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Does Money Make Miley Cyrus Act Crazy?
If you’re like millions of people who saw Miley Cyrus’s performance at the MTV Video Music Awards recently, you’ve probably wondered what the effect of massive success on the music and acting star. Cyrus seems to be
doing everything possible to remake her image in the exact opposite of her squeaky clean mold that Disney and other companies have created for her over the last several years. (A rumor has it that Disney even created a contractual obligation for Cyrus to maintain a certain haircut during her “Hannah Montana” television show.) There’s a sense of someone taking on their first sense of independence, and running with it — the star seemed to be sending the message to the audience that she was not going to live according to the expectations of others anymore, and from the look of it, they got that message loud and clear.
The horrified looks of Rihanna, Drake, and Will Smith aside, the real question people had is whether the massive financial rewards of Cyrus’ singing career can explain her crazy behavior. Cyrus is said to be worth about $100,000,000 — certainly a fortune by any standards. And since she is still struggling with the problems of young adulthood — forming an identity, understanding her values and taking a place in society, it’s very likely that her finances contribute to at least some of her behavior.This effect of money can come from many different areas of life. For one, many people who become wealthy at a young age are suddenly struck with the fact that they have no need to work, but who often want to develop a career and contribute to society. Take Steve Jobs for example, who at 31 years old was fired from Apple Inc. by the company’s board of directors. Jobs had in fact started the company himself, and was worth well over a hundred million dollars by that time. And yet, feeling like contributing to society was more important to his life than resting on his laurels, Jobs started a new company, NeXT, where he hoped to contribute inexpensive computers to universities.
The fact that Cyrus is barely into her 20s should tell you something about how much time she has to develop her career. She has enough to retire at an age when most people are just starting their first real job. And that is a tough position to be in. If she is hoping to push her singing and acting career well into adulthood — as most artists would like to — it may be that she is trying to make her mark now. Think of it a bit like Bob Dylan in 1964, releasing electric music for the first time, when before that point he was primarily known as a folk singer making gentle acoustic music.
Dylan’s idea may have been a bit like what Cyrus’ is. That is to say, maybe Miley Cyrus is trying to avoid becoming a has-been, a relic of the 2000’s who burned out playing inoffensive pop music. If this is the case, Cyrus may be able to shift her career into a different mode by showing herself to be an uncompromising artist. Remember that even the greats of the past — Frank Sinatra for example — were once viewed as essentially music for teenagers, and not serious artists. Sinatra even suffered career failure in his 20’s when his audience grew up and moved on to other things. But he came back to record success when he began allowing his music to mature and his ideas to gain focus. If Cyrus can pull such a move, she may not be remembered as a teeny-bopper, but as a serious artist.
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Karate Guess So
“Walk on road, hm? Walk left side, safe. Walk right side, safe. Walk middle, sooner or later, [makes squish gesture] get squish just like grape. Here, karate, same thing. Either you karate do “yes”, or karate do “no”. You karate do “guess so”, [makes squish gesture] just like grape. Understand?” -Mr. Miyagi
It occurred to me that lately, I’ve changed my day-to-day cash flow plans a couple of times.
A year ago, I was running on a fairly strict cash-only plan.
A month ago, I was running on a strict budget, but doing it entirely out of my checking account.
Now, I’m loosening the budget reins, and moving all of my payments and day-to-day spending to a credit card, including a new balance that I can’t immediately pay off.
The thing is, changing plans too often scares me. Like the quote at the beginning of this post, I start worrying about being squished like a grape.
The simple fact is that any plan will work.
If you want to get out of debt, just pick a plan and run with it. If that means you follow Dave Ramsey and do the low-balance-first debt snowball, good for you. Do it. If you follow Suze Ormann and do a high-interest first repayment plan, great. Do it. If you follow Bach and pay based on a complicated DOLP formula to repay in the quickest manner, wonderful! Do it!
Just don’t switch plans every month. If you do that, you’ll lose momentum and motivation. Squish like grape! Just pick a plan and go. It really, truly does not matter which plan you are following as long as you are following through.
This applies to other parts of your life, too. For example, there are a thousand fad diets out there. Here’s a secret: they all work. Every single one of them, whether it’s Weight Watchers, slow carb, or the beer-only diet. The only thing that matters is that you stick to the diet. If you manage that, you will lose weight on any diet out there. Except for the jelly bean and lard diet. That one will make you extra soft.
Another secret: the productivity gurus are right. Every single one of them. David Allen, Stephen Covey, Steve Pavlina, and the rest. They all have the One True Secret to getting the most out of your day. Really. Pick a guru and go! But don’t try to Get Things Done in the morning and do 7 Habits at night. Changing systems, changing plans, changing your mind will make you sabotage yourself.
The real secret to accomplishing great things, whether it’s paying off $100,000 of debt, dropping 40 pounds in 3 months, or tripling your productivity is to do it. Just get started and, once you’ve started, don’t stop. If you keep going and stay consistent, you’ll accomplish more than anyone who hops from system to system every few weeks.
The Things That Bring You Here
I’ve been walking though my analytics data. That is the Big Brother software I use to know everything about each one of my dear readers. It’s all part of my master plan to rule the world. Muwahaha!
Some of the results are interesting.
The single most-used search term to find this site is “slow carb diet“, which is great, because I really enjoyed writing that post. I’ve been slacking on the diet lately, but I’m still down more than 30 pounds. I’m currently ranked #3 in Google for this term. If I move up 2 more spots, I’ll outrank Tim Ferriss for his own product. If I aggregated all of the “slow carb” variations, this post probably accounts for more than half of my traffic from Google.
Many of you come here by searching for “how to have a perfect life“. I’ll do everything I can to help you achieve that, but it’s going to take work on your part. There are no shortcuts.
“Beat the Check” is another popular search term, but a very bad game to play. It’s almost impossible to win it, since the Check 21 Act of 2004.
It’s interesting that “trained husband” brings a few of you each month. My question: are you shopping, or exploring a new fetish? Don’t be shy.
I’m a bit amazed that “zombie wheels” is something people actually search for, but 140 people hit Google looking for that term every month, and a few of them make it over here.
“How to stretch a meal“, “things you should buy online“, and “unsecured loan advice” are some of the top personal finance terms bringing you all in, though “how to make a bunker” and its variation are popular, too.
“Hoe can you force your wife” is a bit disturbing. Most of the results are naturally for sex. I can’t help but hope that I’ve either really disappointed this visitor, or convinced him that force is a bad idea.
“How much did a pound of gold weigh in 1854?” is a search that makes me giggle. To the best of my knowledge, the troy scale has been used to weigh gold for a lot longer than that.
That was a fun little stroll through my statistics. Hopefully the fact that I used “fetish” and “sex” in a post will draw more crazy search terms.
How did you find me? Inquiring minds want to know, so please tell me in the comments.
Budget Lesson, Part 1
budget” width=”300″ height=”185″ />Over the next few weeks, I will be going over my budget in detail.
The first section is income, but that’s straightforward. A line for each income source, bi-weekly, monthly and annual totals. Simple.
Before we start, a word on the organization. There are five columns:
- Category – This is the description of the line item.
- Cost – How much do you pay for this item?
- Time – What is the frequency of the payment? Valid values are ‘m’, ‘q’, ‘y’, ‘w’ for ‘Monthly’, ‘Quarterly’, ‘Yearly’ and ‘Weekly’.
- Monthly – Cost and Time are combined to calculate the monthly expense, to make it possibly to budget. If this is $100, I need to set aside a C-Note each and every month to make the payment when it comes due.
- Yearly – This column is mostly informative. It’s helpful to see this in comparison to my annual pay.
The first section I am actually going to address is discretionary spending.
- Groceries/Dining $475.00 – We don’t budget heavily for groceries, which would be a surprise if you saw me. At the smallest I have ever been, fit, I was never small. We shop smart, buy in bulk when it makes sense, and rarely eat out. We also keep cooked rice and beans in containers in the refrigerator as a cheap and healthy way to stretch almost everything we eat.
- Discretionary $250.00 – This gets used for household items, like toilet paper and soap. It also get used for the odd book or movie, or to cover the gaps between the other categories and reality.
- Baby stuff $60.00 – We have two children in diapers. ‘Nuff said. This category does get progressively smaller as the baby items are outgrown and the children get potty-trained.
- Gas/oil $200.00 – Gas and auto-maintenance. This is actually higher than monthly costs, allowing us to set some aside for larger maintenance issues.
- Clothes $15.00 – All of our dressers are overflowing, so this is strictly replacement cost for the time being. Our kids wear a lot of hand-me-downs.
- Blow Money $50.00 – Occasionally, habitual shoppers need to shop. If they don’t do it on-budget, they will do it off-budget and kill the whole idea.
Initially, we used a “virtual envelope” system. We had a spreadsheet and every time something was spent in this category, we entered the amount and stopped when the category was spent. Didn’t work. We are going on a pure, cash-only system as of the first of the year. No money, no spendy.
Make Extra Money Part 2: Niche Selection
If you want to make money, help someone get healthy, wealthy or laid.
This section was quick.
Seriously, those three topics have been making people rich since the invention of rich. Knowing that isn’t enough. If you want to make some money in the health niche, are you going to help people lose weight, add muscle, relieve stress, or reduce the symptoms of some unpleasant medical condition? Those are called “sub-niches”. (Side question: Viagra is a sub-niche of which topic?)
Still not enough.
If you’re going to offer a product to help lose weight, does it revolve around diet, exercise, or both? For medical conditions, is it a way to soothe eczema, instructions for a diabetic diet, a cure for boils, or help with acne? Those are micro-niches.
That’s where you want to be. The “make money” niche is far too broad for anyone to effectively compete. The “make money online” sub-niche is still crazy. When you get to the “make money buying and selling websites” micro-niche, you’re in a territory that leaves room for competition, without costing thousands of dollars to get involved.
Remember that: The more narrowly you define your niche market, the easier it is to compete. You can take that too far. The “lose weight by eating nothing but onions, alfalfa, and imitation caramel sauce” micro-niche is probably too narrowly defined to have a market worth pursuing. You need a micro-niche with buyers, preferably a lot of them.
Now the hard part.
How do you find a niche with a lot of potential customers? Big companies pay millions of dollars every year to do that kind of market research.
Naturally, I recommend you spend millions of dollars on market research.
No?
Here’s the part where I make this entire series worth every penny you’ve paid. Times 10.
Steal the research.
My favorite source of niche market research to steal is http://www.dummies.com/. Click the link and notice all of the wonderful niches at the top of the page. Jon Wiley & Sons, Inc. spends millions of dollars to know what topics will be good sellers. They’ve been doing this a long time. Trust their work.
You don’t have to concentrate on the topics I’ve helpfully highlighted, but they will make it easier for you. Other niches can be profitable, too.
Golf is a great example. Golfers spend money to play the game. You don’t become a golfer without having some discretionary money to spend on it. I’d recommend against consumer electronics. There is a lot of competition for anything popular, and most of that is available for free. If you choose to promote some high-end gear using your Amazon affiliate link, you’re still only looking at a 3% commission.
I like to stick to topics that people “need” an answer for, and can find that answer in ebook form, since I will be promoting a specific product.
With that in mind, pick a topic, then click one of the links to the actual titles for sale. The “best selling titles” links are a gold mine. You can jump straight to the dummies store, if you’d like.
Of the topics above, here’s how I would narrow it down:
1. Business and Careers. The bestsellers here are Quickbooks and home buying. I’m not interested in either topic, so I’ll go into “More titles”. Here, the “urgent” niches look like job hunting and dealing with horrible coworkers. I’m also going to throw “writing copy” into the list because it’s something I have a hard time with.
2. Health and Fitness. My first thought was to do a site on diabetic cooking, but the cooking niche is too competitive. Childhood obesity, detox diets and back pain remedies strike me as worth pursuing. I’m leaning towards back pain, because I have a bad back. When you’ve thrown your back out, you’ve got nothing to do but lie on the couch and look for ways to make the pain stop. That’s urgency.
3. Personal Finance. The topics that look like good bets are foreclosures and bankruptcies. These are topics that can cost thousands of dollars if you get them wrong. I hate to promote a bankruptcy, but some people are out of choices. Foreclosure defense seems like a good choice. Losing your home comes with a sense of urgency, and helping people stay in their home makes me feel good.
4. Relationships and Family. Of these topics, divorce is probably a good seller. Dating advice definitely is. I’m not going to detail either one of those niches here. Divorce is depressing and sex, while fun, isn’t a topic I’m going to get into here. I try to be family friendly, most of the time. Weddings are great topic. Brides are planning to spend money and there’s no shortage of resources to promote.
So, the niches I’ve chosen are:
- Back pain
- Bankruptcy
- Conflict resolution at work
- Detox diets
- Fat kids
- Foreclosure avoidance
- Job hunting
- Weddings
- Writing copy
I won’t be building 9 niche sites in this series. From here, I’m going to explore effective keywords/search terms and good products to support. There’s no guarantee I’ll find a good product with an affiliate program for a niche I’ve chosen that has keywords that are both highly searched and low competition, so I’m giving myself alternatives.
For those of you following along at home, take some time to find 5-10 niches you’d be willing to promote.
The important things to consider are:
1. Does it make me feel dirty to promote it?
2. Will there be customers willing to spend money on it?
3. Will those customers have an urgent need to solve a problem?
I’ve built sites that ignore #3, and they don’t perform nearly as well as those that consider it. When I do niche sites, I promote a specific product. It’s pure affiliate marketing, so customers willing to spend money are necessarily my target audience.
