Category Archives for "Self-growth"
All of us have heard before that “Age is just a number”. What does it really mean? We count the number of birthdays someone has celebrated as his/her age. And based on the texture of the skin and color of hair or physical appearance we tag ourselves and others as old, young, or mid-age. When we see someone frail, with white hair and pale looking skin we say that person as an “old man”. And when we see someone with wrinkle-free glowing skin and
black hair, we call that person a young man or woman.
But, have you seen people in their 40s and 50s who have an attitude of a child or a child having the maturity and wisdom of an adult or old man? I definitely have seen such people and I myself in few occasions behaved like a 10-year-old kid. I have found myself losing my temper to my school-going kids without any fault of their and due to my inability to manage and prioritize things. At the same time I have seen kids reacting to situations so calmly that we would expect a a 40-year-old adult to do.
I am sure, you have heard and read about 18 or 20-year-old millionaires. A quick google search will show you many such kids. I sometimes wonder, what do these kids know that I didn’t know when I was of their age. Being an entrepreneur myself, many a time I wonder in awe, the maturity of these kids and their business acumen. The other day while looking for tips on creating a podcast channel on YouTube, I came across a YouTube video by a kid having more than 1 million followers. It was very informational and I ended up creating my Podcast channel.
Some people are early bloomers and identify their talent and become successful very early in their lives and few people are late bloomers and identify their god-given talent at a later part of their lives. Barack Obama became the President of the United States at the age of 47 and finished his career as President at the age of 55 while Joe Biden took the responsibility of the country as the President, at the age of 78.
Harland David Sanders started selling his secret chicken recipe and founded KFC (Kentucky Fried Chicken) at the age of 61 which later on became a multi-billion dollar global brand. In contrast to that, Mark Zuckerburg founded Facebook, the social media and marketing giant, when he was 19 years old, studying at Harvard University. Few people shoot to the limelight very early whereas few others get to the limelight in the latter part of their life. It does not matter where you start. What really matters is where do you finish. What matters is your dream and daringness to pursue it.
In the words of Ralph Waldo Emerson “Life is a journey, not a destination”. We should enjoy the ride in every form, be it smooth or bumpy. But there can’t be a journey without any destination. Similarly, for us to stay young and energetic we need to have a destination, a goal to strive for. It’s not how many birthdays you celebrated in this world which decide whether you are old or young but rather your energy, enthusiasm, and zest for life that decide your youthfulness. I have met very young people who don’t have any desire and ambition in life, who are lazier than a sloth. I have also met people in their 70s and 80s, full of energy, very busy still striving for something bigger in their lives. In the words of Ben Franklin “Some people die at 25 and aren’t buried until 75”. Few people lose all their dreams and aspirations in life at the age of 25. They are just like dead fish floating on the water without any energy. They do the same thing every single day till they die. Most people are so busy making a living that they forget to make a life. I guess life should be adventurous, thrill, and full of fun and excitement. And this keeps you young.
Life is not a race where you compete against others. The only person you compete with is yourself. The depth of the wrinkles on your face can’t be the yardstick to measure your age, as you may be 80 years old with the enthusiasm
of a 20-year-old or you could be a 20-year-old without any ambition in life and living a life of desperation and acting as a living dead. It’s time we change our thoughts. All of us are in this world for a certain number of years, months,
and days. Having a worthwhile dream and striving to make yourself better every single moment to realize your dreams, fills you with the energy that we always associate with youth.
So, the secret to eternal youthfulness is to keep your mind and body young. It’s doing what you did when you were a baby. As a baby every day and every moment when you were awake you learned new things. You learned to talk, eat, walk, play and do everything that you can do now. You were on a mission to learn every moment. You had certain goals in mind to accomplish. You fell several times before you took your first step and started to walk. You dropped your spoon and food several times before you learned to eat. You were goal-driven. You always had a goal in mind, be it to walk or eat or talk. Every moment, you tried to make yourself better. You never compared yourself with others. You were always active, kicking, and playful. You were busy but your parents called you naughty. When anyone came in contact with you, they also felt that energy, playfulness, and joy.
What happened now? Why did you stop learning and playing? You didn’t stop because you grew older, you grew older because you stopped learning and playing. A recent study published by Columbia Universitydone by Cell
Stem Cell suggests that elderly people grow as many brain cells as young, which directly challenges the common belief which we had until now. But researchers have suggested again and again that whatever we don’t use, will be lost. If you stop walking for a year, you may struggle to walk again. If you don’t use your brain or creative imagination, irrespective of your age, you will lose your cognitive abilities. Whatever we use more and do more we will get better at it. Whatever we don’t use, will be lost forever.
It’s very important to keep your body and mind busy so that both your cells in muscle and neurons in the brain are
regenerated every single day. This is the biggest secret of youthfulness.
Finally, you just don’t want to feel and look young you also want to be happy and live a life of significance. And this
comes from social interactions and giving back to the community and society. The most fulfilling experience you will ever have in life is interacting and helping others. Social interaction became quite evident when Covid-19 shut everyone down to the solitude of their homes. A lot of people faced serious mental health challenges. We are all social animals. For a healthy mind, we all need social interactions, be it with family and friends or with your next-door neighbor or the shopkeeper down the road. Thanks to social media, now social interactions could be done online, without even leaving your home. Though social media could never replace the connection and feeling that a face-to-face physical interaction could give, but it allows connecting with unlimited people around the world.
Social media not only helps you to connect with others but also to gather your raving fans. I have seen 5-year-old YouTuber Ryan reviewing toys in his channel and 107-year-old Mastanamma from India sharing her home cooking recipes. You can share anything that you follow or are passionate about. You could write blog posts or share pictures on Instagram or videos on YouTube. This will not only be fulfilling but also beneficial to others and has
a huge opportunity for you to monetize your passion.
So, in conclusion, these are the FOUR L’s which contribute to your eternal youth.
Som Prakash
Entrepreneur, Author, Coach
Most people are pretty busy nowadays. Does not matter if you are a busy professional or be a student working part-time or having an odd job. All of us play many roles every day. As a full-time IT consultant, I was busy working in my IT consulting job and on my side hustle in my spare time while looking after my two children. When I left my full-time job to start my coaching and consulting business, along with my e-commerce business, I got extremely busy. So, in every part of life and every situation, we are busy. At least we think we are. The question to ask ourselves is, are we only busy, or are we busy being productive? In this world of social media, the temptation to look at a Facebook notification may take 15 mins of your time without you even realizing it.
Unfortunately, being busy has now become a status symbol. People take pride in telling themselves and others that they are busy. But, I guess becoming busy and not having time to do what you would cherish the most in your life is a situation to work on and not an accomplishment to boast about.
People want to find the time to do what they like the most, such as spending time with their loved ones, or acquiring the knowledge skillset for their career growth or pursuing their passion, be it sports, music, travel, etc. led to different time management techniques developed by some great minds. One of them is the Pomodoro technique developed by Francesco Cirillo.
While at University, Francesco would set himself some target to accomplish within a certain duration of time. But he would never be able to complete the task during the time. He then started to monitor his activities and would note down all his temptations and distractions during the time set for his tasks. He noticed that while he was in the process of finishing his assignment, a friend would come and that would take him down the rabbit hole, and he wouldn’t be able to complete his task in time. Then he realized that it wasn’t always the external factors such as his friends, or mom, or his professor to blame. As a matter of fact, he noticed that most of the time, it was his own temptation to peep through the window or taking a break or attending to some other tasks that got him off track.
He then devised a method of cutting down the entire job in hand to small tasks and allocating a time duration of 25 minutes or less to each such task before taking a break. This method substantially increased his productivity. This has become a very popular method practiced and preached by many in corporate and personal life.
Pomodoro, Italian for tomato, is a well-known time management technique to avoid distractions and have an intense focus on a specific task for a short duration of time. The steps of the Pomodoro technique are as below:
Example: If you got a PowerPoint presentation to complete in 3 days, your tasks could be requirement gathering, brainstorming, preparation of the draft, and review.
Example: You assign 25 minutes for requirement gathering in the above example.
Note: 25 minutes of work with 5 minutes break is called one Pomodoro.
The above are the steps of the Pomodoro technique. You may come across distractions in between where you may be tempted to attend to something else. But you have to acknowledge the temptation and feel it but not surrender yourself to it. There may be occasions when something urgent may come up. In that case, you have to stop the timer and attend to the other task before coming back to your Pomodoro.
Time is the most precious commodity in your life. Once gone, it never comes back, unlike money which can be re-earned if lost. Hence every minute of your life should be cautiously spent. And the Pomodoro technique helps you to accomplish that.
The pandemic has forced a lot of businesses to adapt to the new norm, such as working from home or focussing more on getting their businesses to go online. Businesses which could not adapt to the change had to be shut down. This led the world economy to deep recession and unprecedented double digit decline in stock markets around the world in March 2020.
With world economy slowly coming back on track, cash starved companies are now finding ways to innovate and thrive in the new post-pandemic economy.
The biggest survivors and the companies which grew the most during the pandemic are virtual or digital businesses. While brick and mortar businesses were filing bankruptcy, companies like Amazon and Zoom were experiencing double digit growth. While other companies were laying off their staff during the pandemic, Amazon became the biggest recruiter in the US and Europe. With more and more people and businesses going online, global technology giants like Google, Facebook, Microsoft etc saw their revenue skyrocketing.
With companies struggling for both cash and skilled labor, going digital has been the ultimate solution. The pandemic led to a lot many new start-ups in the technology field. Be it Ed-tech (Education Technology), Fin-tech (Financial Technology) or Food-tech.
E-Commerce platform providers like Shopify, Wix, Woocommerce help companies to establish their presence and sell online, without even hiring expensive coders and eliminating the need of staff selling those products. Amazon with its fulfilment service program called Amazon FBA, not only give businesses instant access to millions of potential buyers, it also takes care of the warehousing, picking and packing, product shipment and delivery and even customer care. Everything for a very small monthly subscription fee saving businesses thousands of dollars in overheads and staff cost.
Out of all the businesses, the hardest hit during the pandemic were the businesses dealing with services which require physical connection such as gyms, beauty salon, chiropractic clinics, dentists etc. You can’t give anyone a virtual haircut, can you ? Well, quite obviously “you can’t” in literal sense. However, few business owners in these sectors, with entrepreneurial spark inside, started teaching online with live Zoom classes and online courses the process and techniques so that their customers could do it at home. Gym instructors started their YouTube channels and started taking online classes teaching aerobics and cardio to their customers. Salon owners started teaching the haircutting techniques, grooming and selling clippers on their website. This led to an explosion in e-learning market which is set to become $468 Billion by 2026. During this time, I started teaching others through my online course, how to sell their knowledge be it dog walking or cryptocurrency or parenting. Monetization of your knowledge is a big industry which is now helping not only the businesses but also ordinary people having a job.
Businesses dealing in physical products, could save a lot of money in terms of staff and other overheads by bringing their businesses onto self-hosted E-Commerce platforms such as Shopify, WooCommerce, Wix etc or to public e-commerce platforms such as Amazon, eBay etc. Businesses dealing with services could save and even substantially grow their revenue by having e-learning platforms
Outsourcing is another great way to safe staff cost. If your company had an accounting department with a book keeper, a AI (Artificial intelligence) powered book-keeping software like QuickBooks or Xero could easily replace the job of a full-time book keeper with monthly subscription fee of as low as $30. These cloud based softwares could also connect with your business bank account which makes your transaction posting automatic from your bank account. These companies have their dedicated customer service departments as well available to serve you incase you get stuck anywhere.
Not only in accounting, the gig economy is growing so fast now, that you could outsource your every little responsibility to someone else and more interestingly, that person could be sitting in another part of the world. I personally hired someone online from India for 2 hours a day to do my online marketing while I am in the UK, with 5 H 30 mins behind. A personal assistant from Philippines speaking better English than me, could be hired in fractions of cost from websites like Fiverr.com, Upwork.com, Freelancer.com etc.
Outsourcing, not only saves you money but more importantly the time, so that you as a business owner could focus on more important aspects of your business such as customer acquisition or business growth etc.
It’s time now for the businesses to adapt to the new post pandemic era. “Every adversity has the seed of an equivalent or greater benefit”- Nepoleon Hill. I am confident that we will see multiple Billion dollar companies (Unicorns) in coming years out of this pandemic just like companies like AirBNB, WhatsApp, Instagram came out of the great recession of 2008.
With Pandemic creating havoc all around the world, more than half of the world’s working class people are working from home (WFH). The acronym WFH is being used quite widely now, by businesses and business journals.
The initial jubilation of employees on being asked to work from home on a long term basis, short lived. Even though, you don’t have to wake up early to commute to work, WFH has its own challenges. More and more people are reporting heightened stress and anxiety and complete burnout at the end of their day’s work.
In the attempt to show their productivity to the senior management, staff are working long hours. Juggling work with household chores and kids at home, has been quite challenging for most parents.
So, what could be done? How can you maintain a good mental health, while being productive at work? How to maintain the boundaries between work and family?
These are a 5 tips to enjoy your WFH while being super productive.
1- Dedicated workspace
Its always better to have a dedicated desk for your work, ideally at a quiet place (away from distractions) with ample of sun light. Better to keep the desk tidy without any clutter. Ideally you should have an ergonomic chair, which helps to keep your spine straight avoiding back and neck pain.
2- Time Blocking: stick to your original working hours
Even if you have more time now, as you avoid the commute time to work, its very important to stick to your original working hours (9–5). Having more time should not mean working more hours, unless you are required to. It is a well known fact that working long hours is detrimental to your productivity. As per one study done by Harvard Business Review, one individual is most productive for only 3 hours out of his 8–10 working hours. So, its better to log-in and log-off at the required time. If you are a leader of a team, you should encourage the same within the team members, so that everyone is more happy and productive.
Another quick tip here is- Time blocking will definitely help. Blocking your calendar for lunch or break, reduces your urge to go and check that email even when you are having a coffee or putting cloths into the washing machine.
3- Your extra time — Rejuvenate your mind
Now that you have extra time in your hand, you could read a book, meditate, play with your dog, go for a jog or help your kids with their homework which you always struggled to find the time for before. You could even play your favourite video game, as research shows playing video games activates your brain, which may help you to be more productive.
4- Breaks (What about social breaks?)
Taking regular breaks is another best way to be more relaxed and productive. A 5 minute coffee break or a walk in the garden instantly increases the productivity. How about a virtual coffee break with your colleagues ? More and more organizations are adopting the culture of virtual coffee breaks to give their staff a chance to interact with others virtually. Speaking to someone does reduce the stress level and boost productivity.
5- Planning your next day
Before you log-off, it definitely helps to plan your next day and to write down your action plans or tasks. This helps you in keeping you mind calm, as you would know the following day, one day in advance and prepare accordingly and you won’t run to your morning meeting in panic.
In conclusion, I would say working from is a bliss when you know how to manage your time between personal and official works. Happy WFH 🙂
Has it ever occurred to you that you know what to do to take the next big step for your future success but you don’t take any action? You keep talking to yourself that you are not ready yet, and need more time or more knowledge or you need to wait for the right time…the list goes on and on.
Procrastination is the major dream killer of so many entrepreneurs. So, why don’t we take action? Let’s try to understand, the brain. It’s called the Action Triangle.
Our brain does not send the signal for us to work, until it believes that the action will produce the result. But if you don’t take action, there won’t be any result. So, this is kind of a vicious circle, which I call it as “ The action Triangle”.
So, how do we get our brain and it’s billions of neurons to send the signal for our body to take action when we don’t have any result to show for? How do we take action to pick up the phone to make that call or start designing your website for your e-commerce business or start your workout routine without seeing the success?
The trick here is- Our brain can’t differentiate between the actual happened incident and vividly imagined incident. A case study of three groups of basket ball players is worth mentioning here to understand the brain and action link.
For this study, three small groups of basket ball players were selected. The first group were asked to practice for few hours every day shooting the ball into the basket. The 2nd group were asked to only visualize the shooting of the ball into the basket without any physical practice and the third group were not asked to take any mental or physical action.
After a week, all the three groups were asked to perform to take a test. It was to everyone’s surprise, the the group which practiced mentally (Visualized) scored the highest even though they physically didn’t practice during the week. The group which practiced physically, scored the second followed by the group who didn’t practice at all. This test reveals, that even though, they never physically practiced, while practicing in their mind, they scored every time they shot the ball, with 100% success. Where as, the team who practiced physically, didn’t have 100% success in the practice session which reflected in their day of the test.
Our brain can’t differentiate what has been performed physically or mentally, as it understands impressions which may come from mind or body
To get the brain to send the signal to take action- We just have to vividly imagine the action and result, as if its has already happened. The more sensory organs we involve in this imagination process, the more vivid the imagination gets. The more vivid, the imagination is, the more action the brain is triggered to take.
So, these are the steps to follow as a routine, repeatedly multiple number of times in a day, to trigger the brain to take action.
1- Close your eyes and relax every part of your body
2- See your self already accomplished the success.
3- Feel the success. This is quite important. Feeling involves emotion, jubilation, enthusiasm, pride, happiness etc
4- See your self taking massive action and go back to visualize the success.
5- Do it multiple times a day. Especially before going to sleep and after waking up.
6- While meditating, speak loudly and in affirmation your goal and end result as if it has already happened.
7- Keep a pen and paper near you to note down any points that come to you during this meditation.
The above method will work for anything you want to accomplish. May it reducing weight, increase sales, having a dream job or having a better relationship with anyone.
Recently, I was having a chat with a friend about starting a business venture. He mentioned to me that, we should be enjoying our life and live for today and not to think about tomorrow, as you don’t know whether you will be alive tomorrow or not. This got me to think, he has a point. Should we not enjoy our life today. Who has seen the future ?
When the legendary Billionaire entrepreneur and visionary Elon Musk invested all his $180 Million to start Space X, Tesla Motors and The Boring Company, I am sure all his friends and family members and others must be thinking “What an idiot !!”. How does he even think about starting a company for space exploration and space travel without being an astronaut or without any education or experience in space science. How will this new company have the finances and resources to come even closer to the 60 year old public funded juggernaut called NASA, let alone compete with it?…. The same story goes for Tesla. When automobile giants like GM, Toyota, BMW were rolling out not so successful hybrid cars, Elon envisioned all electric car company called Tesla. And no one thought it would be a success.
When Mr Musk risked all his money in starting these companies, without even having the money for his own accommodation, most of us would have thought him as dumb. He could have invested the money in real estate or in stocks of some established companies and see the money grow and enjoy the rest of his life with the return on his investment. Why did he choose to risk it all ? I guess, you would also agree that, he didn’t start these companies with vision to be one of the world’s wealthiest persons, one day. He could have lost his entire investment and had to start something again from scratch. (FYI: He is now the 5th richest person in the world as per Forbes Rich List July 2020).
So, what is that drives these visionaries ? What makes them to sacrifice their present, for an uncertain future? While ordinary people like me and you, always look for a safe and secure future and look forward to our weekend parties and time with our family, what moves people like Musk?
Should you sacrifice your today for tomorrow which may not be certain?- I guess it depends on your dream. Do you have a dream or a vision which is much bigger than your personal enjoyment and satisfaction ? I remember the famous quote by late Indian aerospace scientist and president Dr APJ Abdul Kalam “DREAM is not what you see in sleep, DREAM is something which doesn’t let you sleep”.
When you study successful people from any Sphere of life, may it be entrepreneurs, athletes, scientists, authors, painters, inventors- All of them had a vision. They get possessed with an idea or a dream. They could see the future before it manifested physically. And they have an insatiable desire to accomplish their dreams. Walt Disney saw in his imagination a theme park for family to have fun together, before world could see the Disneyland in 1955.
The human as a species as opposed to other species survived and evolved in the last few million years, not because of of their physical strength but because of their ability to think and adapt. I guess, when we live everyday only for pleasure, without any desire and ambition, we are just like any other animals living for survival (food/safety) and procreation. I, strongly believe that we have been sent to this world, for a purpose. And the purpose is to make this world better, in our small little way or in a big way while we are in this world.
Tony Robbins says we do things to avoid pain or to gain pleasure. So what drives these legends? It’s definitely the pleasure or the happiness. There is a small difference between pleasure and happiness. Pleasure is self-centred and happiness is what you gain when you positively touch multiple lives. When you cook a special dish and enjoy it with your family, you gain the pleasure of having a tasty food together with your family. But when someone like Colonel Sanders takes his chicken recipe to the world and let millions of people around the world taste the crispy fried chicken, he gains the real happiness, and of course you may end up finding a multi-billion dollar company like KFC.
So, is it boring pursuing your dream? Is it quite a monotonous life pursuing your dream when you are so focussed on your dream that you don’t have time to enjoy the present? I would say, it’s completely OPPOSITE. When you have a dream to accomplish, you are full of excitement and enthusiasm. It feels like you are immersed in the dream. You finish your day working on your dream, and while sleeping you think about your dream and you can’t wait to wake up in the morning and start working on your dream. You are just like a kid with a new toy, who gets so possessed with the new toy that even after a whole day’s play with the toy, he gets up excited the next day, to look for the toy the first thing in the morning.
Deep within all of us is a desire to be more successful. And SUCCESS as per Earl Nightingale is the progressive realization of a worthy goal. So, all of us should have big goals and strive everyday to get closer to the goal. And that is where the real happiness lies.
Network marketing or Multi-Level Marketing (MLM) is one of the most powerful business models where anyone with an ambition to succeed and willingness to work hard, could get started and gradually build a substantially huge business. However, making a SIX or SEVEN figure income a year is not very common in the industry, though its possible by anyone. So, what differentiates these high-income earners from others? Everyone sees their accomplishments, but no one sees what goes in their minds and efforts. After being in the industry for more than a decade and analysing the highly successful and unsuccessful people in the industry very closely, I came up with the below EIGHT traits of SEVEN FIGURE income earners.
Knowing about all the above traits, the question comes to mind- Can I, as an MLM entrepreneur develop these qualities? The answer is YES. As a matter of fact, not all the high-income network marketers had all the traits within themselves when they started the business. As they started building their businesses, they slowly developed few other qualities.
How to grow the above qualities? It’s important to understand here that the beliefs that we currently have and the way we think is due to how and what we experienced (perceived through five senses) until now. Every child is born with a mind like a BLANK sheet of paper. And as we grow older, the blank sheet is written with what we- see, hear, feel, taste and smell. And from here the character, belief, values and thought process are formed. Some call it “WIRING” of the brain, and some call it “SUBCONSCIOUS MIND”.
Any new qualities or traits can be developed just like the old ones but in a short span of time, by embedding directly into the subconscious mind and by disciplining the conscious mind to identify and stop negative thoughts and practicing new thoughts.
So, at conscious mind level the below can be practiced.
At subconscious mind level, the below can be practiced.
Some powerful books to read about mind and its programming are
The Power of Your Subconscious Mind by Joseph Murphy, Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill, Phycho- Cybernetics by Maxwell Maltz , Awaken the Giant Within by Tony Robbins, What to Say When You Talk to Yourself by Shad Helmstetter.
NOTE: It’s very important to mention here, that there are a lot of companies in Network Marketing industry. You should look at the company’s age, history (Very important), stability and product range before joining one. If you want to learn and be involved in the exciting business of Network Marketing, you could schedule a FREE 30 mins call with us.
Recently by accident I broke my spectacle’s frame which I had been using for last 2 years. Call me old-fashioned or stupid, in last 25 years of me using glasses (BTW, I am not a 25 year old Millennial) I never had two pairs of glasses done after an eye test. And this one week, before I have the eye test and TWO pairs of glasses (for the first time) done, was one the most uncomfortable and long one.
Just like this incident with my glasses, which never happened in last 25 years of me using glasses, in our life, situations may happen which may affect our ENTIRE LIFE and LIFE STYLE. What would happen to your life style if something happens to you and you are not able to go to work from tomorrow ? Have you put all the eggs in one basket ? Do you have a back-up plan ? I know, all of us think that things may happen to someone else but not to us. But reality is, it could happen to anyone.
We now live in an era where expenses are all time high and both husband and wife have to work to support the family which was probably not the case 50 years back. Do you have a Secondary source of income ? Now you may be thinking, I am already working so hard and where on earth I have the time to do something else ? Well, I guess in this age of internet a lot could be done just by investing our spare time to build a solid second source of passive income.
Do you have a second source of income outside your primary income ? If you have, many congratulations. You are on right track. If you haven’t, you could possibly explore one or more of plethora of opportunities that internet has thrown open. Given below are a few which you could possibly explore.
Online Coaching and Consulting:
If you have been working in a job for some time or you have a passion for something or you know you are good at something, probably you could monetize that skill/talent that you have or you have developed over a period of time. The problem is, not many of us identify it as talent. Let’s say, you have a beautiful garden and people coming to your home truly appreciate your effort in making such a beautiful garden. Did you know that you could make money by teaching people “How to create a beautiful garden in your backyard “. For this, you may have to write a blog or to have a website where you provide the information and you could possibly put an E-Book together and sell it online after identifying your potential customers on Facebook ? And this entire thing could be done without investing thousands of dollars. You could also provide your expertise as consulting service to your potential customers. Of course you would need step by step guidance if you haven’t ever done it before. One site which is specializes in this field is www.consulting.com. Sam Ovens and his company (consulting.com) has helped hundred of people to set-up and run their own consulting business profitably.
Freelancing work
If you have one of the skill sets being sold in websites like Freelancers.com, Upwork.com, Fiverr congratulations. You can list your services there and slowly attract clients for your services.
Sell on Amazon/Shopify:
If you are more keen on generating revenue online by selling goods, rather than services as mentioned above, you could do that as well. Platform like Amazon/E bay provides any individual an opportunity to start selling goods, high in demand without even investing money in creating own website. Platforms like Shopify helps you create and keep your own customer base (Unlike Amazon or E Bay) with ready made tools to create your own online e-commerce in minutes. You could get started by going through the budget udemy training and as you grow your business, you may pay to buy some specialized trainings.
Real Estate and Stocks & Shares:
Though usually people buy real estate or shares in companies as long term investment, a lot of people make money in short term as well. But, its very important to note here that no investment or business venture comes without any RISK. Few people learn and get into high risk Day Trading to make another source of income online and few people venture into dealing with Below Market Value properties. However, it requires proper coaching and mentoring before deciding to get into this industry.
Network Marketing:
This is fairly a risk free business without the need of investing your hard earned money or putting a lot of your time. You don’t have to even own your own website to get started in the business. A business opportunity which not only helps you create a substantial passive income, it also helps you to build your soft skills like communication, accountability, time management, business presentation and management skills etc. A great platform to build leadership skills as you will have a lead a network that you build. The mentor ship program that comes with this opportunity is very unique and very essential to build a successful business. One should also be careful about the company to be associated with, as there are companies who started and also gone forever to the utter disappointment of their marketers. However, there are companies like Amway, who have built substantial credibility in the market over a period of time. If you want to know more about the industry and how it works you could set-up a FREE 30 mins strategy call here.
Affiliate Marketing:
Here you make a commission on people buying digital or physical products through your own affiliate link. You have to continuously drive traffic through your blog or website to the companies you are affiliated with to have the continuous source of income. Even though, there are certain subscription based products which gives you recurring income, the income stops when the subscription stops. So, to be successful in this industry, you need to learn how to drive traffic to your content and affiliate link.
Conclusion
Though there may be many other ways you could create a secondary source of income, the above hopefully will direct you to think in right direction and help you look for your ideal second source of income.
Why our colleges and Universities teach us all the techniques and skills to work for someone else or to be self-employed. Why don’t they teach Entrepreneurship ? Why don’t they teach about wealth creation ? Why are we never taught about the success principles of life such as Dream, Law of Attraction, Power of Mentorship, failures as stepping stone for success ? Why do we see the Founders of major enterprises probably never went to Universities or even if they did, they dropped out to start their businesses.
This old way of education, which was developed to churn out hundreds of workers to work in factories and industries around the world, still persists. Our education system teaches everyone the SAME syllabus irrespective of the fact that each of us is born unique with our own strength and weakness.
If you haven’t already, please watch this video. An absolute master piece and thought provoking.
Do you also believe that you would have a more fulfilling career and life if you would have been taught and grown in an environment where you are not judged by how good is your English or Maths is, but you are encouraged and appreciated by the qualities that you have and what you could become ?
Never in the history of any country, had we seen so many working mothers. I am not against women working, as a matter of fact I am a strong proponent of equal rights and women empowerment and that is what I have been teaching my nine-year-old daughter about as well. However, the point I am trying to make is- Single income household is becoming a thing of past. With the rising cost of living, both husband and wife have to work to make the ends meet. So, TWO household incomes is a now a necessity rather than a choice.
If two income streams are not sufficient, what could you possibly do to increase the income further? You could choose between another linear income or a passive income. It’s very important to understand the difference, as I didn’t know the difference until I read a book by Robert Kiyosaki called “Rich Dad Poor Dad” and a subsequent book called “Business of the 21st Century”.
A linear income is the income that you make by trading your time. That could be another part-time job or freelance work. The advantage of linear income is- it’s an “immediate income” but the negative side of it is your time is limited (24 Hours) and you will get busier and more exhausted. And when you stop working, the income stops.
Passive income is the income you make without putting the proportionate time for it. The best example for this could be investment income (Rent, Dividend, Interest etc.). Usually these are driven by investment of MONEY not Time. The downside of this income is – The effective income (Invested amount less the return of investment) may not be immediate i.e you may have to wait for some time before you recover your invested amount. The positive side of this income is the TIME. Your income becomes independent of your time. So, you will have a lot of FREE time compared to someone having another job. Hence, most of us invest our spare money in stocks, shares, real-estate etc for retirement if not as a secondary source of income.
So, as we could make our spare money work for us to create a passive income, could we make our spare time to do the same? The answer is absolutely YES. You could either make money work for you or a system which multiplies your time to work for you. Let’s say- you start selling some products online in Amazon or E-Bay. What these websites are doing is giving you 24/7 platform where you don’t have to sit to sell the products. You just have to spend the time to post the product on the e-commerce site and the website works as a system- 24/7, showcasing your product, taking orders, depositing the sales proceeds into your bank account and programme like Fulfilment By Amazon (FBA), even ships the products on your behalf to your customers. Hadn’t there been any system, you had to be at your shop doing these or you had to buy the time of others (Hiring people) to do these. So, the websites are nothing but time leveraging system. As long as you keep doing your market research about the products which have big demand online and keep selling those products, you will keep making the profit. The only caveat here is- selling on a third-party platform like Amazon, E-Bay, you never build your own loyal customer base. These e-commerce platforms never reveal your customer contact information to you. Hence, the websites like Shopify starting to get popular where you could own your customers, but you have to create your own traffic through your own marketing.
So, both Amazon and Shopify have their own advantages and limitations.
However, is there a way I can have an online platform, where my loyal customers keep growing exponentially forever automatically, growing my business turnover? The answer is YES. It can be done, when I help my customers to become business owners, just like me and help them to make money. This is a very powerful concept, where entrepreneurs breed other entrepreneurs. This business model is called “Network Marketing”. This concept should not be confused with the illegal Pyramid selling where the highest reward goes to the person who is at the top. In a legitimate Network Marketing business, the system rewards the entrepreneur who generates the most turnover helping the most number of other entrepreneurs.