The Coach Carter Speech that begins with “Our Deepest Fear in Not That We Are Inadequate” speech can be found on the movie Coach Carter when it is spoken in the gym by the character Timo Cruz.

However, this speech was originally spoken by Nelson Mandella in 1994.

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous?Actually who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn’t serve the world. There’s nothing enlightening about shrinking so other people won’t feel insecure around you. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

Nelson Mandela, 1994 Inaugural Speech

This Coach Carter Speech is inspiring, just like the entire movie. This has to be without a doubt one of my favourite speeches of all time. Nelson Mandela was given a life sentence in jail for opposing the Apartheid regime. He was released in 1990 and soon became the president of South Africa in 1994. His story is truly one of hope in utter darkness and this speech was given at his inauguration.

Timo Cruz, who is the one who gives this speech has a similar story of hope in utter darkness. Timo Cruz is a young boy who is involved in gangs and drug dealing and Coach Carter continually asks Timo “What is Your Greatest Fear?”. This frustrates many of the players. It is not until after the death of his cousin that Timo really comes alive. When Coach Carter’s drastic methods of enforcing study upon the boys fails, and when he is about to resign from his position as coach, the basketball team makes a stand and decides to study instead of play basketball. It is in this moment of darkness in the movie that this Coach Carter Speech turns the tables.

You can buy the movie Coach Carter on DVD from Amazon.com and watch the speech by Clicking Here

This is an amazing speech that will stir the hearts of many. I personally have it on my wall to encourage me each day.

I recommend reading Nelson Mandela’s book “Long Walk to Freedom: The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela” or reading In Our Time: Speeches That Shaped the Modern World. These are both fantastic reads and will inspire you to push forward. In Our Time: Speeches That Shaped the Modern World contains a variety of famous speeches from 1945-2009 and is a great read for anyone interested in speeches similar to this one.

When you own your own blog or your own business the most important thing that you need to think about is your productivity. As a business owner it doesn’t matter how any hours you work, if you are not productive you will not make any money. Trust me, I know this first hand. I have spend countless days focusing on doing unproductive work, and I believe that is one of the major reasons that my blog is not a thriving blog today. It is instead only receiving about 60 visitors per day, which is ok, but far from great.

Both me and my wife work part time, so we are both around the house quite a lot. One of the things that I have found decreases my productivity is working when my wife or any other person for that matter is around. I get distracted and I can’t focus. I end up just staring at the computer screen, or at best playing some simple minded game like slime volleyball. Haha I just took a break then and played slime volleyball….awesome game.

We don’t all work well in the same environments. I don’t work well when there are people around. Thus in order for me to have any form of productivity I need to be completely alone. When I am alone my creative juices flow better and I can work a lot harder.

Find The Best Time To Work

I once did a survey on this blog asking people what times of the day they work most effectively. The results were shocking because 60-70% of people said that their most productive hours were outside the regular 9-5 work time. In fact over 40% of people said they work most effectively between 8pm and 4am. 

I find that the best time for me to work is around 2pm-5pm, however I also need to have the house completely to myself (as you will read below). This does not always happen between 2pm and 5pm and thus what would usually be the best time for me to work is not the best time at all.

I have recently found that working from 11pm-3am works well for me. It means that the house is completely quiet because everyone is asleep and that I can go to bed around 3am and wake up at 10am and still have had a good 7 hours sleep.

Finding the time that is most productive for you can increase your productivity immensely. I have found that between 11pm-3am I can write 3-4 blog posts, however between 9am-1pm I could write 1 blog post. Therefore working in my most productive hours can increase my productivity 300%.

Find The Best Place To Work

For me the best place to work is in a room or house that is completely empty. No one I know coming or going, just me myself and I. At the moment (due to my office being in the living room) this only happens when everyone else is at work and I am home alone. Eventually I will have my own office to go to and come home from (I am not a big fan of the home office), but for now I have found that I can get the place to myself by working late at night when everyone is asleep. As I am writing this it is actually 3:30 am.

In about a month me and Kel will be moving to a new apartment and I will be setting up my office in a room at my Mum’s house. This will mean that instead of me waiting for people to leave home so I can be alone, I can actually leave home in order to go to my office and be alone. This will help me increase my productivity a lot and will allow me to section off my time a lot more effectively than I ever have been when I have had a home office.

The best place for you to work may be completely different to what my best place is. It is important that you find what works for you.

When I am working in a living room with people in it I could probably write a blog post in 4 hours because I get distracted so much. But when I am alone I can write a blog post in just one hour. Thus being in the right place increases my productivity 300%

Combine The Two

Work at the time that suits you best, in the place where you work best and you may just be able to explode your productivity meaning you can either get a lot more done and see great results, or you can get the same amount of work done in a fraction of the time, leaving more time for you to do exactly what you want to do.

I am a big fan of ‘The Secret’ (also known as the law of attraction) that states that whatever you predominantly think about you will attract into your life. I am not going to go into detail about what the secret is, I am going to assume that you know that (if you don’t go to www.thesecret.tv). I am going to share with you a simple and practical technique that I am currently using that I have found works really well.

It is called a “Vision Diary’ and it is a very simple thing to do.

Get a Blank Book/Diary

You are going to want to have a book/diary that is completely dedicated to this technique. I started using this technique in a journal that contains a lot of other things as well and I found it was too difficult to navigate and the simplicity of the task became more complicated.

Write Short Entries Stating The Life You Want As If It Is

The secret is interesting in the way it works. The law of attraction does not understand the words ‘no’ or ‘not’. So if you are thinking “I don’t want debt, I don’t want debt” then the law of attraction will hear “I want more debt”. So I have found that the best way to combat this is to picture the life that you want as if you already have it. That way you are feeling feelings of wealth and already having what you want and therefore the law of attraction must deliver that to you.

The way I do this is that I write short paragraphs in my diary about different aspects of my life as if they have already happened and I am giving thanks for it. As I write them down I feel the feelings of already having these things and I can tell you, it feels absolutely amazing.

Here are some examples of things I have written down:

• Money isn’t an issue anymore because I earn more than enough money just from running my personal blog. I am really proud because I get to write and connect with people everyday and I don’t have to worry about being able to pay the rent or put food on the table. I am doing what I love and earning great money while doing it.
• I am building wealth every week and gaining cash flow by doing this. I feel extremely relaxed about our financial situation.
• I feel creative again and internally happy. My life is exactly as I want it to be
• We own our own home now and are renovating it while living in it with our son who is one year old and is now starting to talk. My life is really exciting and I am having fun everyday. I love my family so much.

As you can see they are very short and to the point. There are a few things you need to do in order for this to work effectively

State each thing as if it already is - I have already talked about this, but this is important. If you are stating things saying that you want them to happen (instead of ‘they have already happened) then you are going to attract circumstances into your life that keep you wanting. By pretending that you already have you are attracting circumstances to confirm the fact that you have what you want.

Be specific - Get specific about the things you want. Don’t just be extremely vague and say “I want to be rich”. What does rich mean to you? Get specific and state exactly what kind of house you want, exactly what kind of car you want to drive, exactly what type of lifestyle you want to live.

Recognize the feeling - If one of your dreams came true how would you feel. You need to work out how you would feel and be able to put that in writing. By feeling the good feelings of already having what you want you are attracting circumstances into your life that will produce those good feelings. So get good at talking about your feelings.

Go Back And Read Over Your Entries

The diary works great not just while you are writing the things you want but it is a great resource to go back to and use to visualise what you want as if it is your. The problem I have with using the secret is that I will use it for a day, but then a week later I can’t remember what I want and thus I cannot visualise it. By having a diary handy  can go back to it whenever I want and read through the situations that I have already stated I want to happen. This makes it much easier to focus and to visualise.

 

This is a fairly new technique that I thought of myself (someone else could have done it but I have never heard of it) and I am still just testing it out. I will continue to use this technique as much as I remember and as results occur I will be sure to update you on them.

If you want to make money then it is important that you begin to start thinking like a business man. I have been treating my blogging as a hobby for too long and it is time that I start treating it like a business so I can see some real growth. Below is a list of things that I believe I need to do in order to start treating my blog like a business.

Treat Your Blog Like a Business

If you want to make as much money as a businessman makes then you need to start thinking of your empire (for me it is my small but growing blogging empire) as a business. I can no longer just think of them in terms of blogs I need to start thinking of it as a business as a whole.

Looking at the big picture and thinking of them like a business really changes the way you do things. For me it has meant that I am going to be putting more hours into my business, and be focusing a lot more on the key tasks that need to be done.

Look at Results Not Time Spent

This is one of the mindsets that I am trying to change in my life. When you are an employee you get paid by the hour, whether or not you do a lot of work. I work in a newsagency selling lotto and some days it is really busy (like when there is a $40 million super draw on) and some days it is pretty quiet (sundays are usually quiet when I work). But no matter how busy it is and how much I do or sell, I get paid a standard rate.

When you are a business owner you only get paid for productive hours that you do. So you need to start getting really smart about the way you spend your time.

For example, I have gotten really smart about the way I spend my time online. Instead of commenting on 20 blogs, and 20 forums everyday to gain traffic I have simplified my work to one major task…writing blog posts. Writing blog posts achieves everything I want to achieve.

• It brings in new customers
• It brings back old customers
• It helps me build my aweber subscriber list
• It helps me make money with advertising
• It helps me increase my traffic and pageviews
• It helps me increase my RSS subscribers
• It allows me to communicate and connect with people

What I was previously achieving doing a lot, I am now achieving doing just one task. Because I realised that I needed to focus on results, not time spent.

Build Leverage and Use It Always

Building leverage is essential if you want to have a growing business. If you have something of value then you can leverage other people’s resources and more importantly other people’s time.

Obviously the absolute best resource that you can have to gain leverage is money in the form of cashflow. Money allows you to pay people to do tasks that you yourself don’t want to do. I have two blogs that I don’t want to write a huge amount of blog posts on, but I need something of value to leverage people’s time so that I can get other people to write articles for me.

I don’t have money (as I mentioned) but I do have something of value. I have a blog with a large readership. I can use this fact to gain leverage over people and get them to do things for me. For example I have been getting people to write articles for my other blogs in exchange for a paid pitch on my blog or in my email newsletter. This is working great and so far this has gained me 15 new articles and I am gaining more and more articles every week.

If you don’t have leverage then you are doing everything yourself and this is a horrible way to run a business. By failing to gain leverage and use it you are choosing to become a slave to your business, rather than to allow your business to build without you doing anything.

In the next 6-12 months I am going to continue leveraging my blog in order to gain articles for my new blogs. I am then hoping that my cashflow my increase slightly and that I will be able to use money as a form of leverage. Then I can have Landscape Photography School run all by itself without me writing articles and then I can just do guest articles every now and then or I can display some of my photographs for fun.

Remove Yourself From The Equation

This is a really exciting part of building a business. The goal is not to be the boss and work 12 hour days while earning a lot of money, the goal is to be the owner and have controlling interest in your business, have loads of free time and enough money to realise your dreams.

My old business model did not allow for this. My old business model was based on MY blog, MY products and MY input. I was just running one blog, this one (RyanMcLean.net) and attempting to earn an income from that. But this is a failed business plan because it means I am constantly having to work my ass off to blog everyday. No one wants to visit a personal blog to read what someone completely unrelated to that blog has to say.

So I am in the process of slowly changing my business model. I say in the process because I have not fully worked out exactly what I want to achieve. But I have started 2 new blogs that will have a much larger focus on search engine traffic and will be designed so that I never have to write a blog post if I don’t want to. I know this will take time to build (I am thinking 2-3 years) but eventually it will take me out of the picture and I will earn the money but be doing a small amount of the work. This will then free me up to do whatever I like.

Treat Work As Exactly What It Is…Work

When you are running a home business like I am it is easy to start treating work as a hobby and fail to be self disciplined. It is especially hard for me at the moment because my office is not even an office, it is literally in the corner of a living room where everyone lives. I can’t just shut the door and go to work, therefore it is hard for me to treat my blogging as ‘work’ and thus I don’t really get much time to blog, I can only do it when everyone is asleep or out of the house.

I plan to fix this shortly. Me and Kel will be moving into a one bedroom unit in around a month and then I will be setting up an office (in a room) at my mum’s house (she is out most of the time). This will than allow me to go to work and come home from work. This will help me get more done and will allow me to treat my business like anyone else would treat their work.

 

These are some things that I am trying to implement with my blog and I would love to hear any comments you may have.

I have been thinking a lot about the future of my online business. I never got into the online business world because I had a desire to make a lot of money. I wanted to be able to do what I loved to do and earn enough money to live happily. I wanted to escape the 9-5 and work whenever I want and wherever I want.

Recently I have fallen into the trap that so many other people fall into when they are trying to make money online. They fall into the trap of focusing on making money. If you have the belief that it is money (and lots of it) that will make you happy then you are kidding yourself. Nothing can make you as happy as living a life with purpose.

In the last few months I have noticed myself getting more and more depressed inside, kind of like I am carrying a heavy burden. I love my life, I have a great wife and I have sufficient free time and enough money (just), but I have been feeling down and out a lot. I have been wondering a lot about what could be causing this. Could it be hereditary, do I need to exercise more, do I need to read more, do I need to listen to a motivational speaker, do I need to stop working in the internet marketing niche and start something new?

Then on Sunday we had a visiting preacher to our church. His name was Ken Duncan and he was an Australian photographer (and Christian obviously). He gave an inspirational talk while his photos rolled through on the big screen.

I have always been a huge landscape photography fan ever since I went to Western Australia in 2006 and saw Christian Fletcher’s art galleries. The way the colours and the landscapes made me feel was intense. I instantly bought a few photos from the gallery and a photo book with a huge collection of Christian’s best photos in it.

I then began to get more into photography and landscape photography. I got an $800 digital camera that wasn’t an DSLR but it was top of the range before DSLR’s. I then started taking some photos. Photos of people and landscapes or just landscapes and I found out that I was actually fairly talented at creating interesting photography. I was happy and inspired enough to get up some mornings at 4am to go and take photos.

However, over the last 12 months I haven’t taken barely any photos at all. My wife has been disappointed because she loved the photos that I was taking, but I just couldn’t be bothered. But recently I have been getting this sinking feeling more and more and the thought of getting back into photography has been growing on my mind as an option to make me feel better again. Then when Ken Duncan gave his talk at my church it was like a light went off inside of me and I was happy again.

Ken gave the talk on Sunday and yesterday (Thursday) was the first say I went out and took photos. We only own one car and Kel had it so I had to ride my bike to the beach to take photos. But I felt alive again and excited to be me. Then when Kel got home she commented on how different I was and how I looked really relaxed and happy (and she didn’t even know I had been taking photos).

It seems clear to me now that landscape photography is always going to be one of my passions. Making money online is a passion that may come and go, as are many other things like playing guitar and playing soccer. But I truely love landscape photography from deep in my heart so I know that it will be a passion for life.

So I decided (yesterday) that I may as well do something with this passion of mine. Thus Landscape Photography School has been born. It is not much in terms of a photographic resource yet, and I don’t have the skills and knowledge to turn it into one right away, but it is something that I can chip away at over time. I created it as a place to share everything I am learning in the context of landscape photography. It is a website designed to specifically teach landscape photography and thats all.

With time it will contain how to tutorials, camera reviews, photoshop tutorials and much much more.

I haven’t created this site as a way to make some quick money online. In fact I don’t expect to make any money from it for at least 2 years. But it is a place I can share what I have learnt, and a place I can share my photos and hopefully inspire others into landscape photography.

The best thing is that now I feel like my passion has returned. I am happier all the time, and I feel warmer and brighter on the inside. I am really looking forward to this new adventure and new way of life.

I have been thinking a lot over the last few days about the future of this blog and the future of my career online. I have been spending a fair amount of time working online and I have only seen limited success, which makes it hard to continue working with as much energy and enthusiasm as I currently do.

Money has been hard to say the least. Me and Kel have temporarily moved in with my mum while we get our heads around our finances. We have been here about a month and are saving up to move out mid-late July. It has been really helpful because we have had no rent to pay so we can control our debts a little better and get a handle on how to do things. Before that we were just over our heads and had absolutely no cash.

I have been really struggling to make money online doing what I love (blogging), and this has really discouraged me (almost to the point of wanting to throw in the towel). The lack of cash-flow (because I have been working on my site but not earning anything) is really taking its toll and thus I have decided to work more at my part time job in order to earn a more substantial income.

I have been tossing up a variety of options of what my new step could be. I decided to list them below for you guys to know where I am at, and also because writing helps me work out what I want to do. Many times I have made decisions based on just writing it down, and often readers comments will change my decisions also. So any comments are much appreciated.

I Could Sell The Blog

This is one of the options I have been weighing up heavily. I have been considering packing up and selling the blog and then taking some time to think and find something new. I could easily move my blog back over to smarterwealth.net and then sell it on SitePoint for $3,000+. This would give me a nice little emergency fund for me and my wife and would allow me to break free and think about stepping into a new area of internet business. Maybe a new blog or a new service or something.

I Could Start a New Blog

I have been tossing this up. I have spent 12 months working in the Making Money Online niche and I haven’t had much success. Maybe I need to ditch it and start a new blog in a new niche. I am a big fan of landscape photography, so I could start a blog in that niche. I also have another blog in another niche (one I haven’t told you much about) and I could focus my energy on that blog, which after a month and 20 articles (written by others) it is getting 4-8 visitors/day. I am also a fan of surfing and a variety of other things that I could start my own blog on.

The problem is that starting a blog is the hardest part. The first few months are hell, you barely get any readers or any subscribers and you are almost guaranteed to make absolutely no money. This is turning me off ditching my blog completely and starting a new one.

I Could Keep Blogging As I Have Been

I could continue blogging unhappily as I have been, trying to churn out useful information for you all. But writing about things that I don’t really care about (and I don’t think my readers even care about). 

I Could Keep Blogging Here But Change My Direction Slightly

I moved my blog from SmarterWealth.net to RyanMcLean.net for two reasons. One I wanted to build my name as my brand and two I wanted to have the ability to blog about whatever topic I want. Typically this blog have been a Make Money Online blog, but because I have failed to make any money online it kind of defeats the purpose.

However, I am still passionate about finances so I want to continue to learn and write in that area of things. However, I want to find a way to incorporate more of my spirituality into the blog. I am not talking about turning this blog into a spiritual blog but I am definately thinking about exploring more of what the Bible says about money and finances.

So I am certain that I am not going to sell my blog, but rather continue to build it and allow it to change as I change. I will still talk about making money online (even though my success has been limited I believe I have a lot to say on the matter) however, I will be talking some more about personal finance and biblical principles about finance.

I am excited for the new season of my blog and I am sure that it is going to lead me to create better content than ever before and build a better blog that ever before.

Use Leverage To Build New Blogs

As I mentioned above starting a blog and building it in the first few months is the hardest thing to do. Once your blog is up and growing it then gets a bit easier from there. But what if you never had to spend a few months getting your blog off the ground?

I am going to use this blog as leverage to hire writers and to get articles written for some blogs that I am wanting to begin. I have one blog that is currently in operation and I have a blog on photography that I am keen to begin. However, at the moment I don’t have the head space or the will power to slug away at these blogs until they start building, so I am going to get others to write for me and then come in later and begin to really build the blog. Having some established traffic will allow me to build the blog a lot quicker once I begin.

 

So as you can see things are a little up in the air in my life. I am pretty sure I know what I am doing though, and I am going to ride this out. There are so few successful people in the world (people who are living their dream…not to be confused with rich people) because it is quite difficult to do, therefore many people give up. I am not ready to give up yet and I am going to keep trying until I succeed.

I am currently working my way through The 4 hour Work Week one chapter at a time. Every sunday I am writing a review of one chapter and what I have learned and how it can help me make money online. If you would like you can read my review of the introduction that I wrote last week.

The 4 hour Work Week is an incredible book that teaches and encourages you to find a way to work less and live more. That is exactly what I plan on doing with my life and exactly why I want to get everything I can out of this book. In a couple of years time when I have children I want to be able to work minimum hours (and still earn a decent income) so I can have time to spend with my kids and watch them grow up. I don’t want to be working like a dog in a job that I hate for the next 40 years just to support my family.

If you are anything like me then you will have similar goals and dreams of escaping the 9-5 and being able to live anywhere and work minimal hours.

Chapter #1: Cautions and Comparisons

The chapter begins with an interesting story of when Tim Ferris (the author) was on a flight towards Las Vegas. He meets an extremely rich man in 1st class who begins to tell him that himself and his friends would usually lose $500,000-$1,000,000 on a weekend in Las Vegas. The man is extremely good at printing money and once owned a lot of Gas Stations, Convenient Stores and Gambling in South Carolina. However, when asked what business was his favourite he said that none were his favourite and he hated all of them.

This man has spend his life working in a job he hated to buy things he didn’t really need or want. This is exactly what I don’t want to be and I hope you don’t want to have this life either.

 

The 4 hour Work Week uses the term “The New Rich” to describe the new way of getting rich by working less. The New Rich and the Deferrers (people who work their whole lives saving up for retirement) are separated by their goals and values. The book makes some great comparrisons between the values of the Deferrers (D) and the New Rich (NR). I will just like a couple that struck me:

D: To work for yourself
NR: To have other people work for you

This is the first comparrison that is made between the New Rich and the Deferrers and it completely struck me. If I have the goal to work for myself then I am going to be working hard my whole life. However, if I have the goal to have others work for me then eventually I will be working less and less and earning more and more.

I plan to do this through outsourcing a variety of different things. I would go into detail on this but I have already written a post about things that I would love to outsource. Within the next 3-5 years I plan to outsource a lot of things that I do online.

D: To be the boss instead of the employee; to be in charge
NR: To be neither boss nor employee but owner.

This is similar to the goal above but it takes it to the next level. A lot of people have the goal of being in charge and being the boss. But being the boss means you will need to do a lot of work. Instead, you want to be the owner and pay someone else to be the boss and do all the hard work for you.

Eventually I want to own a variety of blogs and online businesses that I can hire people to be the boss of, while I can simply own the companies and reap the benefits. All it takes to be the boss is a really good idea, and the ownership rights for that idea. I know that in the next 5-10 years I will come up with loads of idea to make money that do not require my direct input.

D: To reach the big payoff where you no longer have to work
NR: To keep the big payoff in mind but to ensure that money comes in everyday. Cashflow first, big payout second

The Deferrers waste the best years of their life preparing for when that big payout comes and they no longer have to work. The New Rich live in the moment.

Getting a payout of $1,000,000 means you can earn $100,000 per year (at 10% p.a.) and you never have to work again. However, if you are part of the New Rich you could own a company that brings in $100,000 per year without much of your input. You achieve the same goal of having a lot of money and not having to work for it. Only very different methods are used to achieve this goal.

The big payout is not the goal at all, it is the freedom that comes from the big payout that is the goal. The New Rich understand this and live by this. I plan to focus on generating daily cashflow from my blogs, not creating a great blog and making no money then selling it for $1,000,000 one day.

The chapter gets even more interesting when it goes on to talk about the value of money and time.

The value of money is multiplied depending on the amount of W’s you control in your life. What you do, When you do it, Where you do it, and with Whom you do it. These W’s give you freedom and without the freedom that these W’s give you your money is worthless.

If I worked 80 hour weeks and was earning $500,000 per year I would have a lot of money, but no time to do what I want with it. What I want to achieve is to be able to work 10 hour weeks (2 hours per day) and earn around $50,000 per year (to start with). This would give me ample time and money to do this things I want to do and to live a productive and happy life.

Wouldn’t you rather have all the time in the world to do what you loved instead of working a job that you hate? That is what I am getting out of this book so far.

It is so important to think outside the box and to find ways to living happier. That might mean taking a paycut so you have more time with your family. More money doesn’t mean a happier life. You need to work out for you what will make you the happiest.

Grab A Copy of The 4 Hour Work Week Today and read it for yourself.

There are certain things that you need to do if you want to be a great blogger. There are certain things you must do to attract readers and to keep readers. Over the next few weeks I am analysing 5 A-List bloggers and seeing exactly what they did right and how I can apply that to my blog (and how you can apply it to your blog).

I have already done a case study of ProBlogger and we found out some really interesting things about what made Darren Rowse so successful. This week I am going to be taking a look a John Chow’s blog. The man has taken the Internet Marketing niche by storm in just a matter of years and has nearly 50,000 RSS subscribers as I write this post. He makes around $40,000 per month from his blog, which is around $500,000 per year. That is an incredible wage by anyone’s standards. The man has had a lot of success and I want a piece of that pie so I am going to do everything I can to learn from him.

Started As A Personal Blog

John Chow Dot Com is percieved by many to be a blog all about Internet Marketing and making money online. However, if you cut it down to the core it is a personal blog about John and his interests. 

When you start a blog one of the things you are told not to do is to start a personal blog. After all who really wants to read about what you ate for dinner? It is extremely difficult to make a personal blog a popular blog, but somehow John Chow has done it.

This is one of the biggest mistakes in the book that most newbies make. Lots of topics all to do with your personal life, not one single focused niche. By all means John’s blog should not have grown to what it is today. But he had one thing in his personal life that everyone wants more of. MONEY

John Chow, even before blogging, made a lot of money and when he started making money from the internet he also started talking about it on his blog. This drew a lot of attention to himself and soon enough people looking to make money online were visiting his website.

If you are going to start a personal blog then you need to have something very desirable in your life. John had money, and the ability to show people how to get money. I think that is why his personal blog defied the odds and came out on top.

Quality Content? Not Really

John Chow’s blog does not have extremely high quality content like ProBlogger does. In fact if you are reading John Chow’s blog to find out how to make money online then you are wasting your time. The blog is filled with the most random of subjects, such as what John ate for dinner, what events he went to, the latest camera he is using. Then every now and then he writes a good article or two.

This is something I cannot wrap my head around. Why would a blog be so popular and make so much money when the quality of the content is B-Grade. I believe it is because a lot of readers can relates to John and his mindset and a lot of them want what he have. People are drawn to success when they want success for themselves, and John Chow is extremely successful so it makes sense that people are drawn to him.

Entwined His Personality

Because John has a personal blog he has been able to throw his personality into it a lot, and people has responded well to that. If you read John’s blog then you know what he likes and dislikes, what he eats, what festivals he goes to. You get to know a lot about his personality.

People read blogs for a number of reasons but one of the reasons is to connect with people (even if it is a subconscious reason). With John’s blog you are able to connect with him well because he wears his personality on his sleeve for everyone to see. 

Got Google-Bitch-Slapped

A while ago Google found out that John Chow was selling links on his website and they Google-slapped him. They Google slapped him so much that if you type “John Chow” into Google his website is no where to be found.

For a lot of A-List blogs a large portion of their traffic comes from Google. I remember reading Problogger’s traffic stats over a year ago and he said that 40% of his traffic was from search engines. I don’t imagine John Chow’s traffic to be any different.

Because of his Google-slap John Chow lost ALL of his Google search engine traffic. That is a lot of traffic to lose and would have a detrimental impact on almost every blog.

But somehow, John Chow rose above and came out on top. The Google slap got him a lot of publicity and thus traffic to his blog. If this had of happened 4-7 years ago John’s blog would have been dead in the water because the only way people found information online was through the search engines. But now the web has changed and people find information from other sites other than the search engines. Social networking like Digg and Stumble Upon bring in a lot of traffic for blogs, and John’s is no different.

Single the Google-Slap John’s blog has continued to grow (and grow quickly). Google still hold a lot of power when it comes to sending traffic, but the power is shifting and John Chow is a testament to that fact. Even if you get no search engine traffic at all you can still grow your blog and succeed as a blogger.

I for one do not want to have the same fate as John Chow and thus I have ceased selling Do-Follow links. I for one want the traffic from Google, so I will do my best to abide by their guidelines.

Multiple Posts Per Day

John Chow has been posting an average of 3 posts per day since he started his blog over 3 years ago (December 2005). The more times you post on your blog the more times people will check your blog for new content. John has been posting so often that he gets a lot of people checking his blog 1,2 or 3 times per day (or even more). 

If you look at a lot of A-List blogs you will notice that a lot of them post multiple times per day.

When I use to post 3 times per day I noticed that my blog was growing quicker than when I just posted once per day, but truthfully I cannot keep the consistency I need to post that often. That is why I have chosen to bring out one quality post, once a day.

If you have the willpower to post 3 times per day then go ahead and do it, but if you don’t that’s fine also. Posting multiple times per day did work for John Chow though and it is part of the reason his blog is so popular.

Consistency

I have said it once and I will say it again, consistency builds your blog. If your blog is not updated on a consistent basis then people will never know when to check your blog for new content and thus they will stop checking it all together. I have experienced this the bad way. Due to my inconsitent blog posting I have gone from once having 200 visitors per day to having around 30 visitors per day. However, now I am posting at the exact same time everyday, and I am doing it everyday without fail. I plan to use consistency to build my blog.

As I mentioned above John has been posting 3 times per day everyday (almost) for the last 3.5 years. That is a pretty consistent score. This consistency has meant that his readers always know that there will be new content on his blog 3 times throughout the day. I am a reader of John’s blog myself and knowing that there will be new content encourages me to check back to his blog more often then I would a blog that only posts once every 3-4 days.

This keeps me as a reader because I am keeping his blog in the forefront of my mind. Reading the blog becomes a habit and thus it will be hard to lose readers once reading your blog becomes their habit.

Made a Lot Of Money First

Even before John started blogging he was driving around in a $100,000 car. That is more than most of us hope to earn in just one year.

He wasn’t one of the people who started a Make Money Online blog in the hopes to make money (admittedly that is how I started blogging). He was making a lot of money already and then started blogging about it. If you want to build a blog quickly then be making money already, and then blog about how you did it.

He Clearly Loves To Blog

John Chow is an incredibly smart man and he could be doing a million and one things with his time, but yet he chooses to blog. It is clear that he loves blogging.

I believe that if you want to be truly successful at something you need to love what you do. I wrote a post recently about how focusing on making money actually lost me money and how we should focus on doing what we love to do.

Find your obsession, make it your proffession, and you will never have to work another day again

John Chow has found something that he loves to do and he has done it so well that people are willing to pay him large sums of money to do it.

In Conclusion

If you were to go down the same road as John Chow I somehow don’t think you will be as successful. How does someone that writes a personal blog with average quality content build a large following. Not to mention that he has lost 100% of his Google traffic. If any other person had tried to do what John has done I would assume that they would fail. But John’s personality and his consistency has established him as one of the A-List bloggers of today.

So if you want to be an A-List blogger then blog consistently, regularly, and put your personality into your blog. It also helps if you already make a lot of money before you start blogging also

Yesterday I wrote a post on whether or not you should actively promote your blog or if you should just focus on writing good content. I promised that today I would give you an update on the effects of writing good content.

I was inspired to write good content after seeing my blog not grow effectively for a good 12 months because I was focusing on promoting my blog and my articles were left by the way-side. My blog income was in the negatives and basically as an online entrepreneur I was doing extremely poorly. I decided to change my game plan completely by ceasing all self-promotion and simply focusing on writing quality content that people would want to read.

I am still a long way from creating the quality of content that I want to. I know that I can write better and create a better blog that I currently am, but it is a work in process and I am learning and getting better everyday.

Traffic

Below is the traffic data of ryanmclean.net for the last few weeks.

I changed my gameplan and began writing good quality content on the 23rd of May. Before the 23rd of May traffic was hovering between 30-40 visitors per day. Once I started writing good content it took 4 days before it started to show any sign in the traffic coming in.

As you can see from the stats traffic has been up and down since writing good content, but it has definately increased. I am now getting an average of about 71 visitors per day. That is not a whole lot of visitors but that is a 100% increase on the amount of traffic I was getting before. I am still doing the same amount of work (probably less), but I am getting a lot more results.

Income

Last month I had a negative income but since writing good content I have been having much better results with income. 

I have made 1 sale of 31 Days to Build a Better Blog, and 1 sale of the Thesis Wordpress Theme. I have also made a tiny bit of money from clicks on my Bidvertiser ads.

31DBBB Sale – $8

Thesis Sale – $28

Bidvertiser Ads – $1.05

 

So as you can see by focusing on writing good content instead of focusing on promoting my blog I have not only increased my traffic but I have also increased my income.