I came to Canada to be an employee but it didn’t work out

I didn’t come to Canada with the idea of being an entrepreneur. My goal was to study finance, get a job, go up the ranks, and draw a high salary.

But I was a victim of racial discrimination and I wasn’t able to get the job that I wanted.

I started a side hustle, to be able to pay my bill while I would continue looking for a job, but the side hustle started giving me enough happiness for me to abandon my dreams of becoming an employee.

I like round numbers

For many decades now, I have two round numbers fixated in my head:

• $100,000 yearly salary, and
• 1 million net worth

I still see these two numbers and some kind of bucket list item that I have to tick off the list, even though those numbers are less and less meaningful (due to inflation), and money is less and less meaningful to  me, because I have enough and now I am just in the pursuit of happiness and contentment.

I am the owner of my time

The major reason why I love entrepreneurship is that I am the ultimate decision-maker of my time.

Everywhere around me, I see people stressed because of their jobs, because of the long commutes to and from their jobs, because they don’t get as many hours as they want, or because they are expected to work more hours than they want.

Even if some of the people I know, they are making tons of money, they aren’t the owner of their time. They still have to ask permission to their bosses to come late or to leave early.

The thing that I love the most about my time ownership, is to be able to wake up when my body wants to wake up and to be able to take naps during the day. Every time I do that, I realize how wealthy I am and how much privilege I have.

But also, the idea of just meeting a friend at the park, or working with rushing. Hallelujah, that’s how humans were meant to be.

Money is not the main motivator

When I came as an immigrant, money was my number one motivator. I needed money to pay for my school. I worked as a janitor, as a busboy, and many other low paying jobs. I didn’t like the pay and I didn’t like the jobs either.

But now, after finding some kind of financial security, I have no difficulty saying “no” to jobs or clients I don’t like. And saying “Yes” to jobs that pay much less but I find them more interesting.

YouTube and blogs have been my university

I studied for 5 years at the local university. It was the biggest waste of money, time, and energy in my whole existence.

I still remember the hours in the library, studying calculus, organizational behavior, outdated marketing ideas, and so much useless information never to be put into practice.

Instead, when I went into the real world, I found myself relying on YouTube and hundreds of blogs.

• I opened a dance school
• I learned how to do taxes
• I learned about the stock market
• I became a real estate investor
• I learned photography and video

All that education for free. The education which has allowed me to live a comfortable living, on my terms, was all FREE.

And you?

Are you a solopreneur? How did you get there? What do you love most about it? Share some of your journeys.

1. Give yourself permission to do crappy work
2. Showing up to work and delivering as promised
3. Happy Thanksgiving from an immigrant. Thank you, Canada!

Connect with me

I would love it if you connect with me via social. You can find me on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and  YouTube.