I’ll admit it. When I started my online adventures one year ago, I was scared. I had just been laid off from my architecture job, and to top it off I was engaged and getting married a few months later. Just to clarify, I wasn’t scared of getting married, I was scared of not being able to provide for my wife and I after we were married. I feared failing, and letting down not only my family, but myself too.
It’s okay to be scared though. Fear is one of the most primitive human emotions that’s built into us so we can survive. You can’t really get rid of something like that, you can only learn how to deal with it by first understanding why it’s there and then saying to it, “Hey Fear, thanks for the heads up. I know you’re trying to protect me, but I’m all good.” Click to continue…
Yesterday, I received an email in my inbox from an SPI reader asking for some help. He said it was cool if I posted our conversation on the blog for others to read, but he wanted to remain anonymous for some reason. I respect his request, so for this post – let’s just call him Joe.
(I’ve condensed and edited the conversation below to get the point across)
Joe: Pat, I need some help. I’ve been a blogger for a couple of years now. I’m a fantastic writer and I believe I have premium content on my blog, but for some reason I’m only making a few dollars a month from my advertisements. I see that just your Adsense Advertisements alone on your monthly reports pull in upwards of $2000 and more. What am I doing wrong? Why Can’t I Make Good Money Online? Any advice? Please be honest. I want to succeed. Click to continue…
I have a lunch meeting today. You could call it a business meeting, but I know the guys would much rather call it a Mastermind meeting. Sounds fancy, right?
We’re not plotting to take over the world, and it’s not about mind control – it’s essentially a meeting between internet marketers that we all use to learn from each other to help grow our businesses. I’ve been attending these meetings ever since Sterling (our group leader, I guess you could say), moved to San Diego and started it – 6 months ago. Click to continue…
Today I made a list. It’s a list of things I’m currently working on and projects that I could potentially work on in the future to earn more money. As you know, I have my LEED exam prep website, my iPhone app company, the Smart Passive Income Blog, and 5 other things that I’ve mapped out and have actually done some research on how much I would have to invest to execute them. I have 8 things on my plate that could potentially help me get to retirement sooner.
It’s tough to think about all 8 “projects” at the same time – I think that’s the problem I’ve had ever since middle school when we were first introduced to attending more than one class per day. I knew I had homework for Math, Science, English and Band, so I had difficultly choosing which one to work on and when. Yes, I would get everything done, but not one at a time. Usually, it was by working little by little on each. Click to continue…
I’m proud to say that I have failed.
Wait…what?! “But Pat,” you say. “you’re earning upwards of $20,000 a month, you have a leading website in a specialized niche, you work only 10 hours a week max, and you’re making money while you sleep! What do you mean you’ve failed?!”
Let me elaborate. While in school, we’re brainwashed to think that failure is bad. This is why we studied so hard and worried so much about our grades. If you get an “F” in a class, you’ve failed. You don’t get any credit, and you have to retake the class. In order to succeed, failure is NOT an option. As much as I respect the schooling system and everything it has taught me – the one thing I can say about doing business online is that failure is not a bad thing. Click to continue…
I’m going to step away from income, money and internet marketing for this post and tell you something really important that I just realized today. I can tell you exactly when and where I had this revelation. It was 3:30pm today, February 7th at the corner of Scripps Poway Pkwy and Scripps Highland Road. Why was this so important? Because this happened: Click to continue…
Today I had my first meeting with a Certified Public Accountant. For those of you who aren’t too sure, a CPA is a person who has passed the Uniform Certified Public Accountant Examination whose primary function is to provide assurance services, or public accounting. In addition, they can help with business consulting, financial and estate planning, tax prep, and so on.
I had a financial planner once before who was actually very helpful in educating me about my future relating to retirement and larger purchases in my near future, such as a car and a house. However today, the CPA (let’s call him Dave) was pretty much focused on Flynndustries, LLC (my business), and my personal income with regards to taxes – something I am pretty clueless about. Remember, this is a learning process for me and if I tried to know and understand everything before diving into it, I would never have started my business in the first place. Click to continue…
I’m writing to you from the snowy slopes of Lake Tahoe! Actually, this is a timed post that is set to be published while I’m in Tahoe snowboarding with 10 of my buddies for my Bachelor Party, but I wanted to write this ahead of time to make sure I kept the blog rolling, even while I’m away.
As you may or may not know, I’ve been seeing a personal trainer for the last 2 months. I hired David (from my local 24-hour fitness club) because I noticed that I was getting really out of shape – mainly from sitting in front of my computer, a poor diet and a lack of motivation. Because my income is primarily passive income, I now have the free time to get in shape again. Click to continue…
You’ve seen The Matrix, right? Do you remember when Neo (Keanu Reeves) laid down, plugged in, and woke up saying, “I Know Kung Fu”? Or, in The Matrix Reloaded, when Trinity (Carrie-Anne Moss) needed to learn how to ride a Susuki GSX-R motorcycle only to be instantly uploaded that skill?
We’re not quite at that point in time where we can instantly upload information into our brains, unfortunately. But, there is something we can do today that is very similar – we can read. By reading, we can learn whatever it is we want to do.
I read for three basic reasons:
- To learn something new: a skill or an idea (which may be related to something that I already know about)
- To know how to implement these newly learned skills or ideas.
- To become more of an expert on a subject. As I’ve mentioned before in this post, to be considered an expert about something, you just have to know more than somebody else about it. Click to continue…
Life to me, is a sport…not a game – but a sport. Life is a sport because:
- In both life and in sport, there are rules, regulations, codes of ethics, appropriate behavior, etc.
- In order to do well in both, it takes a lot of hard work, determination, and sometimes a little bit of luck too.
- In both life and sport, when we’re ahead we feel good and are having fun, and when we’re behind we sometimes feel lost and bored.
- Mentors, coaches, teammates, parents and friends (aka. the people who we associate with) all contribute to the success or the failure of the individual and those who surround that individual in both life and sport.
- And lastly, in both life and in sport, there’s one thing that increases our chances of being successful and winning – scoring and achieving goals. Click to continue…
No, I'm not a millionaire, but I am living off of passive income made online. I'm here to show 
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