I’m not going to lie; I really wanted to make good money online. I was going to add “through whatever means necessary”, but obviously that’s proven not to be quite true. I also realize that I’ve limited my online potential in many ways, mainly because I’m not ready for the consequences of taking certain actions.

Often when one thinks about how big they want to be online, most believe they want to make millions. That’s a laudable goal, but the truth is that most of us are set up to make a few hundred if we’re lucky; I was there for a short period of my life but those days are long gone.

A big mistake many people make that I’d probably planned for at least 80% of the way was what may lie in wait if I’d had the opportunity to make way more money online. For instance, if I’d started to get 100,000 visitors a week, or a month, was I ready for the increasing cost of my hosting package? Was I ready to pay more in taxes? Was I ready to keep up with the demand for more and newer content? Was I ready for the negativity that always follows having more people see what I was sharing? Was I ready for any and everything that might come along?

Years ago I came across this post by Zac Johnson, known as the Super Affiliate Marketer, called How I Made $860,538.38 PROFIT in 4 Months!. I have to admit it was amazing reading. He actually got to the point where he had to purchase his own servers to handle his site, and not just one but 17 of them; ouch!

It’s actually a great story. He hit upon a niche, uploaded lots of free content, put the word out and people flocked to his site like crazy. With numbers, people clicked on and bought a lot of his other stuff. He’s still going strong now and writes a lot, not only for himself but guest posts on a lot of other sites.

But all that traffic came with a price. He worked a lot of hours upfront, while it was all going on, and afterwards. He had a lot of worry because he knew he couldn’t afford to let his system go down even for ten minutes. It’s interesting to read because he certainly never expected that success would bring issues like that to his reality.

He also talked about all the different programs he signed up for and tested, and which ones paid him and how. I understood that point because in the early years of this blog I did a lot of the same thing… with nothing even close to the results he was getting. lol I was making nearly $600 a month; not livable income but enough to pay for online services. This is one reason why I tell people all the time that it’s great to learn new systems from others but never expect to get the same result. What works for one person won’t work for everyone.

Anyway, I did okay going my route, but it didn’t come close to my being “big”. I didn’t know any of the stuff he talked about before reading the article but it definitely was an eye opener. Making serious money online ain’t no joke, is it?

Luckily I’ve got an offline gig, but I’m going to tell you some truths that come with the idea of trying to make lots of money, aka, trying to be “big”. Are you ready for big? Let’s find out.

I had a good period where I made more money in 2 years than I’d made in the previous 10 combined. I thought it would go on forever, and I was hoping I’d be a much bigger than I was at that time. Like the guy in the movie Taken said, “I have a unique set of skills.” I thought that would carry me for a very long time.

The problem is that I didn’t plan for the down times after the fact. I didn’t plan the marketing part. I didn’t even plan well on the savings part.

I bought cars for my wife and for myself… by writing a check for each. My wife spent a lot of money on house things and I didn’t pay any attention to any of it because it was flowing freely and easily. I certainly wasn’t prepared for that $27,000 tax bill because I thought I’d paid way more than enough to cover me (that’s when I got an accountant lol).

I’ve gone back and forth between prosperity and struggling a bit. When I think back on it I know I wasn’t really ready for “big”. The best thing I did was set up my corporation, but that’s as far as I went towards long term, ragingly big success.

In a way, I’m the lucky one. How many musicians, actors, athletes and other types of entertainers find themselves the next “big” thing, only to somehow fall because they weren’t prepared to deal with the “bigness” of their success nor plan for the possibility that their success now might not be permanent?

Take it from me, if you’re hoping to be “big”, you need to plan for the possibility that you just might get there and not be able to sustain it. You need to plan for all the things that “big” might bring your way. There might be inherent costs to staying big. There might be relationships that change on your way to being “big” and on the way back down. This means you need to mentally plan for whatever comes along… or doesn’t come along…

Are you ready for “big”? How “big are you ready for? Take time to think about it… then get out there and do it!