The Paradigm Shift

No one likes to fail. Everyone wants to be successful. We may have different definitions of what success is, but we want to succeed in what we do. A paradigm shift happened when I decided that I want to be financially independent. It requires me to do things I've never done before. I have to venture into the unknown. If we want to get more from life, it often requires us to leave our comfort zone.

This is where many people stop. Why? Because venturing into the unknown is scary. It's always easier to stick to what we know and what is familiar to us. But if we keep doing things the way we've been doing it for the past 5 years, can we really expect that our life would change? Very unlikely.

If, say, you want to start your own business. You have to learn about how to build a business. If you want to be a world class athlete, you had better start finding a coach or a mentor that can help you train and guide you to achieve that goal. Regardless of what it is that you want to achieve, you have to first decide what you want and then focus your attention on achieving your goal.

If you want to go on a vacation and you don't decide where you want to go, where do you think you'll end up? Just about anywhere.

Deciding what you want and setting your goal is not enough to guarantee that you'll achieve it. You have to focus and concentrate you effort in achieving it. Believe in you heart and soul that you'll achieve it. Convince yourself; leave no room for doubts. Ignore people who say you can't do it. Once you manage to do that, things will start to happen. Doors will start to open. It's as if the entire universe conspires to make your dream a reality.

You don't believe me? You're skeptical? Have you heard of The Law of Attraction? That's what this is all about. Wallace D. Wattles wrote about this more than a century ago. His writings, "The Science of Being Well", "The Science of Being Great" and "The Science of Getting Rich", are all about using the power of your mind to attain a successful and happy life. Check them out.

Enough talk...

Talking about how we can go about generating passive income is one thing. Doing it is another story.

I really like the idea of financial independence. I would like to be able to do what I love to do without worrying about money. I mean, if you love you job, there's no reason to quit. But that doesn't mean you should deny yourself financial freedom.

So I asked myself.... what do I want to do? Real estate requires quite a considerable initial investment. I would like to start with something that I can do on a part time basis because I have obligations that doesn't allow me to quit my current job. I want something that I can start with low initial cost. I do have savings but I don't want to blow everything in case it doesn't work out. So I look around and ask myself... what can I do? What business can I start given the constraints I have?

I stumbled upon Internet entrepreneurs that have been making a handsome amount of money on the Internet. Some of these people are millionaires. Irfan Khairi is our own Malaysian home grown Internet millionoaire. I reckon if I need to learn about Internet business, I might as well learn from someone who has done it successfully. So I enroled in his seminar and learnt the basics of what I need to know to start an online business.

One of the reasons I decided an online business as the way to go for me is because I need very little capital to start. Basically, there are two things that I need to start - a web hosting service and an autoresponder. There are many web hosting service providers. Depending on the service you choose you can get one for about $50 - $70 per year. You can set up an autoresponder account for about $20. So my initial cost was only about $90 (< RM400). Pretty cool, eh.

If you want to know what's a web hosting and what's an autoresponnder, stay tuned.

I made a number of mistakes when I first started and lost some money. I would like to share my mistakes with you so that you can avoid them if you're thinking of starting an online business.

I have to sign off now and continue my keyword research (I'll tell you more about this later).