I realized that if I could make a living working online, I could have all of these things. I was a bit short-sighted, but it was a step forward in the right direction. I taught myself how to be a web designer on weekends and after work. I started experimenting with my skills and my first several projects for others were free of charge. As I got better, I started doing low-cost projects for friends and family.
Now, I exclusively work on personal projects and corporate web development as a part-time job. I am also currently a teacher, and consider this my second part-time job since it takes 20 hours of my time each week. I am also an Internet Marketer.
Through my web design, I realized a few very important things. First, I am successful online. I could make a living right now, independent of location, doing web development. However, I also realized that this too is a very short-sighted goal and makes the bigger goal harder to attain; residual income.
Residual income is money you make from something that you put time in creating once, like this eBook. You put time into creating something, and then you focus on selling it. Authors that are successful make paycheck after paycheck, year after year on their books without having to do much beyond the initial authoring and promotion. Once a good book is out there and people are buying it, it basically sells itself. You can do this too with your website or product. Get traffic to it now, and reap the benefits for years to come.
Consider this example. Let's say you spend one hour of your time doing a task that will pay you one penny per day for the rest of your life. An hour for a penny may sound ridiculous at first, but if you live 30 more years and make a penny a day (that adjusts with inflation), that's about $109 for your hour of work; more than many of you are currently making.