My Happy Assets Three - The Last Steps to Financial Independence

Below is an excerpt from my upcoming book My Happy Assets Three - The Last Steps to Financial Independence. If you like what you read, check out my first book, My Happy Assets at www.myhappyassets.com and my second book which details the three essential ingredients you must have to run a successful business, Small Business Coffee Hour at www.smallbizcoffee.com. Both are chock full of nuts!

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The same thing goes for any other hobby or passion you have. Perhaps you like to paint or maybe like me, you want to be a member in the next Beatles. Perhaps you are in college now majoring in art and you are asking yourself, “how the hell am I going to make a living at this?” Or maybe you currently work in a cube farm and your real passion is fly-fishing on the weekends in Colorado. There is no possible way to turn fly-fishing into a living, is there? (The one guy who makes a living testing out fly-fishing equipment is going to chuckle and put the book down at this point.) But let’s be realistic here. In life you have to a swirling, stew-ish mix of both a pessimist and an optimist, or, in other words a realist. (I myself am a pessimist full of charming statements such as “this will never work” or “the question is not, ‘is the glass half full’ but ‘what is the glass half full of?’” If it is full of shit, then you have your answer.) You can’t go through life being overtly enthused about everything (The Dukes of Hazard reunion) or negatively down on everything (The Dukes of Hazard reunion). Sure, some occasions do call for elation and pessimism (did I mention the Dukes of Hazard Christmas Special) but all in all (a cliché), in order to make sound investment and personal decisions, you need to be a realist.

Which brings me back to my point. Outside of being a teacher or an entrepreneur, how can an art major indulge in their passion? How can the writer write, how can the fly fisher fly … fish. My answer? Financial independence. Sound too good to be true? My new mantra as of late (this would be broken record statement number two) is “if it sounds too good to be true, then it is worth checking out.” In reality what you are really doing via financial independence is breaking the career aspect of your life into two component parts:

1. What you do.
2. How much and if you get paid for it.

If you focus on part two through financial independence, if and how much you get paid for it, it really doesn’t matter what you do, does it? You can sit and fart in a bathtub for all anyone cares, you can still afford food, clothing and shelter … and then some, correct? (more on this later.) What you do is now up to you. Money is no longer a concern. You can now paint, write, fish, make your own Jacuzzi bubbles, indulge in your passions. If it sounds too good to be true, it is worth checking out.