The learning curve on the stuff I'm trying to do is so steep it is taking me a lot longer to get it together than I thought it would. I now have only 70 days left to reach my target and I'm not feeling confident. However, I have been disciplined and working steadily, so everyday brings progress, albeit slowly.
I'm still up at 6am every morning. I got a timer and hooked it up to my coffee machine so that the coffee is ready as soon as I'm up. I pour it into a thermos and head out to my work space so I don't disturb my girlfriend who sleeps in until 9. Around 9 I quit and have to go to work.
It is a bit gruelling and I've run the gamut of emotions, but overall I'm pleased. If I don't make the deadline, I will still have put myself through a decent education.
Also, by getting immersed in this stuff, the ideas are flying fast. I've got an idea for a couple of products now too. One based on this challenge I've set for myself, and another on a related idea. I read somewhere that in information marketing you need to always be one product ahead of where you are at now, so I'm starting to understand how that is possible.
I'll post more in a few days depending on progress.
Monday, October 22, 2007
Friday, October 12, 2007
Breaking Bottlenecks
It's been a ridiculous week; so many things have gone wrong at work. Some kind of weird juju in the air. As a consequence, I haven't been able to devote much time to Internet marketing this week.
I have, however, been slowly and meticulously breaking bottlenecks that have been holding me back. Sometimes, the learning curve can be so daunting that nothing gets done at all. At that point, what I like to do, is really analyse the thing and determine which element (or elements) is holding up all the rest. Once that is identified, I attack it.
This week I've been getting up at 5:30 and 6am so that I have a couple of hours before I have to leave to work on my Internet marketing. For three mornings in a row I've been demolishing bottlenecks, but one kept holding me back.
Finally, this morning, victory! A mistake of syntax, that's all it was! I had added an underscore where there wasn't one. For days I've been been reading that same piece of code and never never noticed that I really wasn't reading what was there, but rather ignoring something in my mind.
Did you notice the redundancy in the last sentence? If not, take a second look, maybe a third.
There are two extra words that don't need to be there. That is what I'm talking about. Sometimes you just don't see the obvious. That's why you've got to pace yourself and take a break. Then get back and break a bottleneck.
I have, however, been slowly and meticulously breaking bottlenecks that have been holding me back. Sometimes, the learning curve can be so daunting that nothing gets done at all. At that point, what I like to do, is really analyse the thing and determine which element (or elements) is holding up all the rest. Once that is identified, I attack it.
This week I've been getting up at 5:30 and 6am so that I have a couple of hours before I have to leave to work on my Internet marketing. For three mornings in a row I've been demolishing bottlenecks, but one kept holding me back.
Finally, this morning, victory! A mistake of syntax, that's all it was! I had added an underscore where there wasn't one. For days I've been been reading that same piece of code and never never noticed that I really wasn't reading what was there, but rather ignoring something in my mind.
Did you notice the redundancy in the last sentence? If not, take a second look, maybe a third.
There are two extra words that don't need to be there. That is what I'm talking about. Sometimes you just don't see the obvious. That's why you've got to pace yourself and take a break. Then get back and break a bottleneck.
Tuesday, October 9, 2007
20 Ways to Make $100 Per Day Online
I just finished reading '20 Ways to Make $100 Per Day Online' , presented by Willie Crawford and the Internet Marketing Inner Circle, and I quite enjoyed it. I've been avoiding buying too many ebooks these days, partly because I'm trying to stop spending so much on them, and partly because I want to stay focused on what I am doing now, and not keep getting distracted with new schemes.
But this ebook was simply too much to resist, particularly since I am now trying to develop my own daily income level of $60 per day. Had to have it, got it and devoured it. Some great stuff, including a few ideas that will only help me sharpen what I am working on now, instead of distracting me.
Originally Willie Crawford had started a thread on the Warriors Forum where he asked "Would You Be Happy With $100 a Day". I got involved in that thread, because I was really starting to think out this plan of attempting to make $60 a day. Of course the thread was an attempt to gauge the market and also get some advance publicity started for the project. He's no slouch, that Willie!
Nevertheless, I decided I would get the ebook when it came out, which was yesterday. I'm going to reread sections of it after this post.
The ebook is made up of 20 contributions by internet marketers, all of whom are making over $100 a day, so they know what they are talking about. Some of the ideas are outside of the 'norm', and even what you might say is outside of internet marketing. But there is something for everyone in it. And you can never learn too much!
Grab your copy here!
Friday, October 5, 2007
Getting Organized
After deciding on a result and setting an intention, there must follow a period of action. The best action to take at this stage of any project or challenge is PLANNING. The reasons are twofold; first, Planning organizes your thoughts, so that the actions you take are deliberate, and in line with what you are trying to achieve.
This seems obvious, but many people neglect making a plan before embarking on some action. Most sketch out some rough plan in their mind, but never write it down. Writing it down is critical. Not only does it solidify what you are attempting to achieve, it gives you a road map to refer to on a regular basis.
The second reason to make your first action creating a plan, is that at the moment when you have decided to take up the challenge of a new project, you will be charged with intense, creative inspiration. Let your mind wander far and wide at this point, and write it all down! You can always edit and refine it later. Indeed you will have to, since no plan ever survives intact.
This brings up another important point: Don't get married to your plan. The plan will change. It doesn't matter. All that matters is achieving the result you want, or something better. That is the reason for creating an intention. The intention will steer you to the result you want. The details are irrelevant, really.
The other advantage of writing down your plan while you are creatively charged is that, once the thing is under way, you will experience resistance and negativity. The more you try to do something inspired, the more your mind will rebel against it, and find reasons to not do it. Also, you will have no trouble finding people who are ready, willing and able to quash your dreams.
That is when you get to refer to your original, inspired plan, and revive that positive feeling.
Now as I said, I'm going to lay out what I'm doing here. But that means it will be less of a blueprint than a meandering record of what steps I've tried. Especially since I have no idea whether or not I'll achieve what I'm trying to achieve. Afterwards, I'll be able to look back, and refine which steps were critical, and which were diversions.
Then I'll package it all up nicely and sell it! :-)
This seems obvious, but many people neglect making a plan before embarking on some action. Most sketch out some rough plan in their mind, but never write it down. Writing it down is critical. Not only does it solidify what you are attempting to achieve, it gives you a road map to refer to on a regular basis.
The second reason to make your first action creating a plan, is that at the moment when you have decided to take up the challenge of a new project, you will be charged with intense, creative inspiration. Let your mind wander far and wide at this point, and write it all down! You can always edit and refine it later. Indeed you will have to, since no plan ever survives intact.
This brings up another important point: Don't get married to your plan. The plan will change. It doesn't matter. All that matters is achieving the result you want, or something better. That is the reason for creating an intention. The intention will steer you to the result you want. The details are irrelevant, really.
The other advantage of writing down your plan while you are creatively charged is that, once the thing is under way, you will experience resistance and negativity. The more you try to do something inspired, the more your mind will rebel against it, and find reasons to not do it. Also, you will have no trouble finding people who are ready, willing and able to quash your dreams.
That is when you get to refer to your original, inspired plan, and revive that positive feeling.
Now as I said, I'm going to lay out what I'm doing here. But that means it will be less of a blueprint than a meandering record of what steps I've tried. Especially since I have no idea whether or not I'll achieve what I'm trying to achieve. Afterwards, I'll be able to look back, and refine which steps were critical, and which were diversions.
Then I'll package it all up nicely and sell it! :-)
Thursday, October 4, 2007
First things first
I mentioned in the last post that I had two very good reasons for starting this blog. Actually, I realised later, there are more than that. I'll explain them as I go along.
The first reason is one of the strongest. Before any challenge or project or quite frankly, action of any kind, you must start with the end in mind. In other words, you have to know what your result will be otherwise you will never know if you've achieved it.
For me the result I want is clear: $60 a day in passive income in the next 90 days.
That statement is an intention. It is clear and unambiguous. It is focused and direct. It took me quite awhile to come up with that. At first, I thought maybe I would aim for $500 a month. Then I read Willie Crawford's "$100 dollars a day" post in the Warrior forum, so I thought $100 a day would be GREAT!
But when I really thought about my situation and considered what I needed, it became $60 a day, or $1800 a month.
Then that became a statement, placed in the present tense, as if it is already happening:
'I am now creating $60 a day in passive income within the next 90 days!'
I let that thought roll around in my head for awhile, then I decided to make it official.
By making a public declaration, I give the intention power. I also spoke it aloud to my wife many times, because she would like to believe that I can do it. It forces me to take the intention seriously, and do something about it.
It also seriously annoys resistance.
Resistance comes in many disguises, usually a little voice in your head that tells you all kinds of completely unempowering and useless things. Which leads to self-sabotaging actions or more likely, no action at all.
For instance, after I posted the beginning of this blog this morning, I spent about an hour fiddling around with the templates and the look of this blog. Then I surfed around a bit, checked my email, 'phoned a friend and played with some images I'm working on for a website. Not exactly focused or productive.
Resistance likes that kind of activity. It does not like focused, direct action. And making an intention public forces just that kind of action out of you. It pushes resistance out of the way. So that is why I decided to blog this whole business in the first place.
ps: if you are interested in learning more about Resistance and defeating it, I would like to recommend an excellent little book I have read over and over. It is called 'The War of Art' by Steven Pressfield. It is more or less directed at writers, but it could apply to anyone in any situation.
The first reason is one of the strongest. Before any challenge or project or quite frankly, action of any kind, you must start with the end in mind. In other words, you have to know what your result will be otherwise you will never know if you've achieved it.
For me the result I want is clear: $60 a day in passive income in the next 90 days.
That statement is an intention. It is clear and unambiguous. It is focused and direct. It took me quite awhile to come up with that. At first, I thought maybe I would aim for $500 a month. Then I read Willie Crawford's "$100 dollars a day" post in the Warrior forum, so I thought $100 a day would be GREAT!
But when I really thought about my situation and considered what I needed, it became $60 a day, or $1800 a month.
Then that became a statement, placed in the present tense, as if it is already happening:
'I am now creating $60 a day in passive income within the next 90 days!'
I let that thought roll around in my head for awhile, then I decided to make it official.
By making a public declaration, I give the intention power. I also spoke it aloud to my wife many times, because she would like to believe that I can do it. It forces me to take the intention seriously, and do something about it.
It also seriously annoys resistance.
Resistance comes in many disguises, usually a little voice in your head that tells you all kinds of completely unempowering and useless things. Which leads to self-sabotaging actions or more likely, no action at all.
For instance, after I posted the beginning of this blog this morning, I spent about an hour fiddling around with the templates and the look of this blog. Then I surfed around a bit, checked my email, 'phoned a friend and played with some images I'm working on for a website. Not exactly focused or productive.
Resistance likes that kind of activity. It does not like focused, direct action. And making an intention public forces just that kind of action out of you. It pushes resistance out of the way. So that is why I decided to blog this whole business in the first place.
ps: if you are interested in learning more about Resistance and defeating it, I would like to recommend an excellent little book I have read over and over. It is called 'The War of Art' by Steven Pressfield. It is more or less directed at writers, but it could apply to anyone in any situation.
So What's This All About?
So what is this 60 in 90 business all about?
Quite simply...desperation.
What's happening is that I am losing my job, my office and my apartment by the end of the year. Now I do have a place to go, that's not a problem. You see my wife and I own a home, which we have rented out, while we take advantage of extremely LOW rent in this strange building we've lived and worked in for the last few years. The problem is, if we take over one of two apartments in the house, we won't have enough room for a home office as well. So what I would really like to do is take over the whole house, but we just can't afford it.
Not the worst problem in the world, I know. But it is stressful. The house is small, and being divided in two makes it really small.
The job I don't care about, I'm happy to see it go. I've been doing a lot of freelance anyway, which is better, but still not what I am after. I've been messing around with internet marketing for the last couple of years. Haven't made a dime from it, and have gone down all kinds of roads, most ending in frustration, and wasted dollars.
What I really need is a mission.
Inspired by Willie Crawford's famous "A Million Dollars in 90 Days" challenge from last year, I've decided to set up my own, slightly less ambitious challenge.
60 bucks a day in 90 days.
That is, $60.00 in passive income, so that I am not trading my time for that money.
$60 a day X 30 days = $1800.00 a month. That is how much I need to pay the mortgage, taxes, and bills on the house. Living expenses will be separate, but of course, if I succeed, I'll have all day to work on money for that. Besides, if I figure out how to make $60 a day in passive income, you can bet I'll keep going after that!
Recently, Willie Crawford had a thread going on The Warriors Forum where he asked "would you be happy with $100 a day?". For me $100 a day in passive, or nearly passive, income, would be absolutely amazing. A lot of the marketing hype is about making hundreds of thousands, or millions even. But, you have to ask yourself, how much do I really need?
For me, the answer was obvious: $60 a day. Now, how hard would it be to achieve that? In the conventional sense, not hard at all. I'm a web designer, I can get gigs at $30-$45 an hour. All I'd have to do is work two hours a day and I could have my $60. And who knows? That is exactly what I might end up having to do.
But in the end, what have I learned from it? Not what I want to learn, that is for sure. What I want to learn is: how do I create a system that can make me $60 a day in passive (or very nearly passive) income, so that I can then free up my most precious resource: time.
Next, what can I do with all that extra time? Well, for one, I could repeat the system I had just used to create the $60 a day passive income, and make $120. Or, I could explore some other avenue. Or, get some web designs gigs and know that the income from that is purely for paying down my debt, buying some groceries, and saving up for something importent. I think I might ride my bike a little more. I'm pretty sure I'd worry a lot less.
So, what I have decided to do, is:
Attempt to make $60 a day in passive income by the end of the year, and document every step I take.
When I came up with this idea I had 90 days, but I've spent two days waffling so now technically I only have 88 days left.
This blog is really just a way for me to keep track of what I am doing, and I figured, why not let others see what I'm doing while I'm at it. There are actually two very sound reasons for that, which I will get into in the next post.
So that is it, there is the challenge: $60 a day in passive income, by the end of the year. It is just one small step, but a significant one for me.
Quite simply...desperation.
What's happening is that I am losing my job, my office and my apartment by the end of the year. Now I do have a place to go, that's not a problem. You see my wife and I own a home, which we have rented out, while we take advantage of extremely LOW rent in this strange building we've lived and worked in for the last few years. The problem is, if we take over one of two apartments in the house, we won't have enough room for a home office as well. So what I would really like to do is take over the whole house, but we just can't afford it.
Not the worst problem in the world, I know. But it is stressful. The house is small, and being divided in two makes it really small.
The job I don't care about, I'm happy to see it go. I've been doing a lot of freelance anyway, which is better, but still not what I am after. I've been messing around with internet marketing for the last couple of years. Haven't made a dime from it, and have gone down all kinds of roads, most ending in frustration, and wasted dollars.
What I really need is a mission.
Inspired by Willie Crawford's famous "A Million Dollars in 90 Days" challenge from last year, I've decided to set up my own, slightly less ambitious challenge.
60 bucks a day in 90 days.
That is, $60.00 in passive income, so that I am not trading my time for that money.
$60 a day X 30 days = $1800.00 a month. That is how much I need to pay the mortgage, taxes, and bills on the house. Living expenses will be separate, but of course, if I succeed, I'll have all day to work on money for that. Besides, if I figure out how to make $60 a day in passive income, you can bet I'll keep going after that!
Recently, Willie Crawford had a thread going on The Warriors Forum where he asked "would you be happy with $100 a day?". For me $100 a day in passive, or nearly passive, income, would be absolutely amazing. A lot of the marketing hype is about making hundreds of thousands, or millions even. But, you have to ask yourself, how much do I really need?
For me, the answer was obvious: $60 a day. Now, how hard would it be to achieve that? In the conventional sense, not hard at all. I'm a web designer, I can get gigs at $30-$45 an hour. All I'd have to do is work two hours a day and I could have my $60. And who knows? That is exactly what I might end up having to do.
But in the end, what have I learned from it? Not what I want to learn, that is for sure. What I want to learn is: how do I create a system that can make me $60 a day in passive (or very nearly passive) income, so that I can then free up my most precious resource: time.
Next, what can I do with all that extra time? Well, for one, I could repeat the system I had just used to create the $60 a day passive income, and make $120. Or, I could explore some other avenue. Or, get some web designs gigs and know that the income from that is purely for paying down my debt, buying some groceries, and saving up for something importent. I think I might ride my bike a little more. I'm pretty sure I'd worry a lot less.
So, what I have decided to do, is:
Attempt to make $60 a day in passive income by the end of the year, and document every step I take.
When I came up with this idea I had 90 days, but I've spent two days waffling so now technically I only have 88 days left.
This blog is really just a way for me to keep track of what I am doing, and I figured, why not let others see what I'm doing while I'm at it. There are actually two very sound reasons for that, which I will get into in the next post.
So that is it, there is the challenge: $60 a day in passive income, by the end of the year. It is just one small step, but a significant one for me.
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