Respect 7 Feb 2:03 AM (18 days ago)
How much do you respect your boss? Him/her as a worker, as a human being?
Promotion By Race Privilege
The rule on my previous job was management position decided by race. I worked for a company abroad and HQ will send a bunch of young guys promised with express way to the top. The top management position is reserved for those guys and locals were barred.
The result is I ended up with unique situation. Dude whom I taught about how things work last year now become my boss and orders me around. Some of them have good head on their shoulders, others got drunk of power. Some were competent and realize they need to learn, others not so much.
I don’t blame them for it. You seize the opportunity given to you. If you’re a broke 24 years old and your opportunity is getting flown 18 hours to other country with promise of management position, it’s understandable that you take it.
I can maintain minimum respect at the recognition that they’re technically my boss. Beyond that? Not so much.
Promotion By Merit
My new job however, has given me a stark different experience. The boss was not lifted by privilege or race, but by pure performance. He started from the bottom and brought good business to the company then got promoted.
Talking with him has different vibe. As someone who made it himself, he didn’t come as patronizing or arrogant (which ironically I found in some people lifted by privilege). His way in problem solving is unique, often push boundaries to get the job done. This is different from those who sit on the top who stuck in by-the-book solution because they were never in the position of doing the actual grunt work themselves.
In any case, this one deserves my respect, so far. Let’s see how it goes in the future
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Feb Update 7 Feb 1:13 AM (18 days ago)
New project progress
Article:
About 15 and adding. I did everything using AI then review the article myself. I think it’s not so different with human writer as I still have to review their work as well. The difference is I’m not $30 short for every article created.
The result has less ‘soul’ on it but it works. I published 10+ and keep the rest in draft.
My facebook page at the moment reached 1200 likes. With this number and no link post at all, I got about 20 views per post. Some reached more, I’m not sure what the factor is.
My goal is to reach at least 5000 likes before start posting link to make sure I have more eyeballs on each link.
Ads to Get Likes
I follow NSL way to get like and make it really simple. At the moment 2 creatives manage to reach conversion target in spending per like, but based from experience as I increase the budget, the conversion will suffer. We’ll see.
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Not in Your Interest 9 Jan 5:16 PM (last month)
Being in finance industry for years, I know for sure that many of the so called ‘guru’ or ‘influencer’ only have their interest in heart, and not their members.
This mean they will prioritize monetary gain for themselves over the safety of their members, partnering with questionable companies that would pay them the highest.
Recently I realized this been happening in other industries too. Traveling is my hobby so I’ve been checking out these influencers who promote ‘travel backpack’ and one thing stuck out: they all unanimously promote a certain selection of products, namely Aer, Peak Design, Wandrd, Pakt, Nomatic, and so on.
If you’re not following backpack brands, you probably wont see the pattern here. But as someone who pay attention to such, it’s easy to see: all of them are online-only brands, many started from Kickstarter, and they pay a bunch in affiliate commission. Nomatic on launch pays almost 40% of their bag price to affiliates.
This is also why you won’t see established brands like Thule, Patagonia, and Osprey in their recommendations. These brands do not have direct affiliate program so if they want commission they have to refer to Amazon affiliate, which pay pennies, less than 5% of the bag’s price.
Bottom line: I’m not discounting these influencers advice, props for them who actually bought and test the product. My point is to open your option to established brands as well, maybe find non-affiliated review in reddit for it.
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Maintain A Friendship 9 Nov 2024 2:14 AM (3 months ago)
As an introvert, a while ago I was introduced to a concept where a friend relationship can be maintained not by constant communication but by rare encounters accompanied by deep conversations.
So I set out to test this theory.
A
A: I knew A years ago in a community and we were close. However at some point I decided that this community was not for me. Meanwhile, she was very committed to the community so we drifted apart.
I re-initiate our contact by inviting her & her husband to lunch. Few months later I invited them again for my birthday, just 3 of us. That was 10 months ago, in which time A never tried to contact me even once.
Looking back, I suppose I can see from how the conversation went. They didn’t come because they wanted to talk to me, they just sparing some time because they’re nice people.
I understand well that everyone has priority on who they spend their time with, and in their case people who are around all the time takes priority over those who show up once every few months. I understand this, but naturally this means this #1 test is a failure. I make mental note not to contact her again.
M
M: M was my co-worker in my previous job. We shared personal things from relationships to side-job and what we wanted in life.
After I changed job we chat a few times and I decided this can be monthly thing or even bimonthly thing. However on 1 interaction, she was just gone, did not reply. This means either it was done on purpose to end the chat or she completely forgot that she was chatting with me, both equally bad.
I said hi again about 2 months later and we had a chat. She gave me on-the-surface update about her life and force-end the conversation with the classic ‘it’s late, bye’. I feel like she didn’t really want the conversation and hang around just to be polite, the 2 months silence also support this theory.
I think it’s pointless trying to maintain a friendship with someone who doesn’t equally try, so I make mental note not to contact her again and label the #2 a failure as well.
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When Things Go Bad, Good People Leave 3 Nov 2024 1:03 AM (3 months ago)
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Social Media focused Site 21 Oct 2024 2:23 AM (4 months ago)
Following NSL recommendation, I decided (half heartedly) to start testing social media focused site. Half heartedly because I have quite the doubt for working model that she demonstrate:
- the topic is vegetarian, but she keep making controversial posts. As a result, her FB page is full of vegan-hater who – of course – up engagement but has zero chance to check her site or buy anything she recommend.
- the site is now running for about 3 months. Checked with similar web, the traffic is 8k but half of them came from India. The rest from multiple countries but there is no UK on top 5. So the huge bulk of her traffic are from fellow marketers who sees her project in Twitter or email.
- This is something because the site is focusing on UK vegan, it uses co.uk site and releasing vegan news in UK.
- From the 8k traffic, 6% from social media, which 99% facebook. The other 13% is organic. This is a bit disheartening because she put all her effort in FB (burn $720 in ad, 5-10 posts per day) but it still no better than search engine traffic which she supposedly did not even care of?
Regardless, I’m testing this, if only for lack of other alternatives.
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March Update 13 Mar 2024 10:12 PM (11 months ago)
As another google update rolled and took its victims, the mood in the SEO community got even more sour. Some strong advocates of EEAT who think they did a good job and should be excluded from the update got ran over too and they already show strong feelings on it.
Travel Lemming, who supposedly have very strong EEAT and visit every place they review themselves got slashed to the point that they only have 35% of their original traffic. Up The Gains by Sammy Elard also got slashed and he ranted in X about having been overtaken by lower quality site in ranks. NSL took this opportunity to push her recommended FB course and get some commission from it.
Basically the whole thing is a mess.
Pinterest effort
My Pinterest effort started to yield result although it’s not much, about 300 visits in a month, far cry from nearly 100k needed to earn decent ad revenue.
To make matters complicated, most of my topics are not what people look for in Interest. My biggest contributor is 90 clicks from 1 pin that is not even in my main topic.
After some deliberating, my plan is to add more articles to serve Pinterest. This effort will damage topical cluster but with Google like this, it doesn’t seem to matter now.
Facebook effort remains elusive despite taking the most cost from ad. My page has 420 followers now but FB only shows my post to 1-2 people each time. I made sure to deliver what I promise in Ad but if the algorithm does not show it to more people, does it means that the one who click like does not really care about what promised in the Ad?
This happened despite me ditching all my side topics and only focus on 1 topic in FB in order to keep engagement, and thus for it to be shown to more followers.
SEO
Traffic down to 24 visitors at one point and since then rebound to about 80-100, halving the previous traffic. Impression almost went back but with less click that only means that I still show on same page on SERP but lower.
As the update will take 1 month to roll, I don’t even know how to react. No one else does either for sure.
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The Universe Doesn’t Owe You Anything 8 Mar 2024 7:11 PM (11 months ago)
Life is unfair.
The Universe does not owe you anything, just because you’ve been working hard, or because you wished for it to happen.
Shitty things happen to amazing people.
Amazing things happen to shitty people.
We have been taught that we need to suffer to get what we want in life.
We don’t.
We need to do what works,
and it’s not related to how much suffer.
How many 12h/day factory or mine workers have you seen living their dreams?
Yet they are some of the hardest workers there is.
The World is filled with billions of people who believe that the hardest they work, the better their life will be.
We value suffering, hardship, effort, pain and tough work.
For what?
Suffering is not giving you any “credit points” that you can exchange afterward to get good things in your life.
We reject what’s simple and effortless, because we think: “nah, it couldn’t be that easy, right?”
But sometimes it is, that easy.
Sometimes, what leads to amazing results doesn’t require 80h of work per week.
We need to stop living our life with the belief that the Universe, or other people, owe us anything because of our efforts or intentions.
There is no “law of attraction”.
There is no “no pain no gain”.
There is no “karma”.
There is what works,
and what does not work.
Sometimes, it takes years to figure out what works.
Sometimes, it only takes 10 seconds.
We try to make sense of the World by thinking it’s all balanced, that harder work leads to better results, that giving more leads to receiving more, etc.
It doesn’t work this way.
You should love, not because you expect love in return, but because loving is what makes you feel whole.
You should work hard, not because you expect better results in return, but out of passion for the work itself.
You should give back more, not because you expect to receive gratefulness in return, but because giving it the reward itself.
As long as you believe that your effort, work, love, intention or gifts entitle you to be rewarded, you got it all wrong.
Life is unfair.
You can deny it, and suffer.
or deal with it, and adjust.
Someone said: “Reality is what remains even when you stop believing in it.”
And regardless how many millions books, movies and seminars it sold,
Reality doesn’t reward the effort, the intention, or the pain to get there.
Reality rewards what works.
Source: thomasdepin
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February Progress 16 Feb 2024 10:12 PM (last year)
Just as traffic bumped in January, the most I got was 240/day before it dived down again to a disheartening level at 150+. Someone on twitter told me that it was seasonal since travel increased in January and dropped by the end of it.
I fired my overpriced social media manager and chose to do FB myself.
- The idea is running ads to gain likes, and hopefully they see the posts afterwards
- run ads and test various forms , so far managed to get about $0.26 per likes, still too high
- Start adding news to be shared on FB
- Share memes from time to time
I start with 10/day and now start to do 20/day on 3rd month. Traffic trickled in but nothing significant. From trend and keyword checking, the topic I cover isn’t really things people search on Pinterest so it’s not a good match.
Thoughts on Social Media
I can start branching and make articles for social media instead for google but I wonder how much this will benefit me
Content
I’m still adding content although no longer aiming for 20 per months. Most of my top performers already dropped to page 2 or even 3 and adding more does not seem to boost anything.
Links
I got a few links but most of them are a bit concerning because they seem to be sites that are designed to sell links (bought high DA site and put content on it). They get little traffic despite the big DA and they all ask money for it.
That and there’s this case NSL got manual penalty as google accused her of buying link make me reconsider link building again.
That being said, my DA 17 domain probably wont go anywhere if I don’t make link.
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I should’ve known 2 Feb 2024 12:46 AM (last year)
- If it’s already made clear that you’re unwanted, leave. Trying to stay will only lead to more heartaches => You’ve got to learn to leave the table when love is no longer being served -Nina Simone-
- Never let a handful of good qualities make you think that everything else about them is great. The truth is you don’t have the full picture yet, so don’t assume.
- Date people who share similar values to you because relationships that are aligned are so much easier. Misalignment in values will cause a lot of conflicts.
- To meet your person you have to be visible. After all, if you can’t be seen you can’t be found.
- Your mental health is more important than any relationship. If you have to sacrifice your mental wellbeing for your partner, you lose yourself in the process.
- How someone treats you is how they feel about you. If they act like they don’t care, they don’t care. => Action speaks louder than words.
- If you wouldn’t be friends with the person you’re dating, the relationship is probably built on physical attraction or infatuation and probably won’t last. You don’t actually miss them, you miss what you wanted them to be.
- Don’t believe in potential. Potential is worthless without actions to back it up. Look where they are and what they’re doing now => What you see is what you get.
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