Oh yes, you shouldn't sit on your ass after banking a wad of cash and expect to live forever, not doing a thing. But neither should you rely on influence and c

Oh yes, you shouldn't sit on your ass after banking a wad of cash and expect to live forever, not doing a thing. But neither should you rely on influence and credibility, because those things still imply gatekeepers. You have to have influence and credibility... to convince somebody else. Why not just rely on yourself? Why not foster the ability to make money in any circumstance? I cashed out my IRA because, so far, the money I've put into my SaaS has paid back itself 1000%, not 10%. Based on that, and my other efforts/products, I know I could easily earn 7K euros a month just by working a few days. Training is lucrative. My information products are lucrative. I'm about to open my "your first product" launch class again - last time it made $25k (as I was building it!), this time I aim to double that. Shouldn't be too hard. Sometimes I sit back and think about it, and I can't help but laugh (in a nervous way), that I can earn more in a few weeks than one of my parents' yearly salaries from when I was a kid. Now, back to my influence/credibilty/gatekeepers argument - the perceptive HNer will point out that I am using my credibility to bring in customers. That's true, at a few hundred bucks a pop -- which is a far cry from hoping somebody will hire you for a sweet job (which means, of course, that you have to work that job), and miles away from trying to use your credibility to get millions in investment. My way is very do-able for a normal person, the other is incredibly hard and requires much luck in addition to a full-out effort.