It kind of surprises me when I read comments from people who are making very little money compared to more successful people when it comes to certain activities. Because of that, they assume it is a waste of time and give up. Example, think of someone selling items online in their spare time where they make say $50/month and they compare it to someone that makes $10,000/month.

I can understand if say you are spending 40/hrs a week and only making $50/month, but to judge something on simply what others are making is a little pre-mature. Think of that extra $50/month. The immediate thing that comes to my mind is that most people make way less than that in interest from their savings account.

From that perspective, your $50/month sure looks rosey compared to say $1-$10/month. At the same time, like with the bank example would you tell your bank that you don’t want the interest incentive anymore just because it brings in so little? That is an important mentality I’d say to not judge your results so much by comparing yourself to others all the time. Base it on your own numbers and efforts.

If anything, comparing yourself to others should be more about technique and strategies. Example, learn what they do and see how it can possibly apply for you. Bad idea to throw away streams of income like that just because it seems so little in comparison to others I’d say.

I was talking to a person today that had such an interesting and blunt direction in life when it comes to paying for various classes for his daughter. For example, it is not uncommon for a parent to pay for some kind of music lessons for a child with a common one being piano lessons. For him though, he mentioned where after four months since his daughter wasn’t getting any better he said forget about it and told her straight up that she was bad in playing the piano. She then went into different types of instruments and has found success fairly quickly.

The same went in investing in activities such as teaching her various sports too where he mentioned if she does not get good enough within a specific time period then he will just tell her straight up that she is horrible with it and will move on to something else. It’s one of those mentalities where you either got it or you don’t I suppose.

That is kind of anti “being persistent” I’d say where sometimes you just have to stick with it as everyone needs a different amount of time to truly become good at something. How long I would personally stick to things of this nature in terms of expecting results depends on the intention of doing it in the first place.

Life skills in general is a long term investment where it is more about benefiting my everyday life. However, learning a skill to compete with others is a different story as that I would be more inclined to say maybe it is not for you if you can’t compete at a certain level during an X amount of time.

It’s almost like a business too where you have to think how much of your time you are willing to invest and stick at it till you decide “This is not right for me” if you still aren’t making immediate financial progress.

I was having a conversation with a person today and he was telling me that he tried many things such as Forex trading where he would constantly spend so much time on it just to break even financially. As a result, he was basically going in a circle with no real return for his efforts and so he quit.

I was saying how whenever I do anything I always look at various ways to fully take advantage of my journey and experiences. For example, if I jumped into the world of Forex like he did I would be inclined to document my whole journey.

At worst, even if I don’t make any money directly through trading money I could have one very interesting journey that has been documented. Who knows what you can do with that afterwards. Write a book, create a documentary to educate people, etc.

This is for non money situations as well. Been through what would be considered as a negative experience? Take that experience and package it into something worthwhile. I find that this mentality helps you to get over that fear of not just getting up from the couch and doing something as oppose to always thinking about immediate gratifications.

Example, he was telling me that he just needs to see that carrot dangling in front of him which keeps him motivated to keep going after something as it is within his grasp. I responded by saying I would rather just grow my own carrot. At the same time, I’m sure there is going to be an interesting story on how I grew it too which would be a great reward on its own.

Today I attended this law day event here in Vancouver BC where regular citizens participated in a public forum in-front of a lot of key personnel whether it be chief judges, police officers or media figures. There has been a lot of gang violence here recently which contributed to a bigger interest in the subject I suppose.

But one thing that stood out for sure is that there were a ton of people who felt that they got mistreated by the justice system which resulted in extreme financial losses. There was this one lady who I believe talked about how she lost over $600,000 in an ordeal and one guy saying how a 15 minute court time costed like $4500. Business wise, many complain too that they never get to go to court to settle offers as it is too expensive.

As you expect, what was suppose to be a question session sometimes turned into a huge rant. I was just thinking too how there are so many better ways to deal with situations like these. Like in these cases losing a lot of money isn’t something to sneeze at that’s for sure. Especially when you are relying on a third party person to help you in the situation.

Instead of focusing on things that you have no control over, I say you should focus your energy on things that you do have control over. For example, like with these court cases it doesn’t help to yell in-front of the judges implying how corrupt the system is and all that. Instead, if they focus on getting their story across in a documented and factual way to expose something that could in turn generate support and pressure for them to have to take notice.

I guess the two quotes I have heard about turning disappointment into an opportunity is when life gives you lemon make lemonade out of it. As well, if life throws crap at you make fertilizer out of it. It’s a mindset you need if you ever want to survive in a business or self employed setting I’d say. Not to mention life in general.

Just recently I noticed that I generated some sales through an online campaign that I was testing out which kind of came as a surprise. It wasn’t a bad commission either considering the effort was minimal. The funny thing was immediately what ran across my mind was that I would try displaying different products to see how those would perform or whether or not the offerings were positioned properly to get the maximum results.

I usually find that it is very important for you to not be afraid in trying different ways on how to display the product/service you are trying sell as it could have a profound impact. Let’s use a traditional store for example. At first it seems like you have good foot traffic except sales seem to be only okay. Now the first reaction from a lot of people would be that they just need more traffic and so they go on a rampage trying to attract more people which should mean more sales.

Instead, the mentality I learned before was that many times people won’t buy it because they don’t even know that it exists. Hence, that means if you change things around aesthetically a bit that can actually create a big difference.

You can take this mindset even when it comes to online ventures too. Example, instead of saying that you are getting no results because of say the lack of traffic, changing the position of say ads or the order that products that are showcased can make a huge difference.