I received well over 100 email responses to this topic and not one of them was in defense of PayPal’s business practices.

Roger said, “Our company processed tens of thousands of transactions with PayPal over several years with only 3 charge-backs and 2 of them were reversed.  After all of these years they decided to close our account and froze access to our funds from dozens of clients without any written notice.  PayPal is illegally holding people’s money.”

Jeannette said, “I hate PayPal in every way.  I am looking forward to Visa coming out with their competing service this summer.”

Lisa said, “I used to sell items on EBay as my business. Small ticket items under $100.  Two months ago PayPal determined that my wares were too risky and without notice or warning they shut down my account and froze my funds for 180 days.  This has effectively closed my EBay business until I find another payment method that EBay will accept.”

I could go on and on.  There were dozens of stories like these.

I tell you this for three reasons:

1. I am pissed. I wanted to vent my frustrations and get my revenge.  I am sure my thousands of readers can put a microscopic dent in PayPal’s more than 200 million customer base…
2. I want my subscribers to be alerted to the pitfalls of relying on PayPal.  Find another resource for payment processing if your business demands it.  I did.  I actually set up 3 merchant accounts over the past week.  Overkill?  Maybe, but I don’t want to deal with this issue again.  I hope you are at least aware of the potential problems from using PayPal and give yourself options.
3. Most importantly, I want you to be aware that once a great company loses its way; the doors of opportunity are opened wide.  PayPal’s insistence on providing terrible service and alienating 100’s of thousands of customers per year has given opportunity for competitors to jump in this game.  When PayPal first started, they were cutting edge.  No one offered anything like it.  It was a great solution for millions of people.  But now with their complete lack of interest in taking care of their customer, they have opened the door of opportunity for American Express, Visa, Alert Pay, Google Checkout, Square, Intuit, and hundreds of others looking to take on this market.

For you, this may have little direct meaning.  Most of us aren’t interested in or capable of taking on the giant – PayPal and creating a competing business model.

But the idea is the same and can be observed all around you every day.  Have you ever used a product or service and thought, “This is really irritating, if they could just do X it would do well.”

Where turmoil persists, opportunity exists.

Some entrepreneurs are excellent inventors and creators.  They have the ability to create things from their own sheer brilliance.  We know of these visionaries because they make the headlines; Steven Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, Bernie Marcus and many others.

But many entrepreneurs take good ideas and make them great.  Ray Kroc didn’t invent the hamburger, the restaurant, fast food, or even McDonalds.  But he did take the concept and turn it into something amazing.

Oprah Winfrey was certainly not the first media personality and talk show host.  But she took the concept and grew it into something no one had ever seen before and became a billionaire in the process.

You could even say the visionaries like Jeff Bezos recreated the way books were sold or Steven Jobs reinvented the personal electronics sector.

Everyday you will encounter businesses that provide some product or service that fills a need, but could use improvement in its current state.

As an entrepreneur your eyes should be constantly open looking for inefficiencies in the marketplace or needs that are not even met.

Many young entrepreneurs are so money focused; they forget the most important thing;

Deliver value to your customer and they will deliver money to you.

Unfortunately most get it backwards and focus on the money, which is egocentric and they forget that in order to reach real professional (and personal for that matter) success, you must first deliver value.

I make an effort to deliver value to you every week through my newsletters.  Maybe I enlighten, sometimes entertain, and occasionally anger, but my goal is to provide real value to you every week.

For my clients, I provide value to them by helping them achieve their goals of protecting their assets and keeping what is rightfully theirs.  What value do you provide to your clients?

The past few months have gotten increasingly busy here at Global Wealth Protection.  We have seen a lot of new clients as well as an increase in traffic on our monthly Ezine – EscapeWealth.

In addition, I have also started hosting a weekly radio show every Monday from 3-4pm EST on the Overseas Radio Network called, “Global Escape Hatch“.  ORN is now completely free.  I encourage each of you to tune in and listen to my show where you can call in and get your questions answered live.

Last week a lot of things came to a head all at once.  As you may imagine from the title, one of them was a battle with Paypal.  I don’t normally accept Paypal for client payments unless the total is small, but I had 2 clients who really preferred that method so I agreed.

The problem is that Paypal decided I actually charged too much money (do they really want smaller fees?) and my account was closed because it was considered high risk.

No problem Paypal.  Close the account.

As it turns out though, when Paypal closes an account, their policy is to hold the funds for 180 days!!!  Who among you is willing to wait 180 days to receive payment for a completed project?  Not I.

So this is my way of blowing off steam and informing you, my dear reader, beware of Paypal.  After researching this issue, it seems there are 100′s of thousand of people in a similar position.  Don’t be a sucker like me.

Ok, moving on.

As previously mentioned, we have seen a huge increase in traffic for our EscapeWealth Ezine and last week we published our January edition.  This was by far our best issue yet.  So instead of continuing my Paypal tirade, I want to direct you to these articles.

Each and  every one of them are worth the read.  They all offer an enormous amount of information and value to you, the reader.

Below are the article titles with links.  Feel free to click on the ones that interest you the most.

Private Trust Banking – 21st Century Offshore Banking

What to do with Your Cash When the Financial System is Broken

(The Easiest) Way to Get a Second Passport? (Plus, How It Can Save Your Life When Things Go Wrong!)

Mike the Good Ole Country Boy vs. Lester the Scoundrel

Three Numbers that are Essential to Your Wealth

Who Really Owns Your Stocks?

Passive Real Estate Investments…For Real!

The Corruption of America

Conversations with an Idiot

Don’t Frack Me Up

The Weekly Jobless Claim Blockbuster

More IRA Restrictions Coming…

When Will Silver Reach a New High?

Can YOU Get in the Global Macro Game?

Call today for your free 30 minute asset protection consultation.  Until next week, live well.

Time for a Golden Turkey – Asset Protection Planning

First of all, I want to wish a Happy Thanksgiving to all of my American readers.  I hope you all have a very enjoyable holiday filled with friends, family and tryptophan induced comas.

I will keep this newsletter short and sweet.  Quite frankly there are probably only 3 of you reading it anyway while the rest of you are eating pecan pie and watching football on the couch.  So there’s not much use in spending a lot of time wowing you with my mediocre writing ability.

Thanks to those of you that correctly submitted your CV last week for the job posting.  I am reviewing all of the submissions and will contact you if there seems to be a possible fit.

This past week has been exceptionally busy as we have been in the middle of a long needed website upgrade.  As I mentioned in a previous newsletter, the old website was cutting edge…in the ‘90s.

It also did not truly reflect our service offerings.  I would appreciate it if you would please visit the website and give me any feedback, good or bad, on what you see.  The entire site has been redesigned as well as updated services and bio pages.

The site still does not reflect all service offerings, but frankly, there are some things I’m not willing to advertise.

I have had the pleasure over the past couple of weeks of speaking to several PT’s.  For those of you unaware of what this means, a PT stands for perpetual traveler or perpetual tourist.  Essentially this is more of a mindset and a lifestyle than any concrete life plan.

A PT lives his life in a very peaceful, low key manner and plants multiple flags to ensure his or her freedom.  You have read my newsletters many times about planting multiple flags, or what I call geo-arbitrage.

Basically this means arranging your life in such a way that you have minimized your financial and personal risk with multiple passports, residency outside of your  home country, investments in one country, business in another country, bank accounts in another country, etc.

Certainly this seems to be very James Bondish and maybe even a bit overwhelming, but in reality it is not as difficult as it sounds and can be a very rewarding lifestyle.

Some of you are probably aware of these tactics and clearly many of you are living this lifestyle already while others of you are very curious, but skeptical.  My recommendation to you is to go one step at a time.

The first step I recommend is to have an offshore bank account.  This gives you a bit of financial security knowing a portion of your savings are outside of the US legal system.  There are way too many examples of people having their accounts frozen or seized for no good reason.

One unique opportunity I have found is to set up an account with GoldMoney.  While this is not a traditional cash bank account, it nonetheless offers a great first step towards your geo-arbitrage strategy.

If you have been reading my newsletters for awhile now (see; ‘Unreportable Real Estate and Precious Metals’), you will know that offshore precious metals need not be reported to the US government unlike bank accounts over $10,000.

GoldMoney was founded by James Turk and his son Geoff in 2001 and held the patents for the use of gold as an electronic currency.   This gives account holders the unique ability to pay and receive payments with goldgrams giving you complete privacy of financial transactions.

GoldMoney provides a secure storage of physical metals (not paper gold like with ETF’s) in Zurich, London, and Hong Kong.  You can take delivery of your precious metals at any time.

There are many options available for holding precious metals, but few offer the same benefits as GoldMoney with the same ease of account set up.

Contact us today to schedule your free 30 minute asset protection consultation.

I’ve known Tres now since 2005.  We both started (and finished in ‘07) a Master’s in Entrepreneurship at MIT at that time and have remained good friends since.  Tres works on the trading floor at the CME and runs his own futures brokerage firm in Chicago.

He is also a frequent guest on CNBC, Fox Business and Bloomberg News every week.  Today we are going to talk about what Tres calls his ‘retirement trade’.  The webinar is going to be held today at 7pm EST.  If you are interested in joining us, click here.

In addition to the webinar later today with Tres, I also need to squeeze in play time with my 4 year old son, the daily download of school and social issues with my 15 year old daughter, and taking my 12 year old son to lacrosse practice.

After lacrosse, I think my son and I are going to ride bikes over to the bmx park and I will see if I can clear the big ramp jump.  Don’t worry; my son can call the ambulance if necessary.

You see, while I may be a workaholic, I am also a playaholic.  One of my all time favorite songs is Eminem’s ‘Lose Yourself’.  If you haven’t heard the song, or haven’t listened to it in awhile, click the YouTube link and give it a listen.

My favorite line is right at the beginning of the song – “If you had one shot, or one opportunity to seize everything you ever wanted in one moment, would you capture it, or just let it slip?”  What would you do?

My nephew John, who passed away in June, reintroduced me to this song which I had long since disregarded as just another rap song.  He lived a great life and seized every moment.   I know what his answer was.  (Read my article ‘Homeless and Happy’ for more on this topic).

This song is truly powerful.  I listen to it frequently to remind me about living life to the fullest and never having regrets.

Nearly every day I have a conversation with friends and family inquiring about my own life choices.  They question my sanity about living outside of the US, not owning a home, not owning a car, sending my kids to school in a foreign country, working until 3am but riding bicycles during the day, and many other things that don’t fall in line with the status quo.

One of my unnamed family members was even so kind as to tell me that I was immature and irresponsible for riding motorcycles at my age (I’m 37) and that I needed to grow up and act like an adult.  Maybe he needs to try acting like a kid.

A friend once told me, “I want to be just like you when I grow up.”  I told her, “If you grow up, you will never be like me.”

For me though, I question the sanity of living the comfortable, mediocre life doing the same thing day after day, living in the same place for decades, going on holiday to the same place every summer, and traveling the same road to the same job in the same car at the same time day after day after day.

As Einstein so famously stated, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

How do you live your life?  Is it exactly as you want it?  Or do you constantly dream of what could have been?

As Eminem said, “You only get one shot, do not miss your chance…”

Call today to schedule your free 30 minute asset protection consultation.  Until next week, live extraordinary.

Over the past week I probably have spent more time with friends and family than in the past year.  Breakfast, lunch, dinner and late nights have been spent with friends and family every day.

Tonight I had an excellent dinner with my sisters and their spouses.  I don’t think I have eaten a meal at home in at least 10 days.

Two nights ago I had a group of my buddies kidnap me for an evening of debauchery.  Of course I didn’t resist much.

You see tomorrow is my last day in the US for awhile.  I have traveled extensively around the world and have lived outside of the US before, but this time it’s a bit different.

Before, I always had a residence in the US to call home, but not this time.  I have sold my house, cars, motorcycles (sniff, sniff) and every stick of furniture.  I even sold my vintage arcade game.

This time it’s different.  This doesn’t mean I will never live in the US again, but it does mean there are no plans for that in the foreseeable future.

Many of you reading this newsletter have either taken the plunge to live beyond the borders of the United States or are seriously contemplating that decision.  Of course there are also many of you reading this who may think, “Why in the world would you ever leave this country?”

Over the past few weeks I have had to answer this question on more than one occasion.  At this point I think the most of my family thinks I am either running from the law or evading creditors.  Rest assured, neither is the case.

To be honest, it’s not an easy question to answer.  The easiest response is just, “I want to live an interesting life full of adventure and without undue influence on the choices I make.”

Of course this is a pretty vague response, but I think it sums it up pretty well.  Many people are content to lead a mundane life similar to their peers and following in their hereditary footsteps.  There certainly is benefit to this.  It’s comfortable, low stress, and familiar.

One thing it is not though is extraordinary.  Living an extraordinary life is one of my core values.  Every decision I make needs to pass the ‘extraordinary’ test.

Adventure is another one of my core values.  My life choices must include adventure in order to pass the test.  I have raced motorcycles at over 170mph, been skydiving, obtained my black belt in Tae Kwon Do, flown small airplanes and earned my private pilot’s license, been snowmobiling in Siberia in -30c, and even rode a camel in Africa.

Possibly my most important core value though is freedom.  Even as a child I was not comfortable with authority (just ask my family).  During my teen years I was fired from a few jobs due to ‘differences of opinion’.  I have been my own boss since age 19.  Freedom has always been ingrained in my DNA.

On a grander scale though, many freedoms we have taken for granted as Americans are rapidly deteriorating.  If you don’t believe me, go to your local airport and watch the security area for about 30 minutes.  You will see little old ladies and small children embarrassed, demoralized and violated with the intrusive ‘random’ searches meant to protect us from these villains.

In a recent interview with Joel Salatin of Polyface Farms (author of ‘Everything I Want to Do is Illegal’), he discussed a school in California that grows its own carrots. The children pick the carrots and wash them before eating, but the local Health Department came in and said that the children are not allowed to wash and eat those carrots without a food handler’s license.

While this may sound like a joke, rest assured it’s for real.  The health department is requiring each child to become licensed to wash their own carrots.

I was also recently copied on an email from Kerry Carr with Global Resources for Education and Travel.  Kerry’s company sponsors foreign exchange students that want to come to the US for study.  She was just notified by the State Department she would need a minimum of 5 years verifiable experience (which she has) and be able to place $1000 in escrow for 2 years for every DS2019 form needed by her company.

The DS2019 is the form foreign students need to apply for a visa.  Kerry’s company would need a minimum of 500 DS2019 forms, which means she would have to come up with $500,000 that she cannot touch for 2 years.  Her company is small and cannot afford it.  She is closing her doors.

Does this sound like an improvement in economic productivity?  It sounds like heavy handed politics filtering out the small competition leaving room for the bigger companies to operate unfettered.

From an economic perspective I don’t see the tides changing for the better anytime soon.  Congress rode in this week on their white stallions to save the day by raising the debt ceiling by $2.4T averting a government default.

Of course the only thing they really saved is their own asses.  The last thing the politicians wanted was for the people to wake up to the reality of how utterly useless they really are.  So they flood the media with the idea that Armageddon is on the cusp if we don’t raise the debt ceiling and Republicans and Democrats alike pranced around playing their game of cat and mouse.

So let me get this straight – in order to fix the debt crisis we increase our debt?  Huh?

Isn’t that equivalent to fixing a syphilis problem with more unprotected sex?

Long term, the implications of increasing the debt ceiling is pretty clear.  Eventually our creditors will require a bigger yield to loan us money.  Or they just stop loaning altogether.  Neither option is good for the country.  Soon the fat lady will stop singing.

This my friends is why I am leaving on a jet plane.  I am leaving in order to live a free and extraordinary life of adventure.  How are you living your life?

Are you content with status quo?  Do you feel that the political and economic situation in the US is getting better or worse?

What are your own personal core values?  Are you living them?  Are you fulfilling your own dreams?

If you listen to the politicians and the media you would think Armageddon, the Apocalypse or even the Rapture is on the horizon. I’m surprised there is any milk and bread in the grocery stores.

Folks, don’t be fooled by the games being played right now in Washington. The biggest fear from both the Republicans and Democrats right now is that once August 2nd rolls around and government offices get shutdown, the people will realize how utterly useless most of these agencies really are.

This is truly their biggest nightmare – exposure of the truth. And the truth is, for the most part government is useless. It destroys productivity and value with agencies and policies that do nothing but cater to the special interest groups that feed the monster.

I don’t want to go into all of the numbers with regards to the debt ceiling (you can find any number of sources online so no need for me to rehash), but the fact is the US has more than enough cash to pay its debt payments.

When the cash runs out, the US has an enormous amount of assets that can be sold to raise cash.

Nearly 80% of all land west of the Mississippi river is government owned. Land auctions alone could likely pay off the US debt as well as put productive assets into the hands of entrepreneurs and investors who will make a much better use of them.

The worst case scenario is that there will be government layoffs, furloughs without pay, and permanently shuttering of agencies and offices that are completely useless.

While this will no doubt be painful in the short run, it will unleash a new age of productivity in the US. There are many highly educated people working in government jobs who could easily put their intelligence to productive use instead of dragging down the economy with a taxpayer funded paycheck.

A recent article in CNN Money discusses the closure of thousands of post offices around the country. Over 3000 of them produce less than $27,500 in annual revenue. This point is worth re-emphasizing; $27,500 in annual revenue.

How many of you have owned or currently own your own business? How realistic is it for a private business owner to maintain his business while paying a commercial lease when the business generates less than $27,500 in annual revenues? Keep in mind; I am talking about revenues, not profit. This means you still have to pay your commercial lease and all expenses out of that revenue.

Only the government could possibly keep a completely failed business model alive for so long. The USPS lost $8.5B in 2010. Don’t worry; Uncle Sam is here to shore up the balance sheet. Can you print your own money to pay your bills?

How much longer can this nonsense continue? How much longer are you willing to sit on the sidelines and just wait for things to ‘turn around’? Can you read the writing on the wall yet?

What are you doing to protect your assets? Do you even have an asset protection plan yet? Have you considered moving money offshore?

Frequently I get asked about helping clients open offshore bank accounts. Certainly opening an offshore bank account is a key component in asset protection planning. Everyone with any reasonable amount of wealth needs to have this escape hatch for their cash.

I want to make you aware of one opportunity to quickly and easily open an offshore bank account with complete privacy without having to leave the comfort of home.

HSBC Bank International offers offshore banking options with minimum account opening balances of $100,000. With this option, you can open a Premiere account at HSBC here in the US at any local branch and they can facilitate your account opening at their offshore branches in Jersey (not New Jersey, although this can seem to be a foreign country at times).

If you open the account under your Wealth Fortress Trust, you can have complete anonymity with your assets. Your name cannot be found in any public record in association with your Wealth Fortress Trust. It is the perfect tool to own assets with complete anonymity.

On a lighter note, I have been asked many, many times by readers to list some of my favorite books. A couple of weeks ago I mentioned a book I had just read, Beyond Wealth: The Roadmap to a Rich Life by Alexander Green. This is a great read. It is a compilation of essays by Alexander Green about living a life worth living. Highly recommended.

Here are a 10 of my other favorites;
• Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand – my all-time favorite novel
• The Intelligent Investor by Ben Graham – the investor’s bible
• Reminiscences of a Stock Operator by Edwin Lefevre – the trader’s bible
• When Genius Failed by Roger Lowenstein – great history lesson about hedge funds
• Market Wizards by Jack Schwager – excellent interviews with famous traders
• One Up on Wall Street by Peter Lynch – Peter Lynch, need I say more?
• The Mystery of Banking by Murray Rothbard – great history lesson about banking
• Investment Biker: Around the World with (by) Jim Rogers – great story, lots of wisdom
• The Magic of Thinking Big by David Schwartz – expand your thinking
• The History of Money by Jack Weatherford – great history lesson about money
I am an avid reader consuming at least 2-3 books per month. Just last week I bought 12 new books for my e-reader. Not all books are good, but reading can never be bad. Years ago a mentor once told me, “Leaders are Readers.” I took his word for it; he was a pretty smart dude.

By the time you read this, our EscapeWealth July Ezine will be published. We have lots of great articles on there so I encourage you to read through the ones that interest you. This Ezine publishes to 400,000 subscribers around the world. If you are interested in learning more about our media partnership program, drop me a line here.

Mike worked for me for several years after I bought his company and merged them together. After my company was sold, he worked for the new boss for a few months but then decided to leave. Apparently his entrepreneurial ambitions just didn’t mesh with the new company culture.

Shortly thereafter he went to work for one of our former competitors who quickly became the ‘big dog’ in the industry. But again his ‘ideas’ were not appreciated.

Mike called to tell me that he had connected with another small company in the industry and they started a new business. Alas, it seems Mike has found his ‘happy place’.

I am proud of Mike. He ran his own company many years ago before selling to me and under my leadership he was given the freedom to make decisions that best suited the company. Essentially he had entrepreneurial freedom within my company.

In his subsequent jobs, he didn’t have this freedom and it clearly didn’t work out for him. But now he is back running his own show.

In the “Great Reset”, as I call it, I think we will see a surge in entrepreneurship. People like my friend Mike will no longer accept the status quo of working for someone else when there are opportunities around every corner.

Personally I have trouble with ‘opportunity focus’. Maybe I’m ADD or maybe my mind is just open to seeing new opportunities, but either way I cannot help but see new business ventures everywhere.

At the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, everyone was an entrepreneur. There were very few big companies; most people ran their own small business or farm. The idea, ‘go to school, get a good education, get a good job, save for retirement….’, just didn’t exist during that time.

Of course neither did social security, medicare, medicaid, welfare, unemployment insurance, corn farmer subsidies, import tariffs on sugar, mountains of paperwork for starting a business, Sarbanes-Oxley, or the Federal Reserve.

None of this existed. This era was probably the closest to a free market the US has ever seen, but I digress…

I think the time has come for us to see the new golden age of entrepreneurship. With staggering budget deficits, we are on the verge of a quiet revolution. The people will not accept the current government situation which I believe will ultimately lead to smaller government. We are already seeing inklings of that in some states.

Personally I consider myself to be an entrepreneur, investor and student of life. I have worked for myself in some way, shape or form since I was 13 years old. I briefly had a few jobs in high school and just out of high school, but otherwise have not had a real job my entire life.

I opened my first brokerage account when I was 14 years old. I have been investing in stocks, bonds, commodities, real estate and private business since that time. As a voracious reader and one who loves to learn from other intelligent, successful people, I am also a student of life.

Certainly many of you are also entrepreneurs. I am also certain there are many of you that are not entrepreneurs but are seriously contemplating taking the plunge. While this certainly is not an all-inclusive list, here are 10 reasons I think being an entrepreneur is the best choice:

1. Freedom. How many of you truly enjoy being told when to come to work, when to eat lunch, and when to go home? Not many I would assume. As an entrepreneur, you regain some of this freedom by controlling your own schedule. Not everyone is productive during the same hours of the day, so why are we forced to work the same hours? Just yesterday I was planning a trip with a friend to go to the World Superbike race in Salt Lake City, UT. We are going to take a week to drive out in his RV with motorcycles in tow. We will camp along the way and just explore while on the road trip. I didn’t have to ask my boss off for the week to make the trip.

2. Social boredom. While I am sure you just love each and every one of your co-workers, do you really want to spend the majority of your waking hours with them? If we each work 8 hours a day and sleep 8 hours a day, you spend half of your waking (workday) hours with these people. Some days when the workload is light, I spend it with my 3 year old watching Spiderman cartoons and playing trucks. Frequently I take long lunches with friends or meet them for coffee or late afternoon beer. My social network consists mostly of other business owners who also have freedom to spend their day as they wish. It’s really nice to spend time with successful, likeminded people.

3. Financial security. This may seem counterintuitive to those of you that work a regular job. If you get a regular paycheck, I can understand the argument here that the job is much more secure. But let’s consider the facts; your income is tied to your job. In other words, you have one income stream. What happens if that stream goes dry? Companies go out of business daily or at least companies that aren’t contributing heavily to Obama’s campaign… Companies are always looking for ways to cut expenses to expand their bottom line for shareholders and executives. Your salary could be next on the chopping block.

4. Multiple streams of income. As an entrepreneur, you have the ability to develop multiple streams of income. Most successful business owners that I know of understand this concept very well and have either diversified their business to bring in revenue from multiple channels, or they have diversified personally outside of their primary business to bring in income from other business ventures. I personally have income from 5-6 different sources, so I am not beholden to any one venture. Currently I am also working on 2 new business ventures.

5. Intellectually challenging work. Most jobs are filled with mundane tasks that satisfy the bureaucracy of corporate culture. Complete this report, file that proposal, finish this spreadsheet, etc. Much of this is done to make sure you are staying on track, but have little to do with actual productivity. Do you really enjoy kowtowing to upper management to prove your worth as a human being and then months later going hat-in-hand begging for that much deserved raise?

6. Results driven environment. A regular job requires regular hours. Most of the herd goes to work at 8am, lunch at noon, and leaves at 5pm (or so I am told). This is slavery, plain and simple. You are chained to the desk day after day for a certain number of hours regardless of results. Sure, results may matter at your workplace when it comes time for promotions or raises, but the fact is you are still chained to the desk for a certain number of hours. As an entrepreneur, the only thing that matters is results. It’s true that many entrepreneurs, me included, can work very long hours. But keep in mind; we are working for results, not for time. Some weeks I may invest 80 hours in my workweek. But the next week I may be lucky if it hits 10 hours. Results are all that matters.

7. Healthier lifestyle. In your regular job you most likely eat a rush breakfast in the morning while trying to get to work on time. Then you eat lunch at a restaurant, frequently fast food, and then home for that good home cooked meal (yeah right). Working for yourself gives you the opportunity to develop healthier lifestyle habits. This morning I woke up and did a short 15 minute workout. Then I made my coffee from fresh ground beans and made my own healthy breakfast of fruit and grain cereal. I am having a home cooked lunch at some family’s home nearby and this afternoon I will work out again. I have found that cooking your own food is much healthier than eating out (no kidding). I have also found that short workouts during the day elevate my heart rate and make me feel better all day. Do you have this opportunity at your job?

8. Geographical freedom. In today’s world there are more companies offering workers virtual work assignments, but I think this is still pretty minimal. When you work for yourself, you have the ability to live anywhere you want. This was much more difficult several years ago, but with technology you can set up shop from nearly anywhere in the world and work productively. I have done conference calls with clients sitting at a McDonald’s in Oslo and a café in Zurich. Last year I lived in Eastern Europe and later this year I will most likely live somewhere in South American before moving back to Europe. Yesterday I had a conference call to discuss a new business venture with partners in Prague and Gibraltar. None of this would be possible if I were working at a regular 9-5er.

9. Cool people don’t have jobs. Honestly, look around. What are the cool people doing these days? When you are at a dinner party or a social mixer and the question arises, “What do you do?”, who gets the attention, the guy who runs his own company and travels the world, or the guy who goes to the same office Monday – Friday at 8am and goes home at 5pm, takes 2 weeks of vacation each year to the same place and watches SportsCenter with his buddies all weekend?

10. Live an experience rich life. I saved this one for last because for me this is the most important aspect of being an entrepreneur – it allows me to live an experience-filled life. You only get to live on this dirtball called Earth once, why waste nearly one-third of your life sitting behind a desk living a mundane life. Do you ever wonder why some people seem to love life everyday while you are constantly complaining? Could it be that you spend half of your waking hours doing something you really don’t like? Life is meant to be enjoyed and experienced. I consider work to be an important part of my life – one that gives me great pleasure. I truly enjoy working with entrepreneurs and investors helping them develop their own asset protection plan. It allows me to talk to and meet with interesting people on a daily basis. I can help them minimize their risk and keep the wealth where it belongs; with the creators of wealth. Along the way I get to experience other wonderful aspects of life as well. For example, I am building a custom café racer over the next few weeks. I am passionate about motorcycles. I’ve been riding them since 2 weeks after I learned to ride a bicycle without training wheels. I am just as passionate about entrepreneurship.

I would love to hear from you about your experiences transitioning from employee to entrepreneur or anything related to your entrepreneurship journey. I would also love to hear from any fellow motorcyclists and their 2-wheel experiences.