I often read stories about bloggers making money and I think to myself wow, I wish I could do that. But wishing does not make it so. What makes things so is faith and faith by the bucket loads. That said, you don’t get to the end by overnight. You build great things by taking one step at a time. It takes time, which is a given, but more importantly I want to highlight that it takes one step at a time. I have just completed a PhD that took me a long time to finish. I started in late 2003 and I have just submitted it to be examined. Each day presented new challenges and new problems. I think at the best of times I have felt like I couldn’t do it but I got there. When it came to the writing parts, I wrote something each day. Whether it was seven pages or two words… each day I made progress. Let me tell you though it wasn’t easy.
Why am I saying this? There is this underlying assumption that all we need is the right elements and everything will work. What a load of crap. Things take time. All of the great entrepreneurs of this era all built there businesses one at a time. The question becomes… how long is long? As long as it takes. Here are some examples of progressive growth that I have found from life, work and the web:
1. Problogger
Okay so I am partial to this guy because he lives in Australia and yes he is good as what he does. Sucking up aside, let’s look at the reality of problogger’s growth. Check out this graph:
Note the growth pattern down the bottom (you can read more on the story here). As far as I can tell it was almost a whole year before problogger became even close to a “money maker”. For those of us who write for a living, that’s a lot of hours. Let’s also be honest… there’s the knowledge involved in that as well. Knowledge, comes as a price. Everything I know about business has come from study (over ten years) and two failed attempts at startups. You better believe that has cost me. Think about all the hours of work with little noticeable difference. Could you do it or are you in it for the insta-hit?
2. Richard Branson
I recently read his book so it’s an at hand example. Sorry about that. I am not sure if this man is a hero or a villain I just can’t work it out. However, in following his life I found that he has developed a long term view of things perhaps mixed with short term megalomania! Reading his story though you get the impression that building the Virgin empire that has taken his entire life. That’s a long time, though each business and each failure provided growth for him as for his fortune. He began in the late sixties with his magazine, then he moved into music (1970′s) then everything else (1980′s-now). That’s a brief summary but think about the time, the daily decisions, the commitment. I know what it takes to fail… but this kind of success comes with a tremendous sacrifice.
3. Peter Spann
I have to say at the outset that I think this man is one of the most interesting people I am yet to meet. You can learn more about him here. His story of how he made millions from being dead broke is inspirational if not more than a little strange. He took time and stuck to his plan day in and day out. His story is very inspirational, even if some of the financial advice is hard to follow. Still, that systematic decision making, step after step, led him to becoming a fairly wealthy bloke.
4. Joyce Meyer
As a leading Christian author Joyce Meyer now enjoys a wide audience spanning several million people. I had the pleasure of seeing her in Brisbane, last time she was here and she was talking with the a pretty severe flu. What I admired the most was that despite this and having to been helped on to the stage and off again she got through her message. Now that’s dedication. When I am sick I can tell you that I am the first to pull the sympathy card. Not this lady. I was listening to her story on a CD and she was talking about the years she spent not being able to get access to speaking engagements because of her obscurity and being a woman and so on. It was interesting to me how she kept doing what she could day after day and despite the setbacks took one step after the other to get where she is today.
There are so many more people I could call up as examples (Ricardo Semler). All of them made it by taking one carefully thought out step after the other. So how do we get there? I don’t know and maybe you don’t either. I know this: I take one step and then I can take the next one after that. Until I take that first step, I can’t take the other. So in short: do something lest you do nothing but make sure you are doing it slowly, confidently and with full assurance of faith. Slow but steady growth is the order of the day.
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