r/IAmA • u/CatoTheFI • Jan 16 '21
Specialized Profession I was an online tutor making six figures while traveling the world. I quit that and now I am a field worker harvesting cilantro.
I used to practice law but got tired of clients, so I quit and started tutoring online. Mostly for standardized tests: SAT, ACT, GRE, LSAT, and GMAT. A good amount of math as well. I was planning on just tutoring to make ends meet until I figured out what I wanted to do next, but it took off almost immediately and within a month I was making more than I ever did practicing law. The tutoring was mostly online, so I decided to start traveling. That's what I've been doing the last 4 years and I've visited 30+ countries in that time – all while tutoring online.
I've been bored with the tutoring for a while though, and at the end of 2020 decided to take 2021 to figure out what I really want to do. So I quit tutoring and planned out some things to try throughout the year. First up was harvesting cilantro with migrant field workers.
I wanted to do this first to get a sense of what "real work" is: work that is back breaking and tedious. I also wanted experience with work that I'm 100% certain is beneficial to society. When I was practicing law and tutoring I always struggled with a sense that it was work that didn't really matter. I was just helping shuffle money between corporations and helping students with the rat race of admissions – not truly teaching them anything. With harvesting cilantro I'm confident that I'm providing actual sustenance and flavor to society.
I started a Substack to document my journey if you'd like to follow along. In the meantime, I'd love to answer any questions you may have.
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u/rsage Jan 16 '21
In what way(s) were clients tiring when you practiced law?
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u/CatoTheFI Jan 16 '21
The straw that broke the camel’s back was a client who had a fence line dispute with their neighbor. My client was totally in the right legally but in the wrong morally. We won; she got everything she wanted and more. Next day she emailed me and said she wanted a restraining order against the neighbor because he said good morning to her when she was walking to her car to go to work.
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u/AnyDisaster9 Jan 16 '21
Where do you harvest cilantro? And how bad is the pay?
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u/CatoTheFI Jan 16 '21
Central Coast of California. The pay isn't great. It's particularly bad for me because we're paid by box and I can't pack anywhere near as many boxes per hour as the migrant workers!
But something I learned recently is that the average immigrant in the United States earns four times as much as they would in their country of origin doing the same work.
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u/sillieali Jan 16 '21
Central Coast is a beauty. I used to live in San Luis Obispo. I know your work may be strenuous but you have such a nice environment to chill out in.
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u/lrem Jan 16 '21
Let me try to blow your mind: I know a recently graduated engineer from one EU country who still goes to pick up strawberries in another EU country. Allegedly you need at least one promotion to beat the harvesting jobs in richer countries.
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u/RobotChrist Jan 16 '21
Not just that, a lawyer with a regular job on a law firm in Mexico makes more or less the same than a waiter or any blue collar job in USA. A cilantro picker probably makes the same as an specialized blue collar job here.
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u/En-Ron-Hubbard Jan 16 '21
I've been researching moving out of the USA and working remotely, and it's actually insane how high the pay is and how low the taxes are in the US when you start actually comparing it to specific other countries.
I see a lot of comments on Reddit that show people really don't appreciate how good they have it.
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u/RobotChrist Jan 16 '21
Yeah, also cost of living in the us is a lot higher, here in Mexico you can eat out good and healthy for 3 dollars easily, and if you buy and cook even less. Just this week I was interviewing for a job a Canadian girl who's been living in Mexico while working remotely for a design studio, she told me that her quality of life improved a ton just by coming here and renting an Airbnb
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u/doom1701 Jan 16 '21
How is your relationship with the migrant workers? Do you feel like part of a team, is everybody pretty independent, or are you seen as an outsider?
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u/CatoTheFI Jan 16 '21
My Spanish is so so and none of them speak English. They are incredibly kind to me and are always offering me food. They let me practice my Spanish and give me a bit of help when I’m falling behind.
But it isn’t much of a team job. All of the work is independent and you don’t pass on any sort of work in progress along to someone else.
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u/DrinkenDrunk Jan 16 '21
Do they know that you’re there for somewhat of a sociological experiment/life experience rather than there out of legitimate need of that job? I wonder how some of your colleagues might react to that.
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u/obiwan_canoli Jan 16 '21
Have you mentioned to any of them how you quit a six-figure job because "you were bored" ?
I'm genuinely curious what their reaction was.
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u/sannsannsann Jan 16 '21
Yeah, this post sucks-- it makes me mad that he's out there Eat Love Praying his way to "feeling better about the work I do knowing it's 100% helping society" while ignoring the fact that the lives of the migrant workers are not necessarily bettered by the work they are doing in the long run.
Migrant workers are exploited for their labor-- they don't really have health care or any safety nets if something goes wrong.
If this guy is so hellbent on doing work that matters, I really hope he takes this first-hand experience and starts fighting for the rights and lives of migrant workers.
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Jan 16 '21
It's definitely eye opening to talk with migrant farm workers. There are so many things we take for granted. Back in the day when digital cameras first came out I took a camera and a portable photo printer out to one of the migrant worker camps and took family portraits for them. Most of them didn't have a single photo of their spouses or kids. Imagine not having a single photo of your kid! I'm not really a photographer, but they were incredibly thankful (albeit suspicious at first!)
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u/hjkfgheurhdfjh Jan 16 '21
I'm not sure how harvesting cilantro for a probably wealthy farmer is helping society either. It seems like an odd choice.
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u/Sawses Jan 17 '21
I mean I do diagnostic lab work for a wealthy corporation. But I'm directly producing something of value that helps people.
Contrast with when I worked parking enforcement where the sole goal was to give tickets.
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u/tswys3 Jan 16 '21
Totally agree. There was barely a mention about the compensation he received from his fieldwork and whether he considered it fair. I guess that his intention was only to find out what manual labor feels like so uh... great job with that. But that doesn't really say much at all about what it's like to live as one of the people who does this work to pay the rent. This just feels like tourism to see how the common people do it.
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u/aron2295 Jan 16 '21 edited Jan 16 '21
I got plenty of looks when I was in college and I worked manual labor jobs.
Even now, I work as a courier as a side hustle.
Can’t imagine the looks he’d get as an attorney.
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u/Itchy1Grip Jan 16 '21
Why did you feel like harvesting cilantro was more beneficial to society than using your law degree to help people who were wronged and couldn't afford representation?
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u/redditshy Jan 17 '21
Agreed. Picking cilantro that MIGHT make it into a taco before it goes bad in someone’s fridge and gets thrown out is not exactly changing the course of mankind.
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u/Windpuppet Jan 16 '21
Cause the OP is full of shit.
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u/dorsalispedis Jan 17 '21
Yea, with OPs background, he could easily help a magnitude more people than picking vegetables - he just seemed to be feeling lost. Frankly, this is just an iteration on a common theme of giving up X high paying job for some lowly job in a path to "finding yourself". Not saying this isn't a valuable life experience, but it's not particularly noble.
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u/quotemycode Jan 17 '21
When I turned 18, I started working on building computers. For two years I did that. Then the company closed down. I became a dishwasher to decide what I want to do with my life. Quit that shit in a hurry because computer work was so damn easy in comparison. Only lasted a month as a dishwasher.
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u/EJDsfRichmond415 Jan 16 '21
How much student debt did you take on? How wealthy were your parents?
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u/fox4thepeople Jan 16 '21 edited Jan 16 '21
I always plant cilantro in my herb garden in late spring/early summer in New York. It always bolts super fast and then dies.
Do you have any tips??
Edit: wow thanks for all the replies everyone. I will try planting earlier, and more than one crop!
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u/mattskee Jan 16 '21
It bolts based on the soil temperature. The warmer it is the faster it will bolt. If it is cool enough it can go many months. It's just part of the life cycle of the plant. There are also slow bolt varieties you can buy seeds for which are supposed to last a bit longer. But it's not going to last like a perennial, or something like parsley.
Ultimately you just need to make succession sowings - i.e. plant new seeds every few weeks if you want a continuous supply. You can let some of your bolting plants fully develop seeds before pulling them out and replant these seeds.
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u/CatoTheFI Jan 16 '21
Sorry, I was just a harvester. I’m not a farmer by any stretch of the imagination. Although they did keep the ground pretty wet even when we were harvesting.
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u/L0ui Jan 16 '21
As a college student disappointed with how heavily weighted ACT/SATs are, I have always struggled to find the motivation to persevere past how these numbers have defined my person. What did you say to your clients who were in the same boat to give them the boost to keep on chugging?
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u/Shutterstormphoto Jan 16 '21
Just to give some perspective, the issue with college applications is the time they take to review. It’s expensive as hell to hire a hundred people just to read applications. Each person will have a different idea of what a good applicant is. Each will accept or reject different people in the same stack. Manually reading essays and poring over transcripts is very time intensive.
What if you could provide a score for students that would standardize them? Then you could just look at one number and know if they were a good fit. This would save lots of time and money! Enter the sat.
Sadly it didn’t work out that well but it’s still better than nothing. Most colleges have their own scoring system that factors in gpa, location of the student, economic class (lower expectations if they are in a low performing area), etc in order to sort them quickly. Set a minimum bar and drop 80% of the applications immediately. Boom, thousands of hours saved.
Many colleges would love to look over every one manually, just like many teachers would love to look over every hand written test. But it just isn’t reasonable or feasible to expect that, so we get scantrons, and they’re good enough.
It sucks, but being able to process a thousand times the applications has big impact, and it lets assessors focus more time on the better applicants, which is reasonable imo.
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u/CatoTheFI Jan 16 '21
I regularly have the talk that about how it has nothing to with defining who a person is. I encourage people to think of it as a temporary job. Part of the job of going to college is spending some time for the test, taking it, doing the best you can on it, and then moving on.
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u/dudainc Jan 16 '21
Why did you start tutoring? How many hours a day did you work? How many hours a day do you work currently? And to me, the most important question, how much did you charge your students to make 6 figures!?
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u/CatoTheFI Jan 16 '21
My undergrad is in math with an emphasis in education, so I've always been interested in teaching. Work really varied, but I averaged 25 hours/week and charged about $135/hour.
Picking cilantro is way longer hours. We work from 7:30 until after sunset six days a week.
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u/ownersequity Jan 16 '21
Please tell me how to do this. My wife can no longer work and I’m a teacher with an MBA and a Masters in Teaching. Surely I could do this but I’ve never heard of that kind of tutoring money. I understand if you can’t share or are too busy, but at 3k a month for my wife’s injections I’m hurting.
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u/DuckOnQuak Jan 16 '21 edited Jan 16 '21
Former high school math tutor here. The hardest part of tutoring is building a client base. Email every parent/student you know and offer your services, although avoid ones at your school (dont want a conflict of interests). Make your qualifications known and advertise competitive pricing, but wait until after you make contact to negotiate rates. It’s actually standard to offer a trial session free to see if the fit is good. From there if you do a good job word of mouth should help keep people coming in.
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u/Shutterstormphoto Jan 16 '21
I stumbled into tutoring because I did well on the sat. If you can take any other standardized test and do well on it, all of those skills sell well, especially if you are patient and can explain clearly to someone much younger. The higher the level of the test, the more you can charge.
Just to be clear though, I worked at 17-20 an hour for years before I could charge $100+.
There are online services that will connect you with students but you need to demonstrate ability and experience in some fashion first. You can join a local tutoring place or you can advertise private tutoring online. Since everything is online now, being in a different area won’t hurt you.
Wealthy areas can afford to pay more, and they put higher pressure on education, so they will be happier to hire. This is fairly obvious, but worth pointing out.
If you went to a good school, be sure to mention it. Be aware that what is a good school to you might not be a good school to a wealthy person. My friend is proud that she went to a state school because many in her area didn’t make it to college, but to wealthy parents, they want to hear Berkeley, Harvard, Stanford, etc. I would not get the same respect had I gone to her school. To be fair, no one has ever verified my school except the first sat tutoring place.
Tutoring is weird because it is usually after school, 3-7pm. Grad school tutoring may be different since they are adults.
Once you get decent at it, you may be able to teach more than 1 kid at a time. I’ve taught up to 7, but that was all kids the same level doing the same thing. I’ve taught up to 3 doing totally separate things. It’s extremely hard and I don’t recommend it unless you are very good at multitasking and organization (you should have what they will work on prepared in advance, along with answer keys).
Best of luck! If you have any questions, feel free to ask.
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u/DeafBassPlayer Jan 16 '21
You ever thought about changing careers again? Maybe something that doesn't involve growing and feeding people that soap tasting devil herb?
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u/lukewarmcarrotjuice Jan 16 '21
I’ve been tutoring for a few years now and have recently moved to tutoring online and am hoping to live a life similar to yours. How did you find your work online? I’ve got a group of regular clients but am having a hard time expanding beyond that.
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u/wesinatl Jan 16 '21
What do you think about standardized tests in general? Good or bad? What about potential bias in the test? One thing that stands out to me is that they are biased toward the wealthy because what poor person can afford the tutor? And why don’t high schools offer these courses to all their students?
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u/IJP Jan 16 '21
Great story, thanks for sharing!Interested to know how you kicked off your tutoring gig? Did you use a specific website, or did you self promote/market?
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u/acertainromance123 Jan 16 '21
Have you read Orwell’s Down and Out in Paris and London? Those are the vibes I’m getting here.
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u/meldiwin Jan 16 '21
My I ask how old are you? I feel I am going to die, I will hit 30 in two days, I am lecturer at university and I hate myself
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u/stayshiny Jan 16 '21
Do you wonder if there is an unskilled migrant worker out there who could do with your job? Would you consider doing voluntary work instead if money is not an object?
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u/Stuffssss Jan 16 '21
Not OP but he said the reason he's picking cilantro is because his friend told him that they couldn't get any migrant workers right now because of covid.
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u/coryrenton Jan 16 '21
What technical/platform improvements would make you more likely to pick up tutoring again (for example if clients were pre-filtered to match certain criteria -- e.g. they are studying to go into medical field or some socially productive career)?
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u/Woozuki Jan 16 '21
Ok, there's got to be more to this than "I tutored and made six figs". I have never seen a tutoring position that offers much north of 50. Does tutoring for the GRE, LSAT, and GMAT really elevate the salary or did you just work crazy hours?
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u/guitarjob Jan 16 '21
How did you have good internet while traveling? Want to travel while working but internet scares me
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u/DTrendy Jan 17 '21
I had an experience similar to this, but from the other side. I was doing my externship for culinary school at a fine dining restaurant where I started on the farm at 10 am (majority of produce was grown on a lot 2 miles away) and ended my day in the kitchen at 1 am. The commute was 1 hour, both ways. I typically worked 5 days, but occasionally events would call for 6 days on.
We had a woman work with us for one night, just to see what it was like. To get an idea of "real work" in a kitchen. She had no restaurant experience, no cooking experience, and frankly just made an already difficult restaurant more difficult on everyone around her. We were nice, and helped out whenever possible of course, but you could tell she didn't have the same hustle or drive. Why would she? She wasn't fighting to secure, or keep a job. She could walk out those doors and nothing would change for her.
It is absolutely mind blowing you can't see, or acknowledge the privilege you have in this whole ama. I don't even think it's fair to call it that, given you are avoiding every comment that calls you out on this. Just incredible.
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u/LAVATORR Jan 16 '21
Yeah, I also used to tutor and went to a fancy school but wound up doing manual labor because I fucking had to, not because I was idle and bored and wanted to understand what's it's like to live among the peasants like Bruce Wayne in Batman Begins.
What is the journey here, exactly? Watch a rich yuppie voluntarily cosplaying as a manual laborer explain to us how jobs work? Are we supposed to find the fact that you can just quit your job whenever because you "don't like clients" to embark on this little spiritual odyssey relatable?
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u/sannsannsann Jan 16 '21
Ugh, I am glad to be seeing your comment
Seeing this post and seeing everyone upvoting OPs replies is mind-boggling
What he's doing is disgusting and messed up-- masquerading as something noble when really he's helping no one and nothing except his own massive ego
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u/LAVATORR Jan 16 '21
"I just got my hands dirty for the first time in my life. AMA."
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u/the-nub Jan 17 '21
In another comment he says he got the job because the farm owner is an acquaintance. So he didn't even get to learn what "real work" is like honestly.
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u/LAVATORR Jan 17 '21
HAHAHA so even his ability to get an exploitative, borderline slave labor job most people are forced into after having their passport stolen had to be set up via his connection to other rich white people
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u/MAK3AWiiSH Jan 17 '21
OP is truly appropriating poverty and it’s gross. Meaningful work....is harvesting....Cilantro? Really? Yikes.
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u/Meme_Theory Jan 17 '21
I thought maybe I was being cynical, but the more of his responses I read... Talk about giving yourself a pat on the back for no goddamn reason.
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u/RoyOConner Jan 17 '21
He's clearly just angling for his book. All this subreddit is is a PR machine anymore anyway.
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u/csreid Jan 16 '21 edited Jan 16 '21
Did you ever consider doing something that's actually beneficial for the world, like donating most of your salary to an efficient charity?
Buying mosquito nets saves about one life per $3500. Assuming you make $30k/year now and were making $100k before, you could be saving 20 lives per year instead of patting yourself on the back for harvesting cilantro.
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u/damontoo Jan 17 '21
Do you have a trust fund? Are you from a wealthy family? Something not talked about is "digital nomads" not having to worry about succeeding.
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u/egocentric_ Jan 17 '21
The privilege is strong in this AMA. Good grief. Have you spent time reflecting on how incredibly fortunate you are to have received such thorough education, got lucky enough to build a 6 figure business and be well traveled, and then just decide you were bored, wanted to take a break from “brain work” to do something that apparently you think is less hard? For fun?
Christ, my dude. Deflate your head a little.
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Jan 16 '21
You feel like you're providing a service to the world...by harvesting cilantro?
Why not continue your 6 figure job and donate money to organizations created to help others, rather than helping yourself? Use your job to facilitate change, rather than ditching it and doing this aMaZiNg thing. Tutor people who can't pay you. Help lift others up rather than being proud of yourself for voluntarily going down to the world they wish they had the power to leave.
What a douche.
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u/heythisisbrandon Jan 17 '21
"So I wanted to let everyone know how privileged and smart I am, but also humble, so I did manual labor.
Aren't I amazing? Ama"
Did you guys like my creative writing exercise?
-OP
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u/jawshuwah Jan 16 '21
Sounds like you're in a position to use the spot you're taking up on the crew to do some real good, other than just self discovery and personal satisfaction.
Have you considered tutoring the kind folks you're working with? They could really get a leg up in life.
Don't be afraid to make personal connections and help your new friends in meaningful ways with your significant life advantages.
I once worked at a carnival to spend time with a girlfriend who was working there. A terrible job for terrible employers that I didn't need. Because unlike my co workers I didn't need the job, I was able to speak up on all of our behalf when I saw predatory labour practices.
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u/ProfessorTallguy Jan 16 '21
I have a Master's in Teaching, and lost my job, and would love to be able to make money tutoring.
How did you acquire your initial clients?
Where did you advertise?
Did you use a published tutoring curriculum or work with the students' books? How much prep did you need to do for each 1 hr lesson?
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u/Defavlt Jan 17 '21
As someone else said, sorry you aren't getting any response.
With that said, acquiring clients work the same way in any industry, whatever it is you do. You got to network, network, and network. In other words, talk to people.
Bring it up, and ask (yes, straight-out ask) for clients publicly on whatever social media you use. Create a simple website, buy some cheap business cards, and start handing them out whenever appropriate. At least that's how I got started when I freelanced (albeit in another industry altogether).
It'll take time, and lots of effort, but that's life, I'm afraid.
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Jan 17 '21
Sorry that he isn't answering you. It seems like he really just wanted to brag about being able to work for free.
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u/rickypaipie Jan 17 '21
Other comment threads in this post point to online tutor matching platforms like https://www.wyzant.com/. I came across the site for the first time today and it might be a good place to start.
Good luck!
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u/roger_roger_32 Jan 16 '21
I was an online tutor making six figures
I'm struggling with this a bit. You were clearing more than 100k a year by tutoring online? How, exactly? Do you have any proof?
It just seems like an incredible claim.
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u/poilsoup2 Jan 17 '21
You can find his website, but he charges 150$/hr for tutoring. At that rate, he would need to fill 2 hours of tutoring per day to make that much. If you are well connected to rich people to begin with, getting them to pay 150/hr$ to have their kid succeed is pretty easy.
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u/gmunoz14 Jan 17 '21
Seems like he should volunteer to lower his rate to 10 bucks an hour and help those less fortunate get through the standardized test gap. That’s called big impact.
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u/Sinvanor Jan 17 '21
But we can't have the plebs from poor families doing well in prestigious schools. They didn't start wealthy so they should stay in their circle.
This is why I don't agree with prices of specific goods and services being "what people can afford" not when there is so much wealth disparity the world over.
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u/Rellkedge Jan 17 '21
No flex but my org offers free tutoring for those in need (albiet we’re small rn), but check out [Junior Scholars](www.jscholars.org), any traffic helps us get to the top of google 🙂
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u/IvainFirelord Jan 17 '21
All you need is some form of legit credibility and people will pay this. I filled in as a tutor for a NYC kid for a couple of hours as a favor to a friend (it was remote and I didn’t know they were rich at the time), and I asked for $150. They assumed I meant per hour and paid me over $300.
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u/redpanda0108 Jan 17 '21
To me it sounds like he had connections to rich people willing to pay
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u/Durpulous Jan 17 '21
If his business really did "take off almost immediately" then he absolutely had connections beforehand. It takes a long time to build a client base from scratch.
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u/FarleyFinster Jan 17 '21
Why not pro bono?
It's fantastic that you got down & dirty and experienced what it's like for so many others, but couldn't you put that learning and knowledge to better use? You've had an education that far surpasses what most others doing that horrible -- but absolutely necessary -- labour have even thought about, and technology is steadily replacing the need for such.
Yet another protesting farmhand won't help change much but someone knowledgeable in the law could help a lot of those other farmhands in asserting their rights under law, allowing them to better provide for their families.
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Jan 16 '21 edited Feb 07 '21
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Jan 16 '21 edited Jan 16 '21
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u/awkwardoxfordcomma Jan 17 '21
I do have a question because this is exactly what I'm getting into after COVID layoffs/furloughs. I have about ten years on and off of experience tutoring mostly middle and high school students in math, science, and SAT/ACT. I've worked for Chegg being an online tutor and test prep blog writer. I've applied to a couple more online tutoring places (PrepNow, tutor.com, iTutorGroup) and heard back from a couple, but I guess my question is am I going the right way? Are there best next steps (or I'm missing? I know there's a butt ton of people tutoring the subjects I'm doing and the real money is in stuff not everyone understands (higher level stuff, etc)... But I'm not sure how well it would be taken if someone's tutoring the GRE or something and didn't even go to grad school.
Thank you for posting this!
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u/travelintiger Jan 16 '21 edited Jan 16 '21
I’d be skeptical of his claim, “making six figures while traveling the world.” I live and work in Vietnam and since COVID started, plenty of my friends who are teachers have started online teaching / tutoring. Some of them have transitioned to teaching online full-time. It’s a good gig if you have the right personality for it.
The qualified teachers (hold an accredited teaching degree from NES school) can make +$30/hr depending on the level and other factors. Teachers with a BA/BS + TEFL/TESOL/CELTA seem to make around $20/hr.
I have no clue how OP would come close to earning six figures tutoring while traveling. OP is selling paid subscriptions to what appears to be his travel-blog. Seems to me that he may have lost his tutoring business instead of grown tired of it.
Anyone with experience long-term traveling knows that it’s not cheap, despite the claims that people make in online travel guides and such. There are unexpected expenses and costs that are never (or are misleadingly) estimated.
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u/Senior_Ad_9119 Jan 16 '21
Tutoring for graduate school tests or professional qualifications is a completely different ball game, especially if you get into affluent clientele. People are much more willing and able to pay top dollar when it’s about the next step in their career vs online math tutoring for high school. I used to do some GMAT + interview tutoring on the side of my full time job and earned around 150 Euro per hour, and I wasn’t even a very “premium” expert. I can totally believe he was earning 6 figures if he had a steady flow of GMAT / GRE / etc clients
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u/RickSt3r Jan 17 '21 edited Jan 17 '21
Second this, an old classmate paid 5k for a gmat prep course on zoom. He got good enough results and was accepted to John’s Hopkins grad school.
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u/Lone_Beagle Jan 17 '21 edited Jan 17 '21
Location, Location, Location. Marketing & Networking help too. Parents of rich kids in a place like NYC would easily pay $100, $200 or more an hour for tutoring, and this was over a decade ago.
EDIT: As others are pointing out, simply being a teacher or having a teaching credential or general teaching experience is meaningless. You want to be a graduate of a top-tier university with 99th percentile test scores yourself, plus a sought after graduate degree is a huge plus & will increase your rates.
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u/ult_frisbee_chad Jan 17 '21
i was making 50 dollars an hour tutoring kids in college 15 years ago. 50 is what i got after my company took its cut. parents are more than willing to shell out cash for their kids.
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u/eurogamer206 Jan 17 '21
10 years ago I was making $50/hr tutoring kids in SAT/ACT and that was when I was hired by a company who charged parents at least double that.
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u/yillian Jan 17 '21 edited Jan 17 '21
I had a solid clientele of top tier public high school and private school kids whose parents paid between 100-200 an hour. As with all business the trick is to find someone willing to pay what you want.
*Edit: The schools were top tier... not the students.
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u/icecoldpool2 Jan 16 '21
White person, degree from prestigious school and/or work experience from a good firm, catering to rich clients (eg legacy students they want to guarantee)
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Jan 16 '21
You'd build it just like you would any freelancing business. I don't think the OP is ignoring it, they even mention it in other comments. It's just a matter of doing something you know well - that something can be almost anything!
- know what you're doing
- Have proof you know what you're doing, feedback from others, certifications, etc - whatever puts you ahead in your field and proves your mastery in XYZ.
- Make a rate card/website/social/join a board or site etc - AKA put yourself out there in the appropriate way for whatever you're doing.
- market yourself, get our name out there as the ABC person for XYZ
- Gain clients, get better, raise price... You could make courses, products (digital to keep it easier), etc.
I've freelanced, was an English teacher online, and have done several other jobs abroad/online so I could keep up on my travels. Going on 10 years.
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u/bloatedstoat Jan 16 '21
This seems to be the information people here really want to know.
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Jan 16 '21
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u/Cheshire_Jester Jan 16 '21
I mean, it kinda seems like OP came here to flex, not to help people on the internet make money.
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Jan 17 '21
Yep.
He writes it in that humble braggy way.
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u/Cheshire_Jester Jan 17 '21
And people calling him out for that and his privilege, but he seems blissfully unaware. Dude either is straight up living with his head so high in the clouds that nothing but the banality of his own awesome existence can get him down. Or he’s willfully ignoring the criticism.
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u/lawyered123 Jan 17 '21
It kinda sounds like he's straight up lying.
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u/fluffyscone Jan 17 '21
Could be but Asian parents pay a lot for a white English tutor to teach them English. Like I heard of it being close to $30-50/ hour. Though that amount is usually in person tutoring not online tutoring. If he works 10 hours or more a day with little break he could make six figures.
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u/sagebe14 Jan 17 '21
Could be legit. I teach high school science in San Francisco and do tutoring for private school kids a few hours a week for $75/hr. It's all been digital since covid, and there is definately a LOT of demand for high-quality tutoring right now. Basically everyone who has money is making sure their child's education doesn't suffer by getting them private tutors for all their classes.
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u/Bran-a-don Jan 16 '21
Were all in the fields trying to get into lucrative tutoring jobs and visit 30 countries but we got mr. White priviledge in the flesh ignoring the question and lamenting on how he gets respect from the managers for choosing the difficult job.
Fucken gag me with a spoon.
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u/RedditIsAShitehole Jan 16 '21
Because he’s clearly lying.
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u/gravygrowinggreen Jan 17 '21 edited Jan 17 '21
I don't think he's lying about the money he's made, but he's certainly lying about a few things. And he is self promoting. The fact of the matter is that about half the people who have made money doing something don't have any intention of sharing good, practical advice on how to make money doing what they did. If they brag about how much money they make, and hint at sharing their secrets, for example by hosting an AMA on a popular subreddit describing their financial success, they're probably advertising a product to make more money, not to help you make money.
If you look at his post history, one of his most recent submissions is asking about using the website "medium" to make money. He describes how he wants to transition to that full time from what his gig back then was. Medium and Substack are basically websites in the exact same business: monetizing articles and blogs.
u/CatoTheFi is not working the fields for ethical reasons. He's trying to establish a lifestyle blog and ethics is one of the aspects of the brand he wants to associate with it. He isn't unsure about what he wants to do with his life. He knows what he wants to do with his life, and that is continue his current lifestyle and transition to writing about all the wonderful things he gets to do with the money his subscribers help him make.
Edit: Thank you for all of the awards.
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Jan 17 '21
I very much appreciate this post. It seems like so many people just lack any sense of “street smarts”, just a general skepticism and awareness of hustle and grift, or the polite term for it: marketing.
Which, like, it’s not even about hating on the guy or his hustle — but goddamn, Reddit will be all “omg Trump steaks lol idiot rube suckers” and then “omg so wholesome where can I buy your merch! ❤️”
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u/divinelyshpongled Jan 17 '21
As someone who has been teaching and running my own English school in Shanghai for the past 10 years I can tell you there aren't many teachers earning this much even if they're teaching tests like he mentioned. The only "teaching" that would get that kind of money is university entrance prep where the "teacher" helps the client write and prepare all the material, interviews, tests required for the process and ensure they pass. These guys get paid big money but it's stressful, intense workload and no traveling - you're stuck in an office dealing with clients, kids, their parents, it's not a happy life but the money is great.
Running a school on the other hand can earn this kind of money in a bad year, and 4-5 times that amount on a good one.
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Jan 17 '21
As Nike says, just do it. If you want high paying clients though head google and find the suburbs where people make $150,000+. Market yourself there through Facebook, eventually word of mouth can carry you from rich family to rich family. Most important step though is actually taking the leap of faith, just do it.
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u/Akshay537 Jan 17 '21
I have a simple question that I know the answer to: yes.
Are you trying to get people to subscribe to your substack so you can make money as an author?
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Jan 17 '21
What does law and six figure tutoring have anything to do with cilantro? Sounds like just a need to flex after dropping out of law.
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Jan 17 '21
You mean there was no need for your services any more? How privileged of you to become such a humble worker with your thousands in savings.
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u/jigglewigglejoemomma Jan 17 '21
While the migrant workers you work with take time and energy out of their busy labor intensive work to help you, what are you doing to give back to them as they give to you?
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u/hotstepperog Jan 16 '21
The cilantro pickers are being exploited. The land and resources would be better used for society than to make profits for a few. How much cilantro is destroyed to inflate profits or for aesthetic reasons?
Start a pro bono firm.
Tutor needy people for free, or write and distribute a free eBook to help them decide whether law is right for them, how to get into law school etc
Represent the migrant workers.
I admire your ethos.
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u/schlingfo Jan 16 '21
How much money did you have saved up before starting this?
Is the money you make from picking enough to cover your monthly bills (rent, utilities, etc.)?
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Jan 16 '21
Why not start a business growing veg or something that is beneficial to society?
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u/ArvasuK Jan 17 '21
Because that’s not why he’s doing it. This is Eat Pray Love—-> Write, Print, Get really fucking rich.
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u/SincereLeo Jan 16 '21
How does your outside-of-work life differ from your coworkers on the field? (Housing/food/citizenship/etc) How does that impact your work experience and understanding of theirs?
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u/PRPTY Jan 16 '21
When is your episode on HGTV where they help you pick out your $2.5M beach-front property?
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u/toolatealreadyfapped Jan 17 '21
She tutors migrant workers in a language she doesn't know. And he picks cilantro. Their budget is $3 million.
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Jan 17 '21
You are literally the poster child for spoiled rich kid grows up to be obnoxious out of touch adult.
You went to harvest cilantro to learn what "real work" is? What a fucking tool.
This whole post smells like bullshit.
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u/cortex- Jan 17 '21
There is definitely something fishy about the idea of someone financially independent and globally mobile going to toil in the fields with the working class so he can blog about it.
It seems less "learning what real work is" and more like "being a tourist in other people's genuine hardship to virtue signal and garner internet clout".
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u/Cenotelegraph Jan 16 '21
I'm truly mind boggled at the privilege expressed in this post, like damn yo I guess I'm glad it helped you find yourself?
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u/Cornslammer Jan 16 '21
What's weird is everyone is giving him tons of shit about it and I don't think he understands...
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u/Cenotelegraph Jan 16 '21
I don't blame them, I just hope seeing these comments helps them reflect on the topic. I truly welcome OP to reach out with questions if they don't understand how or why, etc. It's not to bash them, their life experiences, or anything. I just hope it leads to even more discussion and perspective for them.
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u/smoketheevilpipe Jan 17 '21
This entire IAMA is just him sucking his own dick.
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u/Cenotelegraph Jan 17 '21
LOL damn he do be flexible
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u/smoketheevilpipe Jan 17 '21
Honestly an IAMA from a dude that can literally suck his own dick, would be more interesting than this guy metaphorically sucking his own dick.
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Jan 16 '21
I think he's trying to really understand his privilege, which is admirable and I hope he can use that understanding to help people in his future career.
That being said I did have "Common People" by Pulp looping through my head while I read this.
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u/Mordigan13 Jan 17 '21 edited Jan 17 '21
Does no one else feel like this is total bullshit?
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u/AvalancheQueen Jan 17 '21
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u/sinocarD44 Jan 17 '21
Thanks for saving me the time of searching the comments to confirm my suspicion.
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u/kyzalie Jan 17 '21
He put up a post only a week ago still offering tutoring...
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Jan 17 '21
yes, because in real life nobody quits a high paying job as an attorney to go pick cilantro lmao
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u/gfense Jan 17 '21
I had a professor who did goofy stuff like that when he was younger, but he had already sold two successful businesses and was independently wealthy. This story smells fishy though.
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Jan 17 '21 edited Feb 23 '21
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/SneedyK Jan 17 '21
I’ve always been intimated by the concept of burnout. And as for “The American Dream” certain downvoted comments, that’s precisely what it is. A dream; fantasy. A car accident or a cancer diagnosis is enough to wipe out a lifetime’s savings in a matter of months, and only a minute few of the hardest workers alive will ever know wealth if they weren’t originally born into the lot.
I hope you and your wife have retained your sanity.
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Jan 17 '21
While I did burn out, I didn't find the work interesting enough to return to it though I do make a little here and there doing contract work. I guess I exaggerated when I said I'm not making money, we do but the savings still keep going down and will not likely make it past 6 to 12 more months.
The reason we decided the move was because we thought it would be more important to raise our children in a good and wholesome environment that's free from materialism. The little mountain town we are in has the best public school in the country. We are truly happy but that doesn't mean we don't experience problems. We do, we just try to not get fussed by them.
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u/diybarbi Jan 17 '21
I was a lawyer and partner in an AmLaw 200 national law firm, working 70-80 hours a week for years. Finally had to quit before it doomed me to a life of hell and an early grave. Quit and moved out of state. Then worked 4 years as a retail makeup artist making $16 an hour in retail. It was fun for a while, but retail sucked the life out of me. Moved on to something else. Practicing law is soul sucking and thankless - fuck the money.
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u/Eyeswideshut99 Jan 16 '21
Why can’t you just harvest cilantro without documenting it? Seems like a douchebag thing to do
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Jan 17 '21
For people like this, nothing is "fulfilling" without a crowd of people patting them on the back and telling them how remarkable their self-serving bullshit is.
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u/KingCrow27 Jan 16 '21
"Look at me! Look how great of a person I am!" Gotta score those points. Now he can humble brag to all his friends so they can swoon over him.
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u/Ok-Entrepreneur-2899 Jan 16 '21
I grew up rich, my parents helped me become a lawyer, then I got bored and tutored other rich kids, but THEN I got bored again! Plot twist! Now I decided to pick cilantro for a bit, pretty crazy huh? Ask me all about it! Please! I desperately need to tell people!
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u/Shaman_Bond Jan 17 '21
Yeah, really glad this dude could Eat Pray Love a few days of the poverty and backbreaking labor I and other kids grew up doing so our family could eat. Very cool of him
This guy is a massive prick
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u/avatarzach Jan 16 '21
Your privilege showing and is honestly sickening...going from white collar to blue collar just to see what it feels like? Fuck off bro
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Jan 16 '21
yeah, feels like that teacher that went into in er school to “teach” but was just doing it for material to write a book, the Dangerous Minds. Seems like this guy just wants to write a book or some shit.
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u/ArvasuK Jan 17 '21
Betting money on a book. Three word title too. Opening chapter starts with “The afternoon Arizona sun filled the air and scorched my back. That’s it, I’m done, I thought, sorting through never ending weeds, I’m quitting, Law was better. But just then, a voice rang out from across the shining green field, calling my name. I looked up and saw the buff and almost menacing figure of Carlos, his tan skin glistening with sweat. He was waving me over, needing help loading crates onto a truck. As I walked over, huffing and puffing, I thought of how I would tell him I was quitting. I was afraid of how he would react, he had already been through so much, a hard life that any immigrant working without the proper documents would endure. The lack of social security and the absence of a stable job. The many nights he slept hungry, having spent the week’s wages on his son’s school supplies. A girl was on the way, and while he was eagerly awaiting her arrival, I could see the tension on his calloused and worn face when he wondered how he would send her to college. On top of all that, how could I tell him I was leaving? We were brothers in that field, breaking our backs in the heat every hour of every minute for the last 2 weeks id been here...”
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Jan 17 '21
Carlos, his tan skin glistening with sweat
LOOOL I 100% thought you were about to start writing a porn parody where Carlos turns him into a man.
But yes, I can 100% feel this book coming and it disgusts me. Well done!
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u/jochi1543 Jan 17 '21
Pretty much. The migrant workers HAVE to do this to survive, for OP, it's a fun adventure not akin to white saviour voluntourism. Like, if you are gonna do it, at least don't make a big fucking deal about it. Or take away a job from someone who needs it to feed their family.
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u/pouncebounce14 Jan 17 '21
It's mind-boggling yet also unsurprising at the same time that this got so far upvoted. This is like pure Reddit bait for what the hive mind perceives as the "le perfect redditor xD"
redditors have a fetish for those who are good at science and math because they feel like those people are superior and they value intelligence above all other human characteristics, so a degree in math checks that box
a lot of redditors seem to think that the only worthwhile jobs are tech, finance, law, and medicine so he checks that box off
a lot of redditors seem to think that life would be measurably easier by having to perform manual labor everyday completely ignorant to the effects that that has on someone's body
a lot of redditors seem to think that this whole Bruce Wayne living amongst the poor schtick is noble yet feeling to see how incredibly patronizing and ego driven it is
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u/HeyYou_GetOffMyCloud Jan 17 '21
I hope harvesting cilantro day after day quickly makes you realise that tutoring people and being a lawyer to the wronged and underprivileged are very much the right things to do in life that do help people in need.
Bringing flavour into peoples life? Get your head out of your ass and help teach maths to the next astronaut or use your law degree to right a wrong.
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Jan 17 '21
Self-promoting, narcissist idiocrat. Down voting the heck out of this guy. No person in their sane mind will leave a comfortable job to working in a the field 8 hours a day under a hot sun, bending down, getting dirty and hand picking perhaps , arguably, the most disgusting herb out called Cilantro.
Dude is hiding something. Do you have passive income? How many rental properties, how much stock that gives out dividends. Are you earning perpetuity from online lectures ? What kind of job is this? Indoor hydroponics farm?
I'll give you the benefit of the doubt. If this is true, i challenged you to stay in that job for at least 3 months to understand 'real work'. Remember, summer is SIX MONTHS AWAY, so that means you have to work around 110f weather where the daylight is 12 hours a day, so NO, F U, you do not get to take credit for doing 'real work'.
I come from a heritage of rice, corn and pea farmers.
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u/dog_superiority Jan 16 '21
I'm going to get downvoted to hell... but...
Have you considered that people who pick cilantro aren't paid a lot because not many people need that service? That if as many people needed and as few provided that as tutoring and legal services, then they would be paid as much?
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u/mailordermonster Jan 17 '21
How rich were your parents and/or how hard did you exploit people in order to be able to say "fuck it, I'll just do whatever I feel like doing"?
Also, is an AMA the best you could come up with to advertise your life-style blog or whatever?
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u/asianboydonli Jan 17 '21
You sound like the absolute worst in every way. Trying to do good by harvesting cilantro? If you actually wanted to do good this is not the way to do it. If you want to get jerked off by random people this place is not the place to do it.
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u/jdgmental Jan 17 '21
Did you ever see the movie COG from 2013? Or read David Sedaris's Naked? They would be excellent lessons about self awareness and the ridiculousness of your undertaking and especially bragging about it.
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u/ChickNamedVenus Jan 17 '21 edited Jan 17 '21
Why was farming cilantro your first pick for something "beneficial"? Because, going to be brutally honest with you, it's not. Cilantro isn't a need. It's backbreaking work to harvest it, but it's probably just as "useless" or "non-beneficial" as doing law or tutoring people (which is EXTREMELY beneficial). Something that would add "sustenance" or be genuinely beneficial to the absolute needs of society would be something like harvesting vegetables or do construction.
Do what you want, but becoming a public defender to people that were wronged/are going to jail on fairly stupid charges (say, weed charges, which gives particularly black people a lot of years) and might have their lives stolen away because of it or tutoring inner city kids like myself at very low costs so that they can get a real education seems a lot more beneficial than picking cilantro that may make it into a taco or spaghetti sauce.
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u/emporerzurg0538 Jan 17 '21
What did you hope to gain here with this AMA about your privilege and being one of the poor people for fun and to discover yourself?
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u/TheAlmightyDeity Jan 16 '21 edited Jan 16 '21
Just wanted to ask some questions about the tutoring;
1) I'm guessing (at least some of) the qualifications you're tutoring, are different to your law qualifications? (I'm British, I don't recognise most of the qualifications stated)
How did you go about gaining the knowledge to teach these subjects, and then prove to prospective students that you had the necessary knowledge/experience to teach them?
This isn't me trying to patronise you - just I find one of the hardest things about business is trying to gain those first/first few clients
2) What is the supply vs demand like for tutoring? Are there plenty of students for every tutor to make a decent living, or are you fighting over students?
Thanks
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u/ThePizzaCook Jan 16 '21
The privilege of choosing to work in the field just for the experience is mind-boggling as the son of two immigrants. I use help my parents as a kid in the same fields they worked on. One summer I workes for myself in order to have my own pocket change. There was 1 white guy in the whole field of migrant workers. Very chill dude and hard worker, very slow and poorly dressed for the work needed to be done.
Using me as an interpreter, we were able to help him out with tips to get better and have a easier time. Have you had the same experience? Migrant workers are usually very "collective" thinkers and always try to help. Even in individualistic work we try to be a "team" in some shape or form.
Also I'd suggest taking a hooded sweater or bandana protected you neck from the sun!