Embrace The Darkness To Overcome It

[CCarter]

Hey everyone,

This bootcamp has been fun and an interesting experiment - but I think it's time to make some drastic changes. I want to encourage everyone to think of their 3 top biggest problems and talk about it in their individual threads, sort of "embrace the darkness" to overcome it - since the hardest parts of any journey is being in the fog.

Afterwards, we'll start trimming the fat. I've gotten more and more requests for new members to join the CC9, since they see the progress several of us have made - but...

I also know the hardest thing to admit in life is defeat or failure. None of you have failed until you decide not to get back up. When starting this journey I was overly optimistic on how many would make it, in the end I figured people had their own self-motivation, a fire from within, that will keep them going, versus me having to motivate people to generate money. I was wrong at some level.

This life isn't for every one. There are days where even I have tons of self-doubt on whether whatever I'm working on will become successful. Even with SERPWoo, I'm always thinking of "what if this fails", even as it continues to succeed. What drives me to continue improving is a true sense and fear of failure. I feared that people would think it was too complicated, so I continued to code a easier and easier interface. I feared people would not be able to add lots of keywords or understand how to use the system, so I created the built in keyword finder tool - All the obstacles and daunting tasks that I've come across I have embraced that fear and figured out a way to leverage that to solve another problem.

Recently at SW, we sent out surveys on what we can improve, some of the answers we've gotten back were simple stuff, which we implemented quickly, we knew these things though, but didn't act on it just yet. But once we saw customers really wanted them, bam we moved forward and quickly coded it out in days - cause i fear failing my customers.

The worst thing in life is not fear, it's the lack of action, and what you need to do now with your project is ask yourself number 1, whether you really want it bad enough to go through days, months, or years of fear and possible failure on this one project just to see it in succeed in your mind at the end. I embrace the darkness of fear and failure by leveraging off of it to create a better experience for my customers.

If you said yes to wanting to go all in, then post in your thread the 3 biggest problems you are facing and how you envision solving those problems. You'll be surprised, since most of those problems you've already solved in your mind, but like the SERPWoo survey, I need it to hear the problems from an outside source - and that drove me to action.

Eerily, James Gregory from BHC sent me this video 1 minute ago when I was writing this, it's about game development but it holds true about Internet Marketing:

Doubts and misery - I live with that everyday. But I never doubt I will succeed though, just will I find the solution in time. - cause the only way to not succeed is to simply not act. I wrote this in my post about "We're Not All Going To Make It":

The teachings of Kendo are like the fierce verbal forays to which the Zen student is subjected. Assailed with doubts and misery, his mind and spirit in a whirl, the student is gradually guided to realization and understanding by his teacher. The Kendo student practices furiously, thousands of cuts morning and night, learning fierce techniques of horrible war, until eventually sword becomes "no sword", intention becomes "no intention", a spontaneous knowledge of every situation. The first elementary teaching becomes the highest knowledge, and the master still continues to practice this simple training, his every prayer. [Doubt and misery will always cloud a newbie. That is why they practice for thousands of hours at their craft. Once you've done something for a thousand hours, it becomes second nature to you - sword becomes "no sword" since your arms and your sword are no longer two items, but function as one unit. Intention becomes no intention, since you naturally know what to do in every instance - even if it's not clear to you consciously. Most importantly, even the master continues to practice even the most basic training - there are no days off when climbing to the top, but even after you get to the top, you have to continue sharpening your skills, your sword, yet be in the newbie mentality to see the changing tides of affairs in your industry. And no, there is no shortcut to the thousand hours, that's life.]
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If you don't know something, like riding a bike, you keep practicing. Where is that child in you that wanted to learn no matter what? and kept at it for hours at a time, until you finally got it and perfected it. With anything in life, you will not score and even hit the mark the first time, it takes hours of practice, over and over and over and over, - until sword becomes no sword. Your body, your arm, and your sword are one, and the same.

Calamari the other day sent me a Skype message post about a vulnerability on Yoast SEO's Wordpress Plugin. I replied "I don't use Wordpress." He commented that it was so I could traffic leak it, cause of the opportunity. My mind didn't even think of that, my sword is not one with my arm, but his mind has mended into a way where everything he sees is an opportunity to generate traffic, he has surpassed the master. Goes back to the sentence "The first elementary teaching becomes the highest knowledge, and the master still continues to practice this simple training, his every prayer." Where the student and master have come full circle.

So With all that said, after we trim the fat of the non-responsive or people not working out, we will open up the doors to a 2nd Generation of CC9s. I want to collect my thoughts and ideas with the format I learned this time around and figure out how to make this next round even better. I recognize several areas where I have failed the first generation, even though there were also a lot of great wins. I want to improve my failure and run off the momentum of the wins.

I also am going to state this just as a final word - a lot of you are working on too many projects with none of them succeeding fully. When you spread yourself too thin, you will not gain any serious traction. With SERPWoo I cancelled everything, and working on that for 9 months straight with no other projects - nothing else. Just SW, living off the fat of the land and hunting at night for rabbit meat, until I had something that was presentable. I knew if I was going to be serious about this, I had to burn my bridges to the past.

Unfortunately a lot of you still do not understand this - think about this, when Bill Gates was creating Microsoft, or Steve Jobs with Apple, or Mark Zuckerberg with Facebook - did they have 12 different projects at one time going on? No, they only solely concentrated on that one project, for days, weeks, months, and years at a time until it succeeded? They hyper focused to get their companies off the ground and traction to their project. Concentrating on a single point, a single project, is the fastest way to success. Spreading yourself thin, with 12 projects in a shotgun effort is the fastest way to mediocracy. Select a project and do nothing but that project, burn your bridges... otherwise you will always keep putting it off until one day, it's just dead.

- CCarter

P.S. If your thread is locked, just hit me up and let's talk.

 

[Andrewkar]

I'm not one of the CC9 but I will allow myself to put my 2c here.

...I'm always thinking of "what if this fails"...

I don't like when my mind plays that game with me so I have trained myself to NEVER think that way. In general, I'm running away of situations where someone is talking about failures or is "crying" about given situation. It's not because I'm scared of failure (BTW I am scared as hell!) but because this word carries very negative connotations. And where is negative thinking there can't be positive thinking, or more precisely, thinking that is productive and goal focused.
When negative thought manages to occupy my mind, even for just one second, I take it as failure. And then get my shit immediately right back when it should be... focused on TARGET.

There is a HUGE difference between negative thinking (focusing on PROBLEMS) and realizing obstacles (or challenges as you wish). The true meaning and connotations of a word "problem" is simply... FAILURE.
That's why we as business builders, marketers etc. we don't use word "problem". This word and any other that hold those negative connotations can't be found in our vocabulary. Instead we use word "challenge". Words are real power (ask Goebbels or Oskin), that's why good copywriters who bring great CRs are in price.

Why am I writing about this?

Because words we use determining our thinking and then as a result our behavior. The way we are thinking about things is our ONLY limitation. And the way we are thinking about things is determined by the words we use to describe OUR "reality". We must be very careful while thinking, writing and talking. Sure, most often we have grown up in conditions that are not supporting to our productive and business endeavors. That's why we have to examine our closest environment critically and then improve on what we already have to become who we want to be.

You know what's "sloppy thinking" is right? Even if you think you do, read this The "One Wrong Idea".
It's an old text but it will explain to you why words are determinant of your thinking output and, as a result of your behavior.

Regarding the YT movie CCarter have posted. It assumes we are all scared to death of failures. I understand what message authors want to convey and what CCarter had in mind posting it here. To get people to start acting right now despite unfavorable conditions (hey, conditions will never be perfect). However, I don't believe that fear is the major factor that keeps people on hold. I think that the major problem is simply a lack of true need to change their life and environment they are functioning in. That's why part of CC9 didn't do anything to change their position. Simply, they just don't want to change their situation. If they truly wanted, we would have here 9 successful case studies. But despite great support and ability to use some experienced minds, they didn't.

What that tells us about them? Well, probably they are not cut out for that business (or any business...) or they are not just ready yet. Maybe they are thinking like this: "I can't do this mate. There are too many experienced users and they will spot my attempts right away" or "I have tried but there is soo many problems to post that damn content (or link...)" or "Ohh... OK. I know what to do, I'm going to get it done tomorrow...".

So here is the true from real life example. I'm much into military and especially special forces etc.
Do you know how NAVY Seals is training its operators to become the best in their niche?

They are training everyday. In one day, one team is using more ammo than entire marines platoon during the quarter. They train their hands and guns to become unity. They learn to react automatically. And all of this is done simply by repetition (teaching their brain, body and tools to become ONE when it's necessary by simply creating new synapses in their brains). No one there is a complete product when they are assigned to the unit. They have to make themselves a complete products that can react at will by endless hours of training. And ultimately the can get the job done.

Long time ago SEALs instructors noticed that people who think they are at their maximum output and about to fail (again this pesky word), in fact they were just half way through (at most!). They didn't create that theory, they noticed that fact by watching recruits.

The same rules work in all disciplines of life. Once we are start thinking we are done, we are done. No way back, the second this thought comes through our mind we are done. However, if we don't allow that pesky thinking into our consciousness we can be almost limitless.

P.S I was about to update my journal today but because of CCarter's post I won't
P.P.S SEAL's recruits are there because they THINK they want to become operators. No one is asking them to become one, it's their free will. If they can't cope with the program they are going home to take warm shower. I thinking CC9 should be like that as well. For good of CC9 members and us watchers