many thousands and thousands of options out there not only pre-existing ones but ones that you create yourself you start a school you become a mentor to someone you start doing your art and selling it on etsy.com so many options get creative explore again you have an immense amount of creativity you just stop break out of the daily grind of life and give some real thought to this as you begin to explore these thoughts utterly important to remember that it is okay to fail we have to give ourselves that permission because if we set ourselves up where we just we're gonna put everything all our eggs into this one basket so to speak and I'm not talking about are our eggs as far as like a financial commitment or a time commitment talking about our emotional eggs right so you put your whole heart into this in a way that this must happen we're kind of setting ourselves up for disappointment because as we go off and we explore this was probably going to have some failures but here's the cool thing about failures not only do we learn from them but when you fail it seems like all your options are cut off and there's no way out that that is when your creativity kicks into high gear especially if you have a family that's depending on you if you quit your job and it seems like there's just there's no way you're gonna pay the bills next month guess what you're gonna sit down and you're gonna get creative and you're gonna go how can I make this happen and that list will start to form of different ways that you could make this happen and again get creative explore think outside the box people are doing amazing things everywhere as soon as they break free of the nine-to-five last tool I'm going to put in your toolbox here is networking reaching out the binding support around you if you have a family it's really important as you start this process to sit down with them and to say here's how I can see our life changing to forge together a vision that you can all work towards and support if you doing this on your own then start networking reaching out to people through YouTube through mutual friends reaching out and exploring and seeing where can other people help you with ideas where can other people help you with opportunities where can other people help you with emotional support or inspiration all those things are really really important and then social animals it gives us so much strength to reach out and have that that networking support you do have people you just have to reach out the last thing I would like to put out here is to me the most important and that's to remember the the fulfillment factor and the fulfillment factor is this is all about what fills us up in life we're never told that that's an important thing we're just told the important thing is is security it's saving up money it's having a regular job to go to but if we're not fulfilled first of all our life doesn't feel like like we're living it secondly the people around us they're not getting the best version of ourselves that we have to offer because we're not in our best place the world is not getting the best version of us that we have to offer so in finding fulfillment finding personal fulfillment we not only attend to our own joy and happiness but we create in ourselves an environment where we are able to reach out to the people around us to the world around us and to give our best selves that is why fulfillment is so important it is much more important than security if nine-to-five is is dragging you down then I'd urge you today to take a look at it find a time when you can have a half hour to yourself and sit down and really think about this does it make sense just stay in a life that's not fulfilling you does it make sense to not be nurturing that best self inside of you that you then can give to your family to your friends to your loved ones to the world we all owe it to the world people around us to be as fulfilled as possible so that we can give our best selves nine to five is doing that for you perfect for some people it is perfect but for others if it's crushing you down there are other ways I hope this video give you tips and ideas for breaking free and of course I would love to hear about your stories your ideas for getting out of the trap your experiences if you have an inspiring story from your own life that you want to share please in the comments below I would love to hear from you