I keep forgetting this is my personal blog, and keep writing long-form articles that I slave and slave over. Part of this is because I enjoy crafting something good, the other part is because I know how bad my spur of the moment, unedited posts can be. As a writer who wants to get better, it’s embarrassing to see rubbish I write posted on the World Wide Web for all eternity.
But I’ll try this. Because I know my friends read this, and I’d like to share what’s in my life from time to time and maybe get some advice. And I also know how much I enjoy catching up with them on their own blogs, so hopefully they’ll enjoy reading my blog too.
Work, Fulfillment & the Big Bucks
I love my job at Hardware Zone – a great mix of technology (a love) and writing (a big, big love). Or at least, I used to, until the great pile of nonsensical projects came raining down and took time and effort away from writing a few things really well to writing a lot of things really bad.
Plus, a couple of big bills got me down lately, and brought home again the hard point that I’m not making enough of the bucks, and that no matter how much I love what I do at HWZ, it will never get me to where I want to go financially. And I want to change that, not just for me, but for my family, and especially my dad, who’s going through his own tough times.
Sometimes, I just feel like Jerry Maguire, you know?
It feels like this is the one area in my life where I experience lack. I love what I do, I love my family, I love my relationship, I love my car, I love love love. But this is one area that just hasn’t happened for me.
But. No blame. While I believe in the haphazard slings and sorrows of outrageous fortune (some people seem to have all the luck, while some just don’t), I also believe in taking personal responsibility – I may not be able to do everything, but let me do what I can. A friend told me long ago that the secret to her success was just that she made it a priority, I realized then and I realize now that making the big bucks just hasn’t been a priority for me, and if I don’t change that nothing will change.
Money or Value?
Here’s another point of view. Mega-rich blogger Steve Pavlina writes that his secret to making the big bucks isn’t a focus on money, which is in fact a mistake. His secret has been to focus on creating and delivering value. The more value you create, and the easier you get it out there to the masses, the more value – a.k.a. money – you’ll get in return.
Makes sense to me.
But if I believe that and I apply it to my own life, the results I’m getting would mean that I haven’t been creating and delivering enough value. Not for lack of trying, I’ve been doing my best to create more value at work, but maybe my problem isn’t in the creation bit, but the delivery part. After all, no matter how much value I create, my delivery system is botched: the return part is bottle-necked by salary classes and oh-too-small bonuses.
Turns out full-time magazine writing in Singapore isn’t the pathway to millions.
So what do I change? What do I do? Any ideas that don’t involve MLM, selling my soul or body (hur hur)?
Some days I feel like changing the title of this blog to ‘more questions than answers.’
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Yeah I have some thoughs to share, but I don’t know if they will help you.
I would say, that one of your problems is the delivery part, too. I don’t know your job yet, but If you create value for a group of people you could try to expand your group. Then you would provide the same amount of value to more people = more provided value.
Or you focus on your 20% best people you give value to and start giving more to them, focusing less on the other 80%. You know the 80-20 rule, don’t you?
Do you think you could apply this? Because then step 1 (expanding your group) would be your delivery part problem. But step 2 (expanding your value) would bypass this problem.
So if you don’t get a chance to expand your group, expand your value. This reminds me that mostly what we tell OTHER people, we should apply to ourselves.
you gonna crush it.
Alvin, U feel like Jerry? Jerry doesn’t play baseball but he get money from baseball. U could do the same thing. got it?