Goodbye … for now

No, you didn’t misread the title.

I’ve come to the decision that Side Income Blogging is not where I want to spend my time right now or in the near future.   A few months ago, I had some great plans, eBooks, an online training program, lots of content, building websites, consulting, etc etc.

Then as I started to plan it all out, I realized my heart wasn’t really in it.   Writing about earning income online just wasn’t where I wanted to spend my time.   Not to mention this niche is completely saturated, and Internet Marketers are constantly hammered and watched very closely by Google.   I’m tired of fighting an uphill battle.

Earning money from a site in this niche is near impossible as well, especially considering I only recommend products I use.   My competitors don’t share this same moral basis, which makes it every more difficult for me.

But the core issue is, my passion is for something else now.

I discovered my real passion …

About 10 years ago, we made a life changing decision.  We moved out of the city, and into the mountains of Western North Carolina.   We were tired to the city, of the people, of the traffic, and keeping up with the Joneses.

We decided we wanted to live in a beautiful place, where we didn’t have to drive 3 hours to get there, and never had to go home.   So we sold our home in the city, bought a home on the side of a mountain here in Western North Carolina, and moved in.

We’ve never regretted it once.  In fact, we love living here, and wish we would have made the same change many many years ago.

As I type this on my couch in my living room, this is what I see when I look to my left out of our front windows:

Awesome huh?

In the city, I had a great view of side of my neighbor’s house and their cars in the driveway.  I can’t even see any of my neighbor’s homes right now.  Fine by me.

Not only did we love living here, we fell in love with our neighbors and the people that live here.  We love our small community.  Nobody here cares what kind of house you have, or what kind of car you drive.   It’s refreshing.

Shortly after moving up here, we started hiking … and our lives changed again.  We fell in love with these mountains, the trails, the streams, the waterfalls, and the wildlife.  We lived each week to be able to find a trail on the weekend and hike it.  Or find a mountain trail, and climb it.

We loved it so much, we started a website about it: Blue Ridge Mountain Life.

I love writing on that website, and I love taking photos and sharing adventures with our readers on the site and our Facebook page.

I asked myself: What are you doing?

A few weeks ago, I was looking at my to-do list, trying to figure out what to do next.  I had to-do items for Side Income Blogging, my 5 niche sites, Blue Ridge Mountain Life, and a number of other ideas I had.

I looked at that list and asked myself … What are you doing??  I’m doing far too much, have no focus and my growth isn’t what it needs to be.  Couple that with a full-time job I’m really no longer passionate about … and it’s all a recipe for going nowhere, and living a very unhappy life, exactly what I was trying to avoid by starting my side business in the first place!

This of course led me to really think about what I wanted to be doing, and especially what I wanted to be doing in 5 – 10 years.

So I asked myself: Out of all of these things I’m doing, what do I truly love?  If I could do any of these things full-time, what would I really want to do?  

I even got rid of the list, and just asked myself those questions in general.

What I was really asking myself was: What was my true passion, at least at this point in my life.

The answer was’t difficult at all and it quickly bubbled to the top each time I asked all of these questions …

I want to be out in these mountains, exploring, hiking up ridges, standing at the top of the peaks, and taking photos all the way and I wanted to do all of these with my wife beside me.   I wanted to get out and live, not sit in an office all day long, like I had done for the past 26 years.

These mountains are my passion … Blue Ridge Mountain Life is my passion.

My new plan

Being mediocre was never good enough for me.  I want to be successful, I want to build something, and I want to help people.  Every successful entrepreneur I’ve ever talked to or read about always said the same thing: “follow your passion”.

So that is what I’m doing.   I set myself a very aggressive but attainable goal to retire from my full-time job in 5 years, and live 100% off of Blue Ridge Mountain Life.

I want to wake up each morning, look at my wife, and say: “So where are we heading today?”

Then I want to just go …. take photos, take notes, and return home and write articles about what we did.  I want to share the beauty and magic of these mountains with others, and I want to help the locals here be successful, because they are my friends.

Taking that a step further, we’ve even discussed buying an RV, and hitting the road – blogging about our experiences and our adventures.  If I can get Blue Ridge Mountain Life successful, that might just be the next step for us.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve developed a plan that I think is attainable.  I’ve figured out how to monetize the site to the level I would need to retire early.  I’ve worked up a growth plan, and even an exit strategy.   If it all plays out, I’ll be able to do what I’m truly passionate about, and hopefully retire wealthy.

We’ll see of course, everything always looks good on paper 😉

Goodbye … for now

With all of that said, I guess this is Goodbye … for now.

I say for now, because who knows, a few months, or a few years from now I might come back to this site.   I may get the urge to write something every so often.  Thus I’m hesitant to say Goodbye completely.

For almost 8 years, I’ve enjoyed sharing my online insights with you, enjoyed meeting many of you, and thoroughly enjoyed watching you start something and succeed at it.   When I started this site, I wanted to help people.  I wanted people to realize that they could earn money online, and make a difference in their lives.  I’ve seen many people do it, and I’m incredibly proud of them.

Thank you for reading and following along, it was truly a pleasure.

Goodbye … for now!

Larry