Gold and diamond was our topic while chatting with my 8-year-old son. He is interested on how much the gold and diamond cost and where did it came from.
I taught him that gold is mined and bought by grams while diamonds are in carats. We did some maths when he asked me how much does a gold bar costs.
Since tomorrow is a school day, he needs to go to sleep early, then we said goodbyes.
The Video That Taught Me The Right Attitude on Blogging
After those conversations, I saw a video posted from a friend in his Facebook wall. The title is
"Who Moved My Cheese". Although I read this already in a paperback book version, it's still worth watching.
Don't be deceived by the style of the video, it's animated with four characters in it. There are two mice,
Sniffy and
Scurry, and two small people,
Hem and
Haw. You may find it boring at first, you need to watch it to the end.
The story is not, I think, for kids, although it might be applicable, but it's more about adults who are searching for ways to venture in other worlds out from their comfort zone, searching for business or money, or change in career.
Watch the video in Youtube or the video link below and I'll explain my views about it,
how it changed my blogging career.
This video taught me a lot for my Make Future Income blog. It changed my everyday views about blogging.
It answered my questions on Why Do I Need to Blog?
For me, blogging is one of my ways to express myself to the world. It is also a conduit for people who wants to communicate with someone in their own kind, businessman to businessman or engineers to engineers, you know what I mean.
But, this time, as I finished watching the video, here are the lessons that I learned from it that are related to my blogging. These in particular are the writings of Haw on the walls.
WHAT WOULD YOU DO IF YOU WEREN'T AFRAID?
I'm a conservative person, probably like Haw, wanting to change but was
constricted by the negative thoughts of Hem. My attitude is that I want someone that will tell me first what's on the other side before I do something about it.
But, after Haw went out of his comfort zone, this is the time when he is not afraid anymore.
I started to post
my first blog at exactly 11:30pm on July 30, 2009. I considered myself a newbie at that time. It is when I started to realize that there's something out there where I can reach people and earn some income through it.
The blog started when I saw a friend who ventured to blogging, probably like Haw, and I was like Hem at that time. I was afraid to come up with a blog. Why?
1. Afraid of rejection or humiliation from friends. Maybe they will laugh at my posting.
2. I don't have any idea about the world of blogging. Afraid that it might hurt me or my career.
Like Haw, I started to go out of my comfort zone, feeling not afraid to blog and the rest was history, I've been posting more than 200 post now, 10 blog sites and counting.
SMELL THE CHEESE OFTEN SO YOU KNOW WHEN IT IS GETTING OLD
Monitoring the progress of my blog is what the saying was all about. Everyday, I do research about blogging and checking what techniques that might help me improve it.
I constantly monitor my progress with the help of
Google Analytics and comparing my blogs to those successful ones. When a blog is not that successful, I make and experiment with new blogs and monitors its success.
When I smell that my blog is not working, that means it's getting old. I might change the way I blog or completely delete it and start a new one. Blogging is a continuous learning.
WHEN YOU STOP BEING AFRAID, YOU FEEL GOOD
With so many blogs on hand and quite a lot of postings, I felt so good.
It took away all my doubts and fear on humiliation. Good things started to flow when my readers praises me for what I've been posting, which help them a lot. They thanked me for my blog.
This is what the feeling is all about. Not afraid of anything to say, in fact, blogging is a free writing. Who cares if my grammar or the spelling is wrong, as long as people understands it and I was able to help them with their problems.
IMAGINING YOURSELF ENJOYING NEW CHEESE LEADS YOU TO IT
Although I am not earning that much for now, I'm still so happy of what I had achieved.
The very first earning that I have on my blogs was at $0.05. Yes, I'm serious, it's my first earning in Google. I was so happy at that time seeing that figure.
Where else I can find that money by just doing something in front of my computer? I don't even find it in my cabinet or anywhere around my house.
During those young years, I imagined myself having 10 or more views per day,
it was just my dream. But now, I gained more than that. It's amazing how I started from that number to the ones that I have right now.
Imagining is like setting a goal. So, I imagine myself that at the end of the year, I will be earning from this
Make Future Income blog.
WHEN YOU CHANGE WHAT YOU BELIEVE YOU CHANGE WHAT YOU DO
Before I started blogging, my belief is that I can only earn money through selling physical things, the ones that we can touch.
At first, seeing my friends doing their blogs doesn't interest me at all. Then I started to believe that they really make money out of it and so can I.
I stepped up and made my first blog site, registered in Google AdSense and that's it. The rest followed and changed my way of finding income.
CHANGE HAPPENS THEY KEEP MOVING THE CHEESE
On 2007, the physical business that I have is not doing well. It's because they keep moving the cheese, in other words, economy is not stable. This changes happens all the time.
Google AdSense changes their algorithms quite often and it will change the ranking of the sites. Some of my blogs have been in the lowest rank in terms of search engines and other things.
That is why, I am anticipating the changes. There are a lot of cheese out there and I need to find them before my cheese in Google runs out.
For the next blog post of Make Future Income, I will post all the cheese that I can find. Maybe you are the Hem, I will be the Haw for you. If ever I have some information that I can find, you will be the first to know.
