Nor will it be the only path you take. Passions change over time. I started with a passion for computer games, and I still enjoy playing. But my mission is a lot bigger now. We grow and mature and change.
Today, whether you’re taking your first steps and have yet to hear that first KaChing, or whether you have been online for a while and just want to know how to take in even more money, ask yourself whether you’re doing what you love. Launch a site about your biggest passion and just see how much you enjoy building it.
Don’t worry about the money. Do it for fun. I think it’s inevitable that when you do enjoyable work in an environment that’s as fertile and rich as the Internet, the rewards grow on their own.
2. YOU HAVE TO BELIEVE
Once you’ve identified your dream, you have to believe it’s the right one.
You have to believe that your life has a plan and a purpose. That belief can take a number of different forms. Personally, I believe there is a God and that He has a plan for my life. Regardless, you have to believe that what you’re doing is right—and right for you. With a belief and a dream, things start to happen.
But they don’t always happen in quite the way you want. Businesses have ups and downs, and there will be times when your belief is tested. That certainly happened to me when I was starting out.
When I began building a web site, I had an investor. He provided $25,000, allowing me to quit my job and prepare to make my first million. By the summer, I had $1.37 left.
Things really weren’t looking good and I had every reason to think that I should be doing something else. But I was certain that this was what I was supposed to do. I knew it.
I believed it.
Within a week I received an e-mail from a man in Seattle. I’d never heard of him, and I’d certainly never heard of the Japanese multimedia corporation he said he was representing. His e-mail said that the company wanted to license some of my web site content and localize it for the Japanese market.
I figured that would be worth a couple hundred bucks a month. Before I could say anything, he offered me $5,000 a month. We upsold him to $7,500 a month, and out of nowhere the company was saved.
You could say that was just dumb luck. But I don’t think so. If I hadn’t believed that I was doing the right thing, I would have given up long before that e-mail came in. When you believe that you’re doing what you’re supposed to be doing, things happen. You stick to it and you work hard, even when the quitters would have long since given up.
If you want to be successful, you have to believe that there is a plan and a purpose in your life. Forget about what your friends say. Don’t listen to your relatives if they try to change your mind. You have to believe the truth: that you have a path. Once you’ve found it, you have to keep doing it.
3. YOU HAVE TO PREPARE
Dreams and beliefs are mental things. But to achieve success you have to break a sweat, too. You have to prepare.
Before I became a mobile DJ, I researched equipment. Before I give a talk, I prepare the slides. And before I create a new product, I examine what people want from it and what I need to do to find the up-to-date, practical information they need.
I prepare.
Whatever the subject matter of your web site, you have to commit yourself to having the latest knowledge on your topic. You have to understand how the field ranges, who the important influences are, and which topics are most in demand.
It’s a process that takes time—and that’s why it’s so valuable. The information that you’ll be offering through your site allows the people who read it to skip past some of that learning stage. Whether you’re a professional plumber or an amateur photographer, your expertise is the result of years of practice and experience. That’s an asset, and the next stage of the preparation is to understand which parts of that asset are the most valuable and how people most want to receive them.
Preparation means investing in yourself and in your success. It’s a fundamental part of that success.
4. YOU HAVE TO ACT
Preparation is essential, but it brings a danger. I’ve come across plenty of people who buy the books, do the conferences, talk the talk ... and yet never accomplish anything. They suffer the “paralysis of analysis.”
You can never feel prepared enough. There’s always more to learn, more to read, more to test. Preparation is all about answering questions: How much are the keywords in that subtopic worth? What happens if I put a different ad unit here? How many people really bought that e-book? How much did they pay for it, and how would my own differ? Every answer brings up three more questions.
Eventually, there comes a time when you just have to act, ready or not.
Back in 2006, I teamed up with my friend Eric Holmlund to create an online reality television show. We wanted it to be something like The Apprentice, but focused on Internet marketing. In each episode, a group of rising entrepreneurs would be set a task related to one aspect of building an online business, and the worst-performing candidate would be eliminated. The idea was simple enough, but the implementation? That was another story.
Eric had dabbled a little in film production—although nothing on this scale—and it was all completely new to me. We had no idea what we were letting ourselves in for. We spent months
