By Guillaume Rondan
Generations after generations, having a fancy title on business cards was a proof of success in careers. It is a norm that everyone wants to chase high positions in big corporations and keep climbing the ladders their entire lives.
In the international study released by the World Health Organization in 2017 about depression : anxiety, stress disorder and lack of sleep related to work were in cause. A recent update on May 2019 confirmed the impacts from negative work environment leading to depression. More than those obvious consequences, people seems to forget the meaningful part in their work . They are hooked by the material things and are in trapped in the rat race. They seem to forget the dream they had in their childhood.
Many Millennials took the decision to live differently : quit their corporate jobs to launch their own businesses, travel the world, prioritize experience over money. That’s the path I decided to take and I am inviting you to explore this other way of living …
Open your eyes and design your own path
Being a business man, a stock trader, a head of sales are some of the top targeted jobs that many people are trying to reach. Climbing ladders to reach those positions will definitely keep you on track in your career and offer you good income, letting you achieve high-challenges and be in a perpetual rush until your retirement. Is your current position giving you the challenges and responsibilities you are expecting ? Are you earning the salary you deserve ? During 8 hours of work, how many hours are you spending on things you are really enjoying ? If one of those questions just irritates you, it reveals that you are not utilizing your full potential.
Millennials being in the top 5 % of the wealthiest
What would you prefer :
- Earning an average salary letting you being in an average situation, not comfortable, not tight of money but at the same time without any exciting things to do … ? In few words : staying average your whole life. OR
- Earning 5k$ and having to work 6 days per week, 8 hours per day (excluding work you need to do at home because your boss is asking you to) ? OR
- Earning 3k$ while you work for your own project, having flexible time, traveling the world and being passionate about what you are doing ?
Money is something everyone is chasing but what about those other aspects : freedom, flexibility, joy when working on projects you like ? Should you consider those criterias to design your own life ? Being rich and wealthy is always a matter of perspective …
Most Millennials don’t have financial pressure yet, many of them still live with their parents, some of them are still students with plenty of free time. Others are IT geeks, having small businesses on the side. Being an entrepreneur at this early age is something everyone should consider.
Generation Z and entrepreneurship
The famous best-seller book The 4 hours work week of Tim Ferriss shows a way of being an entrepreneur where you could try to build assets, plant some seeds in the ground that will bring you fruits later. Launching an online business can take a few months before starting to generate the first incomes but as soon as you find what works, you can duplicate and scale your business to make it grow. That’s how Tim Ferriss was able to travel the world, growed his business, learned new skills, became famous as « the one who is working 4 hours per week » and kept making decent money from his business. Many Millennials starting to have an investment mindset. They are exploring similar ideas in doing business : they build assets that can generate enough money without sacrificing their lifestyle. Learning, implementing, failing … doing it again and again … one day you will be close to the success.
Success and luck : very close ideas …
Few years ago, if you started doing things like : recording your journey and publishing on Youtube, posting some daily pictures on your Instagram account, blogging about your hobbies ; you would have probably become one of the top influencers in your topic. Who could have bet that Youtube and Instagram would become that popular and trendy ? Nowadays, brands are paying a lot influencers with audiences following themselves to advertise their products rather than traditional TV channels. Those early adopters who probably started doing it « just for fun » or because they were passionated probably built empires years after years.
Some nerd-tech guys who discovered Bitcoin few years ago are probably now early retired thanks to « seeds » they planted by buying Bitcoin. Reaching success is always a succession of actions that you will have to take ending most of the time to a failures. Success is rarely the consequence of a magic event happening and mostly the end result of baby step you do everyday which will finally become a hidden gem. I often see ‘wantrepreneur’ who are waiting the perfect idea, time, or team and hoping for a success without implementing things.
« Well done is better than well said. », Benjamin Franklin
« Done is better than perfect. », The Beatles
Turning point in term of success
Having flexible time, working remotely, enjoying more freedom during the work time, fully expressing the creativity through a diverse job, growing and self-improving in a daily basis… that’s the key criterias the Generation Z and Millennials are looking forward. « Money-first » is no longer the main criteria they will choose.
Vietnam is a country with a lot of fresh graduated talents with high technical and hard skills : developers, designers, marketers … Being Vietnamese or living here as an expat offers great advantages : allows you to deliver high quality product or services to foreign customers. That is one of the main reasons so many outsourcing companies are in Vietnam hiring talents. If you have some rare skills and you want to jump into being self-employed, you can be visible to the world by offering your service through freelancer platforms like Upwork or Fiverr. Taking this kind of baby-step action will put you on track to fully highlight your potential.
What’s about the expats living in Vietnam
Most of the expats coming to South East Asia to find a job, become an entrepreneur and even get retired early, are usually doing more reflection about their own goals. As they chose to leave their home country, explored the world, they are aware about keeping a balanced life-work mindset that fit their personality and aspirations. Being wealthy in life is a matter of self perspective : my vision goes through trying to reach personal achievement and enrich my life with experiences rather than owning material things.
I have two questions for you : What is your own vision of success ? But most important : what is the next action you will implement today to get a bit closer to this new goal ?
About the author
Guillaume Rondan originally from France, Guillaume followed the usual path in term of studies. After graduated from an Engineer school, he finally reached the job he was looking for during years : working with traders in an investment bank. After one year, he decided to quit and designed his own life : launched his start-up, failed, tried again to finally worked in affiliate-marketing as a self employed. After a few years, Guillaume owns more than 50 websites and sells products online in different European countries. After travelling a lot while he was building his business, he is now settling down in Vietnam for more than two years. He keeps being passionate about online businesses, marketing and entrepreneurship. You can discover more about his work on MoveToAsia.com.