Monthly Must Read | The Search by John Battelle

The Search: How Google and Its Rivals Rewrote the Rules of Business and Transformed Our Culture 

by John Battelle

Shopping at thrift stores and at the Goodwill was never my thing for one reason, I never though they had anything good to buy. I always thought that the products in those stores would not be worth buying and would probably be broken or something worse. It wasn't until I got with my lady that I willingly started going to thrift stores and shopping at the local goodwill. One of my favorite sections of those stores are the book aisle and every time I go into one, I find something that was one my list of books to acquire. 

Not too long ago, we recently went to the goodwill and I bought 5 books that I found, 2 of which were on my books to acquire list. One of them which I started reading this month is called The Search by John Battelle. 

What is the Book About

The Search is mainly about Google in the early days but more importantly the author accurately describes the events and the companies that were around in the early days of the internet. The book goes into depth about search and how it has changed not only businesses but also changed peoples lives. It changed the way we search for products and information and the way we buy and consume products and information.  

The book starts off by exploring the internet scene and the early search engines and related businesses before Google, then John goes into the background of how page and Brian met and came up with the search technology they created at Stanford. It then goes into Page and Brian receiving their first investment, to looking for the best business model to other stories later in the book like the original idea behind AdWords, the privacy laws issues they came up against and much more.

My Thoughts About the Book

This book holds a special place on my bookshelf because I always love a good story about the early beginnings of some of the biggest companies, once startups, that we know today. The Search is for anyone who wants a more in depth and behind the scene look into the beginnings of Google, the business of search and its' early days. You can learn of some of the events that took place when Google first started, the run ins with the Government and the privacy issues that came up, when the first went public and much more.

I think this book will give founders of startups and people alike the humbling experience that Page and Brian had starting what would become a billion dollar company. It was a great read and I will more than likely be reading this book again pretty soon because it is just that interesting. I know we all think we know the story of Google but in this book, he gives stories that was never really made public or in other books and documentaries. I personally think that this is one of those books that you must have in your book collection, especially entrepreneurs and founders of startups.

What I Learned from the Book

Reading this book was not intended for me to learn something about business or personal development but more for entertainment. I enjoy reading and watching movies about startups and their beginnings, the hardships and failures along the way all the way to their success. 

One thing that I did not know which you can say that I learned was the yahoo had an opportunity to license Goggles' search technology but passed on it. When i think about it and look at yahoo today, I think that probably maybe one of their biggest mistakes. 

As John explained in the book, Page and Brian saw that there was an already growing and well funded list of search related business like Yahoo, Excite, AltaVista, Infoseek and more so they decided instead of starting and running a company which was a lot harder than it is today, they could license their technology to one of those companies. They held meetings and demonstrations with these companies and other venture capitalists but was ultimately rejected by everyone so they continued to working on Google. 

As stated in the book, Page felt that the companies they visited were becoming portals, focusing on subgroups, sub-genres within the site and as Page added, "They did have horoscopes though." To the giants back in the day, search was a commodity and the goal was to keep people on your site, not send them away. 

They eventually got their first investment from the co-founder of Sun Microsystems, Andy Bechtolsheim and David Cheriton, founder of Granite Systems, a developer of networking technology that was sold to Cisco Systems back in 1996.

The stories in this book gives you a inside view of what it took for Google to become one of the biggest companies on the world today, all from two guys trying to make search more organized and useful to people.

Purchase "The Search" on Amazon http://amzn.to/1XnLU7J

Additional Books by John Battelle http://amzn.to/1VfIGW0

Authors Website http://battellemedia.com/

Follow This Author on 

Twitter https://twitter.com/johnbattelle

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Act Like A Success, Think Like A Success

Monthly Must Read | Act Like A Success, Think Like A Success by Steve Harvey

 

Act Like a Success, Think Like a Success: Discovering Your Gift and the Way to Life's Riches

Every morning for the last 5 or 6 years up until I left my job in December 2014, my daily morning commute was a 44 mile drive to work listening to the Steve Harvey Morning Show. Now, I don't get to listen much often since I left to manage my business and I don't listen to the radio much in the house but when I did, I always enjoyed tuning in. At 6am, he comes on for about 10 minutes to give a morning inspirational speech, then once he is finished, the rest of the morning show team (Tommy, Carla, Junior and Shirley) joins in. 

Throughout the week, Steve talks a lot about business and actually, they usually have a theme for each day of the week and one that I was very fond of was the Success Tuesdays. Knowing his story and hearing some of the trials and tribulations he has gone through and still going through are some of the best talks they are to me. When he announced that he was writing a book about becoming successful and what it took for him to get there, I was excited and ready to read and hear more about what he has been through. If there is one thing I love, it is I hearing about people's rise to success!

This month, I found myself picking up another book off of my shelf that I found to be a great read, "Act Like a Success, Think Like a Success" by Steve Harvey which I purchased back in 2014 the week it was released. The book is about personal development, teaching you how to find your gift or your natural talents and use them to achieve your dreams and also become successful. 

What is the book about

I had to give major kudos to Steve for technically writing and publishing his first book on personal development which is by far a very good read. Firstly, he gave a lot more detailed information about his journey to success and a straight to the point and easy to understand guide on what you need to do to become successful. Some of the stand out topics in the book were:
 
Finding Your Gift
The main focus around the book was about finding your true and natural gift you were born with. In other words, if there is something that you do quite well naturally or something that you are very well gifted at, he assures that if you take the time to explore it some more and spend some time crafting and perfecting that gift, you should be able achieve the success you desire. One main step in the process he talks about is also choosing the right vehicle to bring forth your gift.


The Untold and Behind the Scenes Stories
In the book, Steve also gives us behind the scene stories about performing for his first HBO Special, The Kings of Comedy tour, his first performance at a free amateur night, to making $25 a night, to $25,000 per night. One story that he talks about often on the radio show that he briefly spoke about in the book was when he became homeless. Now for anyone to be homeless and make it to become a multi millionaire and a well respected man is has my attention hands down.

Activity and Goal Setting Book 
Throughout the book, Steve placed a few activities for you to do, some while reading and the others throughout your time putting your goals and action steps in place. He also recommended that his readers put together a vision board that they can use as a guide or road map to achieve their goals. 

My thoughts about the book

What I most appreciate this book for is that it breaks down finding your gift or your true calling in life to levels that everyone can understand and actually start to take some type of action towards their goals. Many times when you are reading books, especially those you are reading to educate yourself, you get a sense that the book may be slightly out of your league or to complicated to take action without a specific route to take but the book was made to help guide you along the way instead of just giving information and not knowing what to do with it like the activity sections in between chapters and the stress of using paper and pencil to write down your goals and visions to make it more concrete. 
I also thought that Steve mentioned a critical aspect of getting motivated to take action and carry out your goals when he opened up with the chapter called, "Im Tired of Myself" which he explained that it wasn't until he was tired of himself, his financial situation and just completely frustrated with life that he started taking action towards his goals and vision. 

What I gained from the book  

Act Like A Success, Think Like A Success gave me major insight about the path that Steve took to get to where he is at in life right now. It was a very informative read and gave me much encouragement to keep pushing towards my goals and most of all, always taking action. I never read the book with the intentions of finding out what my gifts and natural talents are because I have always had a sense of direction and what I want out of life. I read the book simply because I wanted to know more about Steve's journey and hopefully gain the little jewels of knowledge he drops on the radio show. One of those jewels consisted of his daily schedule. I am always fascinated by seeing the daily routines and schedules of many working successful people mainly because you get a perspective of what all you can accomplish within a 24 hour time frame if you really just take action and get to work on your goals and vision. 

Take a look at his personal schedule that was published in the book, Act Like a Success, Think Like a Success
  

After reading this, I told myself that I have a lot of work to do if I'm ever to get on the level that his on or further. Anyone looking at this can easily see that the work Steve Harvey puts in everyday will more than likely keep him financial secured but also important, he keeps a routine to stay in shape to accommodate his hectic schedule. 

What do your daily schedule consists of and is it anywhere as productive as the schedule above? Please feel free to leave a comment below! 

Purchase "Act Like A Success, Think Like A Success" on Amazon http://amzn.to/1QVTBDd
 
Additional Books by Steve Harvey http://amzn.to/1L6CgFx

Authors Website www.steveharvey.com

Passive My Income Report for January 2016

Welcome to PMI Income Reports! 

Every month I create and share these reports which is a detailed account of my online earnings which helps me keep track of my progress, the trials and errors and also to give readers the ability to join me on my journey and hopefully take something out of it that you can use for yourself! 

Happy New Years from PMI!!! Hope everyone enjoyed their holidays and ready to go into the New Year. There's alot of great things that is coming in the 2016, but for now, let's wrap up the year and get into January's Income Report.

January is here, which means it's a New Year and New things are happening. It has also been a full year since I've left my full time job on December 31, 2014 to run my own business and just recently, things seem to be heading on the right course. I've learned a lot within the last year as I stated in the article above and started to implement some of the ideas and plans I've been sitting on for a long time. 

January was a sad month for my family because my Grandmother passed away. She lived a long great life filled with love from all of her family and friends and we are sad to see her go. This means that I will be traveling back to my hometown, St. Croix to attend the funeral so work will be on hold around the ending of the month.

Without delay, lets get right into this months' PMI income report!

New Happenings 

For those that may not know, I love graphic tees and over the past few years, I have collected a good amount but many I have since gotten rid of for many different reasons. Lately, I've been getting the itch for graphic tees again but this time, I want to collect more tees that has deeper meanings in the words or graphics on the shirt. In 2014, I began playing around with a few designs for shirts and sweatsuits and even ordered a few to see how they look in real life. During those times, I learned a lot about fulfillment services, e-commerce platforms, and payment solutions but overall there were things that I still had did not know and needed to learn. I eventually put everything put those plans on hold until I can figure things out but I always knew I would continue one day.
   
During the month of January, I decided to crank things back up and began the planning stages for the layouts and designs for a new T Shirt Collection that I am very excited about releasing. The collection feature some of the best quotes on PMI, summed up in a word or a graphic and will consist of about 5 designs to begin with and will eventually grow to more designs later down the road. I like to call it " Some of the best quotes on a Tee."

The T Shirt collection will be released sometime in March or early April 2016, but right now there's few things that I have to decide on and establish before I can even get started on the designs. In next month's income report, I will reveal the design and meaning behind the first tee in the collection and more importantly, I will be looking for some feedback from from you guys so I can better improve the Tees. 
   

Reading

Lately, I have been reading a lot of books on various topics which has been changing the way I think about money, life and my future. Now, I am not a fast reader nor do I read everyday but one habit that I am working on is reading a few chapters right after my morning workout (more on my workout below). As part of my challenge to myself to learn and open up my mind to new things, my goal is to purchase and read at least one book per month in which I will be able to use some of the information I've learned to improve my life overall whether it is financial related, personal and business relationships, my health or any other areas of my life I may not have mentioned. 

This month, I started reading one of the 4 books I recently picked up at the local goodwill which I've underestimated for a long time because I never knew they had such great books and for a price you can't beat. 

The book is called "The Search: How Google and Its Rivals Rewrote the Rules of Business and Transformed Our Culture." It is written by John Battelle who is a cofounding editor or Wired and founder of The Industry Standard. There's many books out about Google beginnings but this book gives you a much broader and inside story of Google and also the past, the present and the future of search technology as a whole. Google has changed the way people use the internet and changed the way some businesses do business online and John documents the whole internet scene from its' early beginnings in the 90's to the 2000's where it constantly evolving and growing at a fast pace.

Check out this Months' Monthly Read: The Search by John Battelle

Exercising

As part of my personal growth journey, I've started a small workout plan 4-5 days out of the week in the mornings and I can honestly say it is one of the best decisions I have made. As I am learning that working in front of a computer screen all day and not maintaining a healthy lifestyle can really mess with your health, I decided to design a simple workout plan that is very easy to stick to and can be done in about 30-45 minutes.

Here is the small plan I've put together:

• Run - 1.4 miles

• Push-ups - 2 sets of 25

• Sit-ups - 2 sets of 25

The workout plan above is a simple plan that I put together for myself that would help me along my journey. My goal with the workout plan is not to necessarily to gain muscles but more along the lines of tuning the muscles, staying healthy and in shape and to help me stay focus and self aware. There will be some major changes to the plan as we go further into the New Year which I very excited about and can't wait to show to you guys!

Online Learning

Another part of my personal growth journey that I am really enjoying is keeping up with the #AskGaryVeeShow on Gary Vaynerchuk YouTube Channel. I'm also a big fan of Pat Flynn on Smart Passive Income, Matthew Allen on Dumb Passive Income, and I also enjoy listening to Glendon Cameron on his YouTube channel just about everyday which is how I found out about Gary Vaynerchuk. The techniques and lessons I am learning from these guys are all great and I have been applying them online, offline, and in my daily life with some successes so far. Another reason I enjoy listening to them is because they both have the years of knowledge and authenticity of creating and running real businesses. 

As I pointed out above, I've been a fan of Pat Flynn for a long time. In fact, he is the main inspiration behind PMI and the reason why I started the site. One part of Smart Passive Income that I'm recently starting to enjoy is the podcast.

For a while I've heard about SPI's podcast but I did not download it until late last year. The content on the podcast is one of a kind a very unique not only because it is coming form Pat himself, but mainly because of the broad range of topics that he covers in the podcast. When I got the chance throughout the day, I would pop my headphones in and go through the different episode. I think this month I listened to to the most shows I've ever listened too in a single day. I listened to over 100 shows while working on my sites one Saturday night which by the time I was done, I was exhausted and overloaded with information but learned some valuable lessons.
One episode that I found really interesting was Ask Pat Episode 0425 How Do I Make My Blogger Website Mobile Friendly?

The main reason why I was interesting is because I am also a big user of the blogger platform and as we all know, PMI is also on the blogger platform. I have been a fan of it for a while now and find it quite easy to use but there's many downfalls to the platform as well. Now as Pat pointed out, he uses Wordpress and but sticking to the topic, he did his research and found a site that have some great responsive blogger themes that the lady on the show can use for her website.

The Link to the site:

www.biglittlegeek.com/best-responsive-seo-optimized-blogger-templates/
 
This was useful information because as he stated, he knows that many of his fans are still using Blogger and switching to Wordpress might not be as easy for some as it is for others. I wrote a short article on the advantages and disadvantages of using blogger for your niche sites, but I don't think that I went into much details that I probably should have. So I am currently working on an article that will fully explain the good and the bad, the failures and winnings that I've had with blogger since using it.

One other important thing that Pat acknowledge was the fact that the lady on the show was making good money with affiliate marketing, Amazon Associates to be exact. I'm a big fan of it and use it in many of my sites including PMI in certain articles but what he pointed out was an issue many of the affiliates are having.

The problem was that if you are an affiliate in the U.S. and someone in the UK clicks on one of your link and purchase something, you would not receive the credit. GeniusLink provides a solution to the problem. It allows you to become an amazon associate in many other countries outside the U.S. without having to register to receive credit from purchases in each individual country.

I've never used the tool but I am really looking forward to using it soon as possible and as Pat explains it, when you use one of their links to promote something on your site, when someone from another country clicks on your links, GenuisLink determines which country the click came from then redirects them with your amazon associate link for that country so that you are able to receive credit from their purchase. 

Niche Sites 

In November, something happened that I did not mention because I thought I would be able to work at a fast pace to create what I had lost. After years of downloading music, movies, and what I consider hardcore usage, my laptop finally gave out. I had over 15 articles and about 7 videos prepped and ready for final touch ups saved on my laptop which now I no longer have access too. Its somewhat okay because I have a desktop that I can continue working on but I will have to rewrite the article and produce the short videos over again. On top of all the other content I'm building and creating for the niche sites and the other platforms, I currently have a hand full. This is the main reason I am quickly trying to organize things so I can easily create and publish content on a more efficient scale. 

January was another month that consisted of me producing tons of content for my sites and social platforms. One of my goals that I have NOT kept up with was to produce at least 10-12 articles per week which would amount to around 2 articles per day. In reality, over the last few months, I've only got up to about 5 per week, and that's on a good week.

Some weeks, only 1 was completed, on others, 2-3. I am really trying to get focus and get a on schedule with my goals for my niche site portfolio. Right now, being that it is just a one man operation, it's going to take some time to complete all the work on the table right now but for the most part, I am seeing some progress. 

Here are some of the things that I have completed or still working on right now to go into the New Year:

Niche Sites, YouTube Channels, 

• Producing 100% quality original articles
• Finish writing my first fiction book
• Creating new content for YouTube channel

Overall Portfolio 

• Organizing a schedule to post and interact on sites and social media platforms
• Building several new niche sites to add to my portfolio
• Develop a streamlined process for building niche sites and creating content 

There's a few other things I'm also trying to get organized and develop in a systematic order, but those listed are first priority as of right now.

Also, a funny thing has been happening lately. One of my sites that I built early last year which up until around Late October was just plain dead. The site had 0 views for the first 6 months of the site going live, then a spike a views occurred which is due to a single article which is now getting between 50-100 views per week. The article is ranking very well for the keywords used so I am using this article as a reference for producing more articles for the site.

December and January proved to be a success because I was able to focus in and get a lot of content prepped and even published some. I am currently stacking up on content so even if I am behind, I still will have something to publish to keep the sites updated. In December, I wrote a total of 15 articles and created 4 videos. In January, I did 19 articles and 7 videos so in all I have 34 articles prepped and saved in my MS word files, and 11 videos saved and ready to be published. I will start releasing content on a scheduled basis at the beginning of March. There will be more details about this as we go along. Now it's time to get into this months online earnings.

Income Report - January 2016

Income

Affiliate Earnings

• $1.98 - Amazon Associates Referral Fees from Amazon.com

Adsense

•  $1.99  - Revenue from Niche Sites

Android Applications 

• $0.00 - Mobile Advertising

Net Total for January 2016 - $3.97 

Expenses

•  $0.00 - Since most of my sites and apps have been up before I started this challenge and are hosted on subdomains, I did not include the expenses I paid earlier in the year for the domain names, fees, etc. I'm pretty sure it will not stay like this for too long once things start to pick up! 

If you are curious and would like to know my initial expenses for my online businesses at the beginning of the 2014, here is the breakdown:

• $10.33 - Domain Names
• $25.00 - Google Play Developer Fee 
• $40.00 - Development of Mobile Apps

Year To Date Total Expenses - $75.33

Short Recap

Much like December, January was a month that consisted on catching up on things like creating and publishing content for my niche sites and other platforms. I'm really excited about the T Shirt collection that I'm working on and i think you guys will like it as well. I would greatly appreciate any comments, suggestions or improvements I can make once the designs are revealed to make sure that I can create the best quality design possible. 


Thank You for being apart of my monthly online income report. I am look forward to your comments and any suggestions as I am always looking forward to improving and learning new things that will help me grow and build my online business.