Posted: Mon Oct 05, 2009 4:13 pm Post subject: Time to start anew and rebuild from scratch
Hey all, I'm writing this post just to give me some cathartic relief. There's something therapeutic about sharing with strangers online I guess.
Wifey and I just ended our relationship (I guess ex-Wifey now haha) about a month ago.
My story: Boy genius turned highschool drop out. Good looking guy, in good shape, something of a PUA, ended up landing a job as a cook in a mid level restaurant. Slaved away there and got treated semi-crappy but made good wages and because of my masterful skill at managing money, had a pretty good life as a "lowly cook".
I hooked up with a server, she was an easy 10. She had a boyfriend when we met but eventually dumped him for me after cheating on him with me. I didn't know this until afterward, I thought they had broken up before we hooked up.
Anyway, we got pregnant after being together for 5 months or so and I got pretty badly hurt on the job which meant less money to play with.
Following that, I was working double shifts and getting no sleep which makes me VERY bitchy and prone to petty squabbling and selfishness.
We ended the honeymoon phase VERY quickly and nothing kills a relationship faster then constant fighting with a pregnant woman. I also turned somewhat into a which was a real turn off for her. She ended up cheating on me with the original ex she dumped for me (while still pregnant with my kid), we had a rough patch for about a month and a half before we ended it on valentines day.
Fortunately, there to help me pick up the pieces was my best friend. A girl I've been friends with for a decade who was always in love with me and who I loved back, but we never found the time to make it work together. Something or someone on either side always got in the way.
That was when I rebounded onto her. It quickly became much more than that though and we were genuinely in love. We had a blast together all the time as young couples do for the few months before my daughter was born. Then on August 10th of 2007 my life changed forever for the better. My daughter was born.
Despite the constant ups and downs that come with having a child with a bitter ex, I managed with Wifey's help. She loved my daughter like her own. We kept having our young people's blast around my visitations with my baby girl and things were great. I was still me, cocky, confident, in good shape, handsome, and had money. In our 11 months together we never fought once and had an AMAZING sex life.
Then in December of 07, finally fed up with all the shit I was getting at work. Getting blamed for stuff that wasn't my responsibility despite killing myself to make them rich. I walked in the day after the Christmas party and quit cold turkey. No 2 weeks notice, no nothing.
Wifey was incredibly supportive, she hated what that place was doing to me and how it was spoiling my potential.
That's when my life started coming apart at the seams. I didn't know what I was going to do for money or anything yet but I had lots of savings so we were good. After reading about how Steve Pavlina makes 40,000 dollars a month from adsense and other offers from his blog I figured, what the hell, why can't I give this a shot? I got banned from adsense in my 3rd week because they said I had made too much money from such little traffic.
So I started into the realm of internet marketing working from home. The thing about internet marketing most people fail to realize? It actually takes work. Having little in the way of self discipline, especially when surrounded by distractions being home all day, I didn't do a lot but disguised it as accomplishment.
I bounced around here and there from scheme to scheme, affiliate marketing and the like and made some cash here and there but nothing consistent and nothing close to what you could call a living. I had all kinds of ideas but no funding to bring them to fruition. All through this, Wifey stayed diligent, knowing that I'd accomplish something, having faith in me when nobody else did, not even me by this point as a deep depression had set in.
We had started fighting on a bi weekly basis, a lot of them HUGE wars. It seemed like we broke up at least once a month and got back together right away once we had calmed.
I had let myself go; stopped eating healthy, stopped working out, even stopped handling my hygiene on a daily basis. Meanwhile she had just started on a health kick because since we had first started going out together she had put on 40 lbs or so. This caused some conflict.
My self esteem was in the complete shitter, I was at the point where I couldn't make phone calls. I had like some kind of phone-phobia. I could do stuff in person but I just couldn't bring myself to call anyone, especially about the important stuff.
Wifey and I had big plans though, we got engaged and had been house hunting because she finishes school soon and is starting a career where she'll make 100 bucks an hour and has more work than she'll ever need.
So in this time while I had become a financially poor, broken shell of my former self, she still stuck with me with love and support. Our sex life had dwindled quite a bit, I figured it was just because of her massive course load and the fact that she has 3 and a half hours of commuting every day.
Anyway, I had noticed in the month of August or so, things started to kind of shift. Being a former PUA, and a damn good one I might add, I can tell when shit is about to hit the fan in relationships. I told myself I was being paranoid since I had just decided to start school in September (which is what she wanted so badly for me and was so proud of me for) and had gotten a part time job, and we had decided on so much of our future together. Things still hadn't really picked up yet though and if my ignorant jackass off a father hadn't woken me from a sound sleep by flipping on my light in the pitch blackness and screaming at me that I had a phone call, things might have turned out differently, plus I had only had 3 hours of sleep in the 2 days prior.
It was Wifey on the phone talking to me about how she might want to go on vacation some Christmas and would I be okay with it just being the 2 of us and leaving my daughter with her mother. In my idiotic anger at my father, I snapped off at her telling her I could never leave my daughter on Christmas and to give her head a shake. The reality is that there's NO WAY her mother would ever let us take her on vacation so snapping off was stupid in that regard as well.
She got upset and said "Fine bye" and hung up. I started to write it off but then I got pissed that she had hung up on me so I called her back to argue with her more when she answered crying. She said she just couldn't do this anymore. Knowing that she'll never be first and that she could never ask me to put her before my daughter. We ended up having a tearful conversation and hung up. She stopped by that afternoon and we cuddled and kissed and talked but she was still adamant about leaving me. I should add that my daughter's now 2 and calls her Mama. We talked later on that day and the next. Then we had some huge screaming arguments for a week and she said stuff like "I was going to get back together with you because I missed you so much, but you just confirmed that I was right."
It was in the 3rd week of September of this year that I had a flash back to my old PUA days. I picked up Travis Sago's aka TW Jackson's Magic of Making Up book that I had gotten awhile ago from somewhere. After reading it, I got my head on straight again. I let go of all the negativity, because if you want someone back, you shouldn't scrap with them all the time.
We still saw each other because I was a part of her case study for school. Every night I'd have to text her my stats and every Wednesday I'd have to go in for treatment. The first Wednesday after my epiphany went well. I think she was gun shy and feeling me out. After the second and final Wednesday of the case study, things started going pretty good again. My schooling is in full swing and I'm pretty effortlessly flying through it (boy genius has still got it haha) and work is going alright, but I still have no money as I have a LOT of debt to pay back since my savings ran out a year ago.
So we're talking and texting and things are kinda weird but progressing. I'm at peace and living in the philosophy that my life's pretty good, getting amazingly better, and there's still a place for her if she wants it back, if not I wish her the best.
Then this morning I see that she had requested that this goof be her friend on facebook and he accepted. This is a douche who is a kid of her Mom's friend, who her mom tried to fix her up with WHILE we had been together for over a year. He asked for her number repeatedly while we were a couple and she turned him down multiple times saying "I'm engaged, sorry" and now SHE asked to be HIS friend on facebook. It hit me like a kick in the guts mostly because he's where I used to be. Decent looking kid, in good shape, makes 45 bucks an hour in construction, owns a brand new truck blah blah.
I really had to sit and meditate on it for a few minutes before I could let it go. At this second I'm fine with it, back in my enlightened way of thinking, but I can still feel it back there waiting to gnaw at me.
Anyhoo, today after I drop my daughter off at her mother's I'm designing myself a diet and exercise regime again and going to start following it religiously to turn myself back into a killing machine.
I've already started working on dusting off my PUA skills despite the fact I'm not looking for anything because I'm still in love with Wifey.
I've even made an outline for a plan to put my considerable online marketing talent/knowledge to work for me part time thanks to being able to afford outsourcing and new software like SENuke. I should probably mention that despite the fact that I personally had little success with IM, I've helped many people build successful businesses online. I just lacked the ambition to do it all myself and the funds to outsource what I didn't want to do. Now that's changed and with some luck I hope to be making a living at it in the near future. My goal is 1,000 bucks a day.
Wifey lost attraction for me and tried to recover it for a long time and she ultimately failed. Then she gave me all these reasons to justify it. That's how women work; emotions first then logic. I'm going to handle all the problems her logic came out with, and all the ones I've identified, and if that doesn't get us back together, I'll still have the satisfaction of knowing I tried, having a beautiful brilliant daughter that I'm so proud of, and having a damn sweet life.
Anyhoo sorry for the length of this and thanks for reading it all if you got this far. A fairly big peek into the mind and life of your friendly neighborhood Rayzorblades.
Comments, questions, criticisms, all are welcome. Peace. _________________
Wow... I'm sorry to hear about your experience bro... Your experience with your wife and your ex sounds pretty harsh. I'm glad you were able to be at peace with it, and meditate on it. The plan that you made sounds excellent - to work on the different areas of your life and move forward towards a good future - 1000$ a day sounds pretty good to me.
It still looks that you still got a great life ahead of you - you got the physique, the brains, the ability with people, and the great business sense. I'm sure that in no time that you will be blazing through your goals in no time.
And as a side note, having had all of this life experience, what advice would you give to an aspiring 18 year-old?
I hope the everything turns out for you in the end Rayzorblades. Good luck!
Very interetsing story.... thanks for posting. I only have one tip for you, you probably already thought of this but I'll throw it out anyway. It's just something that came to mind at the end of reading your story. I would look into, when you have the time, some form of spiritual exercises that will bring you more peace, even if it just mean's taking up meditation.
Constantly daily meditation, even for just 15 min., can bring your stress levels way down and give you that "break" you need every now and then when things start to get out-of-hand. These days, more than ever before, we got more stress than we can imagine, so having something to fall back on is really a big plus. Many people poo-poo meditation, but you have to have something to help. One of the skill's I picked up from meditation is just stopping my thoughts with a little bit of focus, I could not do this in the beginning when I first started but with constant practice you'll notice a simple thing like this.... giving you big rewards. A silent mind is a peaceful mind.
Anyways.... good luck, you have alot of potential and things are looking up for you lately, so I'm happy for you. One other thing you might look into is some sort of EMF blocking device, maybe a pendant you can wear or something like that. EMF's these days from all the electronics we're surrounded with do make us much more agressive and angry... so something to block all that out, will be a big help and bring you peace.
PH _________________ "We have two choices in life. We can choose to see the best situation in our lives, or bemoan why things are not working." ~ Cynthia Stafford
Wow... I'm sorry to hear about your experience bro... Your experience with your wife and your ex sounds pretty harsh. I'm glad you were able to be at peace with it, and meditate on it. The plan that you made sounds excellent - to work on the different areas of your life and move forward towards a good future - 1000$ a day sounds pretty good to me.
It still looks that you still got a great life ahead of you - you got the physique, the brains, the ability with people, and the great business sense. I'm sure that in no time that you will be blazing through your goals in no time.
And as a side note, having had all of this life experience, what advice would you give to an aspiring 18 year-old?
I hope the everything turns out for you in the end Rayzorblades. Good luck!
Hey thanks man I appreciate that. It's gonna be a tough road getting myself back and then some, but I'm game. As to advice to an 18 year old:
-FINISH HIGH SCHOOL if you've not done it already. Every day I wish I had.
-Apprentice to learn a trade like cooking, carpentry, electrician-ing, or to a lesser extent, mechanics (mostly because it takes more school and gets updated all the time). With a trade you'll ALWAYS have work somewhere if everything else in your life goes sour.
-USE PROTECTION. I wouldn't trade my daughter for anything on this planet, but make sure you're ready to have kids. Financially secure, independent with your own place, with someone who is stable and who you have a future with etc.
-Learn internet marketing and online business. This is the wave of the future. Entrepreneurship is where the real money is at if you can do it right. Places and books I'd recommend for learning: http://thirtydaychallenge.com, The Rich Jerk (not as much, but he has good ideas), Travis Sago's Bum Marketing, the 12 month millionaire, and study the models of gurus like Amish Shah, Matt Furey, Perry Belcher (He and Amish are great with learning adwords) and the like. Lots of people consider Furey a joke, but he has a bunch of his own products that he promotes and a blog full of his controversial anecdotes to draw publicity. Another good one for business (and some interesting ideas about women, who actually got me started as a PUA back in the day) is Eben Pagan aka David DeAngelo. This guy makes 27 million a year with 200 outsourced employees world wide thanks to his dating materials and he started it out of a shitty apartment.
-Eat healthy and work out, stay healthy. Don't let anyone or anything take this away from you.
-Eliminate your insecurities however you can. All of them. Whether with EFT, or Radionics or whatever. Pay healers, have custom work done by XM or anybody, but KILL those irrational fears because they will ruin your life. They also make you needy and horribly unattractive. In my research I've traced every negative emotion to insecurities.
That's all I can think of off the top of my head. I hope it helps.
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Very interetsing story.... thanks for posting. I only have one tip for you, you probably already thought of this but I'll throw it out anyway. It's just something that came to mind at the end of reading your story. I would look into, when you have the time, some form of spiritual exercises that will bring you more peace, even if it just mean's taking up meditation.
Constantly daily meditation, even for just 15 min., can bring your stress levels way down and give you that "break" you need every now and then when things start to get out-of-hand. These days, more than ever before, we got more stress than we can imagine, so having something to fall back on is really a big plus. Many people poo-poo meditation, but you have to have something to help. One of the skill's I picked up from meditation is just stopping my thoughts with a little bit of focus, I could not do this in the beginning when I first started but with constant practice you'll notice a simple thing like this.... giving you big rewards. A silent mind is a peaceful mind.
Anyways.... good luck, you have alot of potential and things are looking up for you lately, so I'm happy for you. One other thing you might look into is some sort of EMF blocking device, maybe a pendant you can wear or something like that. EMF's these days from all the electronics we're surrounded with do make us much more agressive and angry... so something to block all that out, will be a big help and bring you peace.
Thanks a lot PH. Meditation has really helped me out through a lot of this. In my prime I did it at LEAST once a day for 15-30 mins, I attribute my downfall at least partially to falling off the wagon. Stress is huge in my life right now to say the least, and not just due to the issues I talked about in my post. The EMF thing I never considered before but I could DEFINITELY use one. I sleep in a room with 4 computers, 2 of which run almost 24/7 so I can see that playing a huge role in making me miserable. Thanks for the good wishes though man, it means a lot. _________________
Hey thanks man I appreciate that. It's gonna be a tough road getting myself back and then some, but I'm game.
Hey Rayzorblades, you definitely have my support. From where I'm standing, at least, it definitely looks like you have the skills to success!
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As to advice to an 18 year old:
-FINISH HIGH SCHOOL if you've not done it already. Every day I wish I had.
Yeah, it took me very recently to realize how important that was. I did take off a semester due to family stresses, and so I'm right now completing the last class I need to graduate. Actually, I didn't want to take it at my HS, so I went to the local college, and brought in my AP scores and such and they said I could take the class there.
What really got me motivated was trying to find a job without a HS diploma... it was just incredibly frustrating, and I know some people who even have HS diplomas who can't find a job either. I got scared that I'd never be employed.
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-Apprentice to learn a trade like cooking, carpentry, electrician-ing, or to a lesser extent, mechanics (mostly because it takes more school and gets updated all the time). With a trade you'll ALWAYS have work somewhere if everything else in your life goes sour.
I actually have a pretty basic knowledge of those things (besides electrician work) from working with my dad. I love cooking, so maybe I could do what you did on the side? How did you manage to find a job so easily without an HS diploma? I'm definitely envious about that.
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-USE PROTECTION. I wouldn't trade my daughter for anything on this planet, but make sure you're ready to have kids. Financially secure, independent with your own place, with someone who is stable and who you have a future with etc.
Hahaha... this one is bashed into our heads all the time. I'll definitely be safe, lol.
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-Learn internet marketing and online business. This is the wave of the future. Entrepreneurship is where the real money is at if you can do it right. Places and books I'd recommend for learning: http://thirtydaychallenge.com, The Rich Jerk (not as much, but he has good ideas), Travis Sago's Bum Marketing, the 12 month millionaire, and study the models of gurus like Amish Shah, Matt Furey, Perry Belcher (He and Amish are great with learning adwords) and the like. Lots of people consider Furey a joke, but he has a bunch of his own products that he promotes and a blog full of his controversial anecdotes to draw publicity. Another good one for business (and some interesting ideas about women, who actually got me started as a PUA back in the day) is Eben Pagan aka David DeAngelo. This guy makes 27 million a year with 200 outsourced employees world wide thanks to his dating materials and he started it out of a shitty apartment.
It sounds pretty good to me, and something I've been interested in for a while. I've heard mixed feedback on it, having been on different forums, it seems that a lot of people failed to make any significant money, they said for all the effort they put in, they only got about 1-2$ an hour. I'm actually interested right now in starting a small ebay business and going from there, do you recommend it? I know how to set up and design a website, I've done it for friends and family, would you recommend setting up a website or blog and putting adsense on it? What did you get the most mileage out of?
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-Eat healthy and work out, stay healthy. Don't let anyone or anything take this away from you.
I'm very unmotivated, but I have been tryig to work out regularly, lol.
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-Eliminate your insecurities however you can. All of them. Whether with EFT, or Radionics or whatever. Pay healers, have custom work done by XM or anybody, but KILL those irrational fears because they will ruin your life. They also make you needy and horribly unattractive. In my research I've traced every negative emotion to insecurities.
Sage advice, Rayzorblades. What modality worked best for you?
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That's all I can think of off the top of my head. I hope it helps.
Yes, thank you. I really appreciate the help and advice, it means a lot to me. I wish you luck, bro!
I actually have a pretty basic knowledge of those things (besides electrician work) from working with my dad. I love cooking, so maybe I could do what you did on the side? How did you manage to find a job so easily without an HS diploma? I'm definitely envious about that.
Up here in Canada there's a lot of jobs you can do without a highschool diploma. One of which is being a line cook. Flipping burgers, making entrees and the like. I just printed off my resume 100 times and sent it to 100 places to see what stuck. In the end it only paid 13 bucks an hour, 15.20 if you include the tip-out, but I was working 60 hour weeks regularly. I'd get like 2 days off a month if that. It was a shitty job nobody wanted so it paid alright and had a fair bit of hours. Plus 20 hours a week of overtime pay at 1.5x your wage made it pretty good too. I'd make like 2500 a month. My financial skills let me get away with at most 700 a month for bills so I always had lots of money. I tried to keep around 5 grand in my account at any given time.
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It sounds pretty good to me, and something I've been interested in for a while. I've heard mixed feedback on it, having been on different forums, it seems that a lot of people failed to make any significant money, they said for all the effort they put in, they only got about 1-2$ an hour. I'm actually interested right now in starting a small ebay business and going from there, do you recommend it? I know how to set up and design a website, I've done it for friends and family, would you recommend setting up a website or blog and putting adsense on it? What did you get the most mileage out of?
I think most people fail at IM because they don't work at it. Or they do too many of the wrong things, get discouraged, and quit. You have to look at the numbers.
Build a blog to promote a product, get 200 people there per day (actually a lot easier than you think especially once you start getting into making Search Engine Optimized content and using social bookmarking) and unless you're really lousy at writing copy or whatever, 200 relevant hits should get you one sale.
If it doesn't, then split test and try different things to see what works and what doesn't. Posting youtube videos you made to promote your "niche" is HUGELY successful. People watch videos.
Usually once you get enough of your stuff out there in a bunch of related keyword niches, your traffic levels will stay the same with less work on your part. So at the get go it might take you 12 hours or more a day to get your 50 dollar sale for example, but after a week it might take 10 hours for the same amount of traffic and sales, then another week 8 hours and so on. Tools for automation and outsourcing will shrink this time even more if you can afford them.
After a few months think of it this way. You slaved away for days on end, but now your site is getting 1000 hits per day, with minimal work from you (because you now have such a huge web of content out there) and making at least 5 sales. That's 250 bucks per day if you're selling our imaginary example product.
It takes time and dedication to get there though.
To answer your specific question, Ebay's a tough cookie sometimes. For example if you use my example and promote say 30,000 dollar guitars or 100,000 dollar cars (both of which are on ebay in fair amounts last time I looked) you can make insane commissions. Even at 5%. 5% of a hundred thousand is 5,000. You make one sale a month and you're set with a damn good life. One sale of a HUGE ticket item is doable if your site is well known with 30,000 hits a month like in my example.
Personally I've tinkered with eBay stores but never really actively pursued them. I know a few people that have and make good money. They often sell stuff they got on the cheap from thrift stores and the like and then triple their money on them.
As for adsense or something similar (I currently use adbrite) you can do that. It's a good way to at least cover domain name costs and what not if your site hasn't taken off yet. I wouldn't try to use adsense or the like to try and make a living though. Not unless you had MEGA visitors, like a million or 2 a month.
You can always sign up for a service like Triond and post whatever content you want to that. They split ad revenue with you and I've known a few people who make a few hundred a month at it. The cool thing about a site like triond is that once the content is up and promoted (socially bookmarked or whatever) it makes you money forever. Say each article or poem or video or whatever you do makes you 25 cents a year. That's not much, but get 1000 pieces of content up and bam that's 250 bucks annually. That could be a car payment taken off. Or it could pay for your Christmas presents without dipping into your bottom line. I know a poet who makes 300 a month with them just posting his poems everyday.
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Sage advice, Rayzorblades. What modality worked best for you?
EFT and meditation everyday. I only dabbled with radionics in this way.
Like I told PH, I attribute a lack of meditation to my downfall in a big way. It's funny though how when times get toughest we revert to what works best to help us deal. The meditation I did today helped me overcome the utter devastation that finding out she started to move on caused me. And it did it quickly, though I have had a fair bit of practice using meditation to help with emotional trauma. _________________
It sounds like you're making the best of a challenging situation Rayzorblades. Some people would have fallen in a heap with less stress but you sound almost upbeat and definitely have a good attitude. I hope you all the best but I'm sure with your abilities you'll do well. I second what people have said about meditation, some days I haven't felt like doing it but on others days it's felt like the only thing that's stood by me when everything is going haywire.
It sounds like you're making the best of a challenging situation Rayzorblades. Some people would have fallen in a heap with less stress but you sound almost upbeat and definitely have a good attitude. I hope you all the best but I'm sure with your abilities you'll do well. I second what people have said about meditation, some days I haven't felt like doing it but on others days it's felt like the only thing that's stood by me when everything is going haywire.
I sure am. You manifest your reality and I'm definitely tired of manifesting a miserable one. Thanks so much for the support. I forgot how good meditation makes me feel and gives me strength; I'm increasingly anticipating my next meditation after my last one. I'm going to take an "internet blackout" on Wednesday. No facebook, no email, no twitter, just me and my projects. It'll hopefully help to give me some more clarity away from all the social drama. _________________
Hey dude, I agree that for someone going through this you seem like you've got yourself together and are switched on in a good way. Hope the drama doesn't last too long for ya. In the meantime kick some a$$ figuratively speaking, pump your energy into getting your business thriving and working out.
Up here in Canada there's a lot of jobs you can do without a highschool diploma. One of which is being a line cook. Flipping burgers, making entrees and the like. I just printed off my resume 100 times and sent it to 100 places to see what stuck.
Canada sounds great sometimes... Have you lived in the US before? Yeah, I don't have very much to put on my resume at this place in time. Did you work at restaurants when you were younger?
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In the end it only paid 13 bucks an hour, 15.20 if you include the tip-out, but I was working 60 hour weeks regularly. I'd get like 2 days off a month if that. It was a shitty job nobody wanted so it paid alright and had a fair bit of hours. Plus 20 hours a week of overtime pay at 1.5x your wage made it pretty good too. I'd make like 2500 a month. My financial skills let me get away with at most 700 a month for bills so I always had lots of money. I tried to keep around 5 grand in my account at any given time.
I've had experience making meals for 100+ people before, at camp and school, so I know how stressful cooking for a group can sometimes be. Besides the crazy amount of work that you put in, it doesn't sound that terrible in terms of pay.
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I think most people fail at IM because they don't work at it. Or they do too many of the wrong things, get discouraged, and quit. You have to look at the numbers.
I can see what you mean. In some ways, it's good that it's something that not everyone can do, because otherwise we'd get too much competition, eh? I realize I need to be disciplined to get things done, as much as I've tried to use "the easy way", I've found that things only get done when I put in my fair share of work and effort.
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Build a blog to promote a product, get 200 people there per day (actually a lot easier than you think especially once you start getting into making Search Engine Optimized content and using social bookmarking) and unless you're really lousy at writing copy or whatever, 200 relevant hits should get you one sale.
I've made a few blogs before (personal and otherwise), so I know how those work, and I know CSS if I want to play around with the style. 200 people a day? Well, you say that's easy... but I don't know jack about SEO and 200 sounds like an awful lot. I have no idea about writing copy either, I heard that Vitale wrote some good books on it, what do you think?
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If it doesn't, then split test and try different things to see what works and what doesn't. Posting youtube videos you made to promote your "niche" is HUGELY successful. People watch videos.
Provide Content. Makes sense. Sounds like work to keep everyone happy and enjoying your stuff, but why not?
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Usually once you get enough of your stuff out there in a bunch of related keyword niches, your traffic levels will stay the same with less work on your part. So at the get go it might take you 12 hours or more a day to get your 50 dollar sale for example, but after a week it might take 10 hours for the same amount of traffic and sales, then another week 8 hours and so on. Tools for automation and outsourcing will shrink this time even more if you can afford them.
Yeah, I think perhaps it's all about the initial 'hump' that you need to get over. From what I've read other people say, it's the hump that people have trouble dealing with, they say that they'll work 20 hours for only 50$, but it makes sense that it would be all downhill from your first 50$.
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After a few months think of it this way. You slaved away for days on end, but now your site is getting 1000 hits per day, with minimal work from you (because you now have such a huge web of content out there) and making at least 5 sales. That's 250 bucks per day if you're selling our imaginary example product.
It takes time and dedication to get there though.
How did you get the motivation and self-discipline to follow through, yourself?
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To answer your specific question, Ebay's a tough cookie sometimes. For example if you use my example and promote say 30,000 dollar guitars or 100,000 dollar cars (both of which are on ebay in fair amounts last time I looked) you can make insane commissions. Even at 5%. 5% of a hundred thousand is 5,000. You make one sale a month and you're set with a damn good life. One sale of a HUGE ticket item is doable if your site is well known with 30,000 hits a month like in my example.
Personally I've tinkered with eBay stores but never really actively pursued them. I know a few people that have and make good money. They often sell stuff they got on the cheap from thrift stores and the like and then triple their money on them.
You have a point, when you have an eBay business, you constantly need to invest a large amount of time and effort into it... whereas if you do IM, after a while, the sales will make themselves. You don't have to invest or purchase anything, and you will continuously receive value.
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As for adsense or something similar (I currently use adbrite) you can do that. It's a good way to at least cover domain name costs and what not if your site hasn't taken off yet. I wouldn't try to use adsense or the like to try and make a living though. Not unless you had MEGA visitors, like a million or 2 a month.
I know, my question is, would the ads be worth the revenue? I want to get a good balance to not be obtrusive and seem like I'm throwing a million ads at people, but also make a fair amount of money.
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You can always sign up for a service like Triond and post whatever content you want to that. They split ad revenue with you and I've known a few people who make a few hundred a month at it. The cool thing about a site like triond is that once the content is up and promoted (socially bookmarked or whatever) it makes you money forever. Say each article or poem or video or whatever you do makes you 25 cents a year. That's not much, but get 1000 pieces of content up and bam that's 250 bucks annually. That could be a car payment taken off. Or it could pay for your Christmas presents without dipping into your bottom line. I know a poet who makes 300 a month with them just posting his poems everyday.
Might not be bad to look into something like that? Although it seems to me that unless you are actively a poet or a writer, that you'd spend more time than it's worth. For instance, if you write an article and it takes you an hour, and you only make 25 cents a year, it seems like it might not be worth it.
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EFT and meditation everyday. I only dabbled with radionics in this way.
Like I told PH, I attribute a lack of meditation to my downfall in a big way. It's funny though how when times get toughest we revert to what works best to help us deal. The meditation I did today helped me overcome the utter devastation that finding out she started to move on caused me. And it did it quickly, though I have had a fair bit of practice using meditation to help with emotional trauma.
I find that you must be very resilient to go through that and yet continue to go on. I find it inspiring. I've been meditating every day and it's helped a great deal, but I only did a short stint with EFT, perhaps I should try it again? In any case, I hope things get better for you, you definitely deserve it.
I really appreciate that things must be really hard for you, and I'm grateful that you took some time to write and educate me a little on this business... it's quite interesting! Thank you, I wish you the best, Rayzorblades!
Hey dude, I agree that for someone going through this you seem like you've got yourself together and are switched on in a good way. Hope the drama doesn't last too long for ya. In the meantime kick some a$$ figuratively speaking, pump your energy into getting your business thriving and working out.
Yeah that's pretty much what I'm doing, I've got a wicked cold right now so I'm healing up from that. I heard that she asked out the D-Bag I mentioned but I've pretty much handled it emotionally. She's telling her friends (not our friends mind you, just her exclusive friends) that "We broke up, I didn't want to but I decided it was probably time, it sucks because we were engaged. We're still great friends though." which made me laugh actually. We're in a pretty strange place right now I guess.
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Canada sounds great sometimes... Have you lived in the US before? Yeah, I don't have very much to put on my resume at this place in time. Did you work at restaurants when you were younger?
Nah I've never lived in the US of A. And no I never worked restaurants when I was younger, I just decided to do it one day. I did have my food safe levels 1 and 2 (I dunno if you have something like them down there, but you need them to handle food for the public here). Having food safe is pretty much a guarantee for getting some kind of kitchen job here, especially if the place is looking for cooks. Prep cooks are always in demand because it sucks and nobody wants to do it.
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I've had experience making meals for 100+ people before, at camp and school, so I know how stressful cooking for a group can sometimes be. Besides the crazy amount of work that you put in, it doesn't sound that terrible in terms of pay.
There's something to put on your resume right there. Any kind of kitchen or cooking experience would work great in my experience.
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I've made a few blogs before (personal and otherwise), so I know how those work, and I know CSS if I want to play around with the style. 200 people a day? Well, you say that's easy... but I don't know jack about SEO and 200 sounds like an awful lot. I have no idea about writing copy either, I heard that Vitale wrote some good books on it, what do you think?
Having the programming knowledge that you have is great. At his point I'd really recommend going to http://thirtydaychallenge.com it's free and these guys REALLY know their stuff on internet marketing, blogging, SEO, writing copy, and whatnot. Do the whole challenge, you don't even need to sign up for anything (other than their forum if you want to). All their lessons are there for the public to view and totally awesome.
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Provide Content. Makes sense. Sounds like work to keep everyone happy and enjoying your stuff, but why not?
Just remember the old saying: You can make some of the people happy all of the time, and all of the people happy some of the time, but not all of the people happy all of the time. Just do what feels right to you. You don't have to agree with everything everyone says.
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How did you get the motivation and self-discipline to follow through, yourself?
I got dumped. Like I said I was never successful doing it for myself, but I was great at helping other people get way ahead of the game. Sometimes I'd even charge a consulting fee.
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I know, my question is, would the ads be worth the revenue? I want to get a good balance to not be obtrusive and seem like I'm throwing a million ads at people, but also make a fair amount of money.
There are guides on ad placement out there that you can simply google. Even the big G themselves has a guide on how to place ads effectively for monetary purposes.
The darker the orange, the more likely people are to click in those areas according to Google. One ad front and center can be enough. Plus you can always tweak ad styles and colours to better fit your site.
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Might not be bad to look into something like that? Although it seems to me that unless you are actively a poet or a writer, that you'd spend more time than it's worth. For instance, if you write an article and it takes you an hour, and you only make 25 cents a year, it seems like it might not be worth it.
While that's true, if you have a web-cam you can always do quick videos regarding your opinion on any article or anything out there. There are millions of articles and pieces of content out there for you to Vlog about. I like the Vlogging thing because you can literally produce TONS of good quality content in no time, though quality really depends on how good the content you're commenting on is initially.
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I find that you must be very resilient to go through that and yet continue to go on. I find it inspiring. I've been meditating every day and it's helped a great deal, but I only did a short stint with EFT, perhaps I should try it again? In any case, I hope things get better for you, you definitely deserve it.
I really appreciate that things must be really hard for you, and I'm grateful that you took some time to write and educate me a little on this business... it's quite interesting! Thank you, I wish you the best, Rayzorblades!
I really appreciate the kind words and sentiments I've gotten from everybody so thanks again. And I'm glad if anything I said can be of help to anybody. If my experience can help one person or prevent them from having to go through something similar, then it was worth it to post. Peace. _________________
To 'let go' does not mean to stop caring;
it means I can't do it for someone else.
To 'let go' is not to cut myself off;
it is the realization that I must not control another.
To 'let go' is not to fix;
but to be supportive.
To 'let go' is not to be in the middle
arranging all the outcomes;
but to allow others to effect their destinies.
To 'let go' is not to be protective;
it is to permit another to face reality.
To 'let go' is not to regret the past;
but to grow and live for the future.
To 'let go' is to fear less and love more.
Seek and nurture the peace in the heart.
You don't want to go the PUA route. It leaves people hollow.
Love Meditation is nice, try it if you haven't. _________________ i2w Willpower : Being unconquerable lies with yourself. | Focus : Do not see, but watch the seeing. | Visualizations : Stretch as the boundaries of the Universe.
my 2cents of suggestion - note there is so much to read in this thread, maybe someone else has already said this. I too learned this the hard way
The end of any relationship starts when there is no passion. It is then simply a matter of time unless you fix it or fire it up again.
To monitor a relationship, monitor the passion.
If a woman does not have passion with her partner, she will seek it else where and feel bad for dumping the ex. All sorts of logical explanations may come out of a woman, but it really only comes down to passion.
There are so many ways to fix it (while there may be many causes), but there is so much help available to anyone - such as on this forum.
Remember that for the rest of your life so you may increase your security in a relationship. If there is something to learn about other than how to fix a car or a pc, read about passion!
Why not be an expert on passion? Never trust one single book!
I think i should write a formula for re-sparking passion. The solutions are often so simple, yet law of attraction takes us where we tell it to go.
To 'let go' does not mean to stop caring;
it means I can't do it for someone else.
To 'let go' is not to cut myself off;
it is the realization that I must not control another.
To 'let go' is not to fix;
but to be supportive.
To 'let go' is not to be in the middle
arranging all the outcomes;
but to allow others to effect their destinies.
To 'let go' is not to be protective;
it is to permit another to face reality.
To 'let go' is not to regret the past;
but to grow and live for the future.
To 'let go' is to fear less and love more.
Seek and nurture the peace in the heart.
You don't want to go the PUA route. It leaves people hollow.
Love Meditation is nice, try it if you haven't.
I appreciate the sentiment, but I think you may have missed my point. I used to be something of a PUA, I'd like to think I've evolved since then.
Getting to the point where I am now, at peace, and loving someone enough passed my own selfishness to want them to be happy regardless of whether we're together. I wouldn't want her to be with me and be miserable. That would be so horrible and counter productive.
If in my growth I become the person I want to be, who does great things and is truly happy with achieving what I want out of life, and she sees that and wants to come back, then there's still a place for her, for now. If not, like I said, I wish her the best.
Meditating on love, I guess you could call it, is what lets me let go of the negativity and move passed the bad feelings I get and onto a brighter future. Thanks though. _________________
Well the Ex and I went out and had dinner. Great time catching up, then on the way home she tells me about sleeping with her old F-Buddy last week, it tore my guts out. We had some weird discussion, said goodbye, and then had some dramatic arguing over text.
I felt like all our years and life together was worth nothing if she could just be over it in less than 2 months and jump in bed with someone else she said was just a rebound.
I just spent like a half hour meditating on it and getting my head together. I'm still hurting like heck, but I'm a lot better from the meditation. _________________
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