Success or Failure?
Read carefully - I am going to give you the secret to getting started and succeeding in any sort of venture to create passive income, whether it is an internet business that you want to start or any other type of passive income vehicle. Make sure you are ready because it may come as a bit of a surprise… ACTION. That’s it. Do something. Anything.
Anything besides checking out another website or downloading another e-book with the latest internet income secret. Chances are very good that you are like me and have read a ton of books, visited hundreds of websites and blogs, and bought several (if not more…) courses on how to build passive income and make money while you sleep.
You know what? Most of them are pretty good. Some of them are great. Want to know what the weak link is? YOU. Get off your ass and do something! Do something to move yourself toward your goal. Pick one or two mentors or systems and follow them. If you want to do information products, then start writing. Stop reading info on how to do it and start doing it! Do not confuse research or surfing the web with action.
Identify your goal - write down a plan to reach that goal with all the steps that need to be taken from now until you hit that goal. Every day identify down two or three things that that you can do immediately to accomplish that goal and do them. Start on them NOW. Work at them single-mindedly until they are done. Then identify the next thing in your plan and do it.
It’s that simple. Do not get caught up in information overload or “analysis paralysis”. In the Information Age, that is one of the biggest killers of productivity. I found a great blog post on how to start limiting the amount of information you take in on a daily basis and maximize production. It’s all about using technology to avoid information overload.
It is easy to get stuck in a pattern of learning. Instead, get caught in a pattern of DOING. If you make a mistake, who cares? Learn from it and keep going! You will find that most of your imagined mistakes and disasters are just that - imagined.
I know because I have been caught in that trap. I know because it is something that I have to remind myself of daily. I know because I have seen action make all the difference and I fight each day to take action in spite of all the outside interference that life throws my way.
Everybody has the same problems and the same daily challenges. What you do today will dictate where you are tomorrow. Who do you want to be? What do you want to have? What price are you willing to pay?
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January 13th, 2008 at 3:48 pm
Don’t confuse passive income and 24/7 income. Blogging is far from passive
January 13th, 2008 at 3:56 pm
Very true - the ultimate goal for me is passive income, while blogging is something that I enjoy doing. Blogging may generate some income for me in the future, but my focus for the passive income is e-commerce on auto pilot. Blogging, if it does generate income for me, is something that can be done from anywhere and that is the other goal of my little experiment - freedom.
January 14th, 2008 at 2:04 am
[…] have been doing a ton of reading lately - probably too much. Looking back over the Success or Failure post from a couple of days ago, I decided I needed to put one more project on my plate and write an […]
January 17th, 2008 at 8:55 am
Steve,
I love your call to ACTION. On that note, I have carried this inspirational quote with me to many offices. It says: “The great composer does not set to work because he is inspired, but becomes inspired because he is working.” — Ernest Newman.
What resonates with me is the point that you can’t WAIT for motivation to strike. Once you start a good project, the motivation will come from the work itself.
January 18th, 2008 at 5:41 pm
That’s a great quote! It’s true though - you can not wait for something to come along and inspire or motivate you. What was Ben Affleck’s line in Boiler Room? “Get off your ass! Motion creates emotion!”
Not the most subtle or classical quote imaginable, but effective and to the point.