This week, in the context of a "how are you doing" email conversation with a friend I got the following reply (edited for obvious reasons)…
You are a lucky man. No more trips for me this year. Still no work but have had enough small jobs to pay the bills. … Tried my hand at an internet business. About 4k flushed down the drain. I really suck as a salesman. Don′t seem have that gift for bullshiting people. Got a nice laptop though. Now I can waste even more time looking a worthless shit
Hope you guys have a great holiday. Wish I could be there.
I (now) know the circumstances behind my Friend′s frustration, they′re not directly related to my commentary, I think at some stage we all experience similar feelings. But, let′s use his comments, not to pass judgment, but as inspiration for further discussion.
I believe you have to see an opportunity in order to embrace it. You can′t throw up a web site and expect that everyone will come running with their checkbook out wanting to run advertising on your site, or that people will even visit your site. If you have thrown $4k at creating the site then you probably have a good site, but my opinion is that you should have spent the $4k educating yourself on how the business works. If you don′t understand the internet business model then failure is inevitable.
The first step in embracing a new opportunity is moving from a state of unconscious incompetence to a state of conscious incompetence. In other words seeing the new opportunity and then realizing what it will take in terms of time, effort, education, and cost (yes, it′s going to cost you money) to prepare your skills to embrace, and be successful, with the opportunity in front of you. There′s no luck involved in this, you have to make that commitment.
In my original post on this site I alluded to the fact that my primary motivation, like many, including my friend, is freedom. Freedom from the typical life of indentured servitude (wage slavery) we find ourselves in in the west. Think about that situation, how much would you be prepared to invest in an alternative?
I was prepared to invest everything I had. I did, and more.
I′m not there yet, but I have made some significant progress. I′ no longer tied to a 9 to 5 job (although I do work a lot), I can, and frequently do, work from anywhere in the world where I have a laptop and an internet connection, which was my original goal, I draw a six figure commercial salary, and I′m out from under the clutches of greedy, unscrupulous, corporate arseholes. That’s pretty good really don’t you think?
Do you think that would have happened if I′d thrown in the towel after spending the first $4k? Show me a successful internet marketer or businessman/woman and I′ll show you someone who has invested heavily (cold hard cash) in their success.
Do you think that a sales person has to have the “gift of bullshitting people”? Show me a successful Internet sales person and I′ll show you someone who knows how to solve a Customer′s problems, not a bullshit artist.
I could go on but the way I see it is, if you have a Laptop, which by today′s standards is thousands of times more powerful than the computer that put man on the moon all those years ago, you are equipped with a device, when connected to the internet, can change your life exponentially for the better. The question is, can you handle it?
As my Brother, and business partner, put so eloquently in his post titled Why You Are Broke…
We live in a world of abundant prosperity where opportunity abounds. If you don’t see this truth to be self-evident then you have some self development work to do.
The question is who are you willing to give up being to succeed?
…well?
