Monday mornings can suck. Oh hell, they can. And I’m not just bitching because I currently experiment with a lifestyle of nightowlism (more on that in my next post!) – Monday mornings can suck big time, and we’ve all have experienced it. Really bad Monday mornings start with an alarm clock. They are nearly always doomed, and there’s only one thing that makes them worse: A boring job being the reason you have to get up early in the first place.

The good news is, we’re living in internet wonderland and we might as well liberate ourselves from that boring job. (Plus, that alarm clock.) And while most minds around the planet still are strongholds of the corporate forces, there’s a growing virtual village whose inhabitants fight the status quo and won’t rent out their brains anymore. It’s exactly this village that’s inviting you to spend an eight-week bootcamp on their soil and prepare yourself for getting paid to exist.

What’s Paid to Exist all about?

In a nutshell, Paid to Exist is an online course by Jonathan Mead, teaching you to build a business based on your passion. As such, it has two inherent limitations: First of all, it’s not for people wanting to create passive income and building anonymous niche sites for a living. Rather, it’s for people who have a “thing” they like to do (or are willing to find one, probably based on their hobbies or interests) and want to learn how to make a living with it. Secondly, Paid to Exist is directed to people who would like to use internet tools of some sort in the creation of their business (though it’s by no means limited to aspiring pro bloggers).

Paid to Exist basically outlines the whole process of business creation and further business development – and that’s why it’s so useful. Instead of handing bits and pieces, Jonathan gives you the whole enchilada: He begins with the creation of the right mindset and explains how to discover your passion, before showing you how to connect this with ways of making a living. Once you’re on the right track, you can begin to create value on a blog or other kind of web presence, connect with an audience, and start to design an offer based on their necessities. From then on, you are free to grow, and specialize in the areas that stick with both you and your people.

The technical aspects of Paid to Exist

The core of the program is an audio/slides lesson for each week, ranging in length from 40 to 60 minutes, accompanied by a sheet of practical tasks that you should work on during that week. Apart from that, you are granted access to a private forum where you can exchange your results and any related issues with the other people taking the course. Depending on the package you buy, there will also be an accompanying part of weekly group coaching calls.

For a very disciplined person, the weekly lessons provided by Jonathan really contain all the information you need to pull that thing through. What was especially valuable for me, though, was the ability to connect with my peers on similar voyages in the forum, and also the personal feedback and inspiration I got from the calls.

Long-term Perspective and Working at Your Own Pace

In the forum of the first installment, a couple of members liked the atmosphere of the course so much that we decided to take it beyond Paid to Exist and create our own brainstorming and mastermind group – it still exists today and I’m always glad to meet up with my peers. As for further long-term impact, I am still coming back to several of the lessons nowadays, as they provide timeless content that keeps getting me back on track whenever I lose myself in the minutiae of building my online presence.

One of the best things about Paid to Exist is that it allows you to work at your own pace: You are free to listen to the new lessons whenever you like, and to download them for later reference. At the same time, the weekly installments keep you coming back at the material instead of just “buying and forgetting about it”, as it sometimes might happen with ebooks.

One big thing to consider is that you have to commit the time to make this real! Eight weeks are by no means enough to really process all the material provided in Paid to Exist. To make things a bit easier, Jonathan created a six-month road map, guiding the participants of this third installment through the course. I have seen the road map myself during a coaching call, and I find it to be incredibly useful. Check out this free video where Jonathan himself presents the road map to you.

Overview

Name: Paid to Exist Unschool – Get Paid to Be Who You Are
Content: Online Course/Phone Coaching: Eight lessons based on Audio and Slides; Work Sheets; Discussion Forum; Coaching Calls
Price: $249-$449
Where to get it: It’s not open for sale yet. Feel free to get some awesome (and free) videos on the course here or through any of the affiliate links on this page.
Where to get it for free: Right here, at the end of this post! Scroll down!

Whom it’s not for:

• People who already have a thriving (online) business
• People who hate the internet and social media
• People who wouldn’t want to create a business connected to their personality and passion
• People who are not willing to put in some time and effort beyond purchasing the course

Whom it’s for:

• All kinds of creative people who dream about building a business based on their passion
• People who want to go self-employed, no matter if you want to take the plunge as fast as possible or start with a side-business
• Both people who prefer to work alone (forum-only option) and people who want coaching, accountability and closer guidance (all-inclusive option)
• People who are able to find at least five to ten hours per week to really follow the course and participate in the forum – the more you put in, the more you’ll get out of it!

Conclusion

If you ever dreamt about building your own business, but didn’t know how to connect your passion with an audience and clients, Paid to Exist will help you to make that dream real. The course provides a lot of food for thought, as well as directly actionable steps to creating your own business, and it’s up to you if you prefer doing it slow or fast, staying small or growing big. The only thing that’s indispensable to get it done, is putting the effort in. With Jonathan, you have a great mentor to accompany you in the process and clear your path to success. The horror of Monday mornings might vanish sooner than you think…

Go check out Paid to Exist here.

The Life-Changing Give-Away (Woot!)

As Jonathan loves you guys (and The Friendly Anarchist!), he decided to not only dedicate his time for an interview (that I will publish here in a couple of days), but also give away a free spot in the next installment of Paid to Exist! This is a great opportunity for you to grab your copy.

To enter the contest, just leave a comment below explaining why YOU are the person who needs to get paid to exist. The best comment I receive until September 13th, 6pm CST, wins!

Be sure to subscribe to the friendly anarchistic RSS feed to be updated once the winner is chosen, and to get the exclusive interview I did with Jonathan about this third installment of Paid to Exist.

Secret hint: Unfortunately, I probably won’t be able to give a spot to every great commentor out there. But here you can find a give-away of two more spots! I’m just sayin’…

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Disclaimer: The winner will be selected by the totally biased me. I will choose a person who can really show me why she or he needs to get paid to exist. If there is more than one comment I like, I will choose the winner randomly between them.

Even more Disclaimer: Paid to Exist was the start of my personal journey to self-employment, and it helped me a lot during the creation of this site. I believe that Jonathan is a totally awesome person and that he offers value in pretty much everything he does. Thus, from time to time, I offer his products here on TFA, making a commission if someone buys anything through my links.