The biggest false assumption is that it’s easy. Yep, I know, but I see this over and over again. This myth is prolonged by all of the so-called “gurus” online who show you story upon story of how someone make $20k in their first 30 days using their XYZ marketing system. Don’t fall for the hype. That person may have actually had those results, but you can be sure that there is much more to the story.

Working online is a tremendously rewarding experience, but, like anything else in life, it takes time to build your success. Sure, there are some exceptions, but in general you should plan for a long term process. Of course it totally depends on your experience, but it may take a year just to become familiar enough with you need to learn to become successful. So if you are indeed intent on making this work, make a long term plan with short term goals. Making money, at first, shouldn’t even be one of your goals. The very first goal should be education and understanding. With that, you can more properly assess your own abilities and skills and try to hone in on an area that aligns well with your talents.
After you have performed the necessary skills assessment and picked an area to target, you need to remain laser focused. That is probably the single biggest mistake that I made early on. There is just so much to learn that I spend a lot of time (and yes, a lot of money as well) studying and testing lots of different strategies and techniques. I also took the approach of throwing a lot of stuff at the wall to see what would stick – hardly an effective tactic. It was not until I decided to focus on just one area that my earnings really took off. I highly recommend you do the same. Don’t try to be a generalist – we live in a “specialist” society. Pick an area to specialize in that you have the abilities to distinguish yourself from the crowd and then just proceed with dedication and focus.

Enjoy!

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The word itself is not magical or mysterious, though it is completely understood at its core. The power lies not in the word itself, but in the process of truly internalizing and knowing the definition of the word and realizing just how truly fundamental it is.

Now as I prepare to introduce this concept to you, many will dismiss what I’m saying – that’s okay, this article is not for you. But for those of you who are humble enough to learn from someone who has been there and has pulled himself up into a six figure income earner in just a short six months, for you, I ask that you go somewhere quiet and re-read this article several times. Print it out. Internalize the real power of what I’m about to tell you and allow it to transform your mindset in the snap of a finger.

We have been taught from an early age that things have to happen slowly, that slower is better (ever heard the story of the Tortoise and the Hare?), but I’m hear to tell you that the exact opposite is true. You truly can transform yourself in a very short time period if you are willing to question some of your long held beliefs, discard some of the limiting ones, and embrace your own commitment to success.

You see the biggest changes we can make come from within. Those changes involve redefining your fundamental belief systems and those changes can transform you in an instant, removing decades of self-imposed limitations. When it happens for you it will be as if you have been seeing in black and white all of your life and someone instantaneously shows you how to see in color for the first time. Suddenly limitations and fears just begin to melt away.

The word that I want you to redefine is the word “decide”. Sounds so simple, doesn’t it? But here’s what I want you to understand. If you research the word to its original roots, the word decide literally translates “to cut off from all other possibilities”. Now, I want you to stop and go back and re-read that about 10 times. Visualize the power in that phrase. Imagine how your life could be different if you truly embraced the definition of the word “decide” from this day forward. Did you stop and go back to ponder that for a minute? If not, you’re missing the point and you will likely not get anything out of this article.

“To cut off from all other possibilities”. What if you decided to treat your home business like a business and actually commit to it, rather than expecting it to just change for you? What if you decided that now was your time to change? What if you decided that you were no longer going to allow fear, complacency and procrastination to dominate your life? What if you decided to make today the first day of a new level of truly living your life rather than merely going through the motions?

You see that magical day came for me because I finally decided that I deserved better out of life and I decided to take action. I hope that you too will find the incredible power of this simple little misunderstood word, decide.

Momentum is both a physical property and a psychological one as well. We all have had times when things just couldn’t feel any better, couldn’t go any smoother, like we were on cloud nine and nothing we did seemed to fail. Likewise, we’ve all had times in our life where we felt no matter how hard we tried things just wouldn’t turn our way – momentum is the common denominator in both, both as a positive and a negative.

One of my clients asked me the other day what I did to transition into success in this industry. He asked me what I meant when I said to take massive action. As I began to explain to him about the concept of massive action and building momentum, this aviation analogy came to mind. I’m just going to tell this from an aviator’s perspective and let you draw the parallels yourself…

As a pilot probably the most critical part of any flight is knowing your destination – knowing where it is that you are going and when you intend to arrive. After that, of course, you must do your fair share of planning, but, rest assured, all of the planning in the world will not prevent the head winds from coming, or the abrupt change in weather that inevitably alters our course, and, plan as we might, planning alone will never take us one inch closer to our destination. For planning itself is useless without actually “taking off”.

The experienced pilot knows that there will be deviations along the route. He doesn’t obsess about them, but he does plan for and acknowledge them. Furthermore, the experienced pilot knows that the most important aspect of flying is to ARRIVE at your destination. Sometimes that means some pretty major deviations along the way. Sometimes it means that the destination itself must be changed during the flight. But commitment and resolve to make it to that destination are unquestioned. Can you imagine being in a small, single engine airplane with a pilot who says (after you’re airborne), “we’re gonna give it a try and see if we land safely, if not at least we can say we gave it a shot”? Yet how many of you have taken that exact same approach to your Internet marketing business and then later pondered as to “why” it has not worked out for you?

Whether you’re flying a Leer Jet (as one of my clients does) or my humble little four passenger Cessna, there are two points in time when flying is at it’s most critical juncture – take offs and landings. Today I want to discuss “taking off”. Again, if we go back to our prime objective of reaching our destination, I think we can all agree that a successful departure is the most fundamental step. After going through the preliminary systems checks and ensuring we are safe to fly, we turn to the runway. One last glance at everything and then comes the moment of truth.

Once aligned and pointing down the runaway, we reach down and begin to apply power. How much you ask? Do we apply “just enough”? Do we think to ourselves, “What is the minimum amount of power I might need to probably get airborne?” Do we add an extra little bit for safe measure? Or do we give it EVERYTHING WE’VE GOT and apply full power, thrusting the throttle forward until our knuckles rest on the dashboard? I’ll tell you what, I don’t want to fly with a pilot who is trying to save gas and use “just enough” power to “maybe” get airborne! Likewise, do you really think that people will join you in your company if they see that you take the same approach to your business? Are you really giving your business every possible opportunity to take flight? Or are you perhaps loading it down with unnecessary baggage and weight and giving it a half-hearted “I think that should be enough effort” attempt?

You see my little Cessna weighs 3100 pounds fully loaded and it takes a lot of momentum to persuade it to get aloft – where it was designed to be. On the ground my little plane is awkward, uninspiring and even boring. Taxiing around the ground it is cumbersome, slow and awkward. But once you apply the necessary momentum it needs to become airborne, it transforms into an agile, docile and elegant machine – doing what it does best with the grace that can not adequately be described, it must be experienced. But without tremendous force and will, it would never get off the ground.

If you were to consider becoming a pilot, don’t you think that one prerequisite would be your complete and unwaivering belief in flight? Could you possibly fly a plane if you didn’t fundamentally know with every ounce of your fiber that that little Cessna could fly? Would you have the belief necessary to allow you to get the courage to apply full throttle that very first and magical time you departed the ground if you questioned the principal of light? Likewise, how strongly do you believe in yourself and your ability to make your business “fly”? This believe must be beyond question, beyond doubt – it must be known to you and just as real to you as “gravity” itself.

Once airborne, we pull back the power to “normal” ranges; we don’t want to over tax the motor that we need to take us to our destination. No longer are we concerned about giving every last RPM of power – we now have other things to concern ourselves with. Principally, keeping on course so that we ensure we arrive at our destination. This may surprise you, but any pilot will tell you that they are off course 90% of the time. But no pilot will ever tell you there is a doubt in their mind of where they’re going or that they will get there (if they do, I suggest you find another pilot to fly with). The destination is known. The general course is known. The approximate arrival time frame expected. But it is never that simple, and neither will your business be that simple. There are the winds to contend with, the clouds, the fog, Temporary Flight Restrictions to be navigated, the lighting strikes or the icing layer that must be avoided – flying can be a challenge, so can piloting your course as an entrepreneur!

Many of you as entrepreneurial business seekers have the “dream of flight”. You have prepared. You have studied. You have dreamed of arriving in style at your destination (maybe driving a new car, buying a new house, making that $20k a month). But ask yourself, have you truly pushed that throttle all the way to the dashboard until your knuckles are white with force? Ask yourself if you really are deserving of your dream? Have you really taken the massive action required to ensure your dream becomes a reality?

I started this off by saying that some stories are meant to be told… Well here is what I mean. I’ve had this in my mind for a couple of days now to write this analogy to you. Then today, I sat down and began to read a book that I have read many times before. Every time I re-read it some parts come alive again as I remember them, others are as if I’ve never read them before – perhaps I wasn’t really tuned in the last time I read it. Let me quote you a paragraph from “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” by Stephen R. Covey:

“Those of us who watched the lunar voyage of Apollo 11 were transfixed as we saw the first men walk on the moon and return to earth. Superlatives such as ‘fantastic’ and ‘incredible’ were inadequate to describe those eventful days. But to get there, those astronauts literally had to break out of the tremendous gravity pull of the earth. More energy was spent in the first few minutes of lift-off, in the first few miles of travel, than was used over the next several days to travel half a million miles.” (page 46)

When I read this paragraph, I knew I needed to pass on my little aviation analogy to you. What gravitational force is preventing you from achieving lift off in your new business venture? Are you really applying enough energy to “break free” from your current circumstances? Answer this one question: If you could not fail, what would you try to achieve? How much better would your life be if you truly pursued your dreams with the belief of a child – unaware that it “can’t” be done?

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” –Aristotle.

One last thought. Above I said that my little plane was designed to be ‘aloft’ – that is where it is at it’s best, graceful and true. Can you imagine how disappointed the engineers who designed it would be if the pilot never had the desire to apply full throttle? Never had the courage to give it all it deserved? You too, were designed to be successful. Each of you was born with all that is necessary in life to succeed. Only one question remains; do you have the courage to apply the momentum necessary to transform your dream into reality?