Author: Brand Smit

FRIDAY, 29 MAY 2009

10:40

I mentioned this recently, but I am once again thinking: my activities of the past forty months have been conducive to the manifestation of an inherited tendency I have toward manic behaviour.

11:23

Funny thing is, I didn’t connect the dots, not until recently. I think it is one of those things where you can go your whole life without knowing you have something in your blood – like the genetic potential for cancer or something. If the environment is right, and other factors are conducive, then the writing is, however, on the wall: it will manifest.

In my case, it has manifested. It also wasn’t the first time that it manifested, but other times I called it something else – eccentric behaviour, compulsive behaviour, compelled by faith or, in the service of an idea.

Is this a handicap? It could be. It is, in many cases. You would have to control it. You should be aware of it. You must be wary of it.

15:02

The psycho-analyst will say: Brand Smit suffers from periodic episodes of Hypomania; or rather, he experiences these periodic episodes, then he suffers the consequences in the following weeks and months as he tries to be “consistent”, to “see things through” and to finish what he started instead of “flip-flopping from one project to the next”.

SATURDAY, 30 MAY 2009

12:20

So, what am I saying?

I am caught between two poles: days, and sometimes weeks of creative, inspired activity characterised by totally exaggerated ambition and unrealistic, over-optimistic expectations, and then the days and weeks in between of trying to make something of the over-ambitious projects that I had started, but without the energy, the conviction, and the inspiration of the “other time”.

22:12

The conversation would go like this: “The bad news is that there is indeed something wrong with you. The good news is that it isn’t so bad, as long as you keep it under control.”

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MONDAY, 4 MAY 2009

It seems my attempts to make money on the Internet have been held back by a question I had considered answered: Who am I?

I underestimated the degree to which the Internet represented a new environment. I didn’t know that I would again be compelled to ask and answer certain questions like any other case of a geographical transfer of your person would necessitate: Who am I in this place? Who am I for the people I am going to encounter, in the conversations I am going to get involved in, and in the projects that I am going to work on?

THURSDAY, 7 MAY 2009

After weeks of thinking about things like my own brand name, and the increasing use of the moniker “Platform35” as a personal handle on digital markets and as participant in forums, and the identification of three domains as my primary focus, and lessons learned about using pictures of myself on websites and the benefits of using my own name, I finally see the forest for the trees.

“It’s been about identity all this time?” I cry out, and I wonder why I – I! – hadn’t realised this a long time ago.

I was seduced for too long by the idea of doing business on a website rather than face to face, and by stories of being anonymous and making money while you stay behind your computer screen – which is possible, but a part of me wants to appear. Of course I, “Brand Smit of Personal Agenda” did not want to appear as a marketer (“How vulgar!”), but I certainly wanted to make money from home.

It was in a fix. I did write one or two articles and published them under my own name on EzineArticles, but I disappeared behind a pseudonym again pretty soon after.

My advice (to myself): Define yourself in the area where you reside, work, do business, study and live. Define yourself and introduce yourself as the person you say you are. That is if you want to appear at all, and if you want to harvest and enjoy the fruits that appearance brings.

And to think I already knew this in 2004.

SATURDAY, 9 MAY 2009

I thought I had resolved the question of who and what I am by 2004, but the moment I entered a new environment (Internet Marketing in 2006), the confusion and uncertainty returned, with a thousand fresh troops armed to the teeth.

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FRIDAY, 17 APRIL 2009

Starting from next week, I will do nothing every now and then. I am getting the idea that inspiration is scared off by constant activity.

SATURDAY, 18 APRIL 2009

This is the problem with the idea, the belief that everything is within your reach, that you can do anything: Suppose it is true, what do you do and what do you leave? And how do you decide?

MONDAY, 20 APRIL 2009

If you want to make money, there is a series of questions you’d have to answer before you can move forward. First, you need to decide whether you want to make money by

A. selling something – physical items, a service, your time;

B. making investments and waiting for a dividend; or by

C. speculating, to increase the money you already have.

Now, if you do not have enough money for B or C, you don’t really have a choice – you have to sell. (You can of course borrow money for option C, but that is such a bad idea that it doesn’t warrant serious consideration.)

Having made peace with the notion that you’d have to sell, you are faced with two new questions:

1. WHAT are you going to sell? and

2. to WHOM?

Considering that the market dictates the “what”, it boils down to you needing to determine “who” your market is. Or, considering some other factors, which is the market whose needs you would most want to meet?

A basic demographic profile of your market – location, age, income, gender, and so on – will bring you to the next set of questions: What is your market already doing? What do they want to do? What would they like to do more often? What thing do they already have of which they would like more? Is there something that they do that they would like to be easier? What benefit would they like to enjoy without actually doing much, or without learning to do something themselves?

WEDNESDAY, 29 APRIL 2009

Not that I had been deliberately thinking about it, but the idea came to me late this afternoon that one of the reasons why I am not making much money with any of my Internet projects, is identity.

Fact is, what I wrote about myself and identity in 2003 and 2004 was written with a particular environment in mind: myself as a foreigner in Taiwan, with friends and family and acquaintances as part of my world, and me being part of an abstract “wider community”. In this world, I knew who I was; I even asked somewhat arrogantly, “Do you know who you are?”

What I have been referring to since 2006 as the “Internet” is an entirely different world. Almost overnight I was faced with possibilities, risks, and opportunities to develop my talent and potential. I also have opportunities to be part of forum communities where no one knows who I am, and where I have to prove myself as someone who can make valuable contributions to the specific community. Can I? To be honest, I can add a few comments if the conversation is about identity or religion or other serious matters, but what about when it comes to freelance writing markets or sports betting or social networking?

And since we are on the subject, who or what am I – e-book author or so-called e-book reseller? Am I a “short report” producer, or a contextual advertising guy?

In 2004, I would have answered: It is not who you are, it is simply what you do for money. Was I just a little wrong, or did I miss the target completely? After all, there are people who say, “Listen, I’m not a sales rep. A shop owner perhaps, maybe a taxi driver, but I’m definitely not a sales rep.” Is it not true that there are people who can say that with absolute certainty?

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THURSDAY 12 MARCH 2009

The Chinese film director Chen Kaige speaks of “cinema as church” – where a crowd of people sit in the dark, staring straight ahead, and not just being entertained but receiving something.

What they receive is not so much message, but stimulus, something that causes them to critically look at their own lives, that causes them to wonder and think and contemplate their own futures.

THURSDAY, 8 APRIL 2009

“Be like water,” Bruce Lee still recites in my head. This dictum is also true when it comes to making money.

I know I can make money by promoting products or by selling things, but when I think of myself as a sales rep, a glorified door-to-door salesman, then I am not like water. Then I am like thick, gritty mud you have to pour through a narrow paper funnel.

On the other hand, if I think of making available or recommending resources that will facilitate the process that will lead to a better life for other people, or if I think of offering my skills and knowledge at a reasonable price to help others where they get stuck, then the mud becomes watery and the grit crumbles and disappears.

Identifying and removing the obstacles in your way will increase the probability of you achieving your goal; it will significantly enhance the possibility of you reaching your destination in good time. If neither Bruce Lee nor Confucius said that, I am sure someone else did.

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FRIDAY, 3 APRIL 2009

Motivation is, for me, a complex animal. Every day has its stories, its angles, its ideas, its visions, verbalisations, lists of things to do.

This morning’s story was as follows: I leave for Bronkhorstspruit on June 1st and return on August 31st – not a plan, mind you, just a story on the way to the supermarket. The idea is to do research for three months, walk around, read magazines and newspapers, socialise, and sit under a tree and think and write. That would give me two months to save some money, but more importantly, to get sources of income going from which I can withdraw money while I am in Bronkhorstspruit.

A few hours later, on my bicycle on the way back from an errand, I expressed the opinion that it is “quite doable”. I am, indeed, convinced that something of this sort can be embarked on and brought to a successful conclusion. I also know that I probably wouldn’t be able to carry out the necessary steps within two months. “Why the heck not?” someone might ask. Because, so I reckon, I would need a special kind of motivation to succeed with such an undertaking, and three months in Bronkhorstspruit isn’t enough of a motivation.

I believe in the concept of Super Motivation, an almost magical power that spurs you to action and doesn’t allow you to rest until you’re able to clutch the prize to your chest. Super Motivation – like in the story of the mother of three children in the book, The One Minute Millionaire, who had to earn a million dollars within a month otherwise she would lose her children, forever.

The image of the mother, the thirty days and the one million has been sticking to the inside of my skull since late 2003 like one of the post-it notes on my kitchen wall. I have believed for quite some time that if you are motivated enough, you can do anything. Whether the story in the book is based on a real person or not, I have no doubt that large amounts of money can flow in your direction if you take enough of the right actions; and if you are super motivated, you do have enough of the right things. You do not rest until you are satisfied that you have done everything possible to achieve your goal.

Since 2006, and especially since I realised it might take longer than thirty days to make my first dollar on the Internet, I have been wondering what motivates me to want to make more money. Initially, it was to make up for classes that got cancelled while I was on holiday that April of 2006. Two-thousand-and-seven came and went, and my promises of visiting my family in April, or July, or September – or December! – got postponed or cancelled one after another. So, by 2008 going to South Africa and seeing my family again had become the Grand Prize, the pot of gold at the other side of the muddy field where the rainbow drilled into the soft earth. I launched new attacks like a desperate general in the First World War, trying fresh strategies and new ideas every few weeks. Money was supposed to start streaming in, and I was supposed to book my plane ticket, pay it in full, and on the scheduled date actually go on that trip.

A trip to South Africa to see my family as prize. A trip to South Africa to see my family as motivation. A trip to South Africa to see my family as fire fuelling my actions every day. But deep inside I know a visit to see my family is a double-edged sword. You arrive home; everyone is happy to see each other; after a day or two you’re used to the new landscape, and everyone is accustomed to you being part of the landscape that is their daily lives. Then, after a dozen visits to the local supermarket and half a dozen visits to the local bakery and confectionery store, you pull your suitcases from under the bed again, pack your clothes and a few copies of your favourite local magazines and an ornament or two and a few other items, lament the fact that your luggage is going to be overweight again and you may have to fork over more than R1000 at the airport for the extra weight, and then after three more days … two more days … last day, time again for emotional embraces, vague promises, and then you disappear again into the foggy skies over the Indian Ocean.

Vacation – long-awaited visit “home” – as prize. To see my family again, and within two or three weeks to say goodbye again, as motivation, the reason why I do what I do every day.

———–

Let me stop right here before June knocks on the door with me still getting sentimental about the old days, with one paragraph after another regurgitating old ideas about packing it all in and returning to South Africa for good, like casting old bones back on the fire to see if there is still a speck of flesh on them, or a little marrow I can cook soft enough to suck out. Point is, if I were still feverishly planning on returning to South Africa for good, the motivation issue might have been a beast of a different colour.

Where does this leave me? What am I supposed to do without the sweet voice of the Marvellous Motivator to spur me on?

It leaves me with a simple undertaking to do my best. For that I can motivate myself – without expecting any miracles. To get up every day, eat breakfast, and work to the best of my ability. And as I learned again recently, that does not necessarily mean to work hard for the sake of working hard. It means working smart. I shouldn’t spend eight hours driving in screws with my thumbnail if I can spend ten minutes doing it with a screwdriver. And I also shouldn’t feel I do not deserve the advantages of the screws wherever I drove them in because I only spent ten minutes driving them in instead of the eight hours I had initially expected it would take. My goodness, I really, desperately, need to stop over-complicating things.

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