This post was written by me through an activation with HireInfluence on behalf of LiquidWeb. Although I received compensation for participating in the campaign, all thoughts and opinions are my own.

As part of the “Build Something Brilliant” campaign from Liquid Web, I was asked to write an article about how I have personally built something brilliant in tech.

But rather than explicitly share how I built my brand – which I’ve already spoke about in depth – I wanted to break down the key attributes of what it actually takes to build something brilliant.

1. A Desire & Passion to Grow

You have to be burning with an idea, or a problem, or a wrong that you want to right. If you’re not passionate enough from the start, you’ll never stick it out.”

– Steve Jobs

• You must solve a problem
• You must be helpful & provide value
• You must do the work
• You must be generous (and not expect anything back)
• You must take risks

Whatever your building, you must bring passion & determination to the table.

2. Pro-Active Patience

Patience is not simply the ability to wait – it’s how we behave while we’re waiting.

– Joyce Meyer

The 10-year “overnight success”. That takes patience.

But that’s not going to come from waiting around. You have to be pro-active at all times.

You need to make your goals happen, because nothing is going to fall in your lap. You must do the work and that will take sacrifice. Show up, and make a difference!

To put this into perspective, take my wife’s and my travel blog, Just Globetrotting. We’ve written over 100 articles over 2 years and have not earned a single cent from the endeavor, but we never planned to… until just last week.

One of our dreams was to stay on an overwater bungalow in the Maldives, but after learning that these bungalows were $700+ a night, plus sea plane & speedboat transfers ($450 per person), plus overly-priced food and drink, it just did not seem worth it.

So, we reached out to a handful hotels in the Maldives and asked if they would provide us with a complimentary stay in return of a review of their establishment on our blog, plus social media posts. We’ve since met up with more bloggers and have found this to be quite common.

After some persistence, we landed ourselves a handsome deal, and just last week we got back from living our dream!

See here for our Maldives pictures & experience.

This would not have been possible without prior travel blogging and it’s the perfect example of “pro-active patience”. You never know when your hard work will come to fruition, so be pro-active during the patience phase of building something brilliant.

3. Ownership and/or Control

It’s OK to have your eggs in one basket as long as you control what happens to that basket.

– Elon Musk

You have to own your destiny and that means you must be able to control it. This is rarely done by working for the man, as you have limited control. If you have ownership of your business, product or idea, then you can control your egg basket!

To put this into perspective, think about your social media profiles. You have little control of your data, even if it may seem like you do. Facebook, Twitter or Tumblr could become defunct at anytime. Just think of your glittery MySpace page, resting in the dust.

If you control your property, then you have a foundation to build upon, and continue to build upon.

4. Trust

If people like you, they’ll listen to you, but if they trust you, they’ll do business with you.

– Zig Ziglar

You can buy followers, but you can not buy trust. This is the principle reason that I only partner with companies and products that I can truly stand by. It’s your reputation on the line, and that’s more important than any social media stat.

Don’t go for a short quick buck, go for the long game!

5. Persistence

If you can’t fly, then run, if you can’t run then walk, if you can’t walk then crawl, but whatever you do you have to keep moving forward.

– Martin Luther King, Jr.

I couldn’t put it better myself. JUST Keep at it!

Have that passion. Make it grow. Stay proactive. Be patient. Maintain control. Build trust. Stay persistent.

Build something brilliant!

About LiquidWeb Hosting

Everything you need to grow: If you’re wanting to get your idea off the ground, LiquidWeb Hosting offers a large variety of products to help your business grow, including dedicated server hosting, managed VPS hosting as well as managed WordPress hosting, cloud hosting, server hosting and more.

Managed services, not just servers: LiquidWeb has a fully managed network infrastructure and hardware. They call it fully managed hosting and they do it all for you.

Proactive Monitoring: LiquidWeb offers 24×7 proactive monitoring to protect your data and preserve your website, keeping your servers and their network clear of security threats.

Wholly-Owned Data Centers: LiquidWeb own and control their data centers and that makes all the difference. You have peace of mind that their on-site with your servers at their own data centers.

The Industry’s Best Guarantee: LiquidWeb have a “100% Network and Power Promise” that means if you do experience downtime, they will credit you 10X the amount of time you were down. That’s 1000% compensation.

> Visit Liquid Web to learn more.

You can follow on Liquid Web on Twitter @LiquidWeb and Facebook @LiquidWebInc and the hashtag #BuildSomethingBrilliant.