Step Away From Your Dream
It had been 11 days since I had gotten here in Maui to look for a place for our family and to be honest, it was a downright depressing experience.
To give you an idea of how hard it is to rent here, I was going to see a house on Tuesday that rented for $1,400 a month. I already had a previous appointment set up, so I didn’t go. After the viewing, I called the owner and asked about the turnout: 36 families showed up to see the place.
Three families actually went into a bidding war, the winner agreeing to pay $2,200 a month! I heard this and my stomach turned, was I going to have to go into a bidding war to find a place?
Yesterday I laid down at 4 pm, depressed about the rental market. Every doubt I had in my mind came rushing at me, telling me I was going to fail and our family would be living in a tent on the beach. After about an hour, I got up and made one last call to a place I had long written off.
To my surprise, the owner answered, she said I had an hour to get across to the other side of the island. I’m staying in Paia, the place was in a town called Kihei, which is about 20 miles away and it was rush hour.
What’s crazy is that I had called the owner at least eight times without her ever picking up the phone. What’s even crazier is that she already had someone picked out to rent the place but when it came time to sign the lease, they didn’t have the security deposit. She said I called at the exact right time!
Desperate, I hitch-hiked a ride to the main bus station, hitch-hiking is actually pretty common here in Maui. I took a bus to Kihei. I got off the bus and ran 2 miles in 14 minutes and got there as the woman was getting in her car.
I told her everything I could think of as to why we would be a good fit, I didn’t feel to confident when I left, I was a sweaty mess when I got to the place. At 8:30 am this morning (Saturday) I got the call saying the place was ours if I could get there and sign a lease!
I got there and now our family is officially residents of Maui! Our dream has finally come true and we’re now living in the exact town where the dream first started to form.
Will it work out for you?
It’s simply amazing when things work out this way but do things always work out how you want them to?
Lets take this to where you are and the reason you’re read this blog. You have a dream that involves some sort of online component: blog, website, book, teaching/training. You’ve taken all the necessary but basic steps.
You’re creating great content every week, you’re speaking to a specific audience that you’re passionate about. You’re building your email list, you’re following all the amazing advice out there.
I’m going to guess but from working with people this is where someone is usually at:
You’ve got about 50 to 100 people viewing your website everyday, you’ve got about 50 to 150 people on your email list.
You probably have at least one thing for sale, maybe more but you’re not making the traction you want. You want this thing to support you but it seems like it’s taking forever!
You’ve heard it plenty, so I’ll spare you the “hang in there” pep talk. What I will say is take a step back and examine every part of your plan and how you’re implement that plan.
After coming up empty looking at place after place, I started to look for places that were out of our budget, I was desperate. When I laid down and thought about things, I realized I had to take a step back.
There would be no point in getting a place that would make us poor in two months, I had to go back to focusing on the criteria my wife and I had set up and just be patient. If worse came to worse, we did have a back up plan.
If you haven’t seen the progress you’ve wanted so far, what part of your plan can you improve? If you don’t have traffic, are you guest-posting? If you’re guest-posting but not building up your email list, what’s wrong with your funnel?
Are you guest-posting on sites that don’t speak to your target audience? Is something about your site turning the new visitors off? Are you just not clear who your website is for? There’s something there that might not be clicking and let’s be honest, we all can constantly improve.
If you want your dream to support you, it could be that you need more things to sell. If you have a message and are super passionate about it, what can you create that helps deliver that message to people?
More importantly, what are the biggest pain points of your audience? What can you create to solve them? I’m not talking about throwing together a Word document with a few bullet points, I’m talking about creating something that actually helps and you charge a small price for that thing.
When you’ve done the research and create things that help people, they will buy those things, as you keep building that audience more people will buy and before you know it, you’re making a decent income. It takes time.
This is my challenge for you, take a step back TODAY and examine your plan. If you don’t have one, start making one. Where can you improve? Where can you simplify? Where do you need to hustle more?
In about a week I’m going to ask you what you saw when you took that step back and what changes you made. I’m going to offer you an incentive just to take a look!
Are you where you want to be with your dream? What can you do this week to improve your plan?
