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Why I Don’t Recommend Entrepreneurship to Everyone Anymore

Posted: 03 Jun 2014 06:30 AM PDT

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18347When I got started in business, I really didn’t have a choice. It was either put up or shut up. Make or break. Sink or swim. Not because I thought this was nice to have…or that it was my destiny to be who I am today, but I just HAD to make my business successful.

Since then, I’ve had my share of ups and downs. Sold some businesses, built some cool products, and made a boat load of money. When things were going well, I was on cloud 9. I would see my friends and family members still struggling, and I always wondered ‘why don’t they do what I do?’ I even went up to them and said, ‘hey do XYZ and you can quit your job forever’. Of course, people don’t like receiving advice when they’ve never asked for it. I would be adamant about how everyone should be an entrepreneur, and if anyone would disagree, they were permanently branded as a “turd” in my mental book.

Of course, I’ve changed as a person. What I’ve experienced is nothing in comparison to most people, and while I don’t claim to be better than anyone, I see things differently from most people, and time has given me the benefit of wisdom. So now, when I see people who can barely wake up in the morning to go to a job they hate and come back to a life they hate, I no longer advise them on quitting their job and pursuing business. In fact, even if they’re young and energetic and passionate, if they ask me if entrepreneurship is their path of destiny, I leave it up to them.

Why? Because no matter how rosy things may seem, I can never gauge their inner game.

A perfect example is a team of 2 founders I’ve met: a VP of sales at a large ad network and a brilliant self-taught engineer who turned down job offers from Google and Zynga. They were going around the town, pitching people to give them money to start their own whiz-bang-tech thing they were building. The sales guy was the schmoozer and the engineer guy was the brains. Perfect match: like Jobs and Woz. They managed to raise over $650k from unsuspecting “investors”, most of whom were friends and family.

So what happened?

The typical startup happened. They blew 80% of their money on building their product in a complete vacuum (instead of going out and getting feedback for their beta products) and on marketing for a product that had no fit (nor existed). While they stayed lean, their investors were getting antsy. The engineer guy, in the middle of development, had a mental breakdown and disappeared (turns out he went surfing most of the time). The stress, too, had affected the sales guy’s marriage, which was already in bad shape. At the end of that year, the divorce was finalized and basically broke him down spiritually. The worst part? The divorce lawyer and the ex-wife took most of what he had. (In state of California, the husband has to pay for the wife’s lawyers… so imagine if you have 2 lawyers charging you $400/hr EACH.. that’s $800 per HOUR. If you’re in that situation, you’ll wonder if “till death do us apart” includes possible ex-spouse murder.)

At least the engineer guy took a salary and is in his mid 20′s. The sales guy was in his late 40′s and drew nothing.. only to be left with nothing. To make the matter worse, investors took legal action on him (he was the older guy with some assets left so they went after him) to try and get some money back. I don’t know what happened next, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he skipped town … or even the country to save his ass from all these financial obligations.

Now, believe it or not, this is not an extreme case example. This is by far one of the most common startup stories you’ll hear.

1) Control over fear

When things go bad.. or when you’re not getting the steady paychecks that you were used to, the fear inside your head will knock harder and louder. At first, it may be a little kick…with a little banging…but that fear will only get bigger and bigger. If you are not able to control your fears, this fear will eat you alive. When I got started, there were nights that I would wake up in a cold sweat, worrying about when and where my next paycheck was gonna come from.

(If you’re having trouble focusing, a huge part of that comes from fear, believe it or not. Try meditating. Works wonders.)

2) Control over self

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.” -Marianne Williamson.

I’ve seen this over and over again. Affiliate marketers who find the riches promoting shady offers that are insanely and unbelievably easy to convert, doing 5-6 digit revenues per day….or entrepreneurs who hit the golden jackpot of virality and their revenue skyrockets. The money goes WAY over their head and they start spending like crazy. With the fast life comes fast cars and fast women.. endless flow of party, alcohol, and drugs.

Then their business DIES because they dropped the balls. Then bam.. their business goes kaput. Because they lacked the control to master their inner self, their outer self takes over.

3) Belief in self

Imagine there are 20 other companies doing what YOU do. And you tell people that you’re going to revolutionize the world with your new & improved version of that thing you make… that EVERYONE makes. What would people say? “You’re wasting time”…. “it’s been done”… bla bla. So what do you do? Do you listen to them and quit? Or do yourself to make a plan and dream a reality and keep going?

Most would quit. Remember Google? That was their story. That was Facebook’s story. That was DropBox’s story. That was WalMart’s story. That was Virgin Airlines’ story. Do you believe in yourself to make your plan and dream a reality?

Better yet, when you’re down.. can you keep yourself motivated long enough to get out of the valley, and back up to the peak?

 

Happiness

If you ARE an entrepreneur, why do you do what you do? Ever think about that?

What’s funny is that I know an immigrant family that lives not too far from where I live, that are probably in the top 20 of all the people that I’ve ever met in my life. Yet their family’s combined income is less than what I used to make in one month during my boom affiliate days.

Yes, life isn’t about “stacking” cash. It’s not about being covered on Forbes. It’s not about being the next Bill Gates. It’s not about going IPO.

Because at the end of the day, you have your OWN life. You come home to your OWN family. You sleep next to YOUR wife. It doesn’t matter what kind of icon you compare yourself, because ultimately it’s your own skin that you have to comfortable in.

While I like challenging myself to see how far in life I can take myself, I now know that this path isn’t for everyone. Because some people genuinely get unhappy from taking risks. And that’s ok.

Why?

Because we ALL wanna be happy.

I’ll end this post with this awesome story I read, that really gave me a great perspective:

 

A businessman was at the pier of a small coastal Mexican village when a small boat with just one fisherman docked. Inside the small boat were several large yellowfin tuna. The businessman complimented the Mexican on the quality of his fish and asked how long it took to catch them. The Mexican replied only a little while.

The businessman then asked why he didn’t stay out longer and catch more fish? The Mexican said he had enough to support his family’s immediate needs. The businessman then asked, but what do you do with the rest of your time? The Mexican fisherman said, “I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, take a siesta with my wife, Maria, stroll into the village each evening where I sip wine and play guitar with my amigos; I have a full and busy life, señor.”

The businessman scoffed, “I am a Harvard MBA and I could help you. You should spend more time fishing and with the proceeds buy a bigger boat. With the proceeds from the bigger boat you could buy several boats; eventually you would have a fleet of fishing boats. Instead of selling your catch to a middleman, you would sell directly to the processor and eventually open your own cannery. You would control the product, processing and distribution. You would need to leave this small coastal fishing village and move to Mexico City, then LA and eventually New York City where you would run your expanding enterprise.”

The Mexican fisherman asked, “But señor, how long will this all take?” To which the businessman replied, “15-20 years.” “But what then, señor?” The businessman laughed and said, “That’s the best part! When the time is right you would announce an IPO and sell your company stock to the public and become very rich. You would make millions.” “Millions, señor? Then what?” The businessman said, “Then you would retire. Move to a small coastal fishing village where you would sleep late, fish a little, play with your kids, take a siesta with your wife, stroll to the village in the evenings where you could sip wine and play your guitar with your amigos.”

The fisherman, still smiling, looked up and said, “Isn’t that what I’m doing right now?”

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A Six-Step Plan for Faster, Easier Writing - DailyBlogTips

A Six-Step Plan for Faster, Easier Writing - DailyBlogTips

A Six-Step Plan for Faster, Easier Writing

Posted: 03 Jun 2014 06:13 AM PDT

The faster you can write, the greater the results you'll see as a blogger.

Let's say you have six hours a week, and in those six hours, you normally manage to write three posts – averaging two hours per post.

You publish two of them on your blog and use one as a guest post.

That's not bad, but what if you could double your output and write six posts instead of three?

You might choose to publish slightly more on your blog (e.g. three posts not two), and you'd also be able to produce three guest posts every week.

So how can you double your writing speed? Just follow this step by step plan.

Step #1: Come Up With Lots of Ideas at Once

One of the biggest time-wasters for many bloggers is struggling to come up with an idea. You might find yourself sitting staring at the screen, doodling on a bit of paper, or starting off a post only to decide the idea wasn't great after all.

When you have a good idea, though, it's often really easy to race through your post – it almost seems to write itself.

There's a really simple solution here, and it's to come up with your ideas ahead of time. Set aside 30 minutes to come up with at least ten ideas, preferably more. You'll find that once you start jotting down your ideas, they come faster and faster.

Step #2: Give One Day a Theme

If you're posting more than once a week, choose a special theme for a particular day. E.g. some bloggers have Friday as a "roundup" day where they write about great posts from within their industry.

You might have noticed that we've recently started a "Bad SEO Practices" series on Mondays. This makes it easier for me to plan content – and though you might think it'd make it harder to come up with ideas, the truth is that when you give yourself constraints (like a specific topic to stick to), you'll find that you're more creative.

Your themes could be temporary and run for a few weeks, or they could be permanent and run consistently throughout the lifespan of your blog.

Step #3: Find the Right Time and Place to Write

Writing is a high-energy activity, and one that it's very easy to procrastinate over. It really helps to find out when in the day you're at your best. For me, it's generally mornings – you might be a night owl or an afternoon person, though.

As well as finding the right time, experiment with using different places to write. Perhaps you normally sit on the sofa to blog on your laptop – but you're often distracted by the TV, or by family members wanting to chat to you. Maybe getting out to a coffee shop, or writing in a bedroom with the door shut, could make all the difference.

Step #4: Stay Focused When You're Writing

One tempting but dangerous mistake is to get distracted while writing a blog post. I completely understand why this happens (it happens to me too!) – you might get stuck, or feel tired, and it's all too easy to flick open a browser and check Facebook or see what's new on BuzzFeed.

Alternatively, you might have Skype and your inbox open as you write your post, so you're distracted with messages from friends that you want to reply to quickly.

This can dramatically slow down your writing. Not just because you're spending time doing something else – but also because every time you switch your focus away from your writing, you make it hard to get back into the flow.

Most people can't focus for long periods of time, so try writing in short bursts of 20 – 45 minutes. (You might like to use the Pomodoro technique.) You'll probably surprise yourself with how much more productive you can be.

Step #5: Don't Edit and Write at the Same Time

As much as you can, avoid trying to edit while you're writing. Sure, you might need to backspace once in a while to fix a typo – but if you find yourself deleting and reworking whole sentences, you're slowing down your writing a lot.

Also, it's tough to see the big picture when you're still adding in all the details: once your post is finished, you'll have a much better sense of whether that sentence should stay or go. If you can, try to edit a day after drafting your post – you'll come to it fresh, you'll be more likely to spot mistakes, and you may well find that the post as a whole is better than you initially thought.

Step #6: Create a Personal Pre-Publication Checklist

There are often a bunch of little tasks to do when you're getting your post ready for publication, and if you find yourself struggling to remember these (or going back after publishing it to fix them), it can bog you down.

The easiest solution here is to create a personal checklist that includes anything you need to do once your post is written and edited. For instance, these are a few things you might include:

  • Add a "more" link so only the first few paragraphs show on the front page.
  • Put subheadings into the correct format.
  • Add bold text to pull out key points.
  • Include at least one link to a relevant post in the archives.
  • Check that there's a call to action at the end.

You don't have to master all these six steps at once – even if you can manage just two or three of them, you should see a clear improvement in your writing speed. If one of these worked especially well for you, or if you have a different step to add, just drop a comment below.

 

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Bad SEO Practices #2: Article Marketing Sites / Article Directories

Posted: 02 Jun 2014 08:35 AM PDT

In case you missed it, here’s the first post in this series: Bad SEO Practices #1: Buying and Selling Links.

Have you come across article marketing?

It means writing for sites like Ezine Articles, which are a repository of articles that anyone can republish – so long as they keep the author's bio box in place. (You might hear these called "article directories.")

Back in 2008 when I started blogging, I spent a bit of time writing ten or so articles. They sent me a bit of traffic, though nothing spectacular. More importantly, they helped me get links from other people's newsletters ("ezines") and websites.

The drawback to this was that many of the pieces on article marketing sites weren't particularly good … plus there's not much value for readers in the same article being repeated across multiple different websites.

Back in 2011, EzineArticles was hit hard by Google's algorithm update (along with plenty of other article directories). And over the past couple of years, SEO experts from sites like Search Engine Watch and Moz have spoken out against article marketing, saying that it might harm your search engine rankings.

Right now, you'll be wasting your time submitting to article marketing sites. There are plenty of better places to focus your efforts (like writing unique, value-packed guest posts for major sites in your niche).

Even worse, the links you get from article directories may actively harm your Google rankings. And of course, when anyone can reprint your work, you might find it popping up on spammy sites or even on your competitors' blogs. Do you really want that?

Article marketing may have worked six years ago, but it doesn't work today. If you're doing it, stop wasting your time. If it's something you've been thinking about, don't bother.

 

Wanna learn how to make more money with your website? Check the Online Profits training program!

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