Why Boring is the New Fun
The web is great fun, isn't it! I just love the fact that no one knows everything, the technology is always moving at a breakneck pace, and anyone can become a millionaire in the new economy.
We love to think we can find success overnight, and some of us do, but they're in the minority. The rest of us can still have it, if we're prepared to take the long way round. Success has a cost.
“You got big dreams? You want fame? Well fame costs! And right here's where you start paying - in sweat!”
Fame
Problem is, a lot of the quick fixes around us, on the web, and in life in general, aren't at all effective.
“There is always a well-known solution to every human problem - neat, plausible, and wrong.”
H. L. Mencken, Prejudices: Second Series, 1920
I'm convinced that the quick solution is often an illusion, and I'm starting to look further down the road to find lasting, fulfilling results. What's more, I'm getting pretty excited about this stuff too!
Real Winners Take the Long Road
I know that I'm always tempted by the next exciting idea, the next thing that will dramatically boost my income. I always want to do something brilliant, inspirational, and fantastic.
Yet I also know that the real winners in any field have more than a bit of luck, they have drive and dedication. They're willing to stick at it, learn from their mistakes, learn from others, and keep going until their efforts bear fruit.
Are you one of those winners? Or are you a loser who dreams of a lucky break? I'm choosing to be a real winner, to create a plan and to stick to it until it's done.
I know that's going to take commitment, self-belief, courage, and sheer bloody hard work. But I'm not afraid. I'm excited about the long road! The view's great and the road is not too busy, and I'm sure we'll meet some interesting folk along the way.
My Boring Top 10
Let me try to inspire you with a pick & mix of 10 uninteresting things that I think you might want to get excited about with me. (I could go on, but that might get really boring!)
- SEO
- Diet
- Business development
- Testing & measuring
- Brand development
- Reading & learning
- Investing
- Best practice
- Gardening & farming
- Politics
1. SEO
There's probably no more obvious case study for the quick fix myth than search engine optimisation.
It's now common knowledge that search engine optimisation is best done over time. SEO should be an organic process, as the search engines are looking for real content that's developed over time by real people who have something to say.
There are zillions of ways you can try to trick the search engines, to get further up the rankings than your site's relevance deserves, and if you use those techniques you can get severely burned.
Sure, it's possible to jump up the results for a search term using black hat tricks, but you could find yourself right back down there before you know it, or out in the cold for ever!
Yes, you can develop your business online, and you can use SEO to earn good money. If you want lasting results, just start today and don't stop. Push through, even when you feel uninspired and the results aren't happening
2. Diet
Diet is a peach too. Who's ever done a crash diet and lost 10 pounds, only to stick it inexplicably straight back on again?
Fact is, friend, the reason you and I are a bit overweight is that we've put a few more calories into our cheerfully optimistic bodies than we've burned - over a long period of time.
I'm sorry to say that, while some people do lose significant amounts of weight through intensive dieting, to keep that weight off you have to reverse the flow. You have to start burning off a bit more energy than you consume, and you have to do it long-term.
That's right, it's a lifestyle choice, and it takes real deep commitment. It takes changing the way we relate to ourselves and relate to food. Yes, you can, if you're willing to pay the price.
3. Business development
You can create a business from practically nothing, and build it into something that can bring you a great salary without having to work. It's not rocket science. In fact, you're probably better off using a tried and tested business model than reinventing the wheel.
Yeah, I know, "Tried & Tested" sounds so boring, but only if you find the prospect of very probably making all the money you need boring.
If "Startup Roulette" feels so much more fun and inspiring, take a moment to think about how many startups win versus how many lose. You're more likely to lose money fast if you're not playing smart.
My tips to playing smart:
- Learn from others' successes and failures.
- Do what works, not what's most exciting that day.
- Systemise everything. Start with what you know, then work from the bottom of your business, get it right, get it systemised, then hire someone else to do it, and move on up.
- Use experts where necessary. Become your own expert where you can.
- Hire a business coach. They'll keep you disciplined, and on your path to wealth.
4. Testing & measuring
Testing and measuring is probably the single most important thing in business, in web design, and in SEO. It also happens to be pretty uninspiring - unless you get inspired by the results.
Marketers and advertising folk have been measuring the success rates of their work for a century. Up till recently, we in the web industry have been toying with business, in the belief that scientific rigour had no place in the brave new vibrant world of the web.
The minority who'd learnt their lessons on the long road of 20th Century marketing, however, knew better. They saw a new medium, that's it. Same customers, same mentalities, same job - selling!
And a lot of these guys have made a lot of money using really boring techniques, like testing and measuring everything.
Here's how it works. Whatever you do, measure it. If you can't measure something, you can't control it or improve it. Get numbers out. They're not perfect, but they're more useful than no numbers.
Test A against B. Which works best? Why? Can you make it work even better? (Tip - use your creativity here.) Do it.
Then - oh mercy! - go back and test again. And then, guess what? Go back and keep testing, keep tweaking, keep measuring. Keep letting the numbers tell you what's happening, and face the facts boldly.
Sound really boring? Welcome to the world of making money in business. You can do it, if you're willing to keep focused and to stay the distance.
5. Brand development
Starting or developing a brand that's really going to be worth something requires the same thing as SEO, diet, business development, etc.
- Have a vision. Is it good? Great, now stop having visions!
- Draw up a plan. Is it realistic, achievable, in manageable steps?
- Implement. Do not stop implementing. Do it consistently, and people will get the message.
Consistency is so important to branding. Sure, you can create a splash overnight, become the celeb or hot topic of the day, but to do really really well, you have to be around for a while, delivering the same value day in day out.
Who do you think earns more money? All the soap stars combined, or all the detergent makers?
Developing a brand is nothing more than choosing who you're going to be for whom, and then being it.
This "being" is another recurring aspect of the Long Road. Just trying something on, having a go, is not enough to keep you in the race. To make it round the Long Road, you need to be your mission, not pretend.
6. Reading & learning
People who find great success rarely do it on the basis of their own talents. Isaac Newton claimed he succeeded because he “stood on the shoulders of giants”. All the most successful people I've read about in business have spent years studying where other people have succeeded and failed.
Reading and learning from what other people have done before isn't as much fun as actually doing is it? We all know that. But what's more fun, doing it wrong 3 times in a row, or taking a bit more time and doing it right once?
Research comes into this, as well. On two occasions, I've spent months designing and developing revolutionary new applications that didn't have a market. Now, I love the idea of testing the market first, because being successful is more attractive to me than chasing success.
7. Investing
How many ebooks have you seen online promising "Get Rich Slow" schemes? Me either.
Nobody wants to know about a plan that lets you take $1 and make yourself a millionaire if it takes sticking at a plan for a long time.
We're too impatient, too easily distracted, to get the most that life has to offer. The Long Road is just too boring, because we can't see the end, so we constantly struggle up the short, precarious slope of Quick Schemes, along with millions of others, and more often than not slide right back down again.
To make real money through business, or investing, requires - you guessed it! - a Plan, and then consistent Implementation over a prolonged period.
No brilliance, no magic formulas, it's not that hard! Just decide what you're going to do and do it.
Do you think you could turn $1 invested into $1.02 in a week?
Could you keep up that return over 10 years?
If so, your starting dollar would be worth $29,654.41.
So start with $100, and you'd have a million dollars in 7.5 years.
8. Best practice
You know all those things you feel you should have bothered to learn how to do in your life, but didn't? These things are those things.
Here are a few examples of things we know make us secure and happy, but perhaps seem a bit too boring, or too much like hard work:
- Putting oil and water in your car.
- Making sure your insurance cover is correct.
- Working consciously on a relationship.
- Writing a Will.
- Learning to touch-type.
- Weeding and pruning.
- Personal grooming.
- Reading the manual.
- Setting off in enough time.
- Taking exercise.
- Telling your parents you love them.
- Learning a foreign language.
- Saving your work regularly.
- Learning to play an instrument.
- Really listening to the people you work with.
- Hiring a (fitness/life/business) coach.
- Saving.
- Backing up your computer.
- Going to the dentist.
- Keeping the place tidy.
- Using version/source control.
- Packing healthy food for the journey.
- Stopping when you've had enough to drink.
You get the point. There are lots of things we know are good for us, but which we tell ourselves don't matter that much in the moment.
What we're really doing is cheating on our own health, happiness, or integrity.
I wonder if the habit of cheating ourselves on these things is part of keeping us on the Quick Fix path?
9. Gardening and Ecology
How does your garden grow? It takes time and energy to get soil productive, to keep weeds out, to train the plants you want, to prune and nurture a fruit tree…
Gardening - or at a larger scale farming and even caring for the World - requires patience and dedication. Most of the results don't come straightaway.
Maybe that's why so few young people have time for gardening, compared to seniors? We can't wait a year, or even a season. We want games machines that load straightaway, food that's prepared and consumed in minutes, TV in seven-minute chunks.
Someone who gardens is walking the Long Road. That could be why Jas, our business coach, gave us a pot plant to look after on our first meeting?
10. Politics
What would a world look like in which all politicians walked the long road?
What if every decision taken was for the long-term benefit of all the people of the world? If we could break out of the 5-year cycle that encourages short-term quick wins at the expense of long-term prosperity.
Imagine a world where we're all out for the fundamental health, happiness, and sustainability of our selves, our friends & family, and our wider community.
I'm just 36. I have decades (God-willing) to walk the Long Road and generate great prosperity all around me. I invite you to walk with me.
Peace,
Ben
