What is your WHY?

byGElkington

322 followers

Updated 4 years ago

I've had an entrepreneurial ego for as long as I can remember (the bigger picture, dreams can come true, risk-taker type of ego). I also have a risk adverse ego, my safety net if you like, the 'you have a family to consider', 'bills to pay', 'a great paying job', and a 'nice retirement for when you turn 65', type of ego.

This night and day perspective is a combination of being the eldest child of 5, coupled with being born in 1984, and therefore, having bits of millennial neurons firing up from time to time reminding me that it is OK to make my dreams happen!

I have a great job that pays very well, and indeed, sit on a wonderful retirement plan from our property investment portfolio. Some would argue that I have no need to think about starting a business, yet, in and amongst it all, I do.

WHY?

Two reasons:

1. More time with my family.

2. Financial freedom in the here and now and also for generations to come, which lets be honest, will never truly be provided for from a 9-5 grind for someone else.

Sure, there's also a bit of self-gratification somewhere in there but hey, if the notion is not hurting anyone, what's the big deal right?! #letsgo

So, back to my entrepreneurial ego. In the last 3 years I started and closed 2 secondary income businesses. I also attempted 1 other business and gave up because I simply could not find the time it needed to succeed.

I currently have 1 by association with an excellent MLM company, and the other, our property investment business. Again, some would still argue, 'what else do you need?'. From the outside looking in, I could certainly see the logic in that perspective. From the inside looking out however, I was still short of my WHY. I knew I was on the right track, however, deep down I knew I was not quite there yet. Back to the drawing board.

In 2017, I met the wife of a man who operated a successful online business selling his knowledge?! In that same year my sister-in-law introduced me to the idea of drop-shipping with Amazon.

Mid way through 2018, I was almost certain the universe was trying to tell me something as social media was blown up with so many 'work from home' business models, and 'are you tired of the 9-5 grind', or, 'work your own hours with an online business' etc. I remember thinking, what actually is an online business? The closest measure I had was with my exposure and experience with MLM. So, I googled online businesses. The top answer at that time was e-commerce.

Fast forward to Apr 2019, I invested into e-commerce training and found a local mentor who was in the trenches of e-commerce, operating his very own successful and full-time online business. Bingo, e-commerce it was! #feelingpumped

5 months on and I have gone through a great deal of personal development and really accelerated my e-commerce knowledge. I've experienced a few ups, and a tonne of downs and am yet to even launch my first product! Your classic 1 step forward and 10 steps back scenario. LOTS of reasons to quit, LOTS of reasons to try something else, and LOTS of reasons to put it in the too hard basket, 'it' being my entrepreneurial ego, and consequently my WHY! #timetoregroup

Last month (Oct 2019) whilst scrolling through my Amazon account, I saw a 'Become An Affiliate' link. I clicked it, read about it, got a little excited, and then of course, googled it. Long story short, I found a great article written by @mikebeatty who had reviewed and also been part of a number of online business ideas, consequently narrowing his best pick down to Wealthy Affiliate.

2 weeks ago I joined the Wealthy Affiliate community, and 1 week ago I went premium! #backtofeelingpumped

As we speak, I am up to Level 4 of my training, and writing my very first blog EVER! #winning

I cannot even begin to describe the amazing amount of opportunities I have already come across within WA (as you all know). I have certainly put my shoulder to the wheel these past 2 weeks, and plan to be consistent each day with my efforts knowing that slow and steady wins this race #ihaveagreatfeelingaboutthis

So, going back to the point of this blog, be sure of your WHY. Accept that your journey there will consist of many triumphs and failures. Keep going, stay the course.

I will continue with my e-commerce goals, and will absolutely complement it with affiliate marketing so that one day soon (very soon I hope), I will finally achieve my WHY :D

Feel free to follow all the ups and downs of my WHY journey, so that you can keep going with all the ups and downs of yours.

We are all in this together.

Gina X