How to Quit Your Job, Move to Paradise, and Get Paid to Change the World
problogger.net
problogger.net
It's a classic sell-the-dream pitch to inspire you to believe that if this guy could do "it", given his difficult situation, even you could do it too.
You read it through, get inspired, and get drawn into his sales funnel. Over time, as you consume more of his content, you start to trust him more, and have more faith in his ability to help people do what he's doing. He must have the secret, after all, otherwise how could he have done what he's done? You just need to keep going until he shares that secret with you.
Eventually, when you notice that he's selling something that promises to help you make money blogging whilst sitting on a beach sipping pinas, you'll consider it much more seriously than you would if he'd hit you over the head with it from the start. You trust him now.
You might notice that his story links to a course. Just a subtle mention so you don't think the whole thing is nothing more than a big sales pitch. But you can watch the videos and subscribe right there and then to accelerate your journey to the point where you're ready to stump up some cash for the secret to success. Some people convert faster than others.
Or maybe you'll convert a year down the line. Perhaps you won't convert at all, but you'll promote/upvote his stuff and introduce more people into his sales funnel. Some of them might convert at some point.
Maybe you'll never buy anything directly from him, but you might end up buying something from one of the other respectable internet marketers that he might point you towards (with affiliate links most likely, so he gets a cut).
Eventually you'll be able to spot this sort of sell-a-dream pitch in a glance. You'll always wonder if there might be good stuff in there, but you won't worry about missing out because the chances are you've seen most of it before. And whatever time you spend wading through fluffy feel good stories to get to the meat is time you could have spent building or promoting something of your own.
Not a problem for him though; there's an endless stream of newbies looking for the secret to making money online. Admittedly I hadn't realized hacker news had so many of them...
The book will actually use all of those hints itself, e.g. "this reminds me of the time I wrote a self-help book in the jungles of Indonesia, where I lived for twenty years as a marine biologist."
But this kind of snake oil is being sold all over the internet and I haven't seen this level of critical analysis applied to others doing something similar, but under a slightly respectable garb. Examples: Tim Ferris and his 4-hour work week/body, Gary V with his Crush it, Ramit Sethi and his Earn 1k infomercial http://earn1k.com/
He should probably right a book about blogging your way to riches by working 2hrs a week and he would be on NYT Best Seller list and an eventual Angel investor and speaker at various startup events.
But for jeebus' sake, don't quit writing software to sign up for this guy's blogging course.
Consult remotely, build products and charge money for them. Pick a paradise beach that doesn't have tall hotels on it and is therefore just this side of free to live on. Bring some savings and start small.
I know that this works because I did it. And no, I will not charge you money to tell you how to do it. Everything you need to know you can learn from the previous paragraph.
Now, if you actually want to do it, go do it.
I've been there. Traveled for many years around asia and south america, worked (fulfilling?) volunteer jobs etc.
Then I returned home. Fixed all the shit I left hanging here and started to live a decent life right here.
The answer I've found is that only people who haven't been travelling, dream of travelling. Those of us who've been there, know that it's not very appealing if your mind is troubled. Your life won't magically change if you move to another country.
So, is it "anywhere outside the US/Canada" that's easy to live in without being rich, or are people just moving there and just kinda winging it without actually becoming residents/citizens?
I can work from anywhere with an Internet connection but because of immigration laws I couldn't just move to any country I want. Europe has pretty strict laws, same with the US/Canada.
Unless you have money to invest in a country or are employed by a company there, they won't let you stay there except for a 90 day tourist visa.
I keep a hawkeye out whenever I see a post from a top blog on HN's frontpage, shit like this problogger, smashingweb, and mashable which are always either contentless diatribes or a bizarre summary of a link that's at the bottom of the post. There's a specific name for these types of posts but I forget exactly what. Anyways, this poster has a history if submitting from these major blogs anyways, so I think it's just a case of him/her being subscribed to their feeds.
The truly worrying part is seeing it with 100+ upvotes on the frontpage. That's not a good sign.
Blogspam.
I had no idea that problogger would be met wich such an furious amount of contempt. I will refrain from ever posting a link from them again.
I am surprised about the amount of upvotes myself, but the story is quite inspiring, independent from who wrote it, or on which domain it is hosted.
"Want to be rich? It's simple, just win the lottery," says the guy who won the lottery. "I did it, so can you."
Pursuing what you love and working hard at it is always great advice, but not everyone can make money doing what they love, no matter how hard they work at it.
Really shows you what anyone can do if you simply have enough tenacity and dedication.
This is one of the most inspiring stories I have read in a long, long time. A guy who is paralyzed from the neck down builds a lifestyle (similar to what I want for myself) for himself, through willpower, dedication and determination.
This might not be everyone's cup of tea, but a truly inspiring read for me, that will help motivate me to live life on my terms. No, it's not about "blogging your way to riches". It's about conquering fear. letting go and going for what you want.
And the thing is that each one of us could make the step too. You don't have to be rich or hugely successful at all. As a hacker we could just as well move to a nice sunny country and work from the beach there. The internet makes it all possible.
Still I'm not sure whether I would have the willpower and determination to do it.
I've lived in paradise (Hawaii). I had a view like his. Frankly, it was rather dull.
I quickly missed having meaningful conversations with people. Island time is quite real. It was so easy to slip into doing nothing but go to the beach every day.
You can always get meaningful conversation on the Internet.
Posts like this are not entirely useless because they give some basic motivation. But from that point further, there is absolutely no useful information, and no objectivity. Finally, if he had to confess the probability to achieve success following his recommended route, equals winning the lottery noone would join his course.
Finally the writing is really mediocre. Problogger stopped being useful many years ago, but I'm still surprised to see crap like this:
"You can do it. I believe in you. So get started. Right freaking now."
Yeah. And you stop writing, please. Right freaking now.
I want to apologize to everyone who I infuriated by posting this link. I thought it to be a truly inspirational story. I didn't take interpret the message of the post as: "Now buy my product!"
I understood the message as: "Now work hard to achieve your goal. You can reach your paradise, just don't give up!"
I know that problogger is a commercial website and they are selling stuff, but so is apple.com, google.com and many other websites. (Note: I am not saying a link to problogger is the same thing as link to apple.com. I am saying that many links online have a commercial background) I believe people are aware of this and can be trusted to filter obvious marketing messages.
It would be nice to have some kind of list of blogs you are not supposed to link to, I really had no idea this domain would be frowned upon.
Few years ago everybody was doing search engine optimization and affiliate marketing. Wave 2 was people publishing e-books on SEO and affiliate marketing. Wave 3 was masses moving in and driving the margins down.
Sounds like professional blogging is on wave 2.
I am not a programmer nor a blogger and I don't see much difference between this guy and most of the stories I read on HN.
Sad - take a look at yourselves and take it as the inspirational story that it is.
By the way, good selling process is not covered just by one article. So not every page sells stuff directly.
It's an article about grit.
These sorts of bloggers constantly talk about 'changing the world' but ultimately they aren't promoting people to build useful products and services, but to step up and join the blogging wealthy.
Are there people making good money blogging? Of course. The problem is in the 'token' people who sell marketing and blogging, but show little promotional ability outside of marketing and blogging.
These types of posts attract those who are susceptible to 'magical thinking', that somehow if you motivate yourself hard enough, that you will achieve whatever you want. While some level of motivation is necessary to kick start action, too much motivation is a crippling addiction that turns individuals into self-help cult members who follow every move of their marketing guru.
Think of it like this: if you have a steady income in USD that can be generated at a distance, your quality of life can be orders of magnitude better.
Mexico (or any 'third world country') is a great environment to bootstrap, but not to generate income locally.
Speaking frankly, not all is great. When you switch your social context entirely you instantly lose all your friends and the safety net you have living close to your family.
There's a TED talk that talks about about how people who win the lottery often end up less happy than they were before winning because of different factors, such as moving to a fancy neighborhood with people with whom you share nothing in common.
It feels an awful lot like that, except you don't have millions of dollar to cushion your exile. And this goes for both sides (moving to a "better" or "worse" country).
I have referred elsewhere to this phenomenon as "Happy Clappy Capitalism"[1].
Maybe we need a new site -- clappitalism.com -- to keep an eye on them.
[1] http://clubtroppo.com.au/2007/04/20/happy-clapping-capitalis...
'The brick walls are there for a reason. The brick walls are not there to keep us out; the brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something. The brick walls are there to stop the people who don't want it badly enough. They are there to stop the other people!'
He's saying that you can do independent work (aka "indie") and still get a damn good income that may even surpass your "job" income (depends on how hard you work and how dedicated you are).
It's not really all that different from what PG writes in his essays. PG is just more specific "do a startup", this guy's post is more general "go indie".
I don't think he ever intended to imply it's some sort of "magic"; he clearly says it's hard work and there will be time where you'll want to quit, which is also something that PG says.
> While some level of motivation is necessary to kick start action, too much motivation is a crippling addiction that turns individuals into self-help cult members who follow every move of their marketing guru.
Same could be said about this community. A bunch of people who follow the PG cult of "quit your job and come to YC and get rich". While some of them do indeed succeed and get rich; the majority don't. (just playing the devil's advocate here)
Also if you read my comment you will notice I said the people who resonate with these posts are susceptible to magical thinking. I didn't directly say that there is magical thinking in the post, other than he seems to believe strongly in positivity being the key to success.
I do agree about HN being very cult like. There is an ideology in play here, if you post things that agree with the ideology you are upvoted, if you disagree with it you are downvoted. The positive reinforcement is right there. Over time users learn what comments will lead to upvotes, and thus they change their thinking to match.
Quoted for truth:
" Every day, I get emails from students who say my advice has changed their writing. Every day, I get emails from clients who say my strategies have changed the way they do business."
Would I do it? No. Do I recommend it? No. Can it work? Absolutely.
Anyway, I see your point and agree with it.
Could be untrue, though he's always traveling with his family all over the world and I know his income is at least $50k/mo
I've never been involved with an MLM, and I don't plan to either, but I think it can't be compared with winning the lottery. Your efforts/connections/skills play a big part in being successful in an MLM.
EDIT: And by the way, after thinking about it, the same could be said for any environment in which you don't control the rules of the game, such as the app store. The odds are against you, and the one who benefits the most is Apple.
This is true of casinos, lotteries, MLM schemes and app stores.
That's why I don't blame anyone: casinos, lotteries, MLMs or app stores; anyone is free to join and play, is up to them if they want to.
This article is a double edged sword. Sure it contains a 'pick yourself up by your bootstraps' call to action but the other edge is that they are marketing the exact solution to the problem that they created in the post (that you aren't happy).
In this specific case, you seem to me, to be off-put by the fact that he hustles with motivational speaking to obtain his goals. I think, personally, that the very hustle is a great example of why he should be listened to - he's very clearly determined and focused.
That doesn't mean he's advocating his exact profession, and it doesn't mean he's telling people to sit around and let the cosmos give them gold stars for thinking positively, does it?
(Edit: Aside from the blogger relationship, though, I'm curious as to what the article has to do with this site, I'll admit.)
"You want to quit your job and become a professional blogger? You can. You want to travel around the world, living life to its fullest? You can. You want to dedicate your every hour to helping people and making the world a better place? You can."
So on the one hand this guy is clearly in the 'make money stuffing envelopes by selling information about making money stuffing envelopes to other suckers' genre of advocacy. That being said, he was in a place that is probably worse than what the average reader is in and is now much happier with his life now that he has 'taken control of his life.'
I read his story and liked how he discovered he was being held back by his own pre-conceptions of how he "should" be living his life. Now that he's doing something he loves doing he's both happier and more successful than he has ever been. Score one point for doing what you love.
The cautionary tale is that his 'recipe' won't work for everyone, and probably not for a lot of someones. Writing, like drawing, or programming, or fine carpentry, or any of a number of things takes dedication to learn to do well and hours and hours of practice. If you don't love to write, trying to re-make your life as a blogger is going to fail and fail big. So exhorting people to "Do what I did, be a blogger!" is ultimately bad advice for the verbally challenged. (I guess in that regard he's not helping people but we'll set that aside for a moment)
It does also reinforce the notion that one's quality of life is most affected by your attitude about it. I had an opportunity to hear a great commencement speech from Doug Ulman (CEO of Livestrong Foundation) where he very eloquently put that into perspective, his advice to accept that you aren't in control and to live fearlessly is solid advice, regardless of your gifts.