16 Yr. Old Whiz Kid (do me a favor)

Hi Dakota,

You're very lucky to find "Andy Hussong" to introduce you to this forum. The right age, right time, right person. You should thanks him for getting you into this right forum.

Sorry to hear about your life story. Don't give up. You'll feel better after you read my following statement. 63 persons of my family were murdered in a war in Asia, 1975. Every time I think about it, I cry. Life goes on. I decided to live in "reality" rather than "past". Hardship will make you grow. You're going to screw up. Don't give up.

See bad thing as a cup with "half-full" rather see it as "half- empty". This is how I live my life. It makes thing a whole lot different.

My two cents.

Hi Dakota,

Welcome to the forum.

Now that I'm getting old (just turned 40) and I've been traveling most of my life (was in the Navy for 14 years and then traveling for work and pleasure since) and been doing IM for the last 10 years - I actually feel qualified to offer you some advice.

I'm also a musician and played in a gigging band for a few years too.

Here's my advice.

1 - Where to start.

This is a really good question and the answer will be different for everyone, but the best general advice is - start with something you're passionate about.

To me, this sounds like music for you.

The reason I say this is that one of the biggest problems most people have is staying motivated and consistently taking action. If you're doing something you love - this is much less of a problem.

There are many ways to get started even in the music niche.

The biggest piece of advice I can give you is - find where there are passionate musicians who you can help in some way.

The way you create success in life (and make money) is by helping people - people will pay for help in many forms, especially if you can save them time or money.

In your position you probably have more time than many people who are working full-time jobs, so you can probably save people time by bringing together useful information that they'd love but don't have the time to find for themselves.

I don't know what your particular musical inclination is - but if you know any musicians in your area (if you don't - it'll be a good way for you to find some anyway) - get out and interview them, make videos of them sharing information about your particular interest (maybe warm up exercises, practice routines, mindset advice etc..)

You could start off with a blog and have some relevant product advertisements, but ultimately end up with a really cool membership site where people pay you each month to access all the new videos etc that you put together. This can be very simple and even if you just did one video a month - people will pay for that, but you can scale it up as much as your time allows. Also, when your site is busy you can charge local bands to advertise on your site and even do gig recommendations/reviews etc. so that you get into gigs for free as a 'reporter' for your site.

That's just an idea for you to play with.

2 - Learning about IM

This is a bit more tricky - there's a LOT of aspects to IM and many of them are not necessarily going to be required by you. I wouldn't recommend that you just wander around the forum looking for interesting stuff, so my advice is to speak with Andy some more and get him to recommend which things you're likely to 'need' to get your business moving and focus on those - then as you discover you need something more - learn about that. This way you're learning about things as you need them and won't get information overload with stuff you don't need.

My guess would be he'll tell you things like - how to get a site/blog set up, use ftp - how to add a membership facility - how to use an email autoresponder, so that you can get something up and start accepting money.

3 - overcoming personal problems.

This is obviously very personal, but I can say from experience that with every problem comes an opportunity to grow stronger. Life will always throw things at you which you can easily let knock you down - the best thing anyone can learn in life is how to keep getting back up.

Most people don't get really hard lessons and end up living a life that's unfulfilling because they've never been pushed out of their comfort zone.

Most people get to fall in love for the first time and also have that end at some point (there are a lucky few who marry their first love and stay together), so most people do understand what feeling truly bad is like, even if they haven't had what we might call 'really bad' problems of a worse nature. So don't think that if someone hasn't had your problems that they don't understand your hurt - most people do understand what it's like to hurt. If you have supportive people around you - be sure to let them help you, it makes them feel better too.

Ultimately time heals all wounds as long as you let it. Many people keep their wounds open and carry them around for many years (even a lifetime), but it's not a helpful way to deal with problems.

The best thing you can do is realise that you have to deal with life 'as it is', not as you would like it, or how you think it is - but how it really is. The truth is - you're already still standing and looking around with your head up for opportunities. That's the best thing anyone can do and it's more than many people do.

If you can create a business that you're passionate about, that helps people in a way that makes you money - go for it. That's what life is all about.

Don't let anyone tell you different.

Many people will think they're trying to help you by telling you to 'go to school' and 'get a job' because that's what they were told - the world is a different place now and you can create your own future with the people you want and in the way you want - with the ability to earn - whatever you want.

So - in summary my advice is to look inside yourself and if music is in your soul - use that to drive your IM.

Who knows - when you're 18, you might be speaking at seminars telling people about how you made your first million dollars as a teenager.

Andy