Let me tell you story about a friend of mine who used to be a complete failure. His name was Bob. My friend Bob was the type of guy who always was looking for instant riches, but never could seem to find them.

He jumped from one business opportunity to the next one and each time the people who sold Bob the business opportunity claimed they were going to make my friend Bob a millionaire, quickly and easily with little effort on his part.

I often visited my friend Bob, and every time Bob always would talk about his latest and greatest venture. Each time, I would tell Bob how he could use the internet to promote his venture, and each time he would get excited and say, "That sounds great".

But, whenever it was time for Bob to take action, he was always busy with his full-time job, his favorite TV program was on, or he had some other task to accomplish.

This went on for several years, and I lost touch with Bob. But, recently, when I ran into Bob again at the local grocery store, I asked him what he was up to, and this is what he said:

"I am doing the best I've ever done in my entire life. I quit my crappy job; I have more time to spend with my family, and I just bought a new car".

I said, "That's great. What happened?"

"Well, I finally got tired of having no money and working at my dead-end job. So, I went into business for myself and quit my job."

I asked Bob, "Weren't you scared?"

Bob said, "No, because I finally did something I should have done a long time ago. I first identified what I wanted and then I worked my butt off to get it!"

Later, I found out that it took my friend a good 8 months of hard work to discover what he wanted to sell, and he used the power of the internet to create a profitable business.

Like my friend Bob, you, too, have the power to achieve success using the internet if you only follow the same process.

I like to call what Bob did "intelligent action" because he was intelligent by first identifying what he wanted and then taking action to reach his goal.

Before he took intelligent action, Bob was practicing insanity. He kept on pursuing the same easy riches, each time expecting a different result.

Are you practicing insanity? If so, here are the five steps of intelligent action:

1. Create a picture of what you want. To do this, you must determine what you are passionate about or care about most.

2. Create time to do it. Give up your favorite TV show or little chores until you get it done.

3. Do your research into how to accomplish your goal. This will save you time and effort if you know what you are doing.

4. Get help from those who have knowledge of how to accomplish your goal whenever you are stuck.

5. Take the risk to succeed. The internet is just like any business. You can make or lose money, but you are never going to get anywhere unless you take a risk to get what you want.

Before you leave here are some words that hold true today just as they did over 50 years ago.

"A man is the sum of his actions, of what he has done, of what he can do, Nothing else." --Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948)

Hans Klein - All rights reserved