The Mindset Of A Millionaire

One of the popular email questions is always, “How did your earnings shoot up so much over just one year?” If you remember, I posted My One Year Anniversary in affiliate marketing. I did have some pretty awesome growth in my first year in this industry, and I’m pretty proud of what I’ve accomplished. The main reason I started this blog was to share my trials, failures, and things I’ve learned in the past year, while also doing things like posting my earnings to motivate you guys and show everybody that success is truly possible. In light of that, I’d like to share some of the reasons why I think my growth happened as fast as it did.

Motivation

This is probably the main reason behind why anybody does what they do. You have to be motivated to have success online, it has to be something you want to do and strive to achieve in every day. Without motivation you’re not going to be productive or profitable. My initial motivation was to make enough money to quit the horrible part-time jobs I worked while going to college. Once I succeeded at that, my motivation was to make enough to be able to be a full time affiliate marketer once I got out of college. Once I got to that point, my motivation was to make enough to just put a hold on school and make as much money as I could, as fast as I could. That’s still the driving factor that motivates me to this day. It also leads to my next point…

Goals

The best way to accomplish something is to set a goal, and then work towards that goal. My first goals were to just make enough money to pay for gas. Once I achieved that, I set new goals and worked towards those. Back in the summer I told myself I would take a year off of school, and if I wasn’t making $100,000/month revenue by June I would be going back to school. Now school just isn’t for me, so I wanted more than anything to accomplish that goal. Because of my motivation coupled with the goal I set, I was able to completely smash that goal with well over 6 months to spare.

Fearlessness

I set some pretty aggressive goals for myself. I was a FLAT BROKE college student who in less than a year wanted to quit his part-time job, drop out of college, and run a multi million dollar business. If you have similar goals and want to be serious about them, you have to just let go of everything and run your business with no fear. In the early stages I was down to -$300 in my only bank account because I had overdrawn on my debit card to pay Yahoo. It was stressful, definitely. But I didn’t panic and just pay off that debt and then quit internet marketing. I sucked it up and gave it another go, and eventually I built up some savings. This again happened many times, and happens to this day. Things are great, and just like that they can really go downhill. A couple months into it I was doing pretty well, and my main campaign almost completely died out and started losing money. I could have very easily just called it a “good shot”, and walked away with the few thousand dollars I had made in that couple months. I wanted to achieve my goals though, so I had to be fearless and think of another way to make money.

Networking

Networking is definitely a major reason I’ve had success. Without networking, I wouldn’t have met/spoken with some of my biggest contacts. You could go back in my networking time line, and if you cut out one person here or there, I could be making only 5% of what I do now. Networking was suchhh a big reason I had as much success as I did. That’s why I strongly advise to hit up events like Affiliate Summit and ad:tech no matter what income or skill range you’re in. The contacts you can potentially make are absolutely invaluable…simply can’t put a price tag on it.

Time

I don’t even want to think of how much time in the past year that I’ve stared at a computer screen. For the first 6 months I was on a computer from the moment I woke up, until the moment I went to bed. I’d wake up and head to college…all through classes I’d just be sitting online on my laptop. During breaks I’d be on my laptop. I’d get home and work on my laptop until 3 in the morning. The only tangible thing in my life at that time was my girlfriend. Now I don’t spend as much time, but I do spend a lot of time working. I’m on the phone all the time with people now, and now it’s more of a communication game. I have the skills to crank out whatever I want in a pretty short period of time, it’s just making the connections to really turn those skills into results.

Blogging

I do attribute a lot of my affiliate success to blogging. It’s proven to be a great networking tool, and as stated before; networking is key. Instead of always having to go out and find contacts, because of my blog they know who I am, and can come to me. It also gives me some credibility so that when I talk to people, they know I’m not some newb looking for bread crumbs to fall from the table. It’s a bit blunt but true, people treat you differently.

My Girlfriend

AweeeeeeeeeeeeeeEeEeEe!

Seriously though this one is true. There were more times than I could count where things were too stressful for me. Trying to get online to make money is hard sometimes when you know you have -$300 to your name. My girlfriend was someone to talk to and help keep me together during the many times life was too stressful. If you don’t have one (or wife), I recommend you start looking. I’m always here for comfort if you’re losing money, but unfortunately I can’t be there to snuggle with you unless you’re willing to fly me first class.

Family/Support

Family was also key in my success. My parents were indeed upset when I had no money but kept telling them to have faith, and that I knew what I was doing. But they still were able to front money here and there to pay for my broken down car repairs as well as giving me a place to live. I would have been in some financial trouble if it hadn’t been for my parents. So family is an important factor, whether it be your blood family or friends that have become your family.

I’m sure there’s more to it, but that’s all I could come up with. This late night writing makes me ready for sleep hah, but hopefully this gives you guys some insight as to how I’ve grown so quickly over the past year. It’s not saying “Well I did it because of [this] campaign using [these] keywords…” That would obviously be stupid on my part, but all of what I said was true, and these were all the factors that made all my campaigns and keywords possible. Do you have the mindset of a millionaire?

Have a good one.