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How To Take A Calculated Risk

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Calculated Risk

The successful entrepreneurs do not take risks just for the sake of risk taking. Instead, these entrepreneurs take calculated risks. These are the kinds of risks that are more likely to pan out in the end. Investing all of your money in one random stock is a risk that rarely pans out. Investing some of your money into one stock that has been picking up (and looks like it will continue to pick up) is a calculated risk.

In order to take a calculated risk, you need to calculate what would happen. Planning is a crucial step towards identifying whether the risk is going to work out or not. You need to set a framework for yourself before you take the risk so you know what to do. The better your plan is, the less likely a risk is going to hurt.

While planning is important, it is also important to weed out the calculated risks that are not worth taking. You need to take account of a calculated risk’s impact. The more impactful a calculated risk, the more important it is for you to plan and then take that risk. The more picky you are with the calculated risks you take, the better you will be at choosing the best calculated risks to take.

Finally, the name of this blog post is How To Take A Calculated Risk. You do need to have a plan, but if you overthink the risk, then you will not be able to propel yourself. Once you have the plan laid out and know it will be very impactful, you need to take the risk. Calculated risks with effective plans and big impacts are the ones made to implement.

Be a calculated risk taker and give your ideas a chance. What are your thoughts on taking calculated risks? Have you already taken a calculated risk for your business or any other area of your life? Please share your thoughts below.

 

How To Do The Same Things On Social Media In Less Time

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Superman Entrepreneur

Here’s the short and simple version:

  1. Find something that eats away at a lot of your time.
  2. Look for tools that help out to redue that amount of time. Even if you have to pay for extra services and upgrades, do so. Your time is too important.
  3. After you get one problem solved, identify another time eater in your social media strategy and get the problem fixed.

Is Social Media Overrated?

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On the social media blog of all places, responding with a big yes would be problematic. I’ll take the safe route this time and say that it depends on the individual, but I will also say that for most people, social media is overrated. Social media is a place to build connections and grow an audience. Many people use social media to procrastinate and escape their work. In this scenario, social media is completely overrated. As Abraham Lincoln put it, “You can’t escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today.”

If you are spending more than an hour on your social networks every day, then it is overrated. That is too much time to delegate away from your work. In order to make revenue from social media, you need to have products that people would want to buy in the first place.

The worst part is that most people get addicted to the social networks. Some people are on Facebook for 6 hours every day. That’s absolutely ridiculous, especially when most of that time is you feeling bad about yourself because your friends posted pictures of themselves having a good time. Many people could write five extra blog posts every day if they cut down on the amount of time they spend on social media.

There is a way to use social networks that makes them pivotal to your success. By getting more done in a shorter amount of time and growing your audience, you will be able to tap into social media’s full potential. Some leaders got to where they are because of social media. In this case, if these people do not spend over an hour a day on their social networks, they are not overrated.

Social media has the power to grow your presence and allow you to become very successful. It can also eat away at hours of your precious time every day. With great power needs to come great responsibility. What’s your choice?

 

9 Lessons I Learned From Blogging

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Blogging

Blogging is a way to build an audience, connect with that audience, and get more people to know about you. Although blogging is a powerful tool to grow your presence on the web, blogging will also allow you to learn many life lessons and things about your niche along the way. I have been blogging since 2011, and I started this blog towards the end of 2012. Now with over three years of experience, I have learned many lessons along the way. Here are nine of them.

  1. Look back. I looked back at my entire journey as a blogger right when I finished writing the paragraph above, and when I looked back, it amazed me. Three years ago, I was just another blogger thrown into the mix. I was not the teenager entrepreneur, social media expert, or anything catchy like that. I was writing blog posts at inconsistent, infrequent rates about the Boston Red Sox, and typos were common. Here’s my very first blog I ever created paired with the very first blog post I ever created…ever. Who would have ever thought that three years later, the same blogger would be writing this blog post.
  2. Embrace what you do. I only started to embrace blogging when I created my Yugioh Philosophy Blog. I updated it every day and enjoyed doing the research. Yugioh Philosophy was my first blog that ever brought in hundreds of daily visitors. Since there are not many Yugioh blogs that get updated every day, it’s fair to say that mine was in the Top 10 of the Yugioh Blogs on the web. Now the blog is inactive because I focus more of my time on this one, but I am proud to say that the Yugioh Philosophy Blog still has an Alexa Rank! It currently brings in a little over 100 daily views but is an inactive blog.
  3. Get in even if you are unsure to avoid overthinking something. My first blog was about the Boston Red Sox, and no one (friends, family, you, and me) had any idea that I would end up writing blog posts about social media and blogging. If I over thought what I would create a blog about, then I would have never made it to this step.
  4. The work you put in pans out in the end. Although my Yugioh Philosophy Blog was getting more traffic, it was not necessarily bringing in more revenue. I never sold Yugioh Cards on eBay (a problem that I am in the process of fixing) which means I had to rely on Amazon affiliate links. Just to give you an idea of the revenue I was making, the typical Yugioh Card got sold for $2, and I only made 4% per sale. That means unless a customer bought a lot of Yugioh Cards, I was barely making over $1 each time a customer bought Yugioh Cards. Since then, I have written my own books which now bring in at least $2 per sale, I have created my own training courses, and I have other plans for the future. No matter what the future holds, I know that the work I put in now will pan out in the end.
  5. Learning and doing are two very different things. Some people learn that writing one blog post every day results in more traffic, but when it comes to doing, not everyone wants to put in the work to write one blog post every day. You can know how to get more blog traffic, but if you are not implementing that knowledge, then what is it really worth?
  6. Do what you love. I have successfully escaped 40 hours of work every week to do 80 hours of work every week. I do not mind working the extra 40 hours every week because I am able to make a difference and do what I love. If you liked this one, never join the status quo.
  7. Never stop learning. In order to grow your blog, you need to constantly learn about different techniques to grow your traffic, your email list, and turn your visitors into customers. The more you learn about something, the better you become at it. Another important thing to remember is that all skills are learnable.
  8. Have a good role model. There are two types of role models. The first type is your family. They are the role models that should help you succeed. If your family does not have the right role models in it, then you need to be the role model that inspires change. The second type of role model is the person outside of your family. This is the person that you dream of meeting and inspires you to do your best work. For me, this type of role model would be Seth Godin.
  9. Fight through the adversity. To this day, I continue to receive criticism. Most of the criticism I received at the beginning of my journey has gone away, but no matter how successful an individual becomes, there will always be critics. People have criticized past Presidents, do criticize the President we have now, and will criticize future Presidents. The critics criticize the people who are changing the world because they are envious.

After blogging for three years, these were the big takeaways. What are the lessons you have learned as a blogger, and which lesson on this list did you like the most?

 

The Three Most Common Pitfalls Entrepreneurs Face

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Entrepreneur Unclear Path

There are many entrepreneurs in the world. Some are super successful while most entrepreneurs are trying to find their way. There are many mistakes that entrepreneurs make, but by closely analyzing the journeys of hundreds of entrepreneurs (any entrepreneur ranging from the billionaires to the startups), I have been able to identify the three most common pitfalls that entrepreneurs face in their journey.

  1. The need to be perfect. Do you have an overwhelming need to be perfect and provide a product for everyone? If so, you will actually be creating a product for no one. In order to be a successful entrepreneur, you need to identify who your target audience is and create products and content that appeal to that audience.
  2. The status quo temptation. Once you become a part of the status quo, getting out is very difficult. Rising entrepreneurs face the constant temptation of joining the status quo where it is possible to make quick cash. At the same time, this quick cash is not nearly enough to live the luxurious lifestyles that some of the most famous entrepreneurs live. I’ll tell you one thing about the status quo. It’s not worth it, and I speak from no experience in the status quo and full experience as a successful entrepreneur.
  3. Overthinking. The only reason people become fearful is because they encounter uncertainty. Overthinking any situation allows that uncertainty to trap yourself into the fear you created. Instead of overthinking something, just get started. Many people fear public speaking at first because they overthink the situation. After the public speaking event actually takes place, these public speakers are not nearly as afraid because they are actually starting.

Do any of those pitfalls apply to you? If so, you have something in common with the entrepreneurs who quit, but you also have something in common with the billionaires before they became that wealthy. What are your thoughts on the list? Do you know of any additional pitfalls that you or other entrepreneurs fall into? Please share your thoughts and advice below.

 

The First Step To Accomplishing Your Biggest Dreams

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Dream Big

Starting is the first step. It’s the one we often ignore, but at the same time, it is the most important step. I could have written a longer blog post on why starting is the first step, but leaving everyone with the simple message of starting is more powerful.

Your thoughts, ideas, and dreams only happen when you take the leap and decide to start. What are you waiting for?