Today’s guest is Steve at My Wife Quit Her Job. His blog is full of practical advice. I am very interested in what he has to say because his business is about selling stuffs, not service. So far, we’ve had only one guest (Susanna Ordway, who sells her handmade jewelry) who is in product-based business. All others are in service business, and I myself am in service business.

I guess product-based business has a set of unique challenges, such as managing logistics and inventory. To me, it sounds so difficult.

So please welcome Steve.

1. Tell us a bit about your business and why you started it.

When my wife and I first got engaged, she laid down the terms up front that she was going to become a housewife and quit her job as soon as we had our first child. This was something that I had no problem with since I strongly believe in having a parent stay at home with a child especially during the early years.

But when my wife became pregnant with our first child, we faced a huge dilemma. With mounting bills to pay and a child right around the corner, we would be taking a 50% hit on our total household income during a period of time in which our expenses would increase dramatically.

Since my wife was not going to work and we needed the money, we decided to create an online business selling wedding linens to offset her lost income and thus Bumblebee Linens was born.

We chose the wedding industry because my wife and I thoroughly enjoyed planning our own wedding and wanted to help others do the same. If you are interested in how we stumbled upon on our store idea, you can read more about How We Found Our Niche For Our Online Store for more details.

2. What were the three biggest challenges when you were starting off as a new entrepreneur?

I would say that most of our challenges were mental. Getting the online store website up was relatively easy. But working out the logistics and getting customers in the door was the hard part. In fact, there was a point after we launched our online store in which we had no business for many weeks and we almost decided to call it quits. It’s difficult to narrow down the biggest challenges down to three but I would say that the following were the largest obstacles.

• It was extremely hard for us to find the time and motivation to actually work on the business. Both my wife and I had full time jobs at the time and we were always extremely tired after coming home from work. In fact, working on the business was probably the last thing on our minds at the end of the day. It also didn’t help that my wife and I are lazy at heart and like to relax in front of the TV
• It was also really hard for us take action early on because we knew absolutely nothing. We had no idea what the hell we were doing. I didn’t know a single thing about websites or web programming. My wife didn’t know anything about how to run an online store. What ended up happening was that we got stuck in this loop of doing research instead of taking action because we were afraid of doing something wrong.
• When we finally got some momentum going, we found that there was an enormous amount of information that we had to digest and learn in order to open our online store and we constantly burned ourselves out while trying to cram it all in. The problem was that we wanted to get our online store up and profitable as quickly as possible so we often worked late hours to try and jam everything in. All of these late nights took a huge toll on our psyche and our morale. Then, when we finally opened our online store to zero customers, our excitement and hopes turned into despair.

3. And how did you work through these challenges?

Finding the time and motivation was probably the hardest obstacle to overcome. Our minds were always motivated but somehow we could never find time in our schedules to work on the business early on.

Starting a business is hard work and requires constant, steady progress. Steady being the key word, my wife and I overcame this barrier by dropping certain activities and setting aside specific times and days during the work week to work on the business. By setting aside and scheduling “business” time, we eventually started making progress towards our goals.

The “knowing nothing” aspect of our business was very frustrating as well. We kept second guessing ourselves and early on, we had a bad case of analysis paralysis. Ultimately, we overcame this by just putting our foot down and telling ourselves “Screw it! Let’s just launch the business and figure things out as they come”. Turned out to be a wise decision because in the end we came across problems and issues that we would never have been able to predict ahead of time. For example, we were completely wrong in terms of what we predicted would be our best selling products.

Once we got going, my wife and I kept burning ourselves out. For example, I stopped exercising, stopped eating, stopped sleeping and focused all of my time on the business. It took us a while but after getting sick multiple times, we finally discovered a proper balance between work and play. It’s easy to get caught up with your business early on, but it’s important to find the time for a break as well. Ironically, taking time away from the business allows you to be more productive.

4. What is the best part of being an entrepreneur for you?

The best part of being an entrepreneur is the ability to set your own schedules. These days, my wife stays at home with our daughter full time and works on the business when our daughter takes naps. There’s no way that you could do this with a full time day job.

In addition, I like feeling in control over my own destiny. Running a business is hard work, but it’s worth it knowing that you get to call all of the shots.

5. Any advice for people who dream to have their own business and yet find it hard to make the leap?

My advice is to set aside at least one day of the week to think about and brainstorm business ideas. Once you have a few ideas in mind, you then need to find that magical trigger that will motivate you to follow through with your plan. Why do you want to have a business? Are you really serious about it?

Our trigger was obviously our first child. We desperately needed to find another money source to replace my wife’s lost income. In fact, our desperation was probably the single most important reason why we were successful with our online store.

Motivation will provide you with persistence and mental strength when things go wrong. Motivation will provide you with the necessary energy to succeed. I strongly believe that if you are properly motivated that everything will work itself out. Everyone has their own “Go” button. You just need to find yours.

Regarding the product-based business aspect, my wife and I had no prior experience in managing logistics, importing goods or managing inventory.  We basically learned through trial and error and getting advice from friends who run brick and mortar stores.  My advice to people in the product business is to find a friend or mentor that you can consult with early on so you don’t get bogged down with stupid mistakes.

My Takeaway
I love their “Just do it” attitude. As he says, we could be caught up in the analysis paralysis forever. And that doesn’t get you anywhere nor make money. Taking actions empowers you. And I agree that there are problems you get to learn only after you start — even if your pre-launch research is extensive.

I checked their online store and it’s beautiful and easy to navigate. It even has some fun craft ideas, so even if you are not getting married, you might enjoy checking it out ^_^

Are you interested in starting your own business? Not just as a way to pay bills but as a way to bring more meaning, passion, and fulfillment to your life? Check out my (free) eBook, too!

We continue to interview inspiring and successful entrepreneurs here at Yes to Me, and this time, I didn’t have to look far for the perfect interview guest. Tom Volkar, Career Coach from CoreU Coaching and Delightful Work has been a steady commenter at Yes to Me. Just like myself, he helps new and aspiring entrepreneurs to have the business of their dreams. He recently made a community call, which attracted many bloggers. (Photo by leefotos)

1. Tell us a bit about your business and why you started it.

I began my career as a soloprenuer in 1998, first as an inspirational speaker and corporate vision consultant. This was soon after closing an earlier entrepreneurial, entertainment business that resulted in me losing everything, including my home. My marriage of 19 years ended then when I refused to go back to a 23-year career in sales.

Once again, on the trail of pursuing work that I loved, a guy came out of the audience, after a talk I’d given and asked if I’d ever done any coaching. I coached his wife on discovering career fulfillment and found it far more satisfying than speaking; thus my coaching business was born.

I started the speaking business because I valued doing what I loved more than anything. Yet if I hadn’t walked down the corridor of speaking, the coaching door may not have serendipitously opened.

CoreU Coaching was initially a life coaching business where I delivered every kind of coaching imaginable, including: corporate executives, relationship coaching and coaching for supervisors in manufacturing plants. But the clients, who always gave me the greatest thrills, were budding entrepreneurs who were preparing to make the leap to self-employment. So In September 07, I began writing my Delightful Work blog, which is dedicated to that community. I coach, write and create courses and programs to support those who want to be their own boss.

2. What were the three biggest challenges when you were starting off as a new entrepreneur?

My first entrepreneurial enterprise in 1992 was for a brick and mortar business. The challenges were different than for my coaching business. I successfully raised 2.5 million dollars, so it was necessary to get dozens of lenders, investors and vendors to buy into in my vision, since it was never done before. My biggest challenge in that business was in finding and presenting existing business models that gave these supporters confidence.

In my coaching business the challenges were more internal and consisted of trusting myself and working through the underlying fears that developed around the lack of time and money. In chronological order here were my biggest challenges.

1. Not completely following my core values, allowed me to be lured by projects that looked financially promising but were not authentically aligned with who I was.
2. I fought prevailing wisdom to niche myself for far too long because I thought it would limit the work I’d receive and cause me to earn less.
3. I allowed my fear of learning technology to get in the way of my business growth.

3. And how did you work through these challenges?

Values Un-aligned Projects – I worked through this one the hard way, by continuing to say yes to opportunities that looked good but did not turn out well for me. If we beat our heads against the same wall long enough, the pain awakens us. Lesson learned: Not everything works for everyone in the same way. If you have to fight it to work it, the resistance will stop the money from flowing.

Committing to a Niche – After yet another misguided decision in challenge one, I finally said the hell with it and made a sacred vow to commit to marketing myself as an expert only in the area that brings me most alive. That is inspiring and encouraging the leap to the freedom of self-employment. Lesson learned: Committing to one niche does not limit the work we receive. I am still presented with opportunities to coach in other areas. But commitment allows us to approach mastery in the area we care about the most. And mastery leads to greater propsperity in fulfillment and in finances.

Fear of Technology – I worked through this fear using Emotional Freedom Technique and a decision-making technique that I learned in Eckhart Tolle’s, The Power of Now. Essentially I had to release limiting beliefs about my ability to learn technology, while at the same time accepting that the Internet had become an essential component of business building. Lesson Learned: Even though we are more naturally suited to learning some concepts than others. Our resistance is unnaturally created by fear not by original makeup.

4. What is the best part of being an entrepreneur for you?

Total autonomy is the best part of being an entrepreneur. I view employment as mental and emotional slavery. Each of us holds the key to remove our own shackles. Having the total freedom to decide what I work on, the projects I create, the self-determination to work when I feel like working and to work in service to who I most want to serve: that is the liberty of entrepreneurship that I hold most dear.

5. Any advice for people who dream to have their own business and yet find it hard to make the leap?

There are four essential realizations that are required understanding.

1). No one can build your unique business like you can. Your best guess about what that is, is far better than any outside expert’s opinion. Tap the expertise of those who have actually been in the arena, for their encouragement, methods and tools. But look to yourself in matters of decision-making.

2). Quit dreaming and thinking – instead act. Find a way to get into action, even if it’s part time. You cannot see what doors may open (like the doorway to my coaching) until you walk down the corridor. Get out of your own head and into action. You can always adapt on the fly. It may not seem comforting but no one ever figures it all out first. That’s a myth.

3). Carefully choose your sources of support. Advice from others, even from those who love you, needs to be taken with a grain of salt. They can’t see things from your perspective. They aren’t aware of your desires and strengths. No one else can intuitively understand what you know about yourself. For support, find a community of budding entrepreneurs who are feeling what you’re feeling.

4). Don’t let the search for the perfect pre-existing career slow you down. You may not find perfect, pre-existing, authentic work created by another. You may need to blend all of your special strengths, peculiarities and values together, to build your own empire.

My Takeaway

I totally agree with the importance of authenticity! I also like his advice on how to choose the supports and advice with care. The moral encouragement from friends and family is nice, but if they are not entrepreneurs themselves, do take it with a grain of salt. That kind of free advice can cost you a lot in terms of your time or missed opportunities. So thank them with grace, and find other entrepreneurs and real pros for advice.

So how do you become an entrepreneur?

This is the first post of Inside Out Approach to Entrepreneurship series. It is going to be a very important and experimental series.

As I wrote in A Year Without Paychecks Part 2, I quit my corporate job last September. I now work for myself, and my business is profitable. So I guess my readers would be saying something like, “Oh, that’s great, Akemi, but how can I start my own business? I want to become an entrepreneur, too, but I have no clue where to start.”

I’m more than happy to help. In fact, that is the reason I started this Yes to Me blog – to help aspiring entrepreneurs to actually start a small business.

I’ve had just one hesitation, however, about tackling this topic head on. I’m a new entrepreneur myself. It’s been a fun ride for me, but does my advice have any weight for the aspiring entrepreneurs?

My solution: What if I offer myself as a target of criticism while I ramble on my advice?

I think I’m on the right path, but heck, I’m open to hear any criticism. So I will be talking about the following steps to entrepreneurship and sharing my experiences. And I’m sending out open invitation to the following business experts online so that they can say whatever they please in the comments or in their own blogs.

Inside Out Steps to Entrepreneurship

1. Find the niche.
2. Polish your niche.
3. Check your readiness.
4. Learn marketing.
5. Build your system.

Everyone is welcome to participate. Here are some people who are pros on this topic that I’m hereby inviting:

Cath Lawson The bold business advisor

Tom Volkar Great life coach who specializes in career improvement

Tim Brownson Another great and controversial life coach

Tom Stine Yet another life coach, a spiritual one

Jen (MMND) Young millionaire retiree who is now offering coaching

I feel a bit of masochistic pleasure about including these successful life coaches because in this series I will have to discuss the failure of my own life coaching business.

Readers, if you are an aspiring entrepreneur, you might want to write your pending questions in the comments – as you know, I respond to all comments, and some of these experts may be kind enough to respond, too.

Step 1, Find the Niche

So, the first step is to decide what you want to do. And this is the biggest question. Most aspiring entrepreneurs seem to be stuck here.

I think you are stuck because you are looking outside of yourself. No, you first need to go within and know what you love to do. Then you figure out how you can develop it to products and services that people would love to pay for, which will be Step 2, Polish your niche.

Now I’ve already figured out what I love to do, but in order to show you how you might want to do this step, I’ll pretend I’m clueless. If you already know who you are and what you love to do, go ahead and skip this one. Just be sure it’s something you love, not just something you can do.

If you go into business with what you can do but you hardly care about it, even if you can do it well, you are setting yourself up for misery. You could be buried in money and feeling lonely and unfulfilled. Why would you want to do that? Is it any better than your current job?

How to find what you love to do

If you have been doing what everyone else wants you to do, you may have forgotten what you love to do. Very sad. So to remember who you are and what you love, pull out a sheet of paper and do a bit of inventory work.

Questions you may consider:

• Which books do I love reading? And why? (Check your bookshelf.)
• Which movies do I love watching?
• Which music do I love?
• What activity do I love to do?
• Which aspects of my current job do I love?
• More things that come to your mind regarding what you love to do

My list looks like this.

Books:

The Autobiography of Malcolm X – great life story.

How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie – I remember reading this when I was in high school (yes, in Japanese), long before the term “personal development” was in fashion.

Various books on personal and spiritual development including those by Alan Cohen, Deepak Copra, Tao Te Ching.

Greek mythology and various other mythologies

Movies:

Lost in Translation – sophisticated sense of humor and great story

Beautiful Mind – great life story

Amadeus – great life story with great music

Music:

Baroque, Mozart, some airs in opera (I’m not very specific)

Lois Armstrong and Billy Holiday – great voices. I like the human warmth and power.

Activities:

Reading and learning – I just never get tired of reading and learning new things.

Writing – I like sharing and communicating.

Quiet time, like walking in the park early morning

Aspects of my last job (assisting president of mid-size company, along with general admin responsibilities):

Variety – I like doing a lot of things rather than doing the same thing all day long.

People – I like dealing with many people and building long-term trusting relationships.

Creativity – I was allowed to do a lot of things my way because I was the only person who could do them.

Also, I used to be a teacher. I liked teaching (languages) to adults and young adults because it was a lot about communication and relationship building.

When I was in school, I liked history a lot. All those fascinating stories and movements! When I went to college, I thought of studying psychology, but was discouraged when I figured that it’s about treating “dysfunctions.”

Do you see a common thread?

“Great life story”came up a couple of times, and the factor of people. So are the aspects of communication and dealing with people. And the long time interest in personal development.

So . . . when I learned about a profession called “life coach”, I thought that must be something meant for me . . . (continued to Part 2)

Further resource: If you can shed out some cash, Naomi Dunford offers one-on-one phone brainstorming session on this. I have worked with her – not to find my niche but to market my niche – and can say she is a very smart and sweet pro.

How does your list look like? Do you know your love and passion now?

Darren Rowse closed his interview saying, “Baby steps first.”

It was interesting to learn that the famous Mr. ProBlogger started as a humble amateur geek. Of course, we all start from zero, but when we see someone successful, we often forget that. His advice was quite common sense, but I think that is the whole point. Don’t wait for the big secret to reveal itself to you. Get started, even on a small scale. (Photo by leefotos)

This week, there was a comment that I had to delete because it was rude not just to me but to one of the interview guests of the series. It claimed that I better interview “real entrepreneurs” Not sure what she means – I have not interviewed Bill Gates yet, but my guests are those who have built profitable businesses that resonate with who they are. (It is an honor system – I ask, and I trust the interviewees’ response.)

So we continue this Interview With Successful Entrepreneurs series to hear from a young man who has started a bunch of online businesses – some successful and some not. Jeremy Goodrich runs FunAdvice, a popular online Q&A community, and SEO consultation company Asenyo.

1. Tell us a bit about your business and why you started it.

Asenyo.com is a boutique SEO consulting company I co-founded with my wife & business parter of the last eight years. I say eight because it’s been that long since we started our first business in college together and over the years, we’ve sold two of them.

Today, we are profitable and successful in our SEO consulting business, last year, clients of ours were acquired for more than $500 million, which was truly exceptional. In our spare time, we’re nurturing FunAdvice.com, which we’re going to transition to eventually to further reduce our working hours & focus more on living life, rather than working, even if it’s working for ourselves.

The main reason I started FunAdvice was I wanted a community site. Back in 2003, my business partner, Ericson Smith & I, had been working together for a few years, however, we’d never tried a community based site. So given our mutual experience having fun on community sites like WebmasterWorld and Slashdot.org, we put one together.

FunAdvice initially focused on relationship advice – the first five categories were love, sex, marriage, relationships, and dating. We thought that, as relationships are an issue that we all have to deal with in our lives, it made sense to us to focus in on that narrow field. Eventually, we realized our mistake, as people want to be able to ask questions in various aspects of their lives at the one site they frequent. So we now have wide range of categories.

2. What were the three biggest challenges when you were starting off as a new entrepreneur?

The biggest one for me personally was developing the confidence in my skills to push hard enough to bring the business together. In the first few businesses I helped start after an initial success, I’d get shy about looking for new business, which is key to growth. And as a result of my shyness, I didn’t network enough nor ask colleagues enough for assistance on how I should put things together, which would have helped a great deal. For example, my first consulting company imploded in 2001 less than three months after I started it, directly as a result of not constantly being on the lookout for new sales, and being shy about getting referrals.

Second to that, I’d say experience. Some people seem to have a knack for doing it right the first time, and for me, every business I’ve started has taught me unique things. In many ways, starting different businesses to solve different problems has helped me hone and refine an approach to growing an idea into a business which is difficult for a lot of people I talk to that haven’t made the leap to striking out on their own.

Time management has also been an issue for me, while it’s gotten better over the years, I never believe I’m using my time online, at work or doing business as efficiently and as effectively as possible. For example, when I first started out full time on my latest business, I was working sixty plus hours a week, as was my wife & business partner, Widhadh. However, now between us our schedule has shrunk to forty hours a week, each, which is much more tolerable. It’s not that we’re getting less done, it’s that we’re making better use of the time we spend on business tasks. In the next year, I hope to get done what I do now in thirty hours a week.

3. And how did you work through these challenges?

My own personal self confidence improved through a lot of speaking, networking and continued outreach. At my last full time job in 2005, I setup as part of my job several speaking engagements for other staff members to attend. Developing and hosting a talk on my area of expertise wasn’t a requirement for my position, however, it helped a lot with building my confidence to help reach out to people. Since then as a consultant in my company, I’ve been consistently training client staff, holding training sessions and doing more to manage my contacts through email and phone calls. Your network is your biggest asset and anything you can do to increase that network adds to your bottom line as an entrepreneur.

In terms of experience, starting eight different internet businesses has taught me a lot. The form filing of setting up the company through to employee, contractor and IP related issues, nothing helps to get you a well rounded education like walking through the various processes yourself. While I don’t consider myself an expert in building a business, I am confident that I know bits and pieces of most of the common business processes by way of doing. The second thing I’ve done is read a lot. First I read tons of classic marketing books, PR books, presentation books and now I read more management, leadership and varied theme business books to broaden my knowledge base. Even if the case studies in most works aren’t internet companies, there is still a lot to learn that can be directly applied to your online venture.

To get better at time management, I’ve started to segment out my work day into different buckets, generally started to “take the evening off” as in, work till 5 and not return to the computer, and switched to a Mac portable, as well as bought an iPhone. It’s the first PDA I’ve really gotten mileage out of, and the Mac just seems to work better, faster, than my two year old XP machine. Scheduling meetings and “work” on a calendar is also very helpful. By allotting time in advance to various tasks, I can see how my week is going very clearly, and it forces me to schedule things further out, rather than add “just one” extra meeting to an already full work week.

4. What is the best part of being an entrepreneur for you?

The best part of being an entrepreneur for me is knowing the work you do is fulfilling a dream you had and seeing the changes in people’s lives. Making money is nice but I think that creating a business has inherent obligations such as community development, social activism and generally making a positive impact on society as a whole. Too often, I think businesses are excited about making a profit with little or not thought to their social obligations such as leaving the world a better place than that which they found. To me, it’s the chance to both succeed in financial terms and social terms which embodies the entrepreneurial spirit.

5. Any advice for people who dream to have their own business and yet find it hard to make the leap?

If you can, start small and do it part time while you still have a day job. Yes, I know, it’s hard and time consuming to do it that way, however if it’s an exciting opportunity to you then it should be possible to find the time to get things started. Even if you only work on it three to five hours a week, you can get things rolling enough before you take the full time plunge to make sure that the idea is solid, you know what you’re going to do in the market, you know where to start, and you have a three to six month plan.

I’m personally not a fan of formal business plans or mission statements, however it is useful to know what you’re going to spend your time on daily before you take the plunge. That way if you do get things up and running, you’re not scared of the unknown and it is a routine from day one.

Also have in mind goals, milestones and a basic cash flow plan, so you know what targets you have to hit in sales to stay in business, which is ultimately how you have the runway to hit the product or service milestones that you make.

My takeaway

I think once you start your own business, you get in the flow of things, and starting the next is not that much of a wonder. Yet starting eight businesses is amazing, and I admire his courage and energy.

It’s a lot to compete against big bro sites like Yahoo Answers. I checked FunAdvice, and seems like he carved out a niche and a nice friendly atmosphere that are attractive to many.

My best wishes to Jeremy. (Considering his age, I can’t help wondering how many more businesses he will be starting in this life . . .)

Today’s guest for the Interview With Successful Entrepreneurs series needs no introduction to bloggers and online entrepreneurs. Darren Rowse, the ProBlogger, has been offering advise to bloggers for years. Check how a true geek (of course this is a compliment) developed his business in an organic way.

1. Tell us a bit about your business and why you started it.

Over the last 6 years I’ve taken blogging from something that was purely a hobby into something that is now quite a large business.

I run two personal blogs (ProBlogger.net and Digital-Photography-School.com), have written a book on blogging (probloggerbook.com) and co-founded a blog network by the name of b5media (b5media.com).

As I said above – blogging started out as a hobby for me and it was something that gradually grew into a part time job and then a full time business (and beyond). I didn’t set out to make money from blogging – in many ways it just happened.

2. What were the three biggest challenges when you were starting off as a new entrepreneur?

There have been many challenges along the way but here are the first three that come to mind:

First of all – as I didn’t set out to do anything entrepreneurial (it was very much an accidental thing) I guess the first challenge for me was simply to recognize the opportunity to take what I was doing as a hobby into something beyond that.

Secondly I found (and still find) it challenging to work out the business side of things. My first love with my business is that I’m a communicator, I’m a creative thinker and I’m a bit of a dreamer. These things certainly help to grow a business but to take it to the next level you also need to be an administrator, strategic thinker and good negotiator. I’m learning these skills but they don’t come naturally for me.

Thirdly, I work in a ‘virtual’ world where I rarely get to meet face to face with most of the people that I work closely with. At b5media it took over a year after starting our business for us to meet as founders as we were living in different parts of the world. Communication, team building, strategic planning etc are all difficult when you’re in different time zones and far away from one another.

3. And how did you work through these challenges?

A lot of it comes down to persistence. Over time I managed to see the opportunity with blogging the more that I did it – as I’ve forced myself to do the things I don’t necessarily have experience in I’ve learned new skills and in time we’ve managed to work out systems and define roles at b5 that don’t need face to face interaction.

4. What is the best part of being an entrepreneur for you?

There’s a real freedom in working for yourself and setting the course for your own work. I love this aspect of what I do.

5. Any advice for people who dream to have their own business and yet find it hard to make the leap?

Three things:

1. Find something that you’d happily do for free and invest into that. That way if it doesn’t turn out at least you’ve been doing something that is meaningful to you.
2. Stick at it and work hard. I’m yet to meet a successful entrepreneur who had everything fall into their lap.
3. Baby steps first – I know some people are wildly successful by giving up everything else to build up a new business but I found that having a backup plan (I worked other jobs while starting out) and other things to fall back on enabled me to take my time and build something of quality over time. Don’t throw everything away when you start out – but build upon what you already have and let it grow naturally.

My takeaway
As a business owner whose clients come mostly through the internet, I just can’t thank enough for the advance of technology – a totally technologically challenged person like myself can have multiple websites and take clients worldwide! Amazing, and quite unimaginable just 15 or even 10 years ago.

The ability to recognize the opportunities is critical. I’m guessing so many people just sleep on their gold mine. As some other interview guests have indicated (like Jason and Laura), realizing your gift and taking it seriously takes courage. Seeing the problems as business opportunities takes proactive thinking. I think Darren’s case is yet another proof for this!

I also want to point out — if you haven’t read the About page of ProBlogger, go check it out. He is spiritual. I’m sure this has been his source of power.

Thank you, Darren.