CosminPTR.com

We all make mistakes. Some are bigger, some are smaller. Some have a huge effect on our lives (business or personal) some only slightly touch us and we’ll forget about them by tomorrow.

Any way you look at it, mistakes are unavoidable in the real world. The only way you can protect yourself against them is by doing nothing. The business world is not any different.

As much as I believe in doing a thorough research of one’s future business conditions before starting (after learning it on my own), I’m also aware of the fact that too much research could hurt. The more research you do, the more you’ll understand that having and running your own home business is not at all milk and honey; that it does involve work; that it does have risks; that you won’t have the level of comfort offered by a regular check; that you’ll absolutely have to learn to manage your money if you don’t want to make some disastrous financial decisions which could jeopardize the future of your business; and the list could go on and on.

The question that comes to mind is when should one stop the research and actually get started?

Since I’ve done the whole thing in the wrong order (gotten started, done a bunch of mistakes and then realized I should do some research) I’m probably not the best person to give any advice on the matter.

However, I’ll venture into saying that using your common sense should prove quite useful. Here’s what I’m talking about (the example might seem a bit far fetched, but if you really think about it, you’ll see it does make sense): every time I think of the dangers of driving, how, no matter how good of a driver you are, no matter how careful you are and how good your reflexes are, you never know when your safety will be endagered by another driver who runs a red light, one who doesn’t stop at a stop sign or one who doesn’t check the mirrors before switching lanes, I feel so frightened that I’m just a step away from never getting into a car again. It would be quite bad for me since my present job involves a lot of driving. Soon after such distructive thoughts I try to calm down and make myself understand they are risks involved by my job which I have to take if I want to keep it. They are also risks involved by our present life style which if I didn’t take would drastically reduce my mobility and capacity of moving around.

If I were to make a parallel between my example and a home business, no matter how scared you get about making certain mistakes, about the possibility of not succeeding, you need to calm down. You need to understand that any kind of entrepreneurial endeavours involves risks and mistakes. If you want to get somewhere, you’ll need to accept them. You’ll need to face your fears and just do it.

Getting back to the question I mentioned before, I think that the best moment to stop the research and actually get started would be the moment when the research becomes a distructive process. When you start getting scared of what’s ahead of you. When you start doubting you could actually do this.

When all of this happens it’s time you forget about research for a while and get your hands dirty. Take the first step. Start applying what you’ve learned so far. You’ll soon realize that things are not as bad as they may have seemed.

Keep in mind, though, that no matter how much you’ve learned so far it’s impossible to not make mistakes. What I do that makes me feel comfortable with mistakes is that I look at them as lessons for the future. And, to be honest with you, many times they are my best teachers.

Starting point for this post is “Green Day Give The Best Advice on Blogging” from AlleNation.

Jose from Tried It Myself! tagged me to give five reasons why I blog. I’m honored that someone is interested in why I blog. To be honest, it’s kind of hard to think about it. But I’ll give it a shot.

So here we go: Read the rest of this entry »

For the past about three and a half years I have been involved with a few work at home opportunities. None of them worked out for me. I was so mad at wasting my time (and in some instances my money) that, soon after each one “failed” I was calling them scams. I am not the only one who sees/saw things that way. Work at home forums are full of folks who bad mouth the WAH community (the one that deals with business opportunities). There’s even entire web sites dedicated to speaking against such opportunities (some of them only to offer their own opportunity - but this is a different beast I’ll talk about some other time). There’s AdWords ads which try to get your attention by warning you about scams. Read the rest of this entry »

Due to personal engagements, I won’t be able to post until Monday (hopefully, the latest).

Thanx for your understanding,
cosmin

A few days back I came across a couple of articles belonging to two different work at home dads: Why I hate working from home and Why One Partner Needs to Go Out and Work. They both talk about obstacles that come into the life of a work at home entrepreneur.

I somehow have the feeling that both of the guys might have had second thoughts about the option of working from home, had they known what’s ahead of them. In other words had they made a deep analysis of their personalities and whether this is the right environment for them or not. Read the rest of this entry »

After featuring The yesfollow Project as my link of the past week, I finally had time to activate the plugin myself. As a result, from now on, all of those who decide to comment on this blog will get credit for it. Read the rest of this entry »

Important: Apparently I was wrong in using Mack as my starting point for this post - please read his comment. However, I still stand by my point that originality in your business endeavours is the one that can bring you the best results.

Yesterday I decided to join The Z-List. As Maki and Becky pointed out in their comments (thanks guys) there’s more to the list than simply gaining links.

While I was getting ready to publish the post, I was thinking what a great idea Mack Collier had. Read the rest of this entry »

O.K. It’s been going around for a while now. It was started by Mack Collier. The whole purpose of it is to build incoming links to fellow bloggers. I must confess I wasn’t thrilled by the idea. I am usually against processes that build automatic links without actually believing in what you link to. Such automation is very quickly picked up as spam. It seems there’s already voices against the list. However, since I was added to the list by Chris I decided to join the list. First of all I feel obligated to return the favor. Second of all I’ve already seen some new incoming links thanks to Chris.

The third reason is that I realised that, although there’s a slight risk (in terms of spam) there’s a unique aspect that makes me feel comfortable about it: I took the list from Chris and am going to include in it his additions. There’s other lists from other bloggers going around. Other bloggers are picking up other lists. It’s like a tree with branches that keep growing in different directions each new branch having it’s own identity. While there’s the base of the list (those who got in among the first) each new list has new and different links.

Giving all these reasons I decide to (as TheProbabilist puts it) “spread the link love”. Read the rest of this entry »

I should probably follow my own advice more often.

Here’s the deal: I’m a very impatient person. It’s been a problem of mine my entire life. It affects both my personal and professional life. I have a hard time at keeping it going if I don’t see immediate results. I’ve come a long way, but I still have a tendency of giving up on things if I don’t see immediate resluts. It’s even harder to fight this when there’s been a few times when my expectations have been met. Unconsciously it makes my brain think something like “See! It can happen! You don’t have to waste your time on things that don’t work right away!” I’m convinced it’s not the right approach. And I’m doing my best to overcome it. Read the rest of this entry »

Have you ever found yourself in a situation when you get home and start checking on your site and before you know it, it’s late at night and time to go to bed (you still have a full time job or you still go to school)? It’s even worse when you realize your time wasn’t even productive. All you have done was browsing and checking out “interesting stuff”. Yes, it’s quite easy to loose focus and spend unproductive time on the internet. But you know that already. What’re you doing here? Read the rest of this entry »