Surfer Lifestyle Design

Like you reading this, I cannot stand working a menial job, with standard set hours, doing the same complacent thing…Like you reading this, I thrive on learning new things, I accept challenges, and grow with every new and exciting endeavor.  To be an entrepreneur, what I had to learn in the last year is to not set your satisfaction on an end result.

The reason is, as an entrepreneur, you will ALWAYS be wanting to chase your next big project.  You will have a moment of satisfaction for being done, and then on to the next thing; filled with more stress and more worry.  To really feel success, it is IMPERATIVE for an entrepreneur to feel content with the journey, NOT what is waiting at the end of the road.

It may be hard to take that first step, and if you already have, it may be even tougher to take the 7th or 8th step.  Just remember, it is not what is waiting at the end of those stairs…..It is about the staircase you choose to climb!

To help you along your road, stairs, or rocket to the stars….I have asked some Extremely Successful Online Entrepreneurs to share with you what got them started, and what keeps them going.

Some are excellent friends of mine, and others, I am just an admirer of their work, persistence and creativity.

This is the quetion I emailed/tweeted them….Then following is the 28 responses.  Do not feel as if you have to read all this at once.  Take in as much as you can, bookmark this page, come back to it when you feel you are at a hard place….These people can definitely help push you back on track.

The Question:

-What gave you the courage, or how did you find the courage to start taking ACTION toward your goals?  And, how do you keep that courage/passion and motivation alive?

28 Amazing Responses:

- Zac Johnson of ZacJohnson.com

“I first started making money online while I was a freshman in high school. This was a lot different than ordinary scenarios you might hear about today for two different reasons. The first being that I was a student in school, so I really didn’t have many “living costs” as I still lived with my parents. This meant I could spend a lot of time trying different things out and doing what it takes to build a business online. The second difference, is that back in 2000 the web was young and the affiliate marketing world is completely different today. It wasn’t so much courage that kept me going, but I had an amazing passion and drive to find different ways to make money online, and it was also so exciting at the same time. I’ve never had a “real” job, so building my business online was always something I wanted to do, and I feel starting young also helped me accomplish that goal.”

- John Chow of John Chow Dot Com

“I would say the number 1 secret to my success is my wife. She gave me the courage and encouragement to go after OUR dreams and goals. Behind every successful man, you will find a woman.”

- Warren Whitlock of Best Seller Book Marketing

“Any time I have ever thought to worry about courage, I remember I have people who I can depend on, and can depend on me.. then get back to work.”

- Henrik Edberg of The Positivity Blog

“Well, I have used different methods to start moving and to keep moving.

- Srinivas Rao of The Skool of Life

“They say that one of two things will set the wheels in motion for people: inspiration or desperation. For me it was desperation. I had graduated from business school, was running completely out of money, and didn’t see a job on the horizon anytime soon. I knew something would have to change. With that I started my blog and started taking action. The thing that keeps me going is the fact that I never want to be back in that place again.”

- Jonathan Mead of Illuminated Mind

“My courage comes from knowing that this is what I’m meant to do. This is my gift and I can’t die with that still inside of me. I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t do everything I possibly could to manifest it.”

- Chris Ducker of Virtual Business Lifestyle

“For me, creating goals and working hard towards them has always been very apparent in everything I have achieved in life. I’ve set hundreds of goals, some more important that others, but generally speaking, I have achieved each and every one of them. If you think about it, there is just no point in setting goals or targets in place unless you are whole-heartedly going to work towards achieving them.

Its that courage in the first place, of actually creating the goal, setting it in ‘time’, so to speak, that separates the doers to the losers in life. Now, grab a piece of paper, and ask yourself one question – ‘Do I want to be a doer, or a loser..?’. Answer it already? Good. Get writing!”

- Clay Collins of Clay-Collins.com

“So often, our greatest gift lies not in what we can do, but what we simply, for the life of us, cannot do.

Several years ago, on Christmas day, I was at the end of my rope.  And (almost) in an instant . . . I decided to stop doing anything that I couldn’t NOT do.

Strangely, this required no courage.  I’d worked at enough jobs, been through enough degree programs, to know that everything that’s not in 100% alignment with who I truly am will eventually suck the life out of me.  So all my courage came not from trying hard or anything like that, but un completely and entirely giving up on doing anything that didn’t git who I was.

Regarding how I keep the passion and motivation alive . . . I try to continually eliminate everything in my life that I don’t want to do.  Being alive, inspired, and motivated is our default state as human beings.  It’s how we’re supposed to live.  But when we put ourselves (over and over again) in jobs and situations that are in direct opposition to who we are, we stop thriving and motivation leaves.”

- Chris Brogan of ChrisBrogan.com

“I got courage and confidence by taking small actions and succeeding, and then building on those successes until I felt like I’d done rather well.”

- Shawn Collins of Affiliate Summit

“My father often told me a story about how he got two job offers after college – one was for a fun advertising job and the other was a boring statistician job.

He went with the second one, because it paid more money. That move haunted him.

For his whole career, he took “safe” jobs that he never really liked, and he put in all of those decades of work with retirement as his ultimate goal.

In 2002, he died at 61 years old, and one year away from retirement.

I decided then and there that I was going to do things that challenged and excited me. A year later, Affiliate Summit was born, and soon after, I quit my “day job” to go out on my own.

Whenever times got tough, I’d think about my dad sitting in a cubical and waiting for retirement. Sometimes, we can find great inspiration in negative things.”

- Pat Flynn of The Smart Passive Income Blog

Now, I usually announce what I’m doing on my blog so that it’s public and others will hold me accountable for it. One example of when this strategy totally worked is when I announced that I was going to undertake the P90X extreme home fitness program. Because of that accountability and not wanting to let my readers down, I finished the program and saw drastic changes in my body and in life.”

- Logan Lenz of Start Up Tips from Logan Lenz

I continue finding inspiration in ingenuity. Without a constant flow of fresh creative ideas, any profession would quickly become boring and stale.”

- Rob Rammuny of RobsWebTips

“I knew that the first step to change was taking action. My courage and passion that keeps me going is a unexplainable belief I have for myself and the satisfaction of watching other people succeed and become better because I was here.

I believe, if someone is put in this world and they don’t make a difference, they wasted their time.”

- Tripp Lanier of The New Man

“Learning how to fall down and get back up again is the answer. If you’re not so afraid of falling, then you’re less likely to be afraid to take a chance. Fear is still there but it isn’t crippling. Most of us see making mistake as a failure, as a stopping point. It’s really just a bump in the road. Once I realized I could make mistakes and the world would’nt end, I felt more free. Now, I don’t particularly enjoy making mistakes but I’m also not playing it safe to avoid them at all costs. If I screw up, I’ll learn from it and eventually I’ll recover.”

- Tyler Tervooren of Advanced Riskology

“To be perfectly honest, I think I was influenced more by fear than the desire to be courageous. There were all these things I wanted to do and each time I found an excuse to put them off, I felt more and more afraid that I’d never actually get around to them. Some people go all the way through life like that – I’ve seen it – and I was scared to death to end up like that myself, so my fear gradually started to shift my motivations. Rather than the fear of doing something uncomfortable or spending too much money or looking like a fool, I actually started to become more and more afraid that I’d never do what I really wanted. That was a big wake-up call and an important turning point in my life.

I don’t really have to do much to maintain that. Momentum is a beautiful thing and now that I have it, it’s easy to simply keep going. The word “status-quo” is the villain these days, but if you can take your own status-quo and turn it into something that works for you and makes you happy, then maintaining it is pretty simple. Get comfortable being uncomfortable.”

- Karol Gajda of Ridiculously Extraordinary

“As much as I’d like to give you a long, drawn out response to this, the truth is the reason I take action is because I have no other choice. I’d rather be dead than “living” a life I’m not passionate about.”

- JD Meier of Sources of Insight

“For me, the ongoing fuel for the fire is passion and purpose.  I learned long ago that there’s a big difference between doing and trying, growing and dying.  I find my drive by testing myself, making the most of what I’ve got, and expanding my ability to solve problems.”

- Corbett Barr of Think Traffic

“Courage comes from within. External events and knowledge can help motivate you, but courage is something that comes from your core. You keep courage alive by digging deep and knowing what is most important to you in life.”

- Lori Deschene of Tiny Buddha

What originally helped me was realizing it would take far more energy not to take action.

If I didn’t identify the actions that felt meaningful to me, every day until I did, I’d need to find the willto live a life that felt inauthentic. Every day until I decided to take baby steps on the path that makesme happy, I’d have to find excuses for why I was staying in a blatantly unsatisfying situation. Every dayuntil I chose to acknowledge what I really wanted to do, I’d have to pretend it was impossible instead of acknowledging I was just scared.

Not acting may seem fairly easy to do, but it’s mentally exhausting. Every day you don’t do something you want to do, you need to justify it in your head. You need to lie to yourself, at least a little—to pretend it’s not about believing in yourself but more about what’s realistic.

For me, not acting also created a lot of envy. Whenever I saw someone who was happy with what they were doing, I wondered what it would take to do the same—and what was wrong with me for feeling so resistant to doing it. Why were they able to do something big and I had no idea where to begin?

Then I realized they started with no idea, too, and that action didn’t have to be overwhelming or scary.  It could be just a small step, like sending a tweet or writing a first blog post. Action starts with just one little decision, and then grows as other little choices and lessons pile up on top of it.

What helps me continually build, even though sometimes I’m not certain what I’m building, is simply that I love it. A day with an uncertain passion is far more gratifying than a day with certain drudgery.  When I get caught up in my head and I start questioning where it’s leading or what I’m accomplishing, I remember that type of analyzing is a road block. Since the journey itself is the destination, choosing to paralyze myself is choosing not to be in the place I love.

I’ve learned that courage, motivation, and passion aren’t all means to an end. I like myself a lot more when I believe in myself enough to keep going—regardless of where it gets me. In that way, those feelings really are in themselves the end.

- Chris Guillebeau of Art of Non-Conformity

“I finally realized I would deeply regret if I didn’t try. As scary as it was, failure was acceptable, but not attempting to do something significant would have left me with the regret I didn’t want to live with.

- Seth Godin of Seth Godin’s Blog

“I write about this a bit in the Bootstrapper’s Bible.

- Jacob Sokol of Sensophy

“My courage comes from insanity. Allow me to clarify that and tap into some Abraham Maslow wisdom. He says this: “What a man can be, he must be. This NEED we call self-actualization.”

He says that there’s a pyramid of needs. On the bottom of it is the basic stuff like breathing, eating, water, and shelter. The next level up is safety and security. Keep rising and we’ll find things like love, relationships, appreciation, and a sense of belonging. One more level higher and there’s respect, confidence, and achievements.

Here’s where the courage comes in: the top level. That is, the human NEED to self-actualize. In other words, in order to live a healthy and happy life, you NEED to be all that you can be! That takes courage dude.

I know what it feels like to be stuck at a job where there’s no heart in that path. I know what it feels like to not want to wake up in the morning because you’re afraid of your own mind. It takes courage to escape that and “let go.” But at the end of the day, it’s just not an option, it’s a need!”

- Nicholas Reese of Becoming Bold

“I like tinkering with technology, that is why I got started online. Back in late 2006 my friend had a site that made a few dollars a day and I wanted to figure out how to build one too. A few weeks of playing around and I had WordPress installed and was making about ~$100 a week selling fish products.

Fast forward 4 years and things haven’t changed. I still like chasing new projects and learning how to do new things online. This is both a curse and a blessing. I never have problems taking action because it is fun to learn new things, however once I master the new task I don’t want to do it any more.

As you can see this leads to a lot of jumping around so I like to have two major projects going at a time. I can focus on one until I get bored, then shift to the other one. It creates a nice cycle so I can be effective and still enjoy working.

It is all about finding out how you thrive. I thrive on learning new things, so I try and engineer my life that way. This doesn’t stop the brick walls (stuff I don’t want to do) from showing up, I just know there is more fun on the other side.”

- Greg Rollet of Rock Star Lifestyle Design

“It comes down to knowing what you want out of life. I don’t want to be 40 and still doing the same thing I was at 28 and making 3% raises every year. Life is extremely short and we can easily let things pass us by. Having goals aren’t the end game, but setting goals and going after them creates experiences and challenges that make up life. That really gets me going everyday.

You have to know that what you want, your why for doing things, is so damn important that you won’t stop until you get there. For me, my why is friggin huge, so I bust balls everyday so I can get there. And it’s not a destination, it’s getting to a place that makes you feel like home even when you are away, a place that is organic and makes you smile even when things suck.”

- Hector Cuevas of HectorCuevas.com

“The courage I have now sort of evolved through my experiences. I strongly believe that we can do anything we want in this world, but I also believe that in order to achieve our goals we can to go through stages. These stages are probably the hardest, and most uncomfortable stages you will ever encounter but once you get through them, you’re stronger. Once you come out the other side of each one of these stages, you’re braver.

No one is born brave; courage is learned. I believe that in order to keep that courage alive and stay motivated, we have to keep looking for the most difficult challenges; the things that are going to make us feel alive – and that’s how your true passion shines through.”

- Cody McKibben of Thrilling Heroics

“The courage simply comes from inside you. Either you choose to take action or you don’t. You settle for comfort, or easy.  I just hit my breaking point with a mediocre life & meaningless work. Humans weren’t meant to spend 70 years in boxes…What keeps me going is desire to see & do as many awe-some & crazy things as I can, and build projects I’m passionate about.”

- Jonathan Figaro of The Drop Out Kid

“What gave me the courage to take action towards my goal was my environment. I didn’t want to be a product of what i was surrounded by. I wanted to be different, do different things and find a way out of working like a slave for King Tut. So it hit a point in my life when it was just balls to the wall. An All out war on what I wanted. I didn’t give 2 bucks about the risk. Never had any regrets and learned to adapt to certain situations.

To answer your second question, My motivation is something I have to pin point or decipher. It could of been my father passing when I was 12, my mother barely surviving breast cancer, being picked on when i was in high school, or falling for the girl who never fell for me. Either way, I am where I am.”

- Rusty Moore of The Fitness Black Book

What gave you the courage, or how did you find the courage to start taking ACTION toward your goals?

For me it was a bit of pain more than anything else.

You see…I was a high achiever in school. A straight A student, great SAT score, etc. I left High School thinking I was going to become successful in the business world. The thing is…I had no idea what profession I was going to do well in. Nothing in the job or business world excited me. I really thought that because I was smart (or at least thought I was smart)…that the world would somehow reward me with a high paying job, a fancy car, etc.

Reality struck when I graduated from the University of Washington in 1992 and the economy was in the tank. I couldn’t get a “decent” job anywhere and wound up working in retail. I’m not slamming retail, but it certainly wasn’t where I saw myself when I was 15-16 years old and picturing what life would be like after college. Here I was voted “most likely to succeed”…and I was an assistant manager at a sunglass store.

I eventually became manager of that little sunglass kiosk making $28,000 per year. I had crazy student loans, so I had to move back in with my dad after college. It was really humbling. I was in my mid 20′s living in my dad’s basement managing a little sunglass kiosk in the mall. I was even too embarrassed to date at that point. That time was really painful.

Fast forward 15 years…I was managing a men’s suit store (my 5th or 6th retail management position). Over those 15 years, I had to work every holiday…almost every weekend…and I missed out on a lot of good times. My boss at the time was an idiot who took his job too seriously. I was only allowed to have one weekend off every quarter. I could only take vacation in August, February, March or April. I could only take 7 days of vacation in a row even though I had accumulated 6 weeks.

I was 37 years old, making $48,000 per year, averaging 55-65 hours per week. I was single, miserable, and disappointed with myself. I made a commitment at that time that I would start a blog about my favorite subject…working out…and would give it everything I had for 4 years. I figured that very few people would stick to something for 4 years, so by shear commitment alone I would at least do sort-of well.

And, how do you keep that courage/passion and motivation alive?

Well back then it was tougher than it is now. At first I was writing articles like crazy and seeing very little return on it. I would typically work from 10:30pm to 12:30 each night. This was in addition to working 60 hour work weeks.

I focused on two things that always kept me motivated:

1) I was the only grandchild to miss my grandfather’s 80th birthday. My boss would not let me have that day off because it was a Saturday. He felt that Saturday’s were too crucial for a manager to be allowed to have that day off. All of the relatives made it except for me…and it was something that I could never get back. I missed a ton of family events and parties, but this is the one that stung.

2) I was a fitness enthusiast who disagreed 100% with mainstream fitness info: When I started my blog, I had no idea how it would ever make any real money…but I was passionate about a few things. I loved to train, but I couldn’t stand typical gym “meat heads”. I didn’t like the clothes, or the aura of any gym I trained in…I didn’t like the fitness role models in magazines, etc. I also had developed and fine tuned an approach to get the lean “Hollywood Look”.

Since I was so passionate about this subject (still am)…I could just sit in front of a keyboard and posts almost wrote themselves. I exposed myths and better methods than were being discussed in the magazines.The blog took off…and I was now seriously skipping a lot of sleep to keep up. At one point I would respond to every comment. I was working my site from 10:30pm-2:00AM on work days…then working it on my time off.

On March 6, 2009 I was able to walk away from my job. One of the happiest days of my life. All that pain and frustration seemed to part.

My motivation now is to simply help people. Staying in great shape is what gave me the energy to work even under sleep deprivation. I’m not recommending my route…but I’d do it again in a heartbeat!

I’d rather be tired as heck and working towards a dream, then being fully rested and living a life I despised.

One last thing…My 4 year mark with my blog is coming up in June 2011. It is on track to get 5 million visitors and has become something much bigger than I expected. I said I wouldn’t look back until 4 years is up…I think I will stick with it