This year I want to…
1. Start a paid membership site – Probably over at CFI, but maybe some other sites. Basically I want to get my internet business up and running again. I was once earning a part time income online from the blog smarterwealth.net, I want to just start earning a little bit of income online again.
2. Finish the year with less debt than I started with – It’s deinately time to start lowering my consumer debt so this year I want to get into that habit and start paying off our debt. We are trying to take steps to put us in a position where we can do that so it should be achieveable.
3. Earn myself 2 pay rises at my job – I started my new role last year and it is a great job that I can grow into. I want to take initiative and grow my role to make the business more money, make the business more effective (and thus make me more money too).
4. Find a place to settle in – I have moved 6 times in the last 2 years, and within a couple of months it will have been 7 times. I want to finally find a house/unit that we can live in for at least a couple of years. I am sick of moving.
I am without a doubt a family man! Heck, I am 22 (almost 23) and I am already married with a kid. If it was just up to me I would probably have 2 kids (don’t tell the wife). I LOOOVE family.
You know how they always talk about how HUGE an influence you father has in your life? Maybe I love family because my dad loved family?
My dad was as family minded as they come. He worked one night a week (sunday nights) and the rest of the time he was a house dad. To him (and to my mum too) family was THE most important thing in life. Maybe that is why I love family so much?
An older chap from one of the suppliers I work with asked me the other day if I was studying. The answer being no. Everyone always asks me if I am studying. If you’re 22 (almost 23) without a degree people think you should be studying….maybe I should. Anyway, my reply to “are you studying” was something along the lines of “No….I’m a family man” and that made me feel good.
Friday is my family day. I hung out with Sasha all day and then picked mum up from work at 4:30 and went straight to the beach. Such good times!!! I love fridays.
I would love to be a hardcore business-man, and I do have a few business ideas and I am working on a few (slowly), but at the end of the day I am a family man and I only want the money so I can spend more time with my family….it’s a tough life 🙂
I was reading a Rich Dad book today and it was talking about planning to be rich.
Robert Kiyosaki, who retired at 47 earning over $120,000/year from investments, said “In order for me and Kim to retire young we had to have a plan, a plan that started with nothing because we had nothing”.
That is an interesting concept. All the books and everything out there teach you how to have a plan if you already have significant savings or own your own home etc. But I am yet to see one that teaches you how to have a plan for financial freedom by starting with nothing.
I have never really created a plan because I don’t have much disposable cash to start with. But now I will start thinking about creating a plan that involves starting with nothing
Oh 2010 how I have loved the time we spent together. But we need to talk. I have found someone else and I am leaving you for good. “What’s her name” you ask? Well her name is 2011, and I can’t explain it but it just happened. It was like I didn’t even have a choice. It’s not you…it’s me. We are just going in different directions. You are staying where you are, and that’s fine, but I am moving on and I can’t help it. We had fun and it was great while it lasted and you will always hold a special place in my heart.
It is December already…when did that happen? It is amazing to look back over the last 11 or so months and to see how far I have come and what I have achieved. Here is a small list of some of the things that defined 2010 for me.
- My first child and daughter was born at the start of March making me forever a dad from this point on.
- I got a new job for the first time in 5 years. Same company but a new role and better hours and that has changed my life significantly.
- Moved in with great friends and now roomies who also have a daughter a bit older than Sasha. That was a crazy decision (who does that??) and it has been loads of fun (and will continue being fun).
- I officially stopped working in the Internet Marketing Niche and moved into the Real Estate Niche.
- I tried to buy my first investment property but the deal flopped when the bank valued the property under my offer.
- Changed our car from the teeny tiny Toyota Echo to the family sized “mum van” Nimbus, which can seat up to 7 people. Wicked
- Went on a holiday to Byron Bay with the family and our roomates. Rekindled my love for skating, vintage skateboards and just vintage in general.
- Got an Xbox and enjoyed countless hours of shooting people online.
It is exciting to look back over the last year and see what has happened and to document it, because I know that in 2020 I will barely remember any of this.
This time last year Kelly was pregnant and still working on the other side of Sydney. I was working 2 days a week (just weekends) and I was trying to find my fortune in every different get rich quick strategy on the internet. We were broke but we were happy.
We are now a little less broke, and with the addition of the little one a little more happy (and a little more tired). This time last year I would sleep in till 11am on countless mornings, now sleeping in till 8am is a dream. Late morning sleep ins is definately something of the past.
You know that things are a little out of control when you start thinking “I wish there was 30 hours in the day…not 24” or you find yourself contemplating cutting out a couple of hours of sleep just so you can fit more life in. That is kind of where I have been at lately.
It isn’t that I don’t have enough time in the day, because I know I do.
It also isn’t because I am super duper busy, because really I’m not.
I think it might come down to the fact that I am young and don’t really know what I want thus I don’t really know what to go after and what to spend my time on. So I go to work, I spend time with my family and I do the other basics, and even though I am having a great time I feel like it could be better. My problem is that because I’m not exactly aiming for anything really clear except stuff like “Be a good Dad” that I tend to just let me hours allocate themselves and I throw structure out the window.
Sometimes that lack of structure makes you feel like you’re not in control…I don’t like feeling like I’m not in control.
Sure, I can go ahead and blame this on children, saying they make your life hectic (which is true), but if I really wanted a structured time schedule doing things that I feel are productive then I know I could achieve that within the limitations of having a family.
So I don’t really have a solution to my problem just as of yet, but until today I wasn’t even aware that I felt the way I felt about my time schedule. So now that I am aware of it I am sure something will change.
My BHAG: One Billion Dollars!
Been reading a book by Napoleon Hill (the guy who wrote Think and Grow Rich) and currently the book is talking about the power of concentration.
That is the power of focusing your mind completely and singularly on one goal with complete enthusiasm and belief that you will attain this goal. The idea is that by concentrating so intently on this one thing you are training your subconscious mind to find ways to bring it to reality.
Just like when you are buying a new car. All of a sudden you see that same car everywhere on the road. This is because your subconscious mind looks out for that car.
By using the power of concentration you are training your subconscious mind to look out for ways to turn what you are concentrating on into physical form.
I found myself asking “What is it I want to concentrate on?”
I came up with a few things like
– $1,000/week in online income
– Owning an investment property
– Owning my own home
But I found that these smaller goals didn’t allow me to concentrate on them with even a fraction of enthusiasm. Because let’s face it, although they are damn good goals…they are exciting. They don’t grab you by the balls and say “Let’s do it”.
So after watching the movie “A Social Network” last night and seeing people working in the Billions of dollars I figured why not concentrate on attaining a net worth of $1 Billion. This has always been my desire, but I figured I would check it out in the future.
But maybe I should start concentrating on it now and train my subconscious mind to find me ways to reach the one billion dollar mark. It may be impossible but it is something I can get excited about and focus my enthusiasm on.
Shoot for the moon and if you miss you will find yourself amongst the stars. Maybe I will miss a billion dollars, but I might still find myself on the Australia’s 200 richest people list 🙂
Spring has begun and the days are getting warmer. Daylight savings has begun and the daylight lasts longer. Summer is in the air and I like it.
Many changes are happening for me and my family this summer season
Moving House – We are moving out of our cute 2 bedroom house into a bigger, sexier, funner 4-bedroom home with another married couple. We will turn the garage into a man den for xbox and ping-pong championships and we will eat delicious dinners all summer long. Sasha will get to grow up with Lucy and we will get to have fun lazy days in our blow up pool.
Changing Finances – I have recently got a great new job working behind the scenes in a compounding lab that makes up personalised medications. I am working mon-thurs which means I have my weekends back. I am loving my job and with it brings a more stable financial environment for the family. My wife has also gone back to work 2 days/week so this means we are able to save money, pay off debt, live a nicer lifestyle and hopefully save for a house deposit.
New Business Idea – A lot of what I have been trying to do in the past is now in the past. I have officially moved my focus out of the make money online niche and I am now focusing on creating a solid business in the positive cash flow real estate niche. It is slow beginnings because I am working a full time job, but it is growing and I am already seeing some great income from it. Being focused on this one business is really exciting and I have some really good ideas that will add value to people’s lives and to the industry.
More Opportunity Than I Can Handle – I have more opportunity than I can handle. My job will do nothing but grow as my role develops, I have too much freelance writing work that I have to turn people away and I have a variety of other opportunities in internet marketing, web design and copywriting.
Fun Times With Family – I take care of my baby girl one day a week while Mum is at work and we have the weekends together. This is great fun and I am really enjoying it. My baby girl will be crawling soon and she is so much fun to hang out with. Her laughter is currently my favourite sound…it is so cute.
New Friends – I have been making new friends at work and really enjoying the different social scene. Also lots of new people in our lifegroup which is fun.
New Spring In My Step – Yes it sounds silly, but all of these changing factors have seemed to lead to a new spring in my step. I am really looking forward to this summer and putting myself and my family in a great position to move into bigger things (like property investing and development).
Last night I did a little job hunting on Seek.com.au and I found the perfect job that would not only fit in with my schedule but that I am fully qualified for.
It is a local job (that is only 10 minutes from my home) and it would involve tasks such as blogging, internet marketing, building a twitter following and other online tasks. It is pretty much everything I love to do already and that I am already good at.
It is part time about 2 days per week, which would fit in perfectly with family/online work and it would be something that would challenge me to learn more and get better.
I am praying that I can get this job as it would be a great opportunity for me. It would be awesome to be able to use my skills and creativity in someone else’s business to help them grow, and having a part-time job instead of a casual position would be perfect (having a family to support and all).
So if you have a second (and if you believe in it) throw out a prayer for me “God, please help Ryan get the job that he wants”.
I am trying not to get my hopes up too much in case it falls through. But still, it is fun to hope 🙂
One of the biggest dilemmas I am faced with today is how can I achieve financial freedom so that I don’t “have” to work anymore and can enjoy my life and focus on building my wealth instead of just getting by.
It is hard when you have so many different paths that you can take, all of which are good and could present a good outcome. Because of all these options I feel frustrated because I don’t know what to do and I don’t know which path to take. I feel like the person in Robert Frost’s poem “The Road Less Travelled”.
I have one goal, and that is financial freedom for myself and my family. But as we all know there are many ways to get from A to B. If I want to get from Sydney To Melbourne I can get there a variety I ways. I can fly, drive, ride a bike, walk or go by boat. I can go via perth, take a straight line or even go around New Zealand if I want. They all take you to the same place.
Different ways either take longer or cost you more. It may be cheaper to ride a bike than to drive, but it is quicker to drive than to ride a bike. So you have to pay in time and money. Generally speaking the more money you spend the less time it takes.
My Dilemma
I want to achieve financial freedom quickly, without the use of a lot of my own money.
A doctor can achieve financial freedom quite quickly as they earn a lot of money and can thus invest it to produce a passive income. I have chosen to take the path of not educating myself professionally and working/investing to become financially free. Instead I have decided to educate myself financially in the hopes that I can use that education to produce financial freedom with less time and less money. Sounds like a big ask doesn’t it.
What Are My Options?
Looking at my options is like looking at the beach. Every option is a grain of sand, yet when you look at the beach you don’t see individual grains of sand, you see a shoreline. That is how I feel sometimes. Completely overwhelmed by my options that I don’t really see the options of take advantage of them.
So what are some of my options?
1. Full Time Work + Property
I could go and get a full time job and earn $40-$50k per year and I would be happy to do this. It would allow me to invest in property more easily as I would have a strong standing with the banks and have access to more capital. However, the problem this forms for me is that I work have to work 5 days per week to earn the same amount I am earning now and I only work 2-3 days casual and do freelance writing (which gives me time with my family).
It is something that I have definately not ruled out, but something that is more in the back of my mind as an alternatie solution. If I worked full time I would probably stop internet marketing and I would focus on building a property portfolio to generate passive income.
2. Part Time Work + Internet Marketing + Property
I could get a part time job working 4 days per week, instead of working casual. If I did this I would stop freelance writing and focus on internet marketing with a slow entry into property once my internet marketing income grew. My internet marketing income is already on the rise and I am seeing passive income from my internet marketing.
For example, I have a check for a few hundred dollars in the mail and I get monthly deposits into my bank account from my internet marketing sites. I guess if I did this the focus would be to just work and spend my spare time to slowly build up my internet marketing business so that I could eventually work for myself. Then I would look at investing in property to replace my internet marketing income and thus become financially free.
So far this seems to be one of the highest ranking options
3. Casual Work + Freelance Writing + Internet Marketing + (maybe) Property
Currently this is what I am doing. I am working casually which pays the rent and then I am earning income as a freelance writer, and I am trying to fit in some internet marketing in there as well (which I am failing at). The great thing about this option is that freelance writing has SO MUCH potential.
I hated english in school and now writing and reading are my 2 favourite pastimes. I am a great writer and I can earn good money as a freelance writer (and I do). My clients are extremely excited about my high quality of writing and are willing to pay good money for it. Freelance writing has the potential to grow even more as I do more and more copywriting.
Copywriting is writing sales pages and when you can write copy like I can you can easily make enough money to live off. My current problem is A) Finding the time to write amongst everything else that is going on and B) Building up my client base so that I have a steady stream of income.
This goal here would be to try to replace casual work with freelance writing (which I would love to do) and then do freelance writing full time and internet marketing in my spare time. Then as my freelance writing career grew, and as my internet marketing income grew I would invest in property and become financially free.
The biggest thing holding me back from doing this is fear mixed with a little bit of tiredness. Fear that I won’t be able to earn enough and that I might fair and tiredness from the stress of the fear 🙂
As I Write This It Is Becoming Clearer
Remember how I said that sometimes I feel like I have so many options that I get overwhelmed? Well now that I am writing this down it is becoming clearer to me.
Before I was leaning more towards part time work 4 days per week, but now I am realising how much I LOVE to write and how exciting it would be to be a full time freelance writer.
Really option #3 would be the same as option #1 almost. Instead of working full time for a company and being paid as an employee I would be working full time for my clients and being paid for the work I do. I could keep this as a small business, or I could grow it and hire writers to work for me. There is so much potential in this.
Steps To Take
Now that I am starting to become clearer on my options I have a few steps to take. I need to firstly make the decision on the path that I am going to travel and I need to put all other paths out of my mind so that I can focus. I then need to say no to the other options so if more work comes up that doesn’t fit in with my chosen profession then I need to say no!
Then I need to focus. I need to focus on the job at hand and forget about all the other opportunities that are out there. I need to ask God to bless my decision and the path that I have chosen to take and I need to walk it.
I need to burn my boats as well. Burning your boats is an expression of burning all your other options so that you are forced to take the path you have traveled. Whatever I decide I need to burn my other boats and drive myself forward.
Thank you to my blog for letting me get all this out. Getting things down on paper (or in this case on my blog) really helps me clarify things. It is strange that I don’t do it more often.
[UPDATE – Adding 1,000 people a day will likely get your account suspended with Twitter. To avoid this add around 300 per day, and don’t mass unfollow people quickly. For me I would have a week off following people to do one mass unfollow….then start following again. This makes growing your account a bit slower but is still a great way to grow your account quickly]
I have set myself a BHAG – A Big Hairy Audacious Goal – to get 50,000 twitter followers by 1/1/11 and to make loads of money from those twitter followers.
Currently I have about 5,400 twitter followers and this is growing every single day. But it is time to up the anti and to increase my twitter followers by 10 times that amount. In the mean time I may as well starting making a bucketload of money from my new found twitter fame.
So How Can You Actually Grow Your Twitter Following By 50,000 In Just 6 Months?
It is actually a lot easier than you might think. All it takes is a little diligence and some hard work…or you can outsource these tasks for as little as $1/hour using ODesk. It is really easy and almost anyone can do it.
Step 1 – Find A Twitter User With 50,000 Followers Who Is Following The Same Amount of People
By finding a twitter user with 50,000 followers who is also following 50,000 this means that they autofollow everyone who follows them. It also means there is a good chance that all of their followers will autofollow anyone who follows them.
If you want to follow more than 50,000 then find a few users with 50,000 followers each. Or find a user with over 100,000 followers who is also following 100,000 people.
Step 2 – Everyday Follow 1,000 of Those Followers
Everyday twitter allows you to follow 1,000 people. So everyday you need to follow 1,000 people. The chances are that most of the people you follow will follow you back.
This is painful work, and who has a couple of hours to spend everyday for 6 months? I certainly don’t…that is why step 3 is so important.
Step 3 – Outsource Following Tasks For $1/hour
Instead of trying to follow 1,000 people a day yourself you can outsource this task on ODesk for as little as $1/hour. It wouldn’t take more than 2 hours per day to do this…that’s $2/day.
The awesome thing about outsourcing is that because you are paying someone to do it, they will do it everyday without fail. Meaning you could grow your twitter following by more than 182,000 followers in 6 months…and it will only cost you around $350. (182 days x 1,000 follows per day = 182,000). Once you reach 50,000 followers it will likely only take you a few tweets to make your $350 back, because a huge twitter following is a money making machine.
Now not everyone you follow will follow you back, but that is alright. Of 182,000 that you follow in 6 months time it is very likely that at least 50,000 people will follow you back. Those that don’t follow you; you auto-unfollow all of them at once using one of the many tools out there
Click Here To Sign Up For ODesk For Free
So Now That I Am Growing My Twitter Following How Do I Make Money From It?
There are a few different ways to make money with your list.
1. Sponsored Tweets
Sponsored Tweets is a website that allows you to sell a tweet. This means advertisers can pay you to write a tweet about their product.
Some movie stars with upwards of 1.5 million followers charge around $8,000 for one tweet. Who needs to ever work again if just one tweet will make you that much money!!! Just 5 tweets a year and you would be well ahead of the average wage of Australia/America.
But with 50,000 followers you could probably make around $50-$100/tweet from Sponsored Tweets. Do that once per day and you will be making $18,000-$37,000 per year just from Sponsored Tweets.
Click Here To Sign Up For Sponsored Tweets Today And Starting Making Money
2. Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is another great way to make money by tweeting. Instead of being paid to tweet you write a tweet with an affiliate link in it. Everyone who signs up for your affiliate offer through the link in your tweet makes you money.
John Chow has approximately 55,000 followers and he made over $4,000 from one tweet just by posting about an affiliate offer.
Market Leverage and Motive Interactive are two affiliate networks that have some pretty good offers. You don’t even have to sell anything to make money because some offers pay you a small amount (around $1) for every person that enters their email address.
Get just 1% of your 50,000 followers to sign up for one of these offers (remember they don’t even have to buy anything) and you have made $500.
You can also market products that people buy. Some products on Market Leverage pay you $80 and the customer only buys the product for $30. Get just 1% of your 50,000 followers to buy this product and BAM you just made $40,000.
Affiliate marketing had a lot of potential on twitter. Just write your affiliate tweets as you would write any other tweet and try not to make it look like spam.
3. Email Marketing
I love making money from email marketing and to me a large email list is always going to be better than a large twitter list. So why not use twitter to grow your email marketing list?
To get 5,000 email subscribers can be hard. But if you build up a twitter following of just 50,000 followers (which will be easy) then you only need 10% to subscribe and you have will have a email list teeming with potential. Keep outsourcing your twitter building using ODesk and soon you could have over 300,000 twitter followers, which could build a MASSIVE email marketing list.
Offer your twitter followers a variety of free stuff (different offers will attract different people and increase your chances of more subscribers). Then set up a bunch of email autoresponder messages with Aweber and let the emails market affiliate products for you.
For best results use the emails to market both your own products and affiliate products. It is also a good idea to writing teaching emails and teach people how to do things, and then recommend them products.
Aweber is awesome because you can run your entire email marketing campaign on autopilot. You write the emails once and when someone signs up Aweber send out the emails (in order) for you. So you can literally make money while you sleep.
Click Here to sign up for Aweber for $1
4. Website Traffic
You can use twitter to drive traffic to your blog, website of squeeze page. I use a plugin called Tweetly Updator, which automatically updates my twitter account whenever I publish a new post on my blog. This generally sends a small influx of people to my blog.
I am sure that when I have 50,000 followers instead of 5,000 I will get a lot more people coming to my blog through twitter. Economies of scale 🙂
5. Sell Your List
I have never done it myself, but I am sure that you could create targeted twitter followings and sell them to people.
As you can see, growing your twitter list to 50,000 in 6 months is not only easy, but it can be very beneficial and bring in a fair bit of extra income. That extra income could pay off the credit card, pay off your home faster, pay for a holiday or a night out, or completely fund your lifestyle and give you the freedom to do whatever you want. It is your choice.
Everyday you waste is a day you are missing out on an abundance of income from twitter. So get cracking. Go to ODesk and get a worker for $1/hour who will build your list for you.