We accidentally stumbled onto something incredibly valuable in our lives.
For years we searched for something that we could that would make us happy + make us money.
We were frustrated with our corporate lives and we were on a mission to make money without punching a clock or working for "the man".
This journey included trading stocks, then studying and trading stock options ... it involved starting a website that tracked and shared retail sales going on around the GTA ... it involved studying real estate and putting up bag signs all around Mississauga claiming "we buy homes fast for cash" ... it involved starting a Search Engine Optimized website to earn affiliate commissions ... it involved travelling to conferences, reading newsletters, books, listening to audio tapes, CDs ... at one point we started a database consulting company that go ZERO clients and an IT consulting company that got one contract with a huge real estate company to redevelop their database. Over the years we worked on construction sites, as bank tellers, in flea markets, in convenience stores, in department stores, as security personnel, as computer programmers and sales guys.
We've dabbled in a little bit of everything.
And when we reflect back on what had the biggest impact in our lives we've noticed a trend...
The biggest successes always came when we ignored popular opinion, put our heads down and focused on a single activity.
For example...
When we started a small little Search Engine Optimized website to earn affiliate commissions there were a lot of distractions.
Some people told us to distribute articles on article directories, some people told us to write "sales pages" to make immediate sales, some people told us to sell information and not physical products.
Each of these pieces of advice was probably good.
But if we had followed all of them we would have gotten nowhere.
Instead for three months we got very focused on building the based 25 page article website we could that was perfectly setup to offer good information and be "Google friendly".
We absolutely ignored every other strategy other than that.
And at the end of that three months we had an little asset that went on to earn money for us for about seven years and actually still makes a small amount of money for us.
Three months of focused work equaled seven years of income.
We had built something.
We had built an asset in our lives.
Here's another example...
When we decided to get into real estate as a business and not just as an investment we began running advertisements and carefully following up with the people who responded.
That's it.
We advertised and then followed up with things people may think were valuable.
We didn't attend networking events, we didn't go to the local real estate conferences, we didn't go the real estate brokerage sales training, we didn't do "flips" or "student rentals" or "buy-fix-sell" or "buy-fix-refinance" ... we just focused on on single strategy.
The result was that we built a database of possible clients that began to trust us and do business with us.
The lesson to us is this...
There are many right answers for how to build a business or how to invest in real estate.
We know several people who built real estate businesses that allowed them to quit their jobs NOT by advertising like we did.
They diligently attended real estate events and networked and became a person of influence ... so much so that they attracted clients that way.
The common trait in accomplishing anything of value, in our opinion, is FOCUS.
And focus is very difficult to achieve these days.
There are so many new distractions.
Whenever we find ourselves doing a little bit of Facebook advertising, a little bit of Podcasting, a little bit of real estate, a little bit of option trading, a little bit of website development ... NOTHING happens.
It's almost as if the new competitive advantage is your ability to BLOCK out information and work on one thing for a period of time.
People seem attracted to others who have a CLEAR and CONSISTENT message.
It's difficult to decide what your focus should be on ... but once you decide and commit, it's like striking oil.
Multitasking has failed.
Blocking out your calendar, saying no to meetings and lunches, turning off your phone and focusing one one thing is the new cool.
Well .... it's cool to us 😉
Until next time ... Your Life! Your Terms!
Great article! Nothing beats the power of focus. What you focus on is what gets improved. This is something I'm currently struggling with at the moment. With a full-time corporate job and two businesses on the side, it's challenging to commit time to anything. As you often write, I've always found it productive when I commit a good block of time to one activity rather than doing little bits of eveything. Thanks for sharing the article.