In the wake of books like The Four Hour Work Week many people thought the key to happiness was creating a micro niche website and building sales to $30,000 a month. The idea was alluring and at the time I thought it was the way to go as well, but more recently my mindset has shifted and I want to share with you why.
First off, let’s get one thing straight, can you live a very, very nice life on $30,000 a month? Absolutely. Is it easy to get a micro business or niche website to 30 k? Not so much. It’s doable, bloggers like Yaro Starak, Pat Flynn & Leo Babauta all make very nice incomes through niche sites and their personal blogs – either by teaching people how to make money or about personal development. But these bloggers have worked to get where they are, for most their blogs are their main business and they are active in these endeavors through blogging or product creation, I love what each of them are doing and respect it greatly – but I’ve finally realized that my path is a little different, well actually much different.
The Road Less Traveled, or maybe, Less Talked About
Today I want to tell you that there’s another road, one that is maybe a little less talked about in internet circles but one that I’m going to be focusing on more and more on in coming months on this blog. This road strays far from books like Tim Ferriss’ and mixes very, very hard work with long term goals of truly passive income – I mean completely passive I could be in a coma and it’d still be there income.
I think this is the road I’ve been unconsciously on for a while now, but lately I’ve been giving it a lot of conscious mind share. This road calls for a ravenous appetite for one’s goals, stamina to go for it no matter what and the savvy to be able to grasp the bigger picture. This road isn’t easy, but it’s oh so fun (if you’re in love with your goal that is) and it’s much more likely to pay off in life changing ways.
The goal is to build a business empire, doing something your passionate about while focused on a goal your in love with. The goal is to build a business that matters, something that will be world rocking and cause a stir, something that after you work your butt off will pay you for a lifetime.
I’ve been falling in love with this way of doing things since I started listening to Mixergy interviews and hearing all the stories of scrappy entrepreneurs who built muli-million dollar companies from scratch. Working for something epic sounded so much more interesting than what I was currently doing (selling my services as a social media consultant) and the idea of ‘cashing’ out at the end through either an exit - or by having a business that would pay you for the rest of your life because of the way you structured it (think the Waltons) – was intoxicating.
So even though I continued to do my social media work as well as consult and have my team build websites through my business Oracle Launch I started quietly working on my start up idea, my million dollar baby. And for the last four months me and my partner have been focusing most of our energies on our outsourcing based company that we believe (cross that, know) will change the world. It’s a funny feeling, every day waking up and thinking ‘this is going to be HUGE’. I never felt that before in all the other enterprises I toiled at, even though they made money and seemed ‘successful’. It’s the difference between trying to build an income stream, and trying to build an empire.
You’ve got one life, why not go huge?
I’m here to tell you that you have one life, if you’re entrepreneurial minded and you have big goals (even if you hide them deep down) it’s time for you to go for the gold. Build an empire, instead of just an income stream. It’s far more work, but far more rewarding. The next post I do will be called how to make $33,000 a month for the rest of your life, without lifting a finger (trust me it’s NOT what it sounds like). It’ll talk more about this idea I hope I’ve turned you onto and how starting a business that will change your life means bigger things than setting up a few niche websites or making your whole income through affiliate links.
p.s. I’m not criticizing people who do it differently, who have a massive network of niche sites or who monetize their blogs to the tune of 5 figures a month – I think they’re rad, they’ve escaped working for the man and are doing awesome things, the above bloggers I mentioned I know and I think they all rock – I just want to offer a place for people like me who have always been more interested in the idea of working crazy hard and building an empire that’s not exactly ‘passive’ today but in the future will truly change our lives.
Do you have thoughts on this? Do you disagree? Or is this idea like sweet music to your ears? I’d love to hear your feedback!
