Got a pound coin handy?

If so, try this….

Flip the coin (just as you would if you were doing ‘heads or tails’).

But instead of catching it, let it fall onto a hard surface like a floor or table.

Okay. Now here’s the challenge.,,

The coin needs to land on its edge.

Not the head side… not the tail side… but the RIM of the coin, so that it comes to set standing up on one side.

Give it a go now if you like.

As you’ll see, it’s impossible!

Well, not quite impossible…

Just very, very, very, very, very, very, very unlikely.

You’d need to do it a lot of times.

And I can give you an idea of how many….

Roughly 70,000 times.

I’m basing that on the experience of two American brothers named David and Daniel Hulett, who flipped a nickel 70,000 times until it finally landed on its edge.

Of course, they were filming every single attempt.

Because they knew that when (or IF) they eventually succeeded, it would be a mind-blowingly cool video to put on their social media.

And it would be worth it, too…

Because these kinds of ‘trick shots’ have helped them rack up 12.5 million followers across TikTok, Instagram, YouTube and Facebook.

Which means that they made good money from coin tossing in their basement.

Perhaps I should commission a special What Really Makes Money report called ‘How to Earn an Income by Being a Tosser’?

But joking aside, trick shots are huge business on social media.

• Ping-pong balls bounced off frying pans into distant cups.
• Full-court basketball thrown over the rafters…
• iPhones that slid perfectly across countertops to nestle onto wireless chargers.

The idea isn’t that these tricksters are pretending that they have some unique skill or magical ability.

It’s all about putting in the time to make multiple attempts…

Then sharing that ONE near-miraculous shot that actually works!

Some of the big names in this weird field become stars…

Like Mike Shields, better known online as That’ll Work, who recently won the inaugural ‘Trick Shot Championship’ by tossing game discs into the narrow slot of a Nintendo Wii with uncanny accuracy.

Now, don’t worry I’m not recommending trick-shotting as a home business opportunity.

If you have the time spare to practice throwing a banana from a balcony into a bin 100 times a day, then by all means go for it.

I’ll assume not, though.

However, despite the lunacy of it all, these trick shotters might be able to teach us a thing or two about persistence against all odds.

Lesson One
What You See Online Is Usually Not the First Attempt

It’s easy to feel demoralised when you see successful entrepreneurs online.

Because what they do seems so natural and effortless.

They present fluent videos… producing compelling marketing copy for their products… and show off their £20K-in-a-day payment slips and £100K-per year income statements.

But it’s a bit like watching someone casually toss a Frisbee backwards off a roof into a tiny bucket while blindfolded.

That’s the END result of a lot of trial and error.

Behind the scenes, online product creators make mistakes…. hit dead ends… experience failures… become overwhelmed or burned out… get plagued by doubts…

It’s all part of the process.

But you rarely see the months of groundwork… the feeble follower counts… the glitchy launches… the empty inboxes…. the blog posts with zero views.

By the time YOU come across these people they’ve usually been through all that, so what you’re seeing is the END of the process.

So they seem to be geniuses! Naturally talented! Born to succeed!

But at one time, they were in your position.

It’s likely that they looked at other online business people with envy, wondering how on earth they could ever achieve the same success.

So don’t compare yourself to these online stars – they’ve just been doing it for longer, and have made their mistakes.

Lesson Two
Repetition beats natural skill and talent

Few of these trick shot social media heroes had any special talent or advantage.

It’s not like Mike Shields was blessed with an uncanny ability to throw discs into a Nintendo Wii slot.

He just practised it, over and over again.

Thanks to hours of repetition, trick shotters become incrementally better tossing ping-pong balls into a bin or dropping paper from a stepladder into a shredder.

The same applies to home business tasks you find tricky…

That could mean writing, design, using spreadsheets, grappling with WordPress, Photoshop or Canva….

When you start out in a home business, these things can be so frustrating, because they don’t come naturally and they take ages.

But the more you do them, the easier and quicker they become.

In his book Atomic Habits, James Clear says that if you do something 100 times, you’ll be better than most people at it!

Which sounds like a lot…

But if you were to use Canva, Photoshop or WordPress every day for 3 months you’d pretty much be there!

You just need to be willing to push through the initial psychological pain point!

So If you think you’re bad at something… or even if you ARE bad at something… just keep going!

You’ll be amazed at how rapidly you improve with some persistence and repetition.

Lesson Three
Gamification is a Tool for Persistence

Many people tend to view a lot of home business tasks as an ‘effort’ or a ‘slog’.

They sit down at the computer with a sigh, motivated purely by a nagging sense that they need to achieve a big goal, and therefore this work is a necessary evil.

But what if you thought of it more as a game?

After all, plenty of people sit down eagerly to spend hours on a PlayStation…. Or open up their phones every day to do language tests on DuoLingo.

These things require focus, effort and persistence…

And yet they feel driven to do them, and quickly become hooked on them.

This is how many of the tick-shotters feel about what they do – that it’s PLAY. They set themselves a challenge then they treat it as a game they are trying to win.

So if you’re starting a big home business project… like building a website, writing your first email series or designing a digital product range… ask yourself:

Can I turn this into a challenge?

Can I track my score or reward myself for wins?

One way to do this is to try and establish a ‘streak’.

This is a form of psychological ‘lock-in’ where you set the parameters and rules in advance.

Do a business task every day and after about a month you’ll find it uncomfortable to break the streak.

What’s more, as your streak lengthens, it reinforces your commitment to continue the habit.

Lesson Four
Find Your Flow State

One Turkish trickshotter says that the reason she keeps going isn’t the views, or the money.

“It makes me happy,” she said. “It’s like meditation. I have no stress. I don’t think about problems.”

This is something you should try to replicate yourself.

Because in any long term business enterprise there’s likely to be a task you have to do often…

It might be uploading content, sending out emails, posting on social media, making videos, crunching numbers, or editing photos…

Whatever it is, see if you can find a way to carry out that task mindfully, taking pleasure from the process itself, without caring too much about the end goal.

When you find an activity where you get absorbed in the ‘flow’ of the process, you start to lose yourself in the work, and time seems to melt away.

I get this with writing. Maybe you might experience it with planning, designing, researching… or something else entirely.

Again, it takes a bit of time to find that thing which activates your brain’s pleasure nodes.

But if you can achieve, then it takes the strain and effort out of running a home enterprise.

Quickly, before I finish…

I’d be interested to know if you implement any of these techniques… or if there’s a task which you used to find hard at but now pretty easily?

If so, I’d love to share your experience with other readers.

Just ‘hit reply’ and tell all!