No matter what you are doing, whether it is starting your own business or perfecting your chess game, one thing is certain – when you start to see success from your efforts, it will bring out the jealous haters.
For reasons unknown to me, these people will take steps to dismantle what you’ve built from your hard work. So, if you are hustling right now for something, it is best to be prepared for these people. This is even more of an issue when you are doing things publicly on the internet.
As you may know, Spencer over at Niche Pursuits did a niche site case study earlier this year where he built a site from nothing and got it ranking and making some good money. Instead of being grateful that he shared his exact steps to success, someone negative SEO’d the site and got it penalized it the search engines.
I’ve experience this type of negative reaction myself in the past as well as recently with the Cubicle Freedom Series books on Amazon. There seem to be some (from what I can tell) other authors who are targeting a group of books and leaving fake 1-star reviews. Usually the same group of books/authors get these bad reviews from the same account on the same day.
And just this week a disgruntled freelance writer who is having trouble finding work left a one-star review on my freelance writing guide. And looking at his review history, he is targeting all freelance writing books with 1-star reviews.
You Can’t Escape The Haters
Personally, I kind of feel bad for these jealous internet haters who go around getting butt hurt because someone else is showing signs of success. I mean, they are so busy being jealous and angry when that time could be used working on their own success.
It’s easy to get jealous when you see someone having success in an area where you envision yourself. Jealousy does not get you anywhere though. They key to success is work, work and more work.
Bragging About My “Success”
The reason that I wanted to mention people being jealous of your success is something that my most recent hater left in his Amazon review.
He said that my book is just me bragging about my success. Obviously, I disagree with that as my intention with the guide book is to help people. However, let’s take a look at my success with the little timeline below.
- started making websites around 2002
- got Bachelor’s degree in 2003
- got MBA in 2006
- made first $1 online 2007
- lost a job in 2009 (I think) and went all in for making money on my own
The dates may be slightly off, but you get the basic idea. I went the traditional college route, racked up six-figure student loan debt that I am still paying on, got bit by the make money online bug, lost a high paying job in Los Angeles and couldn’t find another so I put all my efforts into making money online.
My household income, since I have been cubicle-free, has ranged from around $40,000 to around $80,000. And all of that income has come from busting my ass. Also, that is before self-employment taxes take their big cut.
My typical work day looks like this:
- get up between 9am and 10 am
- work until 1pm
- break for lunch
- resume work at 2pm
- break for dinner around 8pm or 9pm
- resume work after an hour’s break
- stop working around midnight or 1am
- go to sleep around 2am
As you can see, I am pretty much working the entire time that I am awake. My life is not for everyone. I love it though. I go balls to the wall for weeks in a row and then I play hard and take time off to travel. For me, it’s about freedom.
But, I suspect that if you break down my hourly rate that it is quite low.
So hey, if you’re jealous of my success, go ahead and start working 12 to 14 hour work days with no weekends off. Then, you’ll see how quickly success comes after putting in that much work.
And, if you want me to give you info on the various ways that I make money from home, then keep reading the cheap books that I offer for sale. You don’t have to work as many hours per day as me to have a comfortable life.