I read a lot of posts about how to be amazing and how to be the hero etc, but for me, the real secret to climbing the ladder is being normal. We’ve all seen the sales pitch in which some guy is in a suit professing how and why you should buy his product or download their latest ebook. Yeah some of them will be a success, but I think you would actually achieve a lot more success by being someone people can relate to.

  • Honest

Being honest is paramount to me on this site. That means being honest about who you are, not pretending to be an expert or a ‘pro’ on anything you clearly aren’t. If you don’t understand something, then be honest about it. It doesn’t mean you can’t write about it, just be honest about the angle in which you are coming from.

I constantly admit I’m not a marketing expert or money making guru, being honest about these sorts of things makes you more accessible and people can relate to you, by joining in your journey to learn more about all this.

  • Mistakes

When you make a mistake, own up to it. Everyone makes mistakes these days and god knows I have made tons of mistakes, but I own up to them. When you make mistakes people notice, they notice because some want you to trip and others want to see your reaction. Your reaction to a mistake you have made is vital to becoming different to the rest of the websites out there.

The internet is packed full of people who have different personalities to the their normal life, so it’s easy for people to hide behind the lies of everything. You will set yourself above the rest if you are honest about your mistakes. No one is perfect and everyone gets things wrong, but by admitting those mistakes you will create an admiration from people and a bond that they will never forget.

  • Hard Work

It drives me mad when I see all the ’2 minute abs’ workout dvd’s etc. I have worked hard all my life, I have done my time in the military carrying huge amounts of kit on operations, 18hr days for weeks on end. I’m really vocal about how hard you need to work on your site if you want people to read it or for your business to grow, the 4hr week doesn’t cut it for me.

I work a 60hr full time job, then work probably 5-7 hrs a day on this site. I have a young family and a house that needs jobs doing to it all the time, so I know how hard you have to work in order to get where you want, but just look at the results this site is having in only 3 months.

I’m a normal guy, motivated yes, maybe a little intense sure, but normal all the same. I’m sat on my couch writing this with the laptop watching MTV base at 0001hrs. When I talk to people on the internet, it’s the same way I talk in real life, ‘brother’, ‘dude’, ‘yeah man’ all that sort of stuff is exactly how I am in real life.

I’m normal as they come, but here the site is 3 months old and I think that’s extraordinary!

精進湖からの富士山 - Mt.Fuji and Lake Shojiko
Creative Commons License photo credit: hogeasdf

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