Company ≠ Family. Period.

Your company is not your family.

It’s not your friend either.

Bosses you trusted will cut you loose for a so-called 0.0001% cost saving…then happily burn ten times your salary on AI subscriptions.

People are finally waking up to the fact that corporate loyalty has never existed. We’re just numbers on a dashboard, nothing more.

No one cares if you can’t make rent next month or end up homeless. “Colleagues” you thought were friends will stab you in the back for a $100 raise without blinking. (Yes, this actually happened to me.)

You might have spent more time with them than with your own family, but they’ll turn cold the moment they learn you’re quitting.

If I had a chance to go back in time and offer my younger self some priceless advice, it would be this:

• Do not make friends at work. That’s a trap.
• Never invest more time and energy in a job than you’re paid for. Leave on time.
• Work on your own projects. Build a side business (ideally one that lets you move anywhere*).
• Walk away as soon as your side gig earns enough, and you’ve got at least a year’s savings in the bank.

And when you do leave, move somewhere nice and safe where life is not only better, but cheaper.

(*)Why pay $3,000 for a cramped apartment in a smelly, noisy, crowded city when you can live in a quaint place for a fraction of that just a few hundred miles away?

You might think working for yourself is hard and risky. But the way things are today, having your own business puts you in a stronger position than any 9-to-5 ever will.

How to start a side hustle?

Start by solving problems.

If you’ve built up expertise in a specific area, there’s a good chance that what you do at your job to generate profit for your employer could make you even more directly for yourself.

If you’ve fixed, improved, or simplified something at work, think about how you could turn that into a business.

Just the other day, I had a water pipe issue. A craftsman came and fixed it in no time. He told me I was lucky because tomorrow he wouldn’t have picked up the phone. He’s spending the whole next month in Tenerife.

When he was an employee, he couldn’t afford even a week there. Now, running his own plumbing business, he earns more than he ever imagined. He can take off for an entire summer month without worrying about money or asking anyone’s permission.

If you’re over forty and still working for someone else, you’re either in a truly special niche (let’s be honest, you can’t build a particle accelerator in your backyard) or you’re doing something wrong.

Think about it. And start building that side gig today!

If you like my no-BS take on work and want to learn from me directly, check out my courses here: https://learnwithkarl.teachable.com.