Over 40? THIS Is The Fastest Way To Financial Freedom. Proven Blueprint For Quitting Your 9-5

0:00No child deserves to go hungry, especially at school. But right now, some politicians are cutting funding to programs that help kids access free meals at school while handing out tax breaks to billionaires. Hungry kids can't focus and learn. The National Education Association is made up of 3 million educators and allies across the country dedicated to making sure every child has the support they need to thrive in the classroom. Help the NEA keep hungry kids fed at school. Learn more at nea.org slash nutrition.

0:57Limited time offer restrictions apply. New customers only requires 300 Mbps internet, security edge, and additional qualifying service. One year agreement, paperless billing, and auto pay with bank account required taxes and fees extra. If you're over 40 and you're still in a job you don't love, waiting is actually the riskiest thing you can do. You don't have 20 years to experiment with side hustles that pay you$800 a month. If you want real freedom, if you want to quit your nine to five for good, you need real acceleration and not another hobby. Today, I'm going to give you a five-step blueprint that can realistically get you out of your job in the next 12 months, even if you're starting from absolute zero.

1:39And listen up, because step four is where most people over 40 sabotage themselves.

1:49Welcome back to the$100 MBA show. I'm your host, Omar Zenhom, where I deliver practical business lessons three times a week, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, to help you start, grow, and scale your business. If this show has helped in any way, it would be amazing if you could drop us a quick review on whatever app you're using to listen to this podcast right now. It helps me and my team bring new episodes every week. And more importantly, more entrepreneurs will be able to discover our podcast so you can help someone else start their journey. Thanks so much. The first thing we need to address is that you need to stop thinking like an employee.

2:28If you want to quit your nine to five, you must stop solving for safety. Employees often optimize for stability. Owners, on the other hand, owners of businesses optimize for leverage. And I'm going to explain what this all means in a moment. But employees ask questions like, how can I get a raise? Owners ask, how can I build something that pays me while I sleep, while I'm on holiday, while I'm planning my next holiday, while I'm on holiday? If you're over 40, your advantage is not time. It's actually your judgment. You've seen what works. You've seen what fails. You've worked with terrible managers.

3:04I know I have. You've watched businesses operate from the inside. It's not just experience. It's monetizable insight that you have that you can use, but we need to put it to work. So let's get to work. Let's start with step one of the five steps. Step one is to build an income engine and not a side hustle. For goals to quit your nine to five, you don't need a hobby business. You don't need something that's going to make you a few hundred dollars a month. You need something capable of replacing your salary. This means you need to build a business that has high margins, solves a clear problem, has a specific audience or customer, and has a repeatable way to deliver on your promise.

3:45Let me give you an example. If you're a former accountant launching a fractional CFO, Chief Financial Officer Service, for small SaaS founders, that's an incredible offer using your expertise. SaaS businesses can't afford a full-time CFO, but they do need somebody to look after the money. If you used to be a project manager, build an operations consulting business. This is not about becoming famous. It's about becoming valuable to a narrow group of people. You don't need thousands of clients. You need about 15 to 25 strong clients that will allow you to replace your job. If you get$20 ,000 to$30 ,000 a month in revenue with strong margins, you can leave your job.

4:30That's really your target, not to be some viral sensation. You're looking for income replacement to start with. Step two, you want to compress time with premium pricing. Here's where most of the people that I've worked with that are over 40 really undercut themselves. They price like beginners. You're not a beginner. You have 20 years of pattern recognition. You have 20 years of experience. You've been an adult. You've seen the world. Charge like it. If your goal is to quit your job in the next three to five years, you can't sell a$27 product. I'm sorry. This is the hard way to do it. Instead, sell$2 ,000 retainers.

5:07Sell 5 ,000, 10 ,000 packages. sell$10 ,000 consulting offers. Premium pricing reduces client volume. You don't need that many clients to be profitable or to be able to sustain your lifestyle. It also allows you to keep burnout at bay. It allows you to really leverage your time in a way that makes sense for somebody who's 40 plus. Listen, I'm in my 40s. I don't have all the energy I used to have. And I'm conscious of the fact that as I get older, I need to use my time more wisely. So when you're building your business, understand you need to make sure that you're in the premium business so your time is valued.

5:46So for example, if you make$150 ,000 in your job right now, you only need about 13 clients paying you$1 ,000 a month. That's it. Very doable. The math is smaller than you think. By the way, if you're finding this episode helpful, I want you to subscribe to the podcast so you don't miss a podcast episode that I'm working on right now called The Ultimate Guide to AI for Normal People Like You and I. That episode, I'm going to walk you step by step through how to use AI to improve your offers, to tighten your messaging, to really just be more efficient and really make it fun again to build and use the power of AI to leverage your time.

6:24I can't wait to put the finishing touches on that episode. So make sure you subscribe so you get it as soon as it drops. Let's go to step three, replace, then leave. This is critical, and a lot of people get this wrong, and I want to make sure it's super clear. Do not quit your job first. Replace your job first with what you're building. Most people either never start or they rage quit emotionally because they're so frustrated with their job. Both are mistakes. You need to be in a position of power. You need to build your income engine on the nights and weekends when you're working on the side while you're in your job.

7:05You need to prove your business has traction. You need to stack six months of consistent income. Then you can exit calmly and confidently. You have backed the right horse with this business. This results in no panic, no desperation, no drama. And confidence comes from the evidence your business shows you. So you want to try to replace at least 70 % of your income first with your business. I say 70 to 100%. Then put in your resignation. That is what I mean by operating in a position of power. You already have something that's generating the money that you need to live. Everything else is gravy from that point on.

7:48Imagine how much more you can earn if you're dedicating full-time hours to your business and you didn't have to go to work. Missed calls and slow follow-ups are silent killers for your business. And that's exactly how businesses leave money on the table without ever realizing. That's why today's episode is brought to you by Quo, spelled Q-U-O, the business communication system built so you never miss a call. With Quo, calls, texts, voicemails, transcripts, the contact details, they're all in one clear view. So your team always has the full picture and can follow up for every customer conversation, ensuring a seamless and more personalized experience.

8:29Everyone on your team sees the full thread, replies are faster, and customers actually feel like they're taken care of. And Quo works wherever you are, right from your phone or computer. Keep your existing phone number, add teammates in minutes, sync your CRM, and let the call routing handle itself as you scale. Money's on the line. Always say hello with Quo. Try Quo for free, plus get 20 % off your first six months when you go to Quo.com slash MBA. That's Q-U-O dot com slash MBA. One of the biggest growth hacks is realizing you don't have to do it all yourself. That's how you can scale your business.

9:09This is why I'm so excited to have Upwork as a sponsor, because I've been using Upwork for over a decade. Why? because it makes it easy to bring in the right freelancer when you need them so you can stay focused on what you do best. Upwork is a one-stop shop platform to find, hire, and pay expert freelancers across web and software development, data and analytics, marketing, business operations, and more. I've made some of the best hires in our company through Upwork. I'm talking about people that have changed the trajectory of our entire business. It's free to sign up to Upwork and posting a job is super simple and easy.

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10:29That's U-P-W-O-R-K dot com. Upwork.com. All right, step four. This one is killer. Pay attention because it's the silent killer. It's the one that most people fall into. This is a big trap, and it's all about lifestyle expansion, controlling your lifestyle expansion. You start making money on the side with your business, and your lifestyle grows with it. New subscriptions, a better car, more celebration spending or holidays. Listen, in my experience, the way I got financially free was I had to resist the urge to spend extra money that I was making. I had to use that money to make more money. or to leverage it so that I can grow my business to make more money.

11:14And it's a little bit rough because you have this money that you can actually spend and live a better life and get some relief. But you have to resist that. You have to have some self-control. Why is this so important? Because when you're building your business while you're in your job, you're going to make extra money. And the problem is, if you start expanding your lifestyle, your escape number starts rising. So say, for example, your escape number was$150 ,000 a year in the beginning, but now you're spending$200 ,000 because you're spending the$50 ,000 that you're making with the business. So now you need more money so that you can be able to leave your job.

11:47Remember, the goal here is freedom, right? Not just being a slave to your lifestyle. Stop moving your goalposts. If you're over 40, discipline matters more than ambition. And it's what's going to allow you to win in the long run. If your monthly expenses are$6 ,000, for example, your side hustle business, the business you're building as you are in your job might hit$8K a month. And you feel like, wow, I'm almost free. When I pay all the expenses and everything, I might be able to quit my job. But if you inflate your lifestyle expenses to$10 ,000 a month, you stay trapped. And I don't want that for you.

12:22I want you to be able to leave your job and have that freedom to really go all in on your business. Freedom is really about lowering the threshold required for you to do whatever you want. You know, people talk about FU money. FU money is really about having that number as low as possible, the number that you need to live so that you can do whatever you want once you hit that number with your business. And to be honest, the cheat code of this is just to be in love with the journey of business. It's to love the game of business where you're just so wrapped up in enjoying the process of building this business of yours that that is how you get your joy.

12:58That's how you get your happiness. And you don't need to spend money to do that. most of us, we spend money to escape the misery of our job. I know I was there. That was my life. And what I'm telling you is that once I got into entrepreneurship and I did it full time, I didn't want all those material things anymore. I actually just wanted to continue to get better and better at this game called business. Step five, turn the engine into leverage. Once you leave your nine to five job, don't just replace your income, scale it so that you can be able to just be free of this financial cycle forever.

13:33So you have two ways to scale. Number one, you can grow the income engine or you can build your business so that you could sell it one day. Both creates this leverage I'm talking about. If your consulting firm grows to$500 ,000 in profit annually, it becomes a real asset that you can sell to somebody. If your coaching business becomes reoccurring revenue, it becomes predictable and something that you can really rely on for the rest of your life as long as you keep coaching. Building a business allows you to build an asset and you're not trading hours for money anymore because now you have something that is worth something.

14:08But guess what? In entrepreneurship, when you want to retire, you can sell your business and get a nice lump sum that you can enjoy. So again, to recap this step five, two options. You can build your business so that You can exit it. You could sell it to somebody. And then you can have that lump sum. This is what we did with our software company, Weapon or Ninja. Or you can build a business that can run without you. You can scale it. So it's just like an income engine. You have a whole team running it for you. Now, I want to talk about something that needs to be talked about more. Listen, you are not trying to build the next Facebook.

14:39You're trying to buy your freedom. You are in the freedom business now, okay? Freedom is a math equation. You don't need millions. You need controlled expenses. you need predictable income, you need repeatable systems so that you can stack your profits. When you're over 40, clarity and understanding that, hey, this is my new goal now is to have that ability to have that freedom. That really beats any kind of chaos or chasing any kind of title or the next promotion. And the truth is the problem is not your age. The problem is your hesitation, is your attitude about your age. Keep asking yourself questions like, what if I fail?

15:19Am I too old to start? I should have done this when I was 30 years old. But here's the truth. You don't have a time machine. Also, here's another truth. You will die, okay? You're going to die anyway. Who cares if you fail? At least you tried and you have no regrets. You are more capable now than you've ever been. You just need to stop playing defense and start playing offense and going for it. Stop protecting this identity that, okay, this is my life now and I just have to live with it. These are choices I made and this is the rest of my life. No, you can change your life at any point. And this is the beauty of free will.

15:53I said, you don't need permission to start something and make it happen. Before I go, I want to leave you with this. Let's say you're 44 right now. In five years, you're going to be 49. That's happening no matter what. If you're lucky enough to live another five years, that's going to happen no matter what. The only question is, is will you be asking, how do I get out? Or will you be already out of this job, of the life that you're in right now? Time passes either way. Progress is in your hands, not anybody else's hands. No one's going to do it for you. You need to take those steps to make progress.

16:29You don't need permission because you're the person that makes this decision. Once I realized this, once I realized that no one's going to save me, I need to save myself to get myself out of the situation, I took action. And that really was the driver for me is like, hey, I need to do this. No one's going to do this for me. If this episode hit home for you in some way, then I highly recommend you check out an episode that we published recently called How to Make Your First Million Dollars in One Year Without Getting Lucky. That episode breakdowns how to accelerate your income, which is the foundation of quitting your job faster.

17:04If you found today's episode helpful and you want more practical business lessons to help you start, grow and scale your business, the best thing you could do is subscribe to this podcast, hit subscriber follow on your favorite podcast app, the one that you're using right now, whether it's Apple or Spotify, or ever you listen to podcasts, by hitting subscribe, you get our next episode automatically. And it's the best way to support the show. It's absolutely free. And it's a way for you to commit to growing your business. And now that you've subscribed, I'll check you in the next episode.

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