The Six-Figure Second Income: How to Start and Grow a Successful Online Business Without Quitting Your Day Job (4 page)

Related Real Danger Number Three: You Think that the Only Good

Money Is Hard-Earned Money

This is the flipside of what we just covered and it often gets embedded into our nervous

systems from a very early age.

Google lists 4.5 mil ion results for U.S. Constitution, but it shows 13.5 mil ion results for

hard-earned money.

There’s no question that many people work extremely hard for their money. The mental

limitation comes when they think that only through hard work can they produce honest

money. It seems that some people apply moral overtones and believe that easy money is

only what thieves can get away with.

What you’l discover in this book is something in between. It won’t be along the lines of

those fake claims like: When you buy my system, money wil spew into your life like an

out-of-control ATM! No, in fact, you’l have to do some work using only bits of time here

and there. It might even involve turning off a rerun on TV in order to get something

finished.

On the other hand, there won’t be anything hard about it. The process is step-by-step

with absolutely no leaps involved. Even better, the process involves building something

once and getting paid over and over.

Think about the typical heart surgeon. She went to school for a jil ion years to become

trained and yes she does make a very nice income. But if she doesn’t show up at the

hospital to perform the next triple bypass, she doesn’t get paid.

That’s another way of saying the doc does piecework. It’s much more glamorous to be

a heart surgeon than to be a seamstress who must report to work and sew a thousand

boxer shorts to get paid a few bucks—but both occupations are piecework. The same is

true for $500-per-hour attorneys and even sports stars who get paid ridiculous sums. You

don’t show up to work? You don’t get paid.

Compare that to making an information product one time and sel ing it for years or

even decades afterward. Oh, you should update the information from time to time, but

fundamental y you have done the work once and now wil receive an income stream for a

very long time.

Is that hard-earned money? Wel , you did have to get off the couch to buy this book

and you are in fact spending time to learn how to make a six-figure income on the side,

so I applaud you for taking action. However, the great news is that, once you get your

income vehicle moving, you can hop on and enjoy the momentum as it carries you along

with relatively little effort.

I just hope you don’t have some moral or religious aversion to making money without

shedding any blood, sweat, or tears.

Real Danger Number Four: You Insist upon Staying in Your Comfort

Zone at All Times

It’s simply not necessary to take great risks or step way outside of your comfort zone in

order to make a lot of money, but stretching that zone is a good thing.

In the world of real estate investing, some so-cal ed experts advise you to come home

from work, wolf down some dinner, then change clothes and drag yourself back out,

knocking on door after door to find a real estate deal. That may work from time to time,

but it’s just unnecessary punishment. It’s also a great prescription for burnout.

I’ve made many mil ions of dol ars in real estate and have never found it necessary to

knock on door after door. Instead I use direct mail. I created a series of letters and

figured out where to get good-quality lists of motivated sel ers of real estate. Then I

created a system where I brought those names to a lady at a nearby senior center, and

she would address the envelopes and mail them.

It would have been more comfy for me to sit on the couch and dream about being rich

someday. Instead, I had to write those letters and improve them over time. I also went

through a few little old ladies to find one who did the best job for me. Those steps did not

represent massive discomfort but just stretched my comfort zone a bit.

This is not a book about real estate investing, but the same principles apply to any

other business. You probably know that a stretched and limber muscle performs better in

running and other sports. Wel , a stretched and limber brain wil make you more money.

Real Danger Number Five: You Think “My Situation Is Different”

This is an extremely dangerous one. Your mom probably cradled you and told you how

unique in the whole world you are. Your spouse probably has said something a tiny bit

less comforting, along the lines of, “They sure broke the mold after making you!” And it’s

a fact that your fingerprints are unique and so is the sum of your life experiences. So far

so good.

The problem comes when you use the I’m different concept as a shield to repel

anything you don’t want to hear or do.

You see a weight-loss ad and a quiet voice in your head whispers one of any number

of excuses:

• She’s way younger than I am—it’s no wonder her body can burn off fat when

mine can’t.

• It’s easy for an office worker to lose more weight because there’s no

refrigerator ful of food. I’m home and it’s just too tempting to open the fridge and grab

something.

• It’s easy for a person at home to lose more weight than I can because if you’re

always at home you can dictate what’s in the fridge. At the office we constantly are

going out to eat or having birthday cakes and so forth. I don’t want to appear rude or

weird so I just go with the flow and eat it, too.

That same highly skil ed force-field in most people’s brains can do similar repel ing

with any other topic—take the very book you’re holding, for example.

• I could never learn to make a good second income—every other moneymaking

thing I’ve tried has never worked.

• It’s easy for native English speakers to do this stuff, but I was born in Europe

and I’l always be at a disadvantage when writing things in English.

• This stuff probably worked back in 1999 when the economy was going great,

but haven’t you heard—we’re in a real bad economy right now.

• I don’t even have enough time to get a good night’s sleep. And now I’m

supposed to take on something else? There are only 24 hours in the day, you know,

and mine are al spoken for.

The list is endless because most people have highly developed excuse generators

that look like Bruce Lee in one of those martial arts movies in which he can fight off a

couple dozen attackers and not even break a sweat.

I want to state clearly and for the record that your mom was right—you are unique in

the world. Your spouse is also no doubt right that they’re not making any more people

quite like you. I’l also say right up front that I’m sure you do have plenty of chal enges of

one sort or another.

Given al that, here’s what I’d like you to do: Instead of looking for reasons why

something won’t work, look for ways you might adapt something to work. Look at each

interesting idea or success you hear about as a potential foothold. It might only be

something you can jamb your foot into with some effort, but you wil now be a step higher

than you were before.

It’s also how great inventions happen. A scientist let rubber cook too long by mistake

and found that it became extremely hard. Rather than throw it out, he thought: What might

this stuff be useful for? It turns out he stumbled on the process to vulcanize rubber, which

became strong enough to make tires out of.

Another scientist worked for the 3M Company and found a particularly useless type of

glue. It wasn’t strong at al . He fiddled around with what it might be useful for and

discovered that, if he painted some of it on the back of paper, it would stick to things but

could easily be removed. He tried it on notations to his music while playing in an

orchestra and it was just the thing. The Post-it Note was born.

Maybe you have a great invention inside of you too, but that’s not my point. I only want

you to recognize your mental Bruce Lee every time he gets ready to karate-chop another

opportunity. Tel him instead to hit the showers while you think if there’s anything useable

in the idea.

Even this instant I bet your Bruce Lee is working against you: “Wel , the next time I

invent glue or I am a scientist in a rubber lab, I’l be sure to keep my eyes open. But I’m

just a (whatever you are). Nothing exciting happens to me so my situation’s different.”

No, it’s not. In Chapter 2, which is about developing a product, I’l give you lots of ideas

on how to get a product to sel . Right now al I want is for you to begin to recognize that

decidedly unhelpful voice in your brain and stick it off in a corner when it pipes up.

Real Danger Number 6: You’re More of an Idea Pack Rat than a Beaver

Pack rats are famous for lining their nests with shiny objects like buttons, tinsel, foil, and

wire. The human equivalent is someone who is forever looking for the next Big Deal.

Here again, marketers are more than happy to oblige. A few years ago they

proclaimed, “The Internet is dead—here comes the SuperNet!” Then it was, “Direct mail

is dead—now it’s al about e-mail marketing!” A short time later we al were treated to yet

another proclamation: “E-mail is dead—now it’s al about blogs!” Then they heralded

Facebook as the next big thing—until someone else swore the real game-changer was

Twitter.

These are often the same hucksters who told you that you could sit on the couch and

money would spew from the TV. They want to be the pioneer whom you pay for the silver

bul et that you seek to solve al your problems in one fel swoop.

It ain’t gonna happen. Occasional y someone wil figure out a clever angle and make

some money from it. Then—just like the California Gold Rush—as soon as word gets

out, there’s a mad scramble to get in on the action. Prices go up and the quality of the

opportunity plummets.

That story should only be depressing for the human pack rat, because the good news

is that plenty of methods stil work just fine for making money online. No single method is

revolutionary, just as nothing is the single super-food you probably want to eat for the rest

of your life to the exclusion of al else.

It’s much better to style yourself after the beaver. After a bit of planning it decides that

a certain spot wil become its home. Then it doesn’t look for the single, absolutely perfect