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The COVID-19 Pandemic Might Just Be The Best Thing That Ever Happened To You. Pandemic-proof your income to pursue your ultimate dream and be set for life. This post brings together several posts I have been writing to encourage people to follow their dream while also pandemic-proofing their life and income.
The audio version of this post:
Let’s start living the life we have always wanted to because there is no excuse not to do that anymore. Change is not only coming, but it is also upon us, and Nature is forcing us to follow our pandemic-proof dreams.
Accept It
Before you do anything great to pandemic-proof your life, you need to accept that change is not only coming, it is here. Life is simply different now. You are quarantined or in a lockdown. You can’t get together with your family for Easter. I don’t know if you can get together with your family for Easter even next year. First things first, accept that.
That’s right, we don’t know.
Lockdowns and quarantines are helping to “flatten the curve,” but the question everyone is asking is “When will life get back to normal?”
What if, “Never” is the answer? It could be that the normal we knew and loved, or the normal we knew and hated will never come back. And, that’s great! We just have to open our minds to what is possible and pandemic-proof.
Think about it.
“Never” is far more likely than “June” as far as life going back to normal. I mean, until they have a vaccine for the COVID-19, can we start socializing like we used to? Probably not. Vaccines take time to develop and we are looking at something like 12-18 months. That’s not a couple of weeks. That’s pretty long term. Expecting everything to be normal and waiting for us to rejoin is naive. The change will continue to happen, the world will become a different place, and you have to move with it.
Get Excited
You get to be part of a changing and pandemic-proof world! It is your chance to be part of history and write history! You get to solve problems! For a long time, life was easy and stagnant. Now we have a chance to do something that matters. Use the next 12-18 months to change your life and change the world as you do it!
You can do what you always wanted to do. Hate your job? If you get laid off, well, good riddance! It was not your life’s calling anyway. You get to figure out your life’s calling! If you already know it, you get to pursue it. Because there are no more excuses not to!
Even if it is not as drastic as losing employment and gaining something else, you can do things that you have always wanted to. Take a class you have always wanted to take, clean some part of your house you have always wanted to clean.
Look on the bright side. With all the negativity surrounding the pandemic, you need to stay optimistic. Give yourself optimism by finding the silver lining in all this. Doing pandemic-proof things you have always wanted to do but had no time or opportunity to do will make you feel better.
Think of it as the things you get to do, not the things you have to do. If you are home with the kids, you get to spend quality time with them. They were probably growing up too fast and the time was passing you by, now you can live through things with them. You can look back at this time and realize how much fun you had together. If you have dogs and/or cats, they appreciate having you around more. You are their world. If you have a nice field behind your house, stare at it more. The field is always there, but you never usually have time to appreciate it.
Appreciate the quieter mornings, the calm, the sundown, the rain. The earth is healing. Animals and birds are happier. Feel it, take reassurance from it, and let it heal you, too.
Take Massive Action
After you have realized that change is here and let yourself get excited about it, it is time to take massive action. You can’t NOT take action and expect things to be fine right now.
Make a wholehearted commitment to changing your life for the better and seize this opportunity to follow through with everything you need to do to turn that dream into a reality.
Wake up. Think about the things you have always hated. In your previous situation, you might even have been numb to these things. The things that bug you, the things that actively make you less happy with your situation, but you felt like you have no choice or not a good enough reason to make a change. All that can change now.
You have permission granted to you by Mother Nature herself. What do you hate? Write it down. What do you want to change? Write it down.
Then, make it happen!
Are you an introvert who has always felt pressure to go into the office? Were you a server at a restaurant who always wanted to try something else? Did you secretly always want to learn how to code and leave your current job? Now it is your chance! Do take it!
TAKE TAKE TAKE.
Take what this pandemic has to offer you, seriously. Accept the social isolation, the uncertainty, the problems, the adjustments, the unemployment – take everything it has to offer. Leverage it all to achieve your pandemic-proof goals.
Nobody is judging you.
No-one has time to judge you. Right now, for once, it’s just you. Everyone is too busy watching the news or escaping reality via Netflix. You are here and you exist and you can do YOU. No-one is going to question, “Oh, why did you do that last year? That was a dumb move.” You can get away with it! You can get away with being BOLD this year. Start a (pandemic-proof) business!!!!! BE BOLD. Answer to no one. Try it, fail, try again. No-one is watching.
Working Hard Is Back
It’s time to think big and work hard, friends. Working hard is back. You can’t half-ass a pandemic. You can’t be “meh.” If you are going to take advantage of a pandemic to live the life you always wanted to live, you are going to have to
- Decide to do it
- Realize you are doing it
- Continue to do it
- Work day in and day out towards it
- Take full responsibility
- Stay committed
There is no going back. There is no halfway into this thing. You are in a pandemic. People are dying and you have decided to follow your dream. You are empowering yourself. You have decided to not only survive this thing but to be better from it. That is brave and bold and requires your full commitment.
The biggest thing is we already knew this. We have always known that hard work is the answer. Successful business owners and leaders such as Gary Vaynerchuk have articulated it already. There is no substitute for going all in and working super hard on something you are passionate about.
We all have dreams but are too scared to pursue them. We trade passion and true happiness for things like convenience, job security, and honestly, just working less hard.
When you are not that passionate about something, you kinda just don’t work all that hard on it. We have been settling for working from 9 to 5 because that’s all we can bring ourselves to do. That’s all the energy and motivation we can summon. It’s not work-life balance, it’s simply not caring all that much. Stop making excuses. You don’t love your job that much and you are not alone. That’s most people.
We don’t have the future and financial freedom we want because we haven’t done enough to deserve it, yet. So yeah, these dreams are not going to come true on their own, pandemic, or no pandemic. We have to work very, very hard on them. Like extra hard. However much you can work and feel like working, of course, it’s up to you. Things are going to have to be sacrificed to pandemic-proof your life and income, but nothing good ever comes easy.
We knew that already. It’s just NOW happens to be a great time to take action. The pandemic is here to give you the gift of NO OPTION but to follow your dream.
As an example of hard work or some version of it, I wrote my first book “How to PhD: The Graduate School Handbook” last year, that is, in 2019. I wrote this book while holding a demanding, full-time job. So, I worked double shifts to make this book a reality. But, I really, really wanted to have this book out there and help students through it. And, I LOVE writing. It’s like oxygen. When you love doing what you do, it doesn’t nearly feel as bad.
So, I made it happen but let me be super clear about the fact that:
- it was a TON of work,
- and I enjoyed doing it.
The result? It’s a bestseller in the College Guides category on Kindle. It sells, at least, a few copies every month and I make some dollars from it each month. I haven’t made a fortune from it yet, but it sure is very exciting to see the royalties get direct deposited to my bank account from Amazon each month, even if it’s only a few dollars. I followed my “How to PhD” book up with another book “How to Antarctica: 31 Things You Need To Pack For Your Antarctic Expedition” and that is selling, too. Both were written as, purely, a side hustle.
The lowest amount I have made in a month from my two books is around six dollars. That’s still lunch. I mean, it’s passive income and I do almost nothing to promote these books. But, the hard work of writing and publishing these books is paying off consistently. Most importantly, helping people through these books make me very happy and I am glad to do it.
Getting any results at all is exciting! After all, it’s only a side hustle. I don’t do it full-time. But, that’s what I am getting at. Even to get any results at all takes an incredible amount of work. The market is humbling but it’s there. You just have to keep up the hustle.
What the pandemic brings to the table is that there is no question about the presence of a market and some very obvious needs have emerged. You are simply lots of hard work away from being able to benefit from that market. There are you and the market, and you can seize it if you want. You just have to work very hard.
Multiply Your Effort
Alright, time to do the math. I mentioned that the lowest amount I make from my two books is six dollars per month. Usually, I make more than that. But, let’s say, I will only ever make six dollars a month with my current level of effort and resulting output. Well, if I multiply six dollars by 12 months, that is $72 in a year. Then, if I multiply my effort of a year by 10, that becomes $720. That’s still not that much. What about 100 times more? That would be $7200. Looking better. And, with a thousand times more output, I would be at $72,000. I can live on that. At that point, this side hustle could sustain me.
What I am getting at is we can and will get there. We just need to multiply and scale our effort to match our goal. It is not the case that our dream is unrealizable. It is simply true that it will take hard work and multiplication of hard work, so, more hard work, to get there. We have to keep our heads down and do this and get the result of ultimately getting there.
What better time, though, than a pandemic to multiply our effort? Stay indoors and work your ass off every day to produce content. If you were writing one book per year, write more now. If you were blogging once a month, blog once a week, if not every day.
Get your audience to engage more, to lean in. They are out there, scared, and filled with uncertainty. Give them what they need. Help them to solve their problems. An audience with problems is a market for you. A chance to help out is a chance to push your business, and resulting income, to the next level.
Large-Scale Impact
I love problems and love a challenge. Although I suffer like anyone else through them, what I love about problems is that they are also opportunities. Opportunity to
- help,
- grow,
- change,
- to be relevant,
- for a great impact,
- to be of service, to be useful!
Associated post:
How the COVID-19 problem can be an opportunity of a lifetime
Think about it. You can have an impact in this world! Your existence can mean something on a larger scale. We always mean something to our friends and family but how often do you get a chance to mean something to the entire world?
That’s what this is, right? A large-scale issue. There is a problem in the WORLD right now. People on the entire planet are in trouble and having all sorts of problems. This is a RARE opportunity and we have the chance to SERVE in a big way during our lifetime.
It is not just some story told by a grandparent. This is OUR STORY. Our collective story. WE get to tell our grandchildren about this, about the time when there was a lockdown because of a dangerous disease. When we lived in a terrible recession and had to get through a crisis.
CRISIS IS HERE. What are you doing about it?
Meaningful Work
There are urgent problems right now. Like, helping the people on the front line. Can you do anything to help them? They are not bored, they are overwhelmed. They are putting their lives in danger in the service of others.
What can we do for them?
We need to drop everything, take a step back, and think about that. We need them and they need us. So again, let’s do it together. Having an opportunity to help people who don’t have the luxury of telework right now would be such an honor. That would be meaningful work and an opportunity of a lifetime. Recognize how you can help and seize your chance to do so.
New Problems = New Ways Of Income
Think about the problems, or new situations, that people are dealing with. Even if you can help with something mundane, anything at all, that is still something. Whatever you can do for people, to social distance and fight the disease, to help this economy, is all a good thing. Some new situations are:
- People have to telework now which means adapting to new technologies and ways to do work. Can you think of anything that would make that process easier? Like helping people figure out ways to navigate telework and to remain productive.
- People are spending more time with their kids and having to figure out homeschooling. A good number of them are complaining about being stuck with childcare during the day when they would usually be at work. It’s getting to be a lot and parents are overwhelmed. Can you help with that? I am very interested in helping with the homeschooling problem because I already have an interest in helping people with education, school, and career. Although I haven’t done it too much for younger kids, I am very excited to try! I already have so many book ideas for helping kids learn different topics. Check out my YouTube channel in the link above and please subscribe! I have joined TikTok and YouTube to help educate younger students during this pandemic.
- People are bored. This makes them great consumers of content! People know it’s bad to binge Netflix all day. So, if you can feed them with useful information, something valuable, they are likely to be interested. Do you already have an audience? For example, are you on social media at all? Like Twitter or Facebook or Instagram? Your friends and followers are your audiences. Think about what you can do for your audience right now. What do you bring to the table that would be appreciated by your friends and followers? Maybe you like dancing and you could start a dance club with your friends on Instagram Live.
These are just a few examples. You can think about other pandemic-proof ways to help people and also gain inspiration by consuming content yourself that will help you to both help yourself and help others.
The main thing to realize is that there is an opportunity to have an impact on a large scale right now. So this is what you have to do:
- Focus on solving problems for a lot of people
- Monetize to turn it into an income
In that order. To make money, you first have to think about people.
Who are you going to help? What problem are you interested in helping with and what pandemic-proof solution are you providing? Who is the audience? Who will benefit?
Before you benefit, you have to think about benefiting others. It’s a simple business. Before charging someone for Aloo Methi, you have to cook the Aloo Methi and feed a hungry person some much-appreciated food.
Income is not going to happen without putting in the work first and without thinking about how you are going to serve people. The best thing right now, though, is that many problems are staring us in the face.
People with problems are all over the world. We all have a common enemy, so there is no problem with being able to relate with a large audience. In other words, there is no time better than NOW to address your people, and their problems, which will lead to a pandemic-proof income that you previously could not achieve.
Step 1: identify pain, then come up with a plan to address it. You can read some articles online about “how to make a million dollars” or something along those lines. Many of them discuss how it’s about the number of people you are serving that scales to the amount of money you make.
Get Inspired
You can gain inspiration and optimism by consuming the content of leaders who are devoting time and energy to give you that. Gary Vee (net worth: $160 million) has started Tea with GaryVee and Simon Sinek (net worth: $15 million) has started a book club on YouTube.
PhDs, you can follow Isaiah Hankel’s work to help realign your career during a recession. He is actively talking about how to recession-proof aka pandemic-proof your career, which is super relevant during this pandemic. Just as much as the pandemic is causing people to get furloughed and laid off, new jobs are being created. Certain roles are becoming more in-demand, and certain sectors are surging.
You don’t have to have a Ph.D. to solve problems, though. Keep your eyes and ears open for pandemic-proof opportunities and use your common sense. Instead of only consuming negativity, be a consumer of positive information during this crisis and draw inspiration and ideas. Problems always lead to a new opportunity. You simply have to be open to exploration. This article lists the areas that are seeing growth and investment opportunities.
The Right Job
What is exciting to me is that I have this strong feeling that the pandemic will push people to look for the job that is right for them. The pandemic-proof job they have always wanted to do or to fill the role they were always meant to be in. During a crisis, the everyday problems just get amplified and that much more unbearable. You are dealing with stress and inconveniences while being worried about your health and the wellbeing of your loved ones. It’s a LOT to handle and to get through.
The pandemic can start to break people but what I hope for is that it breaks their inhibitions. I hope that the pandemic allows people to take that leap, or depending on the change, a small step towards their ultimate, pandemic-proof dream.
I am hoping that people get that much closer to doing the work they were always meant to do. It won’t be so bad that you got laid off when you find your dream opportunity. Maybe you were miserable as a research scientist and would much prefer a medical writing position, for example. Perhaps you were looking to switch industries. Maybe you were client-facing but wanted something else, or to be client-facing in a different way.
The opposite could also be true where you gain motivation in your current role. Maybe your job won’t be so unbearable anymore now that you can telework. Perhaps you will grow more loyalty for your company because they did not lay you off. Maybe your company is adapting and you are rather proud of it. What you didn’t appreciate before might just be what is keeping you employed right now, and it is time to appreciate the small and big pandemic-proof things.
Whichever way you go, the biggest assurance is that change is expected right now. It is not a question anymore or a crazy thing to think about. It is allowed because it is already here. If you haven’t allowed yourself the change you needed before, you can allow yourself now.
Recognize Your Niche And Deliver
The point is to find your niche, or more likely, recognize your niche. You are probably already good at something. Likely, you are already passionate about something. You have likely always suppressed innate talent and interests to follow the more conventional path, to be safe.
Now is the time to bring that “real you” to the forefront. While the world is in chaos, you can unleash your true self. Let your passions loose and take their course.
If you are a problem-solver, then you can not only get through this pandemic, you can thrive. There is a world waiting for you to help them. So, help them! Don’t wait anymore; just do.
Forget about losing your job and not being able to see your friends. Jobs come and go. You can Zoom call with your friends. Forget the negativity. Bring pandemic-proof solutions to the table. Adapt and leverage the fact that you can do something using your particular expertise, whatever that may be.
Having any role at all to better the world and solve problems in this pandemic is an awesome gift. It will forever enrich your life and bring new meaning to it. You just have to allow yourself to shift gears and jump in.
The tangible incentive? It can forever change the way you sustain yourself. It can replace your job or current method of income.
So, don’t wait any longer for the chaos to be over. Don’t wait for everything to be normal again. Take action, help people, and start your NEW life and method of income.
The game is on, war is on. Fire. Go, go, GO.
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