Being "Unemployed" does not mean "Unproductive"

As the title says - being “unemployed” does not mean “unproductive”. I would say that close to 98% of my friends all work for a nice company in which they are given goal/tasks each day/week/month by their manager. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not a bad thing. Having things to do at work keeps you employed and gives you that satisfaction of accomplishing something. And that is PERFECTLY FINE.

However, I would actually like to challenge you to really think about your job. If you did not have a manager who gave you goals/tasks, what would you do?

A popular answer I’m sure would be “nothing”, however, one must make a living somehow and afford a roof over their head and food on the table so one cannot just do “nothing”.

And that brings me to the real question of this post - What CAN you do?

Forget about your job and your bills that you owe at the end of the month. Please stop and think about it because if you reflect on this question enough, you’ll realize your internal desire to do great things on your own.

For example, you may be able to make the best pancake in the world and if you truly can, you may have a calling to start a crepe cafe. Or maybe you love to play softball and you happen to know how to give that winning edge to your fellow teammates at bat and you want to share.

Whatever the case, I am sure that if you pursue that ability, you’ll succeed because you can make money doing just about anything out there. And I mean ANYTHING. The only question after you pursue that ability is how much money do you want to make? This sounds totally cheesy but only if you don’t stop to think about the possible ways of making a living in the world.

Here are three great examples.

Example 1: Guy loves playing softball. Guy realizes that he has the tools to modify softball bats to make them hit balls farther than normal. This is illegal in the rules of softball but hey, where there is a demand, there will be a supply. Guy sets up a web site and starts charging people to modify their bats at 120-150 per bat. Sales skyrocket and soon he’s modifying 30-35 bats per DAY. You can do the math.

Example 2: Guy loves software development. Guy understands in the lending world that banks have a chain of events that require human input at various stages in a bank loan. Guy produces a piece of software to automatically inform the humans when the lending process requires their input and charges the bank $1 per loan. Imagine how many loans a decent sized bank processes per month.

Example 3: Guy likes light bulbs. Guy realizes that there are specialized light bulbs in medical devices/equipment in doctors offices and hospitals across the country. Guy does massive amount of research to compile a list of light bulbs for all kinds of medical machines and distributes a catalog to hospitals/doctor offices across the country and turns around to be one of Philips’ largest buyers and acquires mass quantities of all the bulbs at a heavily discounted price and sits back to ship light bulbs off. Imagine the number machines in a hospital and think about how many hospitals and doctor offices there are in your city. Now fathom how many there are in your average size state. Now multiply that by 50.

These aren’t your normal stories about how people make a living. I’ve shared these real stories with you because I want you to understand that you CAN do something else other than your job. Also… if you think about it - when you’re not at work, you are “unemployed”. Meaning, you are not working and thus have the free time to work on exploring another way of making a living.

Do not think that the only way you can make money is by working at your job. Remember that.

The world will see you in the morning, roll by you in the afternoon, and leave you standing there by yourself in the evening if you let it. I encourage you to grab a part of it and mold it so the world NEEDS you to continue.

Everyday people/businesses do/see/buy/use things/services. Reflect and realize what your true ability is and run with it.

I hate starting my blogs like this but it REALLY has been a long time since I've blogged and I feel really awful about that. For my friends who I don't get to see as often as I'd like to check in on here and I feel that I've been doing you all a disservice.

So I apologize.

Anyway, I'm just going to update you all with some things that I've been pondering for the past few months.

1) doing searches for "pay bills" on craigslist's for sale section is an interesting thing. if you do that same seach in san diego, los angeles, and phoenix, it's sad how many results you find in phoenix.

2) i have a love/non-love relationship with panerai watches. i love their watches, the style, the shape, the uber-size cases however the way they were revived irks me a little bit. i guess it's because i'm not a huge fan of sylvester stallone. "what? what? what?" you say? yes, as odd as that is to say... sylvester stallone single-handedly revived the panerai brand. source: wikipedia - ... (panerai) remained relatively obscure until the actor Sylvester Stallone spotted and bought a Panerai Luminor in a jewellery store in Rome in 1995 to wear during shooting of the film Daylight.^[2] Stallone ordered a small batch of such watches with his signature on the case back, called Slytech. He offered them as gifts to friends, including Arnold Schwarzenegger.

some day i'll have one. preferably the panerai fly back 1950 model.

3) i also have a love/hate relationship with scrabble. the scrabble gods tend to give me all the good letters in one game vs spreading out the good letters among several games. case in point, i
threw down AQUARIUM in one game and won by a LANDSLIDE...



Did I really need all those 221 points in one move? No. Scrabble gods, are you listening? probably not.

4) H1 Hummers are getting more affordable. In fact, I inquired about one on craigslist recently and it was offered at 25k. I e-mailed back and mentioned that I was concerned about the climate control system in this older H1 and that replacing/upgrading the system when it fails could cost 3k easily. He replied back saying the adjusted price was 23k. Although that's a fun price for an H1 and it would look great with a mobilehid.com sticker on it and some mobilehid lights on it, the cheetah patterned seats kinda kill the deal. :(



5) i tried a new driver while golfing the other day and I couldn't believe how well I hit it. Now my favorite driver and my dog share the same name. SUMO!

6) i found a software programmer overseas to design my dream application that I have planned for mobile phone users across the country. :) Muahahahaa

7) what is up with the entitlement issues that children/teenagers/college students have these days?

8) i need to conjure up a way to cycle through a quarter million dollars a month on my plum card like this guy.

9) craigslist is a wonderful thing.

10) part of me wants to travel. like almost "matt harding"travel. to go adventure somewhere where nobody knows my name and all i have is some cash, a breitling emergency watch, and a smile.

11) i'm planning on getting lasik surgery soon. lasers and eyeballs are a funny combo, if you put them together you can either screw up or get it right, either way, you probably won't need your glasses anymore.

12) california real estate prices are looking good right now.

that's all for now, i'm pretty sleepy.