Clamping The Noise In your Head: Learn From My Mistakes – Guest Post

This is a guest post from Moon over at ExperimentsInPassiveIncome.com who is on a journey to realise the dream of travelling the world by earning a passive income, Moon over to you;

When I was young and we lived overseas, I picked up this love of gardening from my grandmother. I’d help her with all these plants including small herbs, tomato vines, carrots. Every now and then, we would cut some cilantro and pluck some tomatos right off the vine for our evening meals. Those were the days!

Then one summer after realizing everyone’s love for mangos, including mine, (too underappreciated in the States here), I went on a mango frenzy. I must have planted upto 60 mango seeds within the span of a few days, a week tops. I didn’t care about my mother’s concerns. Apparently I was indestrutible. What’s that, mom? A heat stroke? Dehydration? Psssh, things that weaklings can be affected by. I sure as hell wasn’t a weakling! On I went, counting along the way how many seeds I had dropped into the soil, gently padded with soil. By the time I was done, even the adults were impressed!

Remarkably, over the next couple of years, a few of those seeds grew into beautiful thick plants and eventually trees. I remember being upset when the goats would get loose and consume great chunks of my mango plants. Some TLC and they’d often recover. It didn’t matter. Over the years, I planted a few more mango trees. A few years ago when mom visited the old house, she told me how two of my mango plants had grown into these beautiful trees still standing there. I remember feeling pride, and now writing about this, nostalgia. The things you do when you’re younger, without much thought, turn out to be some of the best things you’ll ever do.

Why didn’t my younger self do all this “research” before heading on this mango venture? Why wasn’t I scared of how much the returns from my investment would be? Why didn’t I care to find out about pests and pesticides? Why didn’t I research if I should instead grow apples or other fruits that had better chances of surviving?

I didn’t ask anyone about fertilizers, the quality of the soil, how much care and time would go into raising these mango plants, or when they would even yield any fruit.

I took challenges as they came, never becoming bogged down with the details so much that I let go of the ideas before ever implementing it.

As youngsters, we have more passion and less care for details and consequences.

I miss that.

When did I grow up to be this fearful of the actions I take? I’ve become cynical and jaded and at a young age. Why do I spend hours and hours of researching only to finally find out what I “researched” doesn’t really apply to my real world experiments, feeding my disappointments? I know it’s not just me.

The bottom line is, you can earn “passive income” any way you want. Do you love to write? Go write for eHow, Suite101, Associated Content. Do you love to code? You can create web applications and introduce it to hundreds in your first week (Anthony Feint, anyone?). Are you an ideas guy and don’t have the required skills? That’s fine, because you can outsource your project to skilled workers through oDesk, Guru, 99Designs, whatever you fancy. Whatever skills you have, people are willing to pay you for your experienced advice, whether it’s through podcasts, paid forums, dvds, and other mediums.

photo credit: 02494

So much of the noise in your head comes from your own distractions. After all, so many ways to earn money, so many paths to take. Why not pursue them all? Because time is limited, my friends.