One reason you’ll succeed (or fail) making big money writing online

Dec 22, 2023

It was such a simple but effective way of putting it, I nearly fell over when I heard it.

It’s the key reason anyone succeeds or fails at doing pretty much anything — being fit, starting a successful online writing business, being an engaged parent — and yet it’s a concept so few understand.

If you master it, the sky is the limit for you.

If you go in the opposite direction, you’ll be a failure and there will be no end to your pain.

So what exactly am I talking about?

Allow me to explain.

If you want to be successful at making big money writing online, you must master this simple concept. (Licensed under the Unsplash+ License)

The real secret to an exceptional life

I absolutely love to listen to self-improvement audiobooks.

Yes, nerdy, I know.

And sometimes it can be a waste of time … there’s a lot of fluff out there meted out by people with questionable credentials.

But every once in a while, I’ll happen upon a nugget of information or an especially memorable turn of phrase that sticks with me for the long run.

And it happened again this week.

Right now, I’m on a big self-discipline kick.

As you know if you’ve followed me for any amount of time, I quit drinking alcohol about 15 months ago. I also quit social media for anything other than business development. I’m in an ongoing war against caffeine, one I keep winning skirmishes in but have yet to declare total victory.

There are 3 more areas where I desperately want to improve my self-discipline:

Dietary: I want to get to a 90% plant-based diet for my health, appearance, and energy
Time management: I want to get on a more consistent schedule of being up at 5:30 a.m. to work on my business for 3 hours before my day job starts
Business development: I want to bring the consistency of my Publish Every Day writing project to my YouTube channel

Simple steps not taken

So I’m driving along listening to an audiobook called The Ultimate Self-Discipline Library (here’s an affiliate link to the exact book and another that can allow you to listen to it for free if you’re new to Audible), and on comes contributor Jim Rohn.

Rohn is a legend in the self-improvement space, probably because of the folksy way he delivered his powerful messages.

Anyway, I’m listening as Rohn tells the story of working the land with his dad one day.

After a hard day’s work, his pops settles in for what he called his midnight snack: an apple, some graham crackers, and a glass of grapefruit juice.

Rohn credited his family members’ general good health and longevity to his mother, who always preached the importance of eating healthy foods.

Rohn tells this story to bring us, in an entertaining way, to the old saying: an apple a day keeps the doctor away.

He notes how simple this is, right?

Eat an apple every day and you’ll be in good health.

So why doesn’t everyone eat an apple a day?

Eating an apple a day is an easy thing to do.

But, and here’s the important part … it’s also an easy thing NOT to do.

Excuses, excuses

Currently, I’m experimenting with a project that I hope will allow me to escape mind-numbing commuter life within 1 year.

My plan is to publish on multiple platforms every day, invest my earnings, and generate enough income to retire from the office, which I’ve determined to be $250 per day.

I’m doing well, but I also wonder: what if I’d just done the easy the thing the previous year?

It takes me 45 minutes to write a 1,000-word article.

Working for 45 minutes per day is easy.

And yet, even as the work I did started bringing in thousands of dollars per month, I would go through these long lulls where I’d do nothing.

I’d get distracted or lazy or make excuses and piss away the momentum I had built.

Even if I needed a break from writing, I could have spent 45 minutes working on my YouTube channel, my Substack newsletter, my KDP products (affiliate link).

But I just chose not to.

I chose not to eat the apple.

How has there ever been a day when I didn’t get that work done? It’s sad to think about in retrospect.

Consistency is everything.

You can have some measure of success without it — I showed that — but you cannot have exceptional success.

The secret ingredient

But there’s a secret ingredient to this formula for success of doing the easy thing every day: time.

Rohn uses the span of 6 years, I think because it was the amount of time it took him to go from being a loser to being a millionaire.

The exact amount of time is unimportant, but the concept must be understood.

If you eat healthy for one day, it’s not going to make much of a difference.

Put another way: if you work on your business for one hour, you won’t really have anything to show for it.

But if you eat healthy or if you work on your business for one hour per day for 5 years, there’s a good chance you’re going to be fit and rich.

Or at least have an exponentially bigger chance than the guy who only put in that first hour.

Get to it

Starting a multimillion-dollar business or becoming a great artist or looking hot as hell in a bathing suit can seem like overwhelming goals.

But spending 45 minutes working on something today? And then again tomorrow?

It’s really not that intimidating, is it?

So, what apple will you eat today?

Publish Every Day project update: Day 46

I want to see if I can make enough money to retire from commuter life within a year by publishing every single day on different platforms and investing my earnings into passive income vehicles.

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

What I earned on Day 46: $30 (writing) + $1.16 (YouTube) = $31.16 total