Has anyone ever heard of Steve Pavlina? If you haven’t, then you should stop reading this post right now and head over to his site.. Just come back when you get done..
He just posted a great article titled, “What are the odds of becoming a black belt?” The bottom line is quite simple, really. Any informed person will check their sources when they decide to embark on a new journey (or business, or task, etc.). They try to find out how viable it is, if they can succeed, and so on. Those are all perfectly legitimate questions and ones that should be asked.
But when you get down to it, you have to ask yourself how bad you want to be successful… Are you willing to put years of your time into a project to see it succeed? If you are looking to be a professional blogger, are you able to immerse yourself in the culture for 3-5 years to become an expert? In that time, a lot of people will come and go; there will be a ton of ‘new entrants in the market.’ But we know the majority of them won’t stay long. Do you have the drive to stay with it?
As Steve points out, at the end of the day, statistics don’t matter. What matters is your willingness to become the master, the expert of your field. Find your niche, develop your product, and be the best there is at it. Do it well, and you will be considered successful. You will be included in that 1% who actually make it.
And thanks Steve, keep up the great work!
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I think that you’re hurting your odds of success by over-monetizing your site before it gets enough traffic. I’ve heard you should have at least 1,000 uniques per day.
Unless I’m wrong and you’re already doing well. In that case carry on.
You are absolutely right John. And welcome to the site! 1,000 uniques a day is a great target to start monetizing the traffic. The bad thing though, is the website owner risks losing traffic based on the moneization.
If I visit a blog everyday and it goes from no advertising to a lot, I might not go back. On the other hand, if I get used to the ads then it’s no big deal. What it really comes down to is content. If you have great content, it won’t matter.
You know I actually started reading Steve Pavlinas blog and listening to his podcasts quite a while ago, and while I’ll agree that he does have some good tips on getting started making money online, I find a lot of the rest of the discussion there a bit too much “You can do anything!” zen master type stuff. I’m sure some people like reading that sort of thing, but I prefer reading peoples real life experiences of what worked, what didn’t – and other technical matters relating to establishing successful online ventures.
I agree with you there. I like his work. He is a great writer and does very well online. He has some great tips and philosophies, but I think half the skill of being a great blogger is cutting through the BS of a post :0)
Like you, I would always rather read about things that work and don’t. Actually, that is something I am resolving to do in the next year, write articles about my screwups as well..