Whatever you may feel about Robert Kiyosaki, his Cash Flow Quadrant is an amazing tool to categorize the types of way we make money. Today, we’ll focus on the “E” Employee and the “S” Self-Employed quadrants.
For the Employee, the benefits are a steady income. A general piece of mind and security provided that your work is satisfactory and your employer’s business is going well. The downside of course is that you give up control over your compensation and terms of work. If you’re unsatisfied, you can always find a different job. But that way of thinking contradicts with the benefits of working for someone else – security.
That’s the main reason you don’t hear people changing jobs very often. It’s a shame though, because if you were to work on self improvement consistently, it’s very likely you’ll outgrow your current position faster than you think.
For the Self Employed, it is almost the reverse thinking as the Employee. You exchange that security and perceived safety of a job for the control and scalability of owning your own job. With the ability to control and scale your time, the potential to be compensated much more is an exciting prospect.
On the downside, you will start each day with zero. Your income is proportional to the amount of work you put in each day. With such a daunting task, this is where momentum is important. If you remember from school, Newton’s 1st Law of Motion states that “An object at rest remains at rest, or if in motion, remains in motion at a constant velocity unless acted on by a net external force.”
So starting at zero each day, obviously is very difficult to get moving. So how do we build momentum?
One way is to start a daily routine and stay consistent. Seth Godin has been writing a blog post every day for more than a decade . Right now, he’s at about 8,000!!
Seth says that the first 1,000 post are the most difficult and usually takes about 3 years. He also says that people who have over 200 have reported positive results and are glad they went through with the exercise.
It doesn’t have to be blog posts. It can be any productive habit you want to achieve.
For the momentum to start, all you have to do is start.