The number of people who approach me with comments such as “I'm scared to even try” to build an Internet or affiliate marketing business is astounding and breaks my heart.
And then there are those who assume that I was born to be successful, whereas they are somehow flawed and have no chance at success.
For all of them, I have a story to tell…
Mom and Dad were 45 and 38, respectively, when I was born. I was their first and only child.
As recent immigrants to Canada and not particularly social, my parents had very few friends and rarely had people over to visit.
Because my mother worked as a night nurse, I was not allowed to bring friends home to play in the after school hours or on weekends, as her sleep was not to be disturbed.
Inheriting their ‘short people' stature, I was always the smallest and and therefore the last kid to be picked for sporting events at school. Actually, I was never really ‘picked'. I was the kid whom the team that lost the toss-up had to grudgingly accept.
Those factors alone left me isolated and intensely shy.
And then, for good measure, they installed the self-doubt and lack of self-esteem software. 🙂
As quiet as I always tried to be, my mother was forever angry with me for making noise and waking her up. Of course, the squeaky wooden floor between the bedrooms or door hinges that were never oiled were never to blame … everything was always my fault.
Excellence was not encouraged, simply expected.
However, despite multiple awards, school crests and constant straight A's, they were never satisfied and I was never good enough. Comments like “You're not ____ enough”, and “Why can't you play the piano like ___?” were doled out daily.
Phrases such as ‘good job', ‘well done', ‘smart girl' or even ‘I love you' had escaped my parents' lexicon.
As icing on the cake, my dad was a clinically-depressed alchoholic (a mean drunk) and my mom was his Dutch Calvinist (zero sense of humor) co-dependent.
Moreover, my mom was quite frank about never having wanted kids.
Small wonder I lacked in all the good ‘selfs'… confidence, worth, esteem.
On the other hand, I had gained self-doubt in spades.
Fortunately, I developed interests that eventually led to a few self-esteem enhancing achievements; a career as an air traffic controller, making big wads of money as an affiliate and later authoring a book and speaking on the subject.
Better yet, I'd made some very good friends along the way.
So, when 3 years after leaving my air traffic control job, my earnings tanked so badly one month that I seriously doubted my future as an affiliate marketer — I made an important phone call to one of those friends.
I simply asked “If this all goes for a sh*t, can I have a room at your place?” to which my friend immediately replied, “Yes, of course“.
Whooosh!
And just like that, all of the fear and self-doubt vanished in a second.
Ditching the fear gave me the brain space to find out what I'd done wrong, correct it and keep moving forward with my business — which has been successful ever since.
My ah-ha moment came in knowing that I had someone on whom I could rely if and when I needed support. Simple as that and nothing mattered more.
That happened a decade ago and I feel so fortunate to have completely shed the shackles of fear and self-doubt.
That, to my mind, is complete freedom.
I don't know what will help you create your ah-ha moment — but I do hope that you get there.
Maybe it's deciding that you're too old to hang on to someone else's crap view of you any longer. Or, choosing to ignore the negative inner voices. Or, embracing the wisdom in that ageless classic by Wayne Dyer, “Your Erroneous Zones“. OR, it could be years of therapy… but that gets expensive, so maybe you should get the book first. 🙂
Besides, about half of the therapists you ever meet will be more screwed up than you ever could be. Seriously, that information is based on experience. 🙂
So, do whatever you have to do… but do it.
I think what ultimately changed my life in so many ways was that I never stopped trying.
Comments, questions or suggestions? Please leave a comment below!
Cheers,
P.S. I should say that I feel not one speck of resentment for how I was raised or the people responsible. I actually feel sad that they themselves were so scarred and unhappy.
Ironically, I am grateful. For, if not for the years I spent hiding in my room, reading scores of books and pouring my soul out to my diaries – I may never have become a rich, happy writer. 🙂
Hello Roz!
Very inspiring story. I’m looking to supplement my income and eventually want to opt out of corporate America!
Tired of working for someone else. I am at retirement age but cannot at this time. Just tired of “getting by.” I will purchase your book and look forward to getting started on a new adventure! Keep up the great work! Just a side note: Have you heard of A1 Revenue? Listened to a webinar last week and sounded like a get rich quick scheme to me. Thanks for sharing your story. You are amazing!
Thank you very much for this information. Good post thanks for sharing.
Thank you very much for this information. Good post thanks for sharing.
You’re most welcome!
Awesome Stuff!
My Name is jonathan from South Africa. I have managed over the last two years to make a small profit of only +/- $300.00 on the internet. My friends and family tell me I am wasting my time with affiliate marketing and by simply trying to earn money on the internet i must be insane. I know that after 2 years of trying and still not being successful on line there scepticism is probably justifiable. I wish I could have the support I feel I deserve but also realized that there scepticism and negative approach towards my dream of earning a income on the internet just makes me try harder to prove them wrong. I hope to become a successful internet marketer and help other South Africans to do the same and share in my interests with internet marketing. I appreciate your post and hope to possibly pave the way for other South Africans.
Hi Jonathan,
Thanks for sharing and I love your determination.
It was the same for me when I started – my friends didn’t understand what I was doing (and many still don’t) and I got a lot of ‘ya sures’ from my co-workers.
Well, I retired from that full-time job 13 years ago and am living a lifestyle they can only dream about.
The key is persistence!
Cheers,
Ros
Rosalind,
Thank you for being so candid and vulnerable… that helped me so much… I have been like a deer in headlights paralyzed by fear… that stops today!
Brenda
My pleasure, Brenda. I’m thrilled to hear you made a decision to end the paralysis. 🙂
And I was beginning to think that 67 was the new 35, 🙂 I can also identify with “being blamed for what others did”..
As a child, I was called names such as “BeanPole” and “Stupid” and others, I never knew my biological parents, and to this day the only thing I heard, was: “If you would have had your OWN Mother, you would have been a better person”.
I worked all my life at either various low paying jobs , or on the farm and out in the fields with my late husband, and when he passed away, I still had an 8 year old son to care for. I did temp. jobs, and went back to school, earned an Accounting Degree. Only job that I found, that was full time, was at a billion dollar company, that paid their employees far below a decent wage. I didn’t want to stay there, but when being a widow and having only one income and needing to pay all bills, and keep my young son, ( oldest son was just starting college and needed help as well), so I stayed with that company, until both sons did not want to come back to the town I was in. So I transferred to another town, where I continued to work for that same company, never getting a decent wage here either. I had a heart attack while working as a cashier. I went to the ER, and was Med Flighted to the UWM Hospital, where I stayed for about a month, when I had open heart surgery, plus a pace maker, to keep my heart in rhythm. I was also told that I was a Diabetic. For the 2 months that I was gone from my job…I heard from no one from the billion dollar company, When I got back, my doctors orders were that I should not lift anything heavier than a gallon of milk. I was put right back on the register. If I couldn’t lift what was too heavy, I would have to call for help, but that took forever for a CSM or someone to show up, people were getting angry, waiting, I would get pulled into the office, and yelled at for not “putting ALL the customers items in their carts, didn’t matter that I wasn’t suppose to lift 30, 40, 50, lbs of anything from large bags of dog food to garden supplies. They than started blaming me for what others were doing wrong, if I said something , I was written up, that went on until this Feb. after I (wasted) ten years of my life with this company, and at 67 I was terminated. Other than the fact that I do not have any income coming in, I am starting to feel relief, from the everyday, threats, and harassment. And yes, I do feel scared when the bills will start coming and the rent will be due and it will be raised come May. So I thought about joining with you, Ros, and your program, but true to form, my sound card went south, now I have to find someone that will help me get the correct sound card, that I can join you and learn all about Affiliate Marketing. Until such time, till I get my sound card, I do have your up-dated Supper Affiliate Handbook
Yes, I am still afraid of failing, but putting in job applications in every week, to places that I know darn well I won’t get hired, but if I don’t put the applications in I won’t get the (measly) unemployment that may or may not send me. So, I would rather start something that may in the end give me at least enough so I won’t have to think about pitching a tent in someones back yard for the rest of my life.
Thanks
Sorry to hear of all your troubles, Bonn. Hope you get that sound card fixed right quickly!
Cheers,
Ros
wow, nice post I feel better now, knowing how to fight my problem
Glad to hear that you feel better! 🙂
Thanks Ros,
The only time success comes before work is in the dictionary.
You are a winner in every sense.
Cheers,
D
Hi David,
I’m going to have to remember and use that phrase “The only time success comes before work is in the dictionary.”
Thanks!
Ros
You are amazing!
And you are sweet to say so, Candy! 🙂
Thanks,
Ros
Rosalind reading your article that you grew up with short stature leads me to believe you could be a huge inspiration for some young girls. I’ve invited you to a facebook page a few mothers put together for support. Please accept the invitation. ShortStatureUSAShortandSweet@groups.facebook.com
Thanks Collette, I’ll take a look. 🙂
Your empathetic understanding is a welcome dose of inspiration and encouragement. Thank you for sharing your thoughts.
Thanks Nicholas. I’m not always so empathetic but I do always try. 🙂
I LOVE hearing people’s stories. Everyone has one; they are what give people depth and they can be empowering when looked at the right way. As it has been said, ‘It’s not what happens to you. It’s what you do about it.’
Dorothy, in the Wizard of Oz, had the power all of the time. She just had to believe in it.
Hi Kathryn,
I love the simplicity with which you sized up Dorothy’s situation.
That’s exactly right.
Thanks,
Ros
I think it is awesome when a mentor” like you “, (“someone who has made it” or, who we believe has made it, based on what we learn from your e-book and membership site.), gives us full disclosure and a look into a personal past that could only contribute to self doubt at its face but, you overcame it and, moved past it by not letting your fear get the best of you.
We all need to hear this kind of disclosure from our mentors because it grounds you and makes you a real person and not a bigger than life figure who lives in a foreign country, “Go Canada”.
It is hard to tell by looking at someone or reading their blog that they ever had trouble or major hiccups in their life and, knowing that you have been there is a good thing because it shows that if we follow what you have put out for us to follow , we may be able to enjoy successes like you have enjoyed some day, if we are willing to work and not give up on our goals of achieving an online business.
I think what I want to take away from this story and it’s lessons is it is wasted if we do not act on this message. If fear gets the better of us we can not grow and we will never know if success like yours is possible.
My Question to you Ros is; did you find working through your self doubts and fears that a lot of the fear once you got through it was unfounded and was of “fear itself”.
Life sometimes teaches us to be fearful and once we get through our fears and are on the other side of them we realize the fear of doing something was bigger than the task of doing whatever we were fearful of.
The fear of failure is an unfounded fear until you do indeed fail at something and if the fear stops you from trying you have already failed.
thank you Ros, for your words of encouragement through your story.
Hi Larry,
Interesting question you pose – “did you find working through your self doubts and fears that a lot of the fear once you got through it was unfounded and was of “fear itself”.”
The self-doubt was well-integrated into my personality.
As for fear – I think I suffered what everyone suffers in the beginning, fear of appearing stupid. So, I tried to write everything ‘perfectly’ and by result appeared stilted.
After getting so many comments from good people like you, I think I found my footing AND finally, my voice.
What a relief!
So, yes, ‘fear itself’. 🙂
Cheers,
Ros
Hi Ros, I can so relate to your story. Good on your for working on yourself and stepping out of the shadows that other people use as their model for you.
I came from a very poor family and I have been a very shy person, but also blessed with being born with a personality that has courage and no fear of trying anything new. Even though, I still have had to jump through hoops to please my parents, especially my narcassistic dad whereby nothing I do is ever good enough in his eyes, everyone else, other peoples children he praises more than me, even at my 52 years of age. I had beautiful hair as a child and my practical mother would cut it to look like a boys haircut because it was a practical haircut, and it made me loose my self confidence as a child. I was so glad when I could move out my parents home and start creating my own life.
I think we all need to practice putting forcefield around ourselves to block out other peoples negative affects on us.
My courage has taught me to dust myself off, become a stronger person and shape my life to be what I wanted my life to look like. Keep moving towards your goals (even if they are baby steps, it still leads to the bigger picture of your goals).
In saying all of that, I have become a perfectionist and I still suffer ‘analysis paralysis’ sometimes when trying something new things, as I don’t want to make a mistake (I think this is an offshoot from my childhood). I have to dig deep and pull out my courage that sits beneath the surface.
And lastly, people who don’t know me, think that I am lucky – when in fact my luck is from taking opportunities where I found them and worked really hard on reinventing myself to be someone that I really wanted to be.
I say to everyone, don’t be worried about making a mistake, you can always fix it, mistakes are a way of learning and gaining experience and wisdom to go onto better things and enjoy life.
I have probably been a bit too chatty in the reply to your blog, but it obviously struck a chord with me. thanks again for sharing your lovely blog.
hugs, Karen
Hi Karen,
Thank YOU so much for sharing your story.
You’ll get over the perfectionism if you want to… I did.
That, in and of itself, should be another blog post. 🙂
Thanks for the suggestion!
Cheers,
Ros
I suffer from extreme shyness about getting my work out there. No matter what, it’s unrelenting and very limiting and you have just now helped me hit the wall with it. Many hugs… You have a beautiful positive attitude. Thank you for being so candid about your life and sharing something that has the power to inspire growth and change for the better. bless
Hey Judith,
I do truly feel for you if you suffer from ‘extreme shyness’. It can be so debilitating!
Keep working on it and you will overcome!
Cheers,
Ros
Thank you for that. I came from a similar type home although not an alcoholic home but my parents were not really educated (dad 6th grade and mom dropped out in the 12th to marry dad). Consequently they were no encouragement to me or my siblings in encouragement on education. I have been following your career and trying to be a success in affiliate marketing but have not been successful yet; mostly because I haven’t the funds for Google ad-words and other forms of advertising. But I am not giving up. Thanks for being so transparent. God bless!!
Hi Dewey,
Thanks for sharing a bit of your upbringing.
And by the way, you really do NOT need much money to market your site online anymore (Google Adwords or other PPC). Use social media marketing like Facebook, Google, etc.
I just posted an article about just that at https://rosalindgardner.com/blog/grow-your-biz-with-social-media-marketing/
And yes, NEVER give up. 🙂
Cheers,
Ros
Fantastic post Rosalind.
Thank you, Lisa. 🙂
Needed a pick me up story. Yours was inspiring 🙂 In my current situation, I have to thank my wife for supporting me, even though am struggling a bit to get my business going. Thank you.
Happy to hear you found my story inspiring. Thanks for sharing!
Thank you for sharing all of that. Wow! And I think I had it bad. I too had the screwed up mean alcoholic Dad. Somewhere in there he managed to convey to me that I was smart and pretty. But he got so many negatives in there — that those nice things were almost a trap somehow, if you know what I mean.
“My screwed up mean, negative, paranoid Dad who makes me feel terrible isn’t that that bad,” you know. Not sure I ever learned to call a spade a spade. I still love him to this day, very much. And feel sad about him, etc. He passed on in 2010. Mom was young and loving…. a kid herself. All of us 3 kids and Mom got messed up.
But I have not been able to be as fearless as you yet. I have friends, but maybe not that good to where if all went to h___, we both would be happy and relaxed if they gave me a room to stay for as long as I needed it. I can see how that would give some liberation. (;
Maybe I need to work on that — instead of earning a high income right now. (;
Hey Katherine,
Thanks so much for sharing a part of your story and I hear you… I love both my parents, regardless of how they managed to screw me up.
Recognizing that they too were fighting demons in their past and forgiving them for their foibles went a long way for me.
And yes, working to find your place in the world is so much more important than money… at any time. Rich or poor. 🙂 I’m glad you heard that part.
Cheers,
Ros
Wow, Rosalind. You putting all that out there. Some people think they had it bad. I’m impressed with the fact that you opened up like that after going through what you did when you were young. You should be an inspiration for people. My hat is off to you strong courageous woman. Thank you for that.
Hi Mark,
You’re most welcome and thank YOU for sharing your comment. But I don’t think I had it nearly as bad as so many people on this planet and talking about my past in order to help others isn’t really courageous… (other than that my mother might get wind of the post and disown me, that would be bad). 🙂
Cheers,
Ros
Thanks for sharing your story Rosalind. You are a constant inspiration. I always know that I will find honest and valuable information on your website.
I’m looking forward to the day when I make enough income from doing affiliate marketing part-time that will allow me to become a full-time internet marketer. There is no doubt in my mind that becoming a successful internet marketer requires constant hard work, along with a good imagination, plenty of patience and, above all else, a passion for the niche that one chooses for their business.
I look forward to your next article Rosalind.
Hi Valerie,
Thank you kindly for your comment.
I’m thrilled to hear that you ‘get it’… hard work, patience, passion etc. THAT is exactly the right attitude to become a success at this game.
Good luck to you!
Cheers,
Ros
Hi Ros,
What a story! and I thank you for it. Your book was the first one I bought on the Internet and I was so stressed up by the process of buying it, I thought I was going to die, my heart somehow managed to stay inside me and I got a message that by magic I could open the book and start reading it.
At the time I was 60 and I didn’t know what a domain was or url, It was in 2005.
So thank you so much for the book and all the guidance from your wonderful website and of course for your emails. They are always so timely and always about something that I have just been thinking about and wanted to get some more information on.
Just today I had my moment of fear and self-doubt and there it was your email titled:Overcoming Fear and Self-Doubt. Isn’t that brilliant?
What’s more your story mirrored mine as far as family life was concerned with perhaps one subtle difference my father was not a clinically-depressed alcoholic, he was a very social alcoholic, that means we had a lot of his “friends” around.
I think it’s amazing the way you gained your position in life and your financial success.
I am in Poland now, I came back here after spending nearly 40 years in England, raising three children there, practically on my own, managing my own property development business, having a hobby farm, and then after the property market crush 1997 becoming a teacher.
At 60 I realised, that throughout all my years in England I had paid too little attention to my pension. I realised I had to quickly develop a way of earning money in my old age – (I say that but I’m not really old). I had a computer, that I used for planning my school lessons and decided to get connected to the Internet. Wow, I could be there in this world. I sat down and wrote in Google: how to be a millionaire and guess what popped out – your book title!
So this is how I became a person who knows how to make a website.
Thanks again if you ever got as far as reading all the above ( another self-doubt perhaps?)
Copious Worm Regards,
Alina
Hey Alina,
Thank you SO much for sharing.
YOUR story is an inspiration to me and should be to others as well, just based on what you have shared here. WOW!
BTW, my father was Polish. My maiden name is Ogrodowczyk, which is why I changed my name to Gardner when my business started to prosper.
I can hardly believe that my book popped up under ‘how to be a millionaire’ though. Had I known that a decade ago, I would have worked harder to make sure it still showed up in Google for those keywords. LOL
Keep up the good work!!!
Cheers,
Ros