When you have a more conventional job at a more conventional office with a more conventional employer, assuming that you’re working full time with regular benefits, you can expect to have certain safety nets and benefits in place. You probably have a health and dental plan. You probably have paid sick days and vacation time. You might have a company pension plan and, should you lose your job, you might be able to collect some employment insurance or severance pay.
But you are still working for the man and you face a number of critical limitations. For innumerable reasons, many people yearn for the day they can quit their jobs and work for themselves. Maybe that’s why you find yourself here, reading about how you can achieve the dot com lifestyle and unlock your limitless potential. Maybe you’re interested in passive income and a flexible schedule so you can travel the world and spend more time with your family.
And you might even remember when I explained why making money online could be even more stable than a regular job. I won’t go into those reasons again, so feel free to read (or re-read) that post again.
It’s perfectly understandable that you may have some apprehensions about diving into this world of professional blogging, Internet marketing and running an online business. When you work for yourself, you don’t get paid sick days. You don’t get paid vacation time. You’ve got to provide your own medical plan and save for your own retirement.
This can all start to sound pretty scary, especially when you finally take that leap of faith, throw caution to the wind, and hurl yourself into your online business one hundred percent. It’s intimidating to throw all your eggs into just one basket, because you fear what may become of that basket. What if your eggs crack? What if the basket breaks?
Through this line of thinking, many people who think about pursuing online entrepreneurship start to develop a backup plan. They tell themselves that if the first thing doesn’t work out, they can always fall back on this other idea. But what are you doing? You’re just giving yourself a way “out” and justifying a future failure (that could be a self-fulfilling prophecy).
Patrick Almond from Success.com said that entrepreneurs should forget backup plans. He says that you will not be happy with the secondary option and you need to put all your energy, effort and resources into plan A. By accommodating for plan B, you’re not putting everything into plan A and you’re not giving plan A the best shot at success.
He’s right. To a degree.
In his article, he says that entrepreneurs should kill their plan B altogether and not even let it enter their minds. I disagree. To a degree. The thing is that it would be foolish for you to take a giant leap of faith without some semblance of a safety net. This does not mean that you should settle for plan B and resign yourself to a secondary version of happiness and freedom.
What it means is that you should have systems and support in place for when plan A struggles to meet its goals. This means that you should have at least a few months’ worth of living expenses covered, in some fashion or another, to help you weather the storms of entrepreneurship. This way, you can focus on growing your business rather than worrying about keeping the lights on.
Yes, use the fear to drive you. Walking across a tightrope with nothing to catch you below can be incredibly frightening, but it forces you to focus. Fear, in and of itself, is not a bad thing. Just channel that energy into something positive and you too can live the dot com lifestyle.