How can I change my life with no money?
On November 30th, 2008, someone typed “how can i change my life with no money” into Google. The third hit was to my blog post “There is no money in change management”. That person read the article and I doubt that it was useful to their predicament. Whoever that person is, I am sorry I could not help you. But you got me thinking… How could I change my life with no money?
The first thing to say is that no one has no money. At least, no one who has access to a computer with access t0 Google can make that claim. This point is particularly worth making if you are using a computer in a library. Even though you do not own the computer, you have access to someone that can spend money for your benefit, i.e. the library.
Using other people’s money is a powerful secret. Henry Ford was a master at it, taking money from the orders of cars, building those cars from suppliers’ raw materials, and only then paying the suppliers. It is well worth reading his autobiography. There is lots of money out there with which to change your life. For example, instead of paying for an expensive course, ask your librarian to buy the books you need for the course and study by yourself. I do this all the time and the librarians are grateful because they have a budget to spend but need help with identifying which books would be the most useful to their community. Around the world, there are grants, scholarships and loans available to help people who are serious about changing their lives.
The next thing to say is that changing your life is hard. Really hard. You have to put in the hours and one book that has had me thinking about this is Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell. I usually gush about his books but a recent review by The Register has me chastened. The main point of the book is worth making though. There is no overnight success, success takes work, and the most successful worked the most.
So if you want to change careers it will take some time. That time includes working for free, or for low wages, to build skills in a new career. This is another example of using other people’s money because the alternative is for you to pay to gain those skills at an expensive course. The education from a job is much more practical and likely to increase your earning power than a university course, providing you are focused on learning from your job.
Finally, the best time to start is now. One of the most interesting things I learned in the USA is what happens when people change jobs. If I sound naive, it is because I had led a sheltered life while working as a doctor. Everyone I had previously worked with or for had a clinical career path mapped out. Job security was high and career progression mostly a matter of time.
But in the USA I saw my worst nightmare on a regular basis: parents fired from their jobs. I also saw something I had not dreamed of: people leaving their current jobs without a plan for what to do next. I do not recommend either scenario, but I will say that a few months afterwards each person was happier than they were in their old job. Often, they had higher salaries, and always they were in situations that they wanted to be in rather than ones they felt compelled to stay in.
So, to answer the question of the anyonymous searcher on my site: use the money of others to train yourself for a new life, and start doing so right now.
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