I wasn’t feeling well today so pulled a sickie and spent most of the day wandering between my bed and my desk. When I was online I spent most of my time reading blogs instead of doing work and I came across a couple of interesting videos that got me thinking.

The problem is that I don’t think they got me thinking about what it should have got me thinking about - how to take the world by storm! Instead I started to wonder if I could really be bothered with all that success and the riches, employees, responsibilities and headaches that go with it or if I’m happy sitting behind my computer screen as an unknown, plugging away and making a modest salary while living what I consider to be a pretty sweet lifestyle.

Watching this has made me wonder if most people out there in internetland are after as much as they can get - dreaming big, wanting to be the best, hoping to make a name for themselves and get all the accolades that go with it. Or are most people just happy to have enough money to live their life comfortably in anonymity? To me the celebrity aspect sounds like hell and I think I would explode if I even attempted to have half as much energy as that guy has.

How about you guys? Are you dreaming of big things, bright lights and big egos or are you happy to dream big in a quietly confident sort of way, slowly building your web empire behind the scenes? I’m not sure the self promotion game is one I’m really keen on playing although I love following the people who do it well. Is this loser speak I’m spewing forth?

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I don’t usually like these link tagging type things but I’m feeling a bit lazy at the moment and in need of an easy post, so why not? Lissie over at Continuing Adventures tagged me in her post so here goes…

The rules are following:

1. Link to the person that tagged you.
2. Post the rules on your blog.
3. Share four things in these themes.
4. Tag four new blogs at the end by linking to them and leaving a comment on their website.

Four Jobs I’ve Had

• Fruit Picker
• Office Monkey
• Cook on a Sheep Station
• Retail Slave

Four Places I’ve Lived

• Galway, Ireland
• London, England
• Australia
• New Zealand

Four Movies I Can Watch Over and Over

• Team America: World Police
• Spaceballs

Four TV Shows I Love

• Amazing Race
• The Apprentice
• Hell’s Kitchen

Four Places I’ve Been on Holiday

• Egypt
• Turkey
• The Philippines
• Italy

Four of My Favourite Dishes

• Thai green curry
• chicken quesedillas
• lasagne
• chocolate ice cream

Four Websites I Visit Daily

• Google Adsense Stats
• Google Analytics
• Facebook
• Yahoo Mail

Four Places I Would Rather Be Now

• China! (going tomorrow)

Four Bloggers I Am Tagging

• Working Nomad
• The Lost Globe
• Ubertramp
• The Poverty Jetset

So now you know some very random, somewhat useless things about me! I spent mos tof today in a Hong Kong coffee shop that has this wicked iced chocolate drink that I may or may not have had three of. And a piece of chocolate cake. I’ve been catching up on emails and writing hostel reviews for my Wanderstruck site but still have a load of work to do over there. I’m really excited about the prospects of having an apartment to settle into in the coming weeks… especially after spending a few nights in the shittiest hostel ever here in HK (review coming soon!)

Speak to you next time from Beijing… sweet.

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I had dinner with some friends the other night and met a guy a who horrified me and reminded me why, after graduating university with a business degree, I really had no interest in ever pursuing a career in business. There are lots of things I love about the business world but the one thing that has always puzzled me is how people can become so passionate about whichever widget their company sells.

In this case, the passion was tires. This guy was obsessed with them and our conversation over dinner often led back to these apparently fascinating wonders of the rubber world. We got the history of the rubber industry in Asia along with accounts of sales targets and other juicy tidbits. He refered to his company as ‘we’ when listing off things they’d invented and proudly told us about his 14 hour work days.

Everything he told us was with a freaky, intense passion that I don’t think I’ll ever be able to understand. It seems to me that he’s sold himself on the idea of tire sales and spending all of his time working to better the company is something he genuinly wants to do. It’s an added bonus that he gets to do the expat thing in KL but when all of his time is spent at work, it doesn’t sem to me that it really matters where he is.

So more power to this guy! He seems happy, he’s found his calling and that’s great but I will never understand how people can become so passionate about things like tires. But I’m sure there are plenty of people out there who can’t comprehend being passionate about computers and the internet.

I guess the difference is that I don’t bore people at dinner parties with my Adsense stats!

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Well it looks like giving my computer a rest for a night while I went to the pub and the day after while I stayed in bed hungover did the trick. When I surfaced on Saturday things were up and running and so far there’s no sign of whatever was causing it to refuse to connect to the net.

Problem is, now I’m not working! I haven’t had the flu since I was a kid so I’m not sure if that’s what I have now but I’m out of commission at the moment. I’ve been in bed all day Sunday and have chucked a sickie today and am about to go on a mission to buy drugs, tea and fruit and then I’ll probably be spending the rest of my day there too.

Sorry about the lame post! I’m hoping some serious amounts of cough syrup and oranges will bring me back to life and I’ll be back to my usual self tomorrow.

*cough cough*

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Every now and then a post pops up over on Lonely Planet’s Thorntree forum like this one and more recently, this one. They’re a skeptical bunch over there let me tell you!

They seem to like to group us hard working web developers in with the scam artists who sell ‘websites in a box’ and eBooks with crammed full of recycled information. I’m completely skeptical about those types of products too, but I’m also able to see the other opportunities that are out there that can only be capitalised on with a bit of hard work.

I guess it’s easy for people who’ve never heard of monetising websites to be dubious about the whole operation. Perhaps they think that anyone making money online is only able to do it by ripping off newbies like them. Do they think that everyone telling them that money can be made online are all in cahoots, working together to dwindle them out of their hard earned cash? Maybe it all just seems too good to be true and people just assume it’s a con.

Maybe I would have assumed the same thing if I was new to this. It’s hard for me to guess what my reaction would have been because I started this so long ago. I’ve known from the start that making money is possible but haven’t been able to make any of my own until recently. If I had never worked on a website in my life though I might be singing the same tune as the Lonely Planet doubters.

Did it take some convincing for you guys to believe money could be made online or were you a believer from the moment you heard about this? Does it sound too good to be true to you?  It really just takes a quick look around the web at various affiliate programs, Adsense, Text Link Ads etc. to see that this is the real deal but many of the people over on the forum don’t want to believe a word of it and don’t bother investigating further.

I can see why they’re skeptical but I can’t understand why our simple explanations still fail to convince them. I’m not too worried about it though… I guess it’s one less travel related website I’ll have to compete with!

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I was killing time at work today and came across a blog by a young guy called Carl Ocab. Maybe young is an understatement… I meant to say really young. This kid is only 14 years old and seems to be doing everything right so far.

He ranks on first page of Google for the competitive term ‘make money online’, his posts are informative, the site design looks great, he’s got lots of ad spots sold, he seems to be doing a lot of paid reviews, and he really knows his stuff.

The only thing I was doing on the computer when I was 14 was trying to figure out how to use Word Perfect and attempting to shake my addiction to Civilization. But then again the internet wasn’t really around back then so I suppose that’s a damn fine excuse for not starting as a youngster.

I really think what this kid is doing is fantastic and knowing that he’s only 14 and has been pretty successful so far is pretty motivational for us oldies to get cracking. It’ll be really interesting to see what he’ll be getting up to 10 years from now!

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As you can probably tell due to my lack of posting I haven’t had much success getting anything done. I’ve been doing lots of visiting and family stuff and have had to recover from several whiskey-induced hangovers so really haven’t had the time or been in the mood. I’m definitely giving myself a true to life test of what it’ll be like once I start travelling but it looks like I’m failing miserably!

Anyway… on to the post. Because I’ve been catching up with people I haven’t seen in awhile I’ve found myself doing a lot of talking about my travel plans and the question about whether I plan to work on the road usually pops up at some point and that’s when I mention my websites. I think I’ve explained the ways of Adsense and affiliate programs to about 14,563 people so far.

I’m kind of to the point now that I’m a bit sick of explaining everything, not because I don’t like talking about it, but because I assume that people really don’t care. The strange thing is that most people seem really fascinated by the whole thing. They’re surprised that someone can actually earn money from websites and they want to know more and the questions keep flowing my way. Either that or they’re being polite!

It got me thinking about how many times I’m going to find myself explaining what I do to people I meet during my travels. As much as I love talking about earning money with my websites and encouraging people to do the same, I really think that explaining the ins and outs of the business to everyone I meet will start to suck the life out of me.

I’m thinking that I might be better off just saying I plan to teach English in China and moving on to the next topic of conversation. Who wants to talk about work anyway?

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I guess it was bound to happen sooner or later. I’ve been really well behaved of late… spending nights in, working hard on my sites over the weekend and generally just being a nerdy loser as much as possible. Well I can only take so much hiding out and this weekend I made up for it in a big way and can safely say that all day drinking benders are not good for productivity.

I’m pretty easily led astray and I’m wondering how much work I’ll realistically be able to get done once I hit the road. When I start out, the plan is to do some Couchsurfing and the whole point of it is social exchange so being an antisocial computer nerd isn’t gonna cut it. Plus I’m pretty sure I’d much rather chat to people than work anyways. I suppose I’ll have to hole myself up at a guesthouse now and then to get caught up.

I think when I’m settled with an apartment in Beijing I’ll be ok because I’ll probably be living in my own place and hopefully won’t be tempted too much. But then again, I’ll be in a new and exciting city and I’d be stupid not to take advantage of it. But I don’t plan on working a regular job so I should have plenty of time on my hands.

During the Olympics I’ll be totally screwed because it’s looking like a big group of friends will be descending on Beijing and it should be two solid weeks of debauchery. After that, the plan is to hit the road again but this time I’ll have a friend in tow and I doubt she’ll be too impressed with me wanting to hide away to work on my sites. Overall, I think the times when I’m on the move will be my least productive and it will be especially challenging when I’m travelling with a friend.

I’m going up to Scotland on Thursday for 10 days for my cousin’s wedding and the laptop will be coming with me. My parents and brother are coming over from Canada and it’ll be interesting to see if I’m able to sneak away now and then to get some work done. The whiskey will be flowing but I’m sure there will be a lot of down time in between so it will be a good test of how well I’m able to motivate myself and manage my time.

It’ll also be the first time I’ll really be using my new laptop so I’m excited to see how everything goes. Hopefully I’m not expecting too much out of what I can get done when I’m on the road but I guess time will tell.

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Well the countdown is on folks! My flight from London is booked, my last day of work is set, and the pressure is on. I’ll be heading home to Canada for three weeks on December 14th, returning to London and then jetting off to Asia a few days later to wander around aimlessly for a few years.

Though my departure date is approaching painfully slowly, I’m very aware that I have at least a hundred thousand website-related things to do before then. Add to that I’m on a mad money savings mission and it is starting to seem like I’m spending less and less time away from my computer. I think I’m becoming a bit of a recluse, actually.

Lately it seems like all I’ve been doing is hiding in my room typing my life away. I think my friends are about to disown me. Sure, I put the occasional guest appearance in now and then for birthdays and leaving parties but those crazy days of midweek all-nighters and general debauchery are long gone. I’ve changed. Do I like it? I don’t know.

While I really love this whole website development thing, I love the pub more and my internet pursuits alone would never be enough to keep me chained to my computer. I think the thing that’s transformed me from party girl to web recluse is that I’ve had that little taste of success and I want more. I now know that being able to earn a living online is definitely possible but I’m also very aware that it’s not possible without putting in a lot of work.

Being able to wander around the world at my own pace, changing my plans on a whim is what I’ve always dreamed of and anyone who loves long term travel will be able to relate. If achieving that dream means locking myself away most nights to work on my sites then I guess that’s the way it’s got to be.

Does anyone else find it easy to make sacrifices now knowing that the long term payoff is so good or am I the only boring one?

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WARNING - If you have no self control and are easily distracted do not read the following post.

Self discipline has never been one of my strong points and I’m not sure that bodes well considering that in starting in December the internet will be my only source of income. In an effort to try and see how much time I waste I’ve compiled a list of the usual suspects. I’ve really got to do something about my wandering mind because I don’t think checking stats, posting to Facebook and commenting on blogs pays very well.

The culprits:

• Google Adsense - Back when I was earning $0.40 per day I checked Adsense a million times a day. Now that I’m making more, it’s up to about a zillion.
• Google Analytics - I don’t understand most of the stats this thing spews forth but I like looking at the pretty graphs.
• Email - I am hooked on checking my email and having a whole load of different accounts really doesn’t do me any favours.
• Affiliate Sales Stats - I’ve got about 6 different affiliate programs going at the moment with only one really earning me any money. I still log into all of them a few times a day with my fingers crossed that I’ve made some massive sales. I like to live in hope.
• Blogs - I only really like blogs about blogging or travel but that still leaves plenty of choice and I’ve been discovering lots of little gems over the past few weeks to provide me with plenty of distractions.
• Forums - Before my discovery of blogs I would do the rounds on a handful of travel and webmaster forums learning a few things here and there but mostly just avoiding doing any work.
• Facebook - Crackbook. Need I say more?
• MyBlogLog - Clicking on little pictures is fun.
• 103 Bees - This cool little gadget lets me know, in minute details, what search terms people are using to find my websites. Why I need to know this or what I can do with this information I do not know.
• Technorati - I haven’t quite figured this one out yet but it looks primed to become another top tool in my quest to waste time.
• Feedburner - This is a new one and had been serving as a distraction 473 times per day but now I feel really dumb because I think it’s only updated daily proving that I truly am a master time waster.

I need to come up with some kind of plan to keep myself away from these little goodies because at the moment I think I’m wasting some serious amounts of time. Are there 12 step programs to ween me off of these highly addictive distractions?

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