Relying on Desperation for Inspiration

Greetings Steemians. 

I'm on day 4 and I've taken in so much information in the last few days that I can't remember whether it was an article or a video but somewhere someone, I'm pretty sure it was @rulesforrebels, talked about the 2 things that drive success: Inspiration and desperation.   

I think its true but it kind of gave me a chill because it reminded me of a pattern I had created in my life starting very early and one that had haunted me until just a few years ago.   My greatest weakness had given rise to my greatest strength, out of desperation. Or was it that my greatest skill had allowed me to ignore my biggest weakness? Hmm. That would require some expensive therapy no doubt.  

The Trap   

The result was that I had fallen into a trap where I would allow myself to get into deep dark places. Desperate places where I would have $50 left to my name, behind on rent, no food, and no prospects for a change before some uncomfortable shit went down.   

Gut wrenching all day anxiety was the norm. Then, sure enough I would come up with a game changing idea in the shower one morning and I would literally pull a miracle out of my butt. Problem solved! What a genius. Again.   

I can't even begin to cover them all in one blog post but a classic example was in 2001. I had a successful web design business, growing every month and I was feeling really good about the future. Life was pretty good.   

Then Sept 11 happened and the web design business ended abruptly. Boom. Just like that I had no income for about 6 months. I was scouring the internet for ideas on how to survive the crash with so many people out of work. Nothing was resonating with me.    

Tic toc.   

Fast forward, it's now April 2002 and I was down to $75, had a broken windshield on a car that was dying, and was living in my office because it was cheaper than my house. The landlord was a friend who gave me a slight grace period on rent. I slept on a futon, and ate microwave food while trying to come up with an idea.    

Oh, and to add insult to injury, I collected & boiled rain water to take baths in a small plastic tub at a friend's hunting cabin nearby. I'm 6'8" so the picture of me folded up in a one of those little storage tubs might be comical some day. Maybe.   

At any rate, I knew I could build a website that would make me money. I'd done it a hundred times for other people. I could do it for me. Just what would I sell though?  

The Brainstorm   

Then, when the pressure had built to (even more) unhealthy levels, I had an idea in the plastic tub one morning. Like all the breakthrough ideas I've had, it popped out fully formed. The whole concept popped into my head and in 10 minutes I had a 'business plan' all worked out.   

And best of all I could it for $50 if I could find a bartending job to pay my bills. Again, like always, I was able to network myself into a 4 day/wk bar gig. I would spend all day working on my plan and then go to work about 4pm. No problem.   

My thinking was that with the new rise of online affiliate & mlm marketing just beginning to boom I could capture some of that business. But I had to think in terms of thousands of affiliates and not waste time trying to recruit one person at a time. Go big or go home.   

If I could find some opportunities to promote that were ethical, and environmental or animal related then I could do online mlm and not be a scumbag about it. I kind of hated mlm but there was this new thing called a forced matrix and that was my angle.   

I'll get into more detail on this project in another post but for the purposes of this one I'll summarize it now.   

Using my web design domain I created a sub domain and setup the first of its kind online marketing club. I had unwittingly entered the market at precisely the right time when the existing smaller groups had failed to produce on their promises. The natives were restless and feeling underserved.    

That, by the way, can be a more powerful opportunity than being first because you don't have to create the market. It already exists and its pissed. Like you dream about. (Look for those opportunities).   

I launched the club on a shoestring budget with no money to promote it. Using free safelists I tested ad after ad with little or no success. Then I read an article on how to write a better ad.   

Good idea. I sent the ad out to 10,000 names who I knew would never read it and went to work. That evening I came home and had 1000 members (!). Wat?   

Throughout the evening I sat there stunned as I refreshed the page and the number kept going up. 2000, 5000, and on and on. Jumping ahead, in 4 weeks I was up to 60,000 members. 8 weeks 100,000 members, and at 4 months I was at 350,000 members from 170 countries. I had the 164th busiest website in the world, and I was making more than 'sweetsssj' money every day. Crazy transition literally overnight.  

I did it again!    

No reason to examine my tendency to crash and burn. All would be fine.   

Until it grew beyond my ability to manage it. Which it eventually did. I sold off the pieces 3 years later and the pattern continued. There were sooo many lessons learned from that experience. I could write a book about it and maybe will when I learn how to write. 

The weird thing is I'm still learning lessons from that time of my life.   That story goes on and it isn't by any means the only story I have like this. There will be more. It's crazy.    

The Steemit Solution   

The amazing thing about Steemit is that it is the answer to a serial entrepreneur's dream. And especially a serial saboteur's dream. 

Everything I've learned and every skill I've attained can be put to work right here. It's my new passion, my new career, my new investment, my new bank, my new friends, and a place to learn and grow over time without needing to create a boom and bust cycle to inspire me.   

And there's no PC police to censor me! And no Zuckerberg to collect and sell all my personal info. and call me a dumb motherf'r. This place is bigger than the even some of the whales might imagine. The Steemit blockchain can literally change the world directly and indirectly. A new business model is disrupting the social media swamp and creating millionaires. 

The creators are clearly brilliant and it looks like the foundation is quickly being laid to get us to the 'ain't no turning back' phase when the risk of collapse gets less and less. It feels like we're there now. Maybe that's premature but it seems that bitcoin isn't the only store of wealth option in the crypto world any more.   

I emptied one of my little wallets into Steem Power this week. Just cashed in a little Litecoin, Bitcoin, and Ether and I'm slowly buying Steem Power. I'll watch how it performs and compare the merits of holding Bitcoin & Ether vs Steem Power. Periodically I'll share those results.  

The Moral of The Story   

In a nutshell, the moral of the story is when you rely on desperation for inspiration it's an incredibly stressful roller coaster ride of a life. Then if you become really good at it you're doomed to repeat the cycle over and over. I don't recommend it.    

Far better to take that energy and focus on the long term. Give up some short term, short lived success for the far greater and more secure returns of the longer, slower growth plan.

Next year at this time I hope to make enough on Steemit to earn a living at it. In 3 years I won't have to start over somewhere else because my Steemit account will be worth 6 figures.    

Then 7 figures? It's possible, that's the beauty of it.   

We'll see how many things in my life change as a result.  I'll be sure to let you know.

Thanks for reading. 

Jon  

And don't forget to follow @bigfatmyths