When was your first money experience? Was it asking for money to get a toy or a candy bar at the store? Seeing that we're all still big kids, the truth is we still have preconceived notions of what money actually is. What I want to do is take some time to shatter your ideals about those dead presidents and hopefully inspire you to Make Money!

First things first, money is an idea. No it's not the paper it's printed on, especially since it's not worth the paper it's printed on. No, money is just an idea, so your goal is to find out how many ideas you can come up with to make money.

When I first started getting into the music business I realized a few things. The people that made the most money in the music industry, had multiple businesses earning them income. Everybody else that "fell off/disappeared" didn't seem to have any other business besides standing in front of a mic and singing, rapping, screaming or some other thing that they considered music. What I learned from watching people like Puffy, Russell Simmons, Will Smith, KRS One Dr. Dre & Jay Z, was that if you're going to be in the music business you better have a couple deals on the table to make you a few bucks here and there. Instead of jumping right into the music industry and recording 15 albums, or being on tour for 203 days out of the year, I decided to go the reverse route. What I decided to do was create my business first, then I would have more time, money and resources to be in the business on my own terms.

Your goal is to understand that since money is just an idea, you create multiple ideas to earn you money. Most people think about getting a job, then they worry about how much income that job is going to earn them. I always thought about, how much money can I make with my skills or services and then, what kind of job fits my skill set, earning the amount of money I'm looking for. The way that we've been trained to earn money is a bit antiquated, hence the reason why most people are dead broke.

Okay, let's do the numbers.

9 out of 10 businesses fail!

68% of new businesses fail within the first five years!

Excuses are just like asshole's everybody's got one! So don't use any excuse to keep you out of business! The fact is, if 9 out of 10 businesses fail, your thought process should be "How many ideas can I come up with, to have the odds in my favor."

With it being so cheap to start a business on the Internet, there should be no reason why you can't earn money online. The problem is most people don't take the time to figure out all that the Internet has to offer as far as making money. What they do is they pick up a book or go to some website saying you can make money fast and when it doesn't work they'll quit. You're looking for a mentor, someone that can help you navigate the waters and help you find reasonable ideas or show you online success habits. But understand making money online is a slow process, but it does pay! Yes you can make money online, just understand that it's going to take a bit of hard work, but you're creating a long-term asset that if set up properly can pay you while you sleep.

I don't want to get too far into this article just being about making money online, I want to impress upon you the fact that even making money online is an idea. If you want to set up a booth at a flea market and sell a product, that's an idea. If you want to design business cards and sell your designs to clients, that's an idea. In the future, you'll probably be working from home and talking to international clients for your products and/or services. You can see that happening now with websites like eBay or Amazon where people can sell used products. The truth is, even though we are going through some financial hard times, you should be excited at how many opportunities there are available to make money now. Five years ago I would've never thought that I could sell multiple singles or T-shirts or merchandise products in a videogame. The only thing guaranteed in life is change, and thankfully as a small business, I see things are changing for the better.

When you go around the Internet, look at the big names. What you're going to see is that a lot of these websites are offering ways for people to make money. Whether your selling the product yourself as we talked about before, or if you become their affiliate marketer. If you don't know what an affiliate marketer is I'll explain that to you. Now most people when they hear the phrase "commission" automatically think of a car salesman. Well, on the Internet, you can work for companies like Amazon or Walmart, marketing their products and earning a commission on the sale of items you find on the website. A couple of months ago I told a friend it doesn't matter where I look, I'm always asking myself "I wonder if I can sell that!" Most of the time, I'd say about 95% of the time, I can. What I can get is about 4% to 9% of the sale. That may not sound like much but every little bit adds up, and again it's just an idea.

There's also places like Google. Google pays you just for having a popular website. How so? They pay you if you're users happen to click on your ads. I'll explain that more in another article but again it's just an idea. There are plenty of places out there willing to pay you to write, to do art or just about anything that your heart desires. Again it's just about how many ideas you can come up with, but you have to be willing to learn and willing to put into action what you've learned. So if you're out there at a flea market selling food, you have to research and learn everything you need to know, to be able to sell food, and not have any legal problems in your local city. If you do want to get into graphics, you have to be willing to learn what graphic professionals use including the software and how they market their services. Then once you've learned what you need to be successful, go out and do it.

With as much information that can be found online, there is absolutely no excuse for you not following whatever passion you have.

I've said this before and I'll say it again. Money is just an idea, so how many ideas do you have to make money!

Stay safe, stay focused, stay blessed

TrajicK