From the desk of Harsh Strongman
Subj: A question to all office dwellers
Back when I was a fresh 18 years old, I got myself a corporate job.
It was at one of the world’s biggest consulting firms.
I would wake up early and be in office at 9:30 AM in the morning.
Lunch at 1 and then we’d leave for home around 8 PM in the evening.
The work was very boring (consulting is boring) and even though I was pretty happy at first, it started to get very mundane very fast.
After a month or so, I was almost starting to feel sad and depressed.
This is what life was like:
- You wake up, get ready, and then spend 1.5 hours in rush hour traffic
- You do some highly boring work that doesn’t pay well
- You eat office cafeteria food that’s not only bad for health, but also doesn’t taste great
- You have to listen to boss (even though the boss wasn’t a bad guy at all, I just couldn’t stand having a boss)
- You spend your entire day staring at a screen sitting under fluorescent artificial lights
- You leave for home at 8 PM so you don’t really see much sun across your entire day
- You either go home or you get some dinner/party with the rest of your friends
- You sleep, wake up, and repeat all of this – every single day.
I hated it.
I would wake up dreading having to go to work.
I would wish every morning that I could find a reason to get out of work so I can get some extra sleep.
I would stare at the clock and hope it would go faster. I couldn’t wait for evening to happen so I can get out of here faster.
I loved Friday. Friday meant 2 days of freedom.
I hated Monday. Monday meant 5 more days of going to work.
Above all, I hated Sunday evenings. Sunday evenings were the worst.
Even though it wasn’t a work day, I’d spend it dreading and lamenting over the fact that the very next day is Monday.
A few times I caught myself staring at a window and wishing I was as free as the birds in the sky.
I knew something had to change. I couldn’t do this for the rest of my life. I couldn’t accept this as reality.
So I quit.
I quit and for some time I helped in the family’s consulting business and built up my own affiliate marketing business from scratch.
In a year, I was literally making 5x my old salary from the affiliate marketing.
All of this stuff is from almost a decade ago so it was before I started any of my SaaS companies and much before LMM.
A few years into business, I bumped into a few of my old co-workers from the consulting firm.
I did the quick hellos and caught up with them.
They were still doing the 9 to 8 office routine and had aged 10 years in the 5 years that had gone by.
Most of them had gained a lot of weight. This tends to happen if you sit all day in front of a computer.
None of these were “bad people”. These were regular people doing regular people things like working a job, getting fat, and dating other fatties.
I just wondered to myself… what if I had never taken the chance on myself?
What if I accepted that working at a corporate office is going to become my “life”?
What if I accepted that I would always have a boss and worry about getting promotions?
I just couldn’t get myself to do it.
I just couldn’t imagine it.
So my question and the title of the article is…
How do people live like this?
How do people wake up early, take a commute to an office, be subservient to a boss, eat cafeteria foods, hate mondays, spend their entire day under artificial light, and do this every day?
How do people live like this when the internet is a thing?
When they can start a business right from the same computer they work from.
There are literally a hundred businesses they could start and make their first $1 online in less than a few months.
Business ideas off the top of my head:
- Graphic design
- Web design
- Audience building on X
- Blogging
- Affiliate marketing
- Freelance work (writing, voiceovers, coding, etc.)
- Niche sites
- Flipping
- Copywriting
- Personal branding
- SaaS software of any kind
- Service business of any kind (eg. legal consulting if you’re a lawyer)
These guys could learn any of these skills in 2-3 months and then put them to work.
Instead they choose to never bet on themselves.
They continue working for someone else.
They continue waking up early, commuting, being subservient to a boss, eating cafeteria foods, hating Mondays, and spending their entire day under artificial lights.
Why are YOU living like this?
When the key to freedom is right here.
The internet. You are using it right now.
Use it to break free from the wage cage.
What a Good Life Looks Like?
The more important thing I learned from my stint with wage slavery is what I actually wanted life to look like.
This is what a good life looks like:
- Wake up whenever you want on your own terms (I wake up early when I want to wake up early, not because I have to)
- Wearing clothes you like (not corporate clothes)
- Not having to commute to an office (time is life)
- Getting plenty of sunlight (not artificial lights)
- Spending time with your family
- Being fit and lifting weights (something office dwellers rarely do)
- Eating healthy meals (not cafeteria food)
- Location independence (being able to travel when and where I want)
- Being your own master instead of having to answer to a boss (no need to ask for “permission” from anyone)
- Making first world money from an online business you own
It’s pretty much the opposite of working a corporate job.
The starting point is WiFi Money (Online Business).
Once you’re making money from the internet, you can quit and most of the other things in the “good life” list come pretty much automatically.
WiFi Money is the starting point to freedom.
Losers Gonna Lose, Winners Gonna Win
This is something my father told me as a kid.
Winners win and losers lose.
Losers lose because they hope opportunities fall into their lap.
Winners win because they go after opportunities.
Losers talk about why they can’t be free. They have excuses.
- I don’t have XYZ resources.
- My parents aren’t rich.
- I live in XYZ country.
- It’s not possible to do with effort. Winners got lucky.
- I “wish” I could.
Winners just get things done.
- Work after office hours on their business
- Learn what they need to learn from the internet
- Don’t have the “I need successful parents to be successful” loser mindset
- Leverage third world residence into being rich faster (low costs = more money to save/invest)
It takes 10 years.
In 10 years, the loser and the winner are living in entirely different realms of existence.
| Loser 10 years later | Winner 10 years later |
| Works a job | Owns his income |
| Spends time commuting | Works from his computer (no commute) |
| Still has a boss | Owns his company |
| Eats cafeteria foods | Eats healthy foods |
| Aged 20 years in 10 years | Lower stress after the first few years and had time to go to the gym. Ate better meals across the years. Aged more gracefully. |
| Spends his day in artificial fluorescent lights | Gets plenty of sun |
| Pays high taxes | Pays a tax rate lower than his secretary |
| Tied down to his location | Location independent and travels where he wants |
| Hates Mondays | Loves Mondays. Start of a new profitable week. |
If this doesn’t light a fire under your ass to do something – anything – to start making WiFi money, my friend – they’ve got you mind body and soul.
When Trump said “grab ’em by the p***y” maybe he was telling corporations what to do to their employees. I don’t know.
All I can say is, I’ve worked for others and I’ve worked for myself, and I like working for myself far more.
– Harsh Strongman
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