Why I Was Fortunate To Be Rejected By Cambridge
I am a sucker for happy endings.
Hoping to read some erotica?
It’s not that kind of happy ending. I mean the ending for my pathetic working life story. For some reason I believed an Executive MBA was the magic pill I just had to take. Not just any Executive MBA. One from Cambridge no less. When I decided I had the resources to go for it, I applied. Guess what, my rejection mail arrived swifter than curses spill out of potty mouth Trump! You can imagine devastated me looking for an answer. Groping in the dark for clues sometimes does help. It takes you down many wrong alleyways but you finally stumble into the right one- being a creator!
Yes, I entered Creator Economy World.
I’d like to share more about my amazing life but some dope for you first.
Why is an MBA not the best option in Post Pandemic World?
I am assuming you want an MBA so you can migrate & earn good money. But countries are becoming insular. Especially the US, earlier the biggest employer of migrants. They want to keep the jobs for their people. Simple. I know a poor soul who got himself an executive MBA from a top ranked B school. He was ecstatic. Till he was not. You see he couldn’t land a job for a year post his degree. He had to return to India with an expired work visa. These degrees can cost about $130K. With no job assurance.
There’s great news on the other hand for creators.
You may not be aware of this. Some European nations are opening their doors to digital creators. Estonia is one. Netherlands is another. I am not in favour of migration. Cross my heart and hope to die. I’d rather do good work in the Country I was born in. Either way the Creator World is a win-win is what I want to say.
Coming back to my digital journey. It started with me doing what I did well, writing. On LinkedIn. With an aim to coach people like me. Ones for whom Corporate jobs & life in general sucked. I was told text posts did not work and only videos would get me clients. Nobody actually reads anymore it seems. Wrong alleyway no 1. So I prettied myself up and posed for videos though they made me cringe. I got a few coaching clients. Only to soon realize teaching sleazy tactics for getting faster promotions was not my thing. Wrong alleyway no 2.
As I was sprinting out of this alleyway like Usain Bolt on steroid I discovered yet another creator alley.
This one didn’t look as dark either. I found out I could get paid to write. Here I was thinking writers are broke dudes with beards who can’t afford the coffee that gives them inspiration. Yipee! There are platforms which will actually pay me to write!
Life works in strange ways. I had to travel some dark roads to finally find light. I have always loved to write so I kissed a happy ending with MBA goodbye.
If you are miserable at your Corporate Job, know this. The creator economy is booming. Find your niche and earn good money as a side gig. To all those who still think writers are an unwashed species from Planet Ape- here are some tips and stats:
Start with one platform and earn real money as a creator
Medium is great for those who want to establish. If you write here, you probably already know this. The platform pays those who are eligible for its Partner Program. If you aren’t aware of the Program, read the details here (Earn for your writing (medium.com)). The stats astound me. The highest paid writer on Medium made a whopping $11,000 in a month. If she maintains the consistency, she is earning close to $1 mn a year! It takes some time for your work to be noticed. And once you touch 2000 followers or more that’s when the decent money starts to come in.
Do this to earn well & work less
Once you have a great portfolio to show off on Medium, brag about it. To publications. Many of them want writers and will pay you for your work. Buzzfeed, Well+Good, Sick Magazine, Mangonzine, Huffington Post are a few I can think of. The pay is good. An average of $200 per article. With 5 articles a month, you can make a cool $1000. Enough to quit your day job maybe? Do visit their sites and check out their guidelines and the niche they are looking at. Make your portfolio and submit. I will not lie through my teeth. Freelancing is not easy. You need to be a darned good writer. You will still face many rejections. But once you build a portfolio you can score a goal. Till then the rejections build your character. The key is to persist till you make it.
The little known secret for creators to gaining followers who pay
After becoming a Medium pro you may want to make bigger bucks. You can do this by embracing an old friend. LinkedIn. Before you call me out on my BS, hear me out. There is a relatively little- known feature on LinkedIn you need to exploit. Little known because it is recent. You are probably already present on LinkedIn and that gives you a head start. Start a LinkedIn newsletter. After a point of time, move your subscribers to a paid model. Giving you what that looks like upfront. About 10% of your subscribers will pay in the beginning. If you gain 3500 Newsletter subscribers in a month (like me), that means potentially 350 who will pay for your Newsletter niche. At $5 a month, that works out to a decent $21,000 a year. Remember your subscriber base will grow with time so there is huge potential here.
If you are too lazy to keep a Newsletter going there’s even better news
Things now get more interesting than Putin’s health. Did you know you can leverage your followers & subscribers for one time work? This will have a compounding effect as you gain more audience. What is it that you are expert at? Do others want this skill? A LinkedIn poll may give you the answer. Use Gumroad to write an e book or make a digital course. Sell on all the platforms you have a presence. Based on how you show up on a particular platform you will always have an audience. That trusts you & is willing to buy from you. Let me share a cool example. My post on online writing went viral. I am expecting it to touch 10,000 views. Even if 50% buy my writing guide priced at $5, that’s a cool $25,000. Again, that’s the tip of the iceberg. The more you market your product, the more the takers.
If this article feels like it speaks to you, you need to act soon. Be scared shit but enter those dark alleyways till you find your niche!
