Are You A Clock Puncher Or A Rock Star?

Which do you choose? X dollars an hour, or getting paid for results? If you said “results” you’re in a super-powerful minority. If you’ve truly lived this philosophy the past few years, chances are great you’re not hurting too bad from the economy right now.

Honestly, for most of us, fear is a formidable enemy standing right in our path. To understand and overcome this fear, let’s look at two types of people: the clock punchers and the rock stars.

You know already who clock punchers are, don’t you? They’re the bread and butter of our work force, the 9-to-5′ers. People who ask, “Would you like fries with that?” Corporate executives too. All clock-punchers make x dollars an hour. Some of them have self-esteem, some don’t. Clock punchers are dependent on, perhaps addicted to, those comforting, dependable paychecks week after week…until a crisis comes along.

Rock stars, on the other hand, have unpredictable earnings from day one. Maybe they’re a one-hit wonder. Maybe they crank out success after success. Yet all rock stars have self esteem. They started their band (or business) from the garage. They’re not afraid to work for free. But they have dreams (and some have definite plans) for success.

No matter which group you’re in, success demands you become a real rock star. If you live McPaycheck to McPaycheck (or if you’ve gotten the McPink Slip) take heart. You can learn to be a rock star. And your time can be worth far, far more than what you were paid.

Clock punchers are usually given demeaning titles like “clerk” to convince them they’re only worth x dollars an hour. Those who are willing to sacrifice all their time get titles like “corporate executive”. Punchers, as a group, are more likely to fritter (or Twitter) away their time.

Rockstars use Twitter too. Ashton Kutcher raced with CNN to a million followers. Oprah just signed up with Twitter and already has 30,000 followers before she’s made a single tweet. Yet how much time did she spend currying followers? A very calculated amount of time, I tell you. Rock stars have learned each moment is extremely valuable.

What about the rest of us? We’re not Oprah. We have to pay the bills. What’s the fastest path to rockstardom?

Rockstars and Punchers alike have 168 hours a week. Fifty six hours of sleep. And every good Rockstar started off like the rest of us: with a 40-hour work week. Being generous, let’s add 42 hours a week for personal time - that’s fun time, family time, spiritual time, eating, time in the bathroom, driving to work, etc.

Once we subtract all these very necessary things from our week, what do we have left? Thirty hours. Wow. Really? Yep. Most of us don’t know that, because we’re too busy Twittering or watching TV.

What are you going to do with your 30 hours? Well, first of all, you’re going to have to learn how to guard those 30 hours with time management that really works.

Second of all, there’s massive benefit to spending some of this time reading. Brian Tracy, author of well over 20 leading books on developing human potential,  recommends, “Invest at least 15 minutes everyday reading about your profession.” Reading the tabloids doesn’t count here, unless that’s your profession.

Beginning rockstars spend most of their 30 hours working for free. They create something of value. Something people really want. And yes, they give it away for free.

How does this work? Should you *really* work for free? Well meaning friends and family have cautioned me against it. What’s been the result of all the free advice I’ve given online and offline? Just this past week, I’ve begun negotiations for SEO consulting with 6 different online businesses.

Recently, I asked my friends what things they bought online. One of them is planning to buy some software soon. Hmmm. Time for some *discreet* affiliate links on this site. Hopefully this little survey will bring in hundreds of affiliate dollars in short order. We’ll see.

I started this blog roughly 3 weeks ago. There are tons of improvements I want to make. They just haven’t yet fit into my 30 hours a week. Changing the theme to increase SEO, improving the tracking, social marketing, submitting my site to trusted link directories, the list goes on. (I’ll try to explain these in detail as I make these changes.)

You might say I’ve barely marketed this blog at all. Even without all these marketing advantages, look at the traffic increase from simply blogging consistently. Bars with a red dot at the top indicate days when I posted an article.

I see proof here that a part-time blog can succeed. Proof that clock-punchers can cross over to the other camp. Maybe these aren’t rockstar results yet, but I’m keeping the rockstar mentality. Your thoughts?

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