I Took a $23,000 Hit in 2009 and I'm HAPPY About It!

Hi Warriors!

My CPA called me last week - I had asked her to give me the (always) bad news about what I'm gonna owe the tax man. She informed me that thanks to my bad math skills I had already overpaid AND I had taken a $23,000 hit in income in 2009.

Now normally you'd expect someone to be depressed about that - but not ME! Here's why...

I didn't feel it. In 2008, I was working my fingers to the BONE - juggling my own Internet Marketing efforts with that of my ghostwriting branch of business. I was too dependent on that branch. As I've told others, I could run a WSO here and take in $15,000 in one day for ghostwriting - tell me that's not tempting! (The WSO area is a goldmine).

But tempting and rewarding are two different things. Ghostwriting is a one time income gig. I get paid, do the work, that's it. With my own info products, it's residual. With my PLR, it's residual. Work once, get paid for a lifetime.

So in June or July (I forget which now), I took a whole month off to see what my residual income was - without ghostwriting and without doing a lick of labor to generate new income. I discovered it was $200 a day and I recorded it on video for my list, etc. I literally didn't do one second of work but make that daily check in video for under 10 minutes.

During that 30 days off, I decided I wanted to focus the rest of 2009 on more residual income and let go of ghostwriting forever. And I did. Let me tell you - it's SLOW building residual income. Because unless you're churning out trash, it takes a bit of time to produce quality products you won't have to revise or refund continually.

Plus, I was burnt out to tell the truth. I was burned out on ghostwriting because I worked that branch HARD.

From August to December I still made plenty to pay the bills, have a nice Christmas, etc. It WAS awkward - I had to learn how to manage my money better. I didn't have a chunk of $15k in one swoop to splurge with.

But I wasn't up working till 2 AM. I wasn't working 7 days a week. I got to play with my kids more. I learned more about long-term financial health.

Bottom line - I'd pay $23,000 again today to make me this happy. And guess what else I did? I went through my hard drive and took all my projects that I'd started and not finished and deleted them.

I took all the outsourced content I'd paid for and deleted it. I didn't want to look backward at all. Only forward with a carefully mapped out plan of action for 2010 that I'm working on now.

To all of you who are unhappy right now with what you're doing, you may have to take a step backward like I did to finally find your groove with something in IM that will make you happy. I even told my husband I could take up ghostwriting again (when we were considering a big purchase and didn't want to wait to save the money) and he said, "No!" He knew how much more work it was for me and how it drained our family.

During this week, think about what you want your business to FEEL like. It shouldn't be a chore or something you dread. That's what J-O-B-S are for, right? This is your canvas - paint it any way you like!

Tiff