How to Make Lots of Money During a Recession (Blog)

[Steve Pavlina]

Use this thread to discuss the following entry from Steve Pavlina's blog:

How to Make Lots of Money During a Recession

[supertom]

They keep getting longer and longer, I sense a hidden urge to write another book.

Another good advice from abraham was just do what you do and know your not aligned with this stuff, you much better.

[Amanda Norris]

I think I must be the first one to read this article. I happened to be checking Steve's blog at the exact moment it got posted. I checked his blog and there was nothing new, so I checked Erin's blog, then I just went back and there it was.
Wow. Really great. Exactly what I needed to hear. I'm at a point where I'm trying to make more money, but I know that I'm not supposed to worry about it by actually trying to make money. I knew about Steve's advice to create and deliver value, but this was a good little push (kick in the pants) to really just do it. Create and deliver. Create and deliver. Okay, so I'll keep at it.

Thanks Steve.

[Andrew Brunelle]

Great article. I guess I'm going to go create some value now. I'll let Domino's deliver it.

[Warping]

I'm loving the post juice feast articles, very hard hitting.

I'm still stuck at the phase of what to do, I would love more articles on purpose, as I just cannot figure out how to creatively express myself (what does that even mean?)

For example, my writing skills are pretty good. All the jobs I've done are around writing, I even started a blog, just to write about things and eventually killed it later, looking at it as something worthless. (Who really cares about your dreams or books?)

I'm very interested in comicbooks (graphic novels?), adult kind of fiction. But I'm in this place where I'm asking myself what's the point of it? So, what kind of place should I start with to even attempt fiction. I don't just want to entertain, or just get an audience emotionally invested or just create a page turner. How does one go deeper into oneself?

[skinnyninja]

Man that was a good post.

I can't imagine doing 5 hours of straight writing. That reminds me of cranking out a term paper back in the day.....

[dwixi]

I can see this as an article that would go down well on digg.com
so i submitted it.
Ill put the link so you can digg it if you want.

Digg - How to make lots of money during recession

[Matt Willard]

This is insane. Once again you've written an article that speaks to me so directly about what I'm experiencing right now. If I've ever needed evidence for the Law of Attraction, this is it right here.

I've mentioned before that I'm working on promoting my website. As a result I've been in a sort of mini-frenzy, reading about website promotion and getting traffic and making plans to spread the word. I've also signed up for a lot of free junk toward this end. This has been heavily on my mind lately-promote the website, get some cash coming in so I can renew SBI and keep it truckin'. Cash, cash, cash.

And now here you come along and tell me that I shouldn't even be thinking that, that providing real value is all I need. It's like in your Calibration article-we're not very good listeners, but we need to put the pieces together ourselves. I think that this time I'd better pay some more attention, though

The goal of my website is to make people laugh, especially people who normally play video games. That's the value I'm trying to create. But those questions near the end really hit the nail on the head: "If you stopped doing what you do, who would care? Who would object loudly? Who would revolt?" And I'm nowhere near that yet. But I want to get better, to really provide something people can care about it, even if it is just humor. I guess what I'm working at now is good, but to really kick things off, I need to polish my humor and get even better and better.

Whew...all I can say is that mind had been blown again. You seem to be pretty good at that :V

[JoeRad]

I too must second the comments of others who state that they feel as if this was an article that was speaking to them. While I know that this is the style of writing at play, it certainly feels personal to me. A couple hours ago I checked was leaving work, and I felt a sudden urge to check this site....I can't explain it well, but in the past my previous experiences with telepathy or claircognisnce was almost like a clear, sub-vocal....knowing....anyway, I had an experience like that....telling me to check the site tonight! I'm so glad I did, the timleyness of the article was impressive.

Steve, you truly do create value. I've much fuel for thought tonight.

(And that video you shared on your Twitter feed....just the pick-me-up I needed today.)

Thank you.

[Fullcrum]

Interesting. For the first time in my life I became obsessed with money due to this crisis impinging on my upcoming raw foods. Organic food is expensive when under the scarcity of jobs and lay-offs, haha.

I was thinking of joining the MLM David Wolfe started up that sells raw vegan organic superfoods, Elements for Life. But now I have to think about it more deeply. I mean, really want people to have superfoods - it's value. And my entire family can also have them cheap.

This past week I've reviewed probably 20 hrs. of content where I am learning about MLM and marketing and selling and the "distribution" part of creating and delivering value.

So my question is...

How do we resolve the paradox between wanting to create and deliver value that seems, to you, just a rehash of the stuff you see around you. I was thinking of starting a blog on becoming a conscious, self-empowered individual as a teenager. It's a message I think our world desperately needs to hear, but it feels like I'd just be rehashing everything I've read. I mean, the internet has so much knowledge floating around, and people could just find it if they wanted to. How do we solve this paradox?

[Steve Pavlina]

You what's really weird...

Whenever I get the urge to spontaneously write an article that I hadn't planned to write, and then I give in to that urge and publish something right away, people always give me feedback that suggests I wrote it for them personally. I.e. "it speaks to me." This happens every time I do that.

But when I write an article that was on my "to blog" list or that I outlined in advance or that I picked at and then edited over a period of days, I almost never get that kind of feedback.

Also, the experience of writing spontaneous articles is very different. I usually feel much more in the flow. I often write much longer, but it seems a lot quicker and easier.

As I'm sure most writers could attest, cranking out a 6,000-word article from initial idea to final editing in 5 hours is very fast. That's like writing a book chapter in an afternoon. When I do a planned piece, an article of that length could easily take 2-3 times as long, and I'd still consider that reasonably fast. For example, "How to Make Money From Your Blog" (7300 words) took me two solid days (about 15 hours) to write and edit, and that seemed quite reasonable to me at the time.

[Steve Pavlina]

Originally Posted by Fullcrum

How do we resolve the paradox between wanting to create and deliver value that seems, to you, just a rehash of the stuff you see around you. I was thinking of starting a blog on becoming a conscious, self-empowered individual as a teenager. It's a message I think our world desperately needs to hear, but it feels like I'd just be rehashing everything I've read. I mean, the internet has so much knowledge floating around, and people could just find it if they wanted to. How do we solve this paradox?

Is it you? Does it feel like this is how you're meant to spend your precious life? Would this planet be missing something important if you didn't do it? Is this the piece you want to contribute to the puzzle of life?

[Fullcrum]

Ah, an identity and purpose issue. Interesting.

Do you truly believe this information applies to everyone? I mean, you write to empower all who are touched by your work to grow consciously. Nevertheless, I cannot see a third world farmer, or some pesticide GMO corn grower in Iowa trapped under a pile of loans and credit being able to take this to heart. If all people were living like this...

Who would pick up our garbage?

[DAveNJ]

Steve -

Thank you for a great post. It really made a huge impact on me and seems to be just what I needed to hear. It is refreshing to hear such honesty these days. It is tough to get this kind of hard-hitting, honesty from anywhere else like churches or corporate media which have to put on the air of compassion.....No one wants to dare say it for fear of being thought callous and uncaring, however it is what we all desperately need to hear to wake up!

I do have a job now and I am a good, high rated employee, but I realize I am one who if I was gone tomorrow, no one would miss really. I am waking up to this more and more, but your article really drove it home. Now I am not as scared. This gave me more confidence to start thinking that if I was let go tomorrow, it could be for the best.

I just don't know right what I can create and deliver because I have been a corporate job-robot for 22 years, but I am going to start asking myself the questions.

Thanks again.

[TheAndySan]

If someone isn't experiencing abundance, how do they figure out if the problem is in the created value or in the distribution?

And another thing that's bothering me; how is it that there are internet celebrities out there like Charles Trippy getting loads of media attention when someone else who's been pumping out excellent content gets little to none? Is it just a case of the latest fad or are they doing something that actually brings value to people?

[PVince81]

I'd like to contribute value in the form of code for open-source projects, or maybe start my own project. But currently I still feel stuck, and I don't feel very inspired in my free time (I work the regular 40 hours/week, pretty draining).

Also, I remember as I was an teenager I made electronic music using some computer software. At that time, I felt very inspired and also wasn't influenced by the existing music out there. I was also surprised at which point one of my friend seemingly loved my music more than I did.
But after my student days, I haven't been able to create anything satisfying. I guess the reason is that in my teen times, I just created music to create music, but now when I do it, I have a specific goal, maybe too specific, and often get disappointed by the result because it either sounds like existing music (have been influenced too much) or just doesn't please my own ears.

I hope that I will find a way to feel inspired again in my free time, to be able to create something, anything. (yes I know, hoping doesn't help, I should seek it actively)

[Steve Pavlina]

Originally Posted by Fullcrum

Who would pick up our garbage?

If we were all living at this level consistently, we wouldn't create so much garbage to deal with in the first place. How valuable can something be if we feel the urge to chuck it in a landfill? Maybe the mistake was made somewhere upstream, and the excess garbage is just the downstream manifestation.

Human beings lived quite a number of years without the need for garbage trucks.

[Steve Pavlina]

Originally Posted by TheAndySan

And another thing that's bothering me; how is it that there are internet celebrities out there like Charles Trippy getting loads of media attention when someone else who's been pumping out excellent content gets little to none? Is it just a case of the latest fad or are they doing something that actually brings value to people?

Part of the problem is that many people have a major miscalibration when it comes to understanding what creates value for others. So they resent success instead of learning from it.

I'm not suggesting that everyone who's doing well financially is really creating significant value. But much of the time they are. However, you may not quite grasp the true value that's being delivered unless you really take a deep look at it.

So just consider that the answer may be that Charles Trippy is doing well because he does a better job of creating and delivering his value than most. You may not resonate with his value, but apparently some people do.

Just because someone writes about high-minded topics doesn't mean they're creating much value. It's easy enough to create spiritual and philosophical drivel. Meanwhile someone else makes silly Youtube video, and it's really funny somehow, and it creates a lot of value by inspiring and uplifting people. So they surge ahead and get rich doing that sort of thing. Happens all the time.

What is excellent content? If people look at it but a week later they can't even remember they saw it, how excellent was it then?

[Eric Revelin]

Originally Posted by Steve Pavlina

If we were all living at this level consistently, we wouldn't create so much garbage to deal with in the first place. How valuable can something be if we feel the urge to chuck it in a landfill? Maybe the mistake was made somewhere upstream, and the excess garbage is just the downstream manifestation.

Human beings lived quite a number of years without the need for garbage trucks.

As an aside, if everyone acted in accordance with their highest potential wouldn't it be possible that we'd have automated the whole trash-removal thing? Give people a means to destroy or recycle their own garbage and we don't need landfills or trucks anymore. We need to move in that direction anyway because we've got a limited amount of space for our garbage as it is.

[Fullcrum]

Most raw food people comment that they're trash has been greatly reduced. Such comments come from David Wolfe, Doug Graham, and more.

[Wanderer]

Wow

[RT Wolf]

Great post, Steve. I'm at a crossroads on this issue and this improves clarity. Right now, I'm creating a procrastination seminar to help others deal with the sort of stuff I already dealt with. I am coming up against two main issues, though:

1. How should I price it? Some part of me wants to charge $0 for it, because I believe that'll be the best for the participants. However, it will be win/win for me and them to charge whatever rate the market will equalize at, but this rationalization appeals to my logic but not my intuition or emotions. I also feel weird about charging a large profit margin for something (say a DVD that costs me $3 to make but sell for $50). I get the impression that this is a sign I'm in a scarcity mindset. Anyone have any thoughts on this?

2. The issue of original ideas comes up. I want to share ideas I've picked up over the years from various sources, but I have a resistance against basically making money from other people's ideas. I feel it's not being genuine or authentic. Am I mistaken? Steve, you've occasionally written posts founded on ideas from others, though you've cited them to my knowledge, and you've made money from, other people's ideas, though you did a lot of your own thoughts as well. If its mixing other people's ideas with enough of your own that makes them justifiably yours to profit from? The other perspective I've gotten is that "ideas" by themselves are worthless and no one has any real ownership of them, even the originator of the ideas. This seems unfair. Thoughts?

Thanks in advance! I appreciate it.

I do want to highlight one thing: value is not "objectively" good or bad, it's what's valuable to whom. That's what a target market is, the number of people who consider this of value to them. Paris Hilton's exploits provide no value for me, but for other people it does. Wayne Dyer's works also provide no value to me, right now where I am, but it does to other people. You may have to make sure people understand that your works have value to them, where marketing/advertising comes in. I'm still trying to figure out how to market in a way that's congruent with my other ideas, and Steve's a great model.

Models are a great thing. For example, I've decided my model for my blog is Malcolm Gladwell. He writes in an interesting, entertaining and engaging manner about issues that I'm very much interested in (basically how human beings work), and he's well calibrated to success.

Fullcrum, you can read this:

Why “What if Everyone Did That?” Isn’t an Argument | Mind-Manual

There's also the possibility that some people actually, genuinely enjoying cleaning.

[TheAndySan]

Originally Posted by Steve Pavlina

Part of the problem is that many people have a major miscalibration when it comes to understanding what creates value for others. So they resent success instead of learning from it.

I'm not suggesting that everyone who's doing well financially is really creating significant value. But much of the time they are. However, you may not quite grasp the true value that's being delivered unless you really take a deep look at it.

So just consider that the answer may be that Charles Trippy is doing well because he does a better job of creating and delivering his value than most. You may not resonate with his value, but apparently some people do.

Just because someone writes about high-minded topics doesn't mean they're creating much value. It's easy enough to create spiritual and philosophical drivel. Meanwhile someone else makes silly Youtube video, and it's really funny somehow, and it creates a lot of value by inspiring and uplifting people. So they surge ahead and get rich doing that sort of thing. Happens all the time.

What is excellent content? If people look at it but a week later they can't even remember they saw it, how excellent was it then?

I never thought about it that way. I'll read your Calibration article to help me figure out what I'm doing wrong. Thanks, Steve!

[Hyperchiller]

I really enjoyed the aha experience when you wrote that not only do you have to create value, but you also have to deliver it.

Very profound, although very common sense.

[TheAndySan]

Originally Posted by Steve Pavlina

...What is excellent content? If people look at it but a week later they can't even remember they saw it, how excellent was it then?

I especially loved this quote!

I read your article on calibration and I'm beginning to make some changes to the way I write, such as making strong statements. I used to do this, but I didn't want to make my audience angry and risk them leaving me so I became more and more neutral in my context.

[borisg]

I think God heard me and he gave you a ring and asked you to write this for me.. thanks...

I have been overwhelmed in the last year with thoughts of making money, manifesting wealth, and all that jazz. As a regular reader of this forum, I think too many of your readers have been bogged down in the same path as myself.

NOT ONCE....did it occur to me to provide value...damn what an obvious thing...I know you've spoken of value before...but this time it hit home...like a hammer.

The other thing you hit on that I had been thinking is...damn there are alot of Pavlina copy cats out there...all trying to deliver a washed down set of concepts that they read about in somebody's blog.. If i had a nickel for every Manifestation blog and web site out there.....I would have a lot of nickels.. Who would've thought there were so many manifestation experts out there.

[InterfaceLeader]

Great article

I work in the garbage industry, and 99% of what gets chucked away is pointless plastic packaging for processed foods. Organic waste can be composted. Glass and tin can be re-used. There are people out there who produce only one black sack of garbage every YEAR, and those are people who are eating raw and living highly conscious lives.

[Jes]

Your best work, Steve. I was laid off a little less than six months ago, and your advice was essentially summarized by this article: focus on creating value.

So where am I now?

I am happy. Every morning, I wake up and look forward to contributing to my community, to helping people. As a result, I've created so much demand for my service that I've been forced to think more about things like "am I getting enough sleep to maintain these hours" and less about things like "how can I sleep when the economy is collapsing?" I'm not naive to the possibility of a disaster slowing my growth, but so long as there be a society, I will be one of its survivors.

[Victor Vikingr]

This article answered the questions that bothered me last night!

[impaul99]

Originally Posted by Fullcrum

Ah, an identity and purpose issue. Interesting.

Do you truly believe this information applies to everyone? I mean, you write to empower all who are touched by your work to grow consciously. Nevertheless, I cannot see a third world farmer, or some pesticide GMO corn grower in Iowa trapped under a pile of loans and credit being able to take this to heart. If all people were living like this...

Who would pick up our garbage?

I struggled with this topic before quite a bit as well. You're obviously not just talking about picking up garbage. What you're referring to is the fact that there are ways of providing value to people that are exciting, fun, inspiring, etc. and then there are ways of providing value that are crappy. What you're saying is that if everyone just went for all the fun jobs, who would do the crappy jobs right?

There are 2 major points that I learned from this after a lot of thought and real-world examination / testing.

(1) The universe seems to have some kind of infinite organizing principle built into it. Human beings are all made to like complementary things. I've had the privilege of seeing this in groups of higher numbers of people, but I'll give you a much easier example with just two people - my wife and I.

Yesterday I finally took the giant stack of unfiled bills and papers that I've been collecting in a spot in my office for the last year or so and began to separate them into two stacks. One stack is for stuff I need to still go through and take further action on, and the other stack (about 95%) is just stuff that needs to be organized and filed properly.

I absolutely DREAD doing this stuff. I hate accounting crap, I hate filing crap, I hate all stuff related to this boring and repetitive admin crap! As you can see, anytime I even think about it I start swearing and using the word crap a lot, because it's just one of those things in life that I despise.

Now take my wife. She was sitting by the computer, laughing at me because I'm swearing while doing this very simple but repetitive task of going through all the papers. She found it very amusing how I can be the most positive person and have so much patience and stay calm and positive in super highly stressful situations, yet this little pile of papers is driving me nuts. She loves admin, filing and repetitive work. It's fun for her. It's super easy.

See, when people think about all the "fun" jobs and all the "crap" jobs out there, the assumption we make is that all the "fun" jobs are fun for everyone, and that's just not true. Somehow, the universe made all of us in a complementary way just like it made around 50% of us men and 50% of us women so that there would be accountants to do accounting and firemen to stop fires and programmers to program computers etc. and EVERYONE can do FUN stuff if they just align themselves properly.

I know a guy who left a super easy computer job where he could technically spend half his day surfing the web and just hanging out with his friends to work with elderly people taking care of them, and without being rude - literally wiping their butts. A couple of his previous co-workers crack jokes at that once in a while, but he totally enjoys it. He finds a lot of fulfillment form helping another human being...much more than he did working with computers.

It's really weird, but that's just what I've found happens in the world. Any task that needs to be done, there seems to be people out there who are absolutely THRILLED to do it.

I even had a chat one day with a pest control guy who traps rats for a living and this guy was the most passionate guy about rats. He talked to me about rats for like half an hour and about their mating habits and their territorial behavior and he knew all this crap and he was so passionate about it that for a few seconds there I almost wanted to become a pest control guy. I know it sounds weird but just because a job sounds like CRAP to you, it doesn't mean it's CRAP to someone else.

For example, you couldn't pay me enough money to do Scuba diving for a living, but I know a lot of people would love that job. You couldn't pay me enough to be an accountant either.

(2) The second and even more important thing I learned about this topic is this. The universe already is taking care of the job of organizing all of us humans to make sure all the stuff that needs to be done gets done. It's not your job or my job to worry about that stuff.

You just need to focus on figuring out what it is YOU are passionate about, and if that doesn't involve picking up garbage, don't worry about it. Someone else will take care of that. If you're a garbage man now and your passion is video game testing, then go right ahead and become the best video game tester you can be. Don't worry about the garbage... someone will show up to pick it up and love doing it.

These 2 points helped me to understand this. Since this realization, I've encountered a lot of strange people (strange to me), who are passionate and love to do the weirdest things. Things that I would dread doing, but others love it.