Monday, June 13, 2005
No magic wand
I've gotten active enough in the webmasters' forums lately to notice a sad trend. There's a lot of good discussion, but too many threads start out something like this:
"Hi, I'm new to ecommerce, but I'd like to make a lot of money in it. Could you please tell me where I can find some free software that will make me able to make a lot of money right away without working at it?"
Or:
"Hi, I'm new to ecommerce, and I've heard I need to do [whatever they heard they need to do], but I'm afraid that if I do that, there's no guarantee that I'll get more out of it than my customers will. How can I do this so that I'm assured that I'll always get the better end of the deal?"
There's a sad number of people out there looking for a magic wand that will make them rich and happy without any effort on their part. And they saddest thing is that they truly believe that that magic wand exists!
It reminds me of a guy who lived in the next apartment way back when I was just out of college. He lived off money his parents still gave him. His idea of work was that each morning he bought the Minneapolis newspaper and looked at the Lost and Found ads. Then he would wander around the neighborhood all day hoping that he'd find something from those ads and get a big reward.
Too many people have a belief that it's somebody else's responsibility to make things happen for them—that all they're responsible for is getting a good idea and then waiting for everybody else to fall into place for them. But that's not the way that life works.
We reap what we sow. And sowing can be hard work. But that hard work fades into insignificance when we experience the bounty that comes from following through to completion.
Jeff
I've gotten active enough in the webmasters' forums lately to notice a sad trend. There's a lot of good discussion, but too many threads start out something like this:
"Hi, I'm new to ecommerce, but I'd like to make a lot of money in it. Could you please tell me where I can find some free software that will make me able to make a lot of money right away without working at it?"
Or:
"Hi, I'm new to ecommerce, and I've heard I need to do [whatever they heard they need to do], but I'm afraid that if I do that, there's no guarantee that I'll get more out of it than my customers will. How can I do this so that I'm assured that I'll always get the better end of the deal?"
There's a sad number of people out there looking for a magic wand that will make them rich and happy without any effort on their part. And they saddest thing is that they truly believe that that magic wand exists!
It reminds me of a guy who lived in the next apartment way back when I was just out of college. He lived off money his parents still gave him. His idea of work was that each morning he bought the Minneapolis newspaper and looked at the Lost and Found ads. Then he would wander around the neighborhood all day hoping that he'd find something from those ads and get a big reward.
Too many people have a belief that it's somebody else's responsibility to make things happen for them—that all they're responsible for is getting a good idea and then waiting for everybody else to fall into place for them. But that's not the way that life works.
We reap what we sow. And sowing can be hard work. But that hard work fades into insignificance when we experience the bounty that comes from following through to completion.
Jeff
Comments:
Post a Comment
© 2005, 2006, 2007 Jeff Baas, One Stop Web Support
