The beauty of doing your own thing ay? At the moment I’m away on holidays in Northern NSW in a place called Byron Bay. I’ve just come back from a jog on the beach and am sitting at the hotel balcony with my laptop checking a few things and updating my blog.

In business there are ups and downs and you should not feel that things might not go the way you planned. The truth is they never do. You WILL hit rock bottom at some poit, both financially and worst of all mentally.

On the flip side the perks are quite remarkable. I’m not really talking about financial perks right now (although these are great) but the perks of freedom. Freedom to get up and go and do whatever you want, whenever you want without requesting permission or feeling guilty about it. If you don’t want to get into business for the money, then the reward of freedom alone, should be enough to convince you to take that step.

After all, when your on your death bed the last thing you will be thinking is, “I wish I worked more”.

Have a great weekend!

Nothing makes me cringe more than hearing someone say “you need money to make money“. Simply put, this is a load of crap. For many of the people who say this, it’s purely as an excuse which they try to pass off as a reason. However that’s all it is, an excuse. It’s an excuse so they don’t put themselves out there in a world where failure is a definite possibility. Its an excuse to not have to put in any effort. Most notably is an excuse to themselves as to why they are where they are and why they are not happy. People feel validated by this excuse and keep reminding themselves that having no money is the reason they are unable to achieve their goals. It’s the easy way out.

In my experience the amount of money that I have spent on starting and growing a business has had very little effect on its profitability or success. I have spent $50k developing a mobile advertising network which although has proved successful, has not netted me anywhere near what I was expecting. Yet on the other hand, I created several mobile sites, each one under $100 and they have taken off, in fact they have produced more of a profit than my 50k project! I wouldn’t call the 50k project a flop, as it works great, but I would call the smaller projects huge successes and examples of how I didn’t really need money to make money.

The level of success of my businesses have been completely disproportional to the amount of capital invested, however totally proportional to the amount of value they provide. In later posts I will go through the various options but for now I wanted to share a few examples. Firstly, so that you can stop thinking that you need money to make money and secondly to start thinking about how value, hard work and determination creates money.

1. Plenty of Fish: Markus Frind started this dating site with nothing. It started as a hobby when he was trying to learn ASP.net programming and decided to practice on a dating site. He worked on it a few hours a night and did it because it was a challenge to his ASP.net skills. But what he created was immense value. Value in that all other dating sites around the world charged members to talk to other members. Markus didn’t charge a cent for this service and this was value according to site members. The sites popularity spread massively to where it is today, a 1.5billion page behemoth making anywhere between $5-10 million a year in Adsense revenue. All he did was create a simple service that others would charge for, charge nothing for it and make money through advertising. Simple.
2. Shoemoney: Started the now famous Shoemoney blog. Started off struggling to hold a job. Found out how to turn images into wallpapers for a mobile phone.  Told others how to do it and got a great response. Set up next-pimp.com and used Google Adsense for revenue. Then moved into the ringtones industry and made more money with Adsense (leading to his famous $132,994.97 Adsense cheque) until he got into the subscription/membership revenue model. He had 70,000 members paying 19.95 every 6 months and generating over 3 millions dollars for that year as a recurring income. Once again the fact he had no money to start with didn’t mean he couldn’t make money.
3. J.K. Rowling - Do I need to explain? Born in Bristol, England into a middle class family. Hit hard by the death of her mother, who suffered from multiple sclerosis, and left for Portugal where she married and had a daughter. Returned to Edinburgh a single mom; lived on welfare while finishing her first Harry Potter tale. (Forbes). She went from living on welfare becoming one of the richest woman in Britain in the space of a few years. The 2008 Rowling’s estimated fortune was £560 million ($798 US million).
4. Steve Jobs – Adopted and could not afford to stay in college so co-founded Apple in his parents garage. Has has been monumental in how we use personal computers today and has changed entertainment forever with the introduction of the category and history killing iPod. Once again, starting with nothing but an idea, created a remarkable product and value… now the rest is history.
5. 2/3rds of the worlds billionaires – not a person or a company but more an institution. 2/3rds of the worlds billionaires started out with next to nothing. It was determination and drive that got them to where they are now. These are people who faced adversity many times over and yet still overcame the difficulties to become extremely successful in their field.

This is why whenever I hear that dreaded saying I cringe. People who were in much worse sitatuations than you and I have been able to overcome barriers much worse than simply start up capital problems. We are talking about prosecution, famine, war and other situations which many of us have been fortunate enough not to have been exposed to. It’s not that the doubters don’t have the money, but rather they don’t have the determination, drive and passion when it comes to following their dreams.

Wikipedia has 10 different definitions for the term “value”, 12 if you include those definitions on subcategories.

I personally don’t have a specific definition but I know when I am given something that is of great value. The other day I was give a link to Chris Guillebeau’s manifesto 279 Days to Overnight Success. Its a free report on how to make a living out of blogging online. If your interested in making a living online then this would be the definition of value, hands down.

Even if your not interested in making money online, you should still read this as it is fascinating. You can download it by visiting Chris’s site here or directly download it by clicking here.

Hope you enjoy and get as much out of it as I did.

I live a relatively different life compared to the majority of people. I don’t work 9-5, although I have in the past and all that did was tell me that is just was not for me. I don’t like to be put in a box and told what to do and how I should be doing it. I like to find opportunities that are available and pursue them and if they work and are sustainable I develop them and either sell, or hold onto and grow. I work when I want and how I want.

If your reading this blog then chances are that my life isn’t so different but then again, you are the minority. I have read books such as Tim Ferriss’s Four Hour Work Week and Robert Kiyosaki’s, Rich Dad, Poor Dad. What I have taken from these it not so much the ability to only work four hours a week or determining the difference between an asset and a liability. I don’t believe these books are designed to give you the direct answers but rather to stimulate thought and ideas regarding ways you can live the life you want to live as well as having sustainable financial freedom.

What is my take on supporting your lifestyle? Its not particularly complex but this is my method. Over compensate for your liabilities using your assets. First I guess we need to clarify the term liability and the term asset. This isn’t particularly complex either as I’m not an accountant and won’t be taking their definition of what an asset and a liability is. My definitions are inline with that of Robert Kiyosaki and it’s quite simple:

Asset: Something that leads to money coming in.

Liability: Something that leads to money going out.

Wow… how complex is that? It’s not your traditional definition of the terms by any means, probably far from it but I don’t care. My accountant’s job is to get all technical regarding these terms. My job is to put them in a form that is understandable so I can create structure for how I want to live my life.

Once we have an understanding of these two terms we can lead on to supporting your lifestyle. To support any lifestyle you want, no matter how elaborate it may be, it can be done by simply by getting this equation to work: Assets > Liabilities. Assets are greater than liabilities.  It’s as simple as that. If the money coming in is greater than the money going out you can do whatever you like.

It may seems that I have just stated the obvious but you would be extremely surprised by the amount of people who just don’t get this concept. They rack up credit card bills and go out on extreme nights out only to find themselves strapped for cash with weeks to go until their next paycheck. Yes of course this could be just down to not being able to manage money correctly but if you had assets that overcompensated for your liabilities then you would not run into this problem.

First you need to find out what your lifestyle really costs. If you like to go out and party then factor that in, how much does it cost you to go out every week? Do you have a passion for traveling? How much money do you need for your traveling? If your not sure about how to calculate your expenses then I would recommend you do so by using Tim Ferriss’s lifestyle calculator.

Once you have calculated your lifestyle cost then what you need to do is find assets that will generate enough income to pay off your liabilities. What I do not recommend is finding one cash cow which you believe will pay off all these expenses. By doing this you are developing a mentality of “have a job/asset/income that pays well and then spend as much of it as you can”. Sure if you can find an cash cow or passive income that generates $5k a day then fine, but the likely-hood of this is minimal.

I believe the key is to determine your ideal lifestyle then set up assets and income in order to support it. This is alternate to the usual approach of taking an income then determining the lifestyle that you can lead from it. By determining your lifestyle first you are telling yourself that this is the life you want to lead and you will find a way to lead it. You are telling the world what you want and in turn the world will deliver. The standard method forces you to conform to influences around you, rather than getting them to conform to you.

For example, you may like to eat out a lot and buy new clothes on a regular basis. Say this costs you $500 per week alone. Build an income stream in order to support this particular aspect. You may also own a house and need to pay a mortgage of say, $2500 per month. Ideally what you would want to do is find a passive income that generates about $3000 (you always want a buffer). Maybe you want the car of your dreams which is another $1000 per month. Set-up and and build another passive income so you can afford your dream car then purchase it.

It’s much easier in my opinion to create a few income streams that generating $2000 per month that it is to generate one bringing in $7,000 but that’s not the important thing to get out of this. The important habits you develop is that of a millionaire mindset. You learn that to support any further expenses you don’t need to limit yourself to what you already have. There is no need to take out from your current assets as you know you can create more revenue opportunities to support any new expenses by purchasing or creating good assets.

Don’t be afraid of turning the tide and creating the lifestyle you want to lead without thinking about the restrictions. I am talking about lifestyle expenses from a purely monetary point of view. You may just determine that you wish to do more “doing” things rather than simply “having” more things. Now you have the option. Determine what you want then devise a way to achieve this. Do it the traditional or “normal” way and your only really limiting yourself.

Procrastination effects 98.66% of people. No seriously I just made that up but I’m sure many of us suffer from it and I’d be confident enough to say the majority of us do. I do and am not ashamed to say it. I am the king of leaving things to the last minute and every time I do it leads to disaster. Yet whenever I get on top of things early, my life improves ten fold however this doesn’t stop me getting back into the procrastinating swing of things.

There are many reasons as to why we procrastinate. It’s an excuse, an excuse to ourselves to avoid failure, to avoid a fear or to avoid doing things we don’t like. If you don’t do it now, then maybe you won’t fail now so put the stress off to another time. Sounds silly but we aren’t always rational and logical. Is a Task vs Time thing (I will explain this a little later) where you don’t want to spend your time doing a boring task.

I can be known to procrastinate when it comes to cold calling however when I remove this fear of rejection and just get on the phone it’s not so bad. I think to myself “that’s not so bad”, and commit to not putting it off tomorrow either and promise myself to start first thing in the morning. Morning comes and I’m checking every email account I have ever set up, praying a friend of mine is online for a Facebook chat or simply doing ‘easier’ tasks.

I’m getting better though because I have found a few personal methods that have helped me to overcome the difficulties of my procrastination. When I follow these steps my procrastination disappears yet the key is to be persistent and use these methods regularly until it’s second nature.

Do something related - It does not have to be starting the task. Just do something related to it. If you need to start cold calling, get on the phone and pay a bill. Get on the phone and book your massage that you will receive after you finish your task. Need to write a blog post? Then reply to a few posts. Add a comment on a forum. Need to go to the gym? Put on your shoes. The aim is to get into the starting mood where starting is only a tiny (mental) step. If you need to start making some cold calls and your on Twitter “networking” then the process of getting the phone, looking up a prospective client, dialing the number, waiting nervously for someone to answer the phone (almost hoping no one does), then start rapping your heart out seems daunting. So you never start. On the flip side, if your on the phone already, making calls, hearing ring tones, speaking to people the step isn’t really that big. Same goes for writers, your not going to find it easy to start if your on the phone or watching Youtube videos. Get writing something. Start the process and slowly bring your mind up to speed. It’s all a mental shift. Deep down we know picking up a phone and calling takes about 8 seconds but mentally if your not in the right state of mind, the thought of those 8 seconds can be unbearable.  Procrastination is a mental thing so it requires a change in your mindset. Doing something related will hopefully lead to my second point.

Time Blocks and Task vs Time- Set yourself time goals (again make sure they are unrealistic) and work for these time blocks only. I found a good time block to use is an hour, but you can vary that. After ever time block of 1 hr reward yourself with things you love to do. Procrastination occurs when there is a compromise between doing the things you like to do and doing the things you have to do and I refer to this as Task vs Time. This is the relationship between the limited time you have and the time that it will take to complete the task you really don’t want to do.  Get on Youtube or Facebook for 20 minutes after every time block then start the next time block. This reward will reduce the effect of task vs time as you still are able to do the things you love to do and still work on your task.

Ambitious Goals – Set yourself ambitious almost unrealistic goals. If the task you are about to undertake will take 6 hours set yourself a goal to finish it within 1hr. This is a mental mind shift. There is a strong element of time here. If you think you need to do a 6 hour task then that is 6 hours of your day, 6 hours of your life that you will need to forgo doing this task. Therefore you associate that task with being a waste of your valuable time and gather disdain towards doing it and ultimately you will put it off. So set yourself a really ambitious goal. Say that you are going to complete the task in 1hr. Got 100 phone calls to make? Try to do it in 1hr… and charge. Need to write a 4000 word blog post, 1 hr… and charge. This does a few things. It tells you before starting that you will only be working for 1hr. Not so much time wasted. Secondly by working feverishly and intensely you will develop a rhythm which will help break through the wasted time mentality barrier. This brings us to:

Flow – Using the above technique will get you into a flow and this flow is a fantastic tool to target reverberating procrastination effects. Putting yourself into a zone will allow you to block out distractions and focus on the task at hand. The key is to run with it. If your writing just put down whatever comes to mind. Ignore mistakes. Ignore the fact you might ramble and just get into a zone and write. Making phone calls? As soon as you hang up dial the next number. Make it flow. Don’t stop until you have completed your time block.

Getting Started – You might be wondering why this isn’t first on my list. You hear it everywhere, getting started is the hardest part and no matter how many times you hear it, it’s importance simply can never be put into words. So I won’t try. If you can get started then you simply don’t need help in dealing with procrastination, your already there. Instead I thought I’d rather give ideas that would lead to and make getting started easier by changing your mind set. Doing something related, the first point, is aimed to guide you to making the first step which is to get started. The other points are designed to get you deeper into the anti-procrastination mind set and make is easier to get started. The thing is that whatever advice you get about procrastination it’s all to do with leading you to get to this point, getting started. If you can master this then you’ll never have to worry about procrastination again.

Hunched over, your head drops down, focusing your glare into the floor. What now? Why do I bother? That gym workout isn’t happening today. That block of chocolate isn’t that big, I’ll give it a go. What’s faster a rabbit or a hamster? I’ll Google it.

Everyone goes through a time when it all gets a bit too much, entrepreneurs even more so. Its the life of uncertainty and challenge which gets us excited to wake up every morning but they are the exact same reasons that makes us wonder whether it’s worth continuing. The high and lows of an entrepreneurs life is the definition of contrast, an absolute canyon, an unfathomable warp of time and space from the highs to the lows. It’s a wild ride that works your emotions and nerve like nothing else and as quickly as you shout for joy it can break you, then hit you while your down, several times.

So what do you do when the times are really tough and your body and mind goes into shut down mode? First, you must realise and probably already know, that everyone goes through this. A great inspirational video and article is on Neil Patel’s blog. I’d love to say there is an answer but it’s not that easy, however I will discuss a process based on what works for me and hopefully it may see you through a few more days and help you work through your rough patch. You never know, it may be just enough time for the cycle to start getting things flowing back your way.

Act Negative – What? Yes really, act negative. Take yourself down. There is no point being in a half-hearted mindset. If your stuck feeling 50% and it’s been like that for a while it’s very hard to rocket up to 80-90% in no time. It’s all about momentum. Your stuck in the middle of a hill and that up hill battle is just too steep to gain momentum if your starting from a standstill. You need a running start. Think of it as if you were riding a bike and you see a large hill up ahead. The best way to tackle it is you gather up speed before the hill starts and then ride your momentum up the hill. If you stuck at 50% it’s like getting halfway up the hill, stopping, then trying to get up the rest of the way from standstill. It’s too hard and long of a slog. So when I say act negative what I mean is bring yourself down a bit, to about a nice flat 20%.

How do you bring yourself down to a 20%? Stop your half hearted work. Stop writing another boring blog post. Take a day off and spend it in bed. Don’t shave. Stay in your pyjamas. Don’t do your hair. Sleep in. Don’t go to the gym. Eat McDonald’s three times in the day. Drink normal Coke (non-diet Coke – imagine!!). Have carbs at night. Just for a day or two.

It’s possible that you may be thinking that this is the worst advice ever but what your trying to do by acting negative is consciously and deliberately bring yourself down to a 20%. This is the nice flat section your on before the climb up the hill. Now once your in a pretty downtrodden state set yourself a day when you will charge up that hill and get ready to gather momentum.

How do you gain your momentum? Wake up early. Get some sun (Vitamin D – feels good). Go for a run. Take the dog for a walk. Drink Water. Get a hair-cut. Shave. Dress beautifully. Eat great food. Start Fresh.

The aim here is to do many positive things and build your momentum up. Think of each positive activity as a +1 and the more your do, the more momentum you will gather to break you past that 50% you were stuck in for so long. Then once you get back to your work the momentum will help get you past your boring stalemate. Ideas will come rushing and the energy and drive will flow easier as long as you maintain and use your momentum.

Notice I never state to think negatively. Thinking negative is the root to gaining momentum in the other direction, getting you from 50% down to 10% in no time. Negative thoughts are carcinogenic. Negative thoughts fester, multiply and embed themselves deep and are difficult to overcome. Bringing yourself down should not involve negative thoughts in any way. If you start thinking negative openly tell yourself positive things and if that doesn’t work, watch Seinfeld.

This is not something I recommend every time something goes wrong, that would be ridiculous but rather something that can be used to target a period of frustration and seemingly nothingness. Usually it’s a matter of sucking it up and charging forward but sometimes that just won’t work and may even lead to more minor failures resulting in further negative momentum. Acting negative and doing it superficially can be used in order to give yourself an opportunity to build momentum and break through the ceiling that at one stage made you wonder whether it was all just a bit too much.

I have been training at the gym for many years now, 11 years in fact. In my early years, especially when I was a beginner, I used to spend well over an hour at the gym, slogging away thinking this is the best way to do it. Work hard and long and you’ll see results. This was until I spoke to a relative of mine who is a former professional body builder and elite personal trainer. When I went to him with my training schedule I expected him to tell me I’m not working hard enough, or I need to do more exercises.  What came as a surprise was that he told me the exact opposite of what I expected to hear. The feedback was simple, I do too much. I never got my head around it but thought I would give it a go regardless and the results were outstanding. Plus I only spent 20 minutes in the gym per session, then I was gone.

I never understood the reasoning behind it until  I discovered the 80:20 principle. Officially known as the Pareto Principle, the 80:20 principle states that roughly 80% of the effect is based on 20% of the cause. So for example a sales force may make 80% of its income from 20% of its clients (example courtesy of Wikipedia… but its a standard one!). Or 80% of a countries wealth is made up from 20% of the population. 20% of your bills make up 80% of your total expenses (rent, mortgage, car etc). You get the gist.

Back to the gym workouts. It’s a well known fact that 20% of your workout actually leads to 80% of the results. So what if you channel this knowledge and focus on only 20% of your workout? It would be so much easier if you could transform a 90 minute workout into an 18 minute session yet see the same results.

So how do you do this? Lets be specific, if you are doing 10 repetitions for a particular exercise, the final 2 repetitions (the 20%) are the ones that lead to 80% of the gain. Of course you can’t just do 2 reps and that’s it, you need to build up to the final 2 reps. Well how about decreasing your resting time between sets by 80%? So say you take a 1 minute break, try taking a 15 second (not exactly 80% less but close) break instead. By doing this your muscles will be put in the situation that they need to be in to get maximum results, the final few reps, the coveted 20% And they will get to this stage 80% faster. So not only are you shortening the time resting between sets by 80%, your also getting your muscles to their optimal results stage 80% faster! This means shorter and more concentrated workouts and therefore better results, yet spending 80% less time in the gym. Don’t underestimate the cardiovascular effects the minimal rest time will have. My only other advice, be prepared to go down a few kgs on that dumbbell!

I suggest trying it for 30 days (Steve Pavlina style) and see how you feel after your trial period is over. Or just try it for 1 day, whatever you do, I strongly recommend giving it a go and see what happens. I know that once you try it and see the results you would never want to go back to your old training ways.