She Didn’t Have What It Takes. Do You?

She started a post saying she had been ripped off and she was about to file bankruptcy. This sunk my heart, why would she have to do this? What was going on?

I reached out to see if I could help. Sometime last year I helped her setup her first ad, and first video landing page. After a gazillion takes and re-takes, script revisions and adjustments, we did it.

She had everything needed to make it work. The last ingredients needed to focus, drive traffic and relentless commitment to succeed.

Little did I know that a year and a half later I would be reading such a sad update on her Facebook page. I offered my help, once again. This time free of charge until she started making sales.

Because I know that what I teach, works if you implement it and take action.

She said she was willing to follow my advice and do whatever it takes to succeed. I asked her if she was sure she wanted to do this because I could tell from her tone that she felt defeated. I've felt defeated too before, so I knew her point of view.

She admitted to me she's been depressed. I asked her:

Are you willing to follow my advice, and do what it takes?

Yes, she said.

I'm no psychologist, but I know that when we're down it's really hard to get out of that rut. I beat myself up and that just makes it all worse.

I have discovered that if I'm depressed, little wins help me get out of my head and the dark places which make me feel like I've failed. Then it snowballs from there into bigger, better and more positive things.

There's something to that law of attraction thing. While I have not read the Law of attraction book in its entirety and I think that a lot of it is a bit hokey, I know that if we focus on the positive AND take action, we start winning.

If we focus on the negative and look for ways something may fail, then it seems that's all we see and that's all that happens.

Success begets success.

So I kicked off an emergency plan to help her. Focusing on little wins. But she was hesitant, her answers were indirect and distracted. It made me concerned so I double-checked if she really wanted my help and if she really wanted to do this. She confirmed.

I broke down her week by hours. She works 60 hours at her dreadful day-job. I budgeted 8 hours of sleep per day. This leaves her 45 hours more or less, after taking into account 1-hour commute for 7 days per week.

WOW. A full 45 hours of idle time. Anybody could make a business if they worked on it at least 2 hours a day, now imagine working five, or six, or even eight! What about personal time? and meals? -

That's negligible, but let's give it 7 to 10 hours per week. Shower in 3 min, you're not going to be doing makeup and hair because you aren't going out for fun, and you can eat at your desk while you work. Remember, this is an emergency plan, not the rest of your life.

Entrepreneurship is living a few years of your life like most people won’t so that you can spend the rest of your life like most people can’t. ~ Anonymous.

I never told her it would be easy. Remember? The missing ingredient to any success story in the making is your perseverance, your commitment, your dedication and hard work.

So I told her to take her first win, an easy one. Cancel cable TV.

I know you're going to wonder as you read this, Oscar, what the heck are you talking about? Bear with me.

You see, when you're on the brink of bankruptcy, it's too late to cut back on small bills. Saving $65 on the cable bill will not save you. She argued with me, maybe thinking what you're thinking right now too.

She said:

TV comes bundled with my internet, and how dare you ask me to give up tv? Are you serious!?

This is the case for many Americans, but that's not a law! It's just a tactic that cable companies use to offer you more value. And besides, everything is negotiable.

But she continued to argue with me.

She's desperate and I know it, I want to help but I can't help those that don't want to be helped. She told me: "your [sic] asking me to turn off my tv really...that isn't right"

This she said after I explained a few times why it was important to cancel her cable TV immediately. But she wasn't having any of it.

I told her she was not coachable, I can't help her today. Perhaps someone else can, but I can't. Maybe later when she's ready.

That was the end of that, so why do you care and why am I telling you this story?

So I'll explain to you why I told her to cut off her TV. And also why I think you should too if you are struggling to make money online, or want to get started.

Canceling a $65 monthly bill, only a month or two before you file for bankruptcy is kinda like asking for a non-alcoholic beer after you are so drunk, you can't stand. It's not going to do much good, you're drunk.

The entire point of canceling television was meant to provide a small win to empower her, and second, an act to demonstrate the severity of the situation. There's a third reason that's the most important, and I'll get to that in a moment. But let me explain the first two.

Here's the first thing

Number one, when you call your cable company and you tell them that you can't pay for their bill and want to cancel TV, they will do everything in their power to keep you around. They'll negotiate, they'll give you better rates, offer better deals and so on. Trust me, I've been there, done that, and their offers are often enticing.

But even then, you should cancel.

But what about the internet? And where is the small win to empower me? you ask. Cancelling TV is just a first step, the win comes next.

After you cancel the TV, during the same phone call you tell the company, you'd like to keep the internet and pay for it separately BUT you need a better rate. The person on the phone usually will tell you, that they can't, this is the lowest. You want to get to that point because this is where you setup yourself for that small win I talked about earlier.

When you've canceled your TV service, and they are denying you a better rate for your internet, you ask to be transferred to their retention department. You will be sent over to someone that specializes on keeping you as a customer. This is when they will give you a discounted rate, or a deal that is much better than what you have now, even if it's for 6 months or 12 months.

This also will not make a dent in the bills and the escalating debt. I mean, if you go from $55 a month for internet to $45, you wonder what will $10.00 do? Not much.

But it will motivate you. You have just negotiated something in your favor. You have just scored a small win. When you're struggling to see the light, to be positive or make progress, that's a small dent on depression and the first step to get out of that rut.

And the second thing

From the moment you cancel cable TV, a feeling of the dark reality you find yourself in will shower over you. This is real, that thing you've had for years and probably your entire life, is no longer there. Well, it's there but when you turn it on you'll see a plain black screen. Don't be sneaky and keep Netflix or HBO or whatever, get rid of those too!

Why are you here now, why is the cable tv subscription gone? Answer that question to yourself.

Imagine and look back at all the time you've spent watching it. Hundreds and thousands of hours. The answer is that you don't need it, you can't afford it and most important of all, it's getting in your way of your dreams. This has been getting in the way of your dreams for as long as you've been alive.

When you go to bed, this reality will set in and as you struggle to fall asleep anxious about tomorrow's bill collectors calling, and cooking mac and cheese instead of steak or lobster. You'll wake up and remember this post and realize that time is your most precious asset.

In 16 hours, you can learn to solve the Rubik's cube in under 2 minutes. It takes 1,500 hours to become a pilot. 13 hours to learn a song in the violin. You can learn to ride a unicycle in less than 3 hours. That's not necessarily going to get you out of debt, but it should drive home the point that TV is a waste of time, which leads me to the next and final point.

And for the final point

This is why you get rid of cable TV besides the reasons I gave you earlier. Because it's a distraction, TV drowns your inner entrepreneur. TV sends your dreams to the back burner while you are bombarded with 3-minute commercials for stuff you don't need, just to show you a 6-minute segment of someone else's story.

Write your own story.

I don't care if you watch TV shows, movies, or Kim Kardashian. The people in TV are living the dream you desire. For all intents and purposes, they are getting paid to keep you away from your potential. Not to mention that from the remaining 45 hours you have left each week, you'll probably spend at least half of that watching shit that doesn't mean anything and you'll forget in 3 days.

Conclusion

We are in the situation we find ourselves in because of our choices. If we make better choices, our situations will improve. Yes, it's true you can learn those things I said earlier in those short periods of time. You will not master the violin in 13 hours, but you can learn a song. Practice and continued dedication will make you proficient and eventually you can play anything you want.

It's like that for home businesses as well, or online businesses, or whatever you want to do in life.

If you find a good guide and you put the time and effort, you will learn. But once you learn, you have to apply what you've learned, and you have to practice it. If you want it, you have to be willing to do this, you have to be willing to sacrifice the familiar, the comfort and the known. Otherwise, maybe you don't have what it takes to do this and you should stay in your comfort zone.

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