Building Internet Business 1 Tear At A Time

When A Customer Is Overwhelmed

2009-04-14T03:23:00.000-04:00

Customers are fragile creatures. When they hire you (unless you're lucky enough to own a fancy title of a "coach" or a "mentor") they assume that their part is mostly done and expect the rest of what they want to appear as if by magic on the schedule and according to their standards.

Sometimes it's the right expectation and sometime it's not. Now, imagine for a second that the customer needs to make a major contribution to the project. Lets say, he needs to provide texts and graphics for the website you're building for him. And he doesn't have them -- yet. But in his mind he is done -- mostly. It's a paradox, I know.

Then, around the time when the deadline for him to deliver all he has to deliver for the project is about to happen, it suddenly downs on him like a ton of bricks: OMG, he has to do this, and that, and that, and it should've been done, like, yesterday. So, he starts running around trying to finish everything at once, and it gets him overwhelmed. Severely. He suddenly realizes he should've started two month ago and there's no way on earth he can finish it in a week. This thought pains him. This thought makes him tired even more than he's already tired, and he stops reading emails from you. Because your emails wake up the torturing memory of all the things he should have accomplished yet hasn't accomplished for his own dear project.

And then, he gets depressed.

Damn!

And then everything stops and nothing gets done from that point on because you're waiting for him to get over himself and finally deliver to you what he had to deliver, like, two weeks ago... In a meantime, he is overwhelmed and depressed, and it pains him to even think about it. So, he doesn't.

It's madness with no system in it!

When I just started this project I was thinking of using some project management software. I looked at a couple of services online, but they seemed either like an overkill with bells and whistles that would require ridiculous amount of time to just maintain them, or like an awkward and rather useless service that wouldn't even let you properly enter all the tasks for the project. On the third try I decided to give up, not waste any more time and simply rely on e-mails. After all, there are mainly two people involved - I and my customer. Surely two smart people can communicate effectively using e-mail and phone, right? Boy, was I wrong!

For almost three weeks now I can't make my customer send me a simple phone# without which I can't open a business PayPal account, without which I can't create Purchase web page, without which I can't finish the darn website and move on to the next one! She feels overwhelmed, so she ignores "the small" tasks she has to do.

I got it. Customers are fragile creatures. Unless they see tasks from the "outsourced" projects on their own schedule in black and white, they either procrastinate on them endlessly or ignore them completely.

Learn from my mistake, if you can. Even if there are only two of you -- you and your customer -- get your project a schedule with tasks assigned to a person responsible for it and deadlines for each of the tasks. At least that.

Even though, half of my project is done, I can't stand waiting any longer for the phone# to show up in my mailbox. I created a project in OfficeZilla.com and added that small task to the list of tasks. I assigned it to her. From now on, it'll all be there in black and white. Tomorrow I am sending an invitation to my customer to join...

Two copywriters walk into a bar...

2009-03-17T04:09:00.002-04:00

Copywriters are making hilarious jokes in a comment section of this post in the John Carlton's blog. Although, in order to laugh at it you need to know the meaning of words "copywriter", "swipe" and "Twitter".

Dealing With Chaos (modified on 03/17/09)

2009-03-16T05:02:00.006-04:00

One of my close friends insists that I increase the level of entropy in the Universe. I think he is tragically mistaken.

Certainly, there are some people who thrive in chaos. Chaos helps them be creative. Or they feel comforted by it. I am not one of them.

Then, there are people who are comforted by order and thrive in it. They love routines, schedules and predictability. I am not one of them either.

I hate both -- order and chaos. Perhaps, "hate" is too strong of a word. But I dislike them immensely: order for it's binding, suffocating nature, and chaos for it's lack of harmony. And if you take out of the picture these two, what's left is the middle ground -- easy, flexible, logical systems. It's a way of having some order in one's life without it smothering you into a robot-like state and, at the same time, chasing a chaos away.

To think about it, most of what surrounds us in life are systems. Our political, social, religious, professional, and even family and love life are all systems -- whether we want it or not. We use systems others created for us or create our own systems all the time, even if we have no intentions of doing so. The way we choose our clothes, brush our teeth, relate to other people, clean our house, solve problems are all systematic in nature -- that is, we repetitively do it in the same manner.

Even when we are being creative and unique -- writing a novel, for example, or painting a picture, we still follow certain system. The way we approach our subject, the way we arrange supplies in preparation for the artistic inspiration, the way we choose words or brushes, the way we see the world are systematic as well.

So, it's really not a question of whether we do it or not. It's simply a question of whether the systems we create and use in our life are good or bad.

The system is bad when:

It doesn't feel right.
It creates negative effect in our life.
The efforts to sustain it is greater than the results it produces.
It's not logical and and is hard to follow.
It's rigid.

The system is good when:

It feels right.
It produces noticeably positive results.
It convenient, easy to follow, and requires little effort to maintain.
It's flexible and adaptable to changes.
It's logical and after an initial learning curve (if it even exist), requires little or no extra effort to memorize/recall it.
The result/effect it produces is much greater than the efforts required to sustain it.

For instance, a language is a great system. After we learn how to use it, we just use it all our life -- some more than others. Another excellent system is Internet. It's very easy to use and the results we get out of using are next to miraculous.

Example of a bad system? The way spelling taught in schools. Consider the amount of time an effort involved into teaching it and the poor results it produces. Another example? The way spouses relate to one another in a troubled marriage. Now, that's where the real entropy is...

As for business, everything above still applies. And, as a rule, if a business system is created in order to stroke someone's ego, it's a bad one.

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Art: Plotkin Entropy by donnabellas

The Problem With Blog Templates

2009-02-14T06:12:00.005-05:00

All last week I've been working like a dog for my client. Not because she is pushing, but because for some reason I've been unable to stop.

I installed WordPress and needed plugins, got the menu right and the widgets, got seo-friendly permalinks, fine tuned the settings. And now all I need is the perfect theme for the customer to like:

It should be cute as if done for kids, but be serious enough for adults to browse.
It should have green and yellow, but not too yellow in a theme.
It shouldn't look like a blog.
It should be seo friendly and user friendly.
It should look unique.

The list sounds impossible enough as it is, but now add to it the main problem hunting 90% of templates. See, the templates are either done by graphic artists, by bloggers, or by opportunists.

Graphic artists knows how to make a template pretty, but have no clue about the technical side of blogging: search engine optimization, accessibility, load time. Sometimes they don't even bother with widgets. They just overload a template with graphics and that's about it.

Bloggers, on the other hand, pay a lot of attention to the technical stuff. They make widget-ready, seo-optimized, light themes by using basic layouts and minimum of graphics. Unfortunately, they are often color-blind and have no idea about accessibility either.

Opportunist are the worst kind. They grab simple templates, change them a little bit, load with heavy graphic / photo headers, put their encrypted monetized links in a footer, and then they spread those templates without even testing them properly in all popular browsers.They don't care about anything but their golden links sprouting on the Internet.

That's why I use standard templates on two of my Blogger's blogs -- I don't want to bother with fixing someone's design and coding errors. I have enough of that nonsense with the WordPress templates.

Small Victories

2009-02-06T05:38:00.004-05:00

I thought that a small victory would be motivational and inspirational. You know, a little one would inspire to fight for a big one... No such luck.

I got pretty good traffic on my main site, I got traffic on my second site that I just started reluctantly promoting last week, and I got a new client with a big project. That should be motivational, shouldn't it?

Maybe, if it happened 3 month ago, it would feel different. But after I already lost momentum, a small thing can't bring it back.

On the other hand, perhaps, a big momentum isn't a requirement for moving ahead and eventually winning big. Perhaps, a big momentum is like a Big Romantic Love: great to have, but most people live without it and some even live happily.

WordPress vs. TypePad vs. Blogger vs. LiveJournal

2009-01-22T07:06:00.010-05:00

LiveJournal

Nowadays there are way too many blogging platforms. But when I started my first blog several years ago, there were just a few. LiveJournal was one of them.

An acquaintance invited me to join and I did so more out of politeness than anything else. LiveJournal is a hybrid between a blogging platform and a social network. It's designed for building networks of people who write online journals (mostly personal ones) and keeping up with your network's posting activity.

LiveJounal is a blog plus a popularity contest.

If you enjoy social networking, connecting and keeping up with your online pals, you might like this platform. LiveJournal requires no technical knowledge from a blogger. And as soon as you make an LJ friend, a connection, you get an instant reader for your blog. The more LJ friends you make, the more readers your blog will have. Joining LiveJournal is free.

LJ may be a perfect fit for someone who wants to keep a personal journal online with no technical knowledge required and either already knows a network of LJ users and is planning to become a part of it or is interested in building one.

On a negative side:

LiveJournal allows for very little customization.
The network of readers that you build on LJ often lacks a sincere interest in your topic and joins your network either out of politeness (because you join theirs), out of desire to be popular and create their own large network of "friends", or because they know you personally and want to make a social connection.
LJ is not very suitable for a business blog.
It requires you to either keep up with your network's journals or be insincere when making connections.
No SEO optimization.
Can't use your own domain name.

Personally, I was very unhappy with LiveJournal and left it after a few months. The popularity contest, which is a large part of LJ, kept me from speaking in my true voice. My audience was wonderful but wrong for my blog, and instead of writing what I wanted to write about, I was putting too much effort into being witty and interesting. And even though there were a lot of wonderful writers in my network, I was completely bored (and feeling rather resentful) reading their blogs simply because I wasn't interested in their topics. It felt like a complete waste of time for me.

Just to end on a positive note, I know many people who are quite happy with LiveJournal and either keep their personal diaries there or leverage their business blogs by keeping a copy of it on LJ.

Blogger

Obviously, I like this platform, as I keep two of my blogs here. Blogger is wonderful for "off you go" blogging, as practically anyone can set up an account and start blogging in just a few minutes.

Blogger allows for some customization but can be used "as is". It can be easily used for personal, group or business blogging. With a little tweaking you can even build a "normal" website with seemingly static pages.

Using Blogger "as is" requires very little technical knowledge. And you can host you blog for free on their servers as a sub-domain of the blogspot.com or using your own domain name.

If you prefer more control over your blog, you can also host it on your server.

Even though Blogger provides only a few templates for your blog, if you prefer something fancier, there are many third-party templates to choose from. Be careful, however, and test those templates before committing to one of them, as third-party templates are sometimes buggy.

Serious customization of a Blogger's blog requires a lot of technical knowledge and effort. If you plan on doing it, you're better off going with the WordPress platform. WP gives you better results with the same amount of effort.

Another good thing about Blogger is that it plugs right into your Google account, so you can move effortlessly between Blogger and other Google services (igoogle, gmail, google reader, google analytics, adwords, etc.)

Blogger is perfect for someone who would like to quickly setup a blog with the least amount of technical effort, host it for free, be able to make money with it and still have some flexibility in its look and functionality.

On a negative side:

Blogger provides limited flexibility for blog's design and functionality.
It doesn't allow you to create static pages (other than "About Me"). Though with some modifications you can produce what might look like static pages.
Serious customization requires a lot of effort.
Only some SEO optimization can be done.

WordPress

WordPress gives you two options: you can either publish your blog for free on wordpress.com or use WordPress software to host a blog on your own web account with your own domain name (software can be downloaded from wordpress.org or many web hosts already have WP pre-installed for their clients). The first option allows you to have the least headache with the set up and maintenance of your blog, and the second one allows you to have the most flexibility and control over your blog's look and functionality.

1. Publishing a free blog on WordPress.com

WordPress.com hosts many high-quality high-visibility non-profit blogs for famous companies and famous bloggers. So, if you decide to publish your blog there, you'd be in a good company.

You would be able to choose one of sixty available templates and start your virtually maintenance-free blog in minutes.

The two main differences between publishing a blog on WordPress.com and publishing one with a Blogger are:

WordPress provides better flexibility over blog's design including a function for building static web pages.
Unlike Blogger, WordPress.com doesn't allow affiliate marketing or selling products on the blogs it hosts (with a couple of exceptions). And although it promises that bloggers will be able to make money with advertizement (possibly, AdWords, Chitika, etc.) in a nearest future, at the moment blogs published on WordPress.com do not have this option. This is the reason why Wordpress.com isn't a good fit for a business blog.

WordPress.com is an excellent option for a personal/group non-profit blog or a professional "expertise showcase" one.

On a negative side:

Allows for non-profit blogs only.
Only some customization can be done to blog's look and functionality.
Only some SEO optimization can be done.

2. Using WordPress software to publish a blog on your own web account/domain

Hosting WP on you own web account with your own domain name gives you the ability to fully customize your blog and use it in any way you see fit. It's the most flexible and functional publishing option available for a blog. You can have a personal, group or business blog or a website with static pages. And even though WP software comes out-of-the-box with only 2 templates, you can choose among thousands of third-party templates (themes), numerous plug-ins and widgets created specifically for WP. You can customize any WordPress template to your liking and fully optimize it for search engines.

It's the most advanced and the most technically involved option of blog publishing.

Publishing WordPress on one's own web hosting account is an excellent option for a technically inclined blogger who wants full control over his/her blog functionality and design.

On a negative side:

The most technically involved option. Not suitable for technophobic people.
Requires some (although small) financial investment.

TypePad

TypePad is another popular blogging platform, but unlike WordPress, Blogger and LiveJournal, TypePad isn't free. The basic account costs $4.95/mo and lets you publish one blog hosted on their server as a sub-domain of typepad.com. Not bad, if you consider that TypePad was build with non-technical people in mind (more specifically -- with non-technical small-business people in mind), requires no technical knowledge for setting up and managing a blog, is search-engine optimized and has 24x7 live support in case you still have questions.

It only will take you minutes to set up your new blog on TypePad, customize its look by choosing one of 3,000 professionally-designed templates TP provides for you, change colors and a header, add widgets, and start writing your first post. TP has many features and options, and allows you to make money with advertisement, affiliate offers, and by selling your products or services, thus making it an excellent choice for a business blog.

However, if you prefer to publish your blog with your own domain name, it will cost ya. You would need to upgrade to a Plus account with $8.95/mo fee for the privilege. Moreover, if you would like to have two authors contributing to your blog or be able to have a full control over your blog's design, you'd have to upgrade to a Pro account with $14.95/mo for the privilege.

Hm.

Compare it with a completely free Blogger account, which, of cause, doesn't have all the bells and whistles TypePad offers, but provides all the basic necessities including custom domain option and group blogging free of charge. And how many TypePad bloggers use those bells and whistles anyway?

Or compare it with a WordPress blog hosted on your own web account which gives you even more functionality, complete control and customization, thousands of third-party templates (themes), tons of plug-ins and widgets, huge international community of fans, designers, developers, discussion and help forums, plenty of documentation and tutorials, but no customer support. The price to pay for all that? $6-9/mo in web hosting fees.

To sum it up, the one and only reason to publish your blog with TypePad is if you never want to think about a technical side of blogging. TypePad takes care of that for you. It deals with all the maintenance for you and presents you with a very user-friendly interface.

TypePad is a perfect fit for a non-technical business blogger, who would like to never deal with a technical side of blogging and is satisfied with partial control over a blog's design and functionality.

On a negative side:

Group blogging or custom domain requires upgrade to premium accounts.
Requires $5-100/mo financial investment.
Third-party templates and plug-ins isn't readily available.
Allows for partial customization only.

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Photo: Vasily Koval

New Year - New Client

2009-01-19T02:41:00.004-05:00

I got my first SEO client. Actually, I did consults before. But one thing is to give a good advice and be done with it, completely different is to make things happen and impress a person who doesn't have a clue as to what kinds of hoops you have to jump through to make it happen.

Am not excited about the project. Maybe it's because I'm nervous. Another possible reason I'm not happy about this project is because it's not my kind of thing. Maybe SEO is like cooking for me -- I can do it well, yet don't enjoy the process.

I certainly would prefer if it were a consult or a training.

Anyway, good luck to me.

On Friday I started researching keywords. Autism is a confusing market for someone who has no clue as to what people might be looking for there.

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Picture: www.prikolist.biz

Impressing a Pig

2009-01-17T00:00:00.006-05:00

"One of the most universal causes of self-doubt and depression: trying to impress people you don’t like."

Tim Ferriss
This is so true! The problem, however, is that an attempt to impress someone often happens automatically, by default, as a normal human response before we even know that we don't like the person we are trying to impress.

Perhaps, they are skillfully hiding their dislike of us while pretending to be friendly.

Or, for whatever reason, they dislike us instantly, and we haven't gotten a clue yet.

Then, there is situation with clients or bosses. If we only try to impress those we like, we either go broke or loose our jobs. And yet, there is nothing worse than trying to impress a moron who holds a power over you.

Partnerships

2009-01-14T05:53:00.004-05:00

Probably the majority of the successful male internet marketers formed one or a few partnerships on their way to success, and after reaching it keep partnering up with other successful internet marketers for working together on even bigger goals.

At the same time, the majority of the female internet marketers tries to accomplish the same task on their own. A few form partnerships with male internet marketers, and almost none (at least, I've never heard of any) create a partnership with another female internet marketer.

The question is why?

I am guessing here.

My first guess would be that women get emotionally attached to their own business projects and are not likely to take on a project toward which they feel indifferent -- that is, someone else's project.

My second guess would be that women are less prone to taking on a risky endeavor, and partnering up with someone -- especially someone you don't know all that well -- does seems to be rather risky.

My third guess would be that it's much harder for a woman to find a business partner simply because:

Men prefer partners who have business approach similar to theirs -- that is, other men
It's statistically harder to find a woman-partner as there're not that many women who are interested in building an internet business (other than darn MLM), and ready to persevere at it.

And if you find this post to be politically incorrect, I don't give a damn. I am here in search of the truth, not in search of a political correctness.

Lost Opportunities

2009-01-05T19:14:00.004-05:00

When Corey Rudl suddenly died in 2005 I felt like the sky fell down on Earth. I never met Corey in-person, but he was one of a few netpreneurs I admired and trusted -- probably the most admired and trusted of them all. He had that honest, kind, generous demeanor about him that "sells" better than any advertisement or loud pr. And I really wanted to go to one of his live seminars... one of these days.

I wasn't in a hurry. After all, if I couldn't go that year, next year would be good as well.

Shortly after Corey got married he held a free seminar -- yes, free -- to celebrate his happy marriage. An unbelievable opportunity! I couldn't go. Well, I could, but it was bad timing, stuff came up... you know. Basically, it required a really big effort on my part. So, I didn't go. There would be a better timing and another seminar, I told myself.

Then, Corey died in a car crash. And there would never be another seminar. Or another Corey. That opportunity is forever lost -- it died in that crash too.

We often feel that some opportunities -- whether it's about business, things or people -- will always be there for us. That we can get to them when we can get to them -- tomorrow, next week or next year... And it's just not so. We loose opportunities monthly, maybe even daily unless we stop taking them for granted and do something about them.

Some huge opportunities died on me last week. I didn't kill them, I just didn't use them when I had a chance. I thought I could get to them... whenever. And now I can't. By the way, they weren't about money -- they were about my dreams.

Revenge

2008-12-27T05:31:00.005-05:00

Recently heard in some movie: Revenge is the best motivation. I wish it were. Boy, do I have a reason to wish for a revenge! And I do -- just not badly enough, I guess.

The funny thing is, though, when it comes to a revenge some people (the warriors) choose to win by becoming successful -- way more successful than their adversaries can ever imagine; others (the haters) prefer to win by sabotaging their adversaries' success; and the third group (the sorry asses) does neither. The sorry asses simply open their mouthes or sharpen their pencils and vomit their lies all over their adversaries' lives.

The first method is the most constructive one and can be used for business or personal motivation. The second one can be fun for a short while, but mostly does nothing constructive. This type of revenge is often used by people who desperately need another hobby. And the third method is used by brain dead folks who are incapable of anything else.

Nepotism

2008-12-19T02:23:00.006-05:00

Nepotism is an unofficial taboo topic in business and success publication. Not that books and magazines don't mention family ties at all -- they mention it casually as if "connections" played no or very little role in a successful career of a person in question.

Lets take Donald The Trump, for example -- Great Trump as some people call him. I don't know what's so great about him, but whatever. A son of a successful real estate developer simply continued family tradition. Where would he be without his father paving the way? Who knows...

An heir to the Estee Lauder fortune and the head of the global Estee Lauder advertisement, Aerin Lauder -- where would she be without family ties?

Clans in Big Business (Big Politics, Major Motion Pictures, etc.) are so numerous, it's almost a miracle when someone without strong connections manage to get in on this game.

The nepotism in business isn't a problem. The problem is with all those "success" articles that shamelessly distort the truth of how that success was achieved. They create a Cinderella story, a hard-work-will-get-you-anywhere story, where there is none.

Donald Trump I've mentioned already. Another one is Tony Robbins story - a legend of a poor fat boy who suddenly believed in himself and achieved impossible. A lie, if there was one. Before Tony went to work for himself and became famous, he worked for many years for a a legendary motivational speaker Jim Rohm. That's where he learned his presentation skills, motivation skills, that's where he perfected his public speaking. So see, there was no sudden revelations, no overnight motivations, no self-made man Tony. Jim groomed Tony, then Tony left Jim and went on his own. It's not a bad story, just not such a glitzy one.

I used to subscribe the Success magazine. Then, I got tired of being lied to. Some people think that a pretty lie isn't a lie, but a motivational story. I have my doubts about it being motivational, but it's certainly The Story That Sells. That's why they concoct them by the dozen.

Routine

2008-12-14T01:28:00.003-05:00

Sometimes I wonder where people get their strength to go though with daily routine. To get up at 7 or 6:30 in a morning, get dressed, have for breakfast the same thing they had yesterday... Then again, maybe it's not strength.

I had an interesting conversation with the psychologist who specialize in child development. She said children like the same stories to be read over and over to them because it's comforting. Because when they know the story, they feel mastery over it, they feel in control -- a perfect routine if there ever was one.

To say I was surprised is to say nothing. My parents read me stories too. I loved it. And... I wanted a new story each time -- not an old one. Maybe I was born without a routine gene -- a mutation of sorts. A routine which is comforting to other people is irritating to me.

But isn't the whole world -- Western and Eastern build around a routine? How well, then, people without a routine gene survive in it? I'd like a statistic, please. We know, of cause, about successful ones - Leonardo daVinci, for once. What about the rest of us?

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Photo: Mnemonick

Fear: Summing It Up

2008-12-08T20:37:00.003-05:00

As Rich Schefren recently noted, we are always just one obstacle away from our dreams. I thought about it for a while, looked around at people I know or knew in a past, and looked at myself... Guess what? As far as I can see, he's right.

What I disagree with, though, is the way Rich "handles" this obstacle. He kind of says, Ok, you are one obstacle away from your dream. Now, go figure out what it is.

After I read his Entrepreneurial Emergency, I spent a few hours trying to figure out what my obstacles are. I came up with four of them, while still not being sure whether those were my true obstacles or the derivatives of them. There was nothing to check them against. It didn't seem to be very logical not to have clear guidelines to such an important matter.

And then I had an "Aha" moment. When I say "then" I don't mean "right then". The "Aha" happened a couple of months later, but it was like the final piece in a puzzle. Suddenly everything became clear and logical. THERE ARE ONLY TWO CANDIDATES FOR THE POSITION OF AN OBSTACLE: HOW WE THINK and WHAT WE FEAR. Sometimes it's a combination of both, but always one of them is dominant. And the rest of what might look like obstacles are just the resulting effects of either one or the other.

There could be numerous ways of erroneous thinking (some of them are listed on the chart here), but there are only two basic things we fear. Think about it: no matter what object or situation we are afraid of -- public speaking, failure, spiders, etc. -- it always comes to two basic things -- fear of pain (physical, mental, emotional) or fear of death.

So, there you have it:

There is only one main obstacle that stays in a way of your dream. And it's either mental in a form of erroneous thinking or emotional in a form of fear.

As fear of death is rather unlikely to become an obstacle to building an internet business, there is only one other fear that could get in a way of fulfilling an entrepreneurial dream -- fear of pain.

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Photo: basic.ru

Motivation

2008-12-02T00:33:00.000-05:00

Ask me to save someone's day, be a hero, and I'll be working like a dog. Ask me to do the same work for my career advancement or a financial gain and each step I'll have to take will feel like an enormous and painful effort. The majority of people have it the other way around.

I don't know how I got to be this way -- no one with the hero complex was around when I was growing up. But the question is, how can I work this thing into my motivation for building an internet business?

I am coming up with a big fat blank.

Finishing Projects

2008-11-25T23:25:00.000-05:00

When it comes to finishing projects, there two end-of-spectrum problems connected to it:

Inability to finish a project.
Compulsion to finish a project

I once read that overachievers become what they are because in their childhood they got a tremendous positive response to something they had accomplished. And as a result, they got addicted to this rush of positive emotions associated with the end of a project, an accomplishment.

Sounds very plausible to me.

I have a friend who is an overachiever. She is doing great with her career. Her social life is wonderful. Her networking abilities are outstanding. It's hard to imaging all the things she manage to fit into her week. She finishes all her projects.

She also can't help herself but finish what she shouldn't be finishing -- like a box of chocolate éclairs. She feels compulsion to finish whatever she starts.

I, on the other hand, have really hard time finishing projects, which is considered to be typical for people with ADD. However, I absolutely refuse to believe that a child -- any child -- could be born with the "unfinished project" syndrome. It's obviously a learned behavior.

I wish I knew how I picked that one up. But mostly I wish I knew how to get rid of it.

Fear: Abandoning Enterpreneurship

2008-11-15T19:17:00.002-05:00

Right after college I got to work for a great small company. There were only 12 of us and my boss -- the CEO -- a brilliant businessman who was only 33 at the time manages to snatch a great market share. Actually, we were doing what nobody else was doing at the time - forecasts for major metropolitan cities' consumption of water and electricity.

Ten years after I moved away, my former boss sold his company and moved to the Silicon Valley to work as a programmer for one of the major software companies. What happened? I don't know, but, perhaps, something like what is happening to one of my friends now. Lets call him Dan.

Dan is a party planner. He is great at what he does. What he is not good at is strategic thinking. And so his business is always above the water but just about. Last week Dan called me to ask whether he should convert into a programmer or a webmaster because his business is not doing well and the news of the recession are very, very scary.

Dammit!

I've spent hours helping him improve his business. Free of charge. Just because I wanted to help. And now he wants me to help him be a coward. I am sorry but I don't think he needs my help with that.

What I really think, it that he should do whatever he whats to do. But do it without trying to scare the hell out of me because he needs someone to be scared with him; and without whining to me about bad things that MIGHT happen to his business. Really, if I ever want to hear someone's whining I'll listen to my own.

People do get scared and depressed, but the worst thing one can do when feeling like that is to try and bring someone down with him (or her) because it feels lonely to be scared without a company.

Fear

2008-11-05T00:33:00.003-05:00

I was born to a family of cowards. My parents, my grandparents, my great-grandparents, my aunts and uncles, my cousins were all born and raised to be cowards. Don't get me wrong -- they are (or were) all capable, talented and some of them are quite brilliant.

But none of them have had the courage to follow a dream, to voice an opinion when it weren't safe to do so, to not follow the crowd, to stand up for any cause or to go after anything that weren't easily obtainable.

It's not something unique to my family. Being fearful actually quite common among Eastern European Jews. Centuries of prosecution breed fear, and then fear breeds more fear. Something like that.

I'd like to say that I am different, but I am not. I was brought up to be afraid of anybody in charge, to keep my thoughts to myself and to never risk a failure. It did sink in, too.

For many years I was scared day and night until one day I got really sick of being scared. I don't remember what day it was. But from that day forward I started being afraid a little less each day.

I squeezed as much fear out of my heart and mind as I could -- not all at once, of cause. It did take a few years.

Now it seems silly that I ever was afraid of people in charge. They are there to either be respected and liked if they deserve or to be disrespected -- not to be afraid of.

Also, my opinions are not something I hide any more. Those who know me know that i have opinions about pretty much everything and I tend to voice them even if they're not what the majority thinks.

The only thing I completely failed to eradicate is the fear of failure. It's still with me in its full blown force and it takes the most idiotic forms. For example I feel scared silly to go back to something I let go for a while. It may be checking an email I haven't checked for sometime. Or returning to an unfinished writing. Or connecting again with a social network from which I was absent for a month.

I was scared returning to this blog after a brake. Very scared.

I still am.

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Photo: paolo màrgari

The Worst Thing That Could've Happened After 30DC

2008-10-10T07:02:00.003-04:00

Information overload and the loss of focus are the two worst things that could've and did in fact happened. Just reading emails and taking some kind of action -- even if it's just quick evaluation and bookmarking for the future takes 2 hrs. About 20 gurus (I don't even remember most of their names) are fighting at the moment for my attention with e-mails, feeds, podcasts, videocasts, new programs, free ebooks.

The best thing that could've happen after the 30dc is another 30 days of structured action taking with no distractions from outside whatsoever. I'd like to make it happen. But how should I go about it?

I Just Couldn't Help Myself :)

2008-10-08T10:00:00.004-04:00

The name of this video is "Junior System Administrator Fixes A Printer".

On being terribly Inefficient

2008-10-05T08:53:00.001-04:00

Information sometimes can be your worst enemy. Too much of it -- and you're suddenly paralized with trying learn of of the "good stuff" at the expence of taking a practical, maybe no so perfect, but good enough action that would've led you in a right direction

I've been reading this and that, watching video-seminars... All of the very good quality and partially helpful, partially -- good info but wrong timing. Plus all the e-mail I could barely handle. Not much of actually doing things. Some, but not enough.

Here's what I accomplished in the last 2 weeks:

1. Restored my WP blog (it was damaged by the evil WPD, who wouldn't even take responsibility).
2. Built a mini-network on Tagfoot. Have to work on that some more.
3. Joined mini-network on Ma.gnolia. Need to work on that.
4. Made 2 different backups for my site.
5. Increased the blog font size for readability.
6. Build a couple of dozen links to my WP blog.
7. Made a couple of entries into my blogs.

The rest of it was learning and reading and doing extras (like relocating my e-mails to a new address).

I would call it "not much"...

How Much Is Free Lunch?

2008-10-02T00:54:00.003-04:00

I don't know who said that there is no such thing as free lunch. Why not?
If the point is someone someday will have to pay for that lunch, well... maybe. But the phrase about a free lunch is most often used in the context of: "Watch out. You'll have to pay for this lunch - eventually."

The fear sometimes gets the best of people.

Relax. Free lunch is free lunch is free lunch. You just have to make sure it is a free lunch and not a trap.

For anyone who uses common sense on a regular basis (you'd be surprised how many people don't) detecting a trap is easy. If some stranger wants your bank account information in exchange for a few million dollars, it's a trap. Obviously. If someone wants to give you a free website in exchange for signing up with an overpriced web hosting service, it's a trap. Less obviously so, but if you've done at least basic research on hosting, you would see it.

If someone wants to give you a free ebook in exchange for you reading it, it's a free lunch.

The problem with free lunch isn't the cost. The problem with free lunch is that there's too much of it, there are tons of it. Free lunch is endless like the Universe.

I am not just talking about the internet. Free libraries, free museums, free parks, free concerts, free fireworks, free wi-fi, free services, free radio and tv...

Internet is even bigger on free stuff. Even now, when it's less free than before.

Don't think for a minute that I am complaining about free lunch. Not at all. Not crazy. I am complaining about free lunch management. If there is no such a science, there should be.

Someone has to figure out how to manage free stuff, how to keep it in control, how to tame it...

As it stands today, I've gotten so much free stuff from the STSE2 that it's EATING ME for lunch.

When Does It Get "Too Much"?

2008-09-23T00:21:00.007-04:00

I know I get overwhelmed easily. If I find more than 10 emails in my inbox, I get a full-blown panic attack. But even for a person with normal tolerance level how much is too much?

The whole month of August I was in the Thirty Day Challenge - a very intensive training program, where the lessons were posted daily (on weekends as well) and required immediate "practice" action -- sometimes several actions. It was a great free training at a price of 10 to 12 hrs a day in front of the computer. Not kidding. I was anxious, jittery, claustrophobic and overwhelmed but unwilling to drop the course or postpone it.

By the end of August my perfect 20/20 vision was no more. I was mildly freaking out. "Mildly" only because I knew I could probably get it back as soon as I drastically cut down on my computer time. Well, my 20/20 is almost back. But it's not the point. The point is: how much is too much and how do you handle it, so "too much" doesn't swallow you alive?

I am still not done with the training (even though it's been officially over), mostly because new information keeps coming at me. It's good information -- most of it, anyway -- and some of it is even essential for what I am trying to accomplish. But it seems to prevent me from moving forward because there's always something else that needs to be done in preparation for moving forward.

Maybe it's ok. Maybe it's how it suppose to be: first, you prepare for a while, patiently, paying attention to details, taking your time, and then you make a step forward.

Maybe it's not ok. Maybe processing all this information gives you the illusion of a progress, but, in fact, like an anchor it keeps you tied down to a no-real-motion zone.

Every day I open my mailbox and there they are -- new emails waiting for me. And I still have the old ones unopened because... because... it's just too much. It's like the job that could never be done. Too many offers, too many ebooks, too many seminars, too many reminders of the offers and ebook downloads and seminars... And some of these emails are like friends - "Oh, hi, Ed Dale! Love ya...". But some are like "Who is that Sean Casey person and why is he writing to me?"

The easiest solution would be to unsubscribe from anything I don't have time for at the moment. Easy to say. But what if I miss something IMPORTANT??? Yeah...

Then, there are courses and ebooks that I already have, started even and have to finish. Oh, about 7 or 8 of them. I predict, there will be 20 of them by the end of this month.

And every time I go online to do a very specific research, I stumble onto something very useful but unrelated, wonder deep into the woods and get lost for an hour or two. Or three, to be completely honest. I don't suffer from ADD, mind you.

Not to forget, there are also communities -- forums, friendfeed rooms, membership sites, Web 2.0 networks... Is it even possible to keep up with them? I was wondering the other day, if I should sign up with sort of a private network club. It could be good for me in terms of support and camaraderie, but it can also push me right over the edge. And I don't know which way it's going to turn.

To join or not to join - that is the question...

I think I need some peace and quite for a while. I saw some pink earplugs in a 24hours pharmacy. Maybe I should put them in. And turn off the lights. No, that won't work. I still need to see. Put the sign on my door then, so strangers would know not to knock and go away. It shall say:

How I Got To The First page Of Google And Why I Am Not Happy About It

2008-09-19T01:22:00.007-04:00

I never knew it could be so easy - getting on a first page of Google search. All you need is a blog, a domain name with the search term you're aiming for in it, a seo optimized theme for the blog, a title and a first post with the search term in it, and a few quality links pointing at your domain/blog. Ready - aim - fire!.. And - voilà! - you're there, on the first page.

Now what?

I mean, it only will do you any good if you got on a top ten list for the right search term. I didn't.

Oh, what am I gonnaaa doooooo?..

A do-over?
Buying a new domain is not a problem. 1&1 sells them for $6.99 apiece. Not a big deal. But then, it's not like you can simply move a blog from one domain to another. And even if you could, nobody knows how Google will react to it. Start a new blog? I already put so much into this one...

It's not a random topic for me. It's not regurgitated news. I write every article myself -- from the first word to the last one. Because it's MY topic, My mind poured thirty times into the electronic medium of the Internet.

People ask me, Why did you pick this niche? Is it profitable? No. Ridiculously so. They ask me, How did you get interested in lie detection? I am not. I am darn good at it, that's what it is. I know how to tell if someone is lying better than anyone I know; and it's easy for me. It's the natural gift of keen perception times lifelong practice. It's my own skills, my own topics, my own way. This is what I write about, and I can't imagine starting over.

Yeah, silly me...

So, I am trying to "fix" the problem with the wrong search term by scoring a rank for a second, better search term. Do you know how to do this? I don't. At the moment I am kind of stumbling in a dark.

The time is a real issue here. That, and the resources. And the fact that I have no support network and no luxury of a safety net.

But the main problem is I am scared out of my wits. Because I am not brave, I just wish I were. And going after a thing like that, building a business alone, from scratch, requires all the guts I have and then some.

I am afraid one day the fear will take over and I will give up.

Dark ages is not the time in history. Dark ages is when nobody believes in you. And even you barely believe in yourself.

Internet Business Manifesto

2008-09-06T03:51:00.004-04:00

Back in summer 2006 (yes, I am really behind on my reading) Rich Schefren -- the business coach and strategist to the internet marketing gurus -- wrote The Internet Business Manifesto. The IM community is still crying about it. I don't know why, though. It must be really speaking to some people.

I read it yesterday and didn't shed a tear. But it has some excellent points and, however salesy it is, I feel it was worth reading.

According to the Manifesto, any activity that doesn't make you money is not a productive time spending. For example, reading about a business strategy or searching for a good business strategy is not. Applying a good business strategy is.

The organizational chart on page 15 is simply hilarious. It's so much like me I almost fell off my chair when I saw it:

It's just a couple of things from the Manifesto. You can read it yourself. It's free.