Previously I have discussed five steps towards making a Million Dollars. These were passion, hard work, perseverance, the ability to cope with failure and still continue and belief in yourself and that you could do it and finally defnining your goals. The next one I would recommend would be focus. Sure this is similar to a few of the others, but not quite.

Many people start off with a vision of that Million Dollars. And they are passionate and hardworking and they will try many new things to get to that goal. There lies the problem. Trying many new things. They bounce around, putting effort and passion into this idea, for about a week, then they put the same effort and passion into another idea the next week. I have seen many people do this. They are doing this even at home, or in relationships, or in starting a new hobby, in fact in many areas of their life.

I suppose it stems from the fact that we live in such an instant gratification society that we are not prepared to work at something for a long period of time. We might spend a year, or maybe just a few months on trying this particular business venture.

But if you look at some of the people who have made it big, they didn’t do this overnight. Even Bill Gates spent many years hiking DOS, around the operating system before his Windows System, trying to sell it. The Google boys didn’t do it overnight and as for Amazon, they spent years before they posted their first profit. The years before that involved many instances of groveling for more funds to keep the company afloat.

When you decide you want to make a lot of money then you have to stay focused. Decide on what you are passionate about, put some mega hard work into it, stay on track with your perseverance and don’t allow set backs to stop you. But over and above all of this, keep your focus on the one thing that you are passionate about and that will ultimately make you your money.

I am sure there are many people who look at their bank account, read some inspiring report on how Madonna made her millions, or Paul Getty drilled for oil, or Richard Branson took a chance on music and many more stories. So they are like kids in a toy store, trying out different get rich quick schemes. They might dabble in property because somebody has written about that. Or they might try their luck on the stock exchange. Or lo and behold, there is the internet where scores of people are making huge money in a few days. Now that’s where I should be.

Every time you change focus, you lose some momentum, and often you even lose some of your invested money. Keep your focus. Don’t expect to make money overnight. For that buy a lotto ticket. Oh that one didn’t work for you either? Neither for me. Get your mind around what you are passionate about and focus on that one thing.

Don’t get caught by quick fix solutions. They don’t work. Anybody who tells you it worked for them, they are lying. They are making up success stories to impress their audience. You need to know better. There is no such thing. Keep your focus. Remember those Karate Kid movies? My kids loved them. And I loved watching them with the two of them. And focus was the main principle behind those, slightly unlikely - but then its Hollywood isn’t it - stories. The principle of the story stood though, Hollywood or not.