My Month in Personal Growth – August 2018

by | Sep 5, 2018 | Monthly Growth Updates

Yaaaaaay!

Back on schedule. :D

August was pretty crazy.  No surprise I was two weeks late on my post.

Now I’m back on track both in life and business.  My my engines are really purring right now.

September’s already looking great.  But this is about August.

If you’re interested, feel free to go back in time:

Otherwise, let’s jump in.

1. Travel Magic

Everyone loves travel.

Duh.

I’m not trying to be cliche here.

More likely to go off the deep end actually.

When I travel, magic things happen.  Maybe they are just amazing coincidences.  But certain things just go well—especially when I do the right thing.

I truly feel like my angels travel with me.  I ask them to anyway.

I suppose I’m talking about when I travel with uncertainty.  This a is not a one-week vacation kind of magic.  This is a, “I’m not sure what I’m doing, Lord please help,” kind of magic.

I’m more prayerful.  And I can’t deny the results.  One day, I hope some of those stories make it unto this blog.

Earlier this month, I took a trip like that.

I had a purpose:

To train one of my partners in a few SEO skills.  There was a big pitch on the table as well.

But I really had no idea how long it would take to get the training done.  My two assistants are the only two people I’ve really trained in anything online.  I’ve been working with both of them for at least two years.  I guess I also give my writers solid feedback.  But this was supposed to be like a dedicated cram session with client delivery on the line.

I was unsure.

It turned out to be a really important trip.

Kinda duh.  I love Arizona.

But there’s definitely more to it than that.

I 100% believe my kind of “magic” is involved.  But there is also interesting neuroscience regarding the effects of long term travel on the brain.

Then there are my habits.  Hotel-hopping makes me a morning person.  I also figured out an awesome system working from my hotel’s pool.  I think it produced a similar productivity boost as a treadmill desk.  It also had me asleep by 10 PM most nights.  I went to sleep on the same date I woke up on for almost two weeks straight.  That’s the longest streak in years.

Lastly, southern hospitality is real.  People in Phoenix are grouchy.  I’d say it was heat, except people in Tucson and Sedona are really nice.

Traffic, customer service, pretty much everything.  People look at me funny when I hold the door for them.  No joke.

Nonetheless, I repeatedly won over sales clerks and others with by relentlessly smiling in their face and generally being nice.  It’s pretty much my de facto attitude toward people who are at work since my days at Lucky 32.  At first it took them off guard.  “Skeptical” is how I’d characterize initial reactions.  Eventually though, it always brightened their day.

It was fun AF.  Can’t wait to go back and do it again!

2. I Will Live to 160 (Thanks Tom and Vishen)

I drove to Arizona.

That’s over 30 hours in the car.

No problem homie.  I kinda love it.

80 the whole way.  Reminds me of playing NASCAR ’99.

But O-M-G!

I listened to so many great talks!  The whole way there, was A Fest Sardinia and Health Theory.

Thus, the heading for this section:

I will live to 160.

My boys might live to 240.

I believe it.  I might even still be able to jump on my car beyond 100.  Obviously, I have to continue improving how I care for my body.  But I’ve restarted my 6 phase meditation lately.  I tend to end up further that three year in the future.  And no matter how far I end up, I’ve still got that spring in my step.  Obviously, this is just a visualization exercise.  Still, belief is the first step.

If you aren’t paying attention to the latest nutritional science, you should be.

Drop everything else and watch this now:

At least bookmark it.

You might also dive into my health favorites.  I still need to add some context, but this page will surely grow and branch off into others.  It’ll all get broken down into more manageable pieces over time.  And of course, I’ll add to it.

3. Love and Loss

I left a lot of tears in the desert.

I didn’t see that coming.

But damn, was it good.  I actually love to cry.  I try to do it everyday.  This was different only in scale.

There was a lot going on.

Arizona reminds me of my oldest son.  Most of this trip, I was close to the part of greater Phoenix I’m familiar with.  I spent a chunk of Tash’s first few months there.  I think the buildings and the weather combined to bring up a lot of different memories.  I remember few times more fondly than those hours I spent holding my first young’n in the Arizona shade.  Jeez.  Tearing up while I write about it.

I found another level of forgiveness.  When I was younger, I thought that forgiveness was the whole reason we are here.  Now, all I’m sure of is that it is why I am here.  My greatest lessons in life have always been about forgiveness.  Naturally, I’ve found the neuroscience to back up what I always knew about it’s power.  It’s been a part of my daily practice for a while now.  But forgiveness is super tricky.  I thought I had forgiven some things I hadn’t.  I’m still not there yet.  But I was blessed with a moment of self knowledge paired with the tool to finish the work.  Nothing but gratitude.  Worth a mighty sob or two I think.

I remembered love is the best carrot.  When I fall in love, that sh!t is FOVERRRRR.  It’s slightly annoying.  But it’s always genuine.  Otherwise, it was never really love to me.  There are both positives and negatives to it, as far as my mental-emotional space goes.  I realized that I hadn’t really recovered from a relationship that ended about this time two years ago.  And while I’ll never not love the snot out of the mother of my children (I mean I caught two beautiful baby boys that came out of her magic portal and she’s just great anyway), I finally saw the healing I really needed—the same one my heart always does—just find someone new to love forever.  More important for my life right now, there is no better me than the one chasing the right type of girl.  And now that I’ve decided it is okay to actually look, I feel the level up everyday (5000-word writing days, got rid of my PS4, salad addiction, etc.).

The music would not stop hitting.  Dude I just love Nahko and Leah Song.  I use Wash It Away for my forgiveness practice.  I use Thank You Very Much for gratitude.  I also discovered Sugarshack Sessions just before I left and so many great songs hit at the right time.  My angels always told YouTube what to play next.  This version of Wash It Away came on at an especially perfect moment.  I’ll never forget the way it felt.

I love Arizona’s nature spirits.  I needed some sun.  But I also needed to hang out with some other nature spirits for awhile.  Don’t get it twisted; nowhere feels like home like NC.  But Arizona is great therapy for my spirit.  The way it feels definitely helped with all of the emotional release.  The lack of water basically made it easier for some of my excess emotions to “dry up.”  This put a much-needed emphasis on earth (health, finances) and wind (thought).   I also spent copious hours in the sun, stoking the fires of my spirit.  Yea, I’m a hippie bro.  Bite me.  Call me a pagan if you want to, but you might be surprised by what the nature spirits say about Jesus, the angels, and a lot of other stuff.  Silly humans.  Just ask your 2 year old what they see.

Anyway, if you’re still with me:

Let’s come back down to Earth.

4. Business Growth Log

This isn’t that useful.

But it helps me a little bit.  And maybe it helps some of my team.

I’ll probably keep it here until the end of the year regardless.  Whatever value it has, it’s interesting to me.

So, let’s take a look at how I did:

(Public) August Business Goals

  1. Meet AZ Squad – Dominate trip.  Get writing done.  Make big pitch.  Test travelling work systems.
  2. Greensboro SEO Pro – Service current clients.  Update brand and marketing plan. (no changes)
  3. MiterSawReviews.Biz – Review all Bosch miter saw reviews.  Simplify site backend and optimize.
  4. Other Brands – Launch something.  July growth post on ZB.com.  Organize and coordinate with partners.
  5. Soul Search – Figure out whether I really want to be an entrepreneur.  If so, what kind?

Results much close to planning than usual:

(Public) August Business Production

  1. Meet AZ Squad – Dominated trip.  Planned big Picture.  Built partnerships.  Found travelling work systems.
  2. Greensboro SEO Pro –  About 4 days behind for first 3 weeks.  A few EPIC work days.  No brand changes.
  3. MiterSawReviews.Biz – Published all Makita saws as well as the Makita miter saw review hub.
  4. Personal Brand – Caught up on monthly posts.  Performed SEO audits for partners.  Built protocols.
  5. Soul Search – Both renewed desire for entrepreneurship found even more attractive job opportunities.

If I get September right, I’ll be pleasantly surprised.

(Public) September Business Goals

  1. Greensboro SEO Pro – Over-deliver for current clients.  Find new leads and close ongoing ones.
  2. Soul Search – Give 100% in business until I make a decision.  Continue to look into dank jobs.
  3. Partnership Network – Help Cuttlefish Marketing, Ideamax Studios, and AC Designs rank in Google.
  4. MiterSawReviews.Biz – Publish Bosch miter saw reviews and new branding information.
  5. Personal Brand – Publish +1 post Heroes vs Role Models and monthly post. Work on Favorites.

I’m still undecided about whether I want to do this by myself.

I fantasize about working for Tom, or Gary, or Grant on the daily.  I also fantasize about signing checks for hundreds of people in an organization they helped build.  Both are potential paths to my end goals.  And for some strange reason, giving myself permission to chase a dream job has released pressure on me in my business.

For now, I’m going to go full-speed ahead.  But I reserve the right to quit at the right time, in the right way.

Again, I see multiple ways to do things.  So I’ve come up with a solution that helps my partners in a flexible manner.  If I get all of their sites on the first page of Google, they’ll get more of their own leads and also have a better idea of what it’d be like to work for me full time.  Plus, I get more experience training.  I’ll feel great walking away and asking for nothing.  They’ll feel great if I decide to snatch them up make them heads of departments in my marketing behemoth.  Everyone wins.

Feel free to watch all three of their brands over next six months as they make their climb to the top of Google for their service in their city.

Sounds like fun—if you’re a marketing geek like me.

5. Growth Diary

Now, we’re finally to the point of this post.  Haha!

Right to it:

This month I:

I didn’t waste much time this month, but I didn’t have as much time as usual for personal growth either.  Seems like I spent all of August planning and producing.  I’ll take it.

So we’ve made it to the end of another long post.

Glad to be back on schedule with these at the beginning of the month.  Perhaps I’ll be able to branch out beyond them in September.

Whatever, thanks for reading.

Until next week.