Action Steps Relaunched!

Lego Pen I Bought. Has nothing to do With This Post. Sorry.

Once again, and still in beta, its the action steps! This year I am going to make posts on the action I take and place a bookmark in the action step page, instead of writing it as one big section.

Since I am personally restarting this year, I am going to start off with a very similar theme from last year. Just bear with me for a few weeks while I get things kick started again, if your a previous reader of the action steps. I am also in the process of building up things again, too. I am personally a bit more prepared this year, than the last to have the guts to dip into the unknown and take some action.
My plan is to have a normal post and an action step post, so the action steps will not ever replace a normal post for the week. Some weeks will not have an action step, since some steps may take several weeks, or even a month.

The First Action Step- Make a Decision To Change
Believe it or not, you have something to the tune “when such and such event happens, I will start an [insert industry] business.” Quite frankly, events are never perfect. The savings are missing a few thousands, or you haven’t won the lottery. The tax return is less than expected, the kids haven’t left the house(yet) or you haven’t have the money for a new computer for the past 3 years. Reality is these things 80% of the time are excuses to non-commitment. It is protection from failing. Put all these setbacks aside for now, and just say Im going to start a small business and grow it into another and then into investments.

The first way to commit is by taking some action everyday, and not just making a verbal commitment. While it helps to have an commitment written down as a statement, you need to back up that statement by taking the time out to learn, to execute and maintain about your select business. Since learning is the first and the easiest, commit about 15 minutes a day, or more. Then in 3 or so months, when your brain is stuffed, its time to put what you learned into action. Then maintain your action by having yourself complete a task or two, to make sure your not giving up or stagnating.

How did I do this step?
I made my commitment on paper. I wrote it up in OpenOffice.org(I use to work in Ubuntu Linux, but right now Im trying out OpenSuse, if you must know) and printed one copy on some resume paper, and one on copy paper. I signed both of them, making it look like a contract. The nice one was hanged on a board. I recommend using a cheap frame if you wish to make it stand out more. I try to read it everyday before work, to remind myself. I do take a lot of my learning to print, since I am not allowed a laptop at work. During breaks, I read whatever I printed out. I also use the same time to figure out a to do, and I keep it to less than 3 a day. Sometimes I break a task down further what the goal is, and the tools I need to complete the task. Name of the game for a cheap startup is momentum. You have to keep moving or else you will get bored and do something else.
Next Week, I will post another action step, covering more about learning and cash stuff. So stay tuned. I am Also going to leave up the previous actions step page till the then, to give you some time if you wish to save yourself a copy.

 

A Late Reminder to Interact

Its is more by far a media producers, than media consumers world these days. People write blogs, produce videos on YouTube, and share other media works like photos or a useful shell script. People are getting more active, than ever before, and the consequences of this is good. Its not a taboo to teach another even if themselves are not a master(myself included). YouTube proves this often.  I saw a small lesson on  learning Arabic and a person complained that a newbie shouldn’t be teaching, this due to her ability to not  pronounce some words correctly, even if she admits it. The true reality is this – its better to provide a seed, to plant an interest, than it is to expect someone to suddenly only teach when they have bloomed already.  By  becoming active in the learning process , by teaching a skill to someone, even if incomplete, you end up learning more. One way is by comments on how to suggestions how to do something correctly.

Is it time to get public with your exploits? I think so. Why would you want to? To build a support group mostly. One of the keys to self improvement is to surround yourself with other successful, or wanting to succeed, like-minded individuals. By contributing information, and getting comments, like “keep up the good work”, or “awesome”, and “this video sucks,”(whoops! thats not suppose to be there!) you get the feed back you need to fill yourself with to keep on going.

Most books that cover this tidbit, make it sound like you just suddenly have it happen as more and more your exploits attract the attention of others. But reality is, you have to work for your fans. Blogging exposed this to me a bit. For example, for traffic, you just don’t throw a post up with reverent tags and then hope for traffic. No, I have to work by going to forums, or being part of some group, and interact with others, and someone might click on my signature link. I brought more people to my blog that way than just tagging.
Its really time consuming, and I can always do more, but for now I hope to benefit my core niche a bit with what I have currently(I hope).
Find ways to work for your customers/audience, and if your consistantly give them wat info nuggets they need, over time, they might return a favor with a sale or a nugget of info you need. Utopian? A bit, I admit. But it works, and thats all that matters.

An Update Note on Action Steps
Once again, I am reworking the action step section on my blog. I have let it slip to inactivity while I was lazy, and now when I am working on my business much more. Mostly, I am thinking about creating a whole blog about it, where I have nearly a post per week covering each of the steps in detail, but I have to build up the articles first before I attempt to do that. So right now its the early phases of being redone. Last time I got stuck on the muse part, since thats what I’m currently working on, and really didn’t have a game plan. Now, I think I have a bit of an idea what my muse goals should be. So sometime in September, or so, I will have some idea to do with that section. Till then hold tight, and I apologize for the time delay. I want to let my business dictate the direction of things, instead of just picking stuff by theory, which wouldn’t be as relevant. I will not be taking the section down for the time being, since there really no appealing reason to.

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Tags: seo, internet interaction, web promotion, internet promotion, home business promotion, action steps to building a home business

 

Think Fast!

As a kid, while playing basketball, there were classmates that would find it amusing to throw(not pass) a basketball(and one time a medicine ball…jerk) and scream out “think fast!”. Then, at the last moment, expect you to catch it. Most of the time, you just would get beamed in the head, while you bring up your arms to catch it. They get a laugh, while your head gets a bruise and a major headache. Or it would turn into a game of dodgeball, if you were lucky.

In my muse, I just experienced that. I found a niche with low hit count, on Google, and procrastinating, I didn’t “reach” up in time and next thing you know, thousands have beaten you to to the punch. It was like it came from a game of think fast. Only, this time the blow wasn’t physically, painful.
So while I can join in late still to this party, I am limited in how I can get noticed, resorting to different tactics and harder work. Frustrating, yea..it is. But a lesson learned. Don’t be a sloth. I did have some setbacks in terms of the marketing material I wrote got misplaced, and a drive refusing to boot after an update, so it was frustrating. I’m am glad I was able to overcome those frustrations by rewriting and having a good backup(more on that later) I still had to overcome a bit of perfection in the rewriting process, since you keep telling yourself how much better the previous version was. So, in this entire experience, I gained a bit more humility. Thats always good. Now its onto another product once the mess with this one is cleaned up.

Rant of the day: Data Loss
        Get a USB drive and backup your important stuff. I never had a loss of data, in till now when Ubuntu decided to stop booting. The data was fine, once I used the install disk to boot into a livecd mode and transfered the data. I didn’t know what caused the kernel panic, so I reinstalled and re-patched everything. Took about 2-3 hours or so. But it was time I could of spent getting some work done, which I planned originally. Next time, I might not be so lucky. The drive could be a usb key, with only 1 Gigabyte or a old memory card/memory stick from a camera that is only 16 or 32 megs(yes you can use those) or whatever. Protect it somehow, your major content at least. I use a old gumstick iPod Shuffle, for instance. Since most of my data just text, its more than enough ample space.

Facebook Update
I will post the link, to my Facebook page, to where I’m going to post info regarding my 60 day stuff, Tomorrow(Saturday the 12th) I just need some setup time.

Till then, I hope you don’t get hit by any medicine balls or have a data loss at important times.

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Tags: procrastination, affiliate marketing, lesson learned, data loss sucks

 

Developing My Sense Of Urgency

Building a muse, even a small one like mine, has been more about finding quick tips to avoid real work aka generating content. Its not that generating content is hard, or time consuming, its more like ” do I really want to?” type. This thought became more and more stronger not only in my business, but for everything I did from exercising to my obligations at work.
Before anyone screams manic depressive(going from super worker, to wanting to lay in a bed all day watching TV), all I really was facing is a bout of laziness and motivation. I was still interested in my muse, but I didn’t want to do the work. Obviously, when I didn’t work on it. Nothing happened, adding fuel to the fire, to continue the laziness.

Nowadays, with rising costs to live and not being in any situation to have a safety valve from it till things balance, I have developed a new sense of urgency. If I don’t build my business, well guess what?
I am going to be stuck in a endless loop of catch up to live. Its very depressing. It took us longer to feel the pinch than most, but when you do it turns into a a punch to the stomach. It literately, came on like, a switch, with this stark realization. I have to fight my sense of idleness, and really just do some things differently. Its really crazy, when you have some stuff that needs to be put out, and its just sitting there like its needs to be polished again and again, when its already good enough to go. Now, that laziness is sure beginning to sound like perfectionism, or the fear of failure. And quite frankly, the more I let this content sit, the more frustrating it will be if it doesn’t pan out.

 I have set up a counter, starting tonight. I have 60 days to build my muse and produce any income, even if its just one dollar in profit,  or else I need to pack my bags, and try a different tactic. For the next two months, I’m going to be journaling about this, to make sure I’m making progress. I will add a Facebook blog about it and edit it whenever I make changes. That way I won’t bore anyone with personal activities, unless your truly interested. The link will appear in a week(I mean it!). I hope it will inspire you and help you make less mistakes than I do. This blog focus will still be about general home business topics. I’ve been running out of contently lately due to..laziness, but I already brainstormed some ideas, that will pan out into something worth reading.

Now, excuse me, I have some work to tend to…

And its not organizing file folders(thats another topic, for a later time)

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Tags: urgency, lazyness, muse building, home business building, getting work done, freaking out

 

A Small Offer

Normally, I wouldn’t do this but, I feel like its important enough to share. One of the products I use, called Wealthy Affiliate(WA, for short), has been a great help for me in learning about affiliate marketing. It helped me by breaking everything down into a 8 week plan( by my slow standards, is taking much longer than that), and the very friendly and helpful web forum. It does also web hosting, and some great tools like a keyword tool, keyword list for some industries, and a Clickbank product finder. While their are free tools(like google keyword tool just works fine, and cb engine, for Clickbank), The biggest help is the plan. While there are plenty of affiliate marketing forums out there, most of them become victim of themselves; with people arguing over the dumbest stuff, and you waste time trying to go through post after post of garbage. I love the genuine help and focus from WA, and it was much more helpful than when I was trying to go about it on my own.
Recently, they announced they will do a price change after May 6th. The price wasn’t listed, but it going to be more than what it cost right now. It cost 30 bucks a month, and this might change, drastically(based upon the commission structure) I really like this product, and I found it to be well worth being a member of, and if you don’t like it, you can always cancel your subscription. I know reading from other members, they been part of WA for nearly 2 years, and still haven’t left!
So if your interested in creating an affiliate marketing muse, your overwhelmed by the information overload, and you need a plan to start, this would be the place to go. While I could have waited to promote WA later, I thought it would be better to get y’all in while the price is quite cheaper. So its really worth considering? It helped me make my first sale. That matters the world to me and to you, if it put you a step closer to the same, that success.
My Link to Wealthy Affiliate

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Tags: WealthyAffiliate review, Wealthy Affiliate, Affiliate Marketing, WA price increase

 

Its Been a Long Time, Baby.

Whether you think you can, or that you can’t, you are usually right

– Henry Ford.

Its been quite an interesting past month. I joined a gym, I joined a program to learn about affiliate marketing, and now I am changing Linux distro’s from Ubuntu to another one.

All mostly, just to support crafty goals of mine. I will spare the details about the body ones, but talk about the 2 latter.

In Personal Linux News

As mentioned earlier, Im dumping Ubuntu to another Ubuntu(or Debian for y’all purists) called gOS(good OS, not google OS). This os originally started out on a cheap walmart pc made by Everex that quickly sold out. It’s major differences from Ubuntu is The default interface runs in Enlightenment, instead of Gnome, and its heavy use of online applications from Google, and now Myspace(its now being coined the “Myspace” OS, rather than “Google apps” OS here recently). Enlightenment(or E18, for short and current version), has its pros for not having the huge memory overhead, while having an equal dose of eye candy. But, it still has to rely on other parts, to have a somewhat modern experience(example: gOS uses Gnome Nautilus, a file browser, to draw icons on the desktop and have file management. E doesn’t have these features). My reason behind the change, is because I’m not exactly aware of all web 2.0 trends, and this OS helps me be in the know for whats going down, due to its heavy online focus. While this may seem odd, but since the Internet is my current money making muse, spending more time being aware of trends, will help me focus on narrowing my marketing and spend more time interacting with others. Also, gOS still has access to Ubuntu software collection, so I can have a full fledge Linux experience at the same time. For a less drastic route, Flock(a social web browser, that runs on Windows, Mac, or Linux) could accomplish the same thing.

The Affiliate Marketing Part

About a month ago I joined a program that I read a tons of recommendations about. Its hard for me to say yet, So I won’t drop any names yet. I haven’t been dedicating as much time to business as I would like to, since I’ve been really tired here lately(and sitting around doing nothing could cost you cash), and my pace is picked up again, so I can balance the time I spend between work, spending time with my wife(very important), my work, and working out without feeling burned out from the latter. Its even harder since my wife and I are not on the same time schedule at all with work, and going to sleep, so things might be placed in the less perfect order. It works none less, currently, so Im thankful for that, even if it could be just perfect to have the same time off and the same weekends together and all that stuff.

As time goes, I hope these turn out to be good decisions!

 

The Weekly Update…

My muse is now slowly ramping up. I have spent only about 30 dollars now, and no return on sales. Oops! So, I am taking a step back from my pay-per-click(PPC)marketing and try something else, before attempting again.

While some tactics at this point would be to offer services of some kind, I’m trying to avoid this to an extent. This would be more like being self employed, meaning once you are not producing, your not making money. Ideally for me, I don’t want to create a new 15 hour a day job. So I’m going to keep “services” to a minimum. There is some natural self employment aspects in the beginning, but you just don’t want to make this your core aspect or the cash cow of your business.

At this time frame, you have to keep reminding yourself your in business. Its one of the hardest things to do. You might want to just run back to just doing more research, where its safe and beat yourself for not having found the magic bullet yet. While dealing with the unknown, your fighting fear. Its not an easy task, nor do I have an answer at this time to cope with such emotions, other than ride it out. I hope your not dealing with the same emotions as I am when you start out!

Working on a new page for the website, where I’m going to discuss my muse in better detail and the programs that I use. Stay tuned for that one, it should be up soon.

 

Gaming for money- Intresting Article

While doing some blog checking, I came across this link(non-aff). It was interesting to hear how someone made a income stream by having a casual game. Proof shows, start with your skills, and the rest will hopefully follow.
http://gigaom.com/2007/05/27/desktop-tower-defense/