£28,000 to my name, stuck in the rat race, please help!

[Shaun]

I've just finished watching Leo's video about questions. I am stuck working 40 hours a week at Amazon with not even the slightest clue about what direction to take my life. I am in Scotland.

What do I want in my life? Peace,  meaningful connection with others and a deeper understanding of reality

How do I get that? Exit corporate rat race and become financially independent so that I can have the time and energy to devote to the points mentioned previously.

And I find myself stuck at the how. The creative blockage is immense. All attempts to figure out a solution or enquire deeper into this just results in silence. I just feel so trapped and helpless as if this is the hand I've been dealt in life. 

I have decent savings but I don't know if I could maybe invest them in something? And there is another creative block. I've no idea what to do with them.

 

[Dan502]

Hi Shaun

Do you have much time outside of work that you could use for research? There are books on career changes, life coaches etc.

Have you taken a personality test for example?

[ExodiaGearCEO]

It’s pretty obvious. You’re working to much hours. 40 hours a week means you’re a Workaholic. So, you’re wasting a lot of your time and energy at work when you could be focusing on your passion. After, work you would be to tired and lazy to do any real productive activities. Try working less hours, eating more healthy and set some long term goals in where you want to be at the next 5-10 years of your life. Cheers.

[Bill W]

4 minutes ago, ExodiaGearCEO said:

It’s pretty obvious. You’re working to much hours. 40 hours a week means you’re a Workaholic. So, you’re wasting a lot of your time and energy at work when you could be focusing on your passion. After, work you would be to tired and lazy to do any real productive activities. Try working less hours, eating more healthy and set some long term goals in where you want to be at the next 5-10 years of your life. Cheers.

What amount of hours means workaholic? What's the maximum hours I can work a week and not be a workaholic? 

[UDT]

2 hours ago, ExodiaGearCEO said:

It’s pretty obvious. You’re working to much hours. 40 hours a week means you’re a Workaholic. So, you’re wasting a lot of your time and energy at work when you could be focusing on your passion.

Dont know your age or where your live but 40 hours is pretty average hours. Talk to the people working corporate auditing or consulting, haha they go around 55-60hrs, + always available + weekend research

Thats the world today

[Shaun]

50 minutes ago, UDT said:

Dont know your age or where your live but 40 hours is pretty average hours. Talk to the people working corporate auditing or consulting, haha they go around 55-60hrs, + always available + weekend research

Thats the world today

I reduced my hours to 30 a week but my parents were not happy about that so I put it back to 40. I plan to move out soon but that will not help much as my life is still pretty much a waste. I don't feel that my impact on the world is large enough to justify my existence. I want a high impact life like what Leo has or at the very least to become financially independent.

Edited May 18, 2019 by Shaun

[Karla]

@Shaun Hey-- at least you found out now versus 20 years from now. Many people will fall into that boat so-- congratulations.

Check out the life purpise course so that you can begin to identify where you want to focus or at least begin to turn your ship.

Then-- start reading, meditating (this may seem like a crisis but you having this aha is actually very good in the long run.

 Perhaps start to look at jobs that might help you gain mastery around your life purpose until you know its time to take bigger leaps.

You're on the right track just don't get distracted like the masses.

 

[7thLetter]

@Shaun You work for Amazon, how about looking into Amazon FBA? You can invest your savings into a product and sell on Amazon.

[Edelweiss]

Greetings from BUCKS. Can feel with you, as I am in a similar situation but I think I am gradually finding a way. I am a big proponent of what Covey used to say that eventually your life's mission will find you and not the other way around. But it is difficult in this noisy world. Excuse the radio analogy: Imagine tuning a radio in the olden days, there used to be lots of noise between the stations and there are many stations. The problem these days is that people focus too much on the problem, e.g. they sit there and know they feel empty but also do not tune anymore, or their reception bandwidth has become too narrow. E.g. you better use a broad band antenna, suck in lots of signals and find something of value and stay for a while (as Jim Rohn once said). Find something that resonates with you and check it out a bit more. Something got you here right? DO (new) things ideally do and try more things. You just don't know what is really out there, our paradigms are totally limited by our belief and the consequential emptiness one feels. Maybe you can shave off some hours of your soul sucking job and dedicate it to some internal work. If you have no family e.g. wife and kids, you are a lucky man in this respect as you have peace and quiet.

A good place to start is to go back into your childhood days and find things that were a joy to do. Or remember a place that made you happy. Start to ask some chained WHY questions. Elicit your values. These are tiny steps to go into the right direction. Take some time and do stuff you really enjoy. It may lead to to something/somewhere else. People generally stop tuning around and resign, blame the rut they are in for their inability to to have choice / time, e.g. play victim. Thought the same once... Read a bit on Logotherapy, it is interesting, too. The second problem is that we are so distracted, by all these gazillions of signals these days there is basically no more noise between the stations! It is so overwhelmingly full of signals that it is info-overload and it also paralyses our desire to look for something in the first place. It literally weakens us. Listen to Leo's distraction episode. Or we are overdosing on (quality) infotainment (like this site) and thus become inactive and forget that we can actually DO things. We watch others on you tube/instructables etc. do shit, but we all we manage is scroll the screen and feel empty. Go out, leave the damned dis-tracktor at home. Open your senses, broaden and open your awareness. Connect with others (I know quality people are like gold dust and are very hard to find). It may take years but I am sure something will resonate with you eventually. Follow the small signals just above the noise floor. Listen carefully, inside for weak signals (possibly from the past). Good luck. There is plenty of help here and in books, use it. You will eventually guide yourself somewhere but you need to act and not wallow in self pity.

[Michael569]

I am in a very similar position. Finance company in London, very similar annual revenue. 

The most honest truth of someone who is going through the same process and slowly "digging a tunnel out of rat prison" I can tell you that taking this slowly but progressing day-by-day bit by bit is the safest method. (Unless you want to quit, burn bridges and go all-in. Some people did that but if it doesn't work you'll end up without job and savings. )

This means keep working wherever you are but dedicate 100% of your spare time to finding your life purpose. For me buying Leo's LP course did it. Once you identify your purpose, strengths, values and have a decent mission statement, you can start looking for a practical way to redirect your compass. For me this meant finding an educational institution that provides me with framework of the knowledge I need to have to embark on the new career. This may take several years depending on how different your LP is. 

While doing all this, you will keep working 9-5 but look for way to implement your highest values in your job and for ways to work on your LP. Perhaps this means staying 2 hours later, and studying, or taking lunch break outside to work on your true purpose for 1 hour. Maybe starting to wake up 1 hour earlier and doing what needs to be done. 

Some tips to keep you motivated and on the track: 

• free your daily routine from all activities that do not serve you
• read books and listen to audioprogramms fom the field that you are interested in
• keep track of your nutrition and exercise to provide sufficient energy to your brain for the additional energy expenditure
• practice daily meditation to help you accept your current unsatisfying situation with less anxiety. 
• get in touch with people who have interests similar to you, attend seminars, lectures

EDIT: the earlier you start the better. This will not fix itself eventually. Waiting for it to be better will not make it better. That's what your employer would tell you.."look at all these incredible benefits we provide to our employees so they can have a nice retirement and enjoy life" well thats one giant pile of horseshit. I laugh everytime I recieve my company's newsletter.  In this country, following a traditional 9-5 means ending up ill, crippled and completely burned out in your 50s from decades of hunch sitting, screen staring and drinking coffee to persuade one's demotivated mind and body to carry on another day....eventually making you another number in NHS's heart disease statistics. 

Start now...today

Edited May 20, 2019 by Michael569

[RawJudah]

I'm with you on this one. I work an intense job and I do around 55 hours a week. Early starts and late finishes. Its melting my brain and I think its killing me. I come home and have no energy to do anything. But the money is fucking incredible for my age...

But I literally can't think of any way to get out of it other than to just quit and go travelling, but then I'll have to come back and start all over again. Although it might give me some inspiration for how to get out of the rat race.

It seems to me that a lot of the business ideas have pretty much all been taken, and someone has already thought of your idea of how to get out.

It's like working to be financially independent is more difficult than enlightenment...

However, I will keep thinking of ways to get out, because I know there ARE ways out.

[d0ornokey]

5 hours ago, RawJudah said:

It seems to me that a lot of the business ideas have pretty much all been taken, and someone has already thought of your idea of how to get out.

 

Careful this is a self-fullilling prophecy. "there's an infinite amount of good business ideas" is also a self-fullfilling prophecy

I've had 5 business ideas that I really wanted to pursue that I see eventually get big

You need to ask questions and set the intention to generate business ideas 

I've found the following insight in my direct experience: http://prntscr.com/nr256b

Plus this is some ideas: 

http://prntscr.com/nr25d5 

Keep going until you hit the insight and go "HOLY FUCK THIS IS GENIUS" 

 

There's really soooo many ways. Maybe 100s. You just need to be creative, do research, talk to lots of people (even through facebook groups is good) and believe in your potential to achieve. As well as execute. When you start immersing and executing in business you will see opportunity that you've never seen before. Really what's stopping you is limiting beliefs, not wanting to be uncomfortable and fear

One option I've found recently is to get a job on upwork then outsource the work. I have a friend accomplish this in 2 weeks (with little experience) so that's what I'm in the process of doing 

Edited May 20, 2019 by d0ornokey

[Consept]

You have some really good savings there, just an idea but property is pretty cheap in scotland so might be an idea to buy to let you can usually get pretty good yields, realistically youve got a deposit for at least 2 places. If not you could look a something abroad, i know the stamp duty is a bit of a hurdle at the moment so maybe something in spain or further and air bnb it. 

Other than that you could look into stocks although that could be fairly long term. I sell on amazon myself so seeing as you work for them you could do really well with a 10k investment for example. Or if you want more traditional route, have a think of what your dream job would be and allow yourself to believe you could do it and then look into how much the training would be for it. You have a good start off point and anything is probably possible for you to do you just have to really strategise and work out what you want to do

[RawJudah]

@d0ornokey I know this is an old post, but what do you mean by 'get a job on upwork then outsource the work'?