Don't Compare Your Success With Others, Here's Why!

I've been recently thinking a lot about all the numbers I've found floating around the internet. All the time I see people bragging that they've made XX amount of dollars in XX amount of time. How they quit their job in three month, one year, or just do this online stuff part time and work full time. It's hard sometimes to not have your head spinning with the numbers you'll see. On blogs, on facebook groups, in books you read, youtube videos, the list goes on and on. However, it's a good thing to remember that there is a danger in comparing numbers, and getting to hung up on how "other" sellers are doing.

Don't get me wrong, it's inspiring to me when I see a post or comment from someone talking about how they make (insert large sum of money) a month, or how they just started 4 months ago and already quit their job. I'm talking mainly Amazon FBA and ebay sellers here. Things like that are what spur me to keep moving forward with my FBA plan and give it all a go. The knowledge that the potential is there is like the carrot dangled in front of the donkey, it keeps me plodding along. Sometimes though, well sometimes it just has the opposite effect on me. Sometimes it intimidates me, or it makes me feel like a failure because I can't show numbers that impressive yet myself. Then I remember, don't compare myself to them because I don't know their whole story.

Here are some things to bear in mind when you come across those profit posts. Some questions that you should ask yourself of the poster.

• How long have they been doing it - If someone has had a blog for 10 years, or been blogging, then yeah, they are probably making thousands every month. Someone selling on FBA or Ebay for more than a year or so has a lot of money and inventory invested in their business, so yeah, they're making a lot of money.
• How much money do they have in it? - How much money have they spent to get to this point. If they are selling $100,000 worth of stuff, how much did they spend on inventory? $30,000, $40,000, more or less, because you take that out of their sales to get profits. How much money are they spending on web domains, hosting and email services for their blog? It's all relative, and sales are not the same thing as profit.
• Is that gross or net? It's easy to be wowed by those big numbers, but stop and ask yourself, is that profit (net) or is that sales (gross). There's  big difference between the two that you should keep in mind. If it's sales numbers then yes it's still impressive, but it doesn't reflect their personal costs incurred. The money spent on the inventory, overhead costs like shipping, fees deducted from the sales, etc. Profit on the other hand is the number you get when you take your sales and deduct all those things from it to get to your profit number.
• How much did they have to invest to start with? I'm working with a shoestring budget, no credit cards, cash only operation for right now. So when I see that someone just started 4 months ago and quit their job already, or has sent in 10 shipments in their first two weeks it kind of makes me feel like I'm lacking. Like I'm doing something wrong that I'm not there too. Then I remember, I don't know their story, how much they had to spend on inventory right out the gate, how much they spent on ebooks and courses and everything else to shorten their learning curve, I don't know where they live and what kind of sourcing they have available around them. 

Really there are so many things that go into starting your own business, whether online or offline that to compare your story with another persons story is a risky thing. We're all different and because of that we'll all do things slightly different than the next person. Now, I'm not telling you to never read another "Monthly Income" report, or a post where a person is celebrating their success and sharing their numbers. I personally read The Smart Passive Income Blog's monthly income reports all the time, and have for the last couple years.

Why? Because they continue to inspire me. I love his reports too because he goes into a lot of those pesky details like expenses, things that affected his business, what went right, and what went wrong. He also clearly states he's been in the blogging business for a long time and it took him years to get to where he is. Knowing all that I still read his reports, and they still inspire that one day down the road I'll pull in even a third of what he does a month. Sometimes I just fantasize, what would I do with money like that? Buy a home, investments, pay off debt, and there's nothing wrong with that. If I didn't indulge myself every once in a while it would be easy to burn out and forget why I'm trying to do all of this. So don't avoid posts like this, but remember to let them inspire you only.

As long as you remember to take everything you read or hear with a grain of salt and take away only the inspiration the you'll be fine. Remember to question it if you start to feel bad about your progress and you'll likely realize you don't have the whole story. Lastly, use those numbers to help push yourself, dream a little, and have fun. You don't want to burn out early in the game and give up. You want to be in it for the long haul, you're ready to improve your life and your families life (if you have one) and gain the freedom of self employment! Or at least the freedom of an easy secondary income to help ease financial stresses. Whatever your reason don't let the numbers game get in your head, and you'll be fine.