There are all kinds of opportunities available to you – the problem is that many of them are not real opportunities at all.
So, how can you sort them?
In other words, how can you separate the valuable from the worthless – and in this case, we are talking about real opportunities that can help you design and build yourself a better life vs snake oil that is designed only to take your money and waste your time in exchange for nothing much at all.
One of the first things to consider when looking at any opportunity to make money, build a business, self development program or anything else that promises to help you achieve some other goal, is whether or not it is a legitimate realistic opportunity or just another false promise.
Big promises of huge payoffs and benefits that you can have quickly with little to no real work on your part are a strong negative indicator.
While it is true that some things can produce real results and can do it quickly – most just can’t. Even with those few where it is at least possible – they ALL require real work. Nothing that really works just “manifests” itself or comes delivered on a silver platter with no effort.
While there are lots of people promising all kinds of stuff – almost all of these things, in my experience anyway, are completely worthless and are a just a waste of your money and your time. Some of these things are MLM type operations. They want you to pay a fee, join them and get their secret super duper training – then go recruit your friends and family into the fold.
Read the mandatory earnings disclosures on these things. You may have to dig for it, and it may be in the microprint but you can usually find it if you look hard enough. That will be an eye opening experience, and there you will learn that most people don’t even earn their initial fees back let alone make any real money at all. It’s all smoke and mirrors and just bull shit.
Sure the founders make money, and a few of their henchmen – but for everyone else – good luck with that.
Another very popular pitch is the “Passive Income” opportunity.
“Make hundreds of thousands of dollars while traveling the world and working from your laptop and a backpack…”
Sounds cool, doesn’t it!
It sure does to tens of thousands who buy into the delusion year in and year out. Sadly almost none of them ever see anything remotely near what the hype promises.
Now don’t get me wrong here either – there are some real businesses that can be run from a laptop and a backpack and done from almost anywhere on the planet. That part is true.
The problem is they all require specialized knowledge, skills, ability – and WORK. Most will take time too.
If you can write and publish books that will sell – then you can make money. Can you write a book? How about 30 books or more? Will they sell? Do you know how to design covers, upload them to Kindle and other platforms and then how to market them? How long will it take to learn how to do all the things you need to do to make money with this, and then are you really willing to do the work required to make it happen?
How about teaching online courses? Yes, you can make money from this too, and you can learn how with time and effort. But once again, this is going to take some real work. It is going to take some real time too – and even then the majority of people who are eventually successful will have to create many different courses before they start earning enough from them all on a consistent basis for it to be enough to live on full time. This opportunity is real – but it will not be easy, and it will probably take quite some time for it to consistently pay off. Even then, not everybody will be successful either.
The next thing to consider after you separate the real from the junk offers is whether or not a particular opportunity is a right opportunity for you at the right time in your life. If you hate to write then writing books is probably not the way to go for you.
Some things may be perfectly legit opportunities – yet still be wrong for you personally right now. That can be so for a whole variety of reasons.
Some things require a lot of money to get off the ground, such as most brick and mortar businesses for example – and when you don’t have a pot to piss in and are barely scraping by then it doesn’t make any sense to look at something that will require a fortune to launch.
Another example might be a type of career choice that is not compatible for you at the present time. If you have family commitments and obligations that really require you to be home every day and be there at a reasonable and set hour then trucking is going to probably be a very bad choice for you.
While I love trucking, and it does offer real opportunities they come at a price.
The highest price it will cost is the time you will spend away from home – GONE – out on the road for days to weeks at a time. The reality is that alone is too high of a price for most people to pay, so they quit as soon as that harsh reality sets in. Another problem is that the high pay amounts so often quoted is what experienced drivers usually earn, not brand new rookie truck drivers. It takes time to get from the starting point to the point of earning that much higher level of pay.
Some people are willing to be gone. Some are not.
Some people are willing to work for a while at lower pay as they learn the job and refine their skills to get to the point of earning higher pay amounts. Others aren’t. Are you?
The Internet is Ate Up With Exaggerated and Outright False Promises …
You probably already know that, so the trick becomes figuring out how to tell the good from the bad.
One of the first clues is that if it sounds incredible, and almost too good to be true – then it probably is. You know what I mean, the ads and offers that tell you that you can make a huge “passive” income all while traveling the world and working from your backpack on your laptop – without having any special skills, knowledge, or abilities and you can do it all with little to no work too!
Yeah, right.
Now don’t get me wrong either – there are SOME real ways to do that – but the problem is that almost all of the programs you most often find are just crap. The only thing that is really going to happen is that they will take your money and you will be no better off than you were before.
Instead of wasting time, effort, money and others resources chasing pie in the sky schemes – why not choose to focus your efforts on something that will truly work for you instead?
Granted, it may not be as exciting as the snake oil salespersons fake ass promises are – but it will be something that is actually true, valuable and most importantly – will actually produce real measurable and consistent results for you month after month. Results that are compounding over time and that are truly life changing.
Here is what I suggest you consider starting with;
- Live Far Below Your Means – This is the opposite of what most people do. Start reducing or even eliminating your debts and reducing your living expenses. There are many different things you can do to start making meaningful, measurable and consistent progress.
- Manage Your Personal Finances – Track and manage every single dollar. Review it all in writing at least weekly – and daily is better when just starting out. Be sure to build up an Emergency Reserve Fund (ERF) that is adequate for you.
- Have Written Goals – Many sources of information to help you here too, so find something that works for you. Write down your goals and review them daily. Ideally at least three times per day – and start making small but consistent progress every single day. You will be amazed at how fast it begins to compound if you do it!
- Increase Your Income – Now we get back into snake oil territory – so be careful and choose wisely! Find something that is real and then do the real work that is required to make it work for you. You may have to take some classes, do some research, get some training and even then it will take time and effort. If you choose a legitimate opportunity and do the work then you will make more money. When you continue to do the things above then it compounds and every month you make real progress and get further and further ahead.
- Enjoy Your Journey! – Life is TODAY… not just some future imagined and hoped for date and circumstance. So do work toward goals and make progress – but enjoy the journey all along the way in the process too.
The main points I want you to take away from all this is that while there is a lot of garbage out there, there are also some true opportunities out there for you as well, but they all require that you learn stuff you do not yet know, develop skills you do not yet have and that you put in both the time and the effort required to make it work for you. Even then there are some opportunities that are better suited to you than others, and it is best to find the right opportunity for you personally right now.
Even then, even the best opportunity will require hard work and some time. Nothing will work for you if you do not do the work needed to make it work. So do the work.
Making your life better is also going to be an effort that will focus on all the different but interrelated parts of your life. Everything effects every other thing in your life to some point or other, so keep that in mind as you work to build a better life.