Let’s face it. There’s no such thing as “passive income”. It’s all… really fucking hard work. And a lot of failures (for me). This BLOG is about my own personal recount of whatever the heck it is I do to form an existence where I at least earn a living because I definitely know by now that I am almost unemployable.
Okay.
Maybe that was a bitch/bit too melodramatic. I honestly by now don’t see how I can function as someone who can stick to a set schedule every week. Because literally every single week is a different story. I was all gung ho with creating this shopify general store one week, plunging myself into 15+ hour days of study self study with a store that has “viral” products. Then I went to Taiwan and immersed myself in the city and country life while rock climbing/hiking/scootering/biking around all the meanwhile ordering knives for importing and auto parts. Then I came back to city violations because the fencing around the warehouse needed to have slats in order to remove the view from the general public. And the list goes on and on and on…
In the past 5 months I’ve:
- Invested 16,000 in a project that BARELY just now is starting to pan out with imported products from China and Taiwan.
- Invested 2-3,000 in selling a beauty product that did REALLY well for a few months and then got taken down by Amazon which crippled the hell out of sales and now I am back to square one.
- Had to let go of a few employees.
- Traveled to another country to visit suppliers as well as just taking a fucking break from the chaos for several weeks.
- Sales of used auto parts increased dramatically while I was gone to the point where one of my virtual assistants encouraged that I stay away from the business more often.
- Joined an ecommerce forum where I’m not obsessively combing over every post I deem relevant.
- Just finished with jetlag yesterday, waking up at 3am in the morning on the daily and now 2 days ago I started my period. And it seems as though my lactose intolerance has increased as of late to the point where ANY cheese exposure = DEATH. (TMI???)
LIFE. KEEPS. ON. HAPPENING.
Don’t get me wrong. Every month is an adventure. Every year is improvement. I’m grateful for being able to do what I want with my life without worrying where my next dollar will come from. But godamnit.
I feel like the overwhelm has made me shut down. I need longer breaks and the time I traveled solo for a month was not long enough. I’ve gotten to a stage where I’m constantly consuming media/audiobooks and I’m addicted to just consuming and consuming. Granted I’ve been back to the states for a little more than 1 week but I should have hit the ground running like “RELEASE THE KRACKEN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”.
But.
Why do I feel like I’m in this no man’s land? Stuck? Stuck physically, but definitely moving mentally? Do I need a life coach?
Things I’ve learned about business which blew my mind because I’ve traveled:
- You can have a multi-million dollar company with just 1 employee. MANY MANY people have done this and it is not uncommon.
- Intense focus gets shit done. But people who are more ADD-like should focus intensely for a few months each on random different projects and sometimes it works out anyway.
- Kickstarter is really a cool platform. Met some people who are super successful at kickstarter campaigns.
- Net profit is more important than gross sales. By far.
- No job is beneath you if you want to be successful.
- Shit is hard. “If it’s easy, everyone would be doing it!” – wise person told me.
This is from speaking/talking to successful people and spending days with them. Also, I’ve found out what my priorities are and I should be shifting that this year and next if I want to “grow” things.
These are my specific goals for the near future:
- Don’t go camping/climbing every single weekend of the year. Moderate this. (I know, BOOOO!!!!)
- Think more, do less non-thinking work.
- Even if shit gets hacked, keep on producing/who cares if things are corrupted. Fix it later. Putting shit out there is better than nothing at all.
- Create a course on Udemy (even if it is a crappy one) just to test it out. Why? Because I do a million How-To videos and instructions for my own organizations and so WHY THE HELL NOT?
- Run through at least 20-40 facebook ad campaigns for auto parts AND knives. Yes. I’m going to be providing knives now.
- Follow the Profit First theory.
- Post/blog at least once a week. Even if I don’t have any pictures to show.
Below is a picture of me enjoying the rock in Taiwan at this beautiful location called “Long Dong” which translates to Long Dick.
Just kidding! “Dragon Cave”.
Climbing at Long Dong. Or as the locals call it.. “LD”.
I will be updating a post a week if not two posts a week even if I’m too lazy to compile any pictures for you. I’ll be posting numbers but right now it’s past midnight and I don’t want my enemy Jet Lag to win.
KEEP ON, KEEPIN’ ON.
P.S. Let me know what you guys think about the layout of this blog. It’s pink, which is my favorite color because Pink to me represents ABUNDANT HAPPINESS and I celebrate it. But if it is too distracting, let me know.
-Kim Dang
