Category: Success

If you’re like most people, you fantasize about quitting your job so you can turn you side hustle into full time freedom. But for whatever reason, you fail to take the necessary action. I know this because like you, I’ve been there.

When I started my blog, my BIG goal was to make five thousand dollars per month and travel. Then life happened. I got married, moved into a new place, and rescued a puppy. And instead of fully growing my internet business, I got a job.

For a short time the job was exciting. It paid well. And having the position gave me a feeling of success. But as the weeks went on, I grew further from attaining my own freedom. That’s what prompted me to share my journey with you (through this blog).

When you work for a boss, you trade your freedom (in 40 hour blocks of time) for money. And if you’re like most people, the only way you can make more money is by working more hours or finding a part time job. But what if there was another way?

How To Turn Your Side Hustle Into Full Time Freedom

The Internet offers a gazillion opportunities to turn your words and ideas into income. If you make a plan and consistently follow the plan, you can grow your income into full time freedom. It’s really amazing if you think about it.

To give you an example of how this works, let’s imagine that you own a bakery that specializes in making treats for little puppies. (I live in Los Angeles. These actually do exist!) And let’s also pretend that each morning at 4AM, you fight the urge to hit your snooze button. You get out of bed and take a cold shower. Then you get dressed, brush your teeth and hit the road.

You arrive at the store by 5AM and get to work. By 8AM people start showing up to grab freshly baked treats for their puppies. For the next eight hours, you serve customers. Then after the store closes, you spend a few more hours cleaning and prepping for tomorrow. By the time you get home, it’s 10PM and you’re spent.

In total, after cost of goods sold, taxes and other expenses, you cleared like two hundred dollars. It’s not bad money, but it comes with a cost. While being your own boss is better than having a boss… In this scenario, you’ve traded a 40 hour work week for an 80 hour work week. Choosing to run this type of business is the opposite of full time freedom.

Now let’s pretend you have a product. Maybe it’s a puppy treat cookbook called “Delicious Puppy Treats You Can Bake In 10 Minutes.” And better yet, what if your cookbook is fully downloadable? So you set up a website and start selling your eBook.

Unlike your brick and mortar store (which carries all those expenses), you can set up a website and start selling your eBook for for less than dinner and a movie for two. Your website is open all the time. There are no more early mornings. No more baking. No more inventory. And you’re no longer limited by region. You can literally drive thousands of puppy owners (from anywhere on earth) to your website all day, every day.

Passive Income Will Change Your Life

Here is an example of how passive income will change your life. Imagine you decide to treat some friends to dinner. It’s a nice evening, full of laughter and conversation. Then the check comes and it’s around $100 dollars. At that exact moment, your phone lights up with an email notification. It’s from your shopping cart service. You just made a $97 sale. Essentially your downloadable product bought you dinner! (This happens in my life all the time. It’s a fantastic feeling.)

When it comes to creating passive income, you have unlimited earning potential. And while it may take you a few months create your downloadable product – Once your product is complete, you can make money without working. After you create one passive income stream, you can create more products. And with each new product, your passive income gets closer to full time freedom.

So what are you waiting for?

Your job was fun in the beginning. You came to work each day, energized to make things happen. But over time, enthusiasm faded. Market conditions, regulations and interpersonal crap with your co-workers and clients beat you into submission.

At least you’re not alone. Everyone else at your work is going through motions like a bunch of task zombies. Even your boss. Except she’s worse off than you. Because on top of also hating her job, she has to pretend the work matters. (It doesn’t.)

Your Boss Doesn’t Want You To Read This

If this sounds familiar, you have two choices.

1. Stay miserable until you get fired or die.
2. Plan your exit strategy TODAY.

To be clear, you don’t need to quit your job today. That would be reckless. But you do need to plan your exit strategy. And that is going to take some thought. To help you put things in perspective, watch this video:

See what I mean? When compared to the rest of the known universe, your work challenges are insignificant. Of course, this grandiose perspective doesn’t change the fact that come Monday, you’ll still have to white-knuckle your way through a bunch of bureaucratic BS.

The easy solution is to find another job. But this is a short term fix. Sooner or later you will hate your new job as much as you hate your current job. So instead of quitting, I suggest you keep your job and start a secret side hustle.

Establish Your Secret Side Hustle

A side hustle is a business you run on a small scale to replace your current income. And you should keep side hustle secret until it starts making money. The reason for secrecy is three fold:

1. Your side hustle could make your intention to leave your current employer blatantly obvious… Which could prompt your boss to help accelerate your exit. Depending on your financial situation, that could suck.
2. You don’t need the added pressure of friends and family continually asking about your business. And you certainly don’t need more unsolicited opinions outlining all the reasons your side hustle could fail.
3. And finally, having a secret side hustle will give you clarity and confidence. While all your co-workers are mucking about, worried about their fate as an employee, you’ll be able to watch the show with delightful detachment.

As you gain success in your secret side hustle, don’t be surprised if you get promoted at work. It is hard to describe, but having your own source of income gives you interpersonal super powers… Suddenly your opinions matter and your influence grows.

If this sounds good, here are next steps for planning your secret side hustle:

Step 1: Know your number. How much money do you need to make each month to afford your desired lifestyle?

Step 2: Find your side hustle: Out of the gazillion businesses you can create on the side, which one grabs your attention the most? (Since you’re reading this blog, I suggest you create a blog business.)

Step 3: Research successful people: Find people successful in your niche, already selling stuff to your ideal customer. What are they doing that you like? What are they doing that you don’t like?

Step 4: Take baby steps to get there: Building a profitable side hustle into a full time business takes time. Work backwards. Break your big business goals into monthly tasks. Then break the months into weeks. And break the weeks into days. What task will you complete today to get one step closer?

Step 5: And finally, keep learning. The only way you’re going to gain success in life is by learning new stuff, and by meeting people more successful than you. That’s it. Everything else is more of the same.

I wish you all the best on your journey.

Do you ever feel like you could be doing so much more with your life?

When you started out, you dreamed big. Do you remember?

You woke up each day filled with excitement for the possibilities of tomorrow.

Then life happened. 

Days became weeks. Weeks became years. And now, decades…

Are You Living A Life Of Quiet Desperation?

Now you start each day with a wave of dread.

You’re going through the motions and grinding. You have a decent job and a family who loves you.

To most people, you look like a success. But you and I both know you’re on the brink of burnout and you’re bored.

You’re living a life of quiet desperation.

How did this happen?

Easy. You settled. You let yourself get comfortable. But how this happened is not important. What is important is the next chapter in your life.

By reading these words, you are about to take a new direction in life…

How do I know?

Because you are not alone.

If you haven’t guessed, I am also experiencing this. And I decided to share my steps in real time so you can follow along.

I don’t promise you fame and fortune and a new Ferarri. But what you’ll get from me is real…

To be continued…

Over the years, I’ve taken some calculated business risks that usually turned out okay. So you’d think I’d have some good strategies for overcoming fear. But I never anticipated how my idiot friends would surprise me on my bachelor party.

On the day of my party, my best man convinced me we were going golfing. We were in Las Vegas. And if you’ve never been, there is a nice golf course a few miles south of the strip, in front of a small airport. And it wasn’t until we drove past the golf course that I realized there would be no golf…

“Just kidding. We’re going sky diving.”

My friends didn’t seem the least bit concerned that I had a fear of heights. Or that the absolute last thing I ever wanted to do IN MY LIFE was jump out of a perfectly good airplane.

The Truth About Skydiving (And Overcoming Fear)

Now if you’ve never entered a skydiving facility before, the first thing you do is watch some terrible video that tells you literally, the top 10 ways you will most likely die. Then they make you get on a table, lift your legs to your chest and pretend you’re falling. That’s it. That’s the whole training. A video and a leg exercise.

Then the skydiving place makes you sign a waiver, which once again assures you that your parachute will probably fail and you will plummet 18,000 feet to your doom. All of which filled my mind with horrific imaginings of how my beautiful bride would be left alone, crying at the alter.

At this point, I was pissed. Any strategy for overcoming fear was replaced by an irrepressible desire to punch my best man in his stupid, idiot face. And while the memory is still a little fuzzy, I remember YELLING within earshot of a dozen other prospective skydivers.

“BACHELOR PARTY FAIL!”

Another buddy sort of pushed me outside and assured me that he also thought the idea of falling from an airplane was stupid. He said that him and I should just go back inside and wait it out.

But back inside, he was like: “Just kidding.”

Think about it. Those guys had months and months to mentally prepare for the jump. And I had like fifteen minutes to decide. At that moment, I had two choices:

— I could wait on the sidelines and miss out on a life changing, memorable experience.

— I could DECIDE to overcome fear and go for it.

The skydiving facility had already pegged me as “the terrified wimp” so when I turned in my fully executed waiver, they put me in tandem with the ex-special forces guy named Demetrius who I’m sure could pass as Jason Statham’s stunt double.

“Do not worry. I will not let you die today.”

Next thing you know we are 18,000 feet above the earth and Demetrius is telling me to put my legs out the door. Before I had a chance to protest, I was free falling.

Free falling to the earth (at approximately 120 miles per hour), I realized  three important lessons about overcoming fear:

1. Once you “go for it” crying and complaining (and screaming) is not going to help.

2. Time is limited. So find some way to enjoy the process.

3. When you achieve the goal, you wonder why you waited.

I would love to tell you that some aspect of my life profoundly changed that day. But I mostly realized that my friends are jerks who cannot be trusted. The good news is, there are more dude trips in our future and I’m already thinking up ways I can trick help my friends find new strategies for overcoming fear.

If you’d like to get past your own fears so you can start your online business, check out InfoMarketing101

When I was in college, I took a job selling spas at a local carnival so I could pay for classes. Having had no prior sales experience, the first few weeks on the job were tough. People go to carnivals to ride rides and eat ice cream. They don’t go to carnivals to buy ten-thousand dollar hot tubs…

I arrived early each morning to set up our booth. I armed myself with glossy brochures and made sure the hot tubs were spic-n-span. Then I spent the rest of the day enthusiastically demonstrating the value of our hot tubs. Many times people would feign interest, ask for a brochure and walk away. And you know what? I never heard from those people again. And I never made a sale.

Then one day, a co-worker took me aside. He was one of these old salts, from the old school of selling. And unlike me, he had dropped out of high school and never looked back. His lack of formal education didn’t matter. He was the top sales pro in the company and had the respect of everyone, including the owner. Suffice it to say, he knew a thing or two…

OLD GUY
You know why you ain’t selling?

ME
Nobody comes to a carnival to buy an expensive hot tub?

OLD GUY
No. That’s a negative belief. And it ain’t true. Most of us are selling fine. With your energy and enthusiasm, you could outsell everyone on this team, including me. But you got one problem. Out of all the people you talked to, never once did you ask someone to buy. If you don’t ask, you don’t get!

The advice was simple. Obvious. And profound.

From that moment forward, anytime someone showed the slightest interest in buying a spa, I asked for the sale. And you know what? Even though I heard the word “no” hundreds of times, I also heard the word “yes” enough times to make me one of the top producers. That summer I not only made enough money to pay for my classes, but I learned a lesson far more valuable than anything I leaned in college: If you don’t ask, you don’t get.