I was hanging out with a friend of mine yesterday who owns a few businesses run completely online. He’s a guy that lives a very nomadic lifestyle — he has a home in Des Moines, lives with some entrepreneurs in San Diego, has traveled to probably a dozen different countries in the past 18 months, and works about 10-15 hours a week.
When you talk to this guy, he makes everything sound really easy. And for him, it is.
We got to talking about his success and the number of people he’d coached into business with a similar model as his. He bluntly told me that while everyone could have what it takes to live the way he does, most of the people he’d started coaching and ended up firing just weren’t willing to make the life choices necessary to succeed.
It reminded me of a saying that says, “success comes at your inconvenience, not your convenience.”
Four short years ago, I met this friend and at the time he was building a pretty successful web development company that was mainly targeting the real estate industry. (He was not nearly at the level he is today.) Our relationship was forged while we took a copywriting course together — 4-5 hours once or twice a week watching videos about copywriting and then copying award winning sales letters by hand and dissecting them.
For at least 8 weeks we carved out this time to hone our skills at writing effective ad copy. It was somewhat grueling. Fun, but copying long form sales letters by hand takes a lot of work.
However, what we found is that our writing skills improved. Our sales skill improved. Our ability to critique others’ work was sharpened. We became go-to people in the world of writing effective ad copy.
The more people I talk to about living their dreams, the more I realize that there are people who want to do just that — TALK. There is no action behind their words and just the hope of things being different is enough for them.
Then, there are those that M.A.S.H. The people who Make Awesome Shit Happen. They are the action-takers. The doers. The Get It Done People.
They are the ones you want to surround yourself with. They will push you and harass you and make you better. They will tell you (just like my friend did) to shut off your phone when you’re in the middle of making your life better. They will force you to get really intentional about what you want in life and go after it with everything you’ve got.
And, for those of you who are still in talk mode — I challenge you to get out of your comfort zone and do something you’re afraid to do. Make the call, write the letter, take the class, start exercising, sign up for a marathon, jump out of an airplane, open a business, just DO something.
Your life is waiting for you to take control and make it amazing. Stumbling upon amazing rarely happens unless you’re out looking for it.
Have an amazing week!
