It’s not 1950 anymore. It’s not even in 1985. Heck, it’s not even the 20th Century. Pick up, move on, get with the times. It’s the 21st Century now, and you need to be a 21st Century person if you want to succeed. If you don’t care about success, no problem, you can live in whatever year you want it to be. What do I mean by success? Well, the topic of this site is about work, business, earning money, so primarily I mean success in a business sense. However, really this success applies to almost any part of life.
We live in an Internet Age. No matter where in the world we are, we are (or can be) connected with people in other parts of the world easily and quickly. Because of our ability to easily connect with people the world over, it makes it much easier for us to exploit our talents and knowledge. If you have knowledge or expertise on subjects, you can take advantage of that knowledge and make money from it no matter where you live – anywhere in the world!
Almost every day, I get e-mails from people who say that they want to live in the Philippines as I do. They tell me that they want a less stressful life. They almost all ask me the same thing too – how can I live where you do (or a similar place) and make enough money to live on? If you are asking this question too, stop reading now. Go back and read the previous paragraph again, and then think about how you can use the Internet to earn money from your talents. We all have talents. We all have knowledge. You’re not college educated, you say? Hey, no problem, I’m not either.
When I write back and tell people that they can earn money online and live wherever they choose, a lot of these folks write back and tell me -“I don’t like computers,” or “I don’t know how to use computers.” If you feel this way, read the title of this column! Read the first paragraph again. Not enough to convince you? Let me be clear. You don’t like computers? Enough already! Get over it! Sit down and learn how to use the PC, it is not hard. You don’t need to know how to program the computer or anything very fancy or complicated at all. If you can use a computer enough to read this article on the Internet, there is no doubt that you can use your PC to make some money! Those people who write me e-mails obviously know how to send e-mail, and that is no less complicated than learning how to start their own blog.
Learning how to use a computer is not hard to do. Everything I know about using a computer I taught to myself, or by watching what others do. You can do it too.
Before you can become proficient at using a computer, though, there is one thing that you must do first:
Addendum: After writing this article earlier today, my friend Dave Starr wrote an article on his blog that ties right in with what I am saying. Dave tells us about a business that just about anybody can start today and earn a very decent living. You must have the Internet, though to do what Dave is talking about. What Dave is talking about, though, is no different from talking on a telephone, it just goes through the computer instead of a regular telephone. Now, if you are willing to get over your fear or dislike of computers, there are literally unlimited possibilities to make money! So, get with the times!
Thanks for the link, Bob, and for the excellent article. You know one thing I am frequently criticized for is being ‘blunt’. Hey, fair enough. Like beauty, bluntness is in the eye of the beholder. I’m bald too, it’s just who I am.
I have almost given up on trying to help people like you mention, though, not becuase I don’t want to help, but because so many of those ‘how do I do it’ messages are like bait in mousetrap. The writers already seem to have their mind made up and when you tell them that they ‘can’ do something they seem to open a whole file drawer of reasons why they can’t … as if they have been saving them up.
You well know I have written a number of articles on ‘distance earning’ … all of the subjects I have chosen I _know_ there is demand for. Some have a degree of complexity, some are dirt simple like setting and confirming appointments for a dentist or doctor’s office. Yet I almost never receive a comment on these articles. It’s as iff people who want to live here are just _saying_ they want to make the move as some sort of hobby. I dunno.
I’m 63 years old. If anything I should be getting more and more set in my ways. Instead, the only regret I have about being older is, I am not going to be around for all the new things that young people of today will see. More things have changed in the past 10 years of my life, by far, than in the first 50 years.
It is 2008, almost 2009. The model of how your grandfather earned money in 1949 or your dad did in 1969, or how your college professor taught you in 1989 is old, outdated, OBE (Overcome By Events).
The fare to get on the ‘future train’ is as close to free as it can be … if you are reading these words you already have paid the basic cost of entry. You just have to get on board and enjoy the journey.
@Dave Starr: I honestly feel that the subject of your article is something that has real possibilities for use here in the Philippines. I could foresee setting up language teaching online and doing three things:
1. Teach American English to Filipinos who want to work in call centers.
2. Teach English to Koreans. They are flocking to the Philippines to learn English anyway.
3. Teach Tagalog, Bisaya and possibly other Philippine languages to foreigners who wish to live here in the future.
It is a winning strategy, and has already been proven to work.
Yes Bob, I think there’s another market you are missing there too. Japanese are very much interested. There are dozens of formal language schools. To get a visa to teach in japan you need a college degree and ESL certificaton. But if you are a native speaker, in country on some other visa as I was, you can find opportunities everywhere to teach “conversational” English. $30 to $50 USD an hour is what Japanese typically pay … yep, that much.
There’s no reason at all someone couldn’t set up a school and teach Japanese students. They are educated, they are interested and they are used to paying for what they receive.
There’s a principle in buisness. Find a starving crowd. Most people approach business backward … how can I make people buy from me. You can’t. Like having a hot dog stand in the desert. You turn it around, like opening your hot dog stand at the ball stadium and guess what, you sell out all your hot dogs every day 😉 At (what, $5 or $6 bucks each?)
@Dave Starr: I didn’t realize that there was such a demand in Japan for English learning too. That just reinforces our thinking and makes the business even more potentially viable, don’t you think?
Right now, more than any time in my lifetime, the possibilities for making money are virtually unlimited!
I have such a sense of what you are saying here, Bob. I write regularly telling folks that they need to have ancillary businesses to their self-publishing ventures. They rarely believe me. Yes, absolutely, there are some folks who only need to publish books and they do well, but if you are looking to actually make a living it helps to have multiple revenue streams. How should publishers do this? The Internet, baby! My http://BestOnlineHighSchools.com website brings in a nice chunk of change and it is really only getting started. And, obviously, it relates directly to one of the books I have published.
You have to think outside the box. You just do.
@Tom N: Yes, I fully agree, and this ties in with my series of articles about making small amounts of money. Having something like a self-publishing business is nice, but I agree with you that you need lots of other small enterprises that all add up to a really nice income. None of them would probably support you on their own, but in their entirety they make for a very nice living! The other nice thing is that if one goes away, it doesn’t kill you.
All of this, though, is dependent on the fact that for a person living in this age, you really need to know how to use a computer! If you don’t, you are really handicapping your potential for success. And, you don’t need to be an expert, just have basic knowledge that is quite easy to come by.
Thanks for visiting, Tom.
Hello to all,
I have been visiting all the sites you gentlemen produce. I am ready to start on the internet journey. It is kind of strange that when an article about getting off your duff and making it happen is written the only comments are by three people making a living on the net. I am ready to be the next to make it happen. I like Bob’s one dollar a day philosphy to start with. Dave, I like the way you think. Tom, you have made me think out of the box about a lot different avenues to get where I want to be. The info I’m looking for most has already been shared by each of you at one time or another. Hosting, operating systems, store fronts, and blog software (want to thank Bob for a lot of this). Now I just need to tie it all together. Just wanted to thank each of you for the effort you make in trying to show others how to make it happen, if they want to that is.
Sincerely
Steven Murry
@Steven Murry: It is a little discouraging that more people don’t seem to care about being able to make money online. Of course, I don’t care if people choose to make money specifically online or not, but when people e-mail me and specifically tell me that they are desperate to make more money, or they need this or that…. when I encourage them to try making some money online, well, they just have no interest! Oh well…
Thank you for visiting, Steven. I hope that you will continue to visit, comment, and really take that step of starting your own online businesses!
@ Steven: Thanks for your comments. You have the picture. Start on something (by the way, don’t buy into any get rich quick orgrams, the less you buy the less ikely you are to get distracted) and see what you can do.
Very likely your first efforts won’t please you. But that’s ok … I’ll wager the first time you handed in a penmanship assignment to your 1st grade teacher it looked like ‘nasty stuff’ too.
But when first grade teachers get slopy looking papers they don’t tell their students to quit school … they show them how to correct errors and refine techniques, one step at a time .. and soon the student is writing decently.
I think the biggest key is not ‘how to make a living online’ … that subject is often way over-hyped and oversold) The key is the same as all business, find a hungry crowd and serve them food’ .. find a need that you know you can fill and then apply online principles to move it into this century, and to make your life portable. Wishing you the best, go get yoyur feet wet.