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There is no question about it, if you want to be successful on the internet, you need to be persistent. I think most people think they are persistent enough when they start out, but when they give-up, they demonstrate that they just are not.
Recently, I came across the following stat: you need to invest 10,000 hours to succeed at something. At 4 hours per day, that equates to 10 man-years! Apparently this stat comes from a Radio 4 show which also proposed that if you were born in 1955, your chances of success are greater (Bill Gates, Steve Jobs etc). This is because these people were all at the right age at the right time.
It really got me thinking: how long have I been at this internet thing? How much of my 10,000 hours have I invested? And exactly how successful is my internet business? Well, first of all, I have been working on the White Dove Books site for the past 4 years; and, as it happens, I do spend about 4 hours per day, every day on the project – that is approximately 1,000 man-days (8 hour days, that is).
By the above calculation, I am about half-way to being successful (lol). Actually, I think this is probably about right too! I enjoy a healthy second-income from my internet activity; and I estimate that I will retire in 2 to 3 years from the growth of those activities.
There are ways you can short-cut this process of course: you can trade money for time, for example i.e. you can get other people to do some of the leg-work for you, but you need to compensate them for their effort. But generally, before you embark on an internet project, I believe this would be a good question to ask: are you willing to put in 5 to 7 years of solid effort at the rate of approximately 4 hours per day? If not, then my advice would be to pack it in now because you will save yourself a lot of frustration.
With a solid plan to grow your internet presence, and a dogged determination to succeed, you have the raw material. If takes time, effort, patience and persistence, but the rewards are definitely there for absolutely anyone who wants to tread the path. So the real question is: are you determined enough to succeed? |
