Having Fun is a Crucial Ingredient for a Successful Online Business

Running an online business is a lot like training, in many ways. The biggest key to success in both domains being persistence.

There are a thousand and one ways to work out but, ultimately, nothing matters so much as simply diving in and giving it go. Then sticking with it. You may not have the optimal training program to start with but if you keep going, you’re going to see some improvements. More importantly, you will likely improve with time as you learn and grow.

The alternative is to procrastinate and put off starting, which ultimately gets you nowhere. Or to quit the moment the results stop coming.

All that is also true for starting an online business, in my experience. I have grown The Bioneer website and YouTube channel to a reasonable size by simply posting every week. For years. My videos were terrible when I started out (this is an objective fact). My writing wasn’t much better.

But over the course of 8-ish years I got better. I built up a loyal audience (thank you!). And I gained the attention of contacts who could help.

So many people tell me that they want to start an online business but never get it off the ground. Or they kill it off before it has any chance to grow. The single difference between me and them? I never took it too seriously.

Have Fun With It

When I started posting Bioneer videos to YouTube, they made me no money at all. I spent tens of hours working on them every week, never genuinely expecting them to take off, because I enjoyed it.

Even if the channel had never grown beyond 100 subscribers, I’d probably still be posting them today, anyway.

Some of the stuff I posted was embarrassing, too. Like, worse than you are probably imagining.

On the other hand, I have friends and colleagues who posted a few videos or blog posts and then gave up.

I think the difference is that they had too much self-awareness to carry on.

Posting things to the web, selling a product, putting yourself out there in any way… all of these things make you very vulnerable. You are open to criticism and you risk a public failure.

Exposing Yourself

Some people are even ashamed to show their creative side because it doesn’t fit the self-image they’ve crafted. They think they’re being overly self-serious, or self-important. They think their vulnerability is going to make other people feel uncomfortable, even!

Nobody expects Jeff from down the pub to start a poetry blog. Or to start a business as a financial advisor. Who is Jeff to give advice to anyone?

Right?

Meanwhile, poor Jeff is terrified that once he makes a go of it and follows his passions, he’ll find out that there’s no audience for what he has to offer. Then Jeff will be left without

The solution is simply to laugh it off. I’m not saying turn your business into a joke or not take it seriously. In fact, that persistence takes a heck of a lot of dedication, will-power, and discipline.

I’m just saying… it’s not the end of the world if it’s not a huge success right away. Or ever. It doesn’t matter if you’re terrible, because you’ll get better as you go. Your mistakes will become learning opportunities and funny stories.

If you look a little silly, so what?

Take the pressure off and stop worrying so much about the outcome: you’ll be amazed at what can grow when you do that.

Having Fun

And if you genuinely enjoy what you’re doing, you’ll find it’s much easier to stick with it when progress isn’t coming easily.

Here, again, we see the parallels with training. People tend to give up training because they actually hate it. It’s grueling and boring! This is why I like to train by climbing up ropes, throwing medicine balls, and jumping across the garden: it’s fun! So, even if I’m not getting immediate results, I tend to stick with my training for the love of it. It’s intrinsically motivating.

If you’ve piled a ton of pressure on your need to succeed in business, then it will very quickly become not fun. Likewise, if you focus too much on the busy-work of your business, or doing things that you think you “should” do, it will be very easy to procrastinate. Follow your passions and hone your craft. Turn it into a serious business once you start getting that success.

This is also a great way to prevent burn out. When you’re having fun, it doesn’t feel like work, and you’re not putting too much pressure on… you can keep going!

Closing Comments

I think a lot of people assume the Bioneer is some grand undertaking. I’m trying to “shake up the fitness industry” or I’m dedicated to self-development. Sure, the former would be cool.

But really, it’s just me having fun pretending to be a superhero on the internet. I write about training like Batman because I think it’s awesome and because, I guess, I never grew up. Because why would I go and do something like that?

The point I’m trying to make is that a lot of projects fail to ever get off the ground because people are frozen with fear. One of the best ways to conquer this fear is just not to take it so seriously. Do it for the fun. Laugh at yourself if it goes wrong, or if you come off a little pretentious.

At any cost, try to avoid turning your passion into a miserable grind. If that happens, you might as well stick with your current gig!

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