How to Make Money Doing What You Love Learn advanced self-improvement techniques that will get you out of the job you hate and into making money by doing what you love.

Human beings are very interesting creatures.  We have a very advanced learning process fully integrated into our brains, but most of us are not aware of how it works.  We assume that in order for us to learn something we simply need to be exposed to the concept and to consciously and logically understand it.  Once understood, we think that “we got it”.

Nothing could be further from the truth.  Most of what we learn and “get” we really don’t “get”.  Our brains are wired to reject concepts and to accept them not based on logical merit, but rather based on repetition.  This is how advertisers are able to put ideas into our heads without these ideas really making any sense.

For example, let me tell you a very strange concept which makes no logical sense.  If you go to the liquor store today and pickup a 12-pack of beer, there will automatically be a huge party with lots of pretty girls in tiny bikini’s at your house when you get there.  Rain will turn into sunshine and you will be instantly teleported to the beach where everyone will dance around and party.

A more accurate description would probably be that you’ll pickup the beer, throw it into the fridge and drink it alone as you sit in front of the boob tube and watch reruns.  The only girls you’ll see in tiny bikini’s will be the ones on the commercial that sold you the beer.

When we see these advertisements, we know they’re not realistic, so why do we watch them?  Well, we think that these commercials don’t do anything to us…we feel that since there is no logical sense to them, what does it hurt to watch them?  They’re not really influencing us, right?  We’re too smart for that crap, right?  I don’t think so.  Repetition is way more powerful than you could ever imagine.

Something doesn’t necessarily need to be true in order for us to accept it.  We just need to hear it enough times.  Milk does a body good, right?  Rolaids spells relief, right?  Well, no…Rolaids actually spells Rolaids.  Relief is spelled totally differently.  But listening to those kinds of things makes us equate Rolaids = Relief.  Relief from what?  Heartburn of course!  But wait…what’s heartburn?  Why do we have heartburn?  Is it something we should be concerned about?  No, just take Rolaids and you’ll have Relief!

So what does this all have to do with making money doing what you love?  Well, we need to understand that the majority of the world out there does NOT do what they love in order to make money.  The majority of people don’t even believe it’s possible to make money doing what they love.  Unfortunately, unless you hang out with a really successful crowd, chances are that you’ll probably be surrounded by people who constantly talk about how hard it is to make money, how broke they are, how difficult it’s getting, how high the gas prices are going and all this repetitive negative talk that has an effect on you even if you don’t realize it.

Their limiting beliefs and their doubts are going to be totally affecting you because they are going to come at you with repetition.  You might be thinking of starting a business, but you keep hearing “Business is risky.” and “Don’t start a business, someone I know lost money on it.” etc. etc.

You may think that your logical mind is smarter than that, and your will is set on becoming an Inspired Money Maker, but repetition will wear you down.  Unless of course you take charge.  This is where affirmations are powerful.  If you can discipline yourself to constantly repeat positive affirmations to yourself over and over and over again, day in and day out, you will be able to counter some of that negative programming that’s out there.

I wrote a list of positive “How to Make Money Doing What You Love - Affirmations” which you can use, or simply write your own.

Another technique I use, besides affirmations is talking to people about things that I want to be true.  For example, I have a few people I talk to about Blogging and I’m always telling them how it’s possible to make money from Blogging.  I tell them that my Blogging income is growing.  I tell them that it’s becoming easier and easier now to make money online.  I am very repetitive with this, because I know that the more I repeat it the more I believe it and then it becomes truth.

Repetition When Reading Books

Another area of personal development where repetition can be very powerful is when we read books.  A lot of people that are just getting into personal development and reading books make the mistake of being unhappy and get frustrated when they read a self-help book and they realize that a concept taught in a book is something they already read about.

If for example one chapter out of ten talks about a concept they already read about in a different book, they feel that this chapter was a waste for them.  This is not true.  The power of self-help books is not just in the new concepts that they bring to our attention, but also in the power of repetition.  If for example you read 20 different books on the topic of Law of Attraction, you will probably run across constant repetition of a few concepts that are covered over and over in all the books.

To the person who doesn’t understand repetition and it’s power over our brains, this may be a disappointment and you’ll generally see them skimming through the book thinking to themselves “Oh, I already know this….yup, already know this part too, where’s the good stuff?  Ohp, I already know this part too, this book is useless, I already know all this stuff in it!”

I’ve been guilty of this myself, but ever since I learned about repetition I have no problems reading about concepts that I already know from different authors to hear their version of the concept, and to take advantage of the repetition of hearing it again.  I know that the more I hear a concept and the more I think about it, the more it’s going to sink in.

Repetition is the mother of all learning.  Are you utilizing the power of repetition to help you along on your goal of making money doing what you love?

Well, last month’s Market Leverage Blog Contest closed on August 14th and I finally finished tallying up all the tickets and had the random draw for the winners.  Adding up the tickets, verifying and tallying up everything took a while.  Thank God for Excel, it definitely made it a lot easier to calculate everything up.

I’m really impressed with the turnout of this contest.  I had almost 500 tickets in this contest and I want to thank everyone for participating in the contest and I want to especially thank Market Leverage for sponsoring the contest with some awesome prizes.

Ok, Drumroll Please!

For the 1st Place Winner we have David Schloss from DailyDollarReport.com!  David wins the Flip Mino and a 2GB USB Pen.

For the 2nd Place Winner we have Christine from TheBonBonLife.com!  Christine wins a $50 Market Leverage Rewards Card.

and finally…

For the 3rd Place Winner we have David Marseilles from Wiihd.Fortunz.com!  David wins a 2GB USB Pen.

Don’t ask me how two David’s ended up winning in the same contest. :)  Every ticket got a number and the ticket numbers were drawn completely at random.  I’ve entered a bunch of ML contests myself trying to win a Flip.  Maybe I should change my name to David, hehe.

Once again, thank you everyone for participating.

One thing I would like to do is to open up the comments on this post to ask for your suggestions on any ideas on what else I can do for future contests besides utilizing the ticket system used in this contest.  I like the ticket system, but if anyone else has some creative ideas I’m all ears.

Also if anyone would like to sponsor a future contest on InspiredMoneyMaker.com, don’t hesitate to contact me with your ideas.

Most employees think that when they work for a company, the reason they work there is because the company pays them a certain amount per month and they need that amount to pay their bills.  This is only partly true.

In reality, the real reason employees continue to be employees is because of something I call the “Uncertainty Factor”.  What does that mean?  Well, basically what it means is that when you work for someone else, you make an agreement with them to exchange a certain amount of value for a certain wage.  However, in most cases it is not the wage that you’re truly going after but rather the CERTAINTY that you will get that wage.

For example, lets say that you are a top notch computer graphics artist.  You have the ability to create amazing computer graphics that you know are valuable in the industry.  You hear about freelancers getting paid top dollar for such work.  However, you find yourself working at a “stable job” making a stable but not so exciting salary.  Why?  In the majority of cases, it is because you are addicted to the CERTAINTY of knowing that you’re going to get a steady paycheck at the end of the month.  It’s not the size of the paycheck, but rather it’s stability.  You’re addicted to guarantees.

Here is the main difference between an employee, and an entrepreneur.

Employee:

1. INPUT (Do what you’re asked to do.)
2. OUTPUT (You get a paycheck.)

Entrepreneur:

1. INPUT (You follow your dream.)
2. UNCERTAINTY
3. OUTPUT (You get paid.)

Essentially, as an employee you just have to make sure you show up to work, do what you’re asked to do, and then collect a paycheck.  As an entrepreneur, however, you have to first figure out what you want to do, then figure out how that’s going to make money, then do that thing, and then there is a level of uncertainty in the middle of whether it will work and whether the value you create will be converted to cash, and then there’s the output which is you getting paid.

That middle part, the uncertainty is what kills most people’s ambitions of being an entrepreneur.  Everyone wants the “Employee” benefits inside the “Entrepreneur” model and it just doesn’t work that way.  There are no guarantees.

Do you guys realize that when I started Blogging two years ago, I had absolutely no guarantees that I would ever make money doing this?  Nobody offered me any kind of pay to Blog.  Nobody told me that if I do A, B, C, D etc. that I would be guaranteed to make money.  Nobody said this would work.  In fact, most people say that this doesn’t work.  Interent Marketing, just like any other entrepreneurial venture is full of risk.  There are no guarantees.

So how the heck did I stick to this and kept at it, researching, tweaking, learning, studying and adjusting my strategy for over two years before ever making more than a few dollars a month?  The reason I was able to do it is because I have a much higher tolerence for UNCERTAINTY than most people.  Why?  Because this isn’t my first venture.  I’ve been running businesses since I left highschool.  I’ve failed many times and each time I put a lot of work and in most cases money into my projects, only to see them “fail”.  However, each time I did this I learned something, so I didn’t classify them as “failures” in my mind, I classified them as learning experiences.

If you want to ever stop being an employee and move into being in business for yourself, you need to start embracing uncertainty instead of avoiding or running away from it.  I know it’s not easy, and I still do it as well to a degree in some parts of my life, but you need to start getting comfortable with it.  You can start small and work your way up.  You don’t need to “stake the farm” on a single business idea, but you need to start taking more risks.  If you don’t have money, just start risking your time.

I think the reason most “employee minded” people won’t even try entrepreneurship is because they have no idea how much higher the payouts can be.  Here’s what they think the formulas is:

Either be an employee and get this:

1. Do what you’re asked to do.
2. Get paid $40,000/year guaranteed.

or be an Entrepreneur and get this:

1. Figure out what you need to do and do it.
2. Uncertainty whether it will work.
3. If it does work, you may make $40,000/year or maybe $45,000/year for doing same work as employee.

In reality, the Entrepreneur model is more like this:

1. Figure out what you need to do and do it.
2. Uncertainty whether it will work.
3. If it doesn’t work, you either make $0, or you lose money and perhaps even bankrupt the business.  If it works out poorly, you may make $20,000/year.  If it works out average, you may make $60,000/year.  If it works out nicely you might make $240,000/year.  If it really works out of you, you may make $750,000 per MONTH or more.

I know that to most people figures like that are beyond the realm of possibility.  Meaning,  most “normal” people laugh if you were to even propose that they could make $750,000 per month or more.  They just don’t believe it.  However, entrepreneurs out there are doing this right now and they’re probably not any smarter than you are…they’re just more able to handle risk and uncertainty.  There are also a whole bunch of entrepreneurs right now filing for bankruptcy.  That’s the UNCERTAINTY that keeps people employed as employees working for someone else.  They don’t want to take that kind of risk themselves so they offload that responsibility onto their boss who takes that risk on their behalf and in exchange ends up making a profit for providing such “security” to the employee.

I’m not saying this is good or bad.  That’s just the way it is.  I’ve been in situations before where I worked for businesses where I didn’t want to participate in sharing the risk with the owner of the business so I demanded a salary to work there.  I’ve also been in situations where I traded in my salary for a pure performance based compensation structure.  I’ve also been in the situations where I was the owner of a business where I took all the risk personally and removed that uncertainty for my employees.  I’ve been in situations where I’ve had to borrow large sums of money (basically the size of a second mortgage) against my house personally, just so that I could have enough money to cover payroll for my employees who had no idea I had to do that in order to provide them that “secure” place of having no uncertainty.

When I see people making six or even seven figure incomes, I look at them and think “There’s someone who’s probably taken some big risks in life and is comfortable with uncertainty”, while most employee minded people are probably thinking “Man that dude is grossly overpaid… he doesn’t even do anything more than I do at work… I work way harder than that guy, why does he get to make so much money?!”

So, how do you stop being an employee?  You need to develop the courage necessary to deal with uncertainty.  You need to be able to start taking calculated risks, start believing in yourself and your ability to not only survive but to also thrive on your own.  You need to start embracing uncertainty and become comfortable with making mistakes and failing a little bit in order to learn from your mistakes.

The payoffs if you succeed are huge, and the journey is much more exciting, but it’s not for everyone.

I’ve met Bloggers who make four times the yearly income of a police officer or a fireman.  I’ve seen affiliate marketers with monthly revenues about three times the yearly salary of what the President of the United States gets paid.

So many people want to make this type of money as entrepreneurs, but they don’t want to risk anything.  They  want no uncertainty and everything to be guaranteed and handed to them on a silver platter.

I read this in a forum once.  (Paraphrased)

“Person1: I want to make money as a Blogger.  Like those $25k/m Bloggers out there.  What’s the first step?”
“Person2: Figure out your name, go to GoDaddy.com and register a domain name.”
“Person1: Thanks! …. ….. oh wait, it says here I have to pay $9 for the domain name.”
“Person2: Yeah…so?”
“Person1: Oh…this costs money?  What if it doesn’t work out?  Nevermind then…”

See what I mean?  No risk tolerence.  No willingness to tolerate any uncertainty.  You can go and return pop bottles to go make $9 to afford a domain, but most people are too lazy to do it.  If you want to stop being an employee, then learn to tolerate some uncertainty grow some balls.  Learn to handle some uncertainty and take some calculated risks.  Or, if you don’t want to then just accept that you’re choosing to be an employee and that’s ok too.  Go find something you enjoy doing for a decent wage and stop complaining about it.

Man this new “Money and the Law of Attraction” book by Esther Hicks has really been helping to make some major shifts in my life.  I’m no newcomer to the Law of Attraction either, having been intimately utilizing it consciously since around 2002 and talking to people about it long before “The Secret” ever came out.

However, even though I *know* Law of Attraction, sometimes it’s just really funny how we continue to do silly things even though we know better.  The one thing that this book has really helped me with is realizing just how unproductive complaining is.  Now, I’m not much of a complainer.  I’m normally a very positive person, and I don’t really complain about much.  But there are a few things and people in my life that for whatever reason I’ve been complaining about lately.

Not like it’s a major thing that I do non-stop, but you know how you might have someone in your life that’s always late and so you always end up talking to someone about how they’re always late while you wait for them?  Or the person that’s always negative, no matter what happens in life, always looking at the negative side of the coin?  Or the person that is super cheap about everything?  I think you know what I mean.  We all have these characters in our lives.

Well, I was reading the book and it really made me realize that by talking about these “flaws” that these people have, all I’m doing is attracting more of that flaw into my life.  It’s kind of like people who complain about bad drivers always seem to be surrounded by bad drivers!  I hardly ever notice any “bad drivers” out there and it seems like they don’t follow me around at all.

However, the problem goes deeper.  If you complain about people who always complain about people, you will attract more people like that as well!  So I’ve been doing a little experiment over the last two weeks.  I’ve consciously started to become a lot more aware of anything I say that’s “negative” about a person or group of people or a situation.  In fact, I’ve actually started to consciously focus on the positive aspects of people and situations.

For example, when a waiter or waitress at a restaurant does something great like bringing me a refill without me having to ask for it, I consciously think to myself “What an awesome waiter/waitress this person is.” or something like that.  When they do something like forget to bring me something, I just ask again and forget about their “mistake” instantly not dwelling on it at all.  I make it a point to over emphasize in my mind the positive aspects of people.

I’ve been doing this “experiment” for about two weeks now and I wanted to see what Law of Attraction would do in this kind of situation.  For example, if I stopped talking about how negative people are, would negative people stop hanging around me?  Or what would happen?

So far, I’ve been absolutely amazed with the results.  Something unexpected has happened.  The people themselves seemed to have changed.  It’s not like they stopped being in my life.  They just seemed to have changed.  It’s so bizarre.  I would even say that some of the behaviour of these people is “out of character”, almost like they’ve “changed” as soon as I changed my opinion of them.

Now I’m not talking about massive changes where someone who has smoked for 30 years all of a sudden stops smoking instantly the day you decide not to complain about their smoking.  What I’m talking about is them making subtle changes, like starting to only smoke 5 cigarettes a day instead of 6.  Or someone who is always super negative actually saying something positive about something all of a sudden.  Or driving the whole way home from work without being surrounded by “bad drivers”.  Or someone who’s always late still being a bit late, but calling you ahead to let you know (which they’ve never done before).

Try it out.  Go on a “complaining fast” for a while and even if it’s just towards a few people in your life, try not complaining or even thinking anything negative about them or their silly little habits for a few weeks and see what happens.  Don’t expect to be perfect at it from day one.  I still catch myself all the time slipping back into the habit of pointing out someone’s “bad habits”, but at least now I’ve been consiously becoming more aware of it and stopping myself.

Another thing you’ll want to stop complaining about is your “Non-Inspired” job or career if you’re in one.  If you’re trying to make money doing what you love, complaining about the fact that you hate what you’re doing right now is NOT going to attract it to you.  That doesn’t mean you “settle” for doing something you hate.  All I’m saying is that you spend all your energy on what you DO want, instead of complaining about what you DON’T want.  Try it out for just a few weeks…it might really surprise you to see what happens.

I was watching the Beijing Olympics on TV and some of the profiles and stories they talk about in regards to the athleates, and it got me thinking about the power of stories.  It’s really interesting how we as humans have always had these ageless stories about the struggling hero who faces some tough challenges but ends up prevailing in the end.

For example, let me tell you the story of two twin brothers named Alex and Andy.

Alex was born second and due to some complications at birth he had to remain in the hospital for two weeks after birth, while Andy was born healthy and was able to leave the same day.  Alex always was the slightly smaller of the two twins and the kids liked to pick on him much more than they did with Andy.  Growing up, Alex didn’t really get along with his dad and as soon as he turned 18 he moved out of the house on his own.  He always felt that his parents favored Andy and he always felt a lot of resentment towards them.

After moving out, Alex went into the workforce trying to make ends meet and to pay for rent.  He struggled at first, but eventually was able to get into a management position with the company he worked for which allowed him to finally start moving ahead financially.  One day on his way to work a drunk driver ran a red light and side-swiped his car, putting Alex in the hospital with a broken leg, two broken ribs and a skull fracture.

While in the hospital, Alex had a lot of time to reflect on his life and he realized that he needed to make some changes once he recovers.  He made the decision to leave his job and to pursue his dream of becoming a businessman.  After some intense physiotherapy, Alex was able to leave the hospital and resume a semi-normal life, with the only semi-permanent disability from the accident being some really intense headaches which haunted him for over six months after leaving the hospital.

He decided to pursue his dream and started his own business.  At first he struggled financially, but things eventually picked up and Alex now runs a multi-million dollar business employing 20 employees and loves what he does.

Andy, on the other hand, left home shortly after Alex and his parents were happy to pay for his college tuition.  He went to college, but was much more interested in hanging out with his friends and going out on dates with girls than he was in studying.  The subjects bored him and after a few semesters, he decided to drop out.

Prior to moving out of his dorm though, he had a few conversations with his roommate who had a business idea which Andy thought was really cool, so they started their own company together.  Andy’s job was to find customers for the software which his friend was building.  Andy’s friend was a computer whizz and he built a piece of computer software which they ended up selling to a bigger company for 250 million dollars, just 6 months later.  They split the 250 million dollars 50/50 and Andy now enjoys a “retired” lifestyle of someone who’s completely financially abundant.

The end.

Now, of course these are just fictional characters.  Andy and Alex don’t actually exist.  But while reading these stories, did you feel more connected to any one of the characters?  Did you feel sorry for Alex and were you happy when things finally turned around for him?

Did you do the same when you read Andy’s story?  Or did you feel that Andy is just a spoiled kid who never worked an honest day in his life?

The stories I wrote are not as dramatic as what we hear out there or see on TV, but it is very interesting that most of us are addicted to the whole story of the person who had a really tough life and struggled with everything only to prevail in the end.  It’s like we feel that there must be suffering before there is success.  Any story we hear of someone who just had success easily is always approached with skepticism.  Have you ever seen a 19 year old kid in a $100,000 car?  What did you think?  Did you think “Oh my God, this kid must be a financial genius, I should see if I can ask him some questions and get some advice!” or did you think “What a spoiled little brat.  His daddy bought him that.” or “Drug dealer!”

What do these stories tell us about ourselves?

What options do they present us with?

What kinds of things do they attract into our lives?

If you became an Inspired Money Maker tomorrow, really easily, would your story be too easy and boring to tell?  Are you purposely complicating things just so that you have a better story to tell later on in life?

Something to think about.