Toward a Better World

A Year and a Half Later

Sat, 16 Mar 2013 11:40:46 -0400

I finally got out of customer service, finally got out of the Fortune 500, in hopes that this new job will be something awesome.

We shall see.

Thank you, Jesus.

Customer Service Equals

Wed, 07 Dec 2011 23:19:00 -0500

Customer service = putting up with people’s shit all day

I don’t want to come home and put up with more shit.

Writing every day

Sat, 26 Nov 2011 18:37:00 -0500

Stephen King is a champ, logging 2500 words every morning before he leaves his desk.

Somebody famous wrote that it takes 10,000 hours to master something.

If I write 10,000 hours, I possibly could become a master writer. I would at least be better, even if not a master, per se.

And a lot of other people say the best way to reach that 10,000 hour mark is to do it every day, just like Mr. King.

I’m hitting about 75% right now. What about you?

No Overtime Today

Wed, 09 Nov 2011 08:53:00 -0500

An Escape From Excessive Time Whoredom

Trading time for money is a bad deal. Steve Pavlina says so. Jonathan Edwards says so too. For different reasons, both of these “thought leaders” explain that the value of time is so great that any price tag put on it is far below its true value.

Like most people, though, my occupation is based on this broken value system.

As I have mentioned before, my wife and I are in the shit financially. So even though I realize that there are things that I could be doing to build assets to generate income long term — assets that continually make money without additional time investments — it’s also true that I need cash immediately to cover short term expenses.

I need money right now.

So when my managers say overtime is available, I’m one of the first to sign up. I’m in an awful place where it seems favorable to exchange the priceless resource of time at a rate far below its true value. For the past few weeks, this has meant working 13-hour days as often as possible.

Today, however, no overtime is available. I’m back to the regular eight hours.

In one sense, this sucks. Again, I need money immediately.

In another sense, this is an extremely good thing. I need to use my time to create assets that will generate money for the long haul.

For your benefit, and mine, let’s run through some examples.

If I work an hour of overtime, I will earn approximately $18 after taxes. That’s it. That’s all the money I’ll make from that hour of work. After that hour is passed, it’s gone forever, and all I’ll have is $18.

On the other hand, if I use that hour to write a blog post, I have the potential to earn from it for as long as I have my website up. If I “monetize” my blog with advertisements, I can consider that I’ll earn $1 from it per week. If that’s true, it would take 18 weeks for that to equal an hour of overtime. However, those 18 weeks are going to happen anyway, and it doesn’t cost me anymore time investment to keep the post up. And if that post continues to make $1 every week, after just a year, that post will have earned me $52 — almost three times what I would have made trading my time to my employer. In five years, at the same rate, that one hour investment will return $260 for the same hour of work.

Do you see what I’m saying? 1 hour of overtime = $18. 1 hour writing a blog post = potentially a lot more money.

Here’s another example. If I spend a lot of time writing an ebook, lets say 40 hours, depending on marketing strategies and various other things, I may not have an immediate return on that time investment, but I would have an asset that could generate a lot of money over the course of time. Spending those hours working overtime would earn me $720. If each ebook sale earns me even a low profit of $5, I would make my overtime rate by selling 144 copies. If I sell another 144 copies, I would double my profit, and it wouldn’t involve anymore time investment — digital tools handle the processing automatically. And it would potentially continue earning me income for a very long time, without me spending any more time on it. I’m just pulling numbers out of the air, but if I sell an average of 100 copies a week, that 40 hour investment would earn me $26,000 in a year. That’s over 36 times what I would have earned working for my boss.

These numbers sound really great, but in reality, I haven’t experienced this kind of success. Not yet anyway. I believe it is possible, but there are some pitfalls. I have to use my time to develop assets that people actually care about and care enough about that they will pay for it, which is a lot more difficult than one might imagine at first.

But there are a lot of folks out there who make lots of money like this.

The main point: building assets is a better investment than trading time for money.

A Victim of the Shiny-Object Syndrome

Sat, 05 Nov 2011 08:50:41 -0400

If you have a problem or a need, chances are you can find a “solution” online. Or if there isn’t one yet, there will be soon.

I have a need to make lots of money. Why? Because I feel that I’m drowning in debt. I also hate the job I’m in.

Rather than bemoan my situation and play the victim — like so many do — I have been trying since early in 2011 to figure out how I can turn the Internet, the wondrous medium of information transmission that it is, into some sort of cash machine.

WIth motivations like this, it’s not long before anyone comes across some of the craziest marketing attempts of salesman of all degrees of reputability and integrity.

I believe it is possible to make lots of money with the internet. I have also discovered that there are lots of people online trying to sell you this dream. There are so many promises, even from “reputable” sources, that it’s hard to (a) decide who is telling the truth and (b) decide which path to take.

One of these probably reputable sources is Sonia Simone. (You can read her on Remarkable Communication and Copyblogger.) In one of her articles, she said:

There are many paths up the mountain, but if you try to put a foot on every one, you’re not going to get very far.

That resonates with me — a lot. Everyone has their own system, their own method that is guaranteed to make you lots of money.

But how do you choose which one to follow? Yaro Starak and Darren Rowse say you can make lots of money (to the tune of six figures or more) blogging. But then Brian Clark promotes Teaching Sells and says: Blogging takes to much time and effort; you have to sell your content. Then there’s Clay Collins, Dave Navarro (even though he’s taking some time off), Naomi Dunford, Sandi Krakowski…

And don’t forget copywriting! You can get free training from Sean Platt, or pay half a grand for the supposedly wonderful AWAI Accelerated Six-Figure Copywriting Course. Spend some time studying that, and you’ll come across International Living, which has their own “Fund Your Life” section that pitches ideas on how to make money. Learn about Dan Kennedy, Ogilvy, Bly… on and on ad nauseam.

It’s practically a parade of shiny objects, each one promising you the riches you want.

So which do you follow?

I haven’t figured it out just yet, but I intend to soon (as soon as I can opt out of overtime at my shit job and not feel bad about it).

But here’s the truth:

A lot of the jumping around is because, even though a path is probably successful, it’s hard. Despite all those marketers saying that it’s easy to make money online, it’s not. I doubt there is any easy way to be successful at anything.

Anything worth doing, any goal worth reaching, is going to take a significant amount of effort.

Two Questions:

What is Your Goal?

What is Your Path to that Goal?

Amazon Sets Up Lending Library for Amazon Prime Kindle Owners

Sat, 05 Nov 2011 01:16:18 -0400

Amazon Sets Up Lending Library for Amazon Prime Kindle Owners:

Today the world’s biggest bookseller is opening up shop as a lending library. That’s right, Amazon is getting into the book lending business, albeit on a very small scale. This is good for Kindle owners, and a sign that Amazon is going to go to the mat to ensure that it puts a Kindle in as many hands as possible.

The company is announcing the Kindle Owner’s Lending Library, which will feature thousands of books that Kindle owners with an Amazon Prime membership can download. This comes in addition to the Prime library of more than 13,000 movies and TV shows.

Teaching Sells on How to Choose a Topic

Fri, 30 Sep 2011 22:33:00 -0400

1. Find something that can make money

2. Find something that you love

3. Find something that you can be the best in (or make a world where you are the best at it)

I am not a fly

Fri, 30 Sep 2011 10:35:00 -0400

Sometimes the buzzing is intolerable.

A few months ago, our was house was seemingly invaded by flies. I don’t know where they came from, but it was ridiculous.

One day when I was in the grocery store, I remembered our fly situation and took a look in the pest control section. For less than $2 I picked up a package of four “fly ribbons.” Each ribbon is rolled up in a canister a little bit smaller in diameter than a roll of film. To set the ribbon, you simply pull off one end and unravel a long, sticky strand and then hang it in a place where there are lots of flies — basically anywhere in my house.

I’m not sure, scientifically, exactly what makes these ribbons work. I don’t know what occurs in the fly’s brain to make it think that this ribbon is a good thing to fly into. Despite my ignorance, these ribbons are very effective. In an average day, it’s not unusual to catch more than 20 flies.

But as I sit at my dining room table and write this post, I hear the buzzing of some poor fly’s last minutes on this earth as it is caught in the amber adhesive. And I think about how my life might be like this fly.

Am I stuck in a terminal situation? I hate my day job and have yet to find any successful alternative. I seem unable to reduce my expenses to less than my monthly income. In the last six months my debt has doubled, and my savings are a quarter of what they were.

But unlike those poor flies, I am not trapped. There are options, ways to escape the trap of limiting beliefs that have resulted in my current situation. I have the ability to find a way out, to slay my despair and boldly proclaim:

I AM NOT A FLY

Courting The Elusive First Client

Wed, 28 Sep 2011 21:49:52 -0400

Rejection is a bitch.

My number one entry on my task list for Monday was to “email a potential client.” Well, I did. In fact it was the first direct contact I’ve had with any potential clients towards my dream of being a copywriter.

What high hopes I had! Though for no real reason. Yeah, I think I’m great. But what have I to show for it? Especially in a new industry that I’ve written about academically before, but never in this kind of role.

I’ve read elsewhere that other freelancers have the same problem starting out. They court a client who pops the question:

“Can I see some samples?”

How am I supposed to handle that? Send some copy that’s on a completely different subject matter that isn’t really copy at all? Send some papers I wrote while in school that is definitely not copy?

I sent back what I thought to be a clever and shrewd offer: the first few jobs are free, just give me a shot.

That’s not verbatim what I wrote, but I’m sure that’s how it came across, if not more desperate. I actually did the best I could to incorporate my copywriting skills into my offer email, working in the Promise, the Picture, the Proof (actually the promise of proof via my future jobs if my offer was accepted), and the Push.

I thought surely a client wouldn’t pass on an offer like this: a freelancer who can deliver such a well-crafted email who will work for free.

Little did I know that thoughts like that were just setting me up for a bigger fall.

The email came back: nice try, but we still need some samples.

It’s not a total rejection, but it might as well be. Once people are in the habit of turning you down, it’s even harder to get them to say yes. I imagine that now even if the “samples” I have are the best copy this client has been provided in years he would still have reservations.

So, now what?

Of course my pride is hurt, but I’ll just have to get over that. There is an abundance (or so I hear) of other fish in the sea. This isn’t the only potential client out there, and giving up on the dream and resigning my self to a life of servitude to a corporate slave driver won’t cut it.

It’s time to try again.

Japanese Chicken

Wed, 28 Sep 2011 08:24:20 -0400

Excitement and anticipation of the unknown surged through my body as my friend Taguchi drove me through the foothills of Japan in the Kansai region.

We were headed to a local observatory which rested atop one of the higher foothills in the region. As we drove further, the urban sprawl of modern Japanese cities steadily declined, replaced by lush Asian foliage.

Before we reached our final destination, we stopped at a little shack for lunch. The shack was only six feet in height, even at it’s highest point. There were gaps between the planks that made up its walls. And in the back was a pen full of the chickens that they used to make their delicious kara-age.

As we approached the shack, the chickens seemed to grow more anxious and jittery—as if our presence was an omen of their future demise. Their squawks seemed desperate as they ran nervously around the pen.

And sure enough, at least one of those chickens did wind up on my plate that day. The juicy, succulent kara-age I enjoyed was a testament to the diligent care that the proprietor put into caring for those chickens.

I am grateful to the owners of that shack and their chickens for the delicious meal that I was given—and the strength to continue up the foothills to enjoy the beauty of the Japanese countryside.

More ways to offer your workers the flexibility they want

Mon, 26 Sep 2011 11:35:50 -0400

More ways to offer your workers the flexibility they want:

“Employers that offer flexible work arrangements saw less turnover last year”

9/26/11

Mon, 26 Sep 2011 08:16:00 -0400

The alarm clock starts it incessant chirp at 8 o’clock. The tired writer rolls out of bed and moves swiftly across the room to stop its screaming (he leaves it on the chest of drawers across the room as a method to keep himself from slipping back to sleep).

After a quick visit to the bathroom, he lights up a cigarette and begins to write.

Alexander, his beagle mix, emerges from the bedroom a few minutes later and whines for his sleepy owner to let him outside to do his morning business.

It rained the night before, so the writer watches Alexander carefully and calls him to come back in as soon as he is done. There is nothing worse than a wet, muddy dog running around inside the house.

Back inside, Alexander goes back to bed, and the writer starts about his morning tasks.

He writes out his first list of tasks for the day:

Email a potential client.
Print off a packing slip.
Go to the Post Office.
Get the oil changed.
Plan the next set of tasks.

He hopes today will be more productive than the last.

Speculations on Dan Kennedy's Big Picture

Sat, 24 Sep 2011 16:26:00 -0400

I am by no means an insider, just an observer. My exposure to two (apparently) separate marketing campaigns for Dan Kennedy products have produced the following observations.

Dan Kennedy’s Information Marketing Niche Course for Copywriters

I recently purchased a product from AWAI (American Writers & Artists, Inc.) in hopes of breaking free from the corporate world. Shortly after my purchase, AWAI started promoting a new product by Dan Kennedy to help copywriters break into the Information Marketing niche.

Dan Kennedy’s GameChanger DNA Marketing Course for Businesses

Soon thereafter, I started getting notifications from other advertisers about Dan Kennedy’s GameChanger DNA program. So far, there have been 3 videos released (with a fourth to be released soon) about how Dan Kennedy is a marketing super-genius and this GameChanger DNA program will help you turn your marketing into the best thing ever.

Speculations on Dan Kennedy’s Over-Arching Plan

Again, this is all speculation, but I started thinking about what Dan Kennedy might be up to. He has two separate marketing campaigns going, aimed at two completely different sectors:

On the one hand, he’s trying to get copywriters to sign up for his program to learn how to work for the Information Marketing niche.
On the other hand, he’s trying to get companies of all sorts to sign up for his marketing program.

Two very different products, aimed at two completely different groups of people, being launched at almost the same time, and all by the same person…

What could he be up to?

I started to think about what I would do if I were in Dan Kennedy’s shoes. Following the principle of Occam’s razor—basically the philosophy that the simplest explanation is the correct one—it seems to me that Dan Kennedy is trying to work out some kind of system were his customers wind up doing the work for each other.

The copywriters need someone to write for, and the companies in the marketing program need someone to write for them. If Kennedy is successful in piquing the interest of both sets of customers (after exacting a hefty fee from each of them), he can then clandestinely bring the two together with neither party being the wiser.

Is this what Dan Kennedy is doing?

I can’t say for sure, but I think it’s a convincing theory. What do you think?

A Corporate Drone or An Entrepreneur: A Lesson From the Masses

Wed, 21 Sep 2011 10:11:00 -0400

Several events over the past several months have caused a drastic change in my thinking.

Let me back up.

I got married in May, 2010. Prior to that I had:

No debt
An idea of what I wanted to do
A plan for how to do that

I love my wife dearly, and I was glad to provide for her the kind of wedding she wanted. I don’t know what was going on with her parents, but they weren’t as willing to fund the event as we had hoped, so I bore most of the responsibility for the expenses.

Two months later I was laid off.

I had a feeling that this would happen, despite the optimistic messages my management was feeding us. So I had been working as much overtime as possible to try and prepare financially.

Despite my preparation, it was not enough. I soon went from being debt-free to being quite a bit in debt and no income.

The job I lost was in a call center, so I wasn’t too upset about losing it, but I certainly needed some income. Living isn’t free (or cheap for that matter), so I knew I needed to get a new job.

(Dealing with the emotional implications of being unemployed is another long story which will have to be examined elsewhere.)

To cut to the chase, I found employment in another call center. As I am writing this, they are still my employer, but hopefully that will change soon. In my experience, working in a call center is one of the worst “professional” jobs out there. Every minute of my day is scrutinized, breaks and lunches are strictly enforced, the attendance policy is unforgiving. Though I have accrued several weeks of paid time off, because of projected call volumes it is almost impossible to be approved to take any of that time. I am constantly judged based on a series of highly subjective “Quality Assurance” metrics all while being expected to retain old information, learn new information, and face a never-ending barrage of upset if not irate customers.

While grateful to have a job, especially in this economy when employment seems to be harder and harder to find, I started to reassess my situation. I loathe my work. I am technically good at what I do, but the thought of doing it much longer is almost unbearable.

So I thought to myself:

“If I hate this job so much, why do I keep doing it?”

Around the beginning of this year, I started working on some things online, partially for fun and partially in hopes that I could make some money, either on the side or enough to do it full-time. I came across this post by Steve Pavlina while looking for information on making websites. (If you haven’t read it, you probably should.)

So I started to reconsider life. Up to this point I had just assumed, like most people, that getting a job is the only option.

Case in point, as I was thinking about these things at work yesterday, my neighbor in the cubicle next to me expressed her desire for the day to be over. “20 minutes left,” she said. So I asked her: “Why do we work a job where our greatest desire is for the day to be over?”

I must have caught her off guard. After stammering for a bit she finally decided that it was because you “have to have a job.”

Let me back up again. My thought process over the past few months and weeks has been:

I hate my current job.
I have to make money to pay off my debt and provide for my family and myself.
I want to figure out a way to do this some other way than this job I hate.

I have been diligently looking for information and resources on ways to do this, from blogging to copywriting to being a travel guide. Basically, there are a ton of potentially lucrative options out there for a hard-working, ambitious person—options that promise (1) more money, (2) more freedom, and (3) a more enjoyable work load.

But then the fear and doubt set in.

“I don’t know what I’m doing.”
“I’ll never make any money at this.”
“I will never be able to make enough money to live.”
“I will be stuck here forever.”

My entrepreneurial desire is also crushed by thoughts of my colleagues. I work in a corporation of tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of employees. If the information about creating your own work is true, and the benefits are as real as they are described, then why do all these people work these jobs they hate?

And not just at my company, but at every company in this city… in this country… in the world. I don’t have the numbers, but my impression is that the majority of people in the workforce (the masses) are in a job like this.

I’m sure that not everyone who works at my company hates their job. However by and large, most people are probably just moderately satisfied at best and would rather, if they are being honest, be doing something else. Like my colleague I mentioned above, they count the minutes until they can go home or wherever else they want to.

This doesn’t seem right to me. We should be working jobs we care about, doing what we want and desire to do. How much happier would the world be if we were living in this way, doing our work with passion and enjoyment?

So back to my question: Why? Why do the masses spend most of their day and most of their lives working jobs they hate?

In my darker moments, I revert to that belief that this is the only option. The reason why most people work this way is because that’s the only way to live. There is nothing else out there.

When I have more clarity, I realize that this is a limiting belief. If I continue to buy into this philosophy, then I will fulfill my own negative destiny. And by reflecting in this way, I think I have discovered one answer to my question. Most people continue in the employee herd because they don’t think there are any other options. Perhaps some of them have never considered anything different. Perhaps some have considered something different but are under the impression that they cannot succeed on their own, that it would be too much work, that they don’t have any skill or talent. If I had to guess, I’d say that this sums up the majority, but there are other aspects as well.

Another part of the answer is fear. Fear is a big, nebulous emotion that is more pervasive in the hearts of the masses than most people realize. Fear permeates one’s entire life, from finances to work to relationships. Fear is used by politicians and people in power to control others. Fear is used by marketers to sell things. Fear is used by your own psyche to protect you from danger, but it often has the negative side effect of immobilization.

My desires to be an entrepreneur create fear. I’m afraid I will never come up with any ideas that can make any money. I’m afraid that I lack the traits of an entrepreneur. I’m afraid of what I’ll have to do to be successful. I’m afraid that I’ll start off on this path only to find that after I’ve gone too far to come back that I won’t be able to continue onto my goal or return to where I’ve come from.

Many people probably feel similar ways. Like I have, they continue to work jobs they hate because they are afraid.

Buying into those fears is easy, but I won’t have any success if I let them dominate my life. I don’t want to be a corporate drone. I want more money, more freedom, and a better life. To that end, I must fight the fear. I DO have skills. I DO have ambition. I DO have creativity. I CAN succeed. I WILL have failures, but I’ll learn from them and do better the next time.

So that’s what I’ve come up with so far. The masses work the jobs they hate because they are afraid, they don’t know there’s any other option, or they don’t think they can succeed in any other option.

DEAR READER: Have you struggled with similar questions? Are you a corporate drone or an entrepreneur? What are you thoughts? Please leave a comment.

WHAT IS YOUR EARLIEST HUMAN MEMORY?

Tue, 20 Sep 2011 21:28:00 -0400

My earliest human memory is the door mat in front of my great aunt’s house. It was the fakest-looking astroturf I had ever seen or have seen since. She died soon thereafter.

It looked something like this.

Photo

Tue, 20 Sep 2011 09:05:02 -0400

Netflix Apologizes

Tue, 20 Sep 2011 09:00:58 -0400

Netflix Apologizes

Bump Hits 50 Million Downloads; What's Being Shared? [INFOGRAPHIC]

Fri, 16 Sep 2011 15:38:49 -0400

Bump Hits 50 Million Downloads; What's Being Shared? [INFOGRAPHIC]: