Thoughts of Death, A Lowdown Dirty Trick (and Why Life is Sometimes Too Good for Writing Blog Posts)

[Note #1: It’s been a long while since I’ve written. 500 people unsubscribed since I last wrote a post. But 6k people stayed. I’m glad you stayed.]

[Note #2: This is the song I was listening to while writing this post, so it’s only fitting that you listen to it while reading it.]

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I’ll get to the main part, but first I want to say . . .

You Can’t Stop What’s Coming

I just “finished” a huge project. It’s deeply personal and important to me.

When it’s time to make noise about this you’ll probably hear about it. I’ll be marketing the shit out of it. No apologies about this now or later (I believe in this too much).

What I’ve Been Up to For the Last 4 Months

I wrote the last blog post 4 months ago, and it was a pitifully short one at that (by my standards). What happened after that is that. . .

Life Became Way too Good for Writing Blog Posts

The last post was on 10/24/09, and since then, life has been better than it’s been before. And up until now I’ve had no interest, whatsoever, in sharing it online. There was even a period when I slipped off the grid for a bit: I didn’t answer email and didn’t login to twitter. Friggin’ checked out. (Not that I really ever cared much about The Conversation™).

Lifestyle Design

You know that Four Hour Work Week stuff Tim Ferriss talks about? It can really happen. At least it did for me.

Speaking of which, check this out . . .

(That’s what we call bragging. Thanks for indulging me.)

Anyway, back to our feature presentation . . .

Strange Shit Happens When You Don’t Have a Boss

What happens is that you stop doing things you don’t want to do. And life gets really damn good.

It can also be really difficult, because ultimate flexibility denies you every excuse for not living the life of your dreams. When I’m unhappy these days, I have no one to blame by myself.

So I think I was telling you . . .

How I’ve Spent My Time Since October

I spent a lot of time exploring my corner of the upper Midwest and I managed to pack more life into the last few months than I have over the last few years.

For example I started training for a marathon (and lost all semblance of an ass . . .)

I spent plenty of time in dive bars playing table shuffleboard with people who’ve never heard of twitter. I went cross-country skiing on some of the best trails in the world, started playing pond hockey on city parks, passed out drinking amazing whisky more times than I’d like to admit, hung out with questionable folk singers, and met some of the best people I know.

My “mini-retirement” wasn’t spent on a foreign beach, it was spent among sacred geography in places I consider home.

And I decided to move back home. To Minneapolis.

I also . . .

Started Thinking a Lot About Death

Everything comes into perspective when you think about death. About the things that existed — and the struggles people have had before you were ever born — and the things and struggles that will exist after you’re dead.

I don’t want to go on for very long about this, but I do want to leave you with this quotation . . .

We do have a sense of what we are here for in the world. But we also know it is very difficult.
The world is motion. To enter into that motion is a ride. And it ends in *death.*
No one has succeeded in bringing into life the love they wanted to. Jesus, Moses, Mohammed, Gandhi, whoever you want to look at as a character in history who has done their best to bring love, to bring consciousness, into the world has had very limited success.
So will you.

That is, if you are looking for a result in your giving you will be disappointed.
The only result you will have in your giving is death. You will die giving.
Your choice is, do you want to die giving everything – giving your gifts – or do you want to die still holding back. Unable to give everything.
–David Deida

How I Paid for All My Down Time

Internet marketers who sell products on how to make money online are forever talking about how much they make and how they made it. I don’t have a product for sale, so I usually don’t like talking about this stuff.

But here’s a rough overview . . .

I sold stuff online. Not my stuff. Other people’s stuff. It wasn’t passive… it never is; there’s no such thing as passive . . . there’s just various degrees of not-hustling-your-ass-off (NHYAO) income (as opposed to passive income). I also did social media viral “traffic getting” for people (Fox Studios was a client, for example).

(Of course most of the stuff I tried didn’t work (the stuff that did work, however, made it all worth it). I had more than a few domains banned by Google, and more than a few CPA networks giving me bullshit fraud percentages that were wrong, and more than 200 of my 400 registered domains went unused).

I Also Hung Out With Other Sketchy Internet Marketers

Good people.

Anyway . . .

I Might Have Mentioned That Something Big Is Coming. Here’s a Small Hint . . .

“In war the victorious strategist only seeks battle after the victory has been won, whereas he who is destined to defeat first fights and afterwards looks for victory.”

-Sun Tzu

The #1 Reason Why Internet Businesses Fail

It has nothing to do with SEO, or AdWords, or copywriting, or not knowing how to use twitter properly (give me a break).

It’s doesn’t even have that much to do with marketing or enthusiasm or sticking with it. It’s much bigger and obvious than that.

The #1 reason is . . . (stay tuned until next time)