I started reading this article thinking it was like any other 'how to travel the world and live cheap'. When I got halfway to see that he quit his job, moved to Mexico and has a successful business all while living with MLA I was astounded.
Really shows you what anyone can do if you simply have enough tenacity and dedication.
This is what is wonderful about the internet, and the written word overall. The ability to communicate with people without their disability being "present" unless they choose so must be so powerful. A lot of respect for this guy, making the break is pretty scary without thousands of dollars of medical expenses hanging over you!
The author is selling people on living his lifestyle, a lifestyle he gained by telling people how to live his lifestyle.
These sorts of bloggers constantly talk about 'changing the world' but ultimately they aren't promoting people to build useful products and services, but to step up and join the blogging wealthy.
Are there people making good money blogging? Of course. The problem is in the 'token' people who sell marketing and blogging, but show little promotional ability outside of marketing and blogging.
These types of posts attract those who are susceptible to 'magical thinking', that somehow if you motivate yourself hard enough, that you will achieve whatever you want. While some level of motivation is necessary to kick start action, too much motivation is a crippling addiction that turns individuals into self-help cult members who follow every move of their marketing guru.
I think you'll find that the article is saying: decide on your goals, be determined and work hard to obtain them, and quitcher bitchin'. I didn't discover any mention of magic.
This article is a double edged sword. Sure it contains a 'pick yourself up by your bootstraps' call to action but the other edge is that they are marketing the exact solution to the problem that they created in the post (that you aren't happy).
No, I believe that I do get what you're saying. I just don't agree that the message preaches magical thinking. It very clearly depicts a process of deciding on a goal, and focusing your efforts (actual efforts) to obtaining that specific goal.
In this specific case, you seem to me, to be off-put by the fact that he hustles with motivational speaking to obtain his goals. I think, personally, that the very hustle is a great example of why he should be listened to - he's very clearly determined and focused.
That doesn't mean he's advocating his exact profession, and it doesn't mean he's telling people to sit around and let the cosmos give them gold stars for thinking positively, does it?
(Edit: Aside from the blogger relationship, though, I'm curious as to what the article has to do with this site, I'll admit.)
I don't think the post is meant to be just generally motivational, he lays out specific tasks that people should do that align with what he did. He isn't just saying 'go out and live your dreams.' He is saying 'go out and live my dreams.'
"You want to quit your job and become a professional blogger?
You can.
You want to travel around the world, living life to its fullest?
You can.
You want to dedicate your every hour to helping people and making the world a better place?
You can."
I hate it when I agree with both sides of an argument :-)
So on the one hand this guy is clearly in the 'make money stuffing envelopes by selling information about making money stuffing envelopes to other suckers' genre of advocacy. That being said, he was in a place that is probably worse than what the average reader is in and is now much happier with his life now that he has 'taken control of his life.'
I read his story and liked how he discovered he was being held back by his own pre-conceptions of how he "should" be living his life. Now that he's doing something he loves doing he's both happier and more successful than he has ever been. Score one point for doing what you love.
The cautionary tale is that his 'recipe' won't work for everyone, and probably not for a lot of someones. Writing, like drawing, or programming, or fine carpentry, or any of a number of things takes dedication to learn to do well and hours and hours of practice. If you don't love to write, trying to re-make your life as a blogger is going to fail and fail big. So exhorting people to "Do what I did, be a blogger!" is ultimately bad advice for the verbally challenged. (I guess in that regard he's not helping people but we'll set that aside for a moment)
It does also reinforce the notion that one's quality of life is most affected by your attitude about it. I had an opportunity to hear a great commencement speech from Doug Ulman (CEO of Livestrong Foundation) where he very eloquently put that into perspective, his advice to accept that you aren't in control and to live fearlessly is solid advice, regardless of your gifts.
I've always called it and its many nuanced brethren irrational exuberance or the kumbaya effect. Lots of talk of daisies and success that's easy to come by, but little actual action by the audience of posts like these. I'm aware I'm probably using Greenspan's words incorrectly, but I feel it accurately conveys and paraphrases the general idea.
I agree in principle that claiming the path to A is by doing B is generally a pyramid scheme situation. However, this author came across differently because of his specific situation. I read it more along the lines of the Randy Pausch quotation about brick walls keeping us from achieving what we want.
'The brick walls are there for a reason. The brick walls are not there to keep us out; the brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something. The brick walls are there to stop the people who don't want it badly enough. They are there to stop the other people!'
It's also important to note that almost every self help guru has a sad story about their former lives, then goes on to tell you how they used their 'system' to pull themselves out of it. This post is a classic example of that type of storytelling.
A colleague of mine signed up for an MLM a few years ago (He was broke at the time). He put massive effort into it and now makes more than $50K per month pretty much without working.
Would I do it? No. Do I recommend it? No. Can it work? Absolutely.
As far as I know, he has developed a network of websites (all outsourced) that filter the prospects (they have to go through a series of videos and tests or something along these lines), then those warm leads get in touch with one of his "leaders" which explains the program and so on. If they sign up for it, he has a new person in the downline, recruiting more people for him.
Could be untrue, though he's always traveling with his family all over the world and I know his income is at least $50k/mo
Everything in that story could be true ($50k/month, recruiting through web sites, outsourcing, traveling with family all over the world, etc.), but I'm sure he works a lot and thinks about his business most of the time.
I'm sure people on HN also know folks who won the lottery after playing it for years. The odds are still well and truly against you. Very few benefit, mostly the manufacturers of the dream.
Actually, I've met two people that won the lottery. Both were broke a few years after they won.
I've never been involved with an MLM, and I don't plan to either, but I think it can't be compared with winning the lottery.
Your efforts/connections/skills play a big part in being successful in an MLM.
EDIT: And by the way, after thinking about it, the same could be said for any environment in which you don't control the rules of the game, such as the app store. The odds are against you, and the one who benefits the most is Apple.
I agree with you on all points. The guy is on top of a pyramid scheme where there's only room for a few. However, it is posible to live a quality life in third world countries. This was the view of an apartment I had in Puerto Vallarta: http://www.flickr.com/photos/dfmedrano/377695445/in/photostr.... I shared it with two friends. Price per person? $200/mo. My total expenses were perhaps $1000/mo (five years ago). Today, I'm paying that amount for a tiny apartment in downtown Toronto.
Think of it like this: if you have a steady income in USD that can be generated at a distance, your quality of life can be orders of magnitude better.
I grew up in Mexico, and I had more interesting professional development opportunities in Spain, and later Canada. I've actually saved enough for a two year runaway in Mexico, which I will do in August to create a MVP.
Mexico (or any 'third world country') is a great environment to bootstrap, but not to generate income locally.
Speaking frankly, not all is great. When you switch your social context entirely you instantly lose all your friends and the safety net you have living close to your family.
There's a TED talk that talks about about how people who win the lottery often end up less happy than they were before winning because of different factors, such as moving to a fancy neighborhood with people with whom you share nothing in common.
It feels an awful lot like that, except you don't have millions of dollar to cushion your exile. And this goes for both sides (moving to a "better" or "worse" country).
He's not telling people to do exactly what he did, that's obviously not going to work; it doesn't take a genius to realize that.
He's saying that you can do independent work (aka "indie") and still get a damn good income that may even surpass your "job" income (depends on how hard you work and how dedicated you are).
It's not really all that different from what PG writes in his essays. PG is just more specific "do a startup", this guy's post is more general "go indie".
I don't think he ever intended to imply it's some sort of "magic"; he clearly says it's hard work and there will be time where you'll want to quit, which is also something that PG says.
> While some level of motivation is necessary to kick start action, too much motivation is a crippling addiction that turns individuals into self-help cult members who follow every move of their marketing guru.
Same could be said about this community. A bunch of people who follow the PG cult of "quit your job and come to YC and get rich". While some of them do indeed succeed and get rich; the majority don't. (just playing the devil's advocate here)
I think he is telling people to do exactly what he did. He has products talking about 'money making' and 'guest blogging', and the conclusions that he draws at the end tell you almost exactly what to do to be like him.
Also if you read my comment you will notice I said the people who resonate with these posts are susceptible to magical thinking. I didn't directly say that there is magical thinking in the post, other than he seems to believe strongly in positivity being the key to success.
I do agree about HN being very cult like. There is an ideology in play here, if you post things that agree with the ideology you are upvoted, if you disagree with it you are downvoted. The positive reinforcement is right there. Over time users learn what comments will lead to upvotes, and thus they change their thinking to match.
I don't think you even read the article properly, you just went into a knee jerk "OMG ADVERTISING!!! DIE DIE DIE!!!" mode.
Quoted for truth:
" Every day, I get emails from students who say my advice has changed their writing. Every day, I get emails from clients who say my strategies have changed the way they do business."
I admire this guy's tenacity and character, but his advice seems to be "become a highly-paid consultant," which necessitates a certain amount of expertise and smarts which he clearly has but which many of his readers lack, however they may excel in other ways.
"Want to be rich? It's simple, just win the lottery," says the guy who won the lottery. "I did it, so can you."
Pursuing what you love and working hard at it is always great advice, but not everyone can make money doing what they love, no matter how hard they work at it.
Don't forget that his advice also suggests to buy his products "on moneymaking" and "guest blogging" with the not-at-all scammy headline "Is This the “Secret” to Building a Popular Blog?"
Because someone posted it, and a bunch of people voted it up, and there's no downvote to express our displeasure with get-rich-quick junk or content-less Techcrunch stories or what-have-you.
There is. Flagging. And before you say it's "not for that", people are clearly using it as such. I've had perfectly legit posts (that I haven't "promoted" at all) slide way lower than their votes would indicate due to flaggers. So it seems a legitimate downvote system now.
Although I'm certain HN has been gamed in the past (search through the top results on searchyc for high traffic blogs and you'll notice a trend, and high upvotes with very few and completely worthless comments -- the effect of a content-less post), but in this case I'm not so sure.
I keep a hawkeye out whenever I see a post from a top blog on HN's frontpage, shit like this problogger, smashingweb, and mashable which are always either contentless diatribes or a bizarre summary of a link that's at the bottom of the post. There's a specific name for these types of posts but I forget exactly what. Anyways, this poster has a history if submitting from these major blogs anyways, so I think it's just a case of him/her being subscribed to their feeds.
The truly worrying part is seeing it with 100+ upvotes on the frontpage. That's not a good sign.
you cynical people. This guy's faced and overcome more hardships than most people and he tells his story as a motivation for others to have a little hope that they can use the web to improve their lives and you start accusing him of MLM?
Sad - take a look at yourselves and take it as the inspirational story that it is.
It's not just him, it's that most of the blogging in this category is MLM, get people excited so they'll buy your junk, style of doing business. I say this as a recovering blogoholic.
Except this guy isn't even selling anything in this post, and most of the stuff sites like ProBlogger or CopyBlogger sell isn't MLM but things like ebooks, videos, etc.
I'd love to move to my version of Paradise (Vancouver, Canada, of all places). I love hearing the stories of people who say "it's simple, just scout out a place for a couple weeks, find an area in Paradise to live, and move there". But, I looked at Citizenship and Immigration Canada, and it seems really unlikely that a large number of humanity (including myself, save winning the lottery or being a logging/petroleum worker) will be allowed to live there.
So, is it "anywhere outside the US/Canada" that's easy to live in without being rich, or are people just moving there and just kinda winging it without actually becoming residents/citizens?
+1 and, at least for some of us from Latin America, it's not just US/Canada but pretty much anywhere.
I can work from anywhere with an Internet connection but because of immigration laws I couldn't just move to any country I want. Europe has pretty strict laws, same with the US/Canada.
Unless you have money to invest in a country or are employed by a company there, they won't let you stay there except for a 90 day tourist visa.
as for the part "if you work hard you can leave your job and travel the world and live a great life", I can only agree.
I did it 10 years ago and I'm still on the road.
And as PG said: it's mostly determination. You've got to believe it even in the darkest times.
And do not listen to naysayers, the are just jealous.
Greetings from Bangkok :)
(ok, no dolphins from my window, just an highway!!)
Few years ago everybody was doing search engine optimization and affiliate marketing. Wave 2 was people publishing e-books on SEO and affiliate marketing. Wave 3 was masses moving in and driving the margins down.
I run a small blog network. There's basically no serious money to be made unless you're in the top percentile. From an advertiser's point of view, ad space inventory is growing faster than their products, so why shouldn't they keep on cutting rates?
It's a bad idea for the vast majority of people, unless of course you're selling a method to make money with a blog, in which case it becomes scammy MLM.
I don't understand all this skepticism. Every other success story on HN is about "outliers", whether is about webapp or iphone apps. Just because this guy writes blogs instead of coding everyone is calling bullshit on him?!!
I am not a programmer nor a blogger and I don't see much difference between this guy and most of the stories I read on HN.
I often wonder why the thought of moving somewhere far away is appealing to people. Leaving all this shit behind etc.
I've been there. Traveled for many years around asia and south america, worked (fulfilling?) volunteer jobs etc.
Then I returned home. Fixed all the shit I left hanging here and started to live a decent life right here.
The answer I've found is that only people who haven't been travelling, dream of travelling. Those of us who've been there, know that it's not very appealing if your mind is troubled. Your life won't magically change if you move to another country.
Actually I would argue that your traveling experience is exactly what made you aware of the opportunity of living a decent life right there at home, and if you never had such experiences you probably would not value your current situation as much.
You said it yourself: you did it for many years before you got over it. Just because you won't do it again doesn't mean it's not something worth doing. People say the same thing about startups.
Of course leaving where you are won't fix what's wrong inside your own head, but likewise, no matter how hard you try to cleanse your mind, the stench next door will not disappear.
This is one of the most inspiring stories I have read in a long, long time. A guy who is paralyzed from the neck down builds a lifestyle (similar to what I want for myself) for himself, through willpower, dedication and determination.
This might not be everyone's cup of tea, but a truly inspiring read for me, that will help motivate me to live life on my terms. No, it's not about "blogging your way to riches". It's about conquering fear. letting go and going for what you want.
Yes I was surprised that despite his handicap he's still doing all those things and living a nice life. He's not Stephen Hawking material but I do admire him.
And the thing is that each one of us could make the step too. You don't have to be rich or hugely successful at all. As a hacker we could just as well move to a nice sunny country and work from the beach there. The internet makes it all possible.
Still I'm not sure whether I would have the willpower and determination to do it.
I've lived in paradise (Hawaii). I had a view like his. Frankly, it was rather dull.
I quickly missed having meaningful conversations with people. Island time is quite real. It was so easy to slip into doing nothing but go to the beach every day.
Folks, for those of you that haven't seen this sort of stuff a million times before, here's how it works:
It's a classic sell-the-dream pitch to inspire you to believe that if this guy could do "it", given his difficult situation, even you could do it too.
You read it through, get inspired, and get drawn into his sales funnel. Over time, as you consume more of his content, you start to trust him more, and have more faith in his ability to help people do what he's doing. He must have the secret, after all, otherwise how could he have done what he's done? You just need to keep going until he shares that secret with you.
Eventually, when you notice that he's selling something that promises to help you make money blogging whilst sitting on a beach sipping pinas, you'll consider it much more seriously than you would if he'd hit you over the head with it from the start. You trust him now.
You might notice that his story links to a course. Just a subtle mention so you don't think the whole thing is nothing more than a big sales pitch. But you can watch the videos and subscribe right there and then to accelerate your journey to the point where you're ready to stump up some cash for the secret to success. Some people convert faster than others.
Or maybe you'll convert a year down the line. Perhaps you won't convert at all, but you'll promote/upvote his stuff and introduce more people into his sales funnel. Some of them might convert at some point.
Maybe you'll never buy anything directly from him, but you might end up buying something from one of the other respectable internet marketers that he might point you towards (with affiliate links most likely, so he gets a cut).
Eventually you'll be able to spot this sort of sell-a-dream pitch in a glance. You'll always wonder if there might be good stuff in there, but you won't worry about missing out because the chances are you've seen most of it before. And whatever time you spend wading through fluffy feel good stories to get to the meat is time you could have spent building or promoting something of your own.
Not a problem for him though; there's an endless stream of newbies looking for the secret to making money online. Admittedly I hadn't realized hacker news had so many of them...
vertr probably saw it when it was at the bottom, but it's been upvoted since. (just a guess.) But he's right. This sort of thoughtful breakdown (bromley's comment) is why I usually read the top comment before the article.
But this kind of snake oil is being sold all over the internet and I haven't seen this level of critical analysis applied to others doing something similar, but under a slightly respectable garb. Examples: Tim Ferris and his 4-hour work week/body, Gary V with his Crush it, Ramit Sethi and his Earn 1k infomercial http://earn1k.com/
He should probably right a book about blogging your way to riches by working 2hrs a week and he would be on NYT Best Seller list and an eventual Angel investor and speaker at various startup events.
I totally agree. The "make money blogging" formula is akin to a pyramid scheme: a long-tail, vastly heavily skewed space where a few make real money and the vast majority make almost nothing.
This doesn't make money blogging per se: he makes money telling other people HOW to make money blogging (assuming he makes any money at all). It's some meta-blogging dodge selling the easy-life dream.
Trying to make money as a blogger is a long shot: you'd be a damn sight better off waiting tables imo.
I am actually in the process of writing a self-help book called "How to write a best-selling self-help book", containing all the elements such as writing fake success stories people can relate to, selling a general dream, making it seem attainable, intersperse amusing anecdotes that make people more drawn to the idea, etc.
The book will actually use all of those hints itself, e.g. "this reminds me of the time I wrote a self-help book in the jungles of Indonesia, where I lived for twenty years as a marine biologist."
If it is a scam, it is still one of the better "you can do it, too" stories that makes it on the front page of HN on a daily basis. Why does this one get so much more flak? Because the guy promotes writing, not coding?
I remember the times when I used to believe stuff like this. Even subscribed for utterly useless membership once for $100 and wasted a couple of months trying to implement what the owner was suggesting. Somehow I figured out his advice was applicable only to people like him, who have large following, and not to a stranger.
Posts like this are not entirely useless because they give some basic motivation. But from that point further, there is absolutely no useful information, and no objectivity. Finally, if he had to confess the probability to achieve success following his recommended route, equals winning the lottery noone would join his course.
Finally the writing is really mediocre. Problogger stopped being useful many years ago, but I'm still surprised to see crap like this:
"You can do it.
I believe in you.
So get started.
Right freaking now."
Yeah. And you stop writing, please. Right freaking now.
You know, as software developers, we're in one of the few professions where we actually can quit our jobs, move to paradise and get paid to do our thing.
But for jeebus' sake, don't quit writing software to sign up for this guy's blogging course.
Consult remotely, build products and charge money for them. Pick a paradise beach that doesn't have tall hotels on it and is therefore just this side of free to live on. Bring some savings and start small.
I know that this works because I did it. And no, I will not charge you money to tell you how to do it. Everything you need to know you can learn from the previous paragraph.
I want to apologize to everyone who I infuriated by posting this link. I thought it to be a truly inspirational story. I didn't take interpret the message of the post as: "Now buy my product!"
I understood the message as: "Now work hard to achieve your goal. You can reach your paradise, just don't give up!"
I know that problogger is a commercial website and they are selling stuff, but so is apple.com, google.com and many other websites. (Note: I am not saying a link to problogger is the same thing as link to apple.com. I am saying that many links online have a commercial background)
I believe people are aware of this and can be trusted to filter obvious marketing messages.
It would be nice to have some kind of list of blogs you are not supposed to link to, I really had no idea this domain would be frowned upon.
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[ 4.9 ms ] story [ 146 ms ] threadReally shows you what anyone can do if you simply have enough tenacity and dedication.
These sorts of bloggers constantly talk about 'changing the world' but ultimately they aren't promoting people to build useful products and services, but to step up and join the blogging wealthy.
Are there people making good money blogging? Of course. The problem is in the 'token' people who sell marketing and blogging, but show little promotional ability outside of marketing and blogging.
These types of posts attract those who are susceptible to 'magical thinking', that somehow if you motivate yourself hard enough, that you will achieve whatever you want. While some level of motivation is necessary to kick start action, too much motivation is a crippling addiction that turns individuals into self-help cult members who follow every move of their marketing guru.
This article is a double edged sword. Sure it contains a 'pick yourself up by your bootstraps' call to action but the other edge is that they are marketing the exact solution to the problem that they created in the post (that you aren't happy).
In this specific case, you seem to me, to be off-put by the fact that he hustles with motivational speaking to obtain his goals. I think, personally, that the very hustle is a great example of why he should be listened to - he's very clearly determined and focused.
That doesn't mean he's advocating his exact profession, and it doesn't mean he's telling people to sit around and let the cosmos give them gold stars for thinking positively, does it?
(Edit: Aside from the blogger relationship, though, I'm curious as to what the article has to do with this site, I'll admit.)
"You want to quit your job and become a professional blogger? You can. You want to travel around the world, living life to its fullest? You can. You want to dedicate your every hour to helping people and making the world a better place? You can."
So on the one hand this guy is clearly in the 'make money stuffing envelopes by selling information about making money stuffing envelopes to other suckers' genre of advocacy. That being said, he was in a place that is probably worse than what the average reader is in and is now much happier with his life now that he has 'taken control of his life.'
I read his story and liked how he discovered he was being held back by his own pre-conceptions of how he "should" be living his life. Now that he's doing something he loves doing he's both happier and more successful than he has ever been. Score one point for doing what you love.
The cautionary tale is that his 'recipe' won't work for everyone, and probably not for a lot of someones. Writing, like drawing, or programming, or fine carpentry, or any of a number of things takes dedication to learn to do well and hours and hours of practice. If you don't love to write, trying to re-make your life as a blogger is going to fail and fail big. So exhorting people to "Do what I did, be a blogger!" is ultimately bad advice for the verbally challenged. (I guess in that regard he's not helping people but we'll set that aside for a moment)
It does also reinforce the notion that one's quality of life is most affected by your attitude about it. I had an opportunity to hear a great commencement speech from Doug Ulman (CEO of Livestrong Foundation) where he very eloquently put that into perspective, his advice to accept that you aren't in control and to live fearlessly is solid advice, regardless of your gifts.
I have referred elsewhere to this phenomenon as "Happy Clappy Capitalism"[1].
Maybe we need a new site -- clappitalism.com -- to keep an eye on them.
[1] http://clubtroppo.com.au/2007/04/20/happy-clapping-capitalis...
'The brick walls are there for a reason. The brick walls are not there to keep us out; the brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something. The brick walls are there to stop the people who don't want it badly enough. They are there to stop the other people!'
Would I do it? No. Do I recommend it? No. Can it work? Absolutely.
Anyway, I see your point and agree with it.
Could be untrue, though he's always traveling with his family all over the world and I know his income is at least $50k/mo
I've never been involved with an MLM, and I don't plan to either, but I think it can't be compared with winning the lottery. Your efforts/connections/skills play a big part in being successful in an MLM.
EDIT: And by the way, after thinking about it, the same could be said for any environment in which you don't control the rules of the game, such as the app store. The odds are against you, and the one who benefits the most is Apple.
This is true of casinos, lotteries, MLM schemes and app stores.
That's why I don't blame anyone: casinos, lotteries, MLMs or app stores; anyone is free to join and play, is up to them if they want to.
Think of it like this: if you have a steady income in USD that can be generated at a distance, your quality of life can be orders of magnitude better.
Mexico (or any 'third world country') is a great environment to bootstrap, but not to generate income locally.
Speaking frankly, not all is great. When you switch your social context entirely you instantly lose all your friends and the safety net you have living close to your family.
There's a TED talk that talks about about how people who win the lottery often end up less happy than they were before winning because of different factors, such as moving to a fancy neighborhood with people with whom you share nothing in common.
It feels an awful lot like that, except you don't have millions of dollar to cushion your exile. And this goes for both sides (moving to a "better" or "worse" country).
He's saying that you can do independent work (aka "indie") and still get a damn good income that may even surpass your "job" income (depends on how hard you work and how dedicated you are).
It's not really all that different from what PG writes in his essays. PG is just more specific "do a startup", this guy's post is more general "go indie".
I don't think he ever intended to imply it's some sort of "magic"; he clearly says it's hard work and there will be time where you'll want to quit, which is also something that PG says.
> While some level of motivation is necessary to kick start action, too much motivation is a crippling addiction that turns individuals into self-help cult members who follow every move of their marketing guru.
Same could be said about this community. A bunch of people who follow the PG cult of "quit your job and come to YC and get rich". While some of them do indeed succeed and get rich; the majority don't. (just playing the devil's advocate here)
Also if you read my comment you will notice I said the people who resonate with these posts are susceptible to magical thinking. I didn't directly say that there is magical thinking in the post, other than he seems to believe strongly in positivity being the key to success.
I do agree about HN being very cult like. There is an ideology in play here, if you post things that agree with the ideology you are upvoted, if you disagree with it you are downvoted. The positive reinforcement is right there. Over time users learn what comments will lead to upvotes, and thus they change their thinking to match.
Quoted for truth:
" Every day, I get emails from students who say my advice has changed their writing. Every day, I get emails from clients who say my strategies have changed the way they do business."
Oh, like Tim Ferris.
"Want to be rich? It's simple, just win the lottery," says the guy who won the lottery. "I did it, so can you."
Pursuing what you love and working hard at it is always great advice, but not everyone can make money doing what they love, no matter how hard they work at it.
I keep a hawkeye out whenever I see a post from a top blog on HN's frontpage, shit like this problogger, smashingweb, and mashable which are always either contentless diatribes or a bizarre summary of a link that's at the bottom of the post. There's a specific name for these types of posts but I forget exactly what. Anyways, this poster has a history if submitting from these major blogs anyways, so I think it's just a case of him/her being subscribed to their feeds.
The truly worrying part is seeing it with 100+ upvotes on the frontpage. That's not a good sign.
Blogspam.
I had no idea that problogger would be met wich such an furious amount of contempt. I will refrain from ever posting a link from them again.
I am surprised about the amount of upvotes myself, but the story is quite inspiring, independent from who wrote it, or on which domain it is hosted.
Sad - take a look at yourselves and take it as the inspirational story that it is.
By the way, good selling process is not covered just by one article. So not every page sells stuff directly.
So, is it "anywhere outside the US/Canada" that's easy to live in without being rich, or are people just moving there and just kinda winging it without actually becoming residents/citizens?
I can work from anywhere with an Internet connection but because of immigration laws I couldn't just move to any country I want. Europe has pretty strict laws, same with the US/Canada.
Unless you have money to invest in a country or are employed by a company there, they won't let you stay there except for a 90 day tourist visa.
Few years ago everybody was doing search engine optimization and affiliate marketing. Wave 2 was people publishing e-books on SEO and affiliate marketing. Wave 3 was masses moving in and driving the margins down.
Sounds like professional blogging is on wave 2.
It's a bad idea for the vast majority of people, unless of course you're selling a method to make money with a blog, in which case it becomes scammy MLM.
I am not a programmer nor a blogger and I don't see much difference between this guy and most of the stories I read on HN.
I've been there. Traveled for many years around asia and south america, worked (fulfilling?) volunteer jobs etc.
Then I returned home. Fixed all the shit I left hanging here and started to live a decent life right here.
The answer I've found is that only people who haven't been travelling, dream of travelling. Those of us who've been there, know that it's not very appealing if your mind is troubled. Your life won't magically change if you move to another country.
It's an article about grit.
This is one of the most inspiring stories I have read in a long, long time. A guy who is paralyzed from the neck down builds a lifestyle (similar to what I want for myself) for himself, through willpower, dedication and determination.
This might not be everyone's cup of tea, but a truly inspiring read for me, that will help motivate me to live life on my terms. No, it's not about "blogging your way to riches". It's about conquering fear. letting go and going for what you want.
And the thing is that each one of us could make the step too. You don't have to be rich or hugely successful at all. As a hacker we could just as well move to a nice sunny country and work from the beach there. The internet makes it all possible.
Still I'm not sure whether I would have the willpower and determination to do it.
I've lived in paradise (Hawaii). I had a view like his. Frankly, it was rather dull.
I quickly missed having meaningful conversations with people. Island time is quite real. It was so easy to slip into doing nothing but go to the beach every day.
You can always get meaningful conversation on the Internet.
It's a classic sell-the-dream pitch to inspire you to believe that if this guy could do "it", given his difficult situation, even you could do it too.
You read it through, get inspired, and get drawn into his sales funnel. Over time, as you consume more of his content, you start to trust him more, and have more faith in his ability to help people do what he's doing. He must have the secret, after all, otherwise how could he have done what he's done? You just need to keep going until he shares that secret with you.
Eventually, when you notice that he's selling something that promises to help you make money blogging whilst sitting on a beach sipping pinas, you'll consider it much more seriously than you would if he'd hit you over the head with it from the start. You trust him now.
You might notice that his story links to a course. Just a subtle mention so you don't think the whole thing is nothing more than a big sales pitch. But you can watch the videos and subscribe right there and then to accelerate your journey to the point where you're ready to stump up some cash for the secret to success. Some people convert faster than others.
Or maybe you'll convert a year down the line. Perhaps you won't convert at all, but you'll promote/upvote his stuff and introduce more people into his sales funnel. Some of them might convert at some point.
Maybe you'll never buy anything directly from him, but you might end up buying something from one of the other respectable internet marketers that he might point you towards (with affiliate links most likely, so he gets a cut).
Eventually you'll be able to spot this sort of sell-a-dream pitch in a glance. You'll always wonder if there might be good stuff in there, but you won't worry about missing out because the chances are you've seen most of it before. And whatever time you spend wading through fluffy feel good stories to get to the meat is time you could have spent building or promoting something of your own.
Not a problem for him though; there's an endless stream of newbies looking for the secret to making money online. Admittedly I hadn't realized hacker news had so many of them...
But this kind of snake oil is being sold all over the internet and I haven't seen this level of critical analysis applied to others doing something similar, but under a slightly respectable garb. Examples: Tim Ferris and his 4-hour work week/body, Gary V with his Crush it, Ramit Sethi and his Earn 1k infomercial http://earn1k.com/
He should probably right a book about blogging your way to riches by working 2hrs a week and he would be on NYT Best Seller list and an eventual Angel investor and speaker at various startup events.
This doesn't make money blogging per se: he makes money telling other people HOW to make money blogging (assuming he makes any money at all). It's some meta-blogging dodge selling the easy-life dream.
Trying to make money as a blogger is a long shot: you'd be a damn sight better off waiting tables imo.
The book will actually use all of those hints itself, e.g. "this reminds me of the time I wrote a self-help book in the jungles of Indonesia, where I lived for twenty years as a marine biologist."
Posts like this are not entirely useless because they give some basic motivation. But from that point further, there is absolutely no useful information, and no objectivity. Finally, if he had to confess the probability to achieve success following his recommended route, equals winning the lottery noone would join his course.
Finally the writing is really mediocre. Problogger stopped being useful many years ago, but I'm still surprised to see crap like this:
"You can do it. I believe in you. So get started. Right freaking now."
Yeah. And you stop writing, please. Right freaking now.
But for jeebus' sake, don't quit writing software to sign up for this guy's blogging course.
Consult remotely, build products and charge money for them. Pick a paradise beach that doesn't have tall hotels on it and is therefore just this side of free to live on. Bring some savings and start small.
I know that this works because I did it. And no, I will not charge you money to tell you how to do it. Everything you need to know you can learn from the previous paragraph.
Now, if you actually want to do it, go do it.
I want to apologize to everyone who I infuriated by posting this link. I thought it to be a truly inspirational story. I didn't take interpret the message of the post as: "Now buy my product!"
I understood the message as: "Now work hard to achieve your goal. You can reach your paradise, just don't give up!"
I know that problogger is a commercial website and they are selling stuff, but so is apple.com, google.com and many other websites. (Note: I am not saying a link to problogger is the same thing as link to apple.com. I am saying that many links online have a commercial background) I believe people are aware of this and can be trusted to filter obvious marketing messages.
It would be nice to have some kind of list of blogs you are not supposed to link to, I really had no idea this domain would be frowned upon.