My secret mindset trick for making big, long-term money writing online

Nov 02, 2023

I woke up a bit grumbly today.

I lost another referred member overnight.

This was inevitable. In any business like this, there will be subscriber churn.

Before the new MPP torched the referred member program, which split revenue from new subs that you brought onto the platform, the members I added from search or my YouTube channel reliably outpaced the members I lost.

Now the numbers only go down.

This isn’t new — I’ve gone from a high of 28 down to the current 23, but for some reason, it triggered my annoyance this morning.

But then I remembered what I tell my kids — and my readers — all the time and it put me back in the right mindset.

Digital painting of a hockey rink with dollar signs on the ice. — Making money online is a lot like playing goalie in hockey. (Credit: James Julian/DallE2)

Let go

Both my kids play the most challenging position in sports: hockey goaltender.

The mental strength needed to compete in that spot really is crazy.

I would say 85% of my goalie coaching is mental because the pressure and the strain can be so overwhelming.

While most athletes need to get themselves fired up, goalies need to calm themselves down.

Anger, agitation, negative narratives — these are all poison to good performance.

Control freaks like myself tend to gravitate toward the position because you’re on the ice for the whole game and you have the greatest impact on the outcome.

But ironically, you also need to be able to let go more than anyone because there’s so much you DON’T control.

You can’t score goals, you can’t clear pucks from the zone or cover the man in front of the net.

Your job is to be cool and make saves.

That’s why I always tell my goalies two things:

Do your job
Control what you can control

I think that applies nicely to business activities too, don’t you think?

I don’t control the MPP.

What I do control is the quantity and quality of work I do. What I control is the platforms where I put the most effort.

External factors shouldn’t change a thing about my approach.

So I’m going to take the advice I give to my goalies all the time.

Do your job.

Control what you can control.

And that concludes today’s pity party.

Back to work.

Publish Every Day Goal Tracker

I’m doing an experiment to see if I can make enough money to retire from commuter life within a year by publishing every day on multiple platforms and investing my earnings.

How much I need to retire comfortably: $250 CAD per day

What I earned on Day 4: $9.31 (writing), $1.40 (YouTube) — $10.71 total

Progress chart: