Hello All, and welcome to the next installment of Making my Mark on the world! I am wishing you all a relaxing and fulfilling day. As is usually the case, I have a lot on my mind. I have been struggling to organize these thoughts. For example, May is mental health awareness month. I have been planning to write more about my personal situation, but I have struggled with the appropriate boundaries. Anyhow, in this post I am going to talk a little bit more about my vision for the future.
I recently discovered the work of Tim Denning. A core concept that he talks about is developing financial freedom (I’ll let you read the article to see his wording, the language isn’t exactly aligned with the style of this blog 😊). In essence, the goal is to build funds that provide you with the freedom to do what you really want. At Least that’s how I interpret it. It is about spending the hours outside of your 9-5 job devoted to learning more about your passions, and monetizing those passions. Eventually, you develop some serious skills in those areas and make some serious money that can be saved/invested. You can also leave your 9-5 job. An area where I could use more clarity is in finding passions and devoting time to learning those passions.That is in progress. However, I am increasing investment in the hopes of developing financial freedom.
Financial freedom is something that I am working on. I have talked before about passive income infrastructures. Indeed, I have been investing more in dividend stocks and bonds. I have also been investing in crypto, although admittedly I need to learn more about its infrastructure. These are the start of developing funds to give me more financial freedom. As I mentioned in Playing the long game, these types of things will not happen overnight. For example, another website that I have been looking at is Sure Dividend; they provide a lot of information on dividend stocks and investing. Sure Dividend estimates that an investor needs to invest approximately $40,000 in stocks to get $1,200 in annual dividend income. My initial strategy is aligning with those numbers. It takes time.
Right now, I am in a bit of a strange situation. I have some savings, but as I have lamented before DC is expensive. Inflation is historically high. I am out of a 9-5 job. All of this is to say, I am feeling a bit uncertain about things. However, my vision is starting to come more into focus.
I have been ramping up my job search efforts, and I have been submitting resumes to several companies. I am happy to be getting some applications in, yet there is a lot of room for improvement. Primarily, it is about getting that vision further into focus. I am confident that I want to work in higher education. I am confident that I want to take on more risk.
For now the plan looks like applying to as many aligned jobs as possible. I am focusing on jobs that emphasize qualitative analysis rather than quantitative skills. This is different from in the past. In addition, I am setting aside money for investment. I am tolerating more risk in the hopes of developing wealth that provides me financial freedom. My vision is not fully clear yet, but it is coming into more focus. Uncertainty remains. That is life, but at least I know where I want to go.
As always, thank you for reading Making my Mark on the world. If you enjoyed this post please consider subscribing to and sharing this blog! Come join me on this growth and learning journey of life. There will be a lot more raw and real posts encompassing a myriad of topics.