“I don’t want to work 12-hour days. Why would I work all of the time? I want passive income. I want to enjoy life and not work.”

Does this sound familiar?

Ever since the 4-Hour Workweek book came out a few years ago, everyone that read the book has been chasing passive income. I personally enjoyed the book and have it on my desk for reference. I just don’t like the philosophies it has instilled into 20-somethings that are now chasing this passive income dream.

I wanted to take some time today to tell you why you need to stop wasting your time chasing after passive income:

You need to make some money first.

I introduced a freelancing challenge last week for a reason. Before you can make passive income or create a muse, you need to make some money first. This means that you need to increase your active income before you do anything else. If you’re not making any money now as a college student or your income is low in your years post-college, then your primary goal should be to make more money in general.

When starting an online business or getting income from freelancing, you need to work for it first. Once you work for your money, get a service that people care about, and build some savings, then you can worry about passive income.

You won’t get rich quick.

“Our goal is simple: to create an automated vehicle for generating cash without consuming time. That’s it.” — Tim Ferriss

If you’re trying to get rich quick, you should probably stick to trying to win the lottery or to hit it big at the casino. The idea of starting a business that makes thousands of dollars per month passively while you can focus on your sand castle building passion is inherently flawed. When trying to build passive income, you need to immerse yourself in the field.

For example, for you to help someone with freelancing, you have to first become a successful freelancer yourself. You can’t build sand castles all day while you passively grow your freelancing business. I’m not saying it’s impossible. I’m just saying that you won’t get rich quick from chasing passive income. Especially if you’re afraid of a little work.

You need to stop being delusional.

“The week that Tim actually works a four-hour work week will be a cold week in hell. Tim got to where he is by being an insanely hard worker.” — Penelope Trunk, a critic of the 4-Hour Workweek

The other problem with passive income is that there are far too many delusional people. There’s nothing wrong with a little work. You need to stop being delusional about creating $20,000 a month in passive income. You need to make $20 first.

You have to take action.

Instead of chasing perfection, it’s important that you take action. There are many passive income opportunities that don’t require a ton of money to get started. You might have to work a little harder though.

A perfect example here is publish eBooks on your own blog or submitting content to Amazon for Kindle. You have to take action. You have to research a topic, write the book, format it, publish it, and then promote it like crazy,. Action is needed.

At the end of the day I totally support passive income. I’ve already established a few sources of passive income that I’m proud of. I just want to stress that you need to work a little first. When you build yourself up, you can invest your time and money into passive income sources.

Are you chasing passive income blindly?

Are you one of those people that gets caught up with planning and ends up doing nothing? Do you do too much and plan not enough?

We all fall under one of those categories when it comes to starting a business, making money on the side, or crushing student credit card debt. They say that an ounce of action is worth more than a ton of theory. Then there’s also the argument that if you fail to plan, you plan to fail.

One thing that I’ve struggled with is creating an actual business plan. I’ve always been a fan of working hard and making money. I just never outlined a clear process for doing so. I guess you could say that I treated free as a business model. In reality, free is not a business model by any stretch of the imagination. You don’t have to ready any sort of business plans for dummies book to realize that you need a clear outline for how you plan on making money.

I always figured that if you build it, they will come. I thought that starting an online business was about putting out a well-designed blog and propping it up with high quality articles. Then somehow the money would come on. Right?

In late-2010 I had to create a formal business plan for a course that was coincidentally titled, “Creating a Business Plan.” I was supers-stoked about this because at this point I had been blogging for a few years and I had already dabbled in a few business ideas. I had always wanted to prepare a business plan. The opportunity never came along.

My excitement quickly turned into the same mundane feeling that I got with every random random business project. We were forced into groups of four by the professor (chosen randomly) and then given topics on a first come, first served basis. I didn’t get to work on anything cool in other words.

I’ve written about excelling in tough college courses before, so I wasn’t a stranger to doing well in courses I didn’t care for. However, one of the main reasons that students fail college is that they choose the wrong courses. This is what happened to me. I thought that I was going to get to create an innovative and useful idea that I could share with the world. Instead I was stuck with some arbitrary product with a group of people that just wanted to get by. At the end of the semester, I learned how to put together a 100 page business plan for the sake of getting a decent mark in the class. I didn’t know how to create a business plan that actually made real money.

How can you design a business plan that leads to real money?

I realized that the whole business plan came down to a few key concepts. I ended up taking online courses, attending conferences, and reading every single book on the topic and related areas. I eventually came to an understanding of what a true business plan is all about.

If you want to create your own business plan that makes you real money, you need to answer the following questions:

• What will your product be? This can be your time (consulting), a physical good, or a digital item.
• How will you sell it? You have the option of selling online, in person, and through various channels.
• Who will you sell it to? Someone has to be willing to buy this product (target market).
• How will your potential customers find out about it? You need to find a way to get the word out there (marketing).
• How much will you charge? Have you determine your price yet? Free is once again not a business model.

You just have to be able to answer these questions if you want to write a business plan. If you want to prepare a business plan for yourself and not any formal funding, you just have to be able to answer these questions on your own. Once you answer these questions, you’ll have yourself a slick one-page kickstart for your brand new business idea.

I just wanted to mentioned one more thing before we part ways today. As I’m reading through the $1000 Startup book I found an interesting line on taking action:

“There’s nothing wrong with planning, but you can spend a lifetime making a plan that never turns into action.”

To make money with any freelancing idea you need to solve real problems where people are actually looking for solutions.

Summer is almost here for high school students. That means it’s finally time to enjoy life without those boring classes and to sleep in until noon. Hopefully you pass all of your courses and don’t have to worry about summer school. Some high school students will want to use the summer to make some money to buy Diablo 3 or whatever you want to get your hands on.

When I was in high school I worked every single summer. I remember the summer after grade 10 I landed myself a few jobs and I worked pretty much every single day. I would work at the grocery store in the morning when I was called in, do lawn care work for elderly citizens whenever I was able to book the appointment for, and then referee soccer games in the evening. I rode my bike everywhere I went every single day. It’s safe to say that I got myself into pretty good shape that summer (I believe I actually had visible abs).

One of my regrets from working summers in high school was that I never started my own business or allowed myself to pursue any entrepreneurial plans. I always took the easy path and worked traditional jobs instead of trying to create my own job.

I wanted to share a few quick, yet highly profitable business ideas for high school students:

Go online.

I’ve said this million times and I’ll mention it again. You can easily start an online business with almost no money down. You can create logos, design websites, create your content, offer tutoring, or create something totally innovative online these days. The beauty is that we all spend so much time online that it only makes sense to attempt to make some money while we’re on the computer already. I’ve covered this enough so I’ll leave it at this, it only costs a few dollars a month to sign up with Bluehost.

Landscaping work.

Every single lawn out there needs to be taken care of.

I was pretty much an independent contractor when I did lawn care work. I signed up with this firm that worked with senior citizens and they would give me the contact information of the ones that needed landscaping work done. I would then be responsible to set up appointments, do the work, learn how to do additional work, and then get paid.

I remember I thought I had it made when I found an elderly gentleman that just wanted someone to WATER HIS LAWN. I would get paid $7/hour to water his lawn for 2-3 hours a few times per week, while I got to read or just listen to music on my mp3 player. I thought the was the good life at the time.

Tutoring.

One of the best business ideas for students is tutoring because usually the parents pay for this service. In the summer time you can find younger students that either failed in a previous course or want to excel in a new course. Either way there’s money to be made from tutoring.

I shared in the past how my friend made $2,100 from tutoring his peers. You can check that post out for a more detailed guide on how the process of getting paid to tutor works.

Babystting.

Anyone with little children out there knows how expensive professionally child care is. This is why many parents are willing to find a young person in the community that they TRUST to watch over their kids while they go to work. Babysitting for money has been around probably as long as kids have been around for.

These are all simple ideas to help you get started right now. There’s nothing Earth shattering in this post. These are all ideas that you’ve heard of before. The reason I kept it simple is because you don’t always have to reinvent the wheel. You just need to keep the wheel spinning.

You also don’t necessarily have to start a business in high school or make money on your own. You can find a part-time job in your community at the grocery store (what I did).

“Dictionary is the only place that success comes before work. Hard work is the price we must pay for success. I think you can accomplish anything if you’re willing to pay the price.” — Vince Lombardi

Yesterday I brought up my challenge to make $5,000 from freelancing this summer. The truth is that I’ve come to enjoy freelancing and the freedom that comes along with it. I also go out of my way to support young people that are trying to make it in freelance work or anything along those lines. In doing so I’ve also noticed a few common mistake among new freelancers.

There’s one piece of freelancing advice that I picked up in online articles and through my formal education. I wanted to share this with you today so that you avoid making any foolish rookie mistakes.

What’s this quick tip for success in freelancing?

As a freelancer you need to do the work for your client and make their life easier. That’s what you’re paid to do!

You’re getting paid to get the job done. You need to do all of the thinking. You need to do the work. You don’t need to ask any pointless questions. You especially shouldn’t get your client to work any harder than they have to. They pay you to do the work, the thinking, and everything else in between.

Where’s this post on freelancing coming from?

I’ve had some poor experiences with hiring others to do work for me ever since I started an online business. I like to do what I can and then outsource the rest. When I outsource something I want that person to do the work for me. I outsourced the work because I don’t know where to start. I wanted to give you an example that comes to mind.

I recently wanted to hire someone to do some work for me. I reached out to them and told this person that I was interested. Instead of providing me with samples of work or past results, I get random emails with articles trying to convince me to take action. I thought to myself, “I was planning to take action. Why else would I ask you for your services!?”  I wanted this person to make life easier for me. I didn’t want to receive emails with articles that I didn’t feel like reading. I don’t want to do more work when trying to outsource something. I’m not sure what’s going to happen next, but I don’t care about useless emails. I want results!

As a freelancer you need to make life easier for your client. You need to do the thinking. You need to do the legwork. You’re getting paid for a reason. Don’t make your client think about crap that they don’t need to!

For a basic introduction to freelancing, you need to read my freelancing 101 piece. Good luck!

We all talk about following your passions. I praise the idea of starting your own business. The dream these days is to start a business and travel the world. Those that want to start their own business are often glorified for being risk-takers. If you don’t start a business, you’re boring.

The thing is that there’s a simple problem here. Life isn’t all about starting a business or selling the dream. I don’t want to be trying to sell you guys dreams on here.

Do you have to start your own business? Not at all.

Making more money and being financially successful comes down to a few key concepts in my opinion:

It’s all about having that drive.

I love to meet people that have a certain type of drive. This could be the drive to get in better shape, learn a new language, be a super helpful person, or to save a certain amount of money by next year. Having that drive is essential for getting ahead financially.

Hunger isn’t only for the self-employed. You don’t need to be self-employed to be hungry for more. You can be just as hungry as you’re attempting to move up the ranks in your company, when you’re looking for your dream job, or when you’re trying to pay off your debt. We all have the ability to possess that drive.

You need to solve problems.

You don’t have to start a business or be self-employed to solve problems. Solving problems can be done in your regular 9-5 gig and in your everyday life. If you can “put out fires” or solve problems, you’ll find yourself ahead financially simply because too many people are busy running away from problems or avoiding them altogether.

You have to save your money.

To have more money in your bank account you simply need to save more money. Something as simple as improving your credit score could help you save thousands of dollars in the next few years. Switching bank accounts to a more helpful bank could simplify your financial system. You could even get back to the frugality basics and start preparing your own food. What I’m getting is that there are many ways that you can save more money without starting a business in attempt to become the next Mark Zuckerberg or to start the next Twitter.

You don’t have to start a business. You don’t have to chase the dream. You can keep on living your life the way that it is if you’re happy with what you’re doing. You can stay at your job. You don’t have to travel the travel.

“I have far more respect for the person with a single idea who gets there than for the person with a thousand ideas who does nothing.” – Thomas Edison

I saw that Chris Guillebeau is releasing another book shortly all about the $100 startup. I haven’t read the book so I can’t comment on it, but the title alone got me thinking.

I’m a huge fan of writing about what to do after college and I love to help you guys figure out what to do next. I wanted to look at what one could do with a $100 these days. Since most of us believe that you need money to make money, let’s see what can happen with a small sum of money.

What can you do with $100 right now to impact the rest of your life?

Start a blog/online business.

Some call it a personal blog, others call it an online business. Call it what you want, but I recommend that you start a blog right now. If you need any help at all, you can follow my 6 easy steps to starting an online business article. If you sign up for hosting with Bluehost and are still confused, then just contact me and I’ll help you launch your blog.

How can this small investment in a blog change your life forever?

1. A new source of income.
2. Meet new and interesting folks.
3. A fun hobby.
4. A reason to stay focused.
5. Learn more about your favorite topic.

You can mock blogging or you can give it a try.

Take someone out for lunch.

One of the best ways to spend your money in your 20s is to network and go out with interesting people. There’s just so much that you can do on your own. You never know when just one person can change your life forever.

What are the benefits of taking some out out for lunch? 

• Land a new job.
• Career tips.
• You help them.
• You guys connect each other to someone else.
• Have a good time.

Could this really change your life forever? You never know what the outcome of a simple lunch can be. The worst case scenario is that you have a full stomach and a few laughs over lunch. The best case scenario is that you get valuable carer advice that helps you land a new job or convinces you to switch gears.

Have you taken someone out for lunch recently?

Buy an eBook.

An eBook is a fascinating piece of information. Someone experiences something, writes about it, and then shares it with the world. You can then purchase this eBook from the person and change your life forever by applying the content to your own life. You learn a world of information on a brand new topic without having to make any of the same mistakes on your own. How can you go wrong?

With that being said, you can grab my eBook on how you can completely conquer your credit. I guarantee you that this tiny investment could help you save thousands of dollars over the next few years.

That’s what you can do with $100 right now to change your life forever.

Everyday is a struggle at a startup: clients aren’t closing, cash is running low, the product is buggy; the battle seems to never end. This is to be expected, and an entrepreneur needs to persevere through the tough times to get to the good.

But what if the tough times never end? What if your target audience just doesn’t want your product? What if your target audience wants the product, but doesn’t want to pay for it?

When do you persevere, and when do you pivot?

It’s impossible to predict the future. As an entrepreneur, it’s important to take a look at the social factors, economic factors, and technology factors in your industry to determine when it’s time to pivot.

Fab.com originally launched as a social network mash-up for the gay community. The team pivoted 11 months later and has since skyrocketed in growth and sales.

Instagram was originally a mobile application with a feature for filtering photos. They pivoted to focus purely on the photo aspect of their product, and 2 years later, they sold for $1 billion.

Andrew Warner of Mixergy originally launched the company as a startup-event community. He later focused on original educational content for entrepreneurs and has since seen great success.

The list can go on and on. For this post, we will focus on my startup pivot, why we did it, and how it has led us to success.

The original product.

RewardMe originally launched as the easiest way for SMBs to create a rewards program. We utilized a QR code at the point of sale to determine if a customer was at the location. Customers earned points for a visit and could redeem a reward via our mobile application.

Social factors that lead to our pivot.

We quickly realized that it’s EXTREMELY hard to get customers to download an app in-store. Furthermore, only 2 out of 10 customers have an iPhone or Android, and even less know what a QR code is and how to scan it.

Because businesses viewed us as a 3^rd party application, they always asked us the same question, “how many users do you have?” They believed it was our job to get them customers, not their job to use our product to get loyal customers.

Economic factors that lead to our pivot.

SMBs don’t have a lot of extra money to spend.  They understand traditional advertising such as newspaper or penny-saver ads, but are completely new to mobile and app marketing. We quickly found that SMBs were not looking to pay for a product that created loyal customers; they want a product that will bring them new customers – like Groupon.

Furthermore, SMBs don’t like to give away free items – it cuts into their margins and they’re very wary of anything that makes them “lose” money.

Technology factors that lead to our pivot.

QR codes were fun and novel at one point, but weren’t massively adopted. Relying on a fading technology could lead to very poor positioning in the market.

The technology also did not have anything defensible – it was too easy for competitors to copy with a me-too product.

Our pivot: enterprise digital loyalty platform

Social pivot: we built a loyalty platform for the iPad, allowing ALL customers to join – not just smart phone users.

Economic pivot: we built an enterprise-level loyalty platform targeting restaurant franchises instead of SMBs.  We found that franchises have the sophistication to understand how to use the valuable data collected with a rewards program.

Technology pivot: by creating software for the iPad, and syncing seamlessly with the POS systems, we created a technology that is patent-protected and extremely difficult to copy by competitors.

The next time you run into a crossroads at your startup, evaluate the social, economic, and technology forces in the industry. If all things point south, then it may be time to pivot in a new direction.

Jun Loayza is the Co-Founder of RewardMe, a digital rewards program for restaurants and retailers. In his entrepreneurial experience, Jun has sold 2 internet companies and lead social media technology campaigns for Sephora, Whole Foods Market, Levi’s, LG, and Activision.

In late-2010 I wrote about lifestyle design. The topic of starting an online business has been pretty popular around here. I’ve been exploring the idea of working online and traveling the world ever since I read the 4-Hour Workweek and become a huge fan of the idea.

The last time I wrote about starting an online business and traveling the world I received some interesting comments. Since Studenomics is more about you guys than me, I wanted to share what you guys had to say about the idea of lifestyle design and starting an online business. I’m going to share what everyone had to say and then let you guys form your own opinions on lifestyle design and starting an online business.

Sunil wrote in with some thought provoking points about both sides of the coin on lifestyle design:

This is an interesting article and I can understand both sides to the argument equally well. I had a career that I loved, but at the end of the day there are inherent limitations that come with it. You can’t call all your own shots. Even the best of us dread work every now and then, even if it’s because we want to sleep in on a misty overcast day.

That said, lifestyle design maybe a choice for some who can’t get a job of their dreams, but it is also a conscious choice for those who are already in a job of their dreams. I was in one. I know of people who have given it all up. and from a financial perspective, them and I are much better off today while enjoying the freedom and flexibility we have. I’m not saying this is the norm, I’m simply highlighting the other side of the coin.

I actually feel that many in their so called dream jobs use that phrase to convince themselves that their situation is ideal, but somewhere very deep inside there’s a voice that speaks against that very sentiment. It’s human nature. From a psychological perspective, it’s one way humans make themselves feel good. I’m not saying it’s a wrong or poor approach, I’m simply saying that it’s a fact.

Study after study shows many people are unhappy doing what they are doing, and most people don’t like their jobs (they don’t necessarily have to hate it). To your comment about lawyers and doctors, their paychecks are likely what keep them from breaking free and traveling the world. Some are passionate indeed, while others are not. Unfortunately for many, it’s too late by the time they come to this realization.

Every coin has two sides to it, and only the coin knows which side it truly prefers better.

Eemusings had to say the following about travelling and leaving home:

I love travel, but at the same time love the comforts of home, and for now I much prefer working a full time job and travelling for holidays.

Even working for yourself is hard work. I do a spot of freelancing, and while I do it for “fun”, building a portfolio and money, it’s still work. Hustling for clients is something I’d struggle with and like you I’m not keen on taking huge risks (I’m 22). I’m only just starting to get a really solid financial footing, and the thought of taking off on a traditional route right now and going broke doing it just doesn’t appeal.

Brenton really had plenty to say on the idea of lifestyle design and starting your own online business:

My thoughts are that the people whose lifestyle design involves making money online are also those who know how to spread messages through the internet and want to share their story of lifestyle design success.

Some want to share their story for altruistic reasons of sharing. Some want to share their stories to leverage off for further business opportunities. Most share their story for a combination of both these reasons.

People who achieve their lifestyle design in other ways such as helping the underprivileged through social work or as a prosecutor bringing criminals to justice generally don’t have the online skills or the inclination to spread their own messages of lifestyle design success.

Who wouldn’t want to embrace lifestyle design and live a life that you consciously create (whatever it looks like) instead of living your life by someone else’s design?

For me ‘lifestyle design’ is simply consciously identifying how you want your life to look and then taking steps to create your chosen lifestyle. Unfortunately most people instantly identify this with passive online income, digital nomads, location independence.

Some people may find taking entrepreneurial risk too stressful so their idea of a perfect lifestyle design may be doing what they love in someone else’s business. They do what they enjoy and get paid accordingly while someone else takes the risk.

Others may have a passion for leading people in adventurous and exciting situations so their perfect lifestyle design may be as a military officer.

I believe that lifestyle design is all about identifying what you want from life to make you happy and fulfilled and then implementing that design. For some this may be the Tim Ferriss/Corbett Barr/ Chris Guillebeau method of online income, for many others it may look completely different.

Financial Samurai was a bit more negative on the idea of lifestyle design:

Lifestyle design is a fine choice for those who can’t get the job of their choice due to economic issues. At some point, it’s important to see what’s behind the curtain and take a look at people’s finances.

ANYBODY can go travel the world and say how great their life is on a blog. It’s better to have a choice, then to be stuck.

The other day I presented you with the case for following your passions in your 20s. As with most financial topics, there’s another side to everything. I like to look at both sides of the argument so that you guys are aware of the worst case scenario or what could go wrong. When it comes to working on your own projects in your 20s, there’s also a few setbacks that need to be considered. It’s not a great idea for everyone.

What’s the dark side of following your passions in your 20s?

You could fail working on your own.

Nobody wants to fail. Even though failure is often romanticized in our society, it still totally sucks. The main issue with failing is that you’ll lose out on valuable years of experience in the field. This will put a huge hole on your resume, which you’re going to have to explain to potential employers if you try to re-enter the workforce in your mid to late 20s.

I’ve covered the idea of overcoming the fear of failure. While you shouldn’t let fear hold you back, you should be aware that failing is always an option.

You’re on the hook for everything.

A huge setback of doing things on you own is that you have to literally do everything on your own, unless you hire others or outsource the work. When you’re self employed you can’t do any of the following:

• Blame your co-workers.
• Leave work early.
• Go on a vacation and not worry about anything.
• Take it easy when you’re feeling lazy.

Essentially, you’re responsible for everything. Can you handle all of this pressure? Some young people love having this pressure being put on them. Others will want to bail because it can be too much.

You might struggle with motivation.

It’s not always going to be easy to stay motivated. As I’m typing this I’m stuck using my brother’s old pc because my Macbook Air isn’t working. This is just a minor issue, but it’s still an inconvenience. You’re bound to experience much bigger issues that could hold you back from being fully motivated. When you struggle with motivation while being self-employed you won’t have a deadline or a boss breathing down your neck to push you. You’re going to have find a way to push yourself.

You’re going to have a messed up schedule.

Without a steady 9-5 you’re hours are going to be all over the place. In other words, you’ll likely stay up late at night working on stuff and then sleep in until noon because you were up so late.

When I covered the pitfalls of working from home, I mentioned the idea that your schedule is going to be all over the place. I received some interesting comments from readers on this point that I wanted to share.

Shannon wrote in on the struggles of working from home:

It’s true the grass always seems greener on the other side. Once you get there, however, the solitude and long/random hours may have you thinking a bit differently about the work-from-home option.

The blogger from Sustainable PF wrote on working from home:

When home becomes your workplace you lose that place of solitude and escape. If you let it happen work never ends.

These are all valid points. Can you handle having a random schedule? Will the random hours drive you crazy?

This article wasn’t designed to scare you away from doing something that you love in your 20s. I just want to be realistic. The good news is that you can still start an online business on the side. You just need to realize what you’re getting yourself into.

All this discussion about freelancing, starting an online business, and doing as much as you can when you’re young has really got me thinking about the idea of following your passions to make money.

“Doing what you love is as important as ever, but if you’re going to make a living at it, it helps to find a niche where money flows as a regular consequence of the success of your idea.” – Seth Godin

I’m sort of annoyed with the phrase, “follow your passions” because it’s often associated with get rich quick schemes or some empty cheerleading. However, I’m a firm supporter of trying to make a living in your 20s based on doing something that you love.

Today I wanted to present young people with a quick argument for following your passions.

You have nothing to lose.

As a 20-something with low overhead costs and likely no family to worry about, you literally have nothing to lose from following your passions. The worst case scenario is that you don’t succeed. In that case you just pick yourself up and find a job. When you have nothing to lose you’re the most dangerous. As a young person I really feel that you should take advantage of the fact that you have nothing to lose.

This then ties into my next point.

The benefits can be great.

The financial benefits can be greater if turns out that you’ve entered a profitable niche. I ended up becoming good friends with this dude from the gym. He was always talking about his projects and new ideas that he’s working on. I asked him if he was afraid of working for himself. He responded by saying that the benefits are much greater when you make your own money and devote your time to your own projects. I’ve always remembered this because I’ve been afraid in the past of the whole work for yourself lifestyle.

When you actually think about it, you realize that there are many benefits to devoting your time and creative energy towards your own ideas. If you don’t make a lot of money, at the very least, you’ll be happy with how you spend your time.

You’ll have a much better quality of life.

Imagine a life where you dread going to work every single day. That’s what’s going to happen if you take the first job that comes your way. If you don’t create your own source of income, you could be stuck in some miserable job just because you don’t know what else is out there. All I know is that life’s far too short to spend it doing something that you don’t enjoy. There’s the obvious argument to be made that your life will be much more enjoyable if you like the work that you do. For me, quality of life is important. I want to be happy with what I do and how I spend my time.

That’s the argument for following your passions in your 20s to make money. I’m also very realistic and understand that you should follow a few steps before you quit your job. However, if you’re smart about it, the best thing you can do for yourself at a young age is to chase after your dreams.

What do you think about doing something that you love in your 20s? Do you see yourself trying to create your own work?