I remember after I graduated with a professional degree, I did not have any work lined up after a four year stint in college and my fiancee' at the time promptly broke up with me, and I don't blame her. I mean four years of post-grad and no job? It wasn't that kind of degree, like engineering, where there's a "job" waiting for you upon graduation, or with a little effort in searching. It was a degree where I really needed to have a cheap office space lined up and grow my business from there, but I didn't even have that. It was in the very early days of the internet and I just didn't know where to go, hadn't had a chance to do the research yet.
So anyways, I'm like, "where do I go?", etc. and I first decided to go to Las Vegas, because it was a fun desert town with the bright lights and casinos and beautiful women and I thought "the dream" could start there.
Actually it turned out to be a depressing six month experience in futility, because I couldn't even find a job to support starting my little office, and even if I could, they were all minimum wage and there was a line for each one. There were so many minimum wage workers in that town anyway, drawn by the hotels and resorts. So there I was, fiancee'-less, the Southwest sun beating down on my head, renting a room in this resort town in a neighborhood filled with hotel workers surviving on minimum wage and me without enough funds to even check out the 'Vegas nightlife. It was even more depressing to watch the young guys that were successful roll into town on the weekends with money to burn. This wasn't looking anything like the dream I had when I entered school. I was there, but I hadn't got there yet.
Another pretty place where I starved was Florida. I went down there to do temp. work in my field to save enough money to eventually open my own office. Problem is, the pay was relatively low, the profession was a racket more than a profession (chiropractic) the way it was set up in Florida and I hated the work, in the auto accident racket. The lawyers and owners made the real money while I did all the work in the office, seeing patients. The owners would basically hijack my license and bill out under it. A bunch of shysters who didn't even have to set foot in the office or talk to a patient were just counting the profits and I was doing the grunt work. Months turned into years and all the sudden five years had slipped away and I had spent time in two fabulously wealthy areas while at the same time barely scraping by.
Meanwhile my friends who had worked in normal cities where the jobs are, Chicago, Philadelphia, Atlanta, where it maybe wasn't such great place to vacation, ended up buying nice properties in Florida and vacationing in 'Vegas after they were successful. I was there, but they had actually got there.
If you're going to start a business, start by building a website, one for each of the areas you are interested in, as if the business is already there and have a toll-free number and an auto-responder form, so you can gauge local customer interest and build a client list before you actually open the business. This way you can decide which area or town is your best bet for success.
If you have to work for somebody else for a living (you're not self-employed or not working), it doesn't really matter where you live, because every day is going to be the same routine drudgery anyway. You can always just vacation in your favorite place, but if you're working, it doesn't matter if it's Hawaii or North Jersey, you will soon forget about the beautiful (or not) scenery because you'll be in a blank-eyed coma most of the time from the 9 to 5 grind.
So anyways, I'm like, "where do I go?", etc. and I first decided to go to Las Vegas, because it was a fun desert town with the bright lights and casinos and beautiful women and I thought "the dream" could start there.
Actually it turned out to be a depressing six month experience in futility, because I couldn't even find a job to support starting my little office, and even if I could, they were all minimum wage and there was a line for each one. There were so many minimum wage workers in that town anyway, drawn by the hotels and resorts. So there I was, fiancee'-less, the Southwest sun beating down on my head, renting a room in this resort town in a neighborhood filled with hotel workers surviving on minimum wage and me without enough funds to even check out the 'Vegas nightlife. It was even more depressing to watch the young guys that were successful roll into town on the weekends with money to burn. This wasn't looking anything like the dream I had when I entered school. I was there, but I hadn't got there yet.
Another pretty place where I starved was Florida. I went down there to do temp. work in my field to save enough money to eventually open my own office. Problem is, the pay was relatively low, the profession was a racket more than a profession (chiropractic) the way it was set up in Florida and I hated the work, in the auto accident racket. The lawyers and owners made the real money while I did all the work in the office, seeing patients. The owners would basically hijack my license and bill out under it. A bunch of shysters who didn't even have to set foot in the office or talk to a patient were just counting the profits and I was doing the grunt work. Months turned into years and all the sudden five years had slipped away and I had spent time in two fabulously wealthy areas while at the same time barely scraping by.
Meanwhile my friends who had worked in normal cities where the jobs are, Chicago, Philadelphia, Atlanta, where it maybe wasn't such great place to vacation, ended up buying nice properties in Florida and vacationing in 'Vegas after they were successful. I was there, but they had actually got there.
If you're going to start a business, start by building a website, one for each of the areas you are interested in, as if the business is already there and have a toll-free number and an auto-responder form, so you can gauge local customer interest and build a client list before you actually open the business. This way you can decide which area or town is your best bet for success.
If you have to work for somebody else for a living (you're not self-employed or not working), it doesn't really matter where you live, because every day is going to be the same routine drudgery anyway. You can always just vacation in your favorite place, but if you're working, it doesn't matter if it's Hawaii or North Jersey, you will soon forget about the beautiful (or not) scenery because you'll be in a blank-eyed coma most of the time from the 9 to 5 grind.
