Imagine a life in which you can live on your own terms, have the freedom to choose how you spend your time and the projects on which you work. With enough planning, patience and determination, this situation can be yours.
Let’s face it — we’ve all had a job that sucked the life out of us. The daily grind of working for a company that you don’t really care about is draining.
While self-employment can be a tough gig, as it comes with its own problems, stressors and setbacks, the sense of accomplishment and pride you’ll derive from it is worth the investment. Check out these 10 reasons you should get started today:
1. The flexibility to work anywhere
You can choose your location for working; one week you may be sitting on the beach in Greece with your laptop, while the next week may have you sailing the seas of Mexico. With today’s technological advancements, it’s possible to work from nearly anywhere.
2. Do work that you enjoy
Richard Branson reminds us that “some 80% of your life is spent working. You want to have fun at home; why shouldn’t you have fun at work?” If you hate your job, your negativity will spill into your personal life, making you feel tired and unmotivated. Life is way too short to waste time doing things you hate. Be an entrepreneur and get paid to do something that you actually enjoy.
3. You have the opportunity to create jobs
There is no greater accomplishment than being able to support others. If you create a small business, at some point, you’ll likely need to hire people to do jobs that you no longer have time to do yourself. As a result, you’ll help others pay their bills, feed their families and make a decent living.
4. Choose how much money you earn
Working for someone else really limits your earning capacity, and sadly, most companies expect you to work harder than ever with no extra incentive. Why put up with this when you can work equally hard but reap financial rewards for your efforts? Your earning capacity is limitless when you work for yourself.
5. You don’t have to answer to anyone
Chances are, at some point in your professional life, you had a boss who undermined your every decision. This situation is toxic and usually results in you losing self-confidence, self-respect and, most importantly, motivation. When you work for yourself, you call the shots. You’ll be more creative, determined and motivated as a result.
6. You will become more resilient
Working for yourself requires a lot of determination to push through the barriers and setbacks. However, over time you will learn and grow from those setbacks; you will learn what works and what doesn’t. You will become wiser and more resilient in both your business and personal life. Any successful entrepreneur will tell you that in facing failure, the path to success will grow clearer.
7. You will develop self-discipline
Entrepreneurship is a stressful venture — the flexibility of the working environment can be hazardous without enough self-discipline. With no set start time, you’re free to work in pajamas, but the absence of a routine can be detrimental; too much comfort may reduce productivity. Instead of becoming lazy, develop self-discipline by sitting down and drafting up a routine.
8. You can live a more meaningful life
Ultimately, work-life happiness comes from doing meaningful things. We all want to work for a worthy purpose or cause and know that our work is actually making a difference. Working for yourself will allow you to define what’s meaningful to you.
9. You will develop business sense
Most day jobs have set tasks, and often, it’s a matter of repeatedly doing the same thing. Not only is this boring, but it also fails to teach you anything new. Becoming an entrepreneur requires you to wear many hats — product development, marketing, sales, customer service, accounting, etc. Over time you will slowly develop a keen business sense, which will result in you becoming a more confident and successful entrepreneur.
10. You will leave a legacy behind
Working for yourself is an adventure. It will provide you with great stories to tell, wisdom to impart and a reason for people to remember and to respect you.
“The Wolf Of Wall Street” is the movie everybody is talking about these days, and with good reason.
Leonardo DiCaprio mastered his role of 26-year-old millionaire Jordan Belfort, who schemed $110 million dollars out of his company’s investors. His over-the-top, luxurious lifestyle may have been exaggerated in the film, but it was speculator and eye-opening nonetheless.
The life style present in the film isn’t the only ridiculous aspect given the hefty amount of times characters drop the F bomb.
The word f*ck was used 506 times over the 180 minute running time of the film. Before “The Wolf of Wall Street,” Spike Lee‘s film “Summer of Sam” had the previous record of 435 F-bombs.
Martin Scorsese has a reputation for profanity, with two of his other films, “Casino” (422) and “Goodfellas” (300) in the top 20 for most uses of the word “f*ck.”
A daughter of a former business partner of the real Wolf of Wall Street has penned an open letter to L.A. Weekly to alert movie-goers of the part of Jordan Belfort‘s story Martin Scorsese chose not to include in his film: the effect his crimes had on the families of the investors involved.
The girl’s name is Christina McDowell, and she was just a freshman in college when she attended the trial of her father,Tom Prousalis.
Jordan Belfort, played by Leonardo DiCaprio, is described as the government’s “star witness” to testify against Prousalis. Belfort had just pleaded guilty to money-laundering and securities fraud, and would go on to avoid years of jail time by ratting on a whole slew of criminals similar to himself.
As McDowell writes, Prousalis and Belfort “were in cahoots together with a list of ‘seemingly innocuous, legitimate companies’ that did not actually exist yet were all taken public to con unsuspecting investors and make the pair along with many others at Stratton Oakmont Inc. millions of dollars richer.”
The letter then takes an ugly turn as McDowell describes the day her father went to prison.
She recalls her mother locking herself in the bathroom and throwing up, not only because her husband was going under but because he had taken the family down with him.
Prousalis laundered money in his daughter’s name and hid what was left of the family’s assets in a Wells Fargo account.
McDowell, just 18, was receiving multiple phone calls from creditors and investors threatening to sue her. Her father had also left her her nearly $100,000 worth of debt.
The family was left almost penniless after the entire Wells Fargo account was liquidated. Her younger sister ran away at 17, and McDowell lived on other people’s couches and out of her car for roughly two years.
Starving and ashamed, McDowell barely survived on tips from her restaurant job. She even had to change her name because her father technically stole her identity by setting up the aforementioned account.
“It’s a pretty confusing experience to go from flying private with Dad to an evening where he’s begging you for a piece of your paycheck so he can buy food for dinner,” she writes.
The worst part, McDowell says, is that she still believed her father was innocent and that the government and Belfort were the bad guys.
“I believed that by taking out all those credit cards in my name, my father was attempting to save me. I believed him when he got out, and when he told me everything would be OK. I believed him until he tried to do the same thing all over again — until I was at risk of being arrested myself (and I’m saving that story for the memoir).”
McDowell then lays into the director and actors of “The Wolf of Wall Street” for painting such a positive picture of Stratton Oakmont and leaving out what these people and their co-conspirators did to their families and clients.
She calls Martin Scorsese “dangerous” for making movie-goers believe that Jordan Belfort was not an evil human being, and that his schemes are entertaining rather than the real-life tragedies.
“Come on, we know the truth,” she says. “This kind of behavior brought America to its knees.”
McDowell labels lead actor Leonardo DiCaprio a disgusting hypocrite for claiming to be a model humanitarian who then glorifies Belfort’s crimes as well as the film’s frequent misogyny.
“Did you think about the cultural message you’d be sending when you decided to make this film?” she asks.
“You have successfully aligned yourself with an accomplished criminal, a guy who still hasn’t made full restitution to his victims, exacerbating our national obsession with wealth and status and glorifying greed and psychopathic behavior.”
McDowell sees Belfort’s true face because she was exposed to the same luxuries and privileges he was. She drove a Range Rover in high school, “snorted half of Colombia,” and got every guy she wanted because her father would regularly take them for rides in his private planes.
But then she discovered who her father really was: a cruel, soulless money addict obsessed with wealth and fame. Scorsese’s film makes Belfort look like a good person underneath, but McDowell is positive that like her father, he’s less of a man than the homeless guy they pass on the street every day.
Some of McDowell’s father’s victims lost everything. They cannot afford to send their kids to college, pay their medical bills, and will struggle to pay off their debts until they are dead.
“Let me ask you guys something,” McDowell writes as her letter comes to a close.
“What makes you think this man deserves to be the protagonist in this story? Do you think his victims are going to want to watch it? Did we forget about the damage that accompanied all those rollicking good times? Or are we sweeping it under the carpet for the sale of a movie ticket? And not just on any day, but on Christmas morning?”
McDowell ends by urging us not to support “The Wolf of Wall Street” because it only provokes people like Belfort to go even farther with their crimes. The film lacks the reality of their wrongdoings, she says, and every time we celebrate Scorsese’s film, the more wolves we help create.
Not to brag or anything, but 2013 was totally a great time for women. Aside from being just a generally awesome sex, we ladies delivered in areas all across the board this year.
Sure, we may do questionable things like purposely tear hot wax off our vaginas, but we also do really cool stuff like kick ass in the office and serve it up on the silver screen.
Notwithstanding the existence of Leonardo DiCaprio, when we think of all the things women collectively accomplished this 2013, we sometimes wonder why we need men around. Girls are having such an amazing year that there might even be a chance for Anne Hathaway!
Let’s take a moment to reminisce on the most powerful women of 2013.
1. Zhang Xin: The Woman To Play House With
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Meet the woman who is richer than Oprah, Donald Trump and Jay Z: Zhang Xin. She’s the CEO of her own real estate development empire, SOHO China, and is the seventh richest, self-made woman in the world.
Worth a reported $3.8 billion, Xin is the quintessential “started from the bottom, now we here“ story. Still, however, Zhang Xin remains humble in the face of extreme wealth, even suggesting that her 14-year-old son work at McDonald’s.
2. Angelina Jolie: The Guest Of Honor At Your Next Dinner Party
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Angelina Jolie is not all cheekbones and acting — she’s also a prominent humanitarian, working with refugees worldwide and with the United Nations to bring awareness to the plight of disadvantaged people. Jolie is incredibly outspoken on the need to give back and develop a greater understanding of the world, after witnessing war-torn Cambodia while filming “Lara Croft: Tomb Raider.”
The Goodwill Ambassador also made headlines this year when she revealed she underwent a double mastectomy. Between her fascinating stories and her sage insight, we wouldn’t mind listening to Angelina while picking at spring arugula salads and bruschetta.
3. Arianna Huffington: The Woman With The Coveted Reading List
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Arianna Huffington literally controls the media as the co-founder of her namesake website, making this 63-year-old one of the most powerful women in the world. The Pulitzer Prize-winning Huffington Post has successfully positioned itself as the cornerstone website for trending and breaking news.
Arianna is now focused on expanding The Huffington Post globally, building her enormous million-dollar fortune. She still finds time to support good causes, like the Millennial Impact Challenge at IgniteGood, which aims to support young people with ideas for change.
4. Shonda Rhimes: The Woman Who’s In Charge Of The Remote
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Shonda Rhimes, the creative director and executive producer of hit ABC shows, like “Scandal” and “Grey’s Anatomy,” has transformed primetime television drama. She’s not only a prolific writer and creator, but also a powerful voice behind the fierce female leads in her multiple hit series.
Shonda’s prominence on the small screen has even prompted cult-like fans to name her growing empire Shondaland. Shonda is sharing the spotlight by hiring minority actors to portray her diverse set of characters: gay, straight, single, divorced, lethal and loving. Shonda Rhimes writes about people of all walks of life.
5. Wendy Davis: The Woman To Have On Your Team
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She’s the Texan Senator famous for orating an 11-hour filibuster and she’s not losing any steam. Wendy Davis will be running for Governor of Texas in 2014. Although Davis wasn’t able to fully filibust the proposed legislation that drastically curtails abortion rights (it eventually passed in a special session), she did garner attention to women’s reproductive rights and issues.
Her dedication to championing the freedoms of women even sparked a new hashtag, #standwithWendy, making her one badass chick.
6. Sheryl Sandberg: The Woman Who’s Saving Face
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First she rescued Facebook by making it profitable, and then she went on to trademark one of the hottest phrases of the year. “Lean In” author Sheryl Sandberg has changed the conversation of women in the workplace, advocating that ambitious females give it their all, no holding back.
The extraordinarily successful Chief Operating Officer of Facebook challenges females to forgo the excuses and instead believe in themselves and follow through.
Sheryl Sandberg is the woman to “Friend,” “Like” and lean into.
8. Jenna Lyons: The Woman Whose Closet We Want To Raid
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She’s directly responsible for the dress code of millions of women and she delivers every season. As executive creative director ofJ.Crew, Jenna Lyons expertly uses her understanding of taste and a woman’s body to bring ladies an easy, chic style.
After putting in 22 years of hard work at the brand, Lyons is finally in a position of power. She serves as an inspiration for every woman who believes in climbing the career ladder the traditional way.
9. Janet Yellen: The Woman Making Bank
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Once cleared by the Senate in January for her nomination, Janet Yellen will be the first woman to assume the role of Chair of the Federal Reserve, making her, arguably, the most influential woman in the financial world. No pressure, girl.
It’s not like she isn’t prepared — Yellen is currently Vice Chair of the Board and has years of economic experience under her belt. As a firm believer in monetary policy to spur investment and hiring growth, the 67-year-old is ready to make it rain on America’s economy… or at least something like that.
10. Marissa Mayer: The Woman-In-Chief
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Marissa Mayer is more than the savvy CEO of Yahoo! She’s also a mother, geek, style icon and brainiac. Since her turn as woman in-charge, Yahoo!’s stock has gone up 111 percent, proving her innate ability to lead.
At just 38 years old, Mayer has transcended dominant gender lines in Silicon Valley and positioned her company as a fierce competitor in the tech space. She’s putting the exclamation point back into Yahoo!!
11. Kate Middleton: The Woman Who’s Royally Flushed
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Kate Middleton has had quite a busy year between giving birth to baby George and keeping up with her royal duties. Even when she shocked audiences worldwide, showing her postpartum belly while posing with her newborn, there was still nothing bad to say about the Duchess of Cambridge.
Kate Middleton is a true role model for the young girls who want to be princesses when they grow up.
12. Angela Merkel: The Woman Not Leaving Anything Up To Chance
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She was voted to serve a third term as the Chancellor of Germany, paving the way for women in office everywhere. Angela Merkel is Germany’s first female chancellor and one of the few to hold the honor of serving a third term. She’s also a trained scientist who is helping to steer her country out of financial crisis. Merkel’s German accent only adds to her strong leadership capabilities.
13. Malala Yousafzai: The Woman That’s Making School Cool Again
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At just 16 years old, the young Pakistani has written a book, been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize and is a spokeswoman for young girls fighting for rights to an education.
Now, the Malala Fund, named in her honor, endorses the education and empowerment of girls in Pakistan and around the world.
14. Petra Collins: The Woman Pushing The Femvelope
The 21-year-old artist is challenging censorship and the female body. She analyzes girl culture through photography, fashion design (like her bleeding vagina t-shirt for American Apparel) and social media.
Most notably, in 2013, Petra Collins’ Instagram was deleted after she posted a photo of her bathing suit bottom with what most would refer to as a “bush” protruding from the edges.
“What I did have was an image of MY body that didn’t meet society’s standard of “femininity,” Petra said. It takes a lot of guts for Collins to put herself at the forefront of feminist conversation, no matter how hairy the situation.
15. Zaha Hadid: The Woman Who’s Designing Our Future
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There’s nothing you can envision that this talented lady can’t make happen. With her influential thinking and sharp mind,Zaha Hadid is the most established architect in the world.
She draws up futuristic, yet functional designs with touches of glamor and divinity. Hadid also totally runs sh*t: She’s won countless awards, including the prestigious Pritzker Architecture Prize and founded her namesake Zaha Hadid Architects, which specializes in building unique establishments worldwide.
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