Pat Flynn
In order to understand fundamentally how the world works and how things move and interact with each other, you have to understand Physics. It’s the same thing for business—in order to understand it, you must break it down and try to figure out how each part interacts with each other. Luckily, there are laws for business like there are laws for Physics that can help us understand.
If you’ve been keeping up with my latest posts, I’ve been comparing Newton’s Laws of Motion to some things I’ve learned about doing business online. I’ve had a lot of fun with the first and second laws, and I’m excited to conclude with the third and final law today.
In the first two laws, I changed a word or two from Newton’s laws so they would relate to business, but in the third law I won’t change one word. The third law is one I’m sure you’ve heard before, and it’s something we should be reminded of each and every day while we run our businesses, write our blogs and articles, and in general—live our lives.
Law #3: For Every Action There is an Equal and Opposite Reaction
Short and sweet: whatever you put in is what your going to get out of it.
This is true in every respect, except when it comes to money. I listened to a quick interview of Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos.com over at TechCrunch today, and in it he specifically tells us to reassess whether or not we need venture capital to start a business.
For most of us online entrepreneurs, we’re not looking for venture capital (meaning millions of investment dollars) to start our online presence, however a lot of people think it does take a lot of money to get started. The truth is, you don’t need a thousand or even a hundred dollars. You can start your online business for virtually no money at all, and as you probably know, if you put more money you put into your business, it doesn’t necessarily mean you will get more in return. (I started my six-figure blog for about $95.00, which included the domain name and 1 year of hosting on bluehost.) [Full disclosure: I earn a commission if you purchase through this link.]
Money aside, the third law describes a very basic idea that you should always remember, especially when it comes to earning a passive income online. If you plan correctly, work hard and are patient, good things will happen and you will start to earn money. If you don’t take action and just sit and wait for something good to happen, I’m sorry—it won’t.
It’s important to think about this law when it comes to the planning and execution of the various tasks involved with your business, but also the relationships you have with your customers, readers, colleagues & friends online. It’s simple—if you’re nice, honest and respond to every customer or reader, you will gain people’s trust in return, which is worth everything. If you’re an a-hole, dishonest and unresponsive, good luck trying to gain people’s trust and get people to pay you for anything.
Lastly, I’d just like to step back for a moment and talk about something that I feel is more important than anything when it comes to entrepreneurship and how it relates to this law. It’s fear.
Fear is a disease. If you fear, you will be met with hurdles and obstacles that will stop you from reaching your goals. If you put away the fear, whatever it may really be, you will open up possibilities for success and fulfillment in your career and in your life. Remember, this is your life—the only one you’ll ever have. In my opinion, it’s better to say “hey, at least I gave it a shot” instead of just wondering what really could have been.
Thanks everyone for your support! If you’ve enjoyed my “Physics of Business” series and would like to stay updated with the new content I update on my blog, please click here to get the RSS feed!
