After the meeting, my business partner and I talked to each other about the fact that he’s got a little more experience than us, but generally we’re learning the same things that he had to in the beginning, and he was even impressed with one of the sites we’re putting together.  Getting that kind of feedback from a person who’s so wildly successful is extremely inspiring.  I’ve been working almost non-stop since this weekend to get this project finished now, because the money at the end of the rainbow is all the more tangible to me now.  Yes, we got a couple great tips from him, but what I think we really got the most out of it was firming the idea that you can make massive amounts of money very easily, and all it takes is following a proven system, and taking action.  Regular, steady action, every single day.

Find someone who is successful and ask them for a minute of their time, for a little advice.  I don’t care if it’s just somebody on an internet board, send them a message and show them your website or whatever you’re thinking of.  Tell them that you really appreciate their taking the time to talk to you, and that you’re really taking a lot of action and are listening closely to everything they say.  Show them that you’re walking the walk, not just talking the talk.  Action speaks very loudly to successful people.  Don’t just say you’re doing something, develop something to show them and ask for a specific critique on it.  This separates you from the countless others who never take action.  Successful people can sniff these people out instantly, and won’t want to waste their time with that kind of person.  If you prove yourself otherwise, they will feel better for being able to help, and you’ll get untold benefits from the simple suggestions they make.

Most jobs, you are just somebody’s bitch.  They send you any work that they don’t want to do.  They don’t care that you’re bored, because in their eyes, your job is to be their bitch, just like they were somebody else’s bitch when they were your age.

Why jump into that cycle of bitching?  Get the fuck out.  Go work for yourself and find intelligent people who will mentor you and actually treat you like an intelligent individual.  I think it’s ridiculous that college-educated people start their jobs and get treated like uneducated slaves.

It’s too easy to start your own business these days, particularly online.  Experience can be gained in months, not years.  The only knowledge you need is how to outsource the things you don’t excel at.  Develop a skill of project management – this is something that corporations won’t teach you until you’re at least in your 30′s.  Learn it right out of college and live a more rewarding life, challenging yourself to learn and put yourself on the line every day.

Plus, if you did decide to go work at a major corporation when you’re 30, what’s more impressive – working at a company all those years, or starting your own company and running it, along with traveling the world and doing all sorts of great things you couldn’t take advantage of at the regular 9-5.  Corporations want diverse and creative people, but they do not breed them from within.

Now this may be true when it comes to selling $20 ebooks on topics like “how to sell all your stuff on ebay!” and other little tips and tricks.  Sure.  But will those products create you a lasting business that shoots you up into the higher echelons of success?  Will you become a multi-millionaire off these little one-hit products?  I doubt it.

In college, the professors that I respected the most were always the ones that came from the industry they taught about, and decided at some point to make a career change and retire into teaching, or they just taught part-time while practicing what they preached during the rest of their time.  The same goes with people I hear speaking online.  They talk a big game, but most don’t have anything to back it up.  Instead of practicing lying about your resume and convincing people that you’re someone you’re not, why not practice a real proven skill like Pay-Per-Click or Stock Investing or Programming or Guitar Playing or Boxing… who cares.

Instead of searching for ideas in how you can become a quick “expert” in someone else’s field, why not focus on becoming the real deal, and actually build a business to make your money in that field from the beginning?  Then once you’ve reached success in that field, and you decide to teach your method, you won’t have to go around stretching the truth.  Your reputation will speak for itself, and your products will sell themselves.

Even easier, find something that you’ve already accomplished in your life … we all have something … and focus on that.  That way, you might already be able to consider yourself an expert.  Just don’t choose internet marketing… unless you’re already a millionaire.

I was reading this post by a guy who just turned 21 and says he’s set for life from IM money.  I completely believe him, and if you know how to manage your money, you can certainly turn a few hundred thousand dollars into a lifetime of financial freedom.  But I was wondering from the start where he made his money, and then I noticed that in his signature there’s a link to a WSO called How I Made $603,094.00 In Just 7 Days – My Personal Diary Documents Every Exact Step.

I read the whole sales letter.  He charged $2000 for a product he produced, and gave out a 50% affiliate commission.  And when you think about how much money you can make with a great IM Idea, 2k is not much of a price.  In fact, you could have an absolutely insane ROI if you pull one great idea from a product.  Beyond that, people see that you have confidence in the product you’re putting out, and there certainly are plenty of people out there with money to pay for products like this.

So why are so many people hatching schemes to create a $27 ebook?  Why does it seem like everybody is trying to “make a living” off IM rather than making a FORTUNE off IM?  It’s just not in their reality that you can make that kind of money, so they decide to “start small” … from that, they develop the skills to run a small business … and that’s where they end up.  Probably generate around $100,000 a year from a business that is quite time-consuming, and in order to take a chance and build a bigger product, they’d have to devote all their time to that and lose their small business.  The risk never leaves you.

But say there’s a person who thinks big right from the start, they learn how to run a big project, and they grow comfortable with the idea that they can run a big project.  From there, they will never want to return to small projects, either.  Only the big ones will seem worthy of their time, and rightfully so.

So I guess the point of this post is, look at your overall business model.  Are the business ideas that you’re coming up with bringing you closer to your long-term goal of financial freedom?  Is the business model going to allow you to simply be an “owner” of a business in a few years, with very little hands-on so that you may relax and vacation and do all the things you’d like to do?  Or are you essentially building yourself into a trap of a business where you’re earning your money by the hour just like any other employee?

Think big.  It’s no less work in the long run doing article marketing every day than it is to develop a real sustainable business.  It just takes a different type of planning.