I hear a lot of talk online and in other social media avenues about the “dot com lifestyle”. While everyone will try to convince you that their version of this lifestyle is the best…the central idea behind it is the same. The dot com lifestyle means that you can do what you want, when you want to as it relates to making money and living your life. Online revenue models and business generation is a fairly easy concept to grasp and apply. The beauty of the internet is the ability to run your business from anywhere on the planet while creating your own hours.
One of the inherent problems with the dream of the dot com lifestyle is that there are many people in this world who aren’t willing to work! For some reason, many people’s thought of the dot com lifestyle is that all working is done and you are officially retired! Great! If only it was that easy!!! The truth is that dot com lifestyle people are extremely efficient and actually work incredibly hard while they are working.
Most people, do a good enough job not to get fired in the attempt to pick up a paycheck every week that just barely covers the bills and provides a little bit of play money. They slave away, working half assed to get to that glorious week during the year that they call vacation in the hope they can forget that wretched office for a week and relax. They come back to find the same crappy job for the same crappy pay and would rather complain to their friends about how bad it is than do something about it. They like the idea behind working from behind a computer screen on the beach as you waste away in to Margarettaville, but they can’t grasp the need to work really hard during that time period that you are actually putting in the work.
The side effect to all of this work is that 99% of the time…you are working at something you love. You are no longer working for the man and dependent on someone else to provide you with a living. You create your own hours doing what you love to do. Honestly…it doesn’t get much better than that. You will always have to work, but hopefully you are working more efficiently at doing something you love over something you hate.
So as you think of your ideal lifestyle, if it includes never working…you are in for a rude awakening. If it includes doing what you love for a portion of the day and having the freedom to do that from anywhere…then you are on the right track…
4 comments
I don’t live the dot.com lifestyle one hundred percent, but I do work online and work from home. The benefits are great – setting my own hours, skipping an afternoon to watch a ballgame on TV, etc. However, at the same time I know it isn’t for everyone. I have lots of friends who think it’s easy, but really it takes a lot of self-motivation and discipline, just to get to where I am. Hopefully, someday soon I’ll be living the complete dot.com lifestyle with no boss other than myself.
This post dovetails nicely with your last one. I think people see the allure of “the dot com lifestyle” through rose-colored glasses, instead of realizing you have to work hard at it to be successful. Quitting your job to start a blog isn’t an automatic path to Michael Arrington-dom or Dooce-dom. You need to be diligent, a self-starter, and a hard worker.
Oh, and you have to have some sort of expertise in something… Otherwise I would have made the leap already 🙂
@ Michael
I think that rings true for any business owner and the perceived road to success. Many people look at extremely successful individuals and say “wow…must be nice having that car”, “I wish I could go on vacations like that”, “He sure does take a lot of time off” completely forgetting that the same person they are referring to spent years of late nights, vacationless years and weekend working to get where he is now.
Blogging is really no different. These same successful bloggers (as you mentioned) spent an enormous amount of time building up what they have today. Many of them worked jobs they absolutely hated while they worked night after night trying to build a life they could really love.
well i think, dot com business in future business, all the money is there if you know how to deal with it. Im starting to learn about domaining and i love it so far, although i sit like 8 hours a day in front of my laptop. LOL