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I'm tossing this out there for food for thought for the random person that reads it at the right time in their life. I've been consuming massive amounts of "guru talk" lately and this popped out to me. It's not uncommon advice and really is common sense, but it's something many need to keep hearing, including myself.
I'd venture to say that almost all of us are trying to create systems, outsource, and automate in a way that allows our businesses to earn money for us while we sleep. It's what Tim Ferris talked about in the 4 Hour Workweek (you know, the book everyone hates on in a way that shows they didn't even read it or understood the basic premise).
Cash Conservation
It seems like many of us, especially those who grew up in households that dealt with poverty or low income, or any behavior that led to an unpredictable amount of random expenses, hoarding, or whatever... we hit a lick and make a relatively decent chunk of cash and then we try to CONSERVE that cash. We're worried about the rainy day when our manic dad runs off and buys drugs and a new car again, which becomes fears of Google killing our sites or an IRS audit or whatever. Maybe we're so used to have been rationing our budgets growing up that we're having a hard time letting go of a death grip on whatever cash we have now.
And the problem with conserving cash is two fold:
This is how you get stuck at the same level and become one of those people bitching about "luck" and how others got lucky and you're just as smart and good. Sure, but you didn't expand.
Let me preface this next part just to stop dummies that want to nitpick before they start: don't expand beyond your means, save an emergency fund, save for a mortgage, etc. Business loans are relevant here but I'm not getting into that. If you do, just think about the volatility of your industry (like SEO vs. Real Estate).
Cash Expansion
We hear this advice all the time, that cash should EXPAND. Kevin O'Leary talking about how each dollar is a soldier that is sent out on the battlefield and brings back at least one captive (another dollar). Grant Cardone is big on expanding with his own cash as leverage to get people's investment cash. They're absolutely right.
Here's a real world example from my life. I hit a great lick, Google rightfully destroyed it all. I then went into cash conservation mode. Here on BuSo I started up an authority site and hit the grind because I felt I didn't have much choice (which was dumb). Instead of investing what I had for a head start, I counted the months I could live off of what I had with no more income, and built up a site with my blood, sweat, and tears. It does fine, but how much time did I lose doing it all myself? Google is causing that site problems too. It would have been better to hit a "maximum revenue" sooner and moved on. Because once I have something else popping I can push a huge influx of content on that site and double or triple revenue easily. I can't do that by myself. I need writers.
Fast forward to the past two months and I've started two new case study projects. Both are starting on aged and juicy domains ($6k and $2k), both are getting an influx of content ($1.4k on one and $1k on the other, just for starters). On the previous site, by the time I hit the one year mark I got an "explosion" of traffic due to the year of writing and link building. This time around the links are already there, better than any I have on the previous site. This time around I'll hit the amount of content I wrote in the first year of the previous site... I'll hit that in probably 3 months all while having built a custom, secure, speed optimized theme.
Assuming I keep at that rate, by the time I hit the one year mark on this new project, I'll have 4x the amount of content in place with way better links for what may amount to a measly $5k total. Why the fuck did I not just do that on the first site? It was because I went into cash conservation mode instead of cash expansion mode.
Perfectionism
Conservation is the main enemy, and part of what lets us rationalize and justify that stupidity is being a perfectionist. Funnily enough, we'll never hit perfection, just our version of it. I guarantee you that the time you spend trying to tweak the CSS of a pre-built theme to your perfection, I can pump out an entire theme that shits on yours. I guarantee you that in the time I try to write the perfect base of 100 pieces of content that moves the people, you could pump that out 10 times over. Perfection is stupid when we could have paid each other to get it done better and most importantly, faster.
I think it was Gary Vaynerchuk or one of these guys recently I heard say in the background in the PIP screen I'm running all day... It was Gary that said something like "Why should I worry about doing it myself 100% perfect when I can have 20 guys all doing 70% of my 100%?" Gary said "I give my team full freedom to get the work done the way they think is right. What am I going to do, ride around on their head like a go-pro and micro manage them all day? That defeats the point."
I decided a long time ago that my previous project would be my "precious baby" where I can pour out my need for perfection. I decided this ONLY so that I could treat my others more realistically. Funnily enough, my skills have grown so far now that my previous project doesn't reach my ideal of perfect any more. How stupid is all this perfectionist business? Very stupid.
Conclusion
I can't tell you the number of people I've seen in the past and present, and will in the future, get their first big win at their level and immediately blow the cash on something dumb (and losing it) instead of reinvesting to grow. I've been almost as dumb by conserving cash, but at least I could tap into it later when I woke up out of my stupor. I've seen this at small scales of $5,000 website sales and as high as seven figures. At least the seven figure bosses can screw up and still have plenty of cash to keep it moving. The less we earn, the less room we have for these mistakes.
I'm sure all of our dreams and goals are bigger than the cash flow we have now. The only way to get there is to expand, which means 2 steps forward and 1 step back, over and over and over through reinvestment.
Scared money don't make money!
"Scared Money Don't Make Money."
I'd venture to say that almost all of us are trying to create systems, outsource, and automate in a way that allows our businesses to earn money for us while we sleep. It's what Tim Ferris talked about in the 4 Hour Workweek (you know, the book everyone hates on in a way that shows they didn't even read it or understood the basic premise).
Cash Conservation
It seems like many of us, especially those who grew up in households that dealt with poverty or low income, or any behavior that led to an unpredictable amount of random expenses, hoarding, or whatever... we hit a lick and make a relatively decent chunk of cash and then we try to CONSERVE that cash. We're worried about the rainy day when our manic dad runs off and buys drugs and a new car again, which becomes fears of Google killing our sites or an IRS audit or whatever. Maybe we're so used to have been rationing our budgets growing up that we're having a hard time letting go of a death grip on whatever cash we have now.
And the problem with conserving cash is two fold:
- We now have to keep grinding in the trenches ourselves actively to get the next chunk of money.
- Replicating our first successes is harder because we aren't using money to grow in marketing or systems.
This is how you get stuck at the same level and become one of those people bitching about "luck" and how others got lucky and you're just as smart and good. Sure, but you didn't expand.
Let me preface this next part just to stop dummies that want to nitpick before they start: don't expand beyond your means, save an emergency fund, save for a mortgage, etc. Business loans are relevant here but I'm not getting into that. If you do, just think about the volatility of your industry (like SEO vs. Real Estate).
Cash Expansion
We hear this advice all the time, that cash should EXPAND. Kevin O'Leary talking about how each dollar is a soldier that is sent out on the battlefield and brings back at least one captive (another dollar). Grant Cardone is big on expanding with his own cash as leverage to get people's investment cash. They're absolutely right.
Here's a real world example from my life. I hit a great lick, Google rightfully destroyed it all. I then went into cash conservation mode. Here on BuSo I started up an authority site and hit the grind because I felt I didn't have much choice (which was dumb). Instead of investing what I had for a head start, I counted the months I could live off of what I had with no more income, and built up a site with my blood, sweat, and tears. It does fine, but how much time did I lose doing it all myself? Google is causing that site problems too. It would have been better to hit a "maximum revenue" sooner and moved on. Because once I have something else popping I can push a huge influx of content on that site and double or triple revenue easily. I can't do that by myself. I need writers.
Fast forward to the past two months and I've started two new case study projects. Both are starting on aged and juicy domains ($6k and $2k), both are getting an influx of content ($1.4k on one and $1k on the other, just for starters). On the previous site, by the time I hit the one year mark I got an "explosion" of traffic due to the year of writing and link building. This time around the links are already there, better than any I have on the previous site. This time around I'll hit the amount of content I wrote in the first year of the previous site... I'll hit that in probably 3 months all while having built a custom, secure, speed optimized theme.
Assuming I keep at that rate, by the time I hit the one year mark on this new project, I'll have 4x the amount of content in place with way better links for what may amount to a measly $5k total. Why the fuck did I not just do that on the first site? It was because I went into cash conservation mode instead of cash expansion mode.
Perfectionism
Conservation is the main enemy, and part of what lets us rationalize and justify that stupidity is being a perfectionist. Funnily enough, we'll never hit perfection, just our version of it. I guarantee you that the time you spend trying to tweak the CSS of a pre-built theme to your perfection, I can pump out an entire theme that shits on yours. I guarantee you that in the time I try to write the perfect base of 100 pieces of content that moves the people, you could pump that out 10 times over. Perfection is stupid when we could have paid each other to get it done better and most importantly, faster.
I think it was Gary Vaynerchuk or one of these guys recently I heard say in the background in the PIP screen I'm running all day... It was Gary that said something like "Why should I worry about doing it myself 100% perfect when I can have 20 guys all doing 70% of my 100%?" Gary said "I give my team full freedom to get the work done the way they think is right. What am I going to do, ride around on their head like a go-pro and micro manage them all day? That defeats the point."
I decided a long time ago that my previous project would be my "precious baby" where I can pour out my need for perfection. I decided this ONLY so that I could treat my others more realistically. Funnily enough, my skills have grown so far now that my previous project doesn't reach my ideal of perfect any more. How stupid is all this perfectionist business? Very stupid.
Conclusion
I can't tell you the number of people I've seen in the past and present, and will in the future, get their first big win at their level and immediately blow the cash on something dumb (and losing it) instead of reinvesting to grow. I've been almost as dumb by conserving cash, but at least I could tap into it later when I woke up out of my stupor. I've seen this at small scales of $5,000 website sales and as high as seven figures. At least the seven figure bosses can screw up and still have plenty of cash to keep it moving. The less we earn, the less room we have for these mistakes.
I'm sure all of our dreams and goals are bigger than the cash flow we have now. The only way to get there is to expand, which means 2 steps forward and 1 step back, over and over and over through reinvestment.
Scared money don't make money!
