One of my favorite practices is to watch versus reacting. Today at the store, I observed interactions between different people. Versus reacting
What Aspect of Success Mystifies Most People?
by Ryan Biddulph
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Wow Ryan….*of course* it's easy for you to write and self-publish 100 plus eBooks! You surround yourself with inspiration. I could write 1000 eBooks if I lived in Bali for 6 months at a time.
I get that email, sometimes.
Other people believe I succeeded because I live a lucky life, void of problems.
Nope.
One aspect of success completely vexes the general public.
You need to generously serve people for free, for many months then years, BEFORE you see success.
Fools see successful entrepreneurs and believe these folks succeed because they live an easy, freeing, comfortable life of a successful entrepreneur. Nope. Entrepreneurs succeed because they generously serve people, polishing their skills and increasing their exposure, before living a comfortable life.
I helped people for free to increase my blogging exposure and to improve my blogging skills when I had 4 cents to my name. I am not lying. I had 4 pennies in my wallet. I lived off of heat peanuts from the corner store at 25 cents a bag, lost 35 pounds because I barely ate and my girlfriend now wife thought I had cancer when she returned from an international trip, on seeing my state.
I helped people for free even though I literally had no money and lived on the poverty line because people who become wildly successful tend to walk a path of losing it all to prepare themselves for gaining it all.
Why Confusing?
Most humans live firmly ensconced inside of their comfort zones. Successful people live life well outside of their comfort zones. Imagine if you fear spending $10 bucks with $50,000 in your savings account. Now imagine a prospective billionaire who racks up $100,000 in credit card debt, has $10 to his name and works 15 hour days for free to improve his skills and increase his exposure. The average human cannot comprehend living such a life. So you work for free to get paid down the road? Even if you have no money? Wow. Most people never work unless they get paid every Thursday. Delaying gratification, developing a vision, trusting in yourself and working for free to gain exposure and skills confuses the heck out of this crowd.
If you work for a paycheck you cannot emotionally understand and embody the concept of working for something a billion times bigger than a paycheck.
Work for Free Now to Follow Your Passion and to Score a Huge Pay Day Later
Successful people work for free before making their fortune and living their dreams, often times while living quite average or even below average lives.
My struggles seemed par for the course on the entrepreneur journey. I went broke, bankrupt and sold virtually all I owned to shed my old life and to prepare myself for my newer, lean, dream life. I had zero need to zoom around in my sleek BMW working 12-15 hour days. Who needed cable TV? I would spend my days serving people for free.
Eventually, my increased skills, greater exposure and multiple streams of income allowed me to progressively make more money. But those early days of helping people generously, delaying gratification and standing firm even as I struggled financially laid the foundation for my movie-worthy life of travel and blogging.
Never assume successful entrepreneurs succeed because they live the Life of Riley. These folks were incredibly generous for years, often through much leaner times, to lay the foundation for their stunning success.
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Very true Ryan, entrepreneurship is a much different mindset than being an employee. Many of the people I talk to who want to start their own business have no clue how much cash it is likely to take before they make money. It’s strange to people to work for free or even pay to work for some time when they’re used to collecting a regular paycheck. Expecting immediate paychecks when going out on your own is one of the main reasons people close up shop, and for some people they may actually make more as an employee while working fewer hours for many years before their business gets large enough to pay them a nice paycheck. It’s not for everyone.