My Month in Personal Growth – April 2018

by | May 3, 2018 | Cryptocurrency, DataDash, Gary Vee, Monthly Growth Updates, Work From Home

4 months down…

…no telling how many I have left to go.

Certainly, I’ll be growing every month from now until my dying day.  But how long will I do this series?

Nobody knows.  Not even me haha

But I will commit to all of 2018.

I need to practice consistency anyway.  For example, I almost used being a day later than usual as an excuse to call it at three.  But that would just be lame.  I have a lot more content I’d like to archive for later consumption… and I found some new gems this month as well.

Plus, I thought I might as well get into some of the other stuff I’ve been studying… namely cryptocurrency and blockchain technology.

But first, I gotta give another mention to:

1. Gary Vee

Once again, Gary makes the list.

Gary Vee and Barry Sanders are the only two “heroes” I’ve ever had.

So far, last month was his first month missing my list.  I consumed plenty of his content, but I didn’t have enough room for him in my post.  I’ll combine some of the best stuff for this month and last month here.

He’s come out with a few good shorts that hit for me:

(Really just a short episode of DailyVee with a good message.)

I loved all of these.

But more than anything, he’s been crushing it on stage.  His recent keynotes are hot fiyah!

Any of these could change your business forever:

The talks themselves are similar.  But where Gary always shines in Q & A.  There are a lot of good questions and typically great answers.

Part of me wishes I had broken these keynotes down as I watched them.  The other part is grateful for the extra motivation to watch them again.  Again, execution on the content of these talks would transform most businesses.  That’s even more true for someone like me, who has a hand in several online business models.

Funny side note: As long as these talks are, Gary Vee is one of the only YouTubers I don’t listen to on 1.5x or 2x speed.  For whatever reason, I’m too attached to his real cadence.

Every single one in the next group gets consumed as quickly as possible.

Part of that is due to the nature of:

2. Cryptocurrency & Blockchain

I’ve been investing in cryptocurrency since the December price run up.

But unlike most people who “got in” during that time, I spend most of my money on education first.

I bought Tai Lopez’s crypto course.  I took Steve Ballinger’s crypto course on uDemy; I bought it some months before but hadn’t watched it yet.  I also bought into Blockchain Education.

Then, I began to invest slowing.  I put in less than $100.  Doubled it, then began to invest a part of every check.  And obviously, I’ve continued to learn.  I watch copious hours of YouTube videos every day.

For example, I catch all daily updates from:

  • Ivan on Tech – Programmer Perspective | News, Interviews, FAQs
  • Datadash – Speculative Investor Perspective | News, Interviews, Trading Tips, Coin Overviews
  • Coin Mastery – Speculative Investor Perspective | News, Technical Analysis, Trading Tips

I’ve also watched tons of videos from:

Now, I’m well up on my initial investment (despite bitcoin and the market as a whole being down 50% from when I first bought in).  I’ve actually started managing crypto portfolios for some of my friends.

How I win:

I generally look for coins worth a long term investment.  Most of my portfolio goes into these coins at ratios determined by (1) my confidence in the project and (2) its current price.  From there, I make short to medium term trades on the same coins.  That way, if the trade loses, I have the option to let it become a long-term investment position instead.  Still, I use stop losses when it suits me.  I also set tons of prices alerts using Coinigy.  I turn my USD into BTC on CoinBase. And finally, my exchange of choice for alt coins is Binance.

Of the trainings I’ve mentioned, Blockchain Education has by far the best tools to help you win.  Training.  Live chat.  Plus trade calls, complete with charts, risk levels, timeframes, and additional commentary.  I’m glad I bought all the trainings I have and will be buying more soon (like this one, while its free).  But I expect to be a part of BCE for years to come.

Beyond that, the blockchain space offers a ton of additional opportunities.

I’ve created this board in monday.com  to organize my crypto research (must create account and request access).  This will help me find potential winning investments.  But it will also help me land clients in the blockchain space.

This technology will touch all sorts of industries, meaning there are all sorts of opportunities.

For example, I’ll be taking this course when it goes live.  Several sources put starting salary for blockchain developers over $250k.  Many of developers also receive stake in the projects they work on (aka. the corresponding cryptocurrency).

There are also a variety of other ways to make money with crypto.

Ready Set Crypto gives a bunch of good examples here:

For me, it makes perfect sense to dive head-first into this field.

Therefore, April was also a month of:

3. Firing Clients & Pushing Reset

“Leaving money on the table” is one of the hardest things for me to do.

This is true even when I know it is the best thing for my businesses.

There is always tension between what is best in the long term and what is best in the short term.  Generally, I let short term priorities win out too often.

Some examples:

  1. My writing is always in high demand and easier to sell than local SEO.  However, it is a major time suck and drains my mental abilities.  SEO offers a lot more potential to scale income in the long term.  But when I need cash, I often accept month-long writing projects that require +90% of my energy.
  2. I could both raise my prices and get more local SEO clients if I improved GreensboroSEOPro.com or finished expanding my SEO offerings to Coast 2 Coast SEO.  Yet I rarely prioritize improving my funnel and pitch.  Very often, I end up taking work at my outdated rates because I prioritize the cash flow.
  3. Clients hold me back, period.  As an SEO expert, I have a vast understanding of how websites make money online.  I also have the “hard skills” to rank my own website in Google and generate passive income.  Short term thinking is literally the only reason I have not gotten this done.

But in April, I put my foot down on all that.

Underpaid on client projects no more!

I’m only working for myself and a few select partners for the foreseeable future.

My main priorities:

  1. Doubling all crypto portfolios I control by the end of summer.
  2. Ranking MiterSawReviews.biz on the first page of Google (again).
  3. Launching the first version of Work From Home Junkie.
  4. Making the Greensboro SEO Pro website respectable.
  5. Getting Local Wildfire, C2CSEO, and Know It All Copy launch-ready.

Still seems like chasing a lot of carrots at once.  But I’ve been reclaiming my time since this year started.  April was nothing but final cuts.  These five priorities look a lot less daunting without the needs of my clients woven in.  After all, I have a tendency to put my clients’ business needs ahead of my own.  So for now, I’m only accepting select clients (minimum $10,000 engagement rate).

Eventually though, I’ll have new and improved offerings across all of my services.  And down the road, my consulting will extend beyond marketing to a full-scale business consultancy.  I love helping good businesses succeed and therefore will probably always take clients.

For now though, I’m tapping back into my original mission online:

4. Work From Home Junkie

I started working online in order to find a way to homeschool (better yet, “unschool”) my kids.

With that goal, working online is not enough.  I need to generate passive income.

There are a variety of ways to do this online, such as affiliate marketing, online course creation, eCommerce, and more.

But to be honest, I’m slightly out of the loop.  You see, new work from home business models come out every month.  If you’re ready with time and money, these new models can serve as true “get rich quick” businesses.  But once they’ve been out for awhile, the competition heats up.

A few years ago, SEO was one of the most reliable get rich quick models out there.  But then SEOs got good. Plus, Google got smarter.  The combination means that you need a lot of skills to get top rankings in 2018.

I have many of those skills.  And finally, I have created the time and space to begin using them to generate passive income.

Nonetheless, the learning curve never ends.

So I might as well record some of my resources here, right?

The main two people I’m following right now:

Alex Becker – one of the first people I ever started following online… been through several business models online and continually wins.

Pat Flynn – found him recently, but really resonate with his thought processes and teaching style.

I’ve also been getting into stocks, real estate, and other ways to invest your way to passive income.

Here’s some of my best resources around that:

I’ve also signed up for a ton of local events in real estate, investing, entrepreneurship, and related categories lately.  I’ll be dragging my main assistant, Austin, with me to a variety of these functions.  If you’re interested in joining us, please feel free to let me know.

We’re putting together a list of different events here, if you’d like more info. (Again, you’ll need to sign up for monday.com and request access.)

Beyond that, there is always our Sunday Mastermind.

On that note, I have something I need to get off my chest this month.

5. Bradshaw Bootcamps

Not all of my growth comes to me via the Internet.

Life is always the best teacher.  More specifically, failures can be great teachers.

So:

I have a few failures that I need to document.

Over the last year, I have made the same “mistake” three times in a row.  I put the quotations around mistake because I think I was probably trying to do the right thing.  So I probably wouldn’t take any of it back.  However, I certainly could have done things differently.

So let me detail these failures.

I have allowed three friends to live with me over the last year.  I’m not really built for roommates but each of these people were in need.

I tried to make rules that would help each of them become happier, healthier, and even wealthier.  One of my main requirements was that they work as positive forces in my life, instead of negative ones.  So many of my rules were to force that into action.

Some of the stipulations I set:

  • morning routine
  • goal setting
  • everyday learning
  • reduced phone activity
  • improved diet

Then, each of them had stipulations set for their situation:

  1. First, was one of my very best friends on the planet.  Part of allowing him to stay with me was so that they could kick his heroine habit.  Maybe I wouldn’t have offered a place to stay if not for this.  So he also had rules like no drugs and reduced contact with the people he abused with.  He was also working for me.
  2. Second, I allowed another of my friends with a heroine problem stay with me.  To my eyes, she had a MUCH harder time with her addiction than my first friend.  So I pretty much babysat her every moment because I literally felt like she was using every time she was out of my sight.
  3. Third, another friend was on the brink of homelessness with her 2 year old son.  I have a soft spot for single moms, homeless people, and children in bad situations.  I couldn’t say no even if I wanted to.  My rules for her included the personal growth stuff along with income generation and some parenting stuff.

Perhaps I was doomed to fail in all of these situations.

I understand that you can’t change anyone.  They have to decide to make those changes.  However, I’m 100% convinced that you can’t decide to change unhealthy habits when your life revolves around your phone, don’t have any goals, and eat foods that lead directly to depression.

Among other reasons, this is why I thought the “bootcamp” approach was necessary.

In fact, I probably still think it is the best bet.

However, there were two major flaws in my programs.

  1. None of them chose to live with me to become their best selves.  Each of them simply chose to live with me because they had no better options.
  2. I am waaaaaaay to soft and gullible.  Each was able to either take advantage of me or fool me completely.

I don’t necessarily think it was all on purpose.

Still, each slowed me on my major mission:

Getting back to and providing a life for my own family.

I learned valuable lessons, for sure.  But after each has gone, I’ve had epic battles with myself over “the right thing to do”.

First, I curse myself for the mistakes I made with all three.  From letting them walk all over me to the epically annoying lectures I put them through.  Often, I was gentle when I should have been stern or stern when I should have been gentle.

Second, having failed to bring about lasting change for each of them… I struggle with feelings of having forsaken Tash and Atayo, the sons I so sorely miss.  I feel that every single delay on my mission is but one more time I have forsaken my sons.

The sons I want to raise would tell me that I was doing the right thing, that they will always be ok and that they’d rather me help people who really need it.

But the thing is:

If I don’t get back to my boys, they may not be mentally strong enough to put others first.  Instead, they may feel immense pain at me “choosing others over them”.  I’m not sure that, “I wasn’t sure of the right thing” will be good enough.  Truthfully, part of me screams that it absolutely won’t be.  The other part says that any sons of mine would always put others first… but still, not if I can’t raise them as I want.

To the three friends I’ve failed for miserably:

I truly am sorry for my failures.

To my sons who may be reading this in the future:

I am sorry for the delay.

But here’s the thing:

I’m down to fail.  What I won’t do is not try.  So no, I don’t have regrets over any part of this situation.  Instead, my fire to help heal the world only burns brighter.

Though my “Bradshaw Bootcamps” have been a complete failure, I have learned plenty.  Eventually, I’d like to life coach and maybe restart such bootcamps with a legitimate business model behind it.  Instead of living with my fickle ass in my house, it could be on a beach or in the mountains with a group of other people who wanted to make real life changes.

Yeah, I’d love to be life coach one day.  I think the knowledge in my head could help a lot of people live more fulfilled lives.

But for now, I’ll stick to my Sunday Masterminds, where we simply hangout and learn together.

In the end, personal relationships are the hardest thing on planet earth.  I think the closeness with each of these three presented advantages and disadvantages.  I could have maximized the positives better and avoided the negatives more strategically.  However, I think that each of these little experiments was doomed to be a learning experience.

Unfortunately, I feel that I’ve learned plenty while those I intended to help learned very little.

Again, I know that they bare much (most?) of the responsibility.  Still, taking 100% of the blame means that I have an opportunity to do better in the future.

So that is what I will do.

After all, taking all of the responsibility gives me the greatest chance to learn.  In the end, I know I could have been better everyday, in every way.

And next time, that is what I will do.

So that got a little out of hand 😜

I kind of felt it bubbling up.  But 2 hours ago, I was struggling to get past #2.  1500+ words later, here we are.

If you’ve stuck with me to now, you’re a real trooper.  Thanks for reading.

Next month, things won’t get so heavy.  I promise.

Instead, I should have some announcements regarding progress on the goals mentioned in #3.   On top of that, I am setting a two-month limit on including Brian Johnson’s PNTV.  That’s because this series is supposed to be a documentation of my personal growth journey, not some sentimental crybaby blog. 😂😂😂

If you’re still here, thanks for putting up with my BS.

Hope to see you here again soon.