Attention fellow skeptics -

Pretty cheesey headline, isn't it? I'm the original skeptic - I'm an attorney for the love of Pete. These claims are ridiculous.

Why?

Because these headlines can appear as ridiculous as "Brittney in Rehab"....wait a minute, that's not so ridculous, is it.

Funny thing about the Enquirer, though. Ever notice this phenomenon - All those wacky stories initially denied by the celebrities turn out to be true? This happens, if not 100% of the time, certainly the vast majority of time.

Likewise, some of these crazy headers, "Beach Bum Makes $250,000 From His Laptop," or "Earn $5,000 Per Week, In Your Sleep, No Cold Calling" are actually truthful. Let me explain why.

See, it's not so much that the claims of the online promoters are false or unlikely. This may surprise you, but there are plenty of legitimate systems out there. So it's not fair to say that the only problem is that most systems are B.S.

Nope.

The success of these systems are generally dependent upon one main factor: the user.

I understand this very well; perhaps a little too well. See, I'm on both sides of the fence on this issue - I have an "information" business where I train other entrepreneurial-minded folks, mortgage brokers, how to prospect and close a specific type of mortgage.

In private coaching sessions, when I hear complaints that the system is not working for them, I'll ask them to describe what they've done thus far. More often then not, they have implemented 50% at best of what I told them.

Here's a confession - I'm on the other side, too. I'm a big consumer of information products and money making systems. My tendency, which I fight every day to one degree or another, is to tweak, try to improve, or otherwise over think the system I've invested time and money in.

This is stupid and based on my fundamental misconception of how much smarter I am than everyone! Yeah, that's right, I've probably lost thousands of dollars by NOT following directions - not allowing the various systems I've invested in to work their magic.

I hope you learn from my gaffes and avoid this dumb mistake. Because you're not smarter than the author of whatever system you've chosen to employ.

Even if you are smarter, don't overthink things. Fail "their" way first; then tweak things. In other words, you should be robotic in your following of directions. Adhere to them slavishly. If something doesn't work as predicted, that's why you step in and play around things.

Listen, there's no one perfect way to make money. There are a lot of ways. But none of them are perfect or automatic, no matter what the claims of the authors. Every system, whether practically perfect or severely flawed, is dependent upon the efforts of the user.

Many would-be entrepreneurs simply don't have the follow through to take the necessary actions to succeed.

So if you're going to take a leap of faith because you're not satisfied with your current earnings, lifestyle and so forth, remember that you can't half-ass it. If you invest in something, do it all the way.

There's an ancient Greek myth about the general of an outnumbered, outmanned army who invaded the shores of their superior enemy. So he set fire the the ships they arrived on. This way, his men understood that there was no turning back.

You're in or you're out. It's that simple. There's no in-between.