Lazy People Are Not Successful
This will be a short post today because it’s Sunday and I wasn’t even planning on writing a post today, but I have something on my mind that is driving me crazy. It really gets on my nerves when people try to shortcut their way to success. It NEVER works, but for some reason people will do anything to try to *trick* there way into success.
If you want something, then put in the effort to do it right. If you learn nothing else from me the rest of the year, remember this one thing…
THERE’S NO MAGIC BUTTON FOR SUCCESS!
Everywhere I turn, I see people trying to exploit some trick to get a result, whether it’s to make money or get high search engine rankings, etc. Here’s an example from this very blog…
Most people know that leaving comments on other blogger’s sites is a “reasonably effective” method of promoting your own website. The idea behind it is if you leave a comment on their blog, others will come to yours in return (the other blog owner and their visitors).
Sure, there’s nothing wrong with that. You won’t get tons of traffic, but you will likely get some visitors as a result of this method.
But the problem is, the LAZY people are going about it all wrong. All they hear from this traffic generating technique is “I need to leave a comment on other blogs”, so they hit 500 random blogs and leave comments like “great tip”, or “cool”. Even worse, they have some automated spam software send out thousand of comments per day.
It VERY obvious these people are only leaving a comment in hopes of getting traffic back to their site. They are HOPING for success by being lazy rather than EXPECTING success by working hard.
Everyone wants to be able to push a button and magically have money fly out of their computer monitor instantly. I know I do. The difference is, I KNOW it won’t work. Apparently thousands of other people are still hoping it will happen.
You see the same thing with those “made for adsense” type websites, the one’s using content scraped from other sites. There is no possible way those websites will last more than a few days without getting banned by search engines (if not hours), but people still make them because all you have to do is push a button and the “work” is done.
These are also the same people who are complaining in the chat forums saying how hard it is to make money online and how every training program out there is a scam.
Unfortunately, lazy people like this WILL NEVER BE SUCCESSFUL! If you are one of these people trying every trick in the book to have instant success, take this message as a kick it the butt.
It takes just as much time to try 50 different “tricks” as it does to just build one or two quality websites, websites that are hundreds of times more likely to be successful.
I used to be stuck in this “get rich quick” mindset, so I know it’s hard to get past the feeling of thinking there must be an easier way. There’s not. But as long as there are people who think there’s an easy way to success, there will be people trying to sell them get rich quick scams.
To be successful in your life, whether it’s financial success, health success, relationship success, or whatever success means to you personally, it’s not as difficult as most people make it seem.
There is one simple statement that I live by, and it’s probably the most powerful sentence in the world. In fact it’s only 3 words.
If you do what this one sentence says, you WILL BE successful in every aspect of your life.
Are you ready for it? Here it is: ALWAYS OVER DELIVER!
- If you tell someone you will ship their product out in 4 days, try to get it out the same day.
- If you tell someone you will have the report done by Friday, get it done on Wednesday.
- If you quote someone $500 for a project and it didn’t take as long as you thought, only charge them $350.
- If you write blog posts 5 days a week, make the posts as valuable as you possibly can.
- If you sell a website and offer 30 days of training, call them 3 months later and ask if they need any help.
- If your personal trainer wants you to run 1 mile, run 2 miles instead.
- If your wife wants you spend an extra hour a week with you, spend 3 extra hours with her.
Ok, you get the point. When you do this, you will see dramatic things happen in your life.
- You’ll make more money because people will notice the extra effort.
- You’ll get more word of mouth advertising.
- You’ll have more people following you and taking your advice because you are providing more value to them.
- You’ll become healthier because you won’t be doing the bare minimum just to get by.
- You’ll have better relationships because you’re not just giving your parter what they want, but giving them more than they expected.
Try it for a week and see what happens. I guarantee you will be amazed with the results. Keep these three words in the back of your mind at all times and it will become almost automatic to you. You can even try it at work on Monday. When someone asks you do something, rather than say I’ll try to get to it later, stop what you are doing and help them on the spot.
When you re-train yourself to always over deliver and not be lazy, your life will never be the same.
Cool Post.
😉
Sorry I couldn’t resist. You are dead on in what you say. Some of the A-list bloggers and internet marketers perpetuate the myth that they only work 2 hours a day.
New bloggers see this and then wonder what they are doing wrong when they spend 40 hours a week and still make nothing.
It’s a shame that these successful bloggers don’t have more scruples than to pray on the unaware and the naive but I doubt this will ever change.
You need to take responsibility for your own actions and understand that regardless of what anyone claims, Making Money Online is HAAARD.
It’s even harder when you are told how easy it is every day.
great tip! cool!
Just kidding with the above post 😀
That was the longest shortest post. I guess you over delivered 😉
But don’t let the lazy get you crazy. Don’t want all your positive energy drained from that getting on your nerves.
It’s interesting you mentioned getting a report done early. I promised a report due by Friday last week and guess what day I had it finished? Yep, Wednesday.
~Terry
Max
Im really enjoying this blog since you took it over! Although you’re not saying anything groundbreaking, your voice just tends to be more motivational then a lot of the other make money online bloggers.
My dad was a very successful sales man and would always say something very similar: “Alway under-promise so you can over-deliver!”
It’s as true today as it was 30 years ago the first time I heard it.
Max, I’m enjoying the new format greatly and I like the writing style.
I Just finished your newsletter on selling web-sites too. While I don’t agree with it all, it contain some of the better tips I’ve seen in a while.
Thanks for the help.
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Great Topic.
I think the flip side to over deliver is being realistic. Often times people feel that they need to over deliver on their estimates. Saying you can get it done in 3 days when it will take everything going perfect and you pulling tons of extra time is not being realistic. I don’t think someone could argue, well that person didn’t get it done be cause they were lazy. They might have been lazy but often times what I see happen is that they did not accurately estimate (foreshadow) potential conflicts.
Being able to over deliver is a great thing, it has helped me in my job countless times but what I have learned is that you have to be able to foreshadow when the appropriate time is. Figuring out if you have the window to over deliver combined with “not being lazy”, busting your butt, will stick in the head of whom ever you are doing this for, blog readers to clients…
Again great topic Max, keep them coming.
A post no as useful as you have us expecting….
What I say it´s not a bad post… just not very usefull as your previos ones. I know you have had a hard time writing it, surely overdelivering… but just with a short common sense idea… work hard.
This comments just to make you know this post haven´t fullfilled the expectations on me you create with your previous post.
Anyway, great work with blogging experiment changes… please go on with it!!
I think what happens a lot of the time is that some people eventually do become very successful due to the years of hard work that they have put in beforehand. But at that point is becomes much easier to continue to see that success with much less effort.
In the MMO niche what happens is that successful people only have to put in their 2 hours a day (or whatever) so they sell that as a technique but of course the newcomers wont see the same success because they haven’t done the groundwork.
Thats why the most successful people see an exponential growth and why most people never see any success at all – because they are stuck at the low end trying new things and never getting past that sticking point.
People seem to think that working online does not require any work.No wonder, when looking at all the junk and get-rich b*s all over the internet.
Over delivering is natural for most of us that are motivated enough to develop our own web sites and blogs so this post is probably a bit wasted here.
But I have enjoyed your previous topics Max. I am sure that most of us are very keen to follow how you turn a web site into a very valuable web property that can be sold for retirement money and repeat the process.
You hit this one right on the money for me. I used to try and find all kinds of short cuts – as opposed to just working consistently & hard.
Being lazy and trying to find some magic “make money” trick is nothing but a delusion & a big waste of time.
Just thinking about all of the valuable time I’ve wasted – lots of regret. Getting out of a pattern of what you describe is easy once you realize it. So hopefully your post is an eye opener for some people.
One of the main things that has motivated me is – fear of regret. I don’t want to waste anymore time and thus experience more regret. So I try and doing everything to my max potential.
Glad you posted this today. (errr…yesterday) :o)
@ Bill – Yes, “A Listers” might say they work 2 hours per day, but I find that hard to believe. From emails to comments to postings, I think they have more time wrapped up than they are admitting.
@ Terry – I started that post saying it would be short, but ideas kept flowing. Guess I should have edited that sentence out
@ Bobby – Thanks for the feedback. I doubt anything I say will be “groundbreaking” considering there are no such things as new ideas. The key is how you explain the dieas so people can understand them and help people put the ideas into use.
@ Pete – I’ve always tried to overstate my estimates just to be safe. It’s easier to “overdeliver” when you do that as well…
@ Manuel – Sorry I wasted your time.
@ Caroline – Exactly. Most overnight success stories are 10 years in the making. They don’t tell you the 80 hour weeks they put in to build the partner relationships and learning what works vs what doesn’t.
@ Scott – Yea, it’s a turning point in our lives when we make the discovery that it’s not an instant success thing. Once you realize this, real results seem to come so much faster.
I can’t stand the ‘get rich quick’ mentality that most people have. It leads me to respect people who put in the hard work far more. Great post, and your writing style was really motivational. You may even have just motivated me to go and do some academic work
I really like the way you are going with this blog! The posts are long, informative and especially valuable!
Good work and I would like to thank you for getting the “fire” re-started inside to skip all the crap and get down to some quality content!
Well…I feel I am a lazy person after reading your post. But the last time I started blogging seriously apart from my day job…I ended up with lot of health issues.
I always try to over deliver with the majority of stuff I do. I taught myself that people like to see results but the effort that people will see is worth more than the results and builds confidence in you. If your going to do something, don’t half “fast” it, make sure everything is done and everything will work out. The always over deliver is key with everything people do.
Hey Max
Those were words I live by.
You are right, the effort you put in will be the rewards you get back.
If you treat your blog or site like a hobby, then it will be a hobby. If thats what you want then thats ok. If you want to run it as a business then do the work to accomplish the success you want.
I have discovered very quickly that the internet does not guarantee you will make money. If you do the work in a deceiving manner, sure you might fools some people, but it will be short lived.
I have a website I am working on to launch soon, but I will not start up until I am sure I have a solid foundation to start with. The learning curve is frustrating sometimes, but I only want to go through this part once.
I keep telling myself. If I am not going to do the best I can the first time, then I don’t do it at all.
I guess I am lazy in some senses. I don’t like doing the same thing twice.
I go with the “You reap what you sow” methodology. In other words, you will only get what you put in.
Now if only I could deal with my chronic laziness… lol
It’s amazing how the “get rich quick” sites all share common features. Big red headlines. Call to action with “limited time only offers”. Promise to fill you in on secrets that only the insiders knew in the past, which are now available because the site owner has “blown the doors off” the industry and “turned it on it’s head”. Well, if it was that easy, EVERYBODY would be doing it.
But more importantly, if it were that easy, the promoter of whatever get-rich-quick technique would be doing it himself, instead of hawking some e-book for $39.95.
Bottom line: get rich quick schemes are for lazy people! Actually achieving success takes discipline and hard work.
Rupert Murdoch said that the most successful people are the ones who give $1 worth of work for 25 cents.
I couldn’t agree with you more on the mindless comments that so many bloggers think will turn into traffic. “It’s all just a numbers game”, they say.
It’s not just a numbers game. In fact, it’s not a game. It’s a decathlon and numbers is just one of the events.
There’s no substitute for quality in ANY business. Government is another story (that’s what I blog about).
PS: This is a great bloggers blog.
On time. On point. Well stated.
I’ll get back to let you know about my over-deliveries
Thanks!
You’re doing a great job since taking over this blog. Your writing has a sincere tone to it and very motivational, tempered with great common sense. When one overdelivers, the good karma always comes to the person. You’re spot on with this post. Your other posts are just as enlightening as this one. I can’t say that for most of the other so-called A-list blogs and from some guru wannabes.
Max;
Funny thing is, I never realized I was lazy until it was shown to me. I always felt I was a hard worker at whatever I did.
Then one day, I was show that wasn’t the case. Now I strive to work harder at everything I do, and you are right, the results come a lot faster when you set goals and work towards them.
Cheers
scott
I’m glad you see those cheap exploit-you-websites the same way I always have, annoying and obvious. And how do they always find the most annoying layouts/color schemes? That’s their true skill, not marketing.
My wife thinks I’m lazy. ‘All you do is sit around all day playing with your computer’ – She doesn’t understand – yet. She’ll change her tune when I whisk her away to St Lucia next year tho. Its hard work being this lazy
Not sure how i came across your blog – i think i was looking for wordpress themes and all i can think is that yours must be a featured site from one of WP theme companies.
Anyway, the ‘under promise / over deliver’ sentiment appears to be the one that’s struck a chord with most of us and im guessing thats coming mostly from business owners or aspiring entrepreneurs who know full well what it takes.
Interesting (tho’ not really surprising) to see the general cynicism thats being directed towards the gurus who are continually promoting their own latest product launch or a buddy’s latest product launch which has INSIDER SECRETS as being the main selling point.
Have i bought a few secrets so far? Well, YES.
Were they worth it? Not usually, but there have been some gems out there, some real gems and although youre not selling us anything at the moment, i suspect you will have a loyal and intrigued readership who are keenly waiting for the launch of YOUR new product and that anticipation will have been built (and genuinely earned) through the content that youve provided us with so far.
Nice site youve got here and some good links that youve included too, so as the saying goes: “i’ll be back!”
Meanwhile, as pleasant and as interesting as my stay here has been, i need to get back to hunting down that new WP theme.
Bye for now…
ps – just did a quick ‘back, back, back’ to find out where i actually did come from and it turns out it was page 1 of google when searching for the phrase “best wordpress themes”, so well done you for your SEO expertise and i hope this SEO feedback is useful to you.
Iva, that was a truly refreshing read, and your comments were greatly appreciated – I agree with everything you said. Hope to see you back soon.
Hi Max
actually, people are lazy + GURUS ( they are bad
) let people believe that quick/short scheme exist.
So thank you for your blog post ~ it reveals the TRUTH.
*Lazy People are not successful*
but is using web 2.0 properties still one of the most efective ways for traffic generation?
Don’t let the lazy get you crazy! So funny! Max, you have very good posts, very intersting and optimistic!