Why $0/hr work is the most profitable work there is


I’m going to introduce you to a concept I call $0/hr work. But first, I want to remind you of something I’ve mentioned in the past to help you understand the concept better.

The game of business doesn’t have to be hard. Most people try to overcomplicate it which is where they run into issues. Here is business in a nutshell:

Step 1: find a problem someone has

Step 2: solve that problem for them

Step 3: collect money

When simplified, it’s very easy. Here’s how most people operate though:

Why does something so simple, elude so many people? Why is the guy above(like most people) oblivious to the fact that when presented with problems he’s being handed a business idea on a silver platter?

I’ll tell you why, it’s because he’s thinking in the time for money trade… “how much do I get today?”.

See, solving a problem doesn’t just pay you money. At least not right away. It’s often hard work, and takes time, and involves some thinking.

thinkingandwork

So, like most people, he sees the person’s problem as a bunch of work and not a goldmine of opportunity. Too busy to help them solve their problem!? You should be thanking them.

If I was struggling to come up with a business idea, and someone told me about a big problem they had, I’d probably just start making out with them. I’d be so excited about trying to solve their problem.

See, the beauty in someone having a problem to be solved, means it likely hasn’t been solved in a big enough way yet- meaning it either hasn’t been solved at all, or occasionally it has been solved but not marketed well enough for them to know about it. So these problems are usually significantly higher EV(expected value) than other opportunities. Instead of attempting to launch “me-too” or even ‘micro improvement’ businesses to already solved problems, solving something that hasn’t been solved optimally yet lets you fill an actual gap in the market.

Now, a logical question to ask yourself might be, “why hasn’t this been solved yet?”.

The way most people think about these opportunities is that if it was a good opportunity someone would have already solved it. That’s obviously a horrible mindset, that keeps the problem unsolved.

The rest of the people assume it’s going to be very difficult to do, and they don’t know exactly how to do it. So they don’t try either. Obviously another horrible mindset, and the problem remains unsolved.

Both of these mindsets will likely keep the people who think this way poor.

Then occasionally you have the outlier, who tries to solve the problem. That guy or girl is going to fail more often than the 99% who never attempt anything, but they’re also going to be the ones that get rich. They don’t get rich because they were chasing money. This is a false belief that most poor people have. Most people who get rich become so as a byproduct of solving problems.

Now, let’s take a look at this reason:

Many people assume it’s going to be very difficult to do, and they don’t know exactly how to do it. So they don’t try.

First, you need to understand that no one knows how to do something before they ever do it. No one. This applies from everything to you riding a bike when you were young, to Elon Musk building rocketships. It doesn’t matter how easy or hard the problem you’re trying to solve is, you don’t magically know how to do it before you research and/or try something.

So take comfort in the fact that any reasonably difficult problem you’re considering solving, is not going to be a problem that anyone else knows exactly how to solve the first time they see it. You’re going to be in the same position as them. You or the next person may have ideas on how to do it, and some of them may be right and some of them may be wrong, but you’re rarely starting out with the disadvantage you assume.

So if you realize that and it makes you feel a bit better about continuing, you may eventually find yourself discouraged by the fact that as you go about undertaking the challenge of solving this problem, you may not make the money you desire to make right away. This is disheartening to most, and it should actually give you the opposite feeling.

I know that sounds a bit strange, but let me explain.

When you have an opportunity that will take time to bring to fruition, the same feeling of disappointment that you’re having about not being able to print money out of the gate, is the same feeling your potential competitor was having, and poof, potential competitor no more because they want that quick money like everyone else. Ideas that have the opportunity to be significantly more profitable than others, often have an invisible moat around them because so few people are willing to put the time into something that might not work, or will take a while to come to fruition.

Everyone wants the easy and quick money. That’s why everyone wants to start blogs and sell coaching or launch courses or ebooks or be a freelancer or join an MLM. It’s ‘easy’, and ‘quicker money’.

It’s even easy to falsely justify your desire of wanting to get into an ‘easy/quick money’ “business” by pointing to the most successful in the ‘easy money’ niche you’re joining and saying, “see, look how much they’re making!”, as if pointing to the top .01% is a good representation of what to expect, especially when you have no idea how and why that’s happening, you just “want that too!”.

You see, the shiny lights of “easy money” businesses are often the wrong businesses to get into. They may be easy, but the rewards and expected value often line up with the ease of the opportunity. The competition of so many others wanting the easy route lowers the EV even further.

For example, it’s very easy to start a blog. There’s thousands of guys out there with blogs telling you to start blogs, and conveniently they’d like you to click their link to get started 🙂 With a click of a button you’re up and running, with the false assumption that you’ve accomplished something. The low barrier to entry means a lot of people follow that path, so not only is the ceiling of the opportunity relatively low to start out, but it’s a low ceiling with loads of competition from others who prefer the “easy” route. The easy route will lead most of them to the hard route, because they didn’t run the math before they started. They’ve likely entered an opportunity that will keep them busy, not make them successful. The opportunity to make quick/easy money is what attracts many there, but because they don’t understand what it takes to create a business that prints money, they’ll go in not understanding that they need to offer something better than what already exists in the market.

If your goal as an entrepreneur is to get into opportunities for quick and easy money, you’re often saying you’d like to get involved in low expected value activities. It doesn’t always equate that way, but it most often does. And again, because almost everyone wants the quick/easy money, it brings the EV down even further.

For example it’s easy to be a freelancer offering web design services, or copywriting, or SEO or whatever you’re a freelancer for. You can get paid quick, and the barrier to entry is low. How high do you think the EV is? It’s not. It’s low.

Ironically, I literally just got this email with this heading as I was finishing the final draft:

freelancer

Marketers know what you’re looking for: fast and easy results. Make money “tomorrow!”. They’ll be glad to separate you from your money because they know you’re more enticed by that than in putting in the effort to find high EV opportunities.

Unless you’re at the top of the industry you’re in or marketing significantly better than your competition, it’s not going to pay well. If it does pay well without doing those things, it will be temporary because others would like the easy/quick money as well. Then you’re competing on price, and welcome to economics, it will even itself out where your income won’t go up like you’d like your pretty graph to look.

whathappend

It will get harder and harder for the income you desire over time if you haven’t passed step 1 of creating a business that prints money.

On the flip side, there are plenty of great opportunities that are just sitting around waiting to be taken. They remain untouched because they’re hard work and/or low pay when starting out.

I mentioned an idea a while back that would take some hard work to get going, but is a legitimate idea that I would personally pay for if the service existed and was well done.  An enormous amount of people who don’t have an idea to work on read the article and didn’t start it.

Why?

In short, because it would take hard work to get started, and they wouldn’t make much for a while. They didn’t have to tell me that, I can tell by the emails I received, and just based on the fact that no one did it.

If instead I told people you could make six figures starting a blog, and “click my link to get started”, how many clicks do you think I would have gotten? I’d be swimming in affiliate money.

swimming

Why? Because that would be easy for them.

If I did that the people who clicked that affiliate link would be unlikely to go on and be very successful as a blogger, at least relative to other opportunities they could have pursued.

So, why would people choose a -EV decision but pass up a +EV decision?

In short, because $0/hr work is not enticing. At least not when you voluntarily sign up for it.

“Wait, what do you mean by $0/hr work”.

$0/hr work is the work you do when you are working to solve a problem, or create a solution to a problem. You will not be paid for this work, or you will be paid such an insignificant amount of money that it’s irrelevant. However, if you’ve correctly evaluated the opportunity and it provides significant value for many people, you’ll likely be paid handsomely once successful.

The ironic thing is that most aspiring entrepreneurs unintentionally make close to $0/hr chasing the easy money because they don’t understand a good opportunity vs. a bad one.

Yet, they pass up phenomenal opportunities that would likely pay them significant amounts of money once successful.

Why do they pass them up?  To avoid going down a road that would require $0/hr work.

They want “easy” and “fast money”.

Essentially, they pass up unbelievably high EV opportunities because they may not make money right away. So instead they pursue incredibly low EV opportunities because they have a chance to potentially make ‘quick’ money.

Plus, “quick money” opportunities are the ones advertised by people selling info. So people falsely assume the routes they keep seeing promoted are the good ones. High EV opportunities are not advertised because the person wouldn’t be selling info on it if it were high EV, they’d be doing it.

Could you imagine this happening?

 

Broke people think about how much they can make today. Rich people think about the long term expected value 

If we take the example from the easy business to start, as I mentioned this is likely the process someone would go through with a business like that:

what kind of business should i start

Essentially they’ll start out at that $0/hr work trying to figure out a new way to do something, and likely be a poorly paid freelancer at best until they actually figure out the optimal way to do it.

A significantly easier route to go would be doing article marketing the same way people already do it. You don’t need to solve much, you can start making money pretty much right out of the gate. But, there’s a catch. Since you don’t solve step 1, you will not create a business that prints money. You will remain a freelancer, competing on price with other freelancers that have failed to solve step 1.

graphicdesignersupwork

Thus, you’ll find yourself in a low expected value opportunity, keeping you busy, but not getting you very far ahead in the game.

The beauty of $0/hr opportunities is a significant % of the time the reason they still exist is because everyone wants to skip the $0/hr work.

$0/hr work isn’t sexy!

Quick money is sexy.

But again the invisible moat with $0/hr work acts almost like a forcefield keeping potential competitors out because they can’t see past the $0/hr work.

Which of these opportunities has a high payday at the end of the rainbow, and which doesn’t?

$0/hr work is all the hard shit you do without making much money before you get to your payday. It doesn’t have to be $0/hr, but basically a lot of times you’re making peanuts at best. The people that try to skip this step often remain stuck where they are and wonder why that is. Maybe as you’re reading this you realize you’ve been skipping the $0/hr work that you need to do to get to the next level of the game.

I’ve had several businesses where I literally made close to $0/hr for the first many months, and then I bring in six or seven figures after the hard work starts coming to fruition and getting to the ‘print money’ stage. I can remember running the math ahead of time and wondering why no one else was attempting some of the ideas I’ve pursued. Then as I endured many $0/hr months, I understood. However, I also understood the $0/hr moat is what even allowed the opportunity to exist in the first place.

Others would have quit way before, or more likely never attempted because of all the $0/hr work.

I love $0/hr work, it keeps most of my competitors out.

You should get excited when you find $0/hr work, because it often means you’re exploring an opportunity that others have passed up because $0/hr work is not enticing.

Now, keep in mind I’m not saying pursue hard opportunities for the sake of pursuing hard opportunities, I’m saying when you discover a problem that remains unsolved, or something that could be done that would make something significantly better than what exists on the market, but hasn’t, and you find a bunch of $0/hr work, it shouldn’t be a deterrent. It should be a “hell ya” for deeper exploration, because it has likely been a deterrent to your potential competitors which might be why it’s still available.

If we look back at the article marketing idea the way I laid out in the article, here’s four likely phases you’d go through again:

  1. Hard, $0/hr work
  2. Still hard, but slightly easier/making a bit of money
  3. Charging more for the same work, finally getting decent pay
  4. So much work because you actually filled a gap in the market, you get to the printing money stage, and you’ve got yourself a real business

Now, the way most people would go about it would be to skip step 1 in the example, and go straight to doing something easier where they can start getting paid out of the gate. The problem with choosing that route is that you never get to the 4th step. The ceiling is capped below that because you’re not filling a gap in the market, you’re just offering a service that already exists.

If you attempt to fill a gap in the market, it may often require $0/hr work to figure out how to do that, but it is what allows the print money phase to exist. There is often a large payday if you solve it.

fillagap

This is why most people end up in situations where they don’t make as much money as they desire, and they wonder why. They pursue opportunities for how much they can make today, instead of asking themselves if the potential income of the opportunity they’re pursuing matches up with their goals.

Any entrepreneur that’s reading this who’s started a real business before is thinking, “ahh ya obviously you may have to work without making money when you’re starting a business.” But it’s become more and more popular to chase quick money instead of real opportunities because of the fact that most of the people teaching how to make money are doing so with the intention to make money, and info marketers are being replicated at a significantly faster rate than real entrepreneurs who take time to share their lessons. So the real information is getting drowned out by what sounds most appealing, and then regurgitated so that everyone falsely assumes you should be able to throw up (insert info product of the day) and instantly make a bunch of money.

At the risk of overdoing it, let me show you another example of a business that could have just gone the easy route, but instead spent time doing $0/hr work solving a problem(and probably not much since they successfully solved it) and offering a service that was better than what existed in the market.

WPCurve

Now, that’s a pretty enticing offer.

How the hell do they even do that? Well, from talking with Dan about it, a lot of freaking work! And taking time to set up the systems that allowed it to happen.

It would have been significantly easier to just start a freelancer “business” offering fixes to your website like everyone else.

odesk

“Easy”, and “quick”, but would have had a very limited ceiling because of the fact that everyone else would have offered a similar service.

To create an offering that doesn’t exist in order to offer more value than what currently exists in the market…that’s hard work. But guess what, that checks off step 1 in how to create a business that prints money. Now, just because you check the first box off doesn’t mean it’s an instant windfall, but it’s no surprise that their business is already doing seven figures/yr.

Starting a “me too” or ‘micro improvement’ business would have capped them to a very small ceiling.

Getting through the “$0/hr work” that they went through gave them a bit of a moat in the space, despite many copy cats coming onto the scene after they learned that there was money to be made there.

That’s kind of the funny thing with the way people’s minds work. They wait for other people to prove that something can make money before they’ll try it, and they don’t stop to realize the fact that once someone else has already proven that it works, they’ve often filled that gap. So, copying the same offering as they just filled puts you in the situation we’ve discussed, where you’re now attempting to launch a “me too” business, or ‘micro improvement’ at best. Thus, your ceiling is capped. The person who goes through the $0/hr work to attempt to solve a problem/pursue an opportunity before it’s been solved is the person that gets the payday.

Are there exceptions? Of course, people who come in and solve the problem in a better way than the initial person, or execute/scale faster, but I don’t want to get too deep to confuse the point.

In short, the point I’m trying to make is the most optimal opportunities are not going to be the ones you already hear of everyone doing. The ceiling is already capped.

The highest EV activities are not going to be you instantly walking into easy money. That’s not how it works. You’ll often have to do a bunch of $0/hr work if you’re passing up the easy money routes, but when successful you’ll also receive a payday that likely didn’t exist if you had gone down the other route.

If you come across an idea that’s protected by a $0/hr moat, that’s not the time to look for easy money, it’s the time to recognize you just might have something.

bambooblogL6





58 Responses to “Why $0/hr work is the most profitable work there is”


  1. Greg Jeffries

    Another excellent article. Recently I got back from JVZoo’s Marketing Mayhem event and my one big takeaway is similar to what you share in this article. Most people starting out are WAY overthinking things. Many of the big marketers I ran into are honestly not all that smart or skilled and their processes are extremely simple. Way simpler that you’d probably ever imagine…because they don’t know everything either. But they took action and figured out stuff and found a way to make things work and get to where they wanted in life with what they did know.

    Reply
    • Billy

      Thanks Greg!

      Yep…

      Basic knowledge + hustle = profit.

      Most people are lacking one, or both, which = no profit.

      Reply
  2. Filippos

    That’s some solid advice man, thanks! You made it really clear that it’s either: 0$/hr, or X$/hr NOW that has a ceiling and will drop due to competition soon

    Reply
  3. Sam

    Great article Billy, my first few businesses were definitely focuses around making that initial easy money. A big mistake in hindsight.

    Reply
    • Billy

      Mine too!

      It can be nice to feel some early wins and earn some cash, but definitely 10-100x opportunities doing it the optimal way.

      Reply
  4. Rob Galvin

    Nice article – any articles on generating $0/hr ideas in the pipeline?

    Reply
  5. Brett Burky

    Again another killer article. I see these all the time and think the same thing.

    I can see how it is enticing to a lot of people, that is the power of the copy.

    I love the take on the long-term play, we’re solving one of those $0/hr problems currently – in year 2…still $0. But it’s a long-term play.

    Keep them coming, your content is the best around.

    Reply
    • Billy

      Thanks Brett!

      Keep me posted on your biz- can’t wait to hear how it does when it turns the $0/hr phase.

      Reply
  6. Victor Silva

    Hi Billy, thanks for the post. Thanks to your teaching, I’ve been doing some $0/work to try and launch my dream business. More on that later!

    Reply
  7. Matt Justice

    Perfect timing! Struggling with this right now… current project is looking like hundreds, if not thousands of hours of work with no payoff in the short term. Hard to stay motivated some days, but man once the ball is rolling the upside is incredible.

    Love your new writing Bill, long time no see! Wish you’d do videos with the articles though… I’d love to see your expression/demeanor when talking about these concepts.

    PS – when the going gets tough, and you may even begin to doubt yourself at times, what do you personally do to continue to believe in yourself and push through?

    Reply
    • Billy

      I have considered doing some videos, might try a few at some point.

      Whenever I have doubt, I often talk to friends who know me well/are really smart who can give good feedback, and I try to remember what my goal is. I’ve already re-read this several times this year: https://foreverjobless.com/how-to-set-goals/

      I’ve questioned myself plenty of times- why write when I could make money doing X, Y or Z… is it a bad decision to not focus much on monetization yet just to write more… should I be focusing on 10x’ing traffic instead of putting articles out for a small group of people, etc…

      It’s fine to question yourself. I do it often and in a lot of ways it’s good for you. As long as it’s the optimal thing for you to be doing, do it. If you find it’s not, adjust accordingly and then keep moving.

      This year is kind of one big experiment for me, so as you’ll see in the quarterly reports I’ll often be adjusting/tweaking what I’m doing based on whether my initial assumptions either about the route or myself were wrong.

      But by the end of the year significant progress will likely be made, even if I questioned/tweaked the route I was going many times. As long as no quitting was involved, progress is inevitable.

      Reply
      • Costa

        You’re following GaryVee’s “Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook” philosophy. All this free high-value content you’re putting out will come back to you in spades when you’re ready to ask for a return favor (“Right hook”) from your readers.


  8. Trung

    Hey Billy,

    cool article man. I don’t know how you generate such long and valuable content. Who does the infographics for you?

    Reply
  9. Neil

    Great article and the concept of entering or creating a high barrier to entry business is very important. My problem is I just cannot seem to identify these problems or identify well enough that it is an opportunity…maybe just my blinkered mindset.
    Great work as usual Billy

    Reply
  10. Olivier

    This is brilliant. Your post made me pause and think.
    Though I work hard, I was typically following the easy route to be a (better) “me too”. I must find a better (even harder) route.
    Thanks Billy

    Reply
  11. Mark

    Keep coming with that heat Billy! You can definitely hear TMF influences in your thinking and you’ve given them steroids based of your experiences. I always look forward to these articles and learning from them. $0/hr work is where it’s at. So funny I was JUST talking to my mom about this last Friday. Thanks again bro!

    Reply
  12. Erich

    It’s a terrible first comment, but right after the first animation it should be “elude” instead of “allude”. That aside, a hearty “thank you” has been long overdue from me. You’re awesome and I love reading everything you post!

    Reply
    • Billy

      Fixed, thanks!

      You’re awesome Erich, thanks for taking the time to say that. Appreciate you!

      Reply
  13. jocelyn

    At least one of us is being quiet not because we didn’t get the message, but because we are are working on solving the problem 🙂

    Reply
  14. remco

    reminds me to pickup my $0/hr work, as I still think I am on the good path…Persistence is a bitch 😉

    Reply
  15. Scott

    Fantastic advice Billy. I’m going to use the main points in a Middle School club I’m running. Right now you’re blog posts are the only ones I make time to read.

    Reply
  16. Ty

    Hey Billy, great article. But, my question is how do you really spot such opportunities? I understand that a lot of Marketers out here are just telling people to buy “x product of the day” but how do we know what is an opportunity worth pursuing? What I mean by that is where do we look for these opportunities? Especially if we’re a beginner entrepreneur? Maybe a walkthrough on your process would help us understand this in a bit more detail

    Reply
  17. Dess

    Hi Billy,

    Nice to meet you virtually! I like your style and approach, but would like to add a few words based on my own experience, and current situation.

    While working on the 0$/hr, we all need some cash to help us finance our unpaid project. Naturally, many go after freelancing projects, create blogs, etc. This is not a bad idea at all, and for some of the bloggers, this could become the BIG money, but this is a whole new topic.

    To the point, the $0/hr hard work and +EV projects are the right direction, but meanwhile we all need some cash to help us support this. I recently had to step away from my last consulting job that was paying me pretty well and financing my $0/hr work. I’m 4 months pregnant, very determined to get my own +EV project going, but meanwhile, I am in a situation where I have to support myself and unborn baby. Here are my steps:

    1. Determine what you are awesome at (have solid experience) and sell yourself as an expert:
    – a series of blog posts that show your competence are very important
    – own wordpress website to host this + some info about you and past projects, a portfolio like webpage page, is a must
    – good professional social presence – fresh LI resume, etc…
    – networking online and offline
    – much more as well, but these are the basics that would help us find that paid project to finance our future +EV business
    2. Join a project that pays your bills and finances the $0/hr project
    – provided all the above is done well, consult/freelance for as many hours a day as needed to pay the bills
    – balance between the paid and non-paid projects

    I mean, this is my basic survival tactic at the moment. I am open to suggestions and welcome any help/advice.

    Good luck, all! ~ Dessi

    Reply
    • Billy

      Hey Dess! Here’s my thoughts:

      I think you worrying about wordpress sites/hosting/resume, worries me. It makes me think you’re thinking about all the things that don’t really matter. Yes, you need those things if your goal was to start a blog, but should it be?(hypothetical)

      If you’re worrying about all the things that don’t matter it makes me worry that you’ll be blind to the things that do matter, which makes it really hard to succeed.

      I’d highly recommend taking time time to read all of my posts as I think you’ll pick up some insights into the things that will be more optimal to be thinking about.

      Re: your points about needing something to fund $0/hr work, 100% agree. My playing poker for example gave me cash to start funding investments and businesses. It gave me room to do $0/hr work.

      Reply
      • Dessi

        Hi Billy,

        Thanks for the detailed reply! The starting blog, hosting, etc., I have no worries with, I have substantial experience running online businesses (as a management consultant though, so not my playgrounds). I think there was a misunderstanding between us. I was mentioning that my 0/hr project is about to suffer as I have no cash to pay my bills as I just ended a consulting gig. I’m aware of your poker career, I myself know about you because of my own poker network.

        You spoke quite harshly about people considering blogs as means to eat and succeed, I just wanted to clarify that while it is not the most +EV project, can be used smartly to get cash to finance the real thing. Nowhere did I mention issues for me to get my wordpress portfolio online. My concerns are how to finance the 0/hr hour while have no project going, for the past 3 years have had steady income from a business consulting gig, but this changed overnight for me. I will have a look at your other posts, I’ve read a few.

        Not everyone is a poker player who has substantial savings. If you have a post on how to earn money to support the 0/hr project, please link me to it. If not, I highly recommend one and will be happy to read your thoughts. Thanks!


  18. Octavius

    This is the first article that I have run across that addresses the $0/Hr factor when solving a problem and building a business around it. Great insights and a thorough explanation. Motivation to get back on the horse and see this project to the end $$$. Thanks

    Reply
  19. Justin

    I have been following you for a while, and I like what I read.
    But could you consider making your articles a little shorter?
    They seem very long-winded and often get repetitive.

    I liked what you said about “micro-improvement” businesses.
    I’ve got more business ideas like that than i’d like to admit!

    Reply
    • Billy

      Which parts would you have cut out from this article?

      Reply
      • Joel

        Me: None….if it is repetitive, then there are vital points being hammered at us; meaning we need to pay close attention. In between, it was a nice read Billy.


  20. Evren

    Thanks for the post Bill.. Just know that you help me a lot with your straight to the point approach. After starting to read your posts since january, i started be much more efficient in taking actions towards my goals. Your posts help me a lot in organising and making daily tasks \ plans about my goals. Really thanks.

    i am working on a business idea about a big problem that has not been solved yet in the industry i am working in. Still working on the problem but my concern is how should i operate in building the solution so that the solution shouldn’t be imitated by competitors. Maybe you write a post regarding this problem ?

    Evren

    Reply
    • Billy

      If you truly solve a big problem and profit well for doing so others will want to compete. Executing better, marketing better, thinking one step ahead of where things are going, etc… are ways to keep winning.

      Reply
  21. Sonny

    Another great post. Getting to the point where You have to reread each one a couple times to fully absorb all the value you’re dishing out.

    I’ve been stuck in the quick fix mindset and see what you’re talking about now. Will start looking at the world through $0/hour glasses and see what I see.

    Reply
  22. allie

    And to think I was actually going to sign up on UpWork to supplement my FT salary! Lol.

    Great article, Billy. I’ve ready the articles you referenced on here as well, and I gotta say that I’m now starting to “get it.” I did sign up for a course last year on how to start an online business, but am kind of stuck on how to “find that problem.” I know that I just need to put in the work and reading articles like is a constant reminder that nothing worth having is ever easy.

    Reply
  23. Steven

    Great article, Billy. Your use of images in your articles makes concepts that (to most of the outside world) seem abstract become much more digestible- love that!

    While reading, I clicked on the Web Dev Ninjas image and it opened the full-size version of the image in the existing tab. I can see a scenario where a user would click on an image, then close out of it and unintentionally close the article. Have you thought about having images open in a new tab instead of in the same tab?

    Keep the content coming- I love reading your articles! Just wanted to see your thoughts on the ‘new tab’ opening of image links. I’m guessing you already thought this through, so I’d be curious if there’s a specific reason for opening images in the same tab 🙂

    Reply
  24. Ani

    Hi Billy

    Just discovered your blog about 3 weeks ago or so and have been trying to catch up on all the posts you have published.
    I found your blog and articles very valuable. I have read others’ ones in the past but I really feel compel to take action now, since reading yours. Your style set you apart: it’s genuine and humble (2 qualities we rarely find nowadays in my opinion).
    I have just printed the FJGoaldGuide and read your blog on how to set up 1 goal: so working on this at the moment. I have realized I want everything and nothing at the same time, so taking me time to go back to what really matters to me (it triggered bit of soul searching at the same time!). Not an easy task but a necessary one too.
    Also trying to change my mindset too – that article was an eye opener.

    Anyway, I just wanted to say thank you for the great content you are putting out there for us. To me, they are making a difference in the way I was approaching things.

    I have also read the article where you give a business idea. You wanted to hear why some wouldn’t take it up. As far as I am concerned, I need to work towards my negative barriers (I think I can’t do it because I am a newbie and still have loads to learn – which I know it’s BS; so need to work on that. “Learned Helplessness” is my next one to read!).

    thanks
    Ani

    PS1: Love Lesley’s designs – they are really great!
    PS2: I read you would be considering Barcelona for your next trip. I have just relocated from Dublin to Barcelona in Jan 2016 (trying to learn Spanish and Catalan now!!). So say hi if you can!

    Reply
    • Billy

      Thank you so much for the kind words Ani!

      If still struggling to find out what you want, reading the 2nd goals post if you haven’t already will help: https://foreverjobless.com/how-to-set-goals/

      Re: business idea article- that idea specifically is the perfect one for a newbie, because it takes no in depth skills to execute, and any skills needed can be found in the places mentioned in the article. It’s not a ‘sexy’ idea(which is part of the reason it exists), but literally perfect for someone who’s just starting out because it’s all based on hustle.

      Agreed, Lesley does great work!

      It’s looking unlikely that I make it to Barcelona in 2016, but good chance I get there next year.

      Reply
  25. Hello

    Poland here! Getting international, huh? 😉
    Good article, have to follow your posts. Thanks!

    Reply
  26. Ani

    Thanks Billy. Dropped you an email via the “contact” tab. I thought I would let you know here as you may be receiving tone of emails. Let me know what you think.
    Safe journey back to Austin.

    Reply
  27. Anthony

    Thank you. I haven’t listneed to your podcast in a couple of months, but a tweet brought me here and I have to say this was a great article Billy. Your advice is very different than the other entrepreneurial guys out there, this post has me thinking differently now.

    Reply
  28. Greg

    This was one heck of an epic blog post! I haven’t walked away saying “wow” from a post in a long time. This makes me rethink everything I’ve been doing in the last year. Thanks.

    Reply
  29. ZJ Thorne

    Yes! I have been working at my LLC side-business for nearly two years and have not directly paid myself yet. I do get the benefit of a reduction in my AGI, but no pay. However, this LLC will become my full-time work soon and is a niche in my market. It also will allow me to have the life-style and type of work I want. $0/hr for 2 years was rough and I had to work full time on top of it, but the rewards will last a lifetime.

    Reply
  30. Kurt

    I think you’ve nailed the essential difference between the entrepreneurial and non-entrepreneurial mentality.

    Reply
  31. Jason

    This article is absolutely amazing. I’ve been searching high and low for critical thinking entrepreneur psychology, such as your blog showcases. Thank you for sharing this invaluable information, Billy; you’ve got a new subscriber for sure! Keep up the incredible, +EV work!

    Reply

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