Why You Should Be Your Own Boss: 10 Reasons You Should Work For Yourself

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.

Photo credit: Wolf of Wall St

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It’s Official: ‘The Wolf Of Wall Street’ Drops More F-Bombs Than Any Movie

“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.”

Via Variety, Top Photo Courtesy: Fanpop

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This Open Letter To The Makers Of ‘The Wolf Of Wall Street’ Will Change Your Perspective On The Film

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.

Via: LA Weekly, Top Photo Courtesy: Screencrush

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Defining Blurred Lines: How To Differentiate The Relationship Between Friends, Business And Money

It is believed that two things define you: your patience when you have nothing and your attitude when you have everything. In either extremity, it can be difficult to maintain perspective. Let’s be real: whether depreciated or amassed, your wealth and status matter in today’s social caste system.

Wealth can extend your resources. It often determines the opportunities that you’re presented with, the people that you come in contact with and the goods and services that you have access to.

Sometimes, however, it’s not the wealth that you accumulate, but the influential people that you meet along the way. These people can either help or harm you in today’s sink or swim environment, and as Millennials, we place a major emphasis on the relationships that we foster. What’s more difficult to define, however, is the boundary between our friends and finances.

The Beneficial

Everyone loves a beneficial friend. It’s the friendship that you actually gain from, whether socially, economically or spiritually. These people generally enhance your life, and you hold them in high esteem.

Though advantageous, these friendships can be the easiest to damage, primarily because we often neglect to express gratitude and take these helpers for granted. We get comfortable and simply begin to expect these friends to be there.

Our generation has a serious issue with entitlement (we’ll save that for another article), and sometimes we fail to realize that no one owes us any favors. Moreover, entangling money in this equation can be disastrous, especially if the friend has more of it than you.

If you elect to start a business with this person, you could potentially create a hostile environment. Consider a business plan that fails. Perhaps you expect the wealthier friend to sustain more of the financial loss because of the marginal effect. Though unfair, this illustrates one simple case of unhealthy expectation caused by this relationship dynamic.

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The Benefactor

Take everything said about the beneficial friend, and reverse it on yourself. This is the individual that needs aid every time you turn around. He or she is always experiencing some situational hardship. This person drains you in every aspect and most of the time, maintains a negative outlook on life.

Woe to the world. I think it’s quite overtly clear why money involvement in this relationship can be detrimental. This person may end up spending the start-up funds on some other venture that you weren’t even privy to. Maybe that’s a stretch, but I’ve seen it happen all too many times.

I like to label this person as someone with good intentions and bad decisions. These people label life as an antagonist by failing to realize that they are the masters of their fate.

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The Bendable

Don’t ever be a bendable. This person is the absolute most annoying because you honestly can’t gauge them. They are the downright followers, with no backbone, opinion or pride. They waver with the crowd like tumbleweeds, following the cool kids and never focusing on the task at hand.

This person could be an asset one day and a liability the next. Severely unreliable, you don’t want to waiver your wealth with this individual. Instead, hire him or her for PR or marketing. This person will be at your side as long as you remain in a high position, but don’t look for him or her if you fall off.

Honestly, who would entrust a person of this nature? You need a faithful business partner, one that will perfect the craft for the long haul.

Friends, money and business can create a complex atmosphere. My advice? Know your friends and their core beliefs before you entwine finances with your companions. Money is a powerful element that takes a responsible individual to handle it properly. Too many times, we let finances fuel our behaviors.

Though a definite motivating factor, some things should prevail. Good friendships, for instance, and more importantly, family. Money often strains and even ruins these invaluable relationships, so do yourself a favor, and choose wisely.

Top Photo Courtesy: Fubiz/Wolf Of Wall St

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