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October 24, 2008
 I just read a news article about a remote, poor, mountain village (Himachal Pradesh) in India where the brothers in a family traditionally marry one woman. Yes, you read that correctly. It's a hard life and instead of splitting up their inherited plots of land, the brothers in a family marry one wife and live together. They setup arrangements for marital relations, basically take turns, and the parentage of individual children is not known or worried about.
To us, it may seem strange, even perverse or disgusting. To them, it's normal and seems to work well.
There are a few things that jumped into my mind when I read this article as it related to Internet business. Ok, for those of you still snickering, there were a few more things that jumped into my mind, but we won't go into those!
Conserving Resources
One of the draws of starting an Internet business is that it does not take a huge investment when compared to starting a traditional "brick and mortar" business. This allows you to conserve and preserve your resources, which is why the mountain people in the article resorted to this arrangement: instead of splitting up their plot of land as it passes from one generation to the next, they preserve their resources. If they didn't do this, they would end up with a plot of land that is too small to live on and live off: livable and farmable land is limited because of the ruggedness of the mountainous area.
Multiplying Effort
One of the ways successful Internet business entrepreneurs get more accomplished than they can do alone is to sub-contract out the work. They do this by paying either individuals or companies to perform the work, or, some use intern programs where the interns do some work in exchange for learning how to build a business. The remote mountain people in the article practice polyandry, and while it seems strange to us, it builds a team that gets more done and accomplished than they would get accomplished if the brothers had each married a different wife and lived separately.
Perception is Reality
Here's the biggie. This is why I like this example. How many of us can really imagine sharing our wife with our brothers? Tonight I sleep with her, tomorrow brother number 2 sleeps with her, and the next night brother number 3 sleeps with her. Rinse and repeat. Over and over. Pretty foreign to the normal mode of operation for most of us. But again, to them, it's normal and their life, it's their reality.
What's your reality? You may want to be successful, and have bushel baskets full of cash laying around your house, but if you're not and you don't, then success is just as foreign to you as sharing your wife with your brothers (or being married to several brothers if you're a woman). If you truly want to change your reality, or your situation in life, it takes a huge effort. Not necessarily a huge physical effort, but a huge shift in mental perspective. If you're not successful, then there are reasons you're not successful. Internal reasons, not necessarily external reasons. Sure, there may be external influences, but successful people rise above external influences everyday. If you're stuck it's because you're stuck in your reality. You have to move beyond it. To be successful you have to think differently than unsuccessful people and do things differently than unsuccessful people. One of the biggest differences is that you have to take action, you have to do something, and most of the time, you have to try over and over and over and stick with it until you shift your reality from where you are to where you want to be. And remember this example of the remote mountain people. While you may think you understand the reality of being successful, if you're not successful, it's as foreign to you as being married to the same wife as your brother. You have to change your thinking first, then, and only then, will your reality will change.
Until next time,
Fred
About the Author
Fred Black is an experienced programmer, web site developer, online business operator, systems integrator, father, husband, musician, and songwriter. Visit his Internet Business Blog at: http://www.pqInternet.com.
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Posted by Fred on October 24, 2008 | Printer-Friendly
TrackBack: http://www.pqInternet.com/Blog/mt-tb.cgi/161
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| Truth and Freedom
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Comments:
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You are right there are many reason why you are not sucessful. I continue to strive and everyday I say what I am going to do that day. I do not get it done there is something in my brain that allows me to be distracted. Do I deep in my brain not want to be sucessful? Am I afraid? Do I think even if I was sucessful I could not hold on to it so whats the use. I just don't know.
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I hear the saying all the time that you have to alter your perception of reality in order to become successful. It is much harder to do than to say, but this gives a great example of why we need to shift our realities.
I struggle with focus and intensity of movement toward my goals. I often wonder why I can't seem to get myself to drive toward my goals as much as I would like. I mean, I know what I want and I know how to get it, but I can't seem to bring myself to do the actions required to get there?
Weird.
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great blog with plenty of detail and well thought out. But to tell you the truth owning an online business is no easy task and that is for sure.
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It all comes down to preparing yourself for success and then doing what has to be done to achieve your goals. There are many people in business today that simply don't have the mindset to be successful - I used to be one of them.
The turning point for me is when I stopped treating my business as a hobby, wrote out a plan, and worked towards my goals. With each bit of success, I became more confident in my ability to make it work.
Steve
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Fred,
interesting analogy! However, I do agree about the inner workings of the mind that affect personal perception. There is also the story about how the native south american indians never saw the Spanish Galeons off shore because it wasn't in their reality to see them! Begs the question: If you don't have a certain reality in your mind you are not going to se it manifest in materiality either. It is important to not be fooled by the "I'll believe it when I see it" mentality when going into business let alone anything in life. That is not where innovation arises nor an expanded successful reality. I am amazed at how many people still wander if you can make money online? I still get this query occassionally!
David Fairley
websiteproperties.com
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i also think that there is a huge advantage when one thinks out of the box, when one moves away from conventional knowledge and be the one to spearhead a concept/business...
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