Work or PLAY from Home?
Work From Home?
Type in the phrase "work from home" or "work at home" into any
search engine and we all know what will happen. How many
millions of ads on the internet use these words? It's what we
all want, right?
Do we really want to work from home? I don't think so. What most
of us really want to do is just STAY home. We want to PLAY at
home. We enjoy sitting in front of our computer and PLAYING with
it for hours! We don't want what we do at home to resemble what
we do at work. If we really wanted to work from home...we might
as well go to work! What would be the difference? A commute?
There's absolutely nothing wrong with this. This isn't an
assault against the work ethic. It's just an honest look at our
true motivations. Is it possible to flip the switch from playing
at the computer for free to playing at the computer for money?
YES! We use the same muscles, physical and mental. So what's the
difference?
Focus. I must make a confession. I play games on my computer.
Role Playing Games (rpgs), strategy games, even online poker.
Last night I finished 2nd in an online poker tournament with 156
players (brag), it lasted 3 hours and 40 minutes! One of my
favorite rpgs (Baldurs Gate ll) has an estimated completion time
of 200-300 hours. (If I live long enough I'll finish). So is
there a way to get that kind of focus on internet marketing? Can
it be that much fun?
Yes to the first question, maybe to the second. To get laser
focus in internet marketing, first we need to identify the
activities that we're going to call "work". Unless you're a web
designer or in some capacity work for an internet company, these
activities fortunately are probably far removed from what most
of us do at our jobs.
You need to learn to enjoy writing. Most of your "work" will
involve writing. Writing articles, participating in forum
discussions, writing and answering emails, helping solve peoples
problems will involve email or telephone conversations. You will
write ad copy for sales letters and websites, you'll write to
your upline and downline, to affiliates and partners.
Yes you can take short cuts or short circuit this writing
process. Most affiliate and networking programs have ready made
everything to get you started quickly. You may be able to buy
enough advertising to avoid active participation in the internet
marketing community. Eventually if you're just cutting and
pasting your way to riches it's going to start to feel a lot
like WORK!
So how do we make a game out of this? Make it fun? First
recognize that this is not work the way we normally define work.
Work is where we're someplace we'd rather not be. We can be
constantly under pressure and threat at work. We can fail at
work, get fired, get yelled at, be embarrassed, disappointed,
get demoted, dictated to, issued ultimatums, you get the idea.
Compared to this "working" at home isn't really working at all,
it's PLAYING! Where's the pressure coming from? From you? Do you
have to succeed or else? And soon?
We need to make a game out of this internet marketing. It's easy
to do because it really is a game. All these activities that we
decide to identify as "work" should be more accurately
identified as "play". In a computer game, I may be 200 hours
away from saving the world, indeed I may never complete the main
quest. However I will be thrilled with every monster I slay on
the way. I'll reach into it's bloody carcass pull out the bag of
gold and I'll laugh and say to myself, "Why is this Monster
wearing pants? If I were a monster, I wouldn't wear pants!"
Secondly, we need the proper perspective. Sure we want residual
income. We want financial freedom, be our own boss. But we need
to get into the process. Make a habit of the internet marketing
activities that we play every day. Master the process and the
results take care of themselves. Learn to enjoy the process
through practice and your computer "playing" will be more fun
and it will be clear to everyone that you're enjoying yourself
and they will want to be associated with you.
So yes we can learn to focus on playing at internet marketing.
Can it be as much fun as slaying monsters or bluffing someones
grandmother out of a big pot in no-limit holdem poker? I'm
workin' on it! ;-)
(c) 2004 by David McCammon