At the Financial Blogger conference one of the keynote speakers was Pat Flynn of Smart Passive Income. Pat has one of the most practical sites I’ve ever seen, and truly gives some great information on how to create passive income for yourself online. He has done it himself, and is pulling in over $30k A MONTH!
At the end of Pat’s speech, he asked everyone to participate in a little game. If you weren’t at the conference, then I want you to play it with me. I don’t care if you’re at your office at work, you’ll only look stupid for a few seconds. Ready?
Raise your hand as high as you can.
Actually do it. I promise this won’t take long.
Is your hand up as high as it can go? Okay good.
Now raise it one inch higher.
If you’re like me and everyone else at the Financial Blogger Conference, you stretched your hand a little bit further and went at least one more inch up in the air.
We Can Do Much More than We Realize
When Pat asked that question, I thought to myself “I know this is a game, so I’m going to put my hand up really high.” I literally knew I was going to be asked to put it up even higher, and yet I still didn’t stretch as far as possible.
Why not?
Was I scared to look stupid by stretching as far as possible around a bunch of semi-strangers? Maybe it was just easier to put my hand up “pretty high” instead of “as high as I can”. It’s possible that I’ve been conditioned to only go 90% at first, so I can go the extra 10% when I really need to impress someone.
I might have been all of those things, or maybe something completely different. To be honest, I don’t know or care.
The important thing is recognizing that I have the ability to be better than I am today. Even if I think I’m doing my best, I can push myself a little harder and be a little better.
More Music Videos from Thousandaire
I know you’ve heard this before, but I mean it this time. I really am going to start spending more time on doing music videos, and making them awesome. All weekend at the Financial Blogger Conference, I had a bunch of people come up to me and say, “I love your videos! I can’t wait to see your next one!”
Guess how many people came up to me and said, “I love how you post five blogs a week!”
The same number of people who said “here’s a free iPad 2.” Nobody.
My goal is going to be one new music video every month. It’s gonna be hard, and some of them might be mini-videos like my submission to the GRS video contest. But I’m gonna do it.
My extra inch is more personal finance music videos. The more important question is: what’s your extra inch, and how is it going to make your life better?
Kevin McKee is an entrepreneur, IT guru, and personal finance leader. In addition to his writing, Kevin is the head of IT at Buildingstars, Co-Founder of Padmission, and organizer of Laravel STL. He is also the creator of www.contributetoopensource.com. When he’s not working, Kevin enjoys podcasting about movies and spending time with his wife and four children.
My extra inch is to start contributing to my 401k at my new job 😉
Kevin,
I for one appreciate your 5 posts per week. Though I would enjoy more videos as well…preferably videos that include dancing, a catchy tune, and maybe even a monkey.
I am going to go for publishing 3 days per week on M-W-F and push myself writing.
You can always do more! The question, I think is, can you do it better? I continually strive to do my best work not just more.
I think my one inch higher has to do with asking for help. I’m fiercely independant, this is a skill I need to work on.
Yo, Impressed with your rapping ability. Well done.
Unfortunately, I had to miss Pat’s presentation. I had heard about this particular piece of his speech, but not to this detail. It really hit home to me….never impose limits on yourself – I can always do better!
Great meeting you in Chicago, Kevin. I’m glad Suzanne Cramer and I found the Thousandaire and were able to send a much appreciated picture to a fan that couldn’t make it to the conference.
Travis, Pat posted a video of his presentation on his site. It is well worth watching.
Yo Kevin!
Have you considered using a part of the money you’ve saved to hire a graphic designer of some sort for your blog? Or getting someone to help you out for free?? The cheesy dollar sign and badly cropped, slightly douch-y jpeg of you at the top might turn some people off! Come on man! lol just a suggestion.
I loved the video and think that is a niche for you. Hey, you got JD Roth singing your praises.
lol.. great video! Paying for cable sucks! Wish I could have made it to the conference.. will be there next year for sure!
I loved Pat’s challenge too. Great way to close the conference. I’m not sure what my extra inch is yet. I’ve got so many things I could improve upon.
I like your idea of videos vs posts. I would definitely err on the side of shorter videos. People only have time / attention span for 1 or 2 mins.
Thanks for getting me thinking. I look forward to seeing what you come up with. If you need an extra camera man, just let me know.
Great work on the video and since I wasn’t at the conference, this is the first I heard of this metaphor. I love it! thanks for sharing.
I agree, there is always more that can be done. I plan on working more on the freebies at my site and putting more valuable info into each post.
Good job Kevin, cater to the people! We love the videos, and looking forward to more
I definitely appreciate the insightful posts 5 days a week. In fact I look forward to them, as they can be thought provoking and create some interesting dialogue, i.e. the OWS post.
My extra inch will be to save a bit more each month and (separately) be a better husband.
My extra Inch is having Extra Income aside from my full time job. I believe that it pays to be patient, hardworking and a Believer. Good fruits yield if you have sowed them with Passion and Labor of Love.
Liked the video a lot! I wanted to note that we don’t need a HTC. My husband’s laptop has s-video out (mine doesn’t!) and our tv has s-video in, so we just hook up his laptop as needed. even better!
Dropping cable is getting really common these days – unfortunately, the cable companies still get my money for the internet service they provide.
Pat was the highlight of the entire conference! They made me wait until the end (lol).
Great video, glad to hear you are trying for once a month! That sounds tough but doable!