The draw of the laptop lifestyle is broad. Who doesn’t want to learn how to make money online and then sit with their laptop on a beach and have someone take pictures to prove they are really there? Never mind the sand in the keyboard and the poor wifi connection. But as the global gig economy grows and companies continue to downsize and outsource rather than keeping large in-house staff positions, some people who a few years ago would never have dreamed of making their money online have started doing just that.
I recently spoke with newly minted laptop lifestyler Garett Francis about his transition from 9 years in the Canadian oilfield industry to working online for himself. Garett went into oilfield work straight out of high school and after a 4 year apprenticeship he became an instrument tech and worked his way up through the ranks until he was earning often as much as $18,000 CA per month. But the work he did for that money required him to leave home and fly to camps often for 22 days out of the month and work long 12-16 hour shifts at a time.
“The money was good, really good compared to your average Canadian salary. That’s part of what made it so hard to leave.”
But Garett also saw his future in the older men he worked with. He watched many of these men go through multiple divorces as neglected spouses had affairs and left them for men who could be around more. He saw his co-workers watch their kids grow up on Facetime and hardly ever get to tuck them into bed at night or be home for Birthdays. So even though he knew he was lucky to be earning as much as he was, he started to wonder how much of his life he was trading for that income.
“I didn’t want to end up being one of these guys who feel stuck in the oilfield because they owe so much alimony and child support and have all this debt. Even though they make a lot of money, they still live paycheck to paycheck and feel stuck”
Over the past three years Garett saw oil prices crash and it had an outsized effect on his co-workers. Up to that point in his career he had never gone without work, but he started seeing the industry downsize and pay getting cut across the board. On one job when he was in camp in a remote oil field one of his co-workers was found in his camp room after hanging himself.
“Suicide rates in Alberta skyrocketed when oil prices dropped and guys weren’t getting work.”
Garett decided that he didn’t want his entire career and earning potential to be completely at the mercy of global oil prices. So he decided it was time for a change. Having spent his entire life since high school out on the oil patch, it was difficult to imagine another life for himself. His co-workers told him he was crazy to think about leaving. As far as they were concerned the oil was the only way to make decent money where they lived. But eventually Garett found an online mentor who himself had once worked in oil, but made a new life for himself working online.
“I used to think anything that made money online was shady,” Garett said. But slowly he started to read, research and explore, and with the help of his mentor he learned about affiliate marketing and lifestyle blogging and promotion. Garett loves snowboarding and winter sports. So the idea of being able to spend more time doing the things he loves most and using those activities to drive sales for his business sounded pretty much like a dream come true. But starting an online business, even with a mentor and as an affiliate of a larger company, is rarely an instant success.
“I continued to work my 12 hour shifts in the field and then I’d get back to camp and would stay up late online trying to get my business off the ground.”
Garett made his first sale and earned his first commission in his first month working online. Seven months after starting his online business, Garett got to the point where he had the confidence and enough sales under his belt to leave the oil patch for good. In the 15 months since then Garrett has regularly out-earned his old oil field salary while working fewer hours and from the comfort of his new home in Lake Country, British Colombia.
Garett’s advice to others working in industries like the oilfield who look at him now and think they could never do what he is doing now:
- Don’t listen to the naysayers and all the negativity. Not everyone in your life has your best interest in mind, all the time. Even family and friends may either not understand what you are trying to do, or may not feel comfortable with you changing. Do it anyway.
- Get out of your comfort zone. If anyone had told Garett 15 months ago that he would speak in front of a crowd of 400 people about positivity and self-improvement, he would have thought that person was crazy. This summer he did just that.
- Do the positive mindset work. Nothing holds you back more than your own ideas of who you are and what you can and can’t do. Changing how you think about yourself changes everything. Reading the right books and surrounding yourself with people who also want to change and improve helps.
Want to learn more about Garett and his journey from Canadian oilfield worker to online lifestyle blogger and entrepreneur? You can connect with him and learn more right here.