#5. how often did you spend a while getting weed? monthly (2/10)

[john-marshall]

14

[efosa123]

Passive Income: How I make $40,000/year doing nothing (software engineer edition) Passive Income: How I make $40,000/year doing nothing (software engineer edition) Video Transcript ▼ okay all right okay how's it going I think I'm getting all settled in here welcome back to another episode of the tech lead I am the tech lead and today I'll be the tech lead not to start off we actually have a sponsor today so let's go to that right now right now my name is the tech lead and I am the tech lead I hope you're enjoying the show but don't forget if you like the content we also have available for you tech weed season one complete HD for the low price of 1995 with this you get 28 additional episodes and nearly three hours of additional content check it out in the description link below everyone who has bother have left rave reviews saying that it has been well worth it for them they'll do it for me give it a like and subscribe and back to you tech lead thanks tech lead today I wanted to talk about passive income and about how I'm generating about $40,000 per year just on site income and this is income where I'm basically just not doing anything I'm just sitting around and each day I'm getting about low over $100 just for doing nothing now I wanted to talk about this video not actually because I think it's important for software engineers to build additional site income streams I would say that even $40,000 per year isn't really going to be that meaningful necessarily but but I would say it's a very fun happy to have it can help you get deeper into software engineering as you're building these side projects it can help build up your resume and what I hope to do is tell you about the ways that I generate aside the income and I'm not really sure if all of these are going to be completely useful for you because it may be difficult to replicate what I've done but it can help inspire you maybe give you some ideas so for me most of my side income comes from for projects that I'm doing now the first one is this photography software that I created it's called pan elapsed 360 comm check it out it is for time-lapse photographers and this project is a very niche project that I began when there was a big time-lapse boom like there were time lapses all over YouTube and I was into time lapses as well and people needed a way to add special effects to these time lapses to process the time lapses and there weren't many good time lapse software's so I looked into it there was one software that was retailing for over $200 and I thought you know that's really expensive and that I could build something better not the software I built did two things the first thing it would do was it would allow you to add motion to your time lapses using actually perspective correct math and this involved really understanding the math behind lenses like a 24 millimeter camera what does that actually mean in terms of field of view and what's like a hundred millimeter camera and this was very fun for me to learn and figure out and find the exact math behind it and I also applied some of my computer graphics skills to get this going I built the software using Adobe ActionScript which is like Flash technology now it's pretty funny because ActionScript is not a very popular language these days but the great thing about it was it was cross-platform across Windows and Apple and I wanted to make sure that the software I wrote could target both platforms and they needed to be desktop software because I didn't want users to have to upload their photos just together processed on like some web software so I've looked around for the appropriate technology for this and I could have chosen either Java or Adobe AIR ActionScript and I really wasn't keen on getting back into Java and it seemed to me that ActionScript and Flash technology could be something interesting it's something that I had already been doing a bit of and I was able to just build out the software pretty quickly it took like two weeks or so to build out I noticed at the time that a lot of time-lapse photographers were try to add motion to their time lapses using very expensive hardware rigs that would be based on timers and it was slowly like rotate the head and I realized that you didn't really need these Hardware timers and rotational motorized heads to do other stuff like you could do with or in software using perspective correction and just a bit of math and image distortion there was a very small niche messageboard community of time-lapse photographers I was part of it and I knew that if I built a software I could just go there announce it and everybody would see that message so that's exactly what I did and we then the first day or two of me launching the software I was already getting like five hundred dollars every day in sales over the years I continued to build up features into the software another big feature was allowing you to capture time lapses across sunset or sunrise when the scene exposure would change quickly and and for this I would use math to calculate the exposure of a scene based on the exposure triangle which is based on aperture ISO and shutter speed and using these three pieces you're able to calculate how bright a scene is and then interpret what Brenton is each frame should be as the cameras changing exposure quickly to try to capture the scene I also added some other interesting features like I had the support to do fish eye time lapses which is a very unique and strange effect and it literally took me like a month to work out the calculations for how to do a fisheye projection and then build like fisheye geometry into the program so I'm not sure if this was that well-received so I'm I don't know if it was a really good use of my time to spend the whole month building out this feature but it was really fun for me to do at least and I had to get into like GPU shaders to actually do it so I had to teach myself that stuff anyway the software something that I'm still maintaining these days I sell it for a pretty high price about $80 a piece and I think that's actually a very worthwhile price and also I just think that the economics is that for desktop software you can just charge more and I was pretty happy that I did not make this like an iPhone app where the standard is every app needs to be like $1 or $5 like like here's an app time selling for $80 but I still managed to make about one sell every day and it also helped when our managers to translate the whole web site into Japanese and the software became quite popular in Japan as well so that's one side project there's another side project that I've been running for the past 10 years or so it's called human pets comm it's kind of a social network and this was very popular back in the day like there were 2 million users and it was generating like $2,000 everyday or something for a while these days the website has lost a lot of popularity from its heyday it's still pushing out about say $100 per month and the way it generates money is generally through memberships take off these shoes so I feel like I probably should be charging more for membership I charge like 6 dollars for a monthly membership which is probably too low when you become a member you gain a bunch of additional features and another great thing about this that added was that you could buy or give to memberships to other people so a lot of people will be doing that because often people seem to treat others better than they may treat themselves I also run some Adsense on the site the ads don't really make much money it's like $60 a month but this site has been operational for the past ten years or so and it's just been spilling additional income for me the whole time so that's great the third project was a set of iPhone games web RPG apps really where people could just progress a character through a game and there would be levels a storyline to push the player through many items to collect monsters to fight and you just click buttons and kind of move your character through I think the key to this was there was a storyline that was just very engrossing for it to player and the other thing was I had high limits for purchases like you could buy items that were like $20 in the game there's a statistic that 90% of your income will come from the top 10% of players for in the game and those players are concerned with their whales they're basically people who have either a lot of money or don't mind spending a lot of money on gaming and so I think that was one mistake I made with my first website which was unlimited so that you can only pay a maximum of about 6 dollars per month for membership and after that it didn't matter how much you loved the app or game it was kept at that amount and what I wish I did was add higher thresholds for spending now the fourth project I did was very interesting and this was actually photography and you can sell stock photography or stock videos now stuff photography doesn't pay very well because it's so cheap like one photo the most you could get is like 25 cents or something like my best selling photo was a photo of the Brooklyn Bridge a New York just happens to sell very well because it's so iconic and this photo so about 1,500 copies and each copy was a dollar so me just standing there taking one shot with that was like a fifteen hundred dollar shot right there with video it's even better because each video you can sell for about $50 a piece or so and these days I think people are looking really for 4k video like they need to be extremely high quality my videos that I sold really well were videos of Japan there was actually the shrine called fushimi inari in kyoto with a bunch of red gates this was actually relatively unknown when I visited and there were very few people but it's funny that now if you go there's tons of people and I think it's because I helped popularize it you know I had this video and sold over a thousand copies of this video and usually it's travel agencies that buy these videos and then they use these to try to sell that that's a nation tours packages and they take tours there so it's kind of shame now that this place is now completely overrun with tours and I probably helped contribute to that mess and then I also did videos of Iceland the ice caves and Northern Lights and each of these videos generally brought in like $1,000 so in the end my photography work brought in about twenty thousand dollars over four or five years or so the other great thing about the photography work was I actually got sponsorships so I was able to work with a selling company and they offered us $10,000 catamarans and sailboats in exotic locations like the Bahamas or Phuket and we were able to just take these sailboats around and this was kind of unique because I knew how to sell and I'm a photographer so as I was able to take week-long sailing vacations in the exotic areas worthy lodging and that boat would be free so it was pretty great when you add it all together we're looking at about thirty six hundred dollars a month or forty K a year and the great thing about citing income like this business income is that you can actually deduct expenses on this so if you buy a laptop you can deduct against that anything i buy that may have some business purpose would be like about thirty percent off or something like that now one funny consequence of this is i don't actually do much github open source contributions because a lot of what I work on I sell like I wanted to be commercial software so I don't actually want to open source things so one time I had to recruit her asked me like hey what's your github and I was like I don't do open source you know I actually make money from her projects and they're just like that yeah that's I would say though that another way I generate a lot of site income so to say is I just live with my parents that's saving me like at least $3,000 per month on rent and the funny thing about this is you calculate that as post-tax income so it's equivalent to about 4 K per month in income you might earn at a job that's like 48 K savings right there's so I don't know what I'm gonna do with all this money I'm saving but maybe I'll give it to my kid or something like that so the last thing one says when I look for a project there's a few things I'm looking for so the first thing to look for is timing like why now and everything I've done that has succeeded I think there was a reason that timing made sense like like there were certain trends in user behavior or technology that signified that it was at that moment that it would be ripe for some project to succeed the other thing is I look for things that are scalable so running a restaurant I think is not very scalable it's I think what you're really looking for our scenarios were you can affect far more many people and that's usually done through the internet and that gets the last thing is using coding to automate these systems such that you don't have to do anything and then the system just automatically takes care itself that's when it becomes really passive but yeah that's pretty much how I've been looking at generally the inside income I think in the whole scheme of things it's not much compared to say the salary that a software engineer is able to generate but I think it's really fun sometimes you're actually able to strike gold in certain areas and make a lot but there than that I think it just makes the Hobby that much more interesting and overall just push your craft to a higher level no matter what you're doing so there you have it that'll do it for me if you liked the video please give it a like and subscribe it really helps grow the channel and that we'll see you next time bye

[twerkhammett]

1-154

Holy fuck, good thing I have a long train ride😂1. Full nameAngelica DeLillo2. Age213. 3 fearsFailure, getting snatched up one of these nights im on the train alone, losing the people i care about4. 3 things I loveNik, food, and our cat5. 4 turn onsBiting, slapping (ass face and tits), being tied up or held down, and when he gets that mean look on his face and i know hes gonna be really rough with me ugh6. 4 turn offsI have had these experiences with almost every person I've been with except Nik..bad hygiene, being rushed (you cum yet?), bad oral and when i tell them what would feel good they dont listen..and worst of all sex that feels half assed. They just want to cum real quick, theres no passion or effort, they don't care if they please you at all. Fucking horrible..7. My best friendIn cali my best friend here besides Nik is Ashley, and I get to live with them both its awesome! In Florida I cant choose one cuz ive known them all forever and love those dudes..Mels, Denzel, Brauston, and Alicia8. Sexual orientationBisexual9. My best first dateWith Nikolas obviously 😉10. How tall i am5'611. What do I missMy friends and family back home12: What time were I born3:55pm13: Favourite colorGreen14: Do I have a crushOn my boyfriend😂15: Favourite quoteIdk man16: Favourite placeHard to choose one, maybe my bed😂17: Favourite foodI hate favorites..pizza and wings18: Do I use sarcasmNever :)19: What am I listening to right nowSlayer 20: First thing I notice in new personIf they're fuckin rude or not21: Shoe size822: Eye colorBrown23: Hair colorLight brownish? Auburn?24: Favourite style of clothingBlack25: Ever done a prank call?Yup27: Meaning behind my URLKirk twerkin28: Favourite movieKung Fury29: Favourite songCant choose30: Favourite bandStill cant choose my dude31: How I feel right nowMeh32: Someone I loveNik33: My current relationship statusIn love af its disgusting34: My relationship with my parentsPretty good these days35: Favourite holidayHalloween36: Tattoos and piercing i haveNips, lips, and ears37: Tattoos and piercing i wantA lot, whenever i get the money..38: The reason I joined TumblrMels made me join lol39: Do I and my last ex hate each other?I don't think he hates me, but i hate his bitch ass..40: Do I ever get “good morning” or “good night ” texts?I used to get them from Nik but we live together so now he can just tell me lol41: Have I ever kissed the last person you texted?This morning42: When did I last hold hands?Yesterday43: How long does it take me to get ready in the morning?15mins, its caffeinating myself that can take time44: Have You shaved your legs in the past three days?Noooope45: Where am I right now?On BART46: If I were drunk & can’t stand, who’s taking care of me?Nik, been a while since thats happened tho47: Do I like my music loud or at a reasonable level?Loud48: Do I live with my Mom and Dad?Nope49: Am I excited for anything?For class to be over so i can relax lol...haven't even got there yet50: Do I have someone of the opposite sex I can tell everything to?Nik, Denzel, Brauston51: How often do I wear a fake smile?At work lmao52: When was the last time I hugged someone?Does my cat count? An hour ago lol53: What if the last person I kissed was kissing someone else right in front of me?This would never happen, but I would go to jail if it did lol54: Is there anyone I trust even though I should not?Not that i know of?55: What is something I disliked about today?Nik had to work early and I've been sexually frustrated af56: If I could meet anyone on this earth, who would it be?James57: What do I think about most?Nik and food are tied i think58: What’s my strangest talent?Idk59: Do I have any strange phobias?Eh not really60: Do I prefer to be behind the camera or in front of it?Behind61: What was the last lie I told?Not sure, probably at work lol62: Do I perfer talking on the phone or video chatting online?On the phone63: Do I believe in ghosts? How about aliens?Aliens yeah64: Do I believe in magic?Nah65: Do I believe in luck?Not really66: What’s the weather like right now?64 and clear skys67: What was the last book I’ve read?Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas68: Do I like the smell of gasoline?Yesss69: Do I have any nicknames?Besides the ones Nik has for me no70: What was the worst injury I’ve ever had?Cut my knee open71: Do I spend money or save it?That shits gone pretty fast dont get to spend it on anything fun tho haha72: Can I touch my nose with a tounge?Nah73: Is there anything pink in 10 feets from me?My backpack has some pink on it74: Favourite animal?My cat😂75: What was I doing last night at 12 AM?Fucking76: What do I think is Satan’s last name is?Trump77: What’s a song that always makes me happy when I hear it?Nightcrawler78: How can you win my heart?Be Nikolas or James Hetfield79: What would I want to be written on my tombstone?Nothing80: What is my favorite word?Fuck81: My top 5 blogs on tumblrIdk man i like a lot of yall82: If the whole world were listening to me right now, what would I say?Someone please assasinate the orange one83: Do I have any relatives in jail?Not that i know of84: I accidentally eat some radioactive vegetables. They were good, and what’s even cooler is that they endow me with the super-power of my choice! What is that power?Invisibility or time travel85: What would be a question I’d be afraid to tell the truth on?Not sure86: What is my current desktop picture?Some nature pic bc i havent change it87: Had sex?On a daily basis my dude88: Bought condoms?Yes89: Gotten pregnant?No90: Failed a class?Yup91: Kissed a boy?Yup92: Kissed a girl?Yep93: Have I ever kissed somebody in the rain?Yes, Nik94: Had job?Sadly95: Left the house without my wallet?Fucking yes!!!96: Bullied someone on the internet?No lol97: Had sex in public?A few days ago lmao98: Played on a sports team?Yep99: Smoked weed?This is where my extra money goes..sigh100: Did drugs?Nothing crazy but yeah101: Smoked cigarettes?Yes102: Drank alcohol?Yeah103: Am I a vegetarian/vegan?Noo104: Been overweight?Nope105: Been underweight?Nope106: Been to a wedding?Yep107: Been on the computer for 5 hours straight?Yes lol108: Watched TV for 5 hours straight?Yeah109: Been outside my home country?Not yet, but I plan on it110: Gotten my heart broken?Yeah couple years ago111: Been to a professional sports game?Yep112: Broken a bone?My finger lol113: Cut myself?A while ago114: Been to prom?Nope115: Been in airplane?Yes116: Fly by helicopter?No but I want to!!117: What concerts have I been to?Megadeth, Metallica, Exodus, Testament, Carcass, Slayer, Midnight, Kreator, Obituary, Children of Bodom, Rammstein, and a few more but those were the best ones118: Had a crush on someone of the same sex?Quite a few times119: Learned another language?Some German and some ASL120: Wore make up?I wear mascara121: Lost my virginity before I was 18?Yeah122: Had oral sex?Yupppppp123: Dyed my hair?Yes124: Voted in a presidential election?Yep!125: Rode in an ambulance?Nope126: Had a surgery?No127: Met someone famous?Nope128: Stalked someone on a social network?A while ago hahah129: Peed outside?Yep130: Been fishing?Yes131: Helped with charity?I donate to greenpeace monthly132: Been rejected by a crush?Sorta133: Broken a mirror?Im sure I have, I def had a big ass mirror fall on my fuckin head one time tho!134: What do I want for birthday?Some dick😂135: How many kids do I want and what will be their names?2 max, no idea about names, havent thought about it much136: Was I named after anyone?No137: Do I like my handwriting?Its a bit sloppy but yeah138: What was my favourite toy as a child?Barbies lol139: Favourite Tv Show?DBZ😂140: Where do I want to live when older?The forest, somewhere in Colorado maybe141: Play any musical instrument?Not well lol142: One of my scars, how did I get it?Accidentally stabbed myself at work143: Favourite pizza toping?Mushrooms144: Am I afraid of the dark?No, I need it to sleep145: Am I afraid of heights?A bit146: Have I ever got caught sneaking out or doing anything bad?Yes lmao, many times by my dad usually147: Have I ever tried my hardest and then gotten disappointed in the end?Did you mean my last relationship😂😂148: What I’m really bad atProcrastination149: What my greatest achievments areGetting the fuck out of fl, some of my artwork, learning to cope with my depression150: The meanest thing somebody has ever said to meProb something my ex said lol151: What I’d do if I won in a lotteryQuit my job, build a house, and open a cave bar (me and Ashley were just talkin about that)152: What do I like about myselfWell i guess i never stop trying even tho i fuck up a lot hahah153: My closest Tumblr friend@stalkhome-sindrone probably😁154: Something I fantasise aboutA stable income...Thanks for that big ass ask my anonymous dude!!😂To the rest of my followers, sorry for the long post and some of the tmi questions😊

[justplainkimmi]

8 Year-to-Date Reports & Analyses You Should Be Running

Now that we’re more than halfway through 2020, there are some reports you can be running to identify high-level trends with (likely) a decent amount of data.

1. Long-term Search Query Analysis

This is most certainly a part of your regular PPC analysis, but having 180+ days worth of data can be powerful in identifying trends that might be missed on month-to-month reviews.

A couple of filters that you can apply to quickly identify on-going trends:

Impression Threshold + Not “Added or Excluded”: Setting an impression threshold of greater than 10, 25 or 50 impressions will help to identify queries that are appearing frequently. This can help you identify terms that should be watched or even considered as a negative if it is outside the scope of your products or services.

Conversions + Not “Added or Excluded”: This filter can help you identify queries that should be considered to be added as keywords.

2. User Location Reports

This is one of my favorite reports as it shows the region, metro area, city and most specific location target where users are viewing your ads. This can be helpful to identify areas that your ads may or may not be performing as expected.

If you’re targeting the entire U.S., or even a large chunk of states, it can take a long period to generate enough data to see actionable trends.

This report can be found under the Predefined Reports section.

You can view this report directly within Google Ads and even add or remove columns as needed.

Depending on traffic levels, you might want to consider adding some of these geographic target as layers in your campaigns. If not, at least it’s a great way to keep an eye on trends for the remainder of the year!

3. Competitor Analysis

Especially in today’s market, it’s important to keep an eye on what your competitors are doing – in PPC and in paid social.

Paid Social Competitor Analysis

In recent years, Facebook and LinkedIn have released tools that allow advertisers’ ads to be available for viewing at any time. Facebook’s Ad Library allows you to see active and inactive ads, countries and states that the ads are targeting, an estimate of amount spent on the ad and an estimated age/gender breakdown.

LinkedIn has a similar tool that allows you to see ads by Page. While you can’t see estimated spend, breakdowns of age/genders who saw the ads, or how long the ad has been running, you can see the preview of the ad as well as click through to the landing page.

PPC Competitor Analysis

I recently wrote an in-depth article about tips for PPC competitor analysis.

In both Google and Microsoft, you can utilize the Ad Preview & Diagnostics Tools that allow you to see your ads and competitor ads live on the SERPs without racking up impressions.

In addition to the tools made available by the channels, I also recommend using a third-party tool like SpyFu to help identify holes in your PPC strategies that competitors may be using.

4. Quality Score Analysis

While Quality Score is not a KPI, it is an important metric that can have lingering effects on your keywords and account overall.

There is often a correlation between low Quality Score and high CPCs/CPAs. This is a useful report to run at least two times per year to identify keywords that may need improvements.

If you want to get started with a Quality Score Analysis, I’d recommend checking out this post from Clix’s Abby Woodcock about how to take a deep dive.

A couple of quick tips:

Download all of your active keywords into Excel.

Create a pivot table by Quality Score including the metrics that are most important to you.

Since CPA and conversion rate are usually KPIs for my clients, we use those to identify which QS needs the most help.

I like to add the landing page experience and ad relevance columns for more insight on what Google thinks about these. (I take these scores with a grain of salt.)

5. Low Clickthrough Analysis

This analysis is actually one of my personal favorites. I like to conduct this analysis at least twice a year as well.

I prefer to use a benchmark of less than 1.0% clickthrough rate, but you can adjust that to fit your accounts. If the account is really large, I’ll add an impression filter of greater than 50/100/200 impressions so that I can dedicate time to keywords with the most volume. This analysis can be very time consuming, as there are a lot of factors that can play into low CTR.

If you want to hop into a low CTR analysis, I’d recommend this guide to the Ultimate Low CTR Analysis. It outlines the five buckets you should examine: below first page bid, low intent, bad queries, high competition, and ad copy..

6. Display Ads Auto Placement Review

Similar to search query analysis, this is likely a report you run bi-weekly or monthly on your Display campaigns.

However, even despite your best efforts, if you’re not reviewing the placements at a longer interval than every 14- to 30-days, you’re likely missing long-term trends that can have a big impact on your campaigns.

Tips for useful auto-placement reviews:

Download the auto-placement report. I like to add a filter to only look at placements with greater than 10 impressions. You could even go up to 50 impressions if the campaign has a lot of traffic.

Create a pivot table to see the summary for each placement.

If you copy/paste the pivot table data (without column headers) into a blank sheet, you can use filters to identify placements with words or suffixes that you want to weed out.

Here is a recent post on reviewing auto-placements on the Google Display Network that I would recommend for an even deeper dive!

7. Day of the Week/Time of Day Reports

This is a report that you likely reviewed to get an ad schedule in place. Why is this something you should review mid-year? Because search behavior can change throughout the year. Since summer is a time that people traditionally travel and spend time outside away from devices, it’s like there are some fluctuations during this time.

Especially with the current market, it’s likely that your customers are searching differently or interacting with your ads a bit differently than they did prior to March 2020.

By reviewing this report, you can make any necessary changes to your ad schedules (like extending ads to show until 10 P.M. versus 8 P.M. in the winter). You will also be able to identify if budgets need to be adjusted based on time of day reports.

8. Extension Review

Extensions are something that I like to review regularly, but it can often take 90, 120 or ever 180 days to gather enough data to make informed decisions.

Reviewing these mid-year at a high-level will allow you to identify what is or isn’t working.

To get the most useful view of extension performance in Google, you’ll want to segment This Extensions vs. Other to get the full picture.

This report will show you the metrics associated with clicks directly on that extension versus metrics associated with other parts of the ad. I like to use 30/60/90/120 day increments to identify any on-going trends that may not be as obvious in regular monthly reviews.

Google has introduced a couple of new extension types that could also be tested in the remaining months of 2020. For B2B and lead gen advertisers, Google lead form extensions can be useful. Earlier this year, Google began rolling out image extensions. New extensions were also released for YouTube ads in late 2019.

Conclusion

These are the 8 year-to-date reports and analyses I would recommend. There are a lot of additional takeaways that can be garnered from these reports and audits to improve your accounts!

What reports, audits and analyses do you recommend? We’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below!

from https://bit.ly/3h5Yl8b

[jprologic]

I have no affiliate links in my posts…yet.  When I do, you’ll be the first to know. Or rather, the second.

Here recently I’ve had some major epiphanies when it comes to what my purpose in life is.  As such, life is about to become very full…I mean fuller, and this forced me to evaluate my current life systems.  I considered both of what I am being called to do, as well as things that I would like to build upon habit wise.  Since we are all given 24 hours in a day, and some of us accomplish a ton, and some of us don’t, I had to look at my current productivity systems if I wanted to remain in the former category.  I knew that no matter how much I chose to take on, I would still want time for rest, connection with my family and creativity.  I’ve learned over the past 15 years that you can do and accomplish a lot of things while still having a ton of time left for unwinding.  The only way to do it however is to keep things simple and not to waste time.

Much like your computer needs updating, so does one’s daily life habits.  Each upgrade should produce pleasure and make life even more fun to live.  I genuinely love the gym so when I went to upgrade my workout habits, I re-joined my preferred gym, but chose a location closer to my horses since that’s where I am in the morning.  Now I enjoy my coffee while feeding and grooming my horses, and then head to the gym down the road to get a good routine in and can get home after work instead of getting a workout in.  Now, if I hated gyms then maybe I would have added trail running or yoga instead.  The point is, if you don’t like doing something, or if being around a certain person is close to painful, then stop spending that time in that way.  We must be prudent, and good stewards of the time that we do have in a day.  More pleasure and less bitching can solve a lot of problems.

I have found while living in simplicity that many opportunities present themselves, or I can actively pursuit them.  This is because without clutter, chaos, distraction, and toxic relationships I’ve made the room in my life for me to “see” them.  Without these things, I couldn’t handle the 9 very different irons that I currently have in the fire.  Irons that I love by the way.  Irons that made the somewhat painful weeding out process well worth it in the end.  By the way, the process of weeding out can be it’s own journey.  In fact, it can even be brutal and you’ll have to be courageous enough to allow that process in order to get as healthy as possible.  It was something that I struggled with, and I took a decent amount of heat from people who are not only hard to be around, but have zero intentions of ever changing themselves and would rather bring you down for doing so.  If that is the part of your life’s journey that you are in, then honor that.  It has many gifts to share with you.  If you would like some emotional support for while you’re going through it, then I invite you to see how I and another talented writer went through these processes, and continue to as it’s a life long thing.  It just gets easier the more that you accept it as part of life.  I promise.  Check it out: liveyourpositivelife.com

Here I’ve taken my very short list of powerful personal actions for living a simple life  and show how I personally implement them.   As basic as these actions are, they are called “personal” for a reason.  They are subjective and it’s up to you to make them your own.

Alas, things do not always go according to plan or the way that you want them to in life, but what is great about these powerful actions in particular is that once you build upon them for yourself, they are there for you to fall back upon while you re-position yourself. This keeps you fresh and organized for when you’re ready to try again at seizing opportunities. No worries if things go awry, when you’re living a simple life with any sort of dedication and intention, it’s not IF the opportunity comes, or IF things fall into place as they are meant to…it’s WHEN.  Therefore, keep yourself prepared for the life of your dreams:

    Feel Feelings

  Dun Dun Daaaahhhhh.  Yeah, I said it.  Listen, the pain and suffering actually comes from avoiding it.  If you sit with feelings you often can come to the root cause of them and work to release whatever it is that you are feeling.  Please remember that feelings are not facts.  They are just passing through our experience and the only thing that can give them power is our action and reaction to them.

As I have written about in the past at liveyourpositivelife, there was some in-law nonsense/trauma that I suffered through a few years back.  Here recently though, some residual sadness and anger bubbled up and I almost chose to ignore it.  Since I know better, I did all that I could to clear it by feeling it.  I also went and spent about 5 hours talking to my parents about it and other family things, which is something that I never really did before with regard to this topic.  Then with the combination of just allowing the feelings, coupled with the venting it out into the open, the feelings were gone.  Just like when you turn on a light switch and it’s no longer dark, it was over.  With the ickies out of the way, and back to feeling good, better decisions and clearer thinking can be had.

    Acknowledge Fault

  This is character building and it takes some practice, but once you are able to assume responsibility for actions, life actually gets easier.  Have you ever tried telling a lie, and then had to tell another and then one more after that to cover for the first? Not only did it not work out in the end, the entire process was exhausting and probably got a lot of people angry and it ruined their trust in you.  Learn to mean this: “I am sorry. It will never happen again. These are the actions I’ve taken to correct the action…”

I got the chance to practice this when I lost one of my client’s monthly boarding checks.  This is a check that covers the boarding fee for two horses and are funds that I draw from to pay the landlord, as well as their grain and supplies.  Of course it happened on a beautiful Sunday after I had a wonderful early ride and lovingly groomed all of the horses leaving my world to feel perfect and complete.   When I realized that my check pouch was missing out of my purse I was so upset at myself.  I was able to immediately pin point why it had happened, all because I had fallen out of organization that week because I had not realized until that moment that my systems were out of date to the changes I had recently undergone.  I had to email her, apologize, ask her to reissue the check, and deduct and then cover her cancelled check fee.  In the end it was more than ok, and it will never happen again.  But blaming, coming up with a story, covering your tracks, it’s all needless and it will cost you much more overall than accepting responsibility ever could.

    Create REALLY Healthy Habits S-L-O-W-L-Y

  For me personally it all began about 10 years ago and it was a domino effect.  Once I started working out, I didn’t want to eat bad food.  Once I stopped drinking and hanging around party-all-night kind of people, I only wanted enriching experiences with close friends.  Once I started meditating, I only wanted more quiet to connect to my creativity.  Paying attention to my new found desire to live my life with intention had me actually living that way with only small changes a little at a time.

Wanting to build a gym routine can begin with a few walks around the neighborhood.  Eating better can start with cutting take out one day per week.  It’s the intention that matters the most and by asking yourself the below questions you just may find where to begin. Once you find a start place, start small.  Want to meditate? Read about it, watch something on YouTube, or download an app, and aim for 2x in a week for 5 min each.  From there gradually bump the time and frequency up.  While in the process of creating healthy habits, think about these questions:

With What Do You Fill Your Head/Heart/Sub-conscious?

Since I’ve cut cable, you can find me on YouTube or Netflix under documentaries.  I recently loaded Stitcher on to my phone so that I can listen to some awesome podcasts; both while I’m in the gym, and even while I’m riding my horse! It’s free and it’s awesome.  Below is a few snapshots of my playlists.  Please believe that Gary Vaynerchuk is on there!

When it comes to reading, I only read self improvement, spirituality, financial and business books.  I have so little time that every moment that I do have I maximize with putting the most beneficial things into my thinking systems.  You can find my essentials for your bookcase or reading device right here.

2. With What Do You Fill Your Vessel?

This is one that I’m constantly working on.  I mean constantly.  I have plenty of posts on here about meal planning and perfect grocery shopping but what I do 97% of the time is just make the best choice that I can in the moment.  I go out of my way to remove all of the chemical laden sugar stuff from my existence by not buying it at all.  Of course this leaves me with only whole foods that then must be prepared.  On the nights that I run behind and don’t prepare my lunch for the next day, there have been times that I resorted to the fried chicken wings from the bodega down the street from work.  Know what? I’m still alive. I didn’t get upset about my “poor choice”, I just resolved to do better next time.

When it comes to my mornings, I be sure to start off the way that I intend to go with the best of the best.  Coffee: I make it as healthy as possible.  It’s organic and I use unsweetened almond or coconut milk and then put in cinnamon for the added health benefit.  I’ve nixed sugar and flavored creamers all together.  Water: It’s the first thing that I drink in the morning, and I have it at room temperature so not to shock my system.  To grow this habit, I will be adding organic lemons to it.  Smoothie: I practice intermittent fasting and therefore only eat from 11 am to 7pm.  But I do need nutrients so I mix up spinach, banana, almond butter, flax seed and coco powder with almond milk.  If nothing else, then at least I have this great start to the day.

Most dis-ease can be avoided in the first place with better diet and lifestyle practices.   Care enough about yourself to really do the homework about what you ingest.  Understand how it moves through the system and that everything we swallow ends up as part of our anatomy.

3. With What Do You Do With Your Vessel? 

Are you working out? Walking? Praying? Playing? Do you have quiet time? Are you reading things and viewing shows that add benefit to your life by making you think or inspiring you to do and be more? Do you plan trips to rest and recharge? Are you connecting in kinship with a supportive community?

I recently became very active in helping to start up my neighborhood’s civic association.  The people that I’ve met and talk to weekly are amazing.  We are all so very diverse and yet all of us have learned from and enjoy one another.  I love walking around my city blocks meeting people and spreading the word.  I’m forming community at home and that’s very important to be successful in life.  Reach out, get involved. Start something, join something.  Pay close attention to what thrills you and move towards that.  That’s why we’re actually here on this planet.  It’s not just to pay bills and then die.

4.  Do You Have Morning & Evening Routines?

Crucial.   SO crucial.  Things can get away from us in the middle of the day.  There’s so much that isn’t within our control; traffic, late starts and early dismissals from school, getting sick, other people’s tardiness.  Yet the start and the end of our days are totally up to us and well within our control.

I used to sprint out the door about 20 minutes before I was supposed to be somewhere.  I was tired, not prepared, and constantly chasing my tail through out the day.  Now a days, I’m up at 4:30 am, done feeding and grooming my horses by 6:45 and at the gym by 7.  I’m showered and heading to work by 8:15.  I have everything with me, I know what I’m doing that day and where I have to be by what time.  There is such a sharp contrast to how things are now as compared to how they used to be, that I can never go back.  Once you taste the sweet freedom of the simplicity of granting yourself proper time in the morning, you won’t go back either.

My night time routine really exists to support my morning routine; prepare gym bag, do I need my riding clothes for after work? Is there lunch in the fridge for tomorrow?  This is still a work in progress for me as I want to add nice things like stretching and also more things like more cuddles with Dylan and connection with Michael.  To begin, Dylan and I started a new routine of going down to the river on certain weeknights.  We look at the ducks, we sit on our rock and watch the sunset, and we just BE in the nature.  I’m a firm believer that it take baby steps and I know that I will add even more great family connections because it’s small changes in a habit over a long period of time that makes them successful.  (See what I just did there?)

  Take Care Of The Small Things

  Mow the yard if it needs it.  Always wash, dry and put away the dishes at the end of the night.  Make your bed every single day.  These things reflect maturity, self-love and they build discipline.  To lead the life of your dreams, you need to have your shit together and you can’t tackle the big things without taking care of the little things.   Will you fall off from time to time? Yes.  But then you take a few hours, or a day, and restore the balance in anyway that feels right to you. You’ll feel better and can move forward.

Of course there are some little pesky things that have to be done but we want to put them off.  In those instances, I find it best to just do them as little as necessary.  Don’t like paying bills? Make it a point to only have to do it once per month by making a budget and paying bills in advanced, or put them on auto pay.  Hate the doctor/dentist? Make all appointments in the same week and just get it done.  One thing that I’ve noticed by making sure all of the necessities are taken care of, I’m able to relax much more.  The peace that you feel is palpable.  Everyone deserves to feel that way.

  In conclusion,

Simple living is simple…if you allow it to be.  These actions one by one can build something magnificent. I’m living proof as the more that I practice these actions, the better things get.  The key to it all is to allow.  Allow yourself to have a lazy day without punishment. Allow yourself to adjust life practices so that they suit better.  Most importantly, allow yourself to let go of the need to control or your need to keep doing things that are no longer working.

  Jenna

      I’m a blogger who is addicted to simplicity.  My next goal is furthering my  minimalistic habits by getting rid of 10 things per week.  You will be hard pressed to find clutter in my home, yet I’m always able to find at least 10 things to pass on.  I’m curious with just how little I may actually need to live life well.  This blog documents my life journey thus far with simplifying all aspects of my life.  As a former habitual shopper who was constantly in a rush to partake in nonsense, I hope to show others that simplicity is where it’s at.

And no, the picture isn’t recent; it’s 5 years old actually, but I had done my hair myself.

            Powerful Personal Actions That Lead To The Simple Life Of Your Dreams I have no affiliate links in my posts...yet.  When I do, you'll be the first to know.

[lucyariablog]

10 Interview Questions to Help You Separate Content Marketing Rock Stars From Wannabes

Before I begin, I want to say, “Thank you, internet,” for spawning countless occupations that simply couldn’t exist without you: web designers, app developers, SEOs, and, of course, content marketers. Plenty of the roles suit both creatives and techies.

Digital careers are relatively new and exciting, both for employees and employers. That is, aside from one small problem: How do you pinpoint the best candidate to fill a role that didn’t even exist a few years ago?

We’re all familiar with the typical interview questions:

What are your weaknesses?

Why do you want to work here?

Where do you see yourself five years from now?

There’s nothing wrong with these questions in principle, but they reveal little about someone’s suitability for filling a digital role – content roles included.

Perhaps more worrisome, the digital industry seems to be a culture of inflated egos. It’s easy to exaggerate skill sets hiding behind a screen, and it’s understandable why someone might want to. Unfortunately, this attitude often extends offline and into the office.

Faced with the potential of having both content marketing rock stars – and the wannabes – knocking on your door, how do you separate them?

HANDPICKED RELATED CONTENT: 10 Interview Questions to Find the Best Content Marketers

Here are 10 questions you can ask.

1. How do you generate ideas?

Does the candidate lead a monthly scheduled brainstorming session, sitting down with the team to hash out ideas? Or is the candidate thinking about the next viral hit during the commute to work, while consuming content others have created, or even as they sleep?

Rock star content marketers don’t resign idea generation to a meeting room or whiteboard. They understand that such a regimented, pressured environment rarely leads to great ideas. They know that the best ideas often arrive unexpectedly.

Rock star content marketers don’t resign idea generation to a meeting room or whiteboard, says @SujanPatel. Click To Tweet

The greatest content marketers are always prepared. They know that the concept that could lead to their next winning idea could come to them anywhere, at any time. They’re never without a way to jot it down – whether that means a pen and paper on the nightstand or an app like Evernote on their phone.

HANDPICKED RELATED CONTENT: 3 Unthinkable Behaviors Behind Truly Creative Content Marketers

2. How do you decide whether an idea has legs?

The ability to listen to and trust your instincts is important in all areas of your life, not just content marketing. People who rely entirely on what they believe will work, however, are a liability. A great content marketer uses facts and logic alongside instinct to assess whether an idea is worth pursuing.

A great answer to this question might entail a rundown of some of the key principles of successful content. For example, great content should be:

Simple – It is easy to understand.

Unexpected – It stands out and surprises its audience.

Emotional – It makes an audience feel (whether that’s happiness, sadness, or something in between).

Actionable – It should inspire the consumer to take action on account of it (usually, that means sharing it).

4 principles of successful #content: simple, unexpected, emotional & actionable says @SujanPatel. Click To Tweet

The best content marketers will run through these principles before moving forward with an idea and should be able to explain them to you in an interview setting.

3. How do you promote your content?

Ask candidates to talk you through their process for promoting content. The right candidate should know that creating great content isn’t enough to make it go viral; that only happens when it’s shared by someone who can get the ball rolling.

Sure, once that ball starts rolling, a content marketer can sit back and watch the rewards come in. Until that happens, though, it’s full steam ahead. Sending out 20 emails and hoping for the best simply isn’t good enough to promote content successfully.

There are no set rules about how much time we ought to invest in promoting content. For some, it’s a 50/50 split. Social Triggers’ Derek Halpern recommends that marketers spend 20% of their time creating content and 80% promoting it.

Marketers should spend 20% of their time creating #content and 80% promoting it says @derekhalpern. Click To Tweet

There’s no right answer.

What matters is the candidates’ ability to talk through a variety of tactics that they employ to promote content. You want to weed out any one-trick ponies. A good answer would be composed of a variety of promotional tools and tactics.

A better answer would include an explanation of how certain tactics are best suited to particular types of content.

A great answer would cover all of the above and talk about how to divide time and budget. For example, the rock star candidate might discuss implementing a multi-tier outreach strategy – one that entails sending highly personalized emails to a small group of tier-one prospects, sending slightly personalized emails to a larger group of tier-two prospects, and finally, automating an email campaign to an even larger group of tier-three prospects.

HANDPICKED RELATED CONTENT: 8 Nonobvious Tips to Promote Your Content

4. Which piece of content are you most proud of (and why)?

This question might be obvious, but it’s critical.

A candidate’s most prized piece of content tells you a lot about the individual’s potential as a content marketer and, perhaps more importantly, about his or her values.

If they cite content that sucks and can’t offer a valid reason why they’re proud of it in spite of that, you know they’re probably not going to be a good fit.

Perhaps they worked on it for a particularly tricky client and felt that the deck was stacked against them but still managed to pull a piece of content out of the bag that made the client happy and got results. Maybe it’s because that piece of content secured a mention on a site the candidate had always wanted to get featured on.

These answers tell you what that candidate values most and helps you assess whether their values line up with your own.

If candidates pull up a great piece of content and explain that they’re proud because it gained 40 links, sent 10,000 referral visits to the site, and resulted in three high-ticket sales, that’s an obvious rock star.

5. Which piece of content are you least proud of (and why)?

All content marketers have produced content they’re not proud of. Anyone who says otherwise is new to the role or lying. They’re also a surefire wannabe.

It speaks volumes when candidates can own up to their mistakes. You’ll also learn a lot from their reasons. Are they not proud of the content because they don’t like the idea, the execution, or the response it had?

Great content marketers will be open to owning up to their failures, and open to explaining why.

Great content marketers will be open to owning up to their failures and explaining why says @SujanPatel. Click To Tweet

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6. What do you know about SEO?

Every content marketer should understand at least a little bit about SEO. Neil Patel once wrote about how SEO is all about content marketing, noting that too many marketers treat the two subjects like this:

As he explains, marketers ought to see SEO and content marketing like this:

Rock star content marketers should understand the importance of keyword research and the placement of those words and phrases within content and meta tags. They should be aware of the impact of duplicate content, know how to prevent it and, ideally, have a grasp of how their day-to-day work affects a website’s visibility.

HANDPICKED RELATED CONTENT: Excel at SEO With This 15-Point Plan

7. How do you measure content’s success?

Don’t automatically write off the candidates who say they measure their content’s success from social shares and links, but expect a better answer from content marketing rock stars.

Given that not all content pieces have the same goals, they should not be measured by the same metrics. For example, an infographic is almost always designed to get links, but a long-tail article’s primary goal generally is to drive traffic.

The best content marketers understand that the success of their efforts can’t always be measured the same way.

The best content marketers know #contentmarketing success can’t always be measured the same way. @SujanPatel Click To Tweet

HANDPICKED RELATED CONTENT: The Secret to Content Marketing ROI

8. How do you react when content bombs?

Do candidates blame everyone else? Do they say the content was great, but everyone else just didn’t “get it”? Do they say they didn’t tell enough people about the content, or they didn’t tell the right people?

Or do they sit down, think carefully about the content they created and what they did to promote it, and try to figure out why this one failed to resonate with the target audience?

Great candidates are honest and reflective about how they contributed to the content’s bomb.

What separates the wannabes from the rock stars is how they handle that failure. Do they learn from it? Or do they blame the failure on something outside of their control and try to forget it ever happened?

The best marketers will always take responsibility for their mistakes and, more importantly, learn from them.

9. What book had the biggest influence on your approach to content marketing?

There is largely no right or wrong answer. Books are subjective. It’s not your place to dictate what someone should find influential. The key is that the candidates answer the question. It shows not only that they’re an avid reader but also that they pay attention to content they read and apply the lessons to their day job.

HANDPICKED RELATED CONTENT: Holiday Gift Guide: The Most Significant Content Marketing Books Published During 2016

10. Which industry blogs do you follow?

This question is similar to the book question. Again, you’re not looking for the candidate to name any blogs in particular. What is important is that they can answer the question.

HANDPICKED RELATED CONTENT: 22 Blog Posts That Content Marketers Can Be Thankful For

Conclusion

While you shouldn’t write off candidates for a vague answer or lack of response to one question, you should take pause to think more carefully about their responses to the other questions. By the end of the interview, your rock star candidates will have given thoughtful, insightful responses to almost all 10 questions.

What questions do you ask a prospective content marketer to help separate the rock stars from the wannabes? Let me know in the comments.

Want to be able to have a great answer to No. 10? Subscribe to CMI’s free newsletter.

Cover image by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute

The post 10 Interview Questions to Help You Separate Content Marketing Rock Stars From Wannabes appeared first on Content Marketing Institute.

from http://contentmarketinginstitute.com/2017/01/interview-questions-stars-wannabes/