Stage 1: Personal Development
It may sound unimportant to you but if you want to learn how to be successful in life, you need to know that a healthy mindset and attitude towards life will have an impact on how you approach things differently. Therefore, it is critical for you as an entrepreneur to have a healthy mindset in every business stages but bear in mind that a healthy mindset is most crucial in stage 1 so it is wiser to start cultivating a healthy mindset before you start your entrepreneur endeavor.
A healthy mindset will not only determine your thinking and actions you take but it will also provide the fuel of your passion and energy to move you forward towards learning how stay ahead of the game.
In this session, the mission is to unlock your mindset so you will learn how to make money online legitimately by starting your online business venture confidently.
- 1. The pursuit of happiness, success and money: How to be successful in life
- 2. What the school failed to teach you
- 3. Cultivating a healthy mindset
- 4. Knowledge and experience is success
- 5. The technology revolution is faster than we think- Love it or lose it
- 6. The hard truth of starting your online business
1. The Pursuit of Happiness, Success and Money: How to Be Successful in Life
What do you want in life? Or rather what do you want to be in 10, 30 or 50 years down the road?
You may think you want to have financial freedom, to become successful in what you are currently doing or you may think you just want to make millions of dollars, or whatever it is… but what many of us really want at the end of our mind is to live and enjoy the lifestyle as and when you want to be.
So what is success to you? I would say the correlation to success is happiness. It is the realization of a goal or purpose we had in mind, and in order to achieve that, it is important us to have the right skills, knowledge and positive mindset. Obviously, you would need to take massive action to turn it into a reality… otherwise everything would just be your fantasy.
There are three components that shape a person’s overall success and happiness.
Depending on how much the person’s weight on each of the components: Financially, emotionally and physically.
The weight of each component differs at every stage of a person’s lifecycle. A 17 years old kid may weigh more emotionally and physically (Seeking relationship and looking good in front of their partner) rather than financially since their parents are still supporting them financially. In contrast, parents would weigh more on the financials as they need to pay for the bills and to support the family.
Although happiness is a very subjective term, what makes you happy might not work for me and it differs across cultures, nations and one’s education level. But it is said that by looking after your basic needs, you will feel motivated with the determination to work towards your goal.
In the theory of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, Maslow believed that people have an intuitive desire to be self-actualized.
In order to achieve this, a person must meet the most basic four layers of needs in the Maslow’s pyramid (food, health, love and-self esteem). If these are not met, you will be physically and emotionally drained before you even focus on the higher level needs- Self actualization. Maslow also pointed that a person will feel more motivated and strives for higher level of success in life after they met their basic levels of needs.
This mean that it is vital to take care of your overall wellness, as it will lead to a higher chances of achieving your goals towards success, which in turn, would lead to higher monetary wealth.
Yes, money is an essential part of our life and we need a decent amount to take care of our overall wellness and to live comfortably. But whatever excess you earn would just be merely a bonus in order to live the life we have always wanted… and this is what all of us are truly seeking for after all.
2. What The School Failed to Teach You
Since young, I see my parents working day in day out to support for the family. In school and at home, I am taught to get good grades to find a good job. Living in Singapore is extremely competitive, with an increase in people pursing a degree or even a Masters in the hope of landing in a cushy job. Getting a job had somehow been conditioned in my mind since young and the idea of seeking job security is etched even tighter in my mind.
I ended working as a payroll officer after graduating from the university, a job that is not what I am expecting. My position as a payroll officer allows me to understand the salary range of each employee across the organisation. It is intriguing to be aware of each employee’s salary, especially the higher paid ones, and at times I fantasize about adding two more digits in my bank account.
During that time, I was seeking for job security and I did not have much thoughts over it, I blame myself for my ordinary school grade and graduating under a bad year; recession year. However, I was transferred to a marketing department in the same organisation within a year. I thought my career has a better progression and I was eager to learn in my new role, but I realized that it does not require the skills or knowledge I had learned in school. Anyone could do my job without a degree, yes is true… it is just the matter having the passion in the role.
After some years, I found myself drained. I am really trading time for money, and worse it was not my passion. Honestly, making money has nothing to do with what I have learned in school and I started to accept the fact from the book “Rich Dad Poor Dad” by Robert Kiyosaki. He said making money does not require to have a formal education or a good degree.
Yes, a formal education is important to build our foundation knowledge and a degree is important if you required a special skill for a profession job (Doctor, lawyers, teacher etc) but it does not teach you how to make money.
In my company, I have seen big bosses working hard and I can see how stressful their role is. When it’s time to knock off, they are still in the office and ultimately at the end of the month, I really question myself and wonder if my boss and I are making the same amount of money in terms of hourly earnings. At the end of the day, they are feeling exhausted and left with less time to enjoy for themselves. I started to see a time trap in them.
What really made me think of my own financial goal was the book “Cashflow Quadrant” by Robert Kiyosak. It was my first financial freedom book I ever invested and I feel everyone should read it. Although the book has been written quite some time ago, it is still applicable in today world. In his book I learnt about “Money Trap” that majority of the people are facing.
There are two concepts I learnt about creating wealth.
Cash Flow Quadrant Diagram
First and foremost, let’s takes a look at the cash flow quadrant diagram.
Robert taught us to shift our mindset from the left quadrant to the right quadrant.
E – Employee
Majority of the people holds a job. They are hired by company to do their job for them and they usually hold the same core values “I want a safe and secure job with benefits.” You only make money when you work and if you want to make more money, you have to hold more jobs or spend more time working for it. However, if you fall sick or stop working, your cash flow will stop.
S – Self employed
Self employed “S” typically means you work for yourself; also known as freelancer. Their core values are “I can do this better than anyone else and I can do this myself”. Usually they don’t like to work in team and prefer to work alone; solopreneur. Although they have more time freedom and they make a little more than others, their problem is the same as an employee. When you stop working, your cash flow will end.
What many entrepreneurs didn’t realized is that there are many people who mentioned they want to start their own business. But many of them become the “S” instead. There is a different between “S” and a “B” and you have to understand; the “B” is explain below.
B – Business owner
This is where your mindset should be shifted to. As a business owner, you create and own a system and naturally you hire someone to work or manage your company. Which means your system (the other word is process) and other people’s time are making money for you. Furthermore, hiring the smartest person will mean that they can do the job better and faster than you and having a system you own will mean that it will be more productive and efficient.
As a business owner, you no longer need to trade your time for money and you can take holiday as and when you want and your cash flow will still continue even you come back from a long vacation.
People such as Bill Gates; founder of Microsoft, Steve Jobs; Founder of Apple computer, Henry Ford; founder of Ford Motor Co. have left school without receiving a college degree and they all started their own business to become financial freedom. They all know that they have to be different.
I – Investor
This is where most of the business owner will move to after they are making money. They understand that they should invest their money generated to make money work hard for them. This can be investment like, stock exchange, real estate, bonds etc. They no longer need to trade their time for money.
In a nutshell, the people on the E & S Quadrant are spending time working hard for the people on the B & I Quadrant. Whereas, the people on the B & I Quadrant make money work hard for them, they understand that it is not how much money you make that matters, but how you make money works for you.
Hence, if you shift your mindset and work towards the right quadrant, I could say that your world would be so much diverse. Nevertheless, you only have 24 hours in a day and you can only work so hard. So why work so hard for money? If you can learn how to run a business and become financial freedom, you will be free to do the things you want in life. That is life purpose.
Asset and Liability + Income and expenses
The other important concept Robert taught us was to learn how to be financial intelligence. It is okay if you don’t know how to read financial statement.
But it is important to recognize the different between an asset and liability (You will see this in financial term). Simply put, an asset is money you put in your pocket, whereas a liability is money you took out. If you spend your life buying assets, you will be rich. If you spend your life buying liabilities, you will be poor forever…as simple as that.
You see, everyone is making money, some made $2000 and some are making $8000 of income, but majority of their money are spend on enjoying life going shopping, travelling, eating in expensive restaurant, credit card loans etc… and all these goes to the liabilities & expenses column. Their money goes out their pocket very quickly and they have to work harder and harder to replenish back the money into their pocket.
Money goes in and money goes out which become a cycle of their life working every day…simply put they are in a rat race (Money Trap).
This is not a lifestyle or situation you want to end up to be. So basically, you need to create a healthy pocket by investing your money buying asset and make the asset make money for you. The wealthy people understand that investing on stocks, property, bonds etc are assets to them.
Yes, I know the sad truth is that you need a great amount of money to become an investor; to make money work hard for you. But the good news is the dotcom world has made everything possible. You begins your entrepreneurship by starting your online business journey, which means you need to know that gaining new knowledge and skill is an asset, investment on the technology and outsourcing is also an asset.
And that is part of the reason why many had become successful from doing their dotcom business because the asset they had built such as website, E-books, subscriber list just to name a few does not required large capital set up cost. The asset they built works for them which in turn get them out from 9 to 5 rat race. It provides them the freedom to choose how they want to spend their time because they have more time than anybody else.
3. Cultivating a Healthy Mindset
Okay you might be thinking… Hah!
Running a business? Sound easy than done. Well, yes it’s not easy and it does required upfront hard work and time especially when you just get started but as an internet entrepreneur, you get the fruitful benefits later.
If you want to start your online business and make money online, you have to take the baby step to leap forward to learn to explore and face the challenges on your own. Don’t be worry of the mess you create because it will be messy.
Once you get the hang of it through the experience you gained, you might think back that everything is not as difficult as it is… and you can repeat that process again to create another new business.
Right, if you are serious in building your own wealth and happiness please carry on and read till the end.
Now let’s take a look at the image by T. Harv Eker. This is important because I want you to distinguish the difference between the mindset and attitude of a rich and the poor.
From the image, you might then recognize if there is anything that is holding you back, at the same time, it may help you to unlock your millionaire mindset and change that attitude.
Let’s take a look at the mindset differences of the rich and poor below.
In his book, Harv Eker believes that everyone know about making money, and this money blueprint is subconsciously in our mind, but if this money blueprint is not getting you anywhere, you will not be successful in life. So you might want to change your mindset!
Please don’t ignore your mindset, it will not be favorable to your future success. If you found yourself stagnant for the past 3, 5 or 10 years, then you need to change. Nothing will change if you don’t change your mindset, so start now, take your baby step or take massive action towards your entrepreneurship, otherwise, everything would just be merely dream.
I hope you have unlock your mindset to work towards your goals or dreams or whatever it is.
Remember your beliefs shape your destiny…
“People are not lazy. They simply have unimportant goals – that is, goals that do not inspire them” – Tony Robbins
4. Knowledge + Experience is Success
Becoming an entrepreneur or starting a business may sounds thrilling. But at the same time, the fear of losing money, the thought of failure, the pressure of unsupportive friends and family questioning why you want to take the risk etc might cause you to look for security instead. Conversely, you may fear of living with regret of never trying or probably you already have the plan but you are waiting for the perfect timing.
If you are still waiting for the perfect time to get started, I will tell you that it will never begins because your energy will died out if you wait longer. Besides that, don’t you think that failing with regret would be much better off than living with regret of never trying?
Certainly, starting a business can be easy but running a business is a tricky thing, but the good news is, running a business is learnable and all you need is to learn a range of business skills and knowledge that is deem helpful in achieving your business or financial goal.
One missing skill or knowledge can hold you back from moving forward pursuing for your dream and success. Therefore, seek new knowledge and accept learning experiences to create NEW THINKING.
As Albert Einstein had stated:
“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”
Which means if you want to start your business, you need to accept continuous learning and generate new knowledge, otherwise, you will be living at the current state with the level of thinking that you had now.
Once you are equipped with all the knowledge or skill, you will start to accept the challenge that you are facing and you might encounter problem that you never know existed. When you do this over and over again, you will start to generate new thinking and you will get better and better from it. Sound familiar with what you are been taught in school? Well, you will appreciate your own effort and beliefs when your business start generating income for you, and you can repeat this again and again and one day you might find that it is not difficult after all.
I know, I know, I know I have been saying this over and over again. But I like to emphasize “Do you know” image as above to my readers. You will achieve success in life only if you fall under the YELLOW pyramid because knowledge is success. So keep your eye and ear open to absorb new knowledge. You might learn something that you don’t even know exist.
People have been asking me over and over again. How do you get started?
My same advice to them: “Start taking massive action. have the courage and faith to start a business. Be prepared to face the challenges, with no guarantees of success and be optimism and persistent to move forward even if you failed, without any fear, just don’t give up. Success leaves clues. Which indeed it is right, when you follow, learn and replica after their business model, you will achieve success and the results you want because it is a proven business model.
“The size of your success is measured by the strength of your desire; the size of your dream ; and how you handle disappointment along the way.” – Robert Kiyosaki
“If you want to be successful, find someone who has achieved the results you want and copy what they do and you’ll achieve the same results.” – Tony Robbins
5. The Technologies Revolution is Faster Than We Think
– Love it or Lose it
Let’s take a look at the below technologies revolution image:
The technologies revolution is introduced and improvised at a faster pace after the 2000s.
No one can predict what will happen to the future technologies revolution, but most of the big companies are starting to see the important of how digital marketing can be a huge influence on their business or financial goals and hence more jobs such as digital marketing executive, SEO/SEM marketing, statistical analysis etc are created.
Just to name a few people with great success. They make use of the internet and technology to build their business empire and build its wealth within few years of time. They are not the only people, there are getting more…
Bill Gates – Founder of Microsoft
Larry Page – Founder of Google
Steve jobs – Founder of Apple
Mark Zuckerberg – Founder of Facebook
Jack Ma – Founder of Alibaba
You might be thinking that it is too late to start since there are already many people who are starting to see the opportunity to make money online, build an online business empire of their own and have been quite successful. I have to tell you that this is not true.
You and I should be glad that we are living in the modern digital world now and this is the best time to take advantage of the technology and internet to build your own online business empire. Like I said, there is no best time, the technologies innovation revolution is ever changing and those who are successful one are those who can catch up on and learn continuously, so you should seize the opportunities now to generate a passive income using the internet because it is the smartest way to start an online business of your own with little capital to begins with.
So what is Passive Income?
By definition passive income is an income you earned in regular basis, with little effort required to earn that revenue.
Pat Flynn strongly agreed with that and has seized the opportunity in creating his first online business called “Green Exam Academy”. Next thing he knew, he already have more than 5 successful online business ideas. Of course, he had some failed business but his persistent attitude had made him achieve what he had now.
Okay, you might be wondering who is this dude. Well, check out yourself, he can be easily found on google. Follow him on Facebook, Twitter or subscribe to his mailing list or whatever it is if you plan to learn from a successful people like him… this is how you begins when you want to learn from someone successful.
I have to give all entrepreneur a very important advice base on my own experience. Start learning internet marketing and how to run a business while you build an online business empire. One way to begins is to take action and you start without the fear of failure because you will fear of never even try. You will face challenge and hurdle along the way but you can change and improve it and your mindset is important.
The best is to learn and apply new thinking at the same time because the new knowledge tend to give you better idea and perspective for your business. Otherwise, you will forget about what you have learn and usually you will tend to procrastinate things.
6. The Hard Truth of Starting Your Online Business
It is never easy to set up a business. It seems that everyone who thought of making money online is the best way to become a millionaire. But it does not, unless you are starting an online business with your passion. It required hard work, knowledge, belief and strong mindset to continue walking towards the goal.
There is no short cut in life so please never believe in get rich quick program.
There are many ways to earn money online and the very first thing you need to find out is what your own profitable passion. By knowing your passion would then help you identify the passive income idea that you can work towards your goal.
Yes, you read about the advantage of making money online would brings you but the truth is, in order to make money online, you need to have something in exchange. That is business, and the number one reason why many starts an online business is because of the convenience and low set-up cost.
But there are some hard truth; the reality you never know about…
Because it is the sales people job to promote and say all the nice things…
| WHAT YOU HAD LEARN ABOUT STARTING AN ONLINE BUSINESS | THE HARD TRUTH OF STARTING AN ONLINE BUSINESS | |
| You will become your own boss. | > | You are alone and you have to make all the decision yourself. |
| Making money online is easy | > | If you are new in the making money online industry, you will find yourself struggling and learning to make your first dollar. It is never easy unless you have the knowledge and experience. Find your own passion first. |
| You can work anywhere at any time. | > | It takes self discipline, determination and patience to drive yourself to work on your own business. |
| You get to do what you love | > | When you first startup a business, you have to do and manage all aspect of a business functions, from marketing to customer service to recruiting the right people and much more. Eventually, it left you less time doing what you enjoy most. Your job to start a business is not to do one particular task: What you love. Your job as an entrepreneur is to run a business, you are accountable of running a successful business. |
| Very low set up cost | > | It is true that the set up cost is low for building an online business. But when you first started out, you have to spend massive time and effort to build the pillar of your business. Sometimes, the trade-off for time and cost would consider much better off when you hire someone more skillful than you to the job. |
Right, I am not trying to bore you down with all the hard truth but my main point is your personal development is very important in shaping your own success in life and you shouldn’t ignore it. This is why, you would need to have a mentor if possible and someone who can inspire you; inspiration quotes helps to keep you motivated. Cultivating the wealthy mindset and learn how the rich get wealthier… things that excites you to start your online business.
Start Here
Stage 1: Personal Development
Stage 2: Business Development
Stage 3: Business Empire
Stage 4: Internet Marketing
Stage 5: Leverage