My Scribe SEO review
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There’s some real meat to this review of Scribe SEO (and even a cool video) further down, but let me give you a bit of background as to why I’m writing this first. Why? Well, before you know what something can do, I think it’s important to answer the question of “Why bother?”
So:
What you have to understand about this review of Scribe SEO — a software service that helps users SEO optimize their copy (and which works with Wordpress through a plugin) — is that I’m the same guy who wrote a post called “Screw SEO,” after which Michael Martine stalked me with nunchucks for dispairaging his craft.
And yet, when Brian Clark asked me to demo Scribe (a Copyblogger project), I thought it might be cool to give it a try. But it gets more ridiculous: Today, you can find me on the Scribe site, giving a shining testimonial. So given the aforementioned “Screw SEO” mentality, you’re probably wondering what gives.
Allow me to explain: I guess I don’t really think SEO sucks per se. It’s more that I feel it sucks conditionally.
For me, most of the time, SEO feels pointless because I blog about nothing that anyone would ever search for. When I wrote “Christmas is Gay,” for instance, I wrote it because the idea seemed funny to me, not because I expected people to Google “gay Christmas” and find that post.
(Note to self: Google “gay Christmas” and see what comes up. I’ll bet it’s interesting.)
But I’ll admit it… there are times I should probably be optimizing. I have a really good aWeber tutorial that would probably be earning me some business if people could find it in the search engines. And I suppose I’d get a few more clients if I optimized for the phrase “Wordpress blog setup,” maybe.
When people pointed this out to me — that SEO and compelling content worked together and that a few SEO tweaks would essentially help me get more mileage out of what I had already written and done — my reply was always that the effort wasn’t worth the reward.
In other words: I was doing fine as it was, so optimizing was too big of a pain in the ass to be worth whatever increase in business I might see from it.
In order for me to give a shit about SEO, one of two things was going to have to happen: Either the reward I could expect from optimizing was going to have to get more promising, or doing the work to optimize was going to have to become so stupidly easy that I’d basically trip over it.
So, to the punchline: The reason I like Scribe is that it makes SEO stupidly easy and obvious.
(I’m pitching the above to the Scribe folks as their slogan. I haven’t heard back yet.)
When you use Scribe as part of your workflow, it happens like this:
1. You write a post naturally, the way you normally would, using your normal writing voice to talk about the topic.
2. As you write, Scribe is staring at you in the corner of the “Write Post” window. From the get-go, it’s yelling at you if you’ve forgotten something obvious.
3. Once you’re done writing, you click a button to analyze the post. Scribe then tells you which keywords you’re already naturally optimized for.
4. You can then decide to roll with the keywords that are already primarily emphasized (and Scribe will tell you how to do that), or you can decide to emphasize different keywords (and Scribe will tell you how to do that, too).
It’s right in your face, which is what I needed in order to care about SEO. It also uses intuitive visual cues — like, if you’re doing things right, you see green stuff up there in the corner. If you’re not, you’ll see red stuff. If you’re so-so, you’ll see some yellow. I know, I know… you’re wondering if I really need it to be this simple. The answer is yes. If I’m to do it, then yes… it has to be this simple. And I’ve found that a lot of people are like me in that way.
But enough explanation… let me show you a little video of Scribe in action. (NOTE: If you’re reading this in a feed or on Facebook, you’ll probably need to click through to my site to see the video.)
(You can also click the button in the lower-right corner to play it full-screen)
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Now, Scribe isn’t a magic bullet. It won’t get you millions of visits simply because you’ve used it but done nothing else, and won’t do all of your work for you because it hasn’t developed Hal-from-2001-style evil artificial intelligence capabilities (yet). There’s still some stuff you’ll need to do on your own, to allow Scribe to do its thing for you with the best results.
So here are some things to keep in mind:
Keyword choice matters.
At some point, you’ll want to figure out which keywords are worth targeting. If you write a post about whale oil lamp efficiency, Scribe will help you get laser-focused on those words and you’ll likely rank #1 for “whale oil lamp efficiency” in no time. But chances are nobody is searching for that term, so it’s kind of pointless.
Links matter.
As described in the video, this post is partially an experiment to see how well I can rank for the phrase “Scribe SEO review.” Because incoming links help a post’s ranking, I’m going to try my damnedest to get Copyblogger to link to this review. If they do, having an incoming link to this post from a high-authority, highly-relevant site like CB is going to help me place better. The more links you get coming to whatever you’re trying to optimize (ideally from relevant, popular sites, using your desired keywords in the anchor text), the better the ranking.
The other principles of SEO matter.
If the above two points aren’t things that you already fully understand or if you know little else about SEO, I’m going to very strongly suggest picking up a copy of IttyBiz.com’s SEO School. SEO School is by far the most accessible, most no-bullshit / no-technobabble guide to SEO I’ve ever seen. You get SEO School and Scribe and I think you’re off to a fantastic start.
In fact, if you care about SEO and write or work in an area where search engine visitors matter (”wedding photographers in oregon”, “IKEA cabinet repair”, “Wordpress tips and tricks”) I’d go so far as to suggest a full starter pack that will take you from knowing virtually nothing to being pretty damn near as optimized as you can be given who and where you are. Pick up the following and you’re golden.
SEO School: To teach you the basics of SEO quickly and easily in a way anyone can understand and implement.
Scribe SEO: To allow you, in a very intuitive and natural way, to implement the copywriting part of what you learn from SEO School.
Thesis: Scribe was designed to work as a compliement to Copyblogger’s most visible product — the Thesis theme for Wordpress. Thesis is widely regarded as perhaps the best out-of-the-box-SEO-friendly Wordpress theme currently in existence, and contains all of the code machinery that Scribe uses to work optimally.
(Note: Thesis is not required to use Scribe. You can also use Headway (which I also really like), and you can use any other theme if you install the All-in-One SEO plugin.)
The three-pack I’ve recommended above won’t magically make your site a magnet for whatever terms you want to target, but it will give you a hell of a lot better shot at it than if you just kind of dick around and don’t really have any idea what you’re doing.
For many niches, search engine traffic is EVERYTHING. If that’s you, and you’re either just starting out or if you haven’t been optimizing, invest a few bucks and pick this stuff up. Even all three together are hell of a lot less expensive than an SEO consultant, and you’ll likely be paid back quickly in new profits if you do things right.
Look, I’m going to be blunt here. Do I suddenly care all about SEO, and am I going to start optimizing everything I write? No, absolutely not. I still don’t give a shit 90% of the time because I don’t write often about stuff that is all that optimizable (like Christmas being gay). But sometimes I’ll do a tutuorial. Or I’ll create a service, or a product. And those will be things I really probably should at least try to optimize.
And now, with Scribe, I can do that without hassle, and absolutely will. So yeah, my definitive word is that if you’re like me, you should get it.
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I’m relaxing my kung-fu grip
So the point of my “Your Goals Suck” post was supposed to be that you’ve gotta be clear about what you really want when you define success and accomplishment in life, because the default is to define those things in terms of dollars when in fact the dollars may not be necessary.
But instead, I realize I kind of came off wrong, and that it almost looks like I’m advocating creating actual value in life over materialistic things, or some other hippie bullshit.
Okay, so it’s not bullshit. But I don’t want anyone thinking I don’t like me some good materialism now and again. Just because money has been everywhere from some fat tourist’s sweaty pocket to a stripper’s butt crack, that doesn’t mean that I don’t still want to fill a bathtub with it and roll around in ecstasy.
(And furthermore, since that post ended in the suggestion that I’m going to be launching a new product soon, I don’t want some Robin Hood asshole suggesting later on that I’m a hypocrite when I charge for it. YES, I will want your money when I launch that thing. NOM NOM NOM NOM tasty sexy dirty money.)
Look, I think everyone today has money issues. And I don’t mean issues like you can’t make the car payment and that mutant freak circus from Operation Repo is going to come and take your car away, but more like we kind of all have issues around money, like shrink issues, like lay down on the couch with a wad of bills while some guy with a goatee and a notepad says, “Hmm, and how did that make you feel?” issues.
Like, I think these past few years have been rough on all of us, and what we’ve all kind of learned deep inside is that money equals a common means of exchange (nobody lets you pay your electric bill with a goat anymore) and that the more you have, the better, and moreover that if you have some, you’d better grip it tight and be prepared with some kung fu shit if anyone tries to take it from you.
You know, the scarcity mindset.
I’m trying to break this mindset myself, because I do have issues with money. Money tries to control me; it gets all passive-aggressive with me; when something comes up in my marriage, it’s usually because growing up, my money didn’t love me enough. I lived the past few years in a state of chronic panic because I owned real estate investments in Cleveland, where the market dropped so fast that it actually collapsed in on itself and formed a series of interconnected black holes that now provide superior transportation to what is available via the RTA train.
Live like this for a while, with every cent you earn and a few thousand dollars more flying out the window each month, and see what it does to your hoarding tendencies. In theory, I wanted to give money to the Red Cross, but in reality, let’s see them try and pry a buck out of my hands. The local kids’ clubs would be outside the grocery store collecting for this or that and I’d be like, “Dude, get your own.”
Then I started this business that I’m doing today. And over the course of this past year, things have eased up. That hideous phase of my financial life is finally coming to an end, but now it’s like I want to hang on to my dollars for dear life anyway, and never, ever let them out of my sight.
So, to combat this, I did what most wise people do when faced with financial psychological issues. I decided to become a good tipper in restaurants. You know, to practice.
Flash to my thrilling Saturday night.
We live kind of out in the country, with the “kind of” meaning that although we do have neighbors, those neighbors have sheep out in their yard. So when we go to the areas where there are restaurants, the best places are 35 minutes away.
That’s what we did on Saturday. We drove those 35 minutes, to go to Sam’s Club to stock up, and then to go out to eat.
On the way home, the kids were asleep and so I could woo Robin by showing her how I still knew all the words to “Ice Ice Baby” (”girlies on standby waiting just to say Hi… did you stop? No, I just drove by”) but on the way out, the long drive essentially just gave my daughter Sydney a nice long time to play her favorite new car game.
It sounds like this:
She says, “Daddy.”
And you’re in the middle of a sentence, so you ignore her.
And she repeats, a bit more urgently, “Dad-day!”
And so you stop your discussion and you half-turn and say, “Yes?”
And she goes, “Birdie.”
So you tell her how that’s the most amazing thing ever and resume your adult conversation. As many as ten seconds will pass and then again she’s interrupting you urgently, like, “Dad-day. Dad-DAY!”
So you ignore her a bit, because this is like the tenth time already.
“DAD-DAY.”
So maybe you go like, “Quiet.”
“Dad-DAY!”
“Sydney, knock it off.”
“DAD-DAY! DAD-DAAAAY!”
“What? What is it? What could you possibly want?”
And she returns to her normal voice and says, “Car.”
It goes on like that for like a half hour, and then we get out and buy a bunch of stuff at Sam’s Club, and when we’re done, when we’re leaving and getting really hungry, it sucks because the Girl Scouts aren’t selling cookies yet at the exit, and that’s not cool because I want to buy some of those damn cookies already and I’m HUNGRY, and all of this despite the fact that I pre-ordered 13 boxes through my gym (and don’t even get me started on the notion that this happened at my fucking gym) and Sydney is still like “DAD-DAY!” every two seconds and Austin keeps hopping off of the shopping cart so that I run into his foot and then we try to go to this hibachi place but it’s full out the door and we end up at Ruby Tuesday and I just want some damn food already and to sit down and relax a bit, and we’d promised Austin ice cream earlier (to coerce him into skipping a sledding run we didn’t have time for) and I decide I want an ice cream sundae too at the end, because I’m tired and because the Girl Scouts are entirely too slow on delivery.
But the waiter tells me that the sundae bar is $3 for all-you-can eat, and I’m like, “I just want like one little sundae.” See, I’m getting my winter fat on, and honestly, all I need is all-you-can-eat. Plus, I’m having disproportionate concern over that $3 because, you know, every cent is vital to my family’s continued existence on the planet.
So the kid, this waiter who’s already been really attentive and generally cool and in really positive spirits despite handling a table of like a billion behind me, he says kind of on the sly that he can bring me a single-serving sundae for like $1.19 if he rings it up as the kids’ version.
For some reason, this offer is super-awesome to me. Because I’m tired and because $1.79 is apparently some huge amount of money.
I eat, I enjoy. It’s winter; give me a break.
Five minutes later, the check comes and our total is $40.14 and I mentally calculate, okay, maybe I put down five bucks for the tip.
But then I think, “Dude, this kid did right by you. And you’re not throwing money down the investment black hole anymore.” And frankly, I have this notion that being awesome and not bitching about life should be rewarded, and maybe it’s time to pay attention to that idea myself, for a change.
So I put down $50 and told him I didn’t need change.
Okay, stop here for a second, because this may sound like I think I’m some great philanthropist or martyr or something because I’m giving a few more bucks on a tip. I don’t. But… wow… paying extra for something? You get down to a tip, where it’s up to my discretion, and I give more than I have to? Wow, that’s foreign. That’s a mindbender. You get in this mindset where you pay what you’re asked, and if you aren’t asked, you don’t pay.
Remember the Red Cross and the kids outside the supermarket? They were trying to get me Lucky Charms. That wasn’t cool.
But now I think that a natural part of growth is to start circulating some goodness where you can, even if it’s in small ways like leaving a few extra bucks on a tip or tossing something in the coffee can the kids have outside of your supermarket. Like when that thing comes in the mail for St. Jude Children’s Hospital, maybe you finally write them a check. Maybe you try to remind yourself that you don’t need to hold each dollar in a death grip, so that your brain figures out that you truly believe more will come.
You know, the scarcity mindset. Like, this is how you fight it.
And a few minutes later, after the waiter kid has presumably run our check, he comes back and kind of in a low voice thanks me again, like seriously and earnestly this time. Like you get the impression that not many people tip more than 10-15%.
And I’ll admit it; that felt good. It wasn’t much, but it did feel nice to reward this hard-working kid who was pleasant and friendly and good at his job, and probably kind of needing every dollar that he makes.
I really do love the idea of charity. You read shit like this (last subhead near the bottom) and you think how awesome it would be to do. I know Naomi felt really good after that, like it did her good to do it as much as it helped the kids who’d attend the school she was going to build.
I’ve heard it said that there’s no such thing as a selfless good deed, because people who do good deeds are ultimately doing them to make themselves feel better, to feel noble, or to alleviate their own uncomfortable feelings about seeing the suffering of others. But I don’t see it that way. That’s too nihilistic. I keep talking about win/win thinking, and this is just one more example of win/win. The recipients of charity win. The giver wins. Everyone is happy.
There’s not really a lesson to this story. I was stingy as all hell for a long time, and I wasn’t going out of my way to over-tip even when the waiter or waitress was really awesome. I wasn’t giving to anyone, so I’m not exactly casting a moral imperative as I write this now.
But if you’re hanging on to each buck, consider that maybe there’s a possibility that you don’t really need to be doing so. Maybe you’re not in the dire straits you think you’re in, deep down.
If that’s the case, then tossing a ten or a twenty into the can when the Salvation Army is out collecting might just do you a world of good.
Something to think about.
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I am Johnny’s bloody fist
The following is a guest post by Nathan Hangen, who I’ve gotten to know on Twitter. He writes some good shit for some of the same sites I write for, and he offered to write some good shit for me, and so I said, “Hell yeah, dude.”
I’m trying out the guest post thing on this site recently – one from Tim Brownson a while back, this one, and two more in the hopper. It’s strange for me to have folks writing on a blog that is about me more than it’s about any topic, but this is a very cool post and fits the tone here, and it’s also kind of about me, and pulls a reference from Fight Club, which I wrote about two posts ago.
He also wrote this a few weeks ago and because I’m incredibly organized, I’m not getting to it until now, so the time references that are off are my fault. Please FedEx tomatoes and I will throw them at myself.
Dig on it.
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Johnny B. Truant is a man on a mission. He’s on fire and literally kicking the shit out of life right now.
I just logged in to the Third Tribe today and there he is…front and center…taunting me with his excellence.
He’s over at Ittybiz, Copyblogger, Problogger, and a thousand other places it seems. There’s really not a spot I can turn to where he isn’t glaring at me…laughing his ass off.
Just when I was Comfortable
It’s not that I have a problem with Johnny being awesome; it’s that now that he’s stepped up his game, I have to step up mine. It’s like a game of chess…the minute you let up is the minute that a 15 year old kid comes and beats your ass.
If he’s the Verizon guy bragging about his awesome 3G network, then I’m a shabby Luke Wilson trying to pimp a shitty network, all while making really lame jokes.
If You Can’t Beat ‘Em…Join ‘Em
So, while I’m all about expanding the pie (thanks, Chris Guillebeau), I’m also pretty darn competitive, which comes in handy when trying to stand out in a crowded blogosphere. Because of that, I like to keep my eye on the growth of other bloggers in order to give me a little extra motivation.
The problem is that Johnny has raised his game too far, and now, my normal lazy tactics don’t work as well as they used to.
As a result, I’ve decided that it might be a better idea to learn from this guy than to compete against him.
3 Steps to Kicking the Blogosphere’s Ass
1. BE DIFFERENT.
Johnny is smart enough to know that there are dozens of already successful bloggers talking about how to blog for cash. Instead of jumping in those shark-infested waters, he decided to tweak a bit and talk mainly about what he calls “personality branding,” which apparently means finding a way to make money by being “the best YOU that you can be.” What I like about this is that not only are there relatively few people who see how the tide of marketing is changing (look at the success of the “Third Tribe” mentality), but that there are very few that take it as seriously as Johnny does.
And for kicks, he somehow also tosses in setting up Wordpress blogs, as an additional service. Like, being the funny blog setup guy, too.
He’s not forcing himself into a niche that he hates in order to make a few bucks, and he isn’t using hit and run tactics to churn customers. He actually over-delivers, which is something that any service provider can learn from.
The key here? Do something unique instead of copying everyone else.
2. NETWORK TO EXPAND YOUR CONNECTIONS.
Networks are paramount to the success of any business, and to that end, Johnny has become a master networker. The guy was a nobody just a year ago, and now he’s hanging out with all the cool kids. How’d he do it?
First, he actually put money on the line to buy IttyBiz’s $400 Online Business School course when he was starting out…something that a lot of new business owners would be afraid to do. Next, instead of simply using the course, he also got in touch with Naomi Dunford, who made the OBS course, and worked out a win/win mentor/protegee relationship…brilliant move. Lastly, he continued to develop new connections and leverage the ones he already had in order to expand his network. Guest posts and phone calls…next thing you know, he’s on top of the world.
Of course, this wouldn’t have worked as well if he wasn’t good, but to be quite honest, aggressive networking still sort of works…even if you suck. (Johnny’s note: What are you saying, Nathan? Dammit.)
3. KEEP TRYING UNTIL SOMETHING WORKS.
Some of you know that Johnny was a comedy blogger for a while, but because comedy readers prefer reading and then leaving to actually spending money, it just didn’t work out. Instead of quitting, Johnny found a way to combine his personality (humor) with another skill (consulting and tech help), and then used that combination to make money by simply being himself.
Now, he can laugh his way to the bank…just because he was willing to keep trying new things.
If you read through his archives (as I did, and as any guest poster should do), you’ll see that he mentions trying different taglines and branding options to see what resonated best with his audience. Eventually, he found a combination that worked.
Lesson learned…if you aren’t constantly trying new things, then you’ll have a hard time finding what works.
A Desperate Plea
Instead of ending this post with your typical summary paragraph and call to action, I’d like to beg Johnny to take some time off to let that bloody fist heal.
Johnny, you’re like that guy at the poker table that keeps going “all in.” It’s really hard for me to continue being lazy when you keep raising the stakes.
Besides, it’s Superbowl Sunday, and instead of drinking beer and stuffing my face…I’m writing a guest post. Where’s the love man? (Johnny’s note: I love you, man.)
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Nathan Hangen is a cool guy whose email signature proves that he’s just as all over the place as the guy who normally writes on this blog, so let’s just say that you should check out his blog and follow him on Twitter and kind of see which crazy places that takes you.
Your goals suck
I’ll bet almost anything that you define success incorrectly.
Don’t worry. It’s not your fault. Today, here and now, in our world of internet and TV and McDonald’s and the Jonas Brothers and that Cling Wrap shit, it’s hard to figure out when you have it right because everyone is always shouting at you about how you have it wrong. This isn’t a conspiracy; it’s human nature. And it’s marketing. I mean, look at me: I’m telling you that you have it wrong too. You big fuck-up.
But here’s the thing: I can almost guarantee you that what you think would make you successful or happy or complete or rich or whatever isn’t what you really want. I’ll bet you’re shooting for the wrong goal.
Let me step back a bit.
I was talking to Lee Stranahan the other day (I did an interview with Lee for a series that includes Seth Godin – check it out!), and Lee has this thing about UN. Not the United Nation, but UN as in the prefix, as in “not” or “different.” As in UN-marketing and UN-schooling. And also as in UN-assisted birth, which he and his wife are into but which he’s not going to convince my wife about, ever.
And Lee and I, we share a lot of the same beliefs about freedom and about what you could, I guess, call UN-jobbing, or getting people out of the 9-5 pressure cooker and into something they love. Lee wanted to partner up on something where we’d create a program to get people out of their jobs and into their own thing in six or twelve months or whatever, but I resisted.
Because I’m like, “People are going to fuck it up. And then they’ll quit their jobs on some half-assed dream and then they’ll lose their house and be all miserable.”
See, I have this whole thing where I try to tell the truth about how — let’s be honest — not everyone is going to make a go of their big dream. A lot of people are going to fail. A lot of people are going to fail repeatedly, in fact. So to promise to get them out of a job in a certain period of time is going to be an issue for me.
But then it dawned on me: This unjobbing thing isn’t really about getting people out of their jobs, or about teaching them how to start a business that makes X dollars per month so that they can replace their income. It’s about getting them into the life they want. We sort of assume that the way to get there is to find a new source of money, then quit the job, then keep on truckin’ to Shangri-La. But there are other routes to meet a goal, and other ways to define success.
For instance.
I’ll bet you think you want money. But really… do you? Do you want green slips of paper with photos of dead presidents on them the way you’d want an original Monet if you were a collector of impressionistic art? If you got a million dollars, would you make a special box for it so that you could display it? Would you iron that cash so that it looked its best, and admire it constantly?
Or would you spend it?
I know what you’re thinking, you bastard. You’d spend it. After slaving away for that million dollars — after all the blood and sweat and tears and striving for it daily as if your life depended on it — you’d just piss it away in exchange for other stuff. You finally got your million, and now you’re letting it go again.
So yeah, you didn’t really want the million. Too bad you sacrificed so much to get it.
Nobody wants money. Money sucks. People use the bathroom and don’t wash their hands and then pick their nose and then the cat barfs on the rug and some cat barf gets on their thumb and then they sow manure into their garden and then they grab a twenty out of their pocket and hand it to you.
If you’re shooting for money, stop it. Look at the real goal. Maybe it’s getting out of your job. Maybe that takes money and maybe it doesn’t, but at least be clear what you’re really after.
It’s like in the movie Office Space. Lawrence asks Peter what he’d do if he had a million dollars, and Peter tells him he’d do nothing. He’d just lie around all day and do nothing. And Lawrence says, “Hell, you don’t need a million dollars to do nothin, man. Look at my cousin. He’s broke, don’t do shit.”
See, Peter hates his job. He wants out, but thinks he needs a million dollars to do it, to sit around and not go to work and do nothing. But doing nothing is our default. It takes work and initiative to do something, but nothing happens automatically.
Tony Robbins tells this story about going to Fiji, and seeing Americans arrive on the island in awe, and they’ll say things like, “I want to live here. I’m going to work really hard to accelerate my retirement and make enough money that I can come back here and buy some land and live in Fiji year-round.” And the Fijians just look at them like, “Dude, why would you do that? Why not just drop your old life and stay here right now?”
We don’t even know what success, or happiness, or our ideal really is. We think it’s something outside of ourselves, and that if we want to be successful, we need to get what the “successful people” out there have.
Maybe you look at Brian Clark of Copyblogger and you think you’d like your blog to be as big as his. Really? Why? Maybe what you actually mean is that you want his lifestyle, but of course that’s a joke because I doubt you know him and have any idea what his lifestyle actually is like. Maybe he lives under a bridge. That may be the case, too, based on what Sonia says*, like, “Oh, Brian lives under a bridge with some hobos.”
I think Lee, who I mentioned earlier, is pretty damn successful. He writes for the Huffington Post. He conducted an interview with director Kevin Smith that Smith says is the best interview he’s ever given. He knows this long list of celebrities that he’s too humble to name-drop unless you weasel it out of him. He made a movie. Every day, he works at home, working with film and video, with his kids and wife around him, because they home school.
But Kevin Smith isn’t impressive to everyone. As pleased as Lee is to have that “success,” other people wouldn’t care about it. I met Blake Schwarzenbach from Jawbreaker once and exchanged a few emails with James Brogan of Samiam. You probably don’t care, but those are successes to me.
Success and happiness are relative. You can’t chase role models because their values are different from yours, and what is vital to you is meaningless to others. If you refuse to give yourself credit for achieving things that matter to you and won’t feel successful until you achieve things that matter to other people, you’re going to be one confused and unhappy motherfucker.
Me, I think I’m really successful. It’s not because I’ve started making a great income lately, because honestly, most of that went down the toilet thanks to my really terrible real estate investments. It’s because of what that income is starting to afford me, which is freedom from those hideous investments and peace of mind. And it’s because I have this great family, and because we’re all healthy, and because I do stuff I like every day.
But… dude. I could have gotten the exact same results — the same criteria by which I’m currently defining success — by moving to a small town in Nepal. If I picked up with my family and moved there with virtually no money and left everything here behind to rot, I’d have peace of mind. I’d have a great, healthy family. I could find something to do all day that I’d enjoy.
If that sounds like a ridiculous scenario, look at Baker from Man vs. Debt. He didn’t move to a hut in Nepal, but his family sold almost everything and travels the world. You’d think you need millions to do that, but that’s only the case if you’re holding on to a mortgage and attachments back at your home base. You can earn and earn and save and save with the hopes of one day traveling the world, or you can set your priorities straight and do it now.
So I was talking to Lee, and we’re discussing how ideas — especially big ideas — are like Stephen King’s definition of stories as things that already exist and need only to be unearthed. And it kind of occurs to us is that in our discussions, we’re beginning to unearth something very cool, that feels new and exciting to both of us. And maybe, what we should be working toward is a way to show people how to get what they really want, not how to do something objective and externally verifiable like quitting a job or making X per month.
That, I can do. That, WE can do. From where you are now. With the resources you have, the people you know, the situation you’re in, the connections you have. It’s a thing that’s just starting to be unearthed, but holy shit is it cool from what I can see already.
* May be a total libelous fabrication
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Yes, we’re going to sell something, but you shouldn’t care about that because it’s going to be so bad ass.
