Back to Zero

I gave up for some time. it is the holidays, The stress is high, the losses are many. Im taking time off.

Be back soon, Im going to rip it.

I may know why I fail.

It is because I am impatient.

I am still impatient, but I am working with something different. I can do this.

Watch.

posting because I have to.

I feel like giving up, but I know Im close. I can see now that I have NEVER ever been patient with my campaigns. Not one campaign have I ever let run for 5 days... never.

Why not?  I feel that I should be working on it, but I need to just let it go and run its magic.

Im so fed up with trying.

Its like Im trying to do something that is impossible.

I just want to quit

Nothing shows promise

Nothing is giving me the results that I expect

No one is willing to help

Slow progress and the emotional roller coaster

Im up and down all of the time.

My consistent actions should get consistent results.

Im still losing

I will not give up

Im sick of seeing successful people.

I see how dumb they are, if they can do it, I can do it. It makes me angry.

I have slowed down.

My pace has started to crawl. Blackhat isnt working as well, it has been slow for almost 8 weeks. Media buying keeps throwing me a wrench, I cant get it in line so I have slowed down.

Again, I keep trying to get perspective, but I think that is wrong, I just need to keep doing.

Im tired of starting over and over again so I need to stop quitting.

My Best Friend

One of my oldest and best friends passed away 8-1-15 he was 40. Likely an aneurysm, but he did a lot of drugs so from my perspective that could have been a factor.

I have been a bit lost ever since, I guess mourning is what they call it. I have been invited to an event for friends but Im not going. I dont want to deal with his loss like that. I have my memories and that is all I will ever have of him. I dont need to get together with friends and cry it out.

Tommy and I spent many hours playing world of Warcraft, making music, talking about life... taking LSD together, smoking weed, getting drunk, hitting on girls. I was the person that he called when his mom passed away. I was always there for him when he needed me. A few months ago, I went to visit him and his roomate another great friend of mine. I posted about it here in this entry. I made my efforts, but they just didnt hear me. Was I too late? Did I say the wrong things? Some people need to help themselves.

The world is dark, and full of wonder. It can be hard to navigate, it can be harder to make connections with people. Saying the right thing can change someones life.

Tommy will be missed by me forever.

Things are moving, they are just slow.

Im deep into driving traffic. I have come across some real issues with my statistics. I am working though those to get a better grasp on the entire image. THIS is the grind, this is the blood, the sweat, and the tears This is what is going to make me rise above, it is the hard part.

Diving in deep!!!!

I am doing what I have never done before. I have been driving traffic with one traffic source, one campaign to one offer for several days now.

Im not making money, and it is slow, but I am making progress. I am learning and I am going to crack this thing very soon.

How the fuck does this work?

So you saw some affiliates having success and now you wanna do it too.

Two things to tell you, first, you can do it, second, you will fail along the way.

Why? Cause you have to build successful campaigns, you don't discover them.

I have been thinking about this for a while and what it all means so I put together an analogy that I really think explains things.

The first step ... you know that people are making money with CPA marketing. So you get on the internet open up a website and the first thing that you see is this.

Thats right, a bag of puzzle pieces... successful campaigns are like a puzzle that you have to put together bit by bit. Process after process...

After a while you start to understand a few things and you dive into your first campaign, you have hosting, tracking, domains, offers and you even know what offers you are going to run.

Then you have something that looks like this.

You have everything laid out ready to go. This is the analogy that I was talking about. Finding profits are going to be like looking at this pile of puzzle pieces and understanding what it is an image of. Go ahead, read some forums, do some research, it doesn't matter how much you read, or research you will NEVER understand what this is an image of. It is the same with profits and successful campaigns. No matter how much you read forums, or research ideas you will never know what a successful campaign looks like until you start  taking action.

So you dive into traffic junky, start looking around, start putting together a campaign this is like turning over the puzzle pieces and sorting them by edges and color... the image is still a mystery.

WTF? Where are the profits? Dive in and keep trying. 

Finally got everything sorted and your traffic is running.. .clicks are coming!! 

This is when you are going to start to understand things. Oh hey, I see how this is kinda coming together. But you still do not see the total image. You have to keep applying work by optimizing your processes. 

Slowly, the image will start to come together. Oh hey, look a conversion (and a cloud) but no matter what, you are still looking for the image, where is the success? 

Finally things are starting to come together, you can see that your campaign has some potential. Dontt panic, keep driving traffic. 

After some ad spend, you can start to see an image come together. You can tell that there is potential. Start tweaking, optimizing and measure what you do. 

Profits are there, but they take a LOT of work...

You have to turn over the pieces to put together the puzzle, The more pieces that you turn over and fit together, the easier the end result is to see. 

What happened?

Vacation was long, too long. I really missed work. What I waned to make sure that I did when I was away from work was process what I am doing and where I am going. 

Several takeaways are:

I dont work as much as I pretend to work. I got almost just as much done while working 10 times less.

With media buying, Im chasing profits not processes. 

I need to be building systems that work, refining processes, not chasing a $20 a day campaign.

Test looking for opportunities not profits. Im just trying to find profitable campaigns. I need to be looking for opportunities. 

I need to be setting performance goals over financial goals. I should launch 1 campaign a day, not just hoping for a $100 a day campaign. 

Mindset 

Remember getting lost while driving? I have no idea where I am but I am confident I can get to where I am going.

I need to approach campaigns the same way. While I never know if it is going to be a winning or loosing campaign, I should at least understand that I can make ir profitable or take away data on new opportunities. 

Big Family Vacation.

We are flying and driving this coming week. Going to see relatives far and wide. Its going to be a lot of fun.

Media buying is on hold again. I feel lost.

Im doing the same thing, Im doing something new.

After a lot of back and forth with paid traffic... I still still trying to learn it.

I am making progress but it is slow.

Another birthday!

and Im grinding away on my offers. Working to get the most out of it. I know this is possible.

Grinding...

the only way to learn is to do... doing leads to experience experience leads to knowledge, knowledge leads to vision, vision leads to confidence.. confidence leads to success.

Incredible, Incredible, Incredible, Incredible.

I went to the event, and it was amazing. They showed me things that I didnt think was possible. I couldnt believe the things that I was seeing.

THE BIGGEST THING TO KNOW IS THAT I HAVE THE POWER IN ME

I didnt learn a great revelation, I didnt learn some secret traffic source that exists, I didnt learn secret offers or $300 leads.

I learned that I need to apply myself, that is all, believe in myself... do it, do it, do it, do it.

I spent a lot of money.

Im not going to emerge magically and be someone else. Im not going to suddenly turn around and say "oh ok I got it figured out" but a road map would do.

http://www.cracked.com/blog/5-ways-youre-sabotaging-your-own-life-without-knowing-it/


Maybe I give up too quickly, Maybe that is why my camps fail, I dont know what I am looking for, or know what to expect when I spend.


Blackhat is crumbling a bit, it has been a hard month, but we are doing just fine.

Small things have a big impact.

Some of my traffic has been down. My staff have had some internet problems and that means less good traffic.


Things are just moving slow.

How about some vacation?

Spent about 4 days at the beach. So much fun, I will be back on the grind on Monday.  Then some big steps next week, Im so ready to buy a house and get my life doing the right direction.

Big Steps

wow

Black is growing!!!! White is ...not.

Im expanding my blackhat efforts, it is going to be pretty amazing... whitehat isnt moving at all.

Back at it.

Blackhat is good, better than ever. =/

Whitehat, gives me problems everyday.

I need to work on whitehat... I need to make it work.

Loosing faith.

The paid traffic campaign that I was running took a big sink. I know that a lot of this is my own fault.

1. I didnt keep traffic going... I never had enough data ... ever

2. I wasn't bidding the best, I wasn't getting the flow of traffic that I needed, I was getting trickles.

3. I didn't understand that I should be the one making the campaign profitable. I was looking for luck not optimizing.

4. I didnt plan or research enough. I just kinda picked a random offer and started running, I was not totally sure of the demographics, or know what my metics needed to be to determine success/fail.

5. I lack confidence... this is a big one, since most of my days are spent wondering what to do, I spend a lot of time looking for people to help me... no one ever does.

Nothing is moving.

My blackhat traffic is at a standstill due to unexpected drama...

Media buying is slow, very slow, slower than I want it to be.

Im doing more training, this time with a mastermind... lets see how this goes.

Records and Learning.

I have had amazing record earning days. Now is the days that I will look back on as the old days.

I am applying myself to learn, but it is a lot of work, tons of effort. I am ready to grow, but it is hard. Im not able to get over a hill of learning right now. I am reading forums, understanding methods, working with traffic sources, watching videos, it just isnt coming as fast as I want it to.

Pushing is hard

Im up to my knees is traffic, working through the growing pains.

it is hard
it is a challenge
I want to give up
most people would give up
it isnt easy, when one thing is working, something else fails


This is go time, this is where the important stuff happens.


do it, do not stop

Getting on the train

Im dipping my toes into media buying and it is exciting... but so far, nothing has happened. I am changing... but it takes time.

Do I have what it takes?

I failed with my friends last month... nothing ever happened. This month has felt like a lot of catch - up ... a lot of days feel like catch - up... so I suspect that it is my own time management.

I have fought back against what I am bad at (time management) and gotten myself a virtual assistant. She is kicking ass even as I write this. This should help me propel things forward to build a genuine long term business.

I find myself with several full time employees and the more I outsource, the less that I want to do. I need to break the habit of being lazy and make a habit of taking action. Some days it feels like it is too late.

I know that I can do it, I just need to pull up my pants and take it like a man. I really enjoy management, It is a role that I have always felt that I would be happy in and I am. Now I need to build more businesses and get more done.

I need to fail faster, and I need to do it now.

Stasis

Not much of anything going on lately.

New hires never showed up.

Old employee moved and missed a week of work.

Software stopped working randomly.

Lost motivation I guess.

Travelling to the past.

Wow is all I can think of. . . 

So last week i talked to some old friends, and realized, they were really not doing good and needed some help and some focus... so I come up with some ideas and decided to pay them a visit. 

When I got there I was surprised how they were living. Like the poorest of the poor, they have food stamps, shop at Walmart... wear dirty clothes, man they smell bad, they dont shower...missing teeth, these guys have let themselves go. In the worst ways possible. 

I know them and trust them, I know that they can do the work that I have to offer them. Front them some money, show them a lot of the ins and outs of the work that we will be doing and I sleep on their filthy couch for a few days.

I really get some perspective, damn this could have been me. Im from the same neighborhood, we went to the same schools, worked at the same places, living together a few times. We did a lot of that stuff together but now... wow... Im on a different level, they cannot imagine what it is like to be me. Just like I cannot imagine what it is like to be them. 

I see the light though, I know that they can do what I do if they just believe. And now I know, I can do what it takes to be successful if I just believe. 

Let me get this straight, Im not looking down on my friends, but they have allowed some things to happen that they can fix. They need to get themselves together.... Im sure that the work that I can offer them can do that, but only time will tell if it all works out. 

Turning it up.

I am growing in ways I didnt expect, I have kept a lot of things really stable, it is working... now I have to push harder than I think that I can get to it to stay this way.


This is my road to a million dollars.