I just don't know anymore...

We gotta keep pushing @DanielS guys... almost a year later and this post -> https://www.buildersociety.com/threads/daniels-first-serious-website-journey.4954/

Honestly, I feel that he needs to go out and get a day job working in SEO/SEM and then do his "business" stuff at night.

Maybe the suck of day job will motivate him.

Dan, if you got a day job in this industry and I missed it.. my bad.

However, you need to hit rock bottom a bit, get hit with a lot of suck, and then read those threads I linked to you in your other thread and here about 30 times and let it sink in.
 
eliquid said:
Honestly, I feel that he needs to go out and get a day job working in SEO/SEM and then do his "business" stuff at night.
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Yes!

That's how I got started and I think it's a great experience.

Daniel, I would really recommend this, you're going to have great fun working for an agency. It's a mix of extrovert and introvert work and coworkers. It's often varied, fun and challenging work. You'll really learn a lot, both about the industry and yourself.

When I look back, for a long time I thought along the lines of "how would they have done something like this", for inspiration.

No shame in working for someone else, particularly when you're young and the thinking type. Takes a while to learn the ropes. Consider it mentoring.
 
BCN said:
You ever thought about joining the army/service?
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Not so much- I've lived in a militaristic household my whole life. It's part of the reason why I'm unable to make decisions for myself- I'm used to being told "yes, you can do that" or "no, you can't do that" for nearly everything.
 
DanielS said:
Not so much- I've lived in a militaristic household my whole life. It's part of the reason why I'm unable to make decisions for myself- I'm used to being told "yes, you can do that" or "no, you can't do that" for nearly everything.
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Do you have a girlfriend/wife?
 
ianovici said:
Do you have a girlfriend/wife?
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I haven't spoken to a girl outside of my family or a hospital nurse (from when I had health problems in November) for 4 years now- I live in a retirement town.
 
DanielS said:
I haven't spoken to a girl outside of my family or a hospital nurse (from when I had health problems in November) for 4 years now- I live in a retirement town.
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Oooo. Disregard what I said in my last message. Hurry up and reach $2,000/month in stable income and then move to Vancouver or Toronto. Shit changes when a girl says "how are you going to provide for me and our baby?"
 
DanielS said:
I haven't spoken to a girl outside of my family or a hospital nurse (from when I had health problems in November) for 4 years now- I live in a retirement town.
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You only have one life man and you're wasting it. You'll never get that time back. You're setting yourself up for a life full of regrets...
 
@DanielS Did you manage to move and find your own place?

Are there any other positive changes that happend in your life since the last post?
 
Dang, it's already been over 1 year since I opened this thread...

I believe I mentioned this earlier, but November, December, and January were write-offs for me. I ended up having a pretty bad health issue that limited by ability to work. So, as you might imagine due to the fact that I wasn't able to work, my earnings basically disappeared overnight. This led to me having to re-build my income source(s) at the start of this year.

I reached the $2000.00 USD a month mark in April, so not bad after making $200.00 USD in January. Since April, I've been able to maintain my monthly earnings and have earned between $2000.00 and $2500.00 each month. This month (July) will be no different, but I'm anticipating a drop in August below $2000.00 USD as I have begun to run out of work to do for existing clients (I've been making all my money on UpWork BTW).

To be honest, I've been a little bit "stagnated" for the past 2 months. The work I've been doing has gotten extremely redundant, but the money has been good. I've justified being bored because of the money I've been earning, but I have to admit it's getting to be pretty mentally exhausting to try and stay focused on doing work that is just far too redundant.

I'm not sure what the fix is- find something new to do or double-down. If I find something new to do then I'll be earning less money and I'll be starting a new project for the 100th time. If I double-down, I'll be doing work that is boring but I'll be earning more money, so maybe it would be worth the boredom?

DanSkippy said:
@DanielS Did you manage to move and find your own place?
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I have not moved out yet- COVID stopped that from happening. However, I'm not against the idea anymore and I think being thrown into an environment of chaos would benefit me (moving out would be chaos for me, lol). So, I do plan on moving out in the future, but it won't be until COVID is sorted which will probably be next year. In the meantime, my bank account is growing and I'm almost at the point where I could afford to earn $0.00 for 2 years straight and still be able to afford rent, internet, food, insurance, etc. As someone who values security (to a degree) this is going to make taking the leap much easier for me when it happens.

DanSkippy said:
Are there any other positive changes that happend in your life since the last post?
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I guess an argument could be made that no positive changes have happened in my life over the past year. At the end of the day, I'm on pace to earn more money this year than I did last year, but it's still not a lot of money. The difference between $1.00 and $10.00 is large, but $10.00 is still nothing, know what I mean?

I feel different this year than I did last year though. It's weird, I know where I want to go in the relatively near-future, but I don't 100% know how I'd like to get there. Meaning, I don't know if the issue is simply that I'm not making enough money from client work or if I just generally don't like client work. I actually had an idea for a service I could provide to clients that would be worth a $1000.00 USD a month price tag, but I would be starting from scratch with this, and just continuing with UpWork is relatively easy money. If I go down to earning $1000.00 USD a month, I'll feel like a loser. If I double-down on UpWork, I'll earn more money but I'll have to continue doing boring work which will lead to less happiness. But is happiness really important when you're broke, and to what degree? It's hard to find the right balance.
 
DanielS said:
COVID stopped that from happening
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This sounds like bullshit. How has COVID stopped you from looking for a new place? Please be specific. Are you not allowed outside? Are you not allowed to look for property or meet with a realtor?

This is like Brexit, everyone used it as an excuse to not do work.

I’m in a COVID hotzone and people are moving in and out left and right. You guys don’t have masks?
 
CCarter said:
This sounds like bullshit. How has COVID stopped you from looking for a new place? Please be specific. Are you not allowed outside? Are you not allowed to look for property or meet with a realtor?

This is like Brexit, everyone used it as an excuse to not do work.

I’m in a COVID hotzone and people are moving in and out left and right. You guys don’t have masks?
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I wouldn't be able to get a moving truck- all the companies decided not to open near me because it was summertime and the government thought it would be a good idea to pay people $2000 a month starting in April here in Canada.

In regards to the apartments specifically, they still had notices that they were not renting to new tenants when I last looked. Masks are mandatory where I live now!

I guess I could've hounded someone for a video call walkthrough, but I've been looking at apartments 5 hours away from where I live. If I'm moving 5 hours away and spending $2500 a month to do so I'll need more than a video walkthrough.
 
DanielS said:
I ended up having a pretty bad health issue that limited by ability to work.
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Hope you fully recovered and are back at 100% health.

DanielS said:
I'm not sure what the fix is- find something new to do or double-down.
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Something about a baby and bathwater being throw away.

My choice would be to continue to do what I do and work on a new project when I’m finished with my “nine-to-five.”

DanielS said:
I have not moved out yet- COVID stopped that from happening.
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This COVID19 thingy may well turn out to be COVID23 or perhaps COVID36.

By this I mean that from the looks of it our dear leaders have absolutely no idea how long this will last and I’m not waiting for it to magically disappear.

For now I’m thoughtful about the people I care about and I take precautions to not unknowingly infect others, but I’m not putting my life on hold for this. Move out if you can would be my advice.

DanielS said:
The difference between $1.00 and $10.00 is large, but $10.00 is still nothing, know what I mean?
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May sound weird, but money is just a bunch of numbers. It adds and it subtracts, but it will always be there.

Stop focusing on it and how much it represents. Do what you need to be doing in the best interest for everyone around you, including yourself, and as a result the money will follow. If only because you had to make it happen.

Break free, work hard & play even harder and in the process find your true self.

Stay save!
 
DanielS said:
I'm not sure what the fix is- find something new to do or double-down.
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This is a false dichotomy. There's not only two choices at the far extremes of the continuum. For example, another option is to hire someone for $500 - $1000 to do your $2000 job for you after you train them to do it exactly like you want. The value provided is the same, valued at $2000. You just aren't doing the labor yourself. You'll be running an actual business instead of creating a day job. Now you have free time to do it again with your new service or a new website project.

DanSkippy said:
Do what you need to be doing in the best interest for everyone around you, including yourself, and as a result the money will follow.
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Amen. Everyone likely has things they know they should be doing that will be a net positive in their life and business, but they don't do it for one reason or another. Do those things. The actual risk isn't as big as your fear makes it, and the benefits clearly outweigh the risks, and even if you fail, by trying again and again you pretty much guarantee success, so the risk is really close to zero if you aren't a quitter (and can learn and adapt).
 
DanielS said:
and the government thought it would be a good idea to pay people $2000 a month
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They were correct, CERB was a good idea. Cook an egg before trying to form opinions on the economy and geopolitics lol.

Some people in Canada have actual rent and responsibilities, not like $200 symbolic rent they pay to their parents to cover some of the groceries that mom cooks for them, and they don't have safety nets of living at home, so when the country shuts down to drastically reduce the spread of the virus at the advice of every health expert, it's nice for people who earn lower wages to get back some of their own money from the gov't to ensure they can pay their bills instead of all the stimulus going to Elon and Kanye.
 
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Potatoe said:
They were correct
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I spot the socialists. “Free money” is never free. You’ll pay for it one way or another.


DanielS said:
I wouldn't be able to get a moving truck- all the companies decided not to open near me because it was summertime and the government thought it would be a good idea to pay people $2000 a month starting in April here in Canada.

In regards to the apartments specifically, they still had notices that they were not renting to new tenants when I last looked. Masks are mandatory where I live now!

I guess I could've hounded someone for a video call walkthrough, but I've been looking at apartments 5 hours away from where I live. If I'm moving 5 hours away and spending $2500 a month to do so I'll need more than a video walkthrough
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If your life depended on it you would find a way. You are using COVID as a cover for not pulling the trigger on growing up. “Well maybe next year.”

You can go to craigslist and find someone with a truck. You can hiring some people struggling for money to help you move.

Basically you aren’t serious.

This whole world is going down the toilet cause no one wants to do any serious work or put in work towards their goals. Brexit, Covid, “I can’t get a job cause Trump is a racist”, jesus so many excuses to sit at home and watch Netflix.

"A lot of full plate in this country, there are places though where there aren’t full plates and they are hungry - and they are going to eat us alive." - Dan Peña​
 
CCarter said:
I spot the socialists. “Free money” is never free. You’ll pay for it one way or another.
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Yeah in taxes - they've already paid for it. I never called it free, what are you even talking about?
 
DanielS said:
I guess I could've hounded someone for a video call walkthrough, but I've been looking at apartments 5 hours away from where I live. If I'm moving 5 hours away and spending $2500 a month to do so I'll need more than a video walkthrough.
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I seriously doubt that. These days I can only go and check out a place on pre-determined dates, the other days I can see the video walkthrough. The dates are so they can plan for a number of people and they don't have to expose the guide on a regular basis and just 1 time/month.

So when I see a property I like I can go and check it out once a month. Every house seems to have a different day.
Appartement complexes have it all in the same day. Some neighborhoods as well. So next month I'm checking out more than 10 places to live in 1 village (2 days). And I'm not even planning on moving.

Just getting ideas of what I want my life to look like. And you never know...

Landlords are begging for new occupants in the more densely populated areas, people have been moving out like crazy.
 
Potatoe said:
They were correct, CERB was a good idea. Cook an egg before trying to form opinions on the economy and geopolitics lol.

Some people in Canada have actual rent and responsibilities, not like $200 symbolic rent they pay to their parents to cover some of the groceries that mom cooks for them, and they don't have safety nets of living at home, so when the country shuts down to drastically reduce the spread of the virus at the advice of every health expert, it's nice for people who earn lower wages to get back some of their own money from the gov't to ensure they can pay their bills instead of all the stimulus going to Elon and Kanye.
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The CERB was a good idea... at first. Now (which is what the point of my comment was) people have decided that they don't want to go back to work, and why would they when they can get paid $2000 a month and have a long summer holiday? People on my street who have household incomes of $100K+ got the CERB and spent the money on furniture. People got the CERB and got paid under the table in cash. It was a very short-sighted way of going about helping people out during the pandemic, but I expect nothing less from the current federal government. People still haven't paid their taxes from 2019- the government has extended the deadline multiple times thus far. The national debt for the country is $829 billion and we have a population of 35 million people (that's less than the state of California alone) but hey, let's keep digging ourselves into a deeper hole so people who refuse to move out of Toronto when they can't afford to live there can afford rent.
 
@DanielS Fair enough, I don't necessarily agree with each point but I respect your opinions and don't want to further derail. It definitely wasn't a 100% perfect program, I read into your comment a bit more than I should have so my apologies for that, it was unnecessary of me. I want to meet more Canadians in our general line of work and me acting adversarial won't help accomplish that.

It sounds like things are opening up more and more in your province so best of luck finding a place soon - it feels great to strike out on your own and it never hurts to have an extra couple months of savings in the warchest, too, just for a bit of a silver lining on the fact that you have to wait longer than you'd hoped to.

I'm not sure if you're thinking apartments or houses, but you can probably get a house a bit more outside of the city for similar cost to an apartment in the city, give or take (I don't know your local market tho so I'm kind of guessing). It's nice not having to hear your neighbors doors slam, or to worry about being disturbed/disturbing anyone else. It's a bit late for this year, but I think gardening is a very complementary hobby for people who work from home too, so having some space for that is nice, or just a yard in general that you can setup with a lil gazebo and a desk or whatnot - helps make the most of the short summers.
 
I moved in May with no problems and it was bad here in Philly. Other places I was interested in went out of their way to do a video walk through. I didn't pay anyone to move, I rented a uhual. They have kept their doors open through all this, cost was cheap too. There are ALWAYS options in every single scenario.
 
I bought a house during lock down, went fine. Best part is we got a bit of 'rona discount, people got cold feet and wanted to sell quicker.
 
(Allow me to "journal" a bit...)

I feel like a bit of a moron typing things out here. I really appreciate the feedback and insights everyone has been giving to me, but I feel bad because I feel as if it seems that I'm not taking the feedback and insights given to me to heart.

Last Friday (July 31, 2020) I got the surgery I was supposed to get way back in March. The surgery was to diagnose the issues that had popped up last November. Basically, it's been a long 9 months. This is one of the things that stopped me from doing much of anything for the past 9 months. In fact, this is one of the primary reasons why I have not moved out yet- I was waiting to get my health issues sorted. I still have some health issues that need sorted, but at this point I've learned that there's no point sitting around being stressed and anxious and becoming Harvard educated about health topics for 9 months. I spent 9 months learning about health topics that will hold no relevance in my life once these issues I'm having are sorted. It's quite sickening actually, how much energy can be put into learning about a subject that doesn't need to be learned about in the first place (we have doctors for a reason, lol).

Anywho, while I was in the waiting room alone at the hospital trying not to pee myself before getting knocked out for the first time in my life, I got to thinking about what I actually want to do (and what I don't want to do).

I don't mind client work, but I feel like I'm just working a remote job when I do it- it's not satisfying at all. The work I do is incredibly unchallenging and it's a struggle to make it through the day. I literally feel exactly how I felt when I used to work from 3:00 PM until 11:00 PM each weeknight in a factory a few years ago. Isn't one of the points of working on your own to have more control? If so, then why am I doing something the leads me to having less control ($20 an hour client work) like I would at any normal job?

My ultimate goal is to be able to build and sell websites- that's it. I get bored relatively easily and I don't like working for people, so building and selling websites sounds very appealing to me. I wouldn't have to answer client messages and charge cheap rates- I'd get to start a new project after each website sale.

I really like the "journey"- it's why I always used to love RPG video games with a level system. The "journey" of building a website, writing 100,000's of words, getting traffic, earning money for the work I put in, and getting a big cheque at the end of it... it sounds like something that would lead to a lot of satisfaction for me.

I want to earn more money, which is why I've always stuck to client work- it's what I've had success with. However, I'm becoming drained as time goes on, and it's making me want to work less and less- the opposite of what I need to do.

I like to go 100% all-in on things. I've tried the whole "work 8 hours and then work on a website on the side" game- it doesn't really work for me. I spend all my "work" time doing keyword research, writing YouTube titles, and writing YouTube descriptions. I do this all day, and then I have to write more words for my own website- it's redundant.

I dunno, maybe it's just chesnut syndrome- maybe I'm just lazy. All I know is, the ultimate goal isn't to do freelance client work for the next 40 years- I want to be more free than that. The longer I sit in limbo, the longer I do client work for $20 an hour and write barely anything for my own personal website, the longer I'll remain stuck where I am.

I could get off of UpWork and build my own freelance website, do cold calling and cold emailing to get clients, but then I'd be starting from scratch again and doing something I know isn't my ultimate goal. Do I take the time to build my own brand, cold call, cold email, work, and charge a higher monthly fee, or do I focus on the ultimate goal of building and selling websites? At least if I write 5000 words a day for my website, I'll have something to show for my work, as opposed to cold calling and cold emailing prospects all day and potentially getting nowhere (this is why I stuck to UpWork in the first place).

#entryover
 
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