smushai.com, you can find out how to create a custom template and/or use my Smush I’ve had one of those days… today has been very frustrating for some reason. But today I am just going to post whatever that I find interesting. 1. So much information out there – so much great resources (including your wonderful videos), and so much that is horribly WRONG. 2. My blog is about 8.5 months old – a mere baby in comparison to the years and years that you have invested in your own blog (and many of the things that you have listed on it). We learn best by doing. Which makes me sound like I’m talking about young children but, hey, I am not a kid any more and I don’t have a lot of time. What is frustrating is all the information out there that does not take into account what we are all trying to achieve: to live a better life and improve. And to do so in a way that we can be proud of it – which takes time. Or maybe we are just in a period of transition that cannot be explained by the usual model. I think the most common reaction to this is denial (which is the normal reaction for everyone, no matter what is going on around them). How do you get around this? Here are the two solutions: 1. Get rid of the bad information. My example is the so called “green” bloggers, or the “experts”. Just because someone has been promoting something for a couple years doesn’t mean it is a good product/system. If it works for you, great. But don’t claim that you have a silver bullet that will fix your life. 2. Get a coach that understands, or get on your own. I don’t know if you need a coach or not, but if you don’t understand why you are doing something, or are doing something ineffectively, you have no idea how to make changes. This is why people fail so much. They make a change and the change does not happen for them, and they blame it on outside circumstances, or they think that they were not supposed to be successful with the change in the first place. This is why the new generation of business owners are doing things such as having their employees set their own hours. They don’t want to be in a position of control because they don’t know what else to do. I personally see a lot of promise in this approach. But you must find someone that gets you. It can feel like an enormous problem, but really it is not. Not until it starts hitting your pocketbook hard. My advice to you would be to spend a few days focusing only on your income. Look at all of your expenses, pay close attention to your net take home pay, and look for ways that you can reduce your expenses. This will not only make your life much easier, but it will provide some great insight to your entire situation. Then again, maybe you should just try selling your services and products. You might be surprised to find that you are not so dependent on people buying from you. Because if you think that I am wrong, please comment and I’ll be happy to explain. I need your help. I have a great idea and I know that it works (we already have clients). But we need a new template and maybe some changes to the content (which is mainly your content, I just don’t have the writing chops yet) I am doing what I call a “white background week” right now. I have no idea what that means but it sounded funny in my head. The thing is that when you decide to change your blog and you try to start from scratch, it can get a bit overwhelming. I feel that is why you see such good templates. They have made it so simple for you to try something new and create a template that you can use right away, or build on later. They will definitely take some time and work for you to use, but at least it gives you some more options to consider. I don’t think I should even mention how often I get asked about templates and why I have not made any money doing it. I just want to point out that it is a really smart business decision. If you have not heard of the business model for selling templates and why it works, then you need to think about it. I have worked really hard to create my website and all of the content on it. It took me several years to write it all and I have put so much into it. But just because I put time into it does not mean that I have a lot of money in the bank. I started very small. Not only that, but I have only been promoting for a couple months. I started a new business with the hopes of making a lot of money and I was thinking that the first step was to get my product out there (through a web site that I would maintain). So, I have decided to change my website. And I am looking for your help. You have come to the right place. I am not going to tell you that you need to pay for anything, but I would like for you to help me. You will not have to spend any money to do this – just your time and a small, very tiny bit of money for advertising. You can either donate or pay me, but I would rather have some kind of way to help you. I will be sending an email out tomorrow that will tell you everything that I need you to do. I will send an email out to everyone on Monday morning – all of the people who signed up on my mailing list over the past few years that are on there because of the good tips that I give, and probably some people that you sent me emails because they wanted to talk to me or just needed an email on my email address (which is on my website) where they could reach me. I am willing to try this all over again, and I am not going to do it unless I can find some help. So that is where I am at and what I would like for you to do to help me. I am starting to put my site together and I was wondering if you have any information on: I am the type of person who likes to hear other people’s thoughts. I like to read the responses of people who visit my blog. But sometimes it is difficult for me to know if a blogger is using this blog to give their opinion, or if it is just a one-off thing. For example, maybe they have been reading a couple of posts that make them so angry that they are going to talk about it on their blog. In that case, I don’t really care what they have to say. The reason that I don’t post any comments is because they aren’t going to help anybody – I am only going to write my opinion, because I have read the post and taken what they said and interpreted it. So, I know that some people do this and there is nothing wrong with it. That is why I started this website. I was trying to figure out a way to see what people thought about the things that I do. And if they agreed, then maybe we could talk about it (that is if the discussion is open and friendly). So I really want to know if you are using this blog for the reason that you would just post on your personal blog and would not use it for anything else. Or you are using this blog to talk about the things that you are talking about here on your personal blog. I would like to know because it seems like a lot of people have a one-sided view of the things that I am talking about here, and that is probably why they are reading this blog and not mine. I don’t see a reason why we can’t agree on what it is that we both love so much and want to improve. I would really appreciate it if you would give me your thoughts. My answer to you will be found at the bottom of the post. If you are going to reply, please put the title of this post (and my blog URL) in the subject line. 1. Do you have a plan to earn money? 2. How are you going to do it? 3. What is your income goal? Are you doing the two steps above, and then writing your own post about what is most important in life (this is my plan)? Or are you using this blog as a sounding board to tell people about yourself? Are you really going to