Sometime after leaving my career in the healthcare training industry to pursue this farming dream, I discovered the art of the online hustle.
Now I’m not taking about swindling people or committing fraud online, but rather keeping busy and making-ends-meet-while-you-fund-your-dream-project type of “hustle.”
My dad believed in this type of work ethic. My parents had me when he was 18 and he’s been working full-time ever since. He started as a repair man and worked on telephone poles in a bucket truck. Sometimes work would be on strike, but he knew how to hustle. No work was beneath him and thus he was always able to provide for us. I remember during a layoff one year, he found work by selling E.T. dolls to earn extra money for Christmas. He’s been through layoffs and multiple consolidations in the communications industry and still has done rather well for himself.
That determination to hustle has also been instilled in me. I went from a temp assignment in shipping & receiving in New York all the way to marketing manager in Norway. Pretty much the corporate fairy tale. Now that I’m writing this new chapter on life – the spirit is there, but funds are looking tight. While the search for farm land continues, I’ve had to seek some new streams of income to continue bootstrapping this dream.
Working From Home
The web is full of empty promises and work from home scams, but luckily I’ve hit upon some good sources of jobs available online for remote individuals. If you have a high speed internet connection at home or in your local library, there is work to be had if you’re willing to dig in, build a profile, do research and start small.
That’s what I did. I pimped myself out freelance websites like Elance and Odesk and slowly found some decent gigs. Some were quick projects and others were long term arrangements in online marketing. But when Shared Teams came calling, I knew I found something special. Shared Teams creates virtual marketing teams for small and medium sized businesses. They are super-efficient which keeps costs down for their clients and they have highly trained specialists in all areas of marketing.
Creating A Work-Life Blend
When I interviewed, they said it was great that I had this farming project and as an example of how they operate, said that I could even take days off if I needed to, like during lambing season. What kind of company puts Springtime lambing before profits?
Shared Teams has the work-life blend at the core of their company culture. This allows many of their employees to have time to engage in enriching side projects be it in music, writing, home schooling, even more freelancing, while making a competitive part time wage.
As I get my farm going, will I still work with Shared Teams? Yes, I think so, especially at the beginning. I’ve still a home to build, an oven to construct “and miles to go before I sleep.” Having a little extra buoyancy to keep the farm ship afloat is always a plus.
And for me, I’ll just keep on hustling… in the journey!
