You can't succeed without difficulty

The human brain is amazing, and also extremely flawed. We can come up with the most amazing tools and inventions, innovations and creations. The human brain is able to accept data, process and store it, and use the information gathered to navigate the world in new ways.

Yes, it is an amazing thing.

One of the big flaws my brain has is how it deals with difficulty. How it navigates hardships and negative experiences. When the going gets tough, the first response my brain shouts out is "Quit!"

So I tell my brain "No! I want to win! I want to succeed!"

The immediate response: "You're not going to succeed. You're not good at this. You're not good at anything."

Maybe taking to a certain extreme to paint a picture, my brain is inherently negative, especially when trying new things, or navigating the real world.

Another example I can give is on that day where I had one customer that clearly did not like me. She was just a negative person who wasn't going to be pleased no matter what I did. It doesn't matter that the previous 99 customers were elated, happy or just indifferent about our interaction; I'm not going to remember any of them. I'm going to dwell on the nasty lady that didn't like me.

It is inevitable that we will experience difficulty, negativity, people who don't like us, obstacles that seem impossible to overcome, and any other experience that can be the thing to stop us dead in our tracks. One of my favorite quotes from Jim Rohn is "You can't succeed without difficulty. You can't fly without gravity." There is always a force pushing you down, but it's your job to push back and overcome those forces.

I'm going to talk about my experiences with DS Domination, and my ebay store to provide examples of the difficulty I've experienced so far in my recent venture. After talking with my sponsors, I've gathered from their experiences that my troubles are rather concentrated, but here we go.

I want to start by saying I am very intentional about this business, following the training provided, implementing tracking tools and spreadsheets, and a variety of other safeguards to ensure success.

Anyway, I found this company and got excited about it right away. After starting it, I knew there would be a learning curve, and my mantra from the start was "Don't Quit! Don't Quit!" Another quote I really like is "People often overestimate what they can do in one year, and underestimate what they can do in 10 years." The trick is "Don't Quit!" I want to succeed in the long run!

It took me a few days to finally make my first sale; it was at a $10 loss. Ouch. That's okay. In the next week, I'd made three sales that brought me into the black. I was feeling pretty good. My fifth sale, the item was out of stock. My sixth and seventh sale generated customers who demanded returns, sale eight went unpaid, and my 10th sale would have been a $25 profit, until I had to pay $24 in sales tax.

On one day, I sold two items that were out of stock; different stores, different items. I also sold one of my most expensive items (about $600), but turned out to profit about $5 after taxes and fees gobbled up any extra money. I was grateful I came out ahead actually.

I say all of this because I've had a pretty high concentration of bad experiences with this business, but the truth is my bottom line keeps gradually going up. There is a learning curve, and with every bad experience I have, I try to learn how to not make that mistake again. Instead of throwing up my hands and quitting, I keep chanting my simple mantra: "Don't quit! Don't Quit!"

No matter what kind of success you wish to seek, no matter what venture you want to take, business you want to start, ladder you want to climb, there are going to be obstacles. Always. Our biggest obstacles are not the little thorns that stick us on the journey though; the biggest obstacle is to not quit. You just have to want to get to your destination so badly that you're willing to take the hard road.


... and that is my lecture for the day.

My own personal testimonial

I wanted to put together a quick testimonial of my experience with DS Domination, now that I've been in it for a little over a month. Here it goes:

Link 1: http://www.dsdomination.com/sp/pro?aid=Turgerburger

Link 2: https://www.dsdomination.com/sp/com?aid=Turgerburger

How exciting to meet your goals! I broke through my second overall goal today!

I started this blog with the intention of training my brain to start thinking about ways to make some substantial money for my family as a part-time thing. The long and short of it is that I came across DS Domination and have begun to realize how exciting this part-time thing can be.

When I signed up for the company, I set several goals for myself:

1) Make $1 online: <-- My first sale was a $10 loss!! It took me around 10 days to make the sales that brought me into the black, but I met my first goal!

2) Make $100 online: <-- I'm excited to say that I met this goal today!! With all other funds floating around such as cash back and store credits, it's hard to fully keep track of the extent of the money I've actually made, BUT solely based on the profits of my ebay store, I broke $100 today. It's March 5, and I started this venture on January 30. So it took me longer than I would have preferred, but it happened!

What's funny was that yesterday, I was sitting at about $94 in profits and thinking to myself that I was one sale away from breaking the goal. I woke up this morning to a "CHING!" on my phone, and then made two more sales by 9AM. So not only did I break $100 today, I made $54 so far today.

Now I know there are people out there who look at this post and say "whoop dee do. Get a job and you can earn that in a couple of hours." They would be right, but that's the point. I don't want a job. This is MY business making ME money. I'm not an hourly worker, I'm putting in the effort that may or may not result in wild success, but at least it is my own story.

So there you go. It's happening. Slowly, but picking up speed every day!

The world of online. It is and isn't what you want it to be

I encountered a conversation today that I would like to revisit in the privacy of the interweb.

I got to talking to someone about my ebay store, which is inspired by a drop shipping business that will likely be named in this post.

I basically described what drop shipping is to a very close acquaintance, and how I was having a lot of fun doing this business and that it was actually making me money. Sometimes not a lot of money, but sometimes a little. 

The response came in several questions. I don't have all the questions written down, but I'd like to address a few of them.

1) Is there a learning curve? My response was: Yes. I lost money my first sale. I've actually lost money on a handful of sales. However, I've profited on more sales and am making a profit my very first month of business. It's not much, but I'm surprisingly in the black.

2) What is the pay for your time? My response: A business doesn't pay hourly. I am making an investment by putting my time toward a larger goal. I consider it building a net to go fishing. There is no hourly connection to building a net and catching fish. But there is a very STRONG correlation between the size of the net and the number of fish caught. I'll admit, it's a different concept than putting in six hours and getting paid directly for six hours.  What's also different is that an hourly wage doesn't change, regardless of if you made your company $100 or $10,000. I can't say whether my time spent will make me any money, or big money. It's all about which fish I catch.

3) Will you let me know when you start making a fortune? My response: I'm not planning on making a fortune. I'm telling you now that I'm into this business, and I'm excited about it. But I will definitely pitch in and buy you a nice dinner when I have proven to be successful. I see no reason why I would hide this from you, considering it is common knowledge and many people are doing well with it. Yet surprisingly, the more effort I put in, the better I do as well. 

It's not about market saturation. It's not about getting rich quick. 

What I am excited about with my online business is that it directly correlates to my personal efforts. It is an actual business making actual money. It's using real customers buying real products. 

Admittedly, I'm a middle man. But rest assured, I'm becoming a very good middle man, and learning that there is a large population who is more interested in working with the middle man than figuring out how to deal with the direct source. 

I'm not a wild success story yet, but I've had success. I'm not a wildly enthusiastic person about much of anything, but let me tell you I am thrilled to have come across this program. 

And best of all, you don't have to believe me, and can even tell me I'm a fool for signing up for this. The fact is, I have a growing following in another blog I do, a growing following in a youtube channel I have, and I've made approximately $2 in the last two years. I've made over $60 in my first month of this program. 

I'm not particularly excited about $60. But I'm excited about doubling that amount next week. I'm excited about making triple that the week after. You can't argue with money in your bank account that you didn't have before. It's real enough for me.

If anyone out there is interested, I signed up through here: http://www.dsdomination.com/sp/pro?aid=Turgerburger

There's a few things I want to point out about signing up for this program: 1) It is an affiliate program and that means there are people above you who really want you to succeed. Take that however you want, but I personally see it as a mentoring tool and have used it several times. In other words, they want you to succeed because when you start making money, it will eventually make them money. 2) You're paying for training to help you navigate the online world. Again, I tried the online world for two years and made close to nothing; and within the last month have a completely different view on how to make actual money working from home. It is an actual thing and can be done.

That's all.