Ok so here they are. Ready?
1. Digging Where The X is
I go to a lot of these “entrepreneur meetup” kind of events where people with all kinds of businesses and business ideas go to chat and be around “like minded people”. And at them I hear about all kinds of ideas for new products and new businesses that these passionate people are trying to share with the world…
Many of which are just horrible.
I’ll be listening to a guy talk about his business idea and having this internal dialogue…
“Yep… ok… I can tell that you’re really passionate about this designer air freshener… But you realize NO ONE wants this right?”
“Oh no I get that it’s really creative… I can see you’ve put a lot of thought into the combination of scents… But you get that NO ONE else cares … right?”
It’s a problem and the problem comes from the mistaken idea that business is about YOU. It’s not.
Forget your interests. Forget your hobbies. Forget the creative little ideas that would solve your problems.
Having a successful business is about solving OTHER PEOPLE’S problems… not your own.
You find a group of people with a clear, stated problem, and the already existing desire and the means to solve it… and you can build a business. (In that sentence there’s a checklist for niche research in case you missed it… In fact that might be the best sentence I’ve ever written… justsayin’)
If it so happens that you are already a part of that group, then that’s a bonus. It shouldn’t be a prerequisite.
You dig where the X is. That’s all you do.
You go to where there is money already being made, and you start there. The more money is being made there the better, and the less other diggers there are the better… but that’s what you do.
You put up camp there, and you keep digging until you uncover your gold. Which brings me nicely to…
2. Stupid Persistence
If you hadn’t realized it already, let me clarify for you: If you’re starting a business, you’re going to fail. A lot. You’re going to fail more often than you succeed. No matter who you are or what business you’re in. And that’s for a successful business. If you’re succeeding, you’re going to be failing more. Wrap your head around that.
The person who makes it in this game is the one who employs what I call “Stupid Persistence”.
It’s the person who tries again when there’s no good reason to believe that trying again will work.
If you’re starting a business, you have to behave in a way that’s irresponsible to behave in, in any other area or time of your life.
You’ve gotta be willing to mess it up 10 times in a row, and say “Yep, the NEXT ONE is it!”.
And that’s stupid! That’s not logical. That’s not what a rational person, learning from their experience would do. But it’s what you must do.
Because – and not everyone in business likes to admit this – there’s an element of luck involved with every attempt. Your taking actions but always, there are influencing factors that are out of your control. And the only way you overcome the effect of those factors is by having more attempts than anyone else… (stay with me even if that sounded weird…)
It’s like flipping a coin. On your first attempt you can flip a head or a tail. You can win or lose. But if you just keep flipping that coin, probability suggests that sooner or later you’re going to get some heads.
In the same way, the factors out of your control will fall against you sometimes in business… but they’ll fall with you sometimes too. And if you flip that coin enough, eventually you’ll overcome the effect of chance. Your hard work will line up with the factors out of your control falling in your favor, and you’ll get the outcome you want.
(Of course there’s a whole discussion to be had here about not persisting with the same thing over and over… learning from your mistakes, making better attempts each time, and being able to flip the coin in a way that makes it more likely to turn up heads… but I hope that’s self evident, and I hope the above point is clear enough without it.)
So persist, damn it! Persist when your family thinks it’s dumb, when your friends think it’s dumb… persist when even YOU think it’s dumb! Persist because it’s all you can do. Persist because there is no other way.
3. Imbalance
A lot of people who starting out building an online business have all these romantic ideas about living the dream and having a “4 hour work week”.
They dream of a low stress lifestyle, with balance, with time to do the things they love… about “passive income” and holidays, and freedom and…
STOP RIGHT THERE…
Those things are great. They’re amazing in fact. They’re what we should all be seeking.
But you don’t get to live them NOW. Not yet. No no no.
If you’re getting started in business, trying to grow your revenue online, you don’t get to have freedom yet, or balance yet, or spare time, or a 4 hour work week of any kind. Not if you plan on actually making it.
If you haven’t reached your initial goals yet, it’s the time to employ extreme imbalance. It’s the time to do things you’ve never done before. It’s the time to make your life worse rather than better.
It’s a time to hurt yourself because you’re working so hard. It’s a time to give an unhealthy focus to your business, and sit at your computer with pizza and soft drink until your eyes are red and your brain is mush, and when you go away from it all you can see is the lines from that screen burned into your retina, and you can’t have a decent conversation with anyone because it’s all you think about and you’re just crazy with dedication until you’re a weird, disgusting specimen of a human being and…
Ok, I’ll stop there, but you get what I mean right?
I’m not necessarily recommending this but I’m telling you… and mark my words – that’s how it happens. That’s how it happened for me, and for pretty much everyone I know with a successful online business. You give it everything you have, and if you do it long enough, it gives you everything you want.
If that sounds terrible, you need only remember it’s temporary, and it’s for the greatest glory you could achieve… a life lived on your own terms.
Give up your freedom now for the ultimate freedom later. Get it?
Conclusion
I hope you’ve found inspiration here. Perhaps some clarity. I hope this post keeps you focused on what’s important for achieving your income goals this year.
via AndrewHansen.name
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