How Understanding are Your Family/Friends of Your IM Ventures?

My family and friends are very supportive and understanding...

Now.

When I first started IM, of course everybody told me to go to school and get a "real job". But I was determined to make Internet marketing work. And you know what? It did!

Unless you have impressive results, people looking from the outside in will hardly support or understand you. If they do, you should keep these people close because it's hard to find a real support group that's not involved in your activities.

Just keep pushing and one day you will see all of that change because you never gave up. So not only are my friends and family supportive now. They want to work for me.

Lol, Ty, I would not say that your friends and family wanting to work for you is "supportive" but I get it, and have had people say similar things to me.

It's always the same when you talk to anyone about making money in any way other than working 9 to 5.

At first they are negative or unsupportive.

If you fail and give up - its I told you so.
If you succeed they are happy or jealous.

Maybe 1 in 5 will be genuinely interested in what you are trying to do.

The only people who understand are other entrepreneurs. Go be friends with them, they are more interesting anyway.

They are all negative and it sucks.

Supportive but pessimistic! They all feel I need to get a "real job" whatever that means.. I am the only one within my circle of influence who does internet marketing. And because everyone feels that its complicated they rather stick to what they know, good ol' 9-5 even though they hate it! HAHA

I work 20 hours day....and they call me lazy since its not a "real job".

Sometimes....you just can't win.

When I share my huge earnings with them, they are very supportive

When i don't they don't care too much lol.

My family doesn't understand what I am doing, and some of them not making any effort to understand. Those not making the effort to understand criticize the method because it takes awile to get things going and creating the business is not done using what they consider traditional methods. Thankfully most of my friends and family are very supportive !

No, not really, but that's because they don't know anyone who's been successful in IM. Also, because I lost a lot when I started doing MLM (I lost about $5k) they have become a bunch of skeptics. All that is changing this year though -heh

....they couldn't believe it.

they couldn't believe I left college and a potentially solid
management career with benefits and good pay at.

they couldn't believe I was willing to go through pressure
and public scrutiny for dropping out of college in my first
year.

4 years after that decision to pursue a life as an entrepreneur
since I knew how to make money...

old co-workers call me "lucky", past high school graduates
of my year wish they had had the guts to what I had done
(many told me this), and my family is actually VERY proud
of my decision 4 years ago to this day.

It's weird thinking back 4 years ago when I decided to go
my own path, I'm EXACTLY where I knew I would end up
TODAY -- I also knew the path I was on (college degree)
would be a waste because I would have quit anyway...if
not at that time, than 3-4 years too late.

I would be 22 years old dropping out WISHING I had done
now what I DID do at the time. I'm more mature now than
I was then, and I would probably handle the transisition
better NOW than I did.

But...

I conciously took the shortcut and decided to go through
the pain, failures, mistakes, and challenges. And it's a choice
in my life where -- if I died today -- I would take it with me
to my grave.

It was a great decision, because now I'm living the life of my
dreams I had when I MADE the decision in the first place.

Sometimes I think where I would be had I completed a 4 year
degree WASTING 4 years of my life...and I know I would be
doing the same thing I'm doing now, accept I would have to
go through everything I went through in the last 4 years until
I was 26 before I get to where I am now.

anyways, I'm going off on a tangent...it's just very, very odd
to think about...but DAMN do I feel good about making that
choice because we only get so many choices to make in life
that defines who we are and the life we want to live.

I have been doing IM for a while but they still don't think I'm doing anything because I don't have a 'real job'. I feel that they think I'm slack and lazy because I wont get a real job. They expect me to drop everything and run if they want me to go shopping or something, but if I was working at a 'real job' they wouldn't expect that.

It sucks sometimes but I try not to let it bother me - after all I'm the one that is better off than them because I don't have a real job!