Those who don’t know me might mistake my passion for business as a hunger for money and material things. But the truth is, I don’t need a luxurious lifestyle. The reason I’m so driven to grow my businesses is because I know that if I don’t take care of myself, no else will.

There’s an easy explanation to why so many people enjoy playing video games: they love leveling up.

Think about how satisfying it is to unlock a new perk or achieve a new title. Even though the incentives are completely virtual and have no real tangible benefits, we feel compelled to keep playing so we can hit that next level.

Real life works in exactly the same way — we just need to embrace the right mindset to achieve what we want in life.

If you would have told me at the end of last year that I’d be an employee again, I wouldn’t have believed you. Yet here we are at the end of 2015, and I’m indeed working a full-time job. A lot of things have happened that led to this point, which I’ll cover in this post now:

This is a guest post by Edwin Henry, a writer based in Boise, Idaho. Connect with him on Twitter @edwinthenry.

Let’s take care of some myth-busting about creativity and inspiration.

There is a preconception that inspiration or creativity is something that happens, because it’s a romantic ideal. The image of a person struggling over a piece of work, when, eureka, a light goes off in her head and she gets to work until she finishes it and the flash is over.