Make Money Online is Stupid
I have to laugh every time I see another Make Money Online blog. There are like a gazillion of them too. I really don’t know what it is that gets into people’s heads. I think a large part of it is the stupid Steve Pavlina post telling everyone that we should all earn a “passive” income from having a blog, unless your an idiot. Steve depicts people that have an actual employer as unintelligent drones. Then again, Steve has a penchant for depicting nearly everyone as brainwashed, unconscious zombies.
He’s very condescending that way. Of course, it is Personal Development for Smart People™. Which is nothing but a marketing tactic to make his readers think, “Smart people! Hey! That must be me then.” To quote Homer Simpson, “I’m smart. S-M-R-T.”
Do people simply not realize that making money online is just like making money anywhere else? It’s a business. Internet Marketing is a serious and highly competitive business. If you aren’t going into it with the understanding that you are starting a business, and that means it is not going to simply be easy money, then you are doomed to fail even before you start.
Another irresponsible reprobate that has duped many people into thinking there is some sort of easy money silver bullet is shyster Yaro Starak. Yaro tells his adoring readers that they too can make thousands of dollars a month, with only 10 hours a week of effort. It’s not a total lie, per se. You can do it, but in order to do that you need to pay people to do the other 60 hours a week of work. The Internet is a great place that you can often find people willing to work for substandard wages, for free, or for barter, but it is still a cost. Time, or money. You get to choose, but it’s going to cost you.
Of course Yaro is personally willing to take a few hundred of your hard earned dollars to show you how to make money online. What he doesn’t tell you is that what he’s really teaching you is how you can make him money. That’s the whole point of his MLM pyramid scheme. And when you turn out not to make any money, that’s just because you’re doing it wrong, because the only thing Yaro has taught you is the wrong way to make money.
“Hurry up and sign up for my blog mastermind program and learn to shovel wads of your own cash into my pockets! Don’t wait for the price to go up. Act now!”
Thanks Yaro! I didn’t realize I would need to bring my own lube to your program. It’s too bad Hancock is a fictional character, because I would really love to see Yaro’s head shoved up his own ass, where it belongs. He wants you to believe in the lie of passive income, but the truth is that it’s a freaking business, and it takes risk, perseverance, and work, just like any other type of business. If you want to make money online, then what you are doing is starting a business.
Some things you will need to ask yourself are:
- Do I have a head for business?
- Do I want the stress of owning my own business?
- Do I want the uncertainty that comes with being my own boss?
- Do I perform well without being told what to do?
- Can I motivate myself to really do the work when it’s not the fun stuff?
- Do I understand search engine marketing?
- Am I willing to pay for or learn any of the skills I don’t yet have?
- Do I have the aptitude for the needed skills?
In spite of Steve Pavlina’s assertion that you have less job security by being employed by someone else, you have to consider that it is not just the job security itself. It’s not only the job that you have, but the level of difficulty finding new work. My experience is that a job is a job, and one is just as easily replaceable as the next. You will need to understand that your employer will see you that same way, but if you understand that, things will be easy.
There is also the issue of perception. The saying goes that perception is reality. This influences your thinking, which then influences your actions. You will live the life you imagine, and if you feel secure in your job, you most likely will be. If you feel that even if you do lose your job, another opportunity is just around the corner, it will be. You will make it so.
On the other hand, if you feel like things are unstable, because you are working for yourself, and if you feel like disaster is just around the corner, you will also make that so. That is independent of who your employer is. You can work for someone else, and sabotoge your efforts by constantly worrying about losing your job, and believing that you will not find new work if you do lose your job. You can also sabotage your own business with the same sort of defeatist thinking.
Unfortunately, perception is only reality when it drives you to take action, or becomes all consuming. It doesn’t matter how convinced you are that your blog will earn 5 grand a month while you play Xbox 80 hours per week, it will not come true. You can click your heels all you want, Dorothy, it’s not going to happen. You will not make money online without putting forth the work, energy, and effort that it takes to run a business.
You can make money online, but there is a reason that so many people fail. That reason is that so many go in with unrealistic expectations. They don’t think of Internet marketing as a business, and the outcome reflects that.