This is to compliment Clayton’s post here

It was May 2007 I think when all this nonsense started. I got myself a beautiful new MacBook. It was sweeeet. At the time it was delivered I was at home at my parent’s house in St.Andrews looking after the cat as they swaned off round the world as part of their extensive round-the-world retirement plan.

To be fair, the cat was my responsibility since I’d saved it from cat prison and certain death 10 years earlier.

So I had plenty of time on my hands to play on my new Mac in between forking out chunks of Whiskas cat-o-meat. That’s when I came across Brian’s site Start Breaking Free

I can’t remember why I was looking for this type of site but I do remember I was extremely disenchanted, bored and uninspired with my ColdFusion web development job. (yawn)

I bought Brian’s book and started having the anti-career-path-wait-for-retirement thoughts that have spurred me on since.

I didn’t start a business after reading the book and it wasn’t until October 2007 that I somehow stumbled across Ed Dale’s Dominiche course “The Art Of Buying & Selling Websites”. I succumbed to his persuasive video sales pitch things and bought the course. Hell! I can do websites! I could do that stuff.

Of course I didn’t. I would come home after work and religiously watch the lesson, take notes and then not do anything. Awesome! I would call it ‘working’. Ha.

Having consumed all of Ed’s information I felt I needed to buy more courses and fell into the “spend and watch” mindset, failing to actually take any action. It’s a bit embarrassing but I bet I’m not the only one. I started buying up internet marketing courses like they were going out of fashion. What a fool!

My Internet Marketing Shopping List circa 2008

• Armand Morin’s Internet Marketing Explained
• The Auction Genius Wealth Plan
• Everything You need To Know (more of a ‘how to get published’ thing. That the fuck was I thinking?)
• Numerous Adwords PDFs and a few other bits ‘n’ bobs that are cluttering up my hard drive somewhere long since forgotten about.

(note: I can’t recommend any of these courses)

Then eventually I settled down a bit after joining PLRPro (don’t buy it yet, they’re soon to relaunch with loads of new stuff) . The difference with PLRPro was that they were trying to get people to simply replace their income rather than make a gazillion dollars. Build 12 sites in 12 months and make $4000 a month. Sounds good to me.

Oh, and they’re straight talking Australians. Seems to appeal to my British sensibilities.

It was round about now that I got The Four Hour Workweek and kept it as a bible beside my bed. The thing about the 4 Hour Workweek is that it really is a kind of metaphor rather than a blueprint. The principles are sound but implementing them is not as easy as it sounds. Tim Ferris is a remarkable guy. Take his principles and ideas but please don’t try to emulate him. It will just lead to disappointment.

So I built about 12 sites, stuck adsense on most of them and started making a bit of money. Not much mind you. About a dollar a day.

Then I stopped building links to them and most of them just died. I am just a lazy git when it comes down to it. I’m still a member of PLRPro.

Then I heard Daniel from PLRPro recommend Mark Ling’s way of building sites. So I joined Affiloblueprint about a year ago and started building sites like www.burnbellyfat.co.uk. I made a few sales and thought cool! This stuff might just actually work.

But by the time summer rolled round last year, I was still nowhere near quitting my job. So I tracked down Sean Morrissy in the Affiloblueprint forums and joined his mentoring scheme.

It’s now coming to the end of my apprenticeship and I’ve learnt a lot. Mainly that you really do need to do a LOT of work for this stuff to work. My lazy ass is getting kicked.  You also need to invest some cash in my opinion. You need a hell of a lot of articles and you need a hell of a lot of backlinks.

Sean has taught me to build quality sites that Google and your visitors are going to like. My Green Guitar Guy site is what I’ve been concentrating on and I’m just now on the verge of starting to creep into the top 10 on Google for some of my keywords.

Then last month my boss asked me to start working part time, 3 days a week. There’s not enough work to keep you fulltime. Fair enough I thought. I really want more time to grow my business anyway. So I’m a bit skinter but more time rich. I have 4 full days a week to work on this stuff.

I’ve started outsourcing my linkbuilding to Offshore Ally (note to self, remember to pay the bill)

So that’s how I got here. When it’s not going well (and once I’ve felt sorry for myself over a few beers) I think of James Corbett’s quote:

“Fight one more round. When your feet are so tired that you have to shuffle to the center of the ring, fight one more round.

When you’re arms are so tired that you can hardly lift your hands to come on guard, fight one more round.

When your nose is bleeding and your eyes are black and you are so tired that you wish you’re opponent would crack you on the jaw and put you to sleep, fight one more round – remember that the mans who always fights one more round is never whipped.”

James J. Corbett, American boxing champion (1866-1933)

Just remember to alter any failing tactics along the way.

I estimate that I started this journey to freedom through internet marketing around 800 days ago. I reckon I’ve spent thousands of dollars on learning products, articles, websites and outsourcing. I still work a full time job. [Update: I'm working 3 days a week now]

Uncommon? I doubt it.

But not strictly necessary either.

I’m not defeated. If I don’t give up then I’ve not failed right? So I just simply made the decision not to give up.

Here’s what I’ve learned.

• It’s a LOT more effort than I thought it would be. Yes the sales letters make you think it’s easy to follow someone’s system and to be honest it is. It’s just that it takes a hell of a lot of effort to do it well.  It’ll be nice to have a 6 day weekend but I’m going to have to work for it. Creating content, commenting on blogs, forums, spinning articles, installing software, uploading images, using research software, directory submissions, adding more content, managing adwords . . etc. Takes up your time very quickly.
• You have to focus on one system. Pick a system, any system. Well ok not any. Try and find one that you trust. I recommend Affiloblueprint. It’s the one I’ve ended up following. I don’t know if that’s because I’ve learned a lot through mistakes and now I’m ready for it or because it is easy to follow.
• Quality content is essential. I used to think I could just stick up articles without editing or reading them. I was wrong. It’s much more valuable to have good quality than lots of quantity. Try spending more time on creating real value for your readers.
• If you’re still young, don’t wait. Start now. If you start now, you’ll never need to get that job that you’ll end up hating and struggling to try and escape from. Start small, start frugally and build it up over 12 months. Your friends won’t support you but they’ll be green with envy when you start travelling the world.

That’s it so far. Except that I’ve also learned that I hate link building but love building websites. So I’ve outsourced the link building.

Hallelujah.

No doubt my next 800 days will teach me even more and I might even be an expert by then.

Recently I was reading Escape 101, an ebook about location independent living and how to take a sabbatical. The first half of the book is dedicated to getting in the right state of mind and there are 4 steps to achieving this.

It struck me that these 4 steps could serve us well in our affiliate marketing efforts and as entrepreneurs, often working alone. Here they are, set in our context.

1. Desire. Identify your real reason for starting an internet marketing business. Is it to become a millionaire? Is it to replace your income? Or is it simply a challenge that you want to prove you can do? For me, I have a deep desire to stop working in my current job (sorry if you’re my boss).

   This is based on a lifelong allergy to being told what to do coupled with the fact that time is flying by pretty quickly and I’m not nearly making the most of it. Writing code and fixing databases just isn’t doing it for me anymore. Hence my desire to replace my income and free up my time. Make sure your desire evokes strong emotions in you. Our actions stem from our emotions so the stronger they are, the more action we  will take.

2. Belief. This one is key for us in affiliate marketing. Do you sometimes find it hard to believe that this stuff is actually going to work? I know I do. That’s because I’ve never done it before and my subconscious is crying out “this will never work” Couple this with the usual negativity from friends and family and it’s easy not to believe.

   But if you don’t believe, you won’t take action and you will have no success. A self fulfilling prophecy.

   Tony Robbins explains this by encouraging us to create massive belief as a starting point. Massive belief –> Massive action –> Massive results –> Even bigger belief –> Even bigger action etc. etc.

3. Vision. You’ve probably heard this before and probably because it works. I prefer to call it “Imagine”. Imagine waking up and logging in to your Clickbank account to see you’ve made $200 of sales last night. Then imagine the day when you quit your job.

   Close your eyes and let yourself drift into the feelings of success. Often I find it is even more effective to visualise the tasks that I’m going to do today to get closer to my desire. For example, instead of visualising the big house you will buy, instead visualise yourself completing all the tasks on today’s todo list and experiencing that feeling of achievement and progress.

   It results in more action which will lead to better results and more belief.

4. Determination. It was only recently that I really understood what this word means. It’s based on the verb “to determine”. You determine an outcome by making sure it happens. That’s all determination is.

   It’s not a magical attribute that only certain people have. When people say “you have to be determined” what they should be saying is “you have to make sure you determine the outcome that you want”. It’s not something you “are” it’s something you “do”. And you can decide to do it or not. We’re not born with it, or without it.

Use these 4 key thoughts to get yourself motivated to do the crappy and frustrating little tasks that we all need to do to get our affiliate businesses up and running.

I think you’ll end up enjoying those crappy little tasks after all.