Forget About The Money

From 2010 until recently, I was delaying my happiness.

Everything started when I moved to Barcelona from my hometown in the northwest of Spain.

In Barcelona, everything was different.

It was the first time people understood what I was talking about—remote work, freedom, and online business. In my hometown, everyone thought I was crazy.

My first encounter with I’m not alone was when I met a Russian girl, Polina, in a Couchsurfing meeting. She lived the dream, working from her computer, making websites for clients, and living on an island called Vanuatu.

Also, she recommended me to take a look at Odesk and to read something about a four hour something by a guy named Timothy.

I ignored her advice because I thought I was smarter, but I felt good knowing that I wasn’t alone. (I was a fool, a real fool. I’m still am. But we have to be kind to my present self).

And for the next 10 years, I was trapped in the idea of working hard now and enjoy the benefits later. I was around 25. It sounded good.

From there, I tried many things. Alone, with other people, with investors, as an employee with shares, etc.. and I work hard. Too hard.

I didn’t enjoy any minute of that. I was saying to myself: “you’ll be rich in a couple of years. It doesn’t matter. Keep working”.

Well, that didn’t happen. I am not rich. (I was thinking about $2K per month without a full-time job, that was rich to me).

We hear many times certain slogans like “don’t work harder, work smarter.” I think that those phrases don’t really mean a lot without the experience. Sounds good, feels good. But they didn’t help me achieve anything.

There is a big gap between understanding a concept and living a concept. Many entrepreneurs have successfully shared their message, but they failed at making people understand how to live their ideas. I guess that works best for them, so they can keep selling books.

I was definitely one of those. Everything made sense intellectually, but I didn’t know how to apply it.

There is one lesson that I want to share with you from all those lost years. I hope that at least you can use this to save you time. And I also hope that writing this saves me from repeating the same mistakes in the future.

If you are starting something, or if you already started, or you plan to do it. Please, make sure that whatever you are doing, you are doing it for the journey and not the result.

There is a classic: “don’t do it for the money.” But as I said before is lacking from the real application.

If you do something just for the result, you may waste your life doing it. I was working hard. I worked hard creating a SaaS, but I didn’t care about the SaaS. I wanted the result: money, freedom, travel, make my family happy.

For some people, it might even work. You may make a lot of money from your projects. But it may not worth your time either.

Instead, start something that every minute that you spend doing is a happy minute. Every time I share an article, and every second writing is pure joy. It’s worth every second of my life. I enjoy it. And you are reading it. What a wonderful gift this is.

Is what you are doing a wonderful journey, or you just want the rewards from it?