What an interesting experiment. I had a great time doing so and it has been a complete eye opener to me. Here is what has happened.
After reading all the get rich quick, and make money now posts on the Internet I decided to see if it was real or not. I decided to see if it really was possible to make money quickly on line. So I set a goal. A big goal (at least to me). I decided to see if I could make $10,000 in about 4 months. This seems very possible if you read the Internet gurus, and the blogs about people who have done so.
I would not get rich, but it would prove that it could be done. I like money, and I thought that money would help us out a lot. But things change.
I was trying to do this while I was working two full time jobs. I am currently an Algebra I teacher in a Metro School in Nashville, TN. I was an Assistant Varsity Football coach who coached the Receivers in a Spread Offense, and the Outside Linebackers in a 3-3 Stack Defense. I also played a very significant role on Saturdays in planning for our opponent for the next week. For those of you in the know Receivers in a Spread Offense are a very key component. We threw for over 2,000 yards this season. Outside Linebackers (Bandits, Rovers, each defense has a different term) are a very important position on the defense.
I worked from 6:30am to 2:00 pm on academic related issues and from 2:30 to 6:30 on football issues. I woke up in the morning at 5:30am and went to bed at 9:30 pm.
So here is my time breakdown:
- 8 hours of sleep
- 7 ½ hours of academic time
- 4 hours of football time (7 hours on Saturday morning)
- 19 ½ hours dedicated to time that I could not work on the business. I really thought I could do some things while I was at school and my students were working on things. I forgot that I cared about my students and most of that time is taken up answering questions and solving 9th grade crisis’s.
- 4 ½ hours is all I had left to work on the business, eat dinner, try to stay fit (not working out too well), spend time with my wife, and be social.
So things change.
I recently spoke with the rest of the coaching staff and informed them that I will not be coming back next year. That alone frees up 4 hours a day and 7 hours on Saturday.
One of the best changes that happened is that I have a completely different view on what I want to accomplish. I no longer am tied to money. I no longer pray to the money god for guidance, a new house, and a brand new car. Those things were not the motivating factor in me becoming an independent business owner, and working from home. TIME! Time was the factor. In trying to do what I was doing the biggest thing I found was that I had no time.
Don’t get me wrong. I loved coaching. And I will coach again. I just plan on taking a year off to set up some income streams. I like teaching. But I do not see me going back in the classroom for a while. I am going to do some personal coaching and that will keep me connected with students, and able to still teach. I love getting on the Internet and developing businesses and business ideas. What I had a hard time doing was following through with those plans. I had a very difficult time staying focused on things. To me coming up with a plan is the easy part. Executing is not hard either. What I have a difficult time with is finishing.
Let me relate it to coaching. I love coming up with the game plan. I love coaching during the week. I love Friday nights under the lights. There is nothing better on earth. For those of you who have not been to a high school football game lately you should go next year. Just sit and enjoy it. They are great. The best part of Americana. Ok back on track.
Games are not the end point to me. The Championship is. The championship is the end of the season. Games individually are great but they are just one step closer to the end. The championship. In all my high school career, playing and coaching, I have always made the playoffs. It is great, and I am very greatfull for that. But we always got beat. Actually in all my high school career I have always lost to a team that made it to the finals.
I never got to finish a season. I never got to the end. I always was stopped. I don’t think that I am sabbatogeing myself toward my goal. I think that I desperately want to find the end. I desperately want to get to the end.
What is the end? The end for me is having a steady income stream that is passive. Something that I do not have to put a lot of time into to keep going. Something that will give me time. TIME TIME TIME! I like doing things. I do not like working. So I need to have something that will give me time.
Step back for just a minute.
My stats up until now are as follows:
9/9/2007 Begin $0.00
11/16/2007 Previous $345.17
12/7/2007 Gross $105.66
12/7/2007 Expenses ($49.92)
12/7/2007 Net $400.91
Which is pretty good considering I have done virtually no marketing other than social marketing.
If you look back at the stats, when I was primarily doing marketing I was making about $100 a week with just two products. I think that it is very plausible to make $1000 a week on ten products. But I decided that is not the direction that I wanted to go. Expenses were about ½ to ¾ of the profits. This still leaves you with a good income. But it takes a lot of time to keep up with them. It takes time to write the ads, and make sure that the keywords are still active. Google and Yahoo frequently change the price of keywords so it is a constant battle of changing keywords and bids to keep profits as high as possible. So I stopped doing that. It was too much work for to little profit.
What I have done is this:
- I have collaborated on two ebooks.
I have updated and revised the 3-3 Stack Defense on EZ Playbook.
I have written a book for Professor Moolah that is awaiting approval from Clickbank for marketing and sales.
- I have done a lot of back end work on Professor Moolah to get it set up for a complete learning and teaching site.
- I have in the works a complete redesign of EZ Playbook that will launch in February of 2008. This will add many interactive functions to the site and develop it into a social site for coaches, players, and fans. There is a lot of back end work being done so that the site can develop and grow in the future.
- I have done a complete custom WordPress design for http://www.trekkingaround.com and have begun the launch of the site. To do these things right it takes a lot of time.
So what is Trekking Around? It is me and my wife’s site about traveling. More specifically it is about us taking a year off and getting a boat to travel the Great Loop. A tour that will start in Nashville, TN this spring. We will travel up the Mississippi and cross over into Lake Michigan. We will go around the Great Lakes and end up in the Atlantic on the Easter Seaboard. From there we will travel down to the Bahamas or the Caribbean for Christmas and then we will either end up traveling back up to New York, or we will travel back to Nashville. That all depends on the next adventure.
As we travel we will promote Green living and run our Diesel engines on Biofuel. We are currently contacting boat manufacturers to find a live aboard that we can use in promotion and travel. We will use the boat to test the viability of Biofuel in a pleasure cruiser, and we will promote the manufacturer along our route by hosting open boat tours for people who are interested in boating, and doing so with low environmental impact.
We are far from hippies, and we are not into Greenpeace. We simply live in the environment and like it. So why not find ways that are inexpensive and low impact? We will be answering that question.
Plug plug – if you are interested in helping or sponsorship you can contact us directly at sponsor@trekkingaround.com until the site is fully up and running. Until then we hope to hear from you soon – end plug
Whew! I have done a lot. Nothing that will get me $10,000 by December 31st, but I have done a lot that will get me an income stream that will allow me to take a year to study environmentally low impact boat travel, and put my life on track for independent living in the future.
And I am Happy!
Conceive It, Believe It, Achieve It.
Coach Kip
My Grandmother who was 98 just passed away. It is very sad, but it is also a very happy time. She was ready, and had been ready. I am sure that it was very frustrating for her for the last few years. Her mind is as sharp as ever, and we as a society let them go to waste. She knew everything about everything right up to her final days. How do I know this? I visited her just three weeks ago. It is a long trip about 250 miles (about 402 km), but I am glad I saw her. We are close, probably even closer now.
It all puts things into very sharp perspective. My Grandmother was a very great lady, living from 1910 until Friday. Incredible. So what does that really mean? What did she do with her life, how did she live it? What happened in history? Heck she was married during the great depression. Her husband was told to stay home during the war to take care of his family and manage factories that supplied the war. One son was in the Airborne Rangers, another in Vietnam. One Grandson is now in Iraq. There were tremendous changes in civil rights, the economy, technology, and even transportation.
). He says don’t watch any news or read any newspapers for a few days. It is really hard to do but you have to have some self discipline to do so. Then go out to eat at a nice restaurant. When the server comes to your table tell them that you just got back from a trip and you had not seen a newspaper. Ask them if anything important has happened in the news. You will be surprised to find out that you have not missed anything.
