The following might seem to have nothing to do with building an Internet business. But please read it all the way through. I think the point will become obvious before you are done reading.
I was out on a bicycle ride with my family recently. There was a storm moving in and we were anxious to get home before the rain started falling. As we passed a pond near a wooded area close to our home, my wife spotted a cormorant bird near the edge of the pond acting a little weird.
Cormorants are swimming birds that dive underwater to catch their meals. They are known to stay underwater for long periods of time pursuing their dinner. Unlike some other water birds, though, their feathers can become water-logged very quickly. So, you’ll often see them standing at the edge of the water with their wings spread wide waiting for their feathers to dry so they can fly.
My wife stopped to take a closer look at the bird and saw that it had a girl’s hair band wrapped tightly around its beak. Now, take a look at this picture. See how wide the bird in the picture has to open its mouth to swallow its dinner? You think maybe a hair band around its beak might keep it from eating? Of course it would!
(Image originally posted on Flickr.)
Although it looked like it would start raining at any moment, we decided to stop and see if we could help the poor bird. When I say “we” I mean me trying to catch the wild animal and render aid while my wife “directed” from a distance.
On my first attempt, the bird allowed me to get within two feet before it abruptly took off and glided to the other side — the wooded side — of the pond. It was too water-logged to get higher than a foot over the water, but it was plenty enough to get away from me.
For my second attempt, I had to walk around to the other side of the pond, into the woods, through the underbrush, brambles and sticker bushes, to get to where the bird was standing. This time, I only made it to five feet from the bird before it dove into the water.
It stayed under for quite a while. When it came back up, it was about 40 yards away. It walked up on to the bank and then jumped/flew a few feet up to the branch of a tree that was bent down close to the water. I started walking toward the bird.
I got to within about 10 feet of it when it started edging its way towards the end of the branch, getting ready to dive back into the water. I stopped. I sat down. I watched.
After a few minutes, the bird decided to ignore me and try to get the hair band off its beak. It started rubbing its beak on the branch it was perched on. It had the right idea, but it didn’t seem to be making much progress. So after about five minutes, I stood up and started moving toward the bird. It immediately stopped working on its beak and made ready to dive into the water again.
The bird had no intention of letting me help. And I had no intention of forcing myself on it or following it into the murk of the pond if it decided to run away again. So, I left. The bird would either get the band off of its beak, or it wouldn’t. It was out of my hands.
If the bird had been willing, it would have taken less than a minute for me to remove the obstacle to its ability to eat and sustain itself. But it wasn’t. It was dead set on doing it on its own.
Why?
It’s obvious. The bird was scared of me. In its mind, I was a predator out to eat it. It had no way of knowing otherwise.
This is the same situation new Internet business owners find themselves in when they’re having trouble making profits online. There’s no shortage of “gurus” who will offer to help. But which of them are sincere and which ones are predators who will take the money without delivering any real results? With no sure way to answer that question, many decide to go it on their own and figure things out themselves.
If you are in this position, then you have two options: 1) Do it yourself, make lots of mistakes, rack up debts and maybe, just maybe, figure things out and build a successful Internet business in a few years. 2) Find someone you can trust to show you how to build your Internet business, keep you out of debt and help you reach your goals in months instead of years.
I will be posting instructions, observations, suggestions and guidance right here on this blog for anyone wanting to build their own Internet business. What I post will be based on my own experience and knowledge. I’ll also be building tools to help me build my business that might also be useful to you. I’ll be writing about those tools and how to use them here on this blog. And I’ll be writing about some of the hard steps I had to take to get myself moving in the right direction after years of wandering around aimlessly, pretending to build a business online. As I’ve said before, all I was really doing then was creating a really low-paying, stressful J.O.B. for myself.
I would love to be able to keep you from repeating my mistakes. I would love to be able to help you acheive your Internet business goals. But what I will not do is chase you down and force my advice on you. I will not follow you into the brambles or into the murk of the pond if you insist on doing it your own way. The choice is yours and yours alone.
If you want to know what I have to say, if you want to learn the steps I’m taking to build and grow my Internet business, then sign up for my blog announcement list. The form is right there near the top right corner of this page. Just fill in your first name and your primary email address (no disposable addresses, please) and click the “Subscribe Now!” button. Once you’ve confirmed your subscription, you’ll begin receiving notices every time I post something new to this blog.
Read everything I write. Read everything I reference on other people’s blogs. And most importantly, put what you learn into action. If after a week of putting up with my ramblings you don’t think you’ve gotten what you need to help you build your own successful Internet business, then feel free to unsubscribe and accept my humble apologies for not meeting your expectations.
All I can do is make the offer. The rest is up to you. Until next time…
“Build Systems And Prosper!”
- Daniel Joseph Moran
PS: Just a reminder that I’ve got a gift for you if you decide to join my announcement list. It’s free and everyone on my list will get download instructions by email this weekend.
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