Figure out what you’re good at

This first step in your journey toward financial independence is taking a good, long look in the mirror and being honest about what you’re good at and what you like doing.

I was on a call a couple of weeks ago with a gentleman I’ve been talking to since the beginning of my Twitter journey three years ago. Back then, his interest was in writing, but over time that interest has faded and he has pursued other interests (which are pretty dang impressive, tbh).

The point is that you should not pursue a career in writing if you don’t enjoy writing. Crazy, right?

Seriously though. If you don’t like writing, a career in writing is not something you should consider. Because you’re going to write a lot. Like, a whole lot. All the time, every day.

Skills inventories are clutch

Ok, so you decided that you like to write and want to do it for money. Cool.

I do not care what some influencer told you on the interwebs; the only way to start making money fast on the internet is through freelancing. Info products don’t sell worth a shit unless you have a substantial audience, so don’t waste your time with them unless you have a loyal, strong fanbase of several thousand (bare minimum).

Also, don’t listen to the retards that tell you there is no money on Upwork. They are dumb as hell. jUsT sEnD cOlD DmS.

Ok, dude.

Or you can spend the weekend learning how to optimize your Fiverr and Upwork profiles and start billing hours the next week. And yes, I know this works. Every single one of my long-standing clients found me on Upwork, and I only lay this out for you to understand what’s lurking out there and not to brag, but my monthly income is consistently between $14k-$16k and has been for a couple of years. The anti-Upwork crew is the entrepreneurship version of the red pill gang who hates women because they got rejected for being total dorks.

But I’m ranting and putting the cart before the horse.

Sit down and open up your favorite note-taking app, or grab a pen and paper. List out every skill you’ve got that you can think of. Next, go to Upwork and start plugging these skills into it. You want to see if your particular skillset has value. To determine this, you want to see one of two things: either a bunch of gigs listed or you aim to dominate a niche.

In my case, I dominate a niche. I am the top-rated aviation writer on Upwork, so a lot of leads have found me because of that. However, the niche itself is quite small so I have to be the best to get the gigs. I don’t recommend this approach but it has worked out pretty well for me.

The good thing is that if you find yourself stuck on what you already know, there are tons of opportunities to learn something completely new, which I’ll go over tomorrow, so stay tuned.

Tomorrow, I’m going to share the myriad ways to learn a skill if you don’t have any that are worth anything.