The Blog For Entrepreneurs

Both of these guys have taken action and we have had discussion on why people don’t take action. There are millions of great free resources out there on how to be an entrepreneur on the web and Tyrone’s is the newest of those.So I wanted to try and go through why you should take some action towards your goals…today. If even one of my readers does something from viewing this post is will have been worth it.

Why is it that people don’t take action?

Well, the only way I can understand this is from my own personal experiences where inaction has cost me dearly. I was pretty much in pole position to start an online casino business in 1997, with the benefit of hindsight, if I had done it and executed it properly it would have been a masively lucrative business. Why did I not take action?

1. People who I thought knew more than me about gambling told me ‘no one will ever put their credit card on the web to gamble’.Clearly this was wrong, but I believed this person had knowledge I did not have and so I did not follow up on the idea. This is one of the biggest reasons people do not take action. They ask someone whose opinions they respect and get knocked back. Have some confidence in yourselve to take it further. For example if you asked someone you know who hasn’t made a million dollars in 12 months how to do it, what are they going to say? ‘Can’t be done’, ‘I don’t know’ etc. Someone who has done it will be a better counsel for you, would you not agree?

2. There were already gaming sites on the web and I thought I had missed the boat. One of the major things I have learned over the years is that talking about ‘missing the boat’ really is a cop-out. Yes, there are business models that are strung out (ringtones for example) but the web is such an ever changing beast that there is always going to be room for innovation.

Take this blog, for example, when I started it many said ‘don’t go into the entrepreneur space you are up against Yaro, John Chow and some of the biggest boys on the net’. If I was younger I may have agreed, but we all have something new to bring to the party. I am big fans of Yaro and John, but have either of them built a hotel in the Caribbean, or run a commodities business, consulted with listed companies, been a stockbroker etc etc… I don’t know, but I do know I have. So the realm of entrepreneurship is not theirs alone (and those guys would be the first to tell you that)… so do not think that just because someone is already doing it, that you can’t find your own niche within that space.

The key to avoiding the ‘missed the boat’ mentality is to do your research, you may find that your idea is cheaper, more effective or more efficient. If everyone had the ‘missed the boat’ attitude we would all be driving black Fords… No Fearri’s, Lambo’s, Honda’s etc.

3. I though what I was doing would be more lucrative. This is a big problem with many entrepreneurs I meet and have met, and I was so guilty of this. Basically I was pretty much closed to any other opportunity other than what I was doing at the time.

Now there is something to be said for focusing on the task at hand, but as entrepeneurs we should be able to think about other projects. One of the things that Tyrone’s outsouring book talks about is reducing the hours you ‘work’ in your business. For me this does not mean that I will be on the golf course or water skiing for the rest of the time, what it means is that I have more time to work ‘on’ my business. Meaning I can look at more projects while those who I have outsourced to take care of the nitty gritty keep my business on course.

4. I was out of my depth knowledge wise. I am sure we all have been in a situation where the task at hand was out of our skill-set or knowlegde range. The difference between those that succeed and those that don’t is the action they take at that moment. At the time I chose not to research the online casino idea any further for the above reasons and others, now I am a knowledge junky.

Before this blog I knew little about building a blog, SEO, marketing online etc. I wouldn’t say I am an expert (an ‘ex is a has been and a ‘spert’ is a drip under pressure ) but I know a damn site more now. My program over the coming months is to learn more about membership sites, eBook marketing and outsourcing to be able to grow my online business. This is the key, don’t dismiss something until you have done the research.

5. I didn’t see that a test would have been worthwhile. I comment on a great site called The Business Advice Forum (Fergal runs it.. tell him I sent you!) and have I often said, to those looking for advice, that just doing it can produce great results. If I had someone build a site and tested the water with an online gambling site back in 1997, do you think I would have got any hits? More than likley. This would have told me that maybe I was onto something.

The beauty of the web is that testing an idea is dirt cheap, even free, depending on what you are doing, so don’t give up on an idea until you have tested the market, you may be pleasantly surprised.

6. Fear of failure. Whe you are a conceited moron, like I was at the time, you don’t like to be seen to fail. I have realised that this is just as stupid as it sounds. Ralph Waldo Emerson said it best “All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better”. You are going to fail, if you are not failing at anything you are not trying hard enough.

Embrace the failures in your life, it is not the outcome (be it success or ‘failure’) that is the real result, it is the fact that you took action. Taking action on any project is a success in itself, because you have have moved one step forward towards you goals.

7. Too hard basket. This is a favourite saying of my wife. Whenever she talks about people not taking action on something (including me) she says “Oh, I guess that is in the too hard basket”. I did not take this casino opportunity because all the reasons above made it just too hard…. awww poor me…

Come on..everything worthwhile in life is hard, if it was easy every couch potato in the land would be making millions on the web, dating super models and playing football for Real Madrid. The worst thing you can ever say to a successful entrepreneur is “Man, you are lucky” it is up there with insulting their mother.

The reason being is that every true entrepeneur knows that their success was based on hard work, risk taking and hours and hours of gut wrenching worry, stress and strain. If you are looking for life, and business, to land in your lap without any hard work, then you are going to be very dissapointed, sorry to be the one to burst your bubble.

The seven reasons above are just some of those that stopped me taking decisive action and I am sure you will add more from your experience in the comments below. Taking action is, trust me, the ultimate key to your success. Knowledge, skill, luck, contacts, money, friends, software, hardware, Twitter, Facebook and anything else you can mention will not make any difference to your entrepreneurial life if you do not train yourself to take massive action… all the time..

Now that you have read the post I have a challenge for you; take some action now by writing a post for OneLifeNoFear (the guidelines are here ). The first post we receive that is within or guidelines will be published on the blog and a tweet sent out to the 8000 followers we currently have. That will give you some link love and some exposure.

I look forward to seeing who will take action first and I look forward to hearing your comments (another action point you can take) below.

Regards
David
@OneLifeNoFear