No one’s going to give you permission

Posted on October 25, 2011 by Amanda in Diversions, Motivation | 3 Comments

1925 Drexel Women's Rifle Team

I recently crossed the threshold into affiliate marketing fossildom; namely, turning 30 years old. For an industry as young as internet marketing is proving to be, it feels two ticks to the right of ancient.

But I digress.

Allow me 60 seconds of your time to distill a myth that I bought into, hard and heavy, for most of my twenties. It is a complete waste of time.

You don’t need permission to ________________. (Insert whatever it is you want here).

Seriously. Read it again. Read more

Reverse To-Do List

Posted on March 1, 2011 by Amanda in Productivity | 24 Comments

The Daily Hustle

I am a list builder.

I break projects down into their most granular tasks and write them down in a to-do list on an old school scrap of notebook paper. If you look around my desk, folded and tucked neatly reused as bookmarks into books on my shelf, and in my round file cabinet (aka the trash), you’ll find them everywhere.

Using to-do lists is reinforced everywhere on the web. The tech industry, in particular, is obsessed with the cult of productivity and to-do lists. There are posts on the 5 best to-do list managers, not-to-do lists, and there are apps for that.

The Problem With To-Do Lists

For each area of my life there became a list. Chores around the house. Workouts. Client projects. My own websites. General family stuff. It evolved into stacks of tiny paper monsters hounding me for all that I hadn’t gotten done, regardless of what I had accomplished.

When your life lists get too big it dilutes the positive association of forming a list in the first place: crossing items off.

Coupled with the time I was spending writing down things I wanted to do, it became clear that the action of writing them down was just another form of analysis paralysis.

Solving the To-Do List Problem

Stop and look at the Big Picture

Posted on January 29, 2011 by Amanda in Diversions | 7 Comments

The SEO and affiliate marketing industries are necessarily monofocused. This is a product of the fact that NONE of us went to school for this (no one in my 1986 kindergarten class said they wanted to be an SEO when they grew up!) and that the body of knowledge it takes for someone to be good at it makes them an incessant self-learner. The internet changes at an exponential pace and its often all we can do to keep up with the new developments, much less do actual work.

Why stop and see the Big Picture?

Because social media channels tend to be an echo chamber of self-selected people. Sure, it’s fun to bitch about corporations changing their logos but after the 3^rd or 4^th time this comes up, I wonder, “don’t we really have better things to do or worry about?”

I’ll bet dollars to donuts the majority of your social streams are probably people in the same industry. This creates monomania which, in turn, can make us callous to the world outside our virtual walls.

Too much of the same thing makes us boring, ignorant, and self-focused.

A few ways you can help yourself see the Big Picture

Donate.
- SaveJasonsMom.org – This week Jason Rubacky from ShareASale created a site to solicit donations for his mom’s considerable medical care. She has several ongoing chronic illnesses, you can read more and donate there.
  
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Attitude

Posted on December 19, 2010 by Amanda in Diversions, Motivation | 2 Comments

While rummaging through some old papers early this morning I stumbled on a quote I kept on the cork board above my desk in college.

I thought it practicable when I was 19, but in rereading I find so much more truth to it today, ten years worth of life experiences later.

Attitude

“The longer I live, the more important I realize the impact of attitude on life.

Attitude, to me , is more important than facts. It is more important than the past, than successes, than education, than money, than circumstances, than failures, than successes, than what other people think or say or do. It is more important than appearance, giftedness or skill. It will make or break a company… a church… a home.

The remarkable thing is we have a choice everyday regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. We cannot change our past… we cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude…

I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% how I react to it.

And so it is with you… we are in charge of our Attitudes.”

- Charles Swindoll

The truth to the message is this: wherever you start from, your attitude will dictate where you end up. Everything else is unchangable, your circumstances are your circumstances, but be it in in your career, sport or life how you play your cards is far more important to the outcome than what hand you were dealt.

If you’d like to print out a copy of the quote for your own office, I’ve attached the well-worn, oft-copied .pdf scan of “Attitude” here.

Early Adopters are Not Rich

Posted on November 28, 2010 by Amanda in Letters to the Editor | Leave a comment

…they are young or thrifty

The “Lex Column” of the Financial Times Weekend edition (Saturday November 27-Sunday November 28th 2010) had a snippet on US Cable Companies.

Update: Discussion on HackerNews.com “Are early adopters rich?“

The topic of “cord-cutting,” or US cable subscribers who disconnect their cable subscriptions in favor of streaming internet television programs, is near and dear to me. Since 2006 I have gone without a cable subscription not only because television programming has become redundant and less-than-educational (see: Reality TV) but because it made financial sense. In it’s last quarterly earnings call, Comcast was forced to admit that it’s average subscriber spends $130 US per month on a basic cable package.

Resurrecting the Vanity Site

Posted on October 15, 2010 by Amanda in Diversions | Leave a comment

Don’t Call it a Comeback

I’ve actually had this domain for a while now and began building out a few posts back in May. But, between rehabbing a house and getting really involved in real estate over the summer I let it go dormant.

Earlier this month I began working on a post with Rae Hoffman for Outspoken Media dissecting the pro football teams usage of Twitter in the first (of an annual?) Twitterbowl. When we were discussing the post I realized I had nothing to link back to, no web presence outside of affiliate or lead gen sites. So I decided now would be a good time to get off my ass and start doing something about it.

I am not a guru or an expert. I don’t care about monetizing this site or optimizing it. But as Ben Franklin said, “Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing (about).”

This is where I try to nail one of those down.

Vidspiration: When you need a swift kick in the…

Posted on May 24, 2010 by Amanda in Business, Motivation | Leave a comment

There is very little glamorous about being an entrepreneur, especially a new one. For every ounce of freedom you’re given you get twice the helping of responsibility. And sometimes… sometimes… you just need a good swift kick to get you off your lazy/ stressed out ass and back in the game.

Watching these videos is like an intravenous shot of redbull.

Glengarry Glen Ross

“We’re adding a little something to this month’s sales contest. As you all know, first prize is a Cadillac Eldorado. Anybody want to see second prize?”
[Holds up prize]
“Second prize is a set of steak knives. Third prize is you’re fired.”

Boiler Room

Wall Street (1987)

…greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right, greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit.

Grant Cardone: Your Business Sucks.

Thanks to Adhustler for finding this.

What clips get you going?

Both Sides of the Tracks podcast

Posted on January 25, 2010 by Amanda in Diversions | Leave a comment

I had the pleasure of sitting down and talking with Eric Nagel and Jason Rubacky (of ShareASale and JasonRubacky.com) in a Geekcast.fm podcast on January 24, 2010.

A few things we talked about:

Way, way too much about me and where I’ve been.
Local SEO and Local domaining
Education and affiliate marketing
Long-term goals

You can check out the full replay here: Both Sides of the Tracks

No one’s going to give you permission

Reverse To-Do List

The Daily Hustle

The Problem With To-Do Lists

Solving the To-Do List Problem