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Hi friend,

Here’s an account of how I plotted against my 9–5.

Something I tell people often is that quitting isn’t difficult, it just takes a long time of consistent effort to keep side-hustling. That is, if you’re like me and you don’t want to jump in the deep end with no money.

It looks cool that I quit at 25 but it took me 9 months of side hustling on the side.

So this is how the reality looks behind the scenes, and please feel free to steal this blueprint if, by the end of this article, you think it aligns with your goals.

Looking Inward

When work-from-home left us… at home, I finally had more time on my hands. My country had one of the biggest lockdowns in the beginning and so I started to read and read a lot.

I discovered that I’m unhappy with certain things.

I realised it’s okay to find my job sucky, I’m not an ungrateful person for feeling that way.

I realised that so many people are where I want to be someday, and they’re not special. Yet they made it.

Something told me I could, too.

Reasons Got Stronger

I just knew in my heart I want to improve my life.

I wanted to be financially independent. I mean, I made peace at 24 that I won’t be financially independent before I turn 30. How stupid is that?

I worked hard on my self-esteem. To be honest, it’s still a work in progress.

The bottom line is — I was firm that being average stops right here.

Making Money Online

This part was simple.

First, I started writing online on Medium. 2–4 articles a month. Then, I hopped onto Upwork and applied for jobs. It was tiresome because 20 proposals would lead to one conversion.

I got well-paid gigs throughout those 6 months. I even bagged a ‘whale client’ with a project fee of $15,000!

Watering Seeds

Here’s how watering seeds a bit every day paid off long term:

• I wrote on Medium, LinkedIn, and Twitter. I didn’t know them too well, but I figured them out with time.
• I didn’t try to be perfect, I’d just publish and move on.
• I knew building an audience will take time, so I’m just going to keep showing up.
• Currently, I’m doing the same with my YouTube channel. It’s tiny, but I know watering it for another year or two will bring in massive results.

9 months later, the day I quit my job, I had my first viral LinkedIn post.

I told you, tiny and consistent daily effort helps.

In the online world, it blows up.

Time Taken

Here’s how much time these daily activities took me:

• Writing an article: 45min
• Editing an article: 40min
• Planning an article: 15min
• Social media posts: 30min

I wrote an article 3–5 times a week and on LinkedIn 2–3 times a week.

After Effects

Here’s a brief account of how life changed thereafter:

1. The seeds became trees: I reached a point where my writing would speak for me and attract gigs. I’d get freelance projects because people saw my Medium and LinkedIn posts.
2. Freelancing moved out of the door: I released a cohort-based course15 months ago on being consistent with digital writing, as that’s my strength, and it’s been doing exceedingly well. I only conduct it 4 times a year and we’ve been selling out since we started.
3. Passive income: I became LinkedIn’s top voice and launched a LinkedIn Guide. Later, I launched a detailed LinkedIn course. I also did well on Medium and launched a Medium guide. These digital products are a consequence of the most frequently asked questions I get.
4. I became a solopreneur: Because I’d much rather put my energy on building my business than to build someone else’s. I’ll hop into it if I’m not making enough money, but I hope that day doesn’t come.

Finally

It’s underrated how much you can do in only a year of consistent effort.

It’s so much easier to give up.

It’s easier to settle down.

We make peace with average outcomes instead of giving just a bit of our time every day to doing something that can change our life, forever.

I won’t lie — I sometimes still think it’s a bubble that may burst because it feels too good to be true. But then I think I’m working so hard on trying to create what can help others, so why would that happen?

So you, if you’ve read it this far, you’re probably serious about changing your life.

It’s time for you to start watering your seeds, NOW.

Love,

N

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Learn From Me👇🏻

Apart from 500+ Medium articles and my regular content on Twitter and LinkedIn, Here are two ways I can teach you what I know:

1. ​LinkedIn Ultimate Content Mastery: a self-paced LinkedIn course to help you grow on LinkedIn and write compelling stories that attract opportunities. I gained 75k followers in 12 months and became LinkedIn Top Voice within a year of writing, so this stuff works.
2. ​LinkedIn Ultimate Content Master: (for Indian Users) 🇮🇳 Same as above, but enables you to make INR payments with parity pricing (yay).
3. ​Summit 21: Join my cohort-based course, Summit 21. This will be the last cohort of 2023.

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