Hope for the High School Dropouts

I think it is assumed that most pro bloggers quit a cush corporate job to become a blogger. Or they owned a business and then began blogging. Or that blogging is already an offshoot of another online business that they have. Or they are just fresh out of college with their IT degree and decided to blog instead of entering the work force. In other words, if blogging or making money online fails to work for them, they can just go back to what they were doing.

Most of the A-list bloggers out there seem to have a story like this. Great stories. I love them all. But what about the bloggers that really came from nothing? What are the options? Going back to working construction or retail.

I know that Clickbank has multiple products that state the author was either "a high school dropout", or a "convicted felon", but these are statements made to sell a product. And it helps, to sell the product. But that's about all.

I am the first person in my family to get a job where you sit, unless you count the time between deliveries. In my family, the phrases "401k" and "IRA" don't come up in conversations. Vacations are time off work where you catch up on work around the house. And a good job is something to hold onto. What is a good job? Anything that pays more than $10 an hour or has good benefits.

Those of us who come from a background like this have more to change than the location of our computer when we decide to take off on our own. There is a whole brain to change. The longer you stay in the hourly workforce, the harder it is to fight the mentality of hourly work and the fear it injects into your life.

When you are at home, living with your parents, they are the provider of your every need. Losing them is probably one of the biggest fears you may have. Most think this changes when you get out on your own. I say it doesn't. I suggest that your boss becomes your adoptive parent and the same fear is there. And when you retire from a job like this, the government takes the job.

This fear can sabotage any effort to do something for yourself. To break from your day job to make money online. Any little issue may cause you to run back to your new surrogate parent.

I know because I have felt it. I have a G.E.D. I started this business after I had a family. I made the leap once to doing this full time for three months. Then I went back to having a day job. I want the next time to be the last.

This post was inspired by Quitting the Day Job:Finding the Guts to Pursue Your Dreams. Anyone wanting to break from the day job needs to read the post. It takes much more than just making more money online. It takes planning. You are the boss now. No one to run to safety to.

Plus, it wouldn't hurt to read more posts at Get Rich Slowly to learn how to use the money you do make more wisely. One of my mistakes when I made my first break from the day job was that I had no idea how much money it would take to live on.