There will only be a handful of people reading this who haven’t heard of The 4-Hour Workweek. For many of us it is the dream — while the title of the book is not to be taken literally, the concept of running a successful online business in just a few hours per week is exciting.
I know it is for me. Upon re-reading The 4-Hour Workweek while on vacation in Turkey back in July, I came home with big ideas to revolutionize my online business. I publicly stated that I expected to be making “far more money” within the next three to six months. It has been nearly three months since I made that statement.
What I didn’t fully appreciate at the time was that I was getting caught up in the idea of working less rather than earning more. I was adopting a mindset of laziness rather than dynamism. My inaction over the past three months has taken its toll and this income report is evidence of that.
We all need a wake up call every now and then. I got mine this month.
What Happened in September?
September was a month in which I achieved my goal of doing very little work.
I have got to a point now where I could feasibly work perhaps 5-10 hours per week and make a living. I write a post a week for Leaving Work Behind and also need to handle editing and administration for my writing business. Any work beyond that could be classed as “business development” rather than “business maintenance”.
So there I was, living the dream. But little did I know that working few hours is not exactly a dream. When you’re in the moment it’s great. I had freedom and flexibility to work as I pleased. In the short term it was awesome, but it hasn’t taken me long to understand that living in such a way is ultimately unfulfilling.
As human beings we have a predisposition to work. While there certainly are many people out there who will quite happily go through life achieving nothing, most of us want to feel like we are doing something. Not just existing, but growing through our actions.
I haven’t been growing in September. I have merely been existing. I have languished in a state of inaction, all the while thinking that doing so was what I wanted. But it isn’t. I know that now.
I got some things done in September, but to draw attention to them would be to hide the fact that I did not do nearly as much as I should have done. It would detract from the most valuable lesson that I have learned in some time: there is no such thing as a free ride.
While getting yourself into a position where you can work flexibly is a noble goal, doing so with the intention of doing as little work as possible is not. Ultimately I want to build a legacy — a tangible thing that I can point towards as a result of all my hard work. That requires hard work. I have not been working hard, and boy has it shown.
Monthly Income Report — September 2013
- Freelance writing:
- Income: $5,307.53
- Expenditure: $1,845.48
- Profit: $3,462.06
- Websites:
- Income: $56.58
- Expenditure: $55.04
- Profit: -$1.54
- Affiliate Marketing (Leaving Work Behind):
- Income: $1,067
- Start a Blog That Matters: $198.84
- Amazon: $13.25
- TweetAdder: $165.60
- Westhost: $625
- Freshbooks: $14.86
- AWeber: $6
- Clicky: $13.33
- Point Blank SEO: $30.12
- Expenditure: $1,156.41
- Profit: -$89.41
- Income: $1,067
- Information Products:
- Income: $1,299
- Expenditure: $172.67
- Profit: $1,126.33
- eBooks:
- Income: $28.61
- Expenditure: $0
- Profit: $28.61
Total profit for September 2013: $4,529.12
There you have it folks — my worst month since December 2012. And I deserve it. My propensity for inaction over the past several weeks has led to this.
A True Disaster?
In reality, the situation is far better than the numbers look, but am loathe to detract from the lesson to be learned here. However, it only seems sensible to point out mitigating elements of my earnings this month.
First of all we have my biggest affiliate earner: Westhost. I started to get rather concerned by 20th September because I had made zero sales. Given that I have typically averaged approximately 8-10 sales per month, it seemed like something was up.
There was. Due to some issue with link cloaking, I was registering no sales. I removed the link cloaking on 20th September and racked up six sales in just ten days. I should have earned much more from Westhost this month.
Secondly we have some exceptional expenditure — a not inconsiderable $1,000. This was the cost of a 99designs competition for the new Leaving Work Behind design. The competition went very well, I am absolutely delighted with the outcome and I can’t wait to unveil the new Leaving Work Behind. However, it hasn’t come without its cost, hence the four-figure bill.
If I hadn’t had the issue with my Westhost sales and hadn’t put down $1,000 on a new design for LWB, my net income for the month probably would have been something like $6,500. While that wouldn’t have broken the bank when compared to other recent months, it would have been a far healthier picture.
But like I said, I don’t want that to detract from the main lesson to be learned here: when it comes to Leaving Work Behind, your main goal shouldn’t be to work as little as possible. While working fewer hours can certainly be one of your goals (that should be considered alongside other goals which may conflict with it), to make it a driving force in your plans is to sabotage your chances of creating a legacy.
With the advent of a new month I feel like I have a fresh perspective on what I want. It’s not working an hour a day. It’s creating something of true worth and helping as many people as I can.
Motivation
It is fitting that I wrote a huge post on motivation last week. Although I have been motivated over the past few months, I have been motivated to do the wrong thing. I have been motivated to work as little as possible, when in reality that is not what I truly want.
I made the point in the aforementioned post that leaving work behind is ultimately about pursuing happiness. It is clear to me now that barely doing any work does not necessarily make me happy. Sure — not working 60 hour weeks and having flexibility in my working hours are both big motivators for me, but working an hour a day is not.
Upon reflection my strongest current motivators are as follows (in no particular order):
- Financial security
- Flexibility of working hours
- Doing work that I love
- Earning enough to visit my sister and her kids in Texas more often
- Moving to a nicer location and a nicer house
- Helping people
I know that my quality of life will be improved drastically by achieving the above goals. I know that the hard work will be worth it — especially if it is work that I love. These motivators have re-framed my actions over the coming months and I hope that they will galvanize me into a great deal of action.
2013 will be gone before long. While I would consider the year to date a success, I know that I could have achieved so much more. The only value in regret is what it can teach you about your future actions, which is why I will use my regret over past inaction to fuel future action.
What’s in Store for October?
I’ve got a lot of projects on the horizon — projects that have been ongoing for many months. All of them have the potential to build the LWB brand and make money, yet I have not executed on any of them. That will change in October.
I’ve already mentioned the LWB redesign and in last month’s income report I mentioned the ambitious re-launch of my guide to freelance blogging. While I don’t know what will go down in October yet, I do know that I will be working my ass off to bring both those projects to fruition as soon as possible.
I’ve got three months to make 2013 a huge year and give me huge momentum going into 2014. I don’t intend to disappoint.
Photo Credit: JDR
Hey Tom,
Don’t be so hard on yourself! We all have months where we don’t earn as much — and I’d go so far as to say you need them to succeed in the long run. When you run your own business, your income is often proportional to how hard you work (as you say here!), and sometimes you simply need a break. Plus, expenses are a necessary part of growing.
I know it’s scary/difficult to see the bottom line change — I’m going through that, too, for different reasons — but just keep pushing and doing what you’re doing! You will rock October.
Cheers,
Lexi
Hey Lexi,
Thanks for your support as always! Don’t worry — I’m not been too hard on myself — just hard enough to galvanize myself into action. I’m pretty confident that the rest of this year will be pretty good for me, but only if I apply myself properly!
Cheers,
Tom
I think you discovered something important here- namely – what you REALLY do desire and what makes “your clock tick”.
Inspiring way to gain new momentum in your business!! Thank you for sharing this- we all need to get reminded of what we live for- not only what we make a living from .
Hanne
My pleasure Hanne!
Tom,
The fact that you’ve been as successful as you have and are still able to take a step back, reevaluate your authentic self, and keep truckin’ says a lot about you and your potential.
Keep up the great work man and I’m sure Lexi will prove to be right–this was just a much needed break and will serve to benefit you in the coming months!
Take care,
Anton
Thanks Anton, really appreciate the kind words and the positive vibes!
I don’t think you should be in any shape or form disappointed Tom! The only concern I would take was the link cloaking issue which you have rectified. That sounded like a costly error but that is why we all have to perform maintenance every so often (I’ve been busy with PHP and CSS over the past month).
Sometimes we do get quieter months for one reason or another. August wasn’t such a great one for me. It’s all swings and roundabouts as they say.
I hope you have a golden October!
Hi Jackson,
Disappointment can be healthy 🙂
Thanks for the well wishes — I am feeling very good about this month!
Cheers,
Tom
Hi Tom,
Sorry to hear you have a tough month mate but you should be happy with your achievements so far. I think you’ll be able to turn around all of the above easily in the next month.As long as you’re still enjoying doing what you do then that’s the main thing.
One question I had for you was in regards to your new site design. How do you plan to convert your template into a wordpress theme for your site? Is there a particular site you’re using to do this such as elance or maybe you’re doing it yourself? I know 99designs offers the services through 3rd parties so maybe you used that?
Would you be able to let me know what your thoughts are around that? I would appreciate hearing any recommendations you had for that
Many thanks
Byron
Hi Byron,
Feel free to shoot me an email in say 2-3 weeks time and I’ll be able to give you a proper answer — I’m still working on it at the moment.
Cheers,
Tom
Hi Tom,
I found your blog quite recently and I’ve got to commend you for being so honest in your income reports. There are so many who hide what they really spend each month and make their income reports look amazing but you really add some truth to it.
We all have bad months but the fact that you’re willing to share them is great. While you’re learning from it, we are too. So thank you for that!
Good luck for October!
Hey Alexandria,
To be honest I couldn’t do it any other way. I’m glad you appreciate it 🙂
Cheers,
Tom
I enjoy reading your blog posts; it’s good to see the progress (and occasional stumbles) of a real person earning his living in a way that didn’t even exist 10 or 15 years ago.
The main question I have is regarding traffic vs. your income. When you earned less last month, did you see a drop in traffic, or was it only because of the anomalies you described in your post? Assuming we have a site which is monetized similar to yours, how much traffic should we shoot for to reach your level of earnings?
How do you get your traffic… search engines? Referrals from other sites? Do you use any “paid traffic” sources at all?
Thanks for all the useful information. Keep up the good work, and I hope your plans for October and beyond pay off!
Hi Kelli,
Traffic was down a little but not enough to make such a major difference. The anomalies (plus a reduction in my freelance earnings due to outsourcing costs) were the real culprits.
It would be irresponsible of me to answer your second question as the money you can make from a site can vary wildly depending upon a huge number of variables.
My traffic comes from direct referrals, search engines and social media (in that order). No paid traffic sources.
Cheers,
Tom
I agree with the others, don’t be too hard on yourself and get yourself down. You are still doing great!
Hey Michelle,
I’m certainly not getting myself down — I’m really excited about the rest of this year! I just needed the wake up call 🙂
Cheers,
Tom
I feel ya, Tom. My September wasn’t very either. Your post has inspired me to take some time this morning to evaluate last month and try to take some lessons from it. I was busy work-wise most of the month but I think that the lesson that I needed to learn has to do with tightening up business procedures and being more efficient. Being more selective about clients, being more selective about the specific services that I do or do not offer and sticking to those, writing much better contracts that have a focus on very clear, bullet points of the scope of what the contract covers. Also, I don’t think I need to charge more but I do think I will start being more realistic about my estimating for flat fees on projects. I’ve been really bad about low-balling and it is killing me.
Sounds like an evaluation of the items you have mentioned would be an extremely valuable exercise Steve!
well you know someone put it well that the old saying ‘do what you love and the money will follow’ is an insidious lie. It goes more like ‘do what you love so you don’t care whether you get paid for it or not (because that’s a good way to tell whether you really do love it as much as you claim). If you’re lucky you may eventually get paid for it as well. In the mean time you will still need money.
Doesn’t trip of the tongue as well but maybe more accurate. The thing here is that, for some people the thing they really love doing may involve getting people off drugs, working to regenerate a polluted woodland- or any number of other worthwhile activities which are never going to earn them much, if any money. I know..I know Thatcher has taught us all well that we have to market our passions and make them economically viable – to the point that many people now believe if something doesn’t earn you a living then its just a ‘hobby’. But that doesn’t necessarily follow.
Some people may have to reconcile the fact that their income and what they love doing are never going to fully align. I know – again this is almost heresy amongst some self help crowds but some people may find it true nonetheless.
In these cases earning a living through working 1 hour a day could be very important as it allows them more time to devote to building their legacy – a legacy which will not be largely financial.
The criticism is that people won’t succeed like this – if they are not passionate about their residual income it won’t happen. It may be true that many won’t, but of course, the same cold also be said of those building their empires or legacies. The reality is that most start ups next year will fold.
Not saying this to be negative – just something I wanted to react to about this ‘building a legacy’. I saw the 4 Hour work week as being more about providing some way for people in the situation I described above to move forward. Somewhere along the line quite a few people seem to have interpreted Tim Ferris as being about working as few hours as possible so you can sun yourself on the beach and drink cocktails. Not how I saw the potential of it.
It doesn’t sound like you have anything to regret – you got to the point where you were able to work just a few hours per week and still earn a reasonable living. You got to where many people are striving. I recently got to the point where I can live comfortably off an average of 2 days per week work. The 14 hour work week. Of course, like many of us, you found that the work ethic had been driven too hard into you and you couldn’t relax once you got there :-). Only kidding – it seems a very necessary and worthwhile month to go through ‘lazing around’ at least once.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts Simon 🙂
I agree with what you’re saying. I’ve said in the past that working a small number of hours on something you’re not passionate about can lead to overall happiness. What it can also do however is then give you the free time to build a business that you are truly passionate about. That is what I am doing — first with freelance writing (the means to an end), then with LWB and Healthy Enough (my passions).
Cheers,
Tom
Its interesting to hear from someone who made it through to the other side and reached the 4 Hour Week.
Its also a shame to hear it isn’t all its cracked up to be!
Despite your words, I am still aiming to get there one day. Work just isn’t on my list of most enjoyable/motivating activities as it is for you.
Having time to spend with my kids and on my hobbies are my main goals in life, so the less I work the more time I have for that. Or maybe I haven’t found the right work and something that I enjoy doing?
But money comes first, so until my hourly rate is enough for me to work less, I must work more.
Good luck for October.
Joe,
It’s all relative. Your mindset adjusts to your environment. A multi millionaire isn’t necessarily happier than a homeless man — money is not the key to happiness.
Finding the right work (i.e. that you are passionate about) is definitely part of the puzzle, although working fewer hours at something you’re not necessarily passionate about is a good compromise.
Cheers,
Tom
Now these are some pretty nice earnings. Good luck in October, let’s see you crush these numbers 😉
I’ll do my best! 🙂
Tricky Question buddy! How much traffic do you get each month? Do you mind posting it?
I got 22,500 total visitors last month and 26,000 in July. My record month was July (28,500). The dip this month was partly due to some extended downtime when I switched hosting providers.
You learn much more from failure than success, I wouldn’t describe your income this month as failure but look what you’ve learned!
Inspiring as always
Rob
Hey Rob,
I wouldn’t call it a failure either — I didn’t use that word in the post 😉
Cheers,
Tom
You’re right – there IS nothing such as a free ride.
And that’s a good thing.
Because life would get boring if we were sitting down twiddling our thumbs, waiting for something to do.
It’s very interesting to note that you’ve made a number of big changes to your entire online model – from starting up new websites to starting (and ending) your own content writing firm.
How have these other endeavors impacted your business?
What do you mean exactly Daryl? Most of it’s journaled in my income reports — for instance, you can see the impact of switching from a freelancing to outsourced writing business model.
What I mean is, have you found that your efforts to start new websites have taken away your time and concentration on your “main” money making methods?
FODA was definitely a time suck and I’m glad to be rid of it. However, Healthy Enough is something I am truly passionate about and love spending time on. It certainly takes time, but it’s time well spent (and ultimately will be time profitably spent).
Tom,
I love your transparency on here about everything, it’s definitely refreshing to have someone tell us why what they did was wrong and what they learned from it.
I am seeing glimpses of Corbett’s course here ( I am taking it now and developing a new blog.) I love that you want to create a legacy and know that its hard work to get there, and that its not necessarily the $ that is directly driving you there…
Legacies are never-ending and keep you stretching your limits and capabilities to really contribute things ‘that matter.’ It’s almost a type of accountability I think because when you state that you want to create a legacy you are establishing that there are no bounds to what you can accomplish and that is a great message.
Well said Jolene! I very much subscribe to the idea that there is no end goal — just milestones along the way.
Hey Tom,
While it’s easy to see why you fell short compared to other months (higher expenditure & 1 hour work days haha) it’s still a great outcome.
I mean to show to yourself how far you’ve truly come by being able to take home that monthly income while working 1 hour days? That can never be discounted.
But, it’s completely understandable that you accept you didn’t work as hard as you know you can because it’s clear that income is no longer the driver for you to undertake your daily actions.
Best of luck in the final 1/4 of 2013 mate,
I’m sure you’ll kill it!
Cheers
Thank you Jackson!
This is definitely very encouraging especially now that I was feeling bogged down by my freelance business. This just refueled me and as you take steps to make 2013 a successful year, I will right there beside you. Again, thanks for the boost in motivation. I wish you all the best Tom.
Best Regards,
Freddy
My pleasure Freddy!
It might be your worst month since December 2012, but it’s still a really nice sum you’ve got there. And you had to try the “work less” thing. I am sure that pretty soon it might even get to “work less and earn more:” there has to be a way for that. Probably it’s just more work first 🙂
And I think that it’s very good to have so many motivators: that’s what keeps us going. That’s what keeps me going and has me work hard and smart to make it happen. Nobody wants money just to have money, we want them to accomplish things. Knowing that without that we can’t make it happen, it’s up for us to do it. And you have certainly proven that it’s possible, and you have certainly been a motivator for many of us 🙂 Keep up the great work and make it happen!
I’ll do my best Lucian!
It pretty less as compared to your last month income. No need to lose hope, keep struggling and you will achieve the best.
Thanks Siraj.
If you only had ups, they would start to lose their impact. This way, the next time you hit a big number, it will feel that much better. Still, as far as stepping stones go, I would happily take 4000$ this month!
Best of luck Tom.
Ha Ha… I agree… Tom’s “not-as-good” month is something that us ‘newbies’ can aspire to… but if we didn’t have goals or things to aspire to then we would never improve and reach new heights!
Thanks Ragnar!
The fact that you are so open with this makes me, and I am certain many others, coming back to your site and reading your stuff.
So you experimented with the 4HWW concept and learned something. Essentially this is what I see this site being about (amongst other things) – showing us what entrepreneurship is REALLY about.
Tom – cannot wait to see what October has in store for you.
– Razwana
Me either Razwana! Thanks 🙂
The only way you can grow is by learning. And if we didn’t make any mistakes or have any upsets we would never learn.
Keep at it Tom. Bit of a rougher month but nothing to scoff at.
Thanks Iain 🙂
Nice article, Tom! 😉
Thanks Yiannistaos 🙂
I have just started to follow your blog. I looked back at the income you made previously and I see that this month it was lower. Even still, i am impressed. I am starting out and I hope to be able to obtain at least 500 dollars in a month.
I am glad you were able to get your affiliate link fixed so that your income improves. Thanks for the post. I found it inspirational and I will continue to read your blog while working on my goals of creating a better life for myself.
My pleasure 🙂
If I made half of that from just writing, I would be content 🙂
It’s all relative I guess 😉
Great article and I can relate. I made a similar mistake by focusing on taking a break and it hurt my business. I really like you’re writing and I think you’re the author of one of the best posts I’ve ever read on how to write good web posts. That article talked about title case, headlines sizes, and how to make blog posts more readable. Was that you?
If it was involved title case then it was probably me — I have a bit of an obsession 😉
Can’t wait to see LWB 2.0!
Keep it up and don’t forget to take a break and have fun once in a while to keep the stress out. 🙂
Oh don’t worry, I take plenty of breaks Michelle 😉
I`m with Rob (October 1 comment), that October was definitely not a bad month. You either `lose`or you `learn`. If you do nothing with what you figured out in October, you have lost. If you do something with it, you have learned. In October you learned something incredibly valuable that helps you define your success. Because of October you are now closer to success, not further.
Quite right Kevin! Thanks 🙂