Less freelancing, more systems

Working at EY, there’s a lot of stuff you can do. And some you can’t.

Freelancing is allowed if it doesn’t compete against the firm. Those lines are hard to color within. Software engineering? Nope, EY does that. Pen testing? Bug bounties? Also EY territory.

As an auditor at heart, the firm also has to maintain “independence”. I’ll sum that up by saying you can’t own most individual stocks because EY does the books for most stocks.

At first these stipulations might seem like hand ties. But really they force you to make smarter moves for extracurricular income.

(If you thought they force you to keep all your eggs in the EY basket, well, that’s just not smart. Embrace the abundance mindset!)

Can you really pick individual stocks better than Wall Street? Odds are long. No matter how much you think Tesla will implode any day now and you’ll be in a sequel to The Big Short.

Buying ETFs or virtually anything that involves stocks you don’t pick is OK with the firm. And that’s the smart move anyway. It’s like having bumpers at the bowling alley.

Photo credit - Karla Rivera / Unsplash

Circling back to freelancing. This does hurt more, as someone who can code and pen test. I mean, Consensys taught me to write Solidity. That’s $100 an hour work.

However freelancing doesn’t really scale. You’re trading time for money. Despite what daydreams you have about starting your own freelance firm, kicking back while coders halfway around the world do the dirty work. Long odds again.

As someone who can code, you’re better off writing some SaaS thing with a subscription pay model. You could do WordPress plugins or themes too, I guess, but then you have to write PHP.

And this article is more about why systems are great. Compounding! Dependability! Other risk aversion!

I don’t have much more to say. But the greatness of systems doesn’t stop with making money and playing by EY rules.

Nutrition knowledge (i.e. prioritize protein, avoid sugar) beats diet fads (i.e. juice cleanse??).

Learning how to better play a card or board game (i.e. poker) beats cheating (i.e. move some chips when your opponent looks away).

Anyway… just have a good day. And have an abundance mindset. And definitely have systems.