When I was a kid, all I wanted to do was to have fun. That’s all I cared about. I didn’t give a fuck about school or grades. I remember when I was in elementary school, when everything was so easy, I used to race home after school and rush through my homework. I didn’t even know if the answers were right or wrong. I just did it as quickly as possible just so I could go play outside. I used to love going outside, and just enjoying what life had to offer. That was when life seemed so exciting, and full of possibilities.
Fast forward to today. I’m currently 27 years old. I’m no where near where I thought I would be by now. I’ve been striving, struggling, and failing miserably for the past 6 years in multiple attempts to become a successful entrepreneur. I’ve been obsessed with the idea of being an entrepreneur. It started out with the idea of being an affiliate marketer living the easy lifestyle. Working at home in my boxers only an hour or two a day and making a lot of money while doing it. Now I’ve realized that it actually takes a lot of time and a lot of effort to get to a certain point in life. How naive, and ridiculous I was at that time. I clung onto that stupid idea though. That stupid idea sprung me into action. Although I have not succeeded yet, I have made a lot of progress along the way. The journey hasn’t been all sunshine and butterflies, but it’s something I’m starting to appreciate. This stupid idea I had evolved into an obsession with becoming a successful entrepreneur.
This obsession hasn’t been healthy though. In the beginning, what kept me going was the fun. I was doing this because I enjoyed it. I liked reading about the success stories, the methods to the madness, the constant feeling that I was progressing towards something great. Along the way, I let this obsession take a hold of me. I fantasized about a life where I would be traveling the world while making millions of dollars from multiple online ventures. I put so much pressure on myself to become a success, that I had forgotten about the fun. I became impatient, and was constantly chasing the next shiny object. It didn’t matter if I started to see some results in the work I was doing. If I saw something new or had an idea that promised to make me fast, easy money I was on it. I deluded myself into thinking there was a way to make fast, easy money and get rich over night. The short answer is: There isn’t.
Two years ago I became serious about my decision to become an affiliate marketer. I didn’t see any real growth until I decided to stick to one path, and one method. When I decided that I would commit myself and focus on doing this one thing, I started to see just what I was capable of doing. But the thing was, I wasn’t really having fun doing it. I had been struggling for so long to get to this point and the moment I had it, I just couldn’t hold onto it. I was actually making money from my campaign. I had hit a winning combination and finally had my first real successful campaign. I wasn’t making massive amounts of money, but I was making enough to see that this had the possibility of turning into something big. At the same exact moment a new shiny object entered into my life. This new shiny object was a girl.
I told myself I would never let anyone stop me from this path. I told myself I would never let anything get in my way. I was a man on a mission. But then, I met the sweetest girl with the warmest smile I had ever seen. Within a month after I first met her, she became my girlfriend. I couldn’t stop thinking about her. I couldn’t focus on my work or do any of my daily routines. Essentially, my life became all fucked up even though I had just barely started to get it together. Love came around and knocked me down, knocked me down.
I had lost my edge, and my focus. I became soft and couldn’t take the hits. I managed to let my campaign run itself almost on auto pilot for the next 3 months. Then I finally started to make tweaks to my campaign and scale it bigger. I talked to the network owner I was doing business with and got a pay bump on my offer with the promise that I would increase the volume I was doing. I delivered on my promise and started to see my campaign grow again. I barely grew it for a week and a half when I ran into a new problem. The network didn’t want to pay me what I was owed. The advertiser didn’t like the quality of the leads that I was sending and because of that the network didn’t want to pay me. They might have thought I was sending them fraudulent traffic, but I wasn’t. I was buying from a premium traffic source and paid a pretty good amount to get it. When I didn’t get paid as I expected to I had to pause my campaign. I had to constantly bombard the network with emails, and tried to get a hold of the owner on the phone several times with no luck what so ever. This mother fucker was dodging my calls and being a piece of shit. I finally got through to the accountant a week or so later, and she said the owner agreed to pay me, but would have to deduct $500 from the amount because the advertiser had not paid them the full amount for my leads. I agreed to this because I needed the money and would take what I could get. I essentially had to call it quits at this point because my campaign was fucked, and I didn’t have enough money left to get any new campaigns going. I had bills to pay, and racked up a credit card debt of $12,000.
I got turned off from the industry and decided to take a break from it. Oh and get this, a few months after I had stopped running my campaign, the network owner kept contacting me and practically begged me to start running my campaign again. He said the leads just took some time to mature, but the advertiser ended up liking the quality I had sent and wanted me to send them more leads. I just couldn’t trust this guy though. I didn’t know if he was telling the truth or just making it up to scam me. I didn’t even bother to ask for the rest of my money because I didn’t really want anything more to do with this guy. I declined and said I just needed to take a break and didn’t have the finances to get back into the game.
One thing led to another and now I’m working at a job that gets me enough to scrape by. I’m grateful for the job, and don’t mind the work I do. I’m slowly gathering my energy and my resources together to start my journey again. What I realized is that I stopped having genuine fun in my day to day life. Sure I had a few fun moments here and there, but overall I wasn’t enjoying the things that I used to enjoy. For whatever reason I just kept doing it over and over again. I felt like I was in an endless cycle of drudgery. It just hit me that life had started to become a drag because I stopped having fun.
I have just made a decision to look for ways to have fun in my life again (Without being too reckless of course). The constant message that we hear from those successful entrepreneurs is this: Do what you love. Maybe there is a reason that they keep telling us to follow our passion. You might not make a penny doing the very thing that you love, but if you’re having fun, and it’s not hurting anyone, then why should you care if you’re making money or not? Just keep doing it because it’s fun and find other ways to make money to support yourself. If you keep doing the things that you love doing, eventually it may lead to something greater. If not, fuck it! Just keep having fun!
Stay tuned for part 2 where I elaborate more on the concept of why you absolutely need to have fun in your life.
Until then go live your life and kick some ass,
Phil