What Would You Do If Money Did Not Matter?
Here’s a challenging question to ask yourself – If you didn’t need money, what would you fill your days with?
I’m not saying that you imagine you are super wealthy, at least not from a financial standpoint – but you are from a time freedom standpoint.
You can do anything you want with your days and you don’t need to worry about making money.
Some people would say they would go on a never ending stream of holidays. Others might claim a desire to “do nothing”, which I always find silly – how can you do nothing?
I’ve often asked myself, would I do what I do without there being a monetary incentive? Would I keep blogging, teaching and writing?
It’s actually quite hard to answer this question because the financial reward is so tightly tied into the motivation. It’s not the only reason, but it’s a strong factor. You enjoy the process, the intrinsic rewards, the people you connect with, but given how our society is structured, money is ALWAYS a factor, it’s part of our culture and our value system.
It’s scary to think that. Money is a part of us.
What Would You Do If All You Cared About Was Money?
Here’s the opposite question. If all you cared about was earning as much money as you can, what would you do?
Blogging is definitely not the best choice if you only care about the money. Compared to other means of building wealth, blogging is slow, the points of leverage aren’t nearly as strong as other methods and let’s face it – it’s hard work to be a blogger.
If I only cared about the money, perhaps Pay Per Click marketing affiliate products is a better choice? Or as I’ve said before, I’d probably spend my time just buying and selling websites, since the return is much higher given the effort required.
I’m pretty sure I’d be doing Internet business of some kind if I was going to focus on financial wealth only, but blogging would not be the first choice.
It’s Not Black and White
Ultimately this question is challenging because at the root of it is the fundamental question about your purpose in life.
Many people have different beliefs about why they exist but I don’t know many people who would say their purpose is to accumulate as much money as they can, yet that seems to be the driving factor for most of us in Western cultures.
So…what would you do if money did not matter?
Self Development Saturation
I know I said there would be no more self development articles on Entrepreneur’s Journey, but what I meant to say there would be no more by me! Matt kindly contributed this great article on self development and I wanted to publish it here since my personal development blog won’t be launching for a while. Enjoy! – Yaro
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By Matt Lindsay from A Car Too Far
“If you can’t believe in yourself then who else is going to believe in you?†– I heard this mantra a while ago and although it’s not a pillar of my everyday living, it serves to illustrate at least one of the key issues that often send people on a path of self development. There are other reasons of course, ranging from those who are picking themselves up after a fall (maybe you lost your job or broke up with a partner) to those who are only hitting the 7 out of 10 mark and feel they could do better. Whatever your reason for starting a program of self development, once you dip your toe, you could well find yourself in for a splash.
Self Development is, by nature, an open loop structure; as you develop and improve your personal characteristics, the more you will desire to achieve and strive for better things. In order to get that bit extra from life, you will need to develop more and so on and so forth and if this cycle is left unchecked, this can rapidly lead to a serious burnout. Fortunately every day constraints or “frictional losses†will erode the speed at which this cycle accelerates but ultimately you will need to be careful about what aspects of your character you wish to improve and more importantly how many you try to improve at once.
I recently decided to quit my job in order to chase my dream. I realised that if I was working from 5AM to 12PM everyday already, then I had the commitment it would take to go it alone. I have a few months in which to work up enough money to give me a few months breathing space, but at some point I will have to decide what business of mine I’m going to run with. How did I make this decision? Well Steve Pavlina’s excellent approach to the relative risk strategies of being in a job to working for yourself were instrumental in the decision and this all started because of my journey of self development, so, well I know these risks.
If you are reading this article it is likely that you have an inkling as to what self development involves and you may even have a few good resources for advice. This is not the domain for this article but I am happy to put you in the direction of my favourite reads. If, for example, you pop over to Steve’s site, you will find a plethora of articles and blog entries on self development. The easy mistake to make is to harvest them all (or a large number), read them and try to implement them. Take this strategy and it is next stop: Burnout City .
For instance, we would all like to get a little more out of our day. How about trying Polyphasic sleeping, having better time management or just getting up when your alarm goes off (this worked wonders for me). We could benefit from giving up coffee, sanctifying our workspace, making money from our blogs, overcome fear and there aren’t many of us out there that would turn down the opportunity to make $10,000 in an hour. There are, however, some things that cannot be rushed and self development is one of them. Not only will you burn out if you binge on self improvement but in actual fact some of the best advice and methods are mutually exclusive. Just as Steve often says, to get from a 7 to a 10 you sometimes have to go back to a 5 first.
I do not know the ultimate answer to applying self development, only the way it works best for me and the way that I would advise. I have split the two routes and addressed them separately:
Progressive Self Development
The way I like to look at applying self development is like a tan. If you try and get a great tan all in one, it will burn and peel off quickly. If you build it up, layer by layer, waiting for each application to settle and really sink in before laying the next, you will have a firm understanding of the things you have done, why they work and why you should continue to do them. It is also easier to do it this way as you only really need address one issue at a time.
Structured Self Development
If you are in more of a rush to be the million dollar man you might opt for a program of structured self development. This is where you consider certain aspects of your persona and group them into comparable and mutually inclusive groups. You might for example have a “Time management and optimization†aspect that you want to improve and similarly a “Finance and occupation†aspect. These groups will depend on you, but be sure to keep them fairly specific. For example if you tired to bundle “Time Management†and “Healthy Living†into a single group you may well come unstuck when you try and optimize both as the interrelationships between the two (extra time required for workouts or meal preparation compared to “time and motion studiesâ€Â) will cause unpredictable or unrepeatable results at best or collide entirely at worst. Once you have these groups defined (on paper preferably) then set about reading up on one group at a time, or if you are impatient, one mechanism for each group. Try to deal with one group completely before moving to the next if you have time, or again if you are rushing this then one mechanism from each group only!
Ultimately, the process of Self Development is a difficult one, not least because of one of its own inherent anomalies. When dealing with self progression, it is commonly accepted that goals are required. A goal is a dream with a deadline, that is to say that as we, as humans, work best to deadlines, by attaching a “due by†date to our dreams we transmute them into actions. Self development however is an on going process and only a program of continual improvement will make for take you the whole distance. If you cannot put a time frame on it as an overall process and you can never complete it then doesn’t it break its own rules? Well, yes and no, but with no timeframe on it, at least it will work nicely with your new “Stress management†mechanism…
Provided for your own protection by Matt Lindsay.
Matt is an Aussie born, UK living, 26 year old working a day job, a night job and running an online business of two years (www.slothball.com). He has a blog at lindsayhart.co.uk/blog.
Matt is giving up his job in October to further follow his dream (see his blog) and to find a way to make mortgage each month – pretty scary really.
It’s Time To Reduce Your Stress
I was sitting at the bus stop the other day. It was a Friday. I had spent the day leisurely – some work in the morning, then off to the city after lunch for some writing on my laptop at an Aroma’s cafe for a couple of hours. I had plans for a game of tennis with my friend Alborz for 7 PM that night.
I left the city to go home before tennis with what I thought was plenty of time to spare, at about 5 PM, a full two hours before I was due at the courts.
On the way home I got off the bus early to stop by the supermarket because I was almost out of milk.
I don’t like to play tennis without eating beforehand otherwise I run out of energy. I wanted to get home to have something to eat before playing.
I had to catch a Citycat (a river ferry) to get over to the tennis courts.
The mixture of these transportation variables and activities I wanted to do before tennis combined to create stress. Yes, I know you are probably laughing at me – “That’s not stress, I’ll tell you about stress!” you are thinking. I admit it wasn’t significantly stressful but in a life like mine this is about as stressful as it gets – enough stress that it sparked the concept for this article.
It’s All About Timing
I was standing at the bus stop to finish my journey home after buying my milk and a few other items from the supermarket, frustrated because I was hungry and annoyed that I managed to make a few activities stressful when I really didn’t need to. It didn’t help when I only had a $50 note for the bus driver and he couldn’t provide change.
To cut the story short, I managed to get everything done, had a snack, dressed for tennis, caught the ferry over the river, walked into the tennis centre and looked at my watch – 6:35PM – I was a full 25 minutes early. I couldn’t help but chuckle at myself.
While I was on the bus I was thinking about my “previous life” as a university student. Now those days were stressful. Exams, assignments, tutorials, lectures, lots of public transport and of course studying topics I really didn’t care too much about, combined to create tonnes of stress.
I thought back to one of the worst times – exam block – those few weeks when you have a bunch of exams at end of semester all at once. At around that time every year (right about now actually as I type this), at the end of May and early June, I would get sick. I’d get the flu and have the added pleasure of feeling physically miserable while I did assignments and studied for exams. My own personal hell that I’m sure many other university students are going through right now.
I can’t put my finger on exactly why, but ever since I’ve been my own boss and worked on precisely what I want to work on, I don’t get sick anymore (touch wood!). It could be that I no longer go to a university campus infested with other sick students all coughing and spluttering on each other, sharing the same computer equipment and congregating in small square tutorial room boxes in close proximity to each other.
Or it could be, and I think this has more to do with it – I don’t really get stressed anymore, and well gosh, I’m pretty happy most of the time too, which is not something I could say about my university life. Being happy, having no stress and being in control of your emotional state combine to create the most powerful immune system boost you could ever have.
You Are What You Think
I’m a firm believer that your mindstate very much influences your physical state. You can literally make yourself sick just by the way you think and the prime culprit of illness inducing thinking is stress. I’m fairly certain that if I asked you right now about when you have been crook (unwell) in the past, it almost always coincides with a period of high stress in your life.
The mind is powerful. I’m living proof of this as I’ve managed to change my thinking process so dramatically in the last few years that what used to be the biggest cause of problems in my life, is now the most powerful asset I have for dealing with potential negative influences. As I discussed previously in my article – The Key To Happiness – your self talk, self-awareness and the choices you consequently make, dictate your happiness (and other emotional states).
One of the main influences on my choice to work towards self employment as an Internet marketer was to remove all time based deadlines from my life. I didn’t want to be anywhere at any time unless I specifically chose to be. I constantly make choices that remove any deadlines from my life because I know for me, the way I work best, is to have no rigid deadlines.
No Deadlines (The word “Dead” is enough of a hint to avoid them…)
People are asking me when Blog Traffic School will be released. I answer by saying I don’t know. I have some loose likelihoods – the month I hope to be finished – but I am not committing to any specific timeframe because I’d rather give myself the time necessary to produce my best work, rather than rush something because of a deadline. That would create stress and reduce my output quality.
I’ve turned down speaking and networking opportunities that start before 9 AM because of my sleeping patterns. That one 9 AM start would ruin a full day for me because I’d miss some sleep and my output is terrible without sleep. I almost always choose my own physical health over anything else because I know that is the most important consideration for my success. Without my health I can’t achieve what I want to. Therefore, and this seems so logical to me, yet millions of people everyday make the opposite choice, I will always opt for a good nights sleep or a quality meal instead of pushing myself to work to meet a deadline, which in the grand scheme of things, has very little impact on my happiness, while my health certainly does.
When people look at my “working lifestyle” they are amazed at how relaxed it is. An hour or two of work here, another hour or two there. As I’ve written previously I don’t call it work, it’s what I do for enjoyment and satisfaction, but the label of “work” is necessary in order for most people to understand what I do. My average day has NO stress and I am not driven by deadlines, I’m driven by comfort and happiness. Can you say the same?
I used to get stressed when students would send in editing jobs to my business BetterEdit with short deadlines. I’d have to arrange projects sometimes with only a few hours before the deadline. Back when I was very gun-ho to get my business going I’d take on every project and I’d feel terrible if I couldn’t meet a deadline.
We’ve both matured past this now (that’s both me, and BetterEdit the business). When a job comes in I ask my editors if they can do it and respond matter-of-factly to clients “I’ll do my best, but no promises”. I won’t create stress in order to complete a $100 job, it’s just not worth it.
It’s amazing what happens when you disconnect yourself from what you have been trained to value so highly – money. Don’t create stress and make your life mentally and physically painful just for an extra buck. It is never, ever, worth it.
Is Time An Illusion?
I’m sure you have heard the phrase “Time is an illusion”. If it really is, then it has to be the most powerful illusion ever not to exist. Time is the single biggest cause of stress in our western culture. It’s amazing how much value we give it, how much influence it has on us and how it, or a lack of it, makes us sick.
Deadlines at work, during studies and in our social lives make life rushed. You feel as if you are running from place to place, meeting one deadline just to start work on meeting the next. During the worst times you feel as if you no longer have control over your own life, you forget why you created the deadlines in the first place and just work as fast as you can like a mindless automaton. You are always busy and if you are not you start to feel guilty. There has to be something wrong with that.
Then of course you look at the big picture and once again we seem to be rushing to achieve certain goals before we are 20, 25, 30, 40, 50 or 65 years old. Am I the only one who finds it funny that we count down our lives using a numerical system that just seems designed to make us feel like we are useless, out of date and underachieving? I’m constantly trying to forget my birthday so I can just be Yaro rather than a 26, nearly 27 year old male who should be earning so much money now and doing certain things because society says I should (and my peer group are too). It’s hard to forget how old you are though because you get presents on your birthday 
How You Can Start To Remove Stress From Your Life
People have told me that some stress is a good thing. You need stress in order to push yourself to achieve things. I don’t agree with this, or at least I don’t think “stress” is the right label for it. You need desire, motivation and passion to achieve success, not stress. Stress is the result of letting time and money influence the way you live your life.
If you break things down, really evaluate what is important for you right now in this single moment, during this one day, then you will quickly realize most of the causes of your stresses are because you are running as fast as you can towards false idols. Don’t be in a hurry to get to tomorrow because you have been socially conditioned to do so. Don’t convince yourself that you HAVE to achieve something by the end of this year, resulting in stress, dissatisfaction and potential sickness, for the next six months. Don’t make stress because you want more money, that shiny new boat/car/house, just because the TV commercial told you it will make you happy or your neighbour just got one. No physical item has ever made anyone truly happy.
Adapt your life to what works for you. Afterall, you can only do the best you can with what you have been given. Each and every one of us has been given a different situation in life. We all have different strengths and weaknesses, freedoms and limitations. As you are the best judge of you, all you need to do to reduce your stress is to start listening to your feelings.
Flag the events, thoughts and situations that create stress. Figure out why they do (probably because of time based constraints or limitations or expectations you have created), then work to change these situations, remove them altogether if necessary. Then start hunting for the opposite – find what relaxes you or energizes or motivates, but doesn’t create stress. Work to imbue your life with more of these situations and you will find your life will slow down, your happiness will increase and your health will improve.
Stay Relaxed
The key to eliminating stress from your life is to relax. Doesn’t the polarity between those two words just seem so appropriate? Relax, don’t stress. Be in control of your emotions and your life. Don’t let your life control your emotions.
Do you hear this phrase repeated over and over from self development teachers and spiritual leaders?
“Enjoy the moment”
It’s true, so very true. If you enjoy the moment, the deadline doesn’t exist. If you take a step back, connect with where your true happiness comes from, you will realize that nothing has to happen today unless you want it to. Tomorrow is just as good, or the next day, or the next.
Yaro Starak
Living Today
Steve Pavlina Interview – Part 3
Here is the final part of the interview with Steve Pavlina. You can read part one here -
Steve Pavlina Interview – Part 1 and part two here – Steve Pavlina Interview – Part 2.
8. Children
It can be hard to encourage children to be their own person and go against the grain when peer pressure is so entrenched in school life. How much intervention do you have in how your children develop? Do you take an active role or let them make their own mistakes and come to their own conclusions?
My children are still very young (ages 2 and 6), so peer pressure isn’t a big factor yet.
My degree of intervention depends on the particular situation my kids are in and how serious I perceive it to be. For example, if my daughter fell into doing illegal drugs, I’d intervene hard and fast and get her out of that situation ASAP, even if it required breaking her ties with her peer group and putting her in a different environment. In the short run, she might hate me for it, but I can accept that. However, if she falls into a peer group that wears weird clothes or listens to freakish music or is mildly rebellious, I’d probably support that behavior. I don’t want my kids to be clones of me. I want them to explore their own uniqueness, as long as they aren’t taking foolish risks.
I recognize what a big deal peer pressure can be, not just for children but for adults too. I think the best I can do is to lead by example. How do my children see me handling peer pressure? Do they see me violating my own values to conform? Do they see me rebelling haphazardly? Or do they see me choosing friends consciously based on my values?
Children are great teachers. If your moral compass is off kilter, kids will pick up on any hypocrisy and ask questions to expose it. But if your values are honorable, then it is more likely your children will find them worthy of modeling.
Values are a big deal in our family. For example, all of us our vegan. We do not have to force our daughter to eat vegan. In her own way, she understands why we chose this lifestyle and willingly adopts it too. She loves animals and understands that non-vegan foods contribute to animal suffering. Consequently, she often challenges adults who eat meat and will say to them, “That’s not vegan! You’re eating animals, and that hurts them. Why are you hurting animals?†It’s really interesting to see how certain adults react to having their values challenged by a six-year-old.
I want to encourage my children to make conscious decisions, even if they don’t make the same ones I would. When my daughter becomes a teenager and starts going out with friends a lot, if she wants to eat animal products, that’s her choice. My role is to see that she makes such choices consciously.
9. Community Vs Individualism
In western cultures we are brought up to work towards individual self development and achievement. We are taught to seek self-satisfaction and work mostly on self-serving, materialistic goals. In other cultures community comes before the individual, people are considered part of a group and ‘family’, which in many circumstances results in a very
harmonious and happy existence. Do you think our current western culture is lacking in community values and places too much emphasis on individual gratification?
Yes, I’d say that’s accurate. The way I resolved this issue for myself was to create a life that achieves congruency between service to self (STS) and service to others (STO). I’ve written about this previously in my blog here:
http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/07/how-selfish-are-you/
Certain individuals have a tendency to favor either STS or STO, but if you favor one side at the cost of the other, your life becomes unbalanced. On the STS side, you may choose to harm others or the environment for personal gain. And on the STO side, you may sacrifice too much for the benefit of others. Either you damage others, or you damage yourself. Both extremes are unsustainable. In the past my personal tendency was to error on the STO side. I would give to the point of burning myself out until I was forced to withdraw and restore my energy.
I do not recommend compromise either. Compromise means being half-STS and half-STO, with neither side being fully satisfied. Often this involves compartmentalizing different parts of your life. Perhaps you follow a selfish career path working for a company whose primary goal is profit, and know your work isn’t serving the highest good of all or filling an important human need. However, in your personal life, you attempt to give your best to your family, foster good friendships, and do some community service. You’re selfish in some ways and selfless in others. But this is not the ideal path for fully conscious humans.
The conscious path is to create congruency, where STS and STO actually become the same thing. There’s no compromise or compartmentalization, and balance is achieved in all parts of your life.
I was able to achieve this situation for myself by consciously deciding to build a business that would balance STS and STO. On the STS side, I run a for-profit personal development business. I’m not much of a materialist, but I do want this business to generate abundance and to provide me with lots of freedom. I also want a business that challenges me and helps me grow. On the STO side, the primary goal for my business is to serve the highest good of all. That purpose is actually written into my LLC’s formal operating agreement. This is a higher goal than generating a profit, but in order to sustainably fulfill this purpose, the business must be fiscally sound. However, if there’s ever a serious conflict between serving the highest good and earning profits, then profits will be sacrificed. This is not the kind of business a typical venture capital firm would find attractive.
In practice, I’ve set up the business so the actual activities I perform are both STS and STO. For example, when I write a new article, it helps build traffic, generates revenue from advertising, and puts money in my pocket. It also generates feedback that helps me refine my ideas, so I experience growth as well. But when I write, I do so with the primary intention of helping others grow. I don’t concern myself with how much ad revenue a particular article will bring in or whether it will generate a lot of traffic and links. I just ask myself, “What can I write today that will genuinely help people?†The business is structured such that I can focus the bulk of my energy on the STO side (which is my preference), and the STS side largely takes care of itself.
The hardest part for me has been to allow myself to receive and not just give, give, give. For a long time I felt uneasy about getting paid for this type of work at all. I just wanted to give everything away for free. But I soon found that wasn’t sustainable. I also questioned the belief that I should sacrifice my needs to serve others when some of them expressed a clear willingness to help support me financially.
It took a while, but eventually I came to understand that because I was focusing on serving the highest good of all, then serving my own needs was entirely congruent with serving the highest good of all. If I achieve financial abundance, then I can turn around and teach that to others. And greater abundance means I can expand my service and hopefully do even more good. Any good that comes to me simply flows back out again as a way to serve others. So it’s just as important for me to receive as it is to give.
Even when I work on components of the business that seem purely STS, I recognize now that there is an STO component to them. For example, last year I put some serious effort into optimizing my site to make it generate more income. More income means more money available to improve the service I provide. That money allowed me to buy podcasting equipment, so I could offer a free podcast. I also upgraded my web server twice (I currently pay $149/month for hosting), so the site is very fast and responsive. The more money I make, the more I’m able to increase my service. And the better my service, the more money I make. So my situation is such that STS = STO. This is a wonderful place to be.
If you base your life around genuine service to the highest good of all, then serving your own self interest also serves the highest good. The more abundance you have, the greater your capacity to give. This is the way to balance traditional Eastern and Western values. There’s a space where they overlap, so you just need to find a way to live and work in that space. If you devote your life to serving to the highest good of all, then enjoying abundance in your own life will become an equally honorable pursuit.
10. Finding Purpose and Meaning
One of the benefits of living in a western culture is our abundance of choice. People can choose what they do with their life and enjoy tremendous personal freedoms, yet many have difficulty finding a true calling, an occupation that motivates. Many people suffer due to lack of purpose despite so much opportunity. For readers who have yet to find their personal legend, what advice would you offer to help them find it?
The reason your purpose is fuzzy is because your understanding of reality is fuzzy. If you experience confusion about your purpose, then forget about purpose for a while. Instead, focus on developing an accurate model of reality. Once you understand reality accurately enough, your purpose will become clear.
Increasing your accuracy means facing those parts of your life you don’t want to face, looking them square in the eye, and accepting the truth about them. The more truth you’re capable of accepting, the more accurate your model of reality will be.
Often when people start on this path, they’re in deep denial about the true status of their existence. They may refuse to accept many things about themselves that others would readily acknowledge, such as: I’m out of shape, I’m stingy, I’m in debt, I eat poorly, I’m dishonest, I have many bad habits that I’m ashamed of, I feel powerless, I’m not contributing, I’m afraid, my work is unsatisfying, my marriage is unfulfilling, etc. Too often people lie to themselves and refuse to accept the problems that surround them. But when they finally accept that their life isn’t what they want it to be, that becomes the seed for future change. Problems are transformed into challenges.
It’s very difficult to accept the full truth of your situation when you’ve been lying to yourself for so long. But you won’t find your real purpose under a blanket of lies. It’s only when you start facing the unfaceable parts of your life that your purpose will become visible.
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Steve Pavlina Interview – Part 2
Continuing the interview with Steve Pavlina here is part two. You can read part one here -
Steve Pavlina Interview – Part 1
4. How To Reach More People
You use the slogan “Personal Development For Smart People” and talk about raising levels of awareness. The majority of people in this world are probably not at a level of awareness to seek out self development materials like you produce. Many don’t have access to the Internet and few who do will ever stumble across your blog. Given these restrictions, how do you plan in the future to expand your readership and influence?
I’m not here to directly reach every man, woman, and child on earth. My general purpose is to help people grow in consciousness and awareness, but that’s more of a direction than a path. My more specific mission is to influence the influencers.
Single-handedly raising the level of consciousness of the whole planet is too much for me to handle, at least at my current stage of development. Triage is essential. I have to say no to a lot of worthy causes, and sometimes it’s heartbreaking to do so, but if I try to help everyone on earth directly, my specific mission will fail, and I cannot allow that to happen.
Influencing the influencers is my particular leverage point. I specifically aim to catch people in their 20s and 30s, a large percentage of whom are Internet-savvy, and help them realize that there’s more to life than getting a job and making money. These people are the future leaders of tomorrow, and if just a small percentage of them learn to listen to their hearts and not just their heads, it will make a world of difference.
Like many others my age, I have little faith in our current business and political leaders. I don’t vote in any elections because there’s no point. The people and issues that make it onto our ballots are spawned from a very low level of consciousness. Our leaders care more about power and perception than they do about truth and service. That’s cowardice, not leadership, and it needs to change. But the only way I see change happening is if enough people raise their own consciousness to the point where they refuse to be manipulated by fear and falsehood. We need leaders who are conscious and compassionate, who care more about serving the greater good than they do about enriching their egos. But we also need people who are willing to accept having an honorable leader in power, and that requires that people learn to manage their fear so it can no longer be used as a means of manipulating them.
Fortunately, I’m not alone in this mission. There are thousands of others who share a similar purpose, each serving a vital role. It’s very encouraging to see others working to help shift the dominant mode of human consciousness from fear to love, from competition to cooperation.
As long as my web site continues to enjoy such rapid growth, it makes sense for me to continue focusing my attention there. When the growth rate slows, I’ll expand into other media to reach more people. But I intend for the web site to remain the central hub for all my work. This is just the beginning.
5. Blogging
In 2005 your blog was one of the fastest growing individual blogs. As a blogger, what do you think the future holds for blogs and blogging? What direction would you like to see blogs take?
I’m hugely optimistic about the future of blogs and blogging. Blogs are quickly changing the face of media, injecting a much needed dose of truth. Bloggers tend to be an ornery lot, myself included, having little tolerance for the phoniness and falsehood that infests traditional media. Some bloggers take things a bit too far, but it’s nice to see that blogs are acting as checks and balances on mainstream media. Typical newscasters look ridiculously phony when compared to typical bloggers. I think this will ultimately force changes in mainstream media. They’ll have to change as they begin losing business. The advertising dollars are already flooding into blogs, and that’s only going to increase.
More and more people are coming to realize that traditional media has betrayed them. For too long the media has placed corporate interests ahead of truth. As the movie The Corporation
I believe that blogging is going to be a very disruptive influence on systems that are invested in falsehood, especially corporations and government. Blogging is providing an outlet for intelligent people of conscience to finally be heard over the paternalistic, fear-based blabber of traditional media. A corporation or government entity can start a blog, but if it tries spouting the same nonsense it puts in its “for dummies†TV ads, it will soon find itself shredded to pieces by the blogosphere. The bloggers who are honest and credible will continue to draw more and more traffic. People are desperate to hear genuine truth, so herein lies an enormous opportunity for bloggers to build traffic. A blogger can afford to speak the truth on subjects where a corporation or mainstream media entity cannot. A willingness to speak the truth is a blogger’s greatest asset.
I want to see blogs continue to grow in the direction of truth, truth, and more truth. This is a very exciting development because it fits so well with my mission to help people grow. Truth is a powerful enabler of growth.
Making a profit from blogging is all well and good. I expect money will continue to flow into the blogosphere. But I don’t want to see it get in the way of truth. The Internet is such a great equalizer because it’s a lot easier to build a high-traffic web site than it is to create your own TV network.
6. Business
As a small business owner you face many unique challenges every day. How has developing on a personal level helped you as a business person? What do you consider to be the key ingredient(s) to start, build and grow a successful small business?
Obviously the answer depends on your definition of success. I’ll assume a blended definition of success: making a meaningful contribution to the world, enjoying a healthy profit, and finding your work deeply fulfilling.
The single most important factor I’ve found in creating a successful business is accuracy. The business (and the entrepreneur) must be driven by an accurate model of reality, and according to that model, there must be a hugely compelling reason to create the business. If creating the business is merely an option instead of an absolute must, then you shouldn’t create the business. You’re just wasting your time.
When I started my games business, my original purpose was to have it be an outlet for my creativity. It was a vehicle for me to create and sell my own games. A secondary purpose was to entertain and challenge people. But as a purpose, this was only so-so in its level of inspiration. In the grand scheme of things, the work I was doing didn’t really matter to anyone but a handful of people. Nevertheless, this business took a significant amount of my time to build.
The accuracy of my thinking increased when I acknowledged that the world didn’t need another games business, not even a good one. There were far more important needs to address. Eventually I was able to connect the dots between the most crucial human needs and my own personal talents and abilities. For me that connection was personal growth. Helping people grow, especially in consciousness and awareness, was the very best work I felt I could do. There was nothing more inspiring to me. And I felt that it was something I had to do personally. Because of my particular experiences and skills, I saw that I could make a significant and unique contribution to this field if I were to devote a significant portion of my life to it. Furthermore, if I chose not to make that contribution, something wonderful would be lost. I’m not saying this out of ego or vanity – it was simply that I realized that there was a particular area where I could make a valuable contribution to the world, and if I decided not do it, there would be an unfilled void left in its place. If I didn’t fill that void personally, then among other things, a suicide might have occurred that could have been prevented, as I mentioned in question 3.
The key to succeeding in business isn’t some particular technique or strategy. It’s the why that drives the business. When the purpose behind your business is truly important to you, you’ll be driven to learn the skills and take the actions necessary to succeed. Many people in business don’t even apply what they know. But if you have a great purpose, you’ll use what you know and then some.
The purpose behind my business is a huge source of inspiration for me. My purpose drives me to work on my self-discipline, to stay organized, to keep up with the latest developments in my field, and to write hundreds of free articles. Who cares about fame or fortune when you can experience the privilege of saving a life? In the grand scheme of things, money just isn’t that motivating. Sure it’s nice to have a good income, but once your basic needs are met, money won’t be the driving force behind your work. It has to be something much more meaningful. Basically, the true purpose of your business must be some form of genuine and much needed service to the world.
If you’re thinking about starting a business, ask yourself if there’s a greater need on earth than the one your business idea will address. If there is, and if you’re capable of filling that need to some degree, then dump your original idea, and find a way to fill that need and have it generate plenty of income for you.
7. Mentors
Do you have any mentors? If so who are they and in what areas of your own self development have they helped you?
I have a number of mentors. Some are local friends that coach me on my speaking skills. Others are people who’ve created the books and audio programs I’ve devoured. And finally there are my spiritual mentors.
The last group plays the most significant role in my life. While I’ve gained many ideas from people and books, the best mentoring I receive comes from an internal process which includes meditation and journaling.
Whenever I feel I need guidance, I spend a few hours alone either meditating or journaling at my computer. I ask questions and then wait for answers. At various times I’ve filtered this process through one philosophical framework or another. Depending on your particular belief system, you can think of it as prayer, connecting with spirit guides, channeling, communicating with the subconscious, brainstorming, etc. The mental framework isn’t important. The important part is the act of turning inward and seeking answers from within.
Most of the time I use a journaling program on my computer, and I type up a list of questions. Then I work my way through these questions, listening for answers and typing whatever comes to mind. Whether the answers come from some divine source or my own subconscious, I don’t know. But I almost always get good advice whenever I do this. The advice isn’t always easy to follow, and sometimes I disregard it, but in the long run, it usually turns out to be correct. I’ve been using this process for about 10 years now and have found it invaluable. I’m never at a loss for what to do next.
Continue reading part three of the Steve Pavlina interview…
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