Intolerance – Life Lessons Learned From A Man In Traffic

October 6th, 2009 by admin 1 comment »

intoleranceI’m feeling kind of frisky today. Intolerant of the world’s bullshit. I feel like ruffling some feathers…

I was on my way to “work” today – I use quotes because my “work” is a coffee shop – and noticed that at several points in my journey that I wanted to react irrationally to a slew of different scenarios.

Take guy 1. His 1980’s Toyota pick-up breaks down in the middle of the road, no biggie really. That’s not what got me. So, as I sat at the rail road tracks, waiting for traffic to figure out what to do (it’s simple people, go around him, or help him) I watched him sit there “helplessly” waving traffic by, without his hazard lights on.

I know this is a rediculous thing to get pissed off about, and I was able to maintain my calm. However, WHY on earth would you just sit there like a lump on a log? After about the 300th car drove past, why not push your tin can to the gas station less than 20 feet away?

Keep in mind that we’re talking about a decent size dude, not a petit woman. Besides, had it been a woman, she would have had 100 people helping her anyway. We’re also talking about a truck that weighs only slightly more than a go-kart. Trust me, I used to own one (and pushed it quite often).

So, it got me thinking…

When talking about life, are you the asshole that sits in the middle of the street waiting for someone to do the dirty work for you? Or are you the guy that knuckles down and gets shit done?

Sadly, I’ve realized that I’m at the half way point between the 2. Sometimes I just don’t feel like doing anything about my situation. I just feel like sitting there and having myself a little pity party. My entire personality seems to eb and flow for some reason. Other times, I’m gung-ho about whatever. And most often, I’m gung-ho about something… it just depends on the day to determine what exactly that is.

I find myself wanting to be left alone sometimes. Other times I want to be out in a crowd, meeting as many new people as I can. Then there are times where I’m gloomy, and others when I’m excited to be alive. I wonder sometimes if I’m normal, do others have these types of waves?

Last night, however, I read a little chapter in a book that I’ve been quite intrigued by lately. It’s called The 48 Laws of Power. Chapter 10 (if memory serves) is all about infection of attitude. The book gives some historical examples of infection and then explains it in lay-person’s terms.

A quote that seemed to speak very loudly to me was this:

If, for example, you are miserly by nature, you will never go beyond a certain limit; only the generous souls attain greatness. Associate with the generous, then, and they will infect you, opening up everything that is tight and restricted within you. If you are gloomy, gravitate to the cheerful. If you are prone to isolation, force yourself to befriend the gregarious. Never associate with those that share your defects – they will reinforce everything that holds you back. Only create associations with positive affinities. Make this a rule of life and you will benefit more than from all the therapy in the world.

And so it was said… I need to find some friends that counter what I already do naturally, and/or know when to call on the friends that I already have that do counter the undesirable traits that I have in myself.

Mostly, this blog was just an observation. A exercise in introspective thinking, if you will. Learn life lessons from what you see around you… even if it is a dumbass making you late for work (yes, I realize I’m not on a time clock, doesn’t mean I don’t have things to do :P ).

A Little Monday Morning Rant Re:WarriorForum.com

September 21st, 2009 by admin No comments »

truth_and_lies_t A preface: This is a long winded rant, mostly just me bitching about things that don’t matter.. read on at your on leisure.

I’m a long time member of warriorforum.com, I won’t even bother linking it because it’s almost not even worth visiting anymore.

Over the past couple of years, however, I’ve noticed a significant trend (we’ll call it a downward spiral) in the quality of members there.  Maybe I’m just being judgemental, or maybe there is actually something to it.

Long ago, the warrior forum was one of the only places to go to get QUALITY information about internet marketing, specifically information marketing.

The contributers were people that actually had something to contribute, and the newbies sat back and learned. They asked questions when they had them, and let people with experience answer them. It was an amazing learning atmosphere and I got a whole lot out of it.

Back then, it wasn’t odd to see the likes of Frank Kern, John Reese, Kevin Riley, Willie Crawford and a number of other “well-known’s” chime in to offer some help. (For those not in this industry, these guys are some of the guru’s)

Fast forward to the present day. The warrior forum has become nothing more than an article directory. It offers nothing in the way of new ideas. In fact, there aren’t even new perspectives on OLD ideas, only rehashed shit that you can find re-written six different ways within the first four pages.

Couple that with the horrible influx of new wave, get rich quick info-marketers that are just looking to up their post count high enough to sell an ebook in the WSO forum about a topic that they likely know nothing about and you can see why I’m less than enthused to go back there.

Allen Says is the owner of the forum, and it’s quite apparent that he’s noticed this trend as well. There’s not much he can really do about it though, so he’s opted to make it a paid forum for the most part. There is still a free section, but to do anything worth doing on that forum, you have to pay the toll; a smart move on his part I think.

Problem with that is, I’m not sure I want to chalk up the cash to pay for a forum if I’m only going to get bullshit rehashed crap in the members area…

I hate to see a resource like this come crashing down (from a benefit standpoint, it’s obviously not going anywhere financially) and I now understand why none of the big names post there anymore…

It’s become a complete and utter waste of time.

Random Ramblings from It’s a Grind Coffee

August 10th, 2009 by admin No comments »

hahahaI work a lot from coffee shops. Mostly because I don’t have the revenue to lease my own commercial place. Not to mention, my business is quite a lonely one and working from coffee shops offers somewhat of a social aspect to my day.

Point being that I spend a lot of time in coffee shops. And during my stint as a compulsive coffee shop hanger outer I’ve developed some habits to help myself be productive when I need to be.

One of my habits includes:

  • Wearing headphones – even if I’m not listening to anything.

It helps out with the random fraternizers and offers something in the way of privacy.

Today though, I found a new use for them:

Listening to people talk shit about you!

You see, I’m that jerk that parks his butt on the most comfortable chair, encompassing the biggest table, taking up real estate with my portable office and talking loudly on his cell phone (okay, not that last one..).

Today, a couple walked in to an otherwise packed house and stood there stumped. There were 4 tables available but only at the smaller tables, with the wooden chairs. Which they were obviously not comfortable with…

They stood around shuffling their feet for close to 15 minutes before I took the headphones off and offered the remaining 2 comfy chairs to them from where I was sitting (aren’t I nice?).

It then took them a FULL HALF HOUR to decide if they were going to stay at It’s a Grind and continue to, from what I can tell, do nothing more than visit with each other.

The entire time complaining about me, right in front of me, because they thought I was listening to something with my headphones on…

They’re still sitting here, and to be honest, it’s kind of funny to hear what they’re saying so I haven’t dropped the bomb on them yet, but I will…. Oh yes…. I will.

Muahahahahaha…. (best evil laugh I can do)

Practicing What I Preach – More on Outsourcing for Digital Companies

August 5th, 2009 by admin No comments »

outsourcingI took a moment to practice what I preach and outsourced 20 articles yesterday. What did it cost? Well…

While I could just give a simple dollar amount, that wouldn’t cover the actual investment aspect of this equation so, I’ll make you read for it ;)

Let me first start by saying that total, I have a whopping 16 articles that I’ve managed to muster the motivation to write over the past 2 years. Not too impressive. I’ve found that it’s just something that I won’t do. I hate doing it, it takes me all of about 10 minutes to do one, but it’s the most miserable 10 minutes of my day… So, I don’t do it.

Problem with that is, a huge portion of my business counts on me doing a few things:

  • Spreading my seed – “brand awareness” if you will. I don’t make any money if people can’t find me.
  • Targeting my customer – focused content provides targeted demographics, just the kind of thing I need in order to find people that might be interested in a particular niche product or service
  • SEO crap – backlinks, site credibility, etc. All of that needs to be done

There are a few ways to accomplish those tasks, but articles seem to be the easiest and least expensive way to do it all while leveraging the traffic of a larger site than yours (article directories).

Adwords, and the like, can be quite costly and often there is so much competition that your profit margin takes a dump… and no one likes working for free (or if you do, let me know because I have lots of work for you).

So, back to the issue of cost. A more pertinent question would be, how much is it COSTING me to NOT do articles? How much is an article worth?

Well, like I outlined yesterday, each article is worth about $20 bucks to my business model. So, for every article I DON’T write, the opportunity cost is roughly $20 to my bottom line. OUCH! I could have been rich by now!

But, part of being a successful entrepreneur is knowing your weaknesses.. and NOT improving on those, but paying someone else to do them for you!

So, since I won’t get off my lazy ass and write them, I outsourced 20 of them on a test phase. I want to make sure the content is quality enough for me to publish without looking like a fool. Total dollar amount that came out of my pocket? $100.00

Most of you might be saying: “Holy crap, you wasted $100 bucks because you’re too lazy.”

And to those of you that thought that, I’d say this:

Yes, I’m lazy when it comes to medial tasks that are so low level and boring that they take the enjoyment out of my day. Part of working for yourself is being able to enjoy what you do, right? Also, no I didn’t waste my money. The bottom line is that it wasn’t going to get done. If every article I write is worth $20 to my business model, and I just outsourced them for $100, THEORETICALLY I will see a 400% ROI in dollar value, not to mention the value of them actually getting done, and the value of my TIME to put towards tasks that are more important.

This might be the best $100 I’ve ever spent. ;)

My point being, you can teach tasks to people and have them do it for a fee, you can’t buy more time (or maybe you can, by outsourcing) to spend time on high level tasks like brainstorming, directional positioning, and business decision skills. Spend your time doing what matters, spend your money paying others to do what doesn’t. You’ll be a whole lot more successful in the long run.

Goal Attainability – Planning it all out.

August 4th, 2009 by admin No comments »

repeat-businessYesterday I posted about my dreamline, today I’ll be talking more about implementation.

Not everything in life is a simple mathematic equation, but that always gives me a good place to start. It prevents me from running around in circles chasing my tail.

Yesterday I determined that in order to live the life that I wanted, I needed to make about $350 a day to do it. For some reason that actually excited me a little.. I think for a long time, I have been unable to get myself motivated because I had no ACTUAL goal. I had plenty of “I want to insert random thing here” type goals, but nothing tangible. Nothing to measure against.

Now, I know every day when I do or don’t hit my goal. Did I make $350 today? Yes, good. No, try harder!

So, as I tried to fall asleep last night, I couldn’t help but sit there and think of ways to make this happen. I thought about all of the things that I’m doing currently and how much effort those are taking, then figured into that how much money each task is making me and realized that if I continue on the same path there is no way that I’ll ever get ahead.

I realized that….

I AM MY BUSINESS’ BIGGEST BOTTLENECK

Wrap your head around that real quick.

Okay, that’s enough..

Problem solved right? Well, not exactly, but I’ve got a starting point to a solution at least. So, what was my brilliant idea for stopping the run-around?

Outsourcing.

Note that I said outsourcing, and NOT hiring employees. This is very important for a couple of reasons.

  • Employees cost money

Health insurance, tax matching, idle time, and all kinds of other overhead… Yuck.

  • Outsourcers get paid for a specific task

No overhead. Pay them for the task and move on.. this doesn’t stop you from building solid relationships with people that will do work for you over and over, however. See, many outsourcers are also entrepreneuers and thus they understand that productivity is what pays. They don’t have the dollar per hour mentality because it’s only their own time that they’re wasting. I love it.

It really is as simple as that. I’ve added scalability to my business model now. And as every successful entrepreneur knows, scalability is what sets small earning businesses apart from large earning businesses.

The next logical question is how I plan to get to the $350/day mark, and that answer is relatively simple for me since I know my stats. I know that in order for me to make $20, it takes one article, or one video, or one review page, or insert task here. It’s pretty consistent. So, in order for me to make $350/day, I need to write 17.5 articles per day, or make 17.5 videos, or write 17.5 reviews, or any combination of the former.

But why would I do that? I can just…….

Outsource them and calculate the cost per task into my formula to reach my goal.

But where do you find good help?! I’ll cover that tomorrow ;)