Reflecting on the past month or so, I’m very happy that I left school. I’m in a much better mood all the time knowing that I don’t have some group project or online assignment that I don’t care about, looming just a few days (or hours) away. I’m getting more work done, I’m in much better shape (largely due to boxing, discussed below), I’m reading and learning more (kinda ironic), and I’m free to travel wherever I want, whenever I want. I’ve also been surprised at how people have responded to me leaving school – it’s been a really positive thing. I expected a lot of people to look down on me, but they haven’t. Not that I care.

Patience is Tough

Anyways, let’s get down to it. Patience is such an important trait in any Internet business, because the work you are doing right now probably won’t bring you any financial gains for at least a few months (minus a few things like conversion testing and negotiating better deals). The majority of our work, such as content development, domain acquisition, and link building, usually don’t make you any money for a while because they have to “kick in” with Google. This waiting period seems to be longer for new sites, and shorter for established sites where your work pays off quicker. All of this waiting around can be tough on any affiliate, but especially on a new affiliate who is waiting seemingly forever to make their first dollar.

In my experience, affiliating has always been a very cyclical business. I go through periods of expansion (where I improve my sites, start new sites, etc), followed by periods of true growth (where I actually make more money and see the expansion pay off). I don’t know why, but for some reason I don’t really see the consistent month to month improvements. It’s always as if I make a huge jump, maintain that income for a few months, make a huge jump, then maintain again for a few months. I don’t really see a problem in this as it always results in me making more money, but it can be very hard to stay focused during the months where my income stays stable even though I’m working hard.

Whenever I get into a rut during these “stable months” I like to think about how my sites looked one month or two months ago, and then realize how much they have improved since then. Since I don’t see any financial gains to motivate me during these time periods, I can at least take solace in knowing that my sites are better off than before, and should make more money soon. It’s still tough though.

Boxing Classes

Ever since I read Roger’s posts about boxing I’ve wanted to try it out. Unfortunately, the gym at my school didn’t offer it and I wasn’t sure where or how I could even get involved. After I left school though, I had to find a new gym and it happened that the new gym I found offered boxing classes. Funny how life works out.

Anyways, I’ve taken five-ish classes now and still don’t know that much, but I’m pretty well hooked. I’ve always been a pretty fit guy, but boxing is a whole new level of physical training that is unlike anything I’ve done before. Every time I leave the gym I’m completely spent. I don’t know if I would ever want to be in a real boxing match (I’ve read too much about concussions and stuff) but it’s fun to learn the sport and get in better shape.

End the Fed

This is Ron Paul’s new book about the Federal Reserve System and why it is leading our country on a downward spiral. I definitely recommend it to anyone who doesn’t really understand the Fed or how our money actually works, but understands that something is wrong with the rate at which our country spends money. He discusses why the Fed itself is economically flawed, and why it doesn’t matter who is running the show – it still can’t work. I’ve always been a big Ron Paul supporter and this is a book I would recommend to anyone. I just ordered a few more of his books as well as Atlas Shrugged and some of Murray N Rothbard’s books on the economy and the US dollar. I foresee some of my affiliate checks being used to buy gold bullion soon

This entry was posted on Monday, October 26th, 2009 at 9:15 am and is filed under Business, Life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.