Want A Job That Allows Snowboarding Every Day? Here’s What It Takes.

Yesterday I got an email from a reader who wanted to know how to get a job that allows them to snowboard more. Specifically he wanted 2 things:

1. To be able to snowboard every day (more than just weekends)
2. Not low paying aka. not an entry level job

So, how do you get both? Well…

1) Forget about easy and conventional paths

Unfortunately, even if a job is located at a ski resort, most full time, non entry level jobs will require 5 days of work per week, usually during business hours.

This means no snowboarding on work days.

There’s always entry level jobs with evening/night shifts, but you’ll be looking at an entry level pay as well, which means you’ll most likely live pay-check to pay-check, which is specifically against what he wanted.

There are a few rare exceptions, for instance I know Nev over at SnowboardAddiction.com employs some full-time workers with decent pay and they are allowed to do their work in the evening/night most of the time.

However, I wouldn’t be placing any bets on getting one of those rare jobs since every ski bum and their mother applies for jobs like that and only a couple get hired.

2) Work for yourself (most likely in an internet based job)

Nearly every single person I know with a job that allows them to snowboard every day is working for themselves, usually in an internet based job.

The internet has created an absurd amount of jobs that give you the freedom to work your own hours. Some of these jobs include:

• Graphic designers
• Web developers
• Online personal assistants
• Social media managers
• Bloggers
• E-commerce
• Information products (eg – videos, dvds, ebooks, membership sites)
• Affiliate marketing

I could go on and on, but you get the idea. It’s not just geeky web guys who make a living online these days.

However… if you think it’s like one of those ‘earn $200 per hour working from your home in 6 easy steps’ ads, you can save yourself the time and stop now.

It’s not easy. It requires a lot of work and most likely, you’ll have to develop a new skill while working a regular day job like everyone else. This means late nights and a lot of trial and error figuring out how to run your own 1 man business.

It takes time too. For some people I know, it’s taken 2 years of work to get their skill up to the ability where they could make money from it. Even simple blogs like shayboarder.com took years of pre work developing a user base and slowly building up a reputation in the space.

I’ve never seen anyone jump online and start making money right away without any pre work. Even the ones who seemed to make money quickly had a lot of practice honing their skills offline before they transitioned and used the same skills online.

However if you’re willing to put in the time and effort and be creative, there’s a lot of opportunity out there.

Some examples:

Bodyrock.tv - started with a hot girl making youtube videos of herself exercising in a bikini, now easily a multi 6 figure income stream from her fitness website.

Snowboardaddiction.com - started out with one guy making snowboard trick tips, now provides the founder with a very comfortable blue collar income.

Freetheapps.com - 2 guys who used online outsourcing websites to build some iphone apps without doing the code themselves. They made about $80k per month during their first year and eventually sold their company for what was likely a multi million dollar sum.

Yogscast – a couple guys who started uploading youtube videos of themselves talking about funny nonsense while they play video games. They are now both millionaires earning a high 6 figure income from their videos and merchandise.

Joulies.com - 2 guys who had an idea for a product to keep your coffee hot. They posted the project on kickstarter.com to raise $9.5k to start their company. They ended up raising over 300k.

Where do you go from here?

This is a snowboard blog so I don’t want to really go into the whole ‘how do I find an profitable idea and make it work’ topic, but I can recommend some resources.

These 3 books cover the topic of home start up businesses pretty well:

1. ‘The $100 Startup‘ by Chris Guillebeau
2. ‘The 4 Hour Work Week‘ by Timothy Ferriss
3. ‘The Millionaire Fastlane‘ by MJ DeMarco (don’t be turned off by the name, it’s not actually one of those scammy ‘get rich working 1 hour a day’ books)

If you read those books and are still interested, there’s a useful online business resource at Mixergy.com which has interviews with many successful business people and breaks down their techniques and methods for you.

- Jed

ps – I make no money from any of the products I recommended in this post. They are not affiliate links and I wasn’t paid to promote anything

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