The Internet Marketing Lifestyle

The Internet Marketing Lifestyle

One of the most often used phrases connected to Internet marketing is ‘the Internet marketing lifestyle’. It is something that many of my non-IM friends often ask me about. ‘Is it real?’, ‘Is it all hype?’, ‘Does it really exist?’

I thought that today I’d try to briefly dispel some of the myths that surround this mysterious state of being.

The ‘Internet lifestyle’ has come to mean making loads of money by doing very little. Countless hype-filled sales letters allude to it as a kind of transcended state that only the top Internet marketers can ever hope to reach. Of course, if you buy their book/course/mentoring program, you’ll learn the secret of making money while you bask on the beach too.

That’s the image that the Internet lifestyle conjures up in most people: a tanned, relaxed beach bum who taps on his laptop while rocking in a beach hammock, sipping a pina colada.

That is the Internet lifestyle that we all refer to.

Except, er, it isn’t.

Yes, as an Internet marketer you can make money while you relax on a beach, or do your gardening. You can (and often do) make money while you are asleep. I made more money after I went to bed last night that I ever earned in a day when I had a ‘real’ job. And that wasn’t just a display of gratitude from my wife!

Internet marketers can – and do – make money while they are on vacation. Or while they take a bath.

I went to the gym for a sauna this morning and was nearly $100 better off when I got home.

But all that really has nothing to do with the Internet lifestyle.

When you make your money is a red herring. Making money while you sleep is a function of geography, nothing more.

What the gurus who want to sell you on the dream don’t tell you about is the hours of work they put in before heading off to the beach. The late nights and early mornings. The hours they spent making their eyes bleed by staring too long at their monitor, or the endless emails and telephone calls they had to put in to get JV partners on board.

No – they don’t tell you that Internet marketing is hard work because it is a lot more alluring to sell you on the Internet lifestyle dream.

Am I just being a killjoy then? Am I bursting the bubble and squashing the dream flat?

I hope not – and that certainly isn’t my intention because, you see, I believe that the REAL Internet lifestyle is way more interesting, FAR more exciting and a TON more inspirational than the idea of getting sand between your toes and grit in your laptop can ever be.

The Internet lifestyle that I live, and that most of the people I know who make their livings online live, is not about earning loads and doing little. It is about doing what you love, when you want to fit it in and making a fair income as a result. It is about freedom of choice and freedom from the endless drudgery of a job that you hate.

It is about being able to spend an hour in the garden when you want to – or heading off to the gym for lunch. It is about you being in charge of what you do – not being beholden to the whims of someone else who hates their job as much as you do.

Is it all it is hyped up to be? Probably not, but is it worth aspiring to?

Absolutely.

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