Courage is not the absence of fear

It was just a few days ago that it dawned on me.

If you do something and you are not afraid of it, that is not courage.

Courage means acting in spite of fear.

I always thought that people who try extraordinary things were not afraid, since that was natural to them. However, I have realized that most of the times they are afraid, BUT they act anyway.

And being scared is a good thing. If you are scared of starting a business, trying a new thing… That means that it’s probably worth trying!

So, if things like starting a new website, trying a new business idea, launching a new PPC campaign scare you, that’s good!

Just accept it, and do it anyway.

You’ll be thankful you did.

I was supposed to write this post on jan 1st, but you know how life can get in the way :-/

I did my yearly review for 2016 and didn’t turn out to be a bad year.

On the family side, my daughter celebrated her first birthday, and despite having a baby, we managed to do a few trips (USA, England, and a few visits to Sweden). So, yes, you can travel with a baby!

On the financial side, I didn’t reach my yearly goal, but the part that most frustrated me was that  I made less money than in 2015 (not that big of a difference, but a business is supposed to keep growing…).

Reviewing why this happened, aside from the fact that going from having 0 children to 1 child makes you, on one hand, less  owner of your time, and on the other hand, re-think your priorities, the main issue was a lack of accountability.

So with this post I’d like to “slightly hit without causing any damage” 2 birds with a stone (I’m not too fond of killing animals):

• Write down my goals
• Share them with the world so there is a certain accountability expected

So this is what I have in mind for 2017:

1. Earn over 200.000 dollars (before tax; a bit over 30% of that will go towards building roads and some other uses). So far my record is around $90.000/year, so it’s a bit of a challenge.
2. Create, launch and sell 6 different software products (5 of them coded by me, one of them outsourced; this is a new thing since I’ve always done the coding, but it takes too much of my time)
3. Build a membership site where I will share everything I know about building an online business
4. Grow my list to 15.000 readers
5. Send an e-mail a week to my list (minimum) with useful and actionable content
6. Write a blog post a week (minimum), again, with useful content for my readers (no vacation photos allowed, just good business advice)

Right now I looked at the calendar and it’s the 3rd week of the year, so I’m a bit behind in #5 and #6, I will need some catching up.

Also, at the end of every month, I will write a blog post stating how much money I made, where it came from, and how far away I am from achieving my 6 goals, so everything will be documented, and, hopefully, all my readers will be able to learn a bit about my successes and failures.

So why did I say this can impact you?

Well, I expect that by sharing useful content, experiences, ideas, etc., you will be able to pick up a few ideas to implement in your own business, even if it is what NOT to do.

So, that being said, if there is anything you would like me to write about, just let me know; otherwise get ready for some random advice.

 

Thank you so much for reading this, and see you along the way.

I wish all my readers a wonderful 2017.