Personal:

One of my favourite things about this year has been with personal growth. I´m now at peace with what I previously perceived as weaknesses. The guy featured below is one of the reasons I´ve been able to do that:

 This is Glenn. I used to refer to him as ´the boyfriend´ online but now we are both comfortable with the idea of me publicly talking about him.

It is our two year anniversary next week. Soon, we´ll start actively looking for a house. Gosh, I love him. The relationship drives me nuts at times – we´ve had some pretty big disagreements and there have been times where I´ve questioned whether Glenn is the guy I want to spend the rest of my life with – but damn, he´s a good boyfriend.

One of the biggest issues I´ve faced with the relationship though is not hiding the anxiety around him. He´s witnessed panic attacks. We´ve had disagreements that have left me crying. It frustrates the heck out of me because those anxious manifestations aren´t me – they are just the way my brain reacts to certain situations. It´s demeaning and embarrassing. I shouldn´t be afraid of how I´ll react if I talk about stressful stuff. He ´gets´ it. He knows I´m doing the best I can.

One of my favourite things about this year is that he has had the opportunity to see me in a professional setting a couple of times. I´m not dependant on him financially anymore. It´s nice to feel like an equal. Although it´s hard to be an equal when he´s competing with a spunky 4 year old for my affections.

I´m at peace with having a mental illness.

I hate having an anxiety disorder. I hate the feeling of watching friends achieve so much more then I have in a fraction of the time. It frustrates the heck out of me when I have weeks where I´m unable to work.

I am so ambitious. So driven. And, so flawed.

It breaks my heart sometimes. I have been mentally ill for 10 years. I´ve lost most of my adulthood to it. I never completed uni. I´m unable to hold down a full time job. Heck, even housework is overwhelming most days.

I´ve learned that everybody has their limitations. Mine is cognitive. Some people may have physical illnesses that may be preventing them from achieving their goals. Heck, some people are so ill that they aren´t lucid enough to have goals.

I now accept that I will have to work less hours then I´d like. It means I won´t achieve as much as many of my peers. I have to severely limit social time. It sucks, but acknowledging it means that I can put my work hours to better use.

I probably won´t have kids, as the lack of sleep would make me incredibly sick. It´s sad, but it is a reality. I will probably have anxiety for the rest of my life. Treatment *may* improve but I´ve had to accept that this is it. This is what my life will be like for the next 40+ years. I need to focus my efforts on working within my limitations rather then trying to push them.

Professionally:

Working at the Village Agency

 Late last year, I started work at The Village Agency. I got the job by accident and I was lucky to keep the job after a rough couple of months. I was moving house at the same time that two close family members were playing musical hospital beds.

I started off by blogging and managing the social media accounts. This progressed into more of a research role. It was during this time that I discovered that my real love is marketing. Blogging is just one small part of that. I also realized that my real superpower is researching, filtering and curating information. I learned that I work best when working towards someone elses business.

The best bit? It has been an honour to work with the founder, Justine Bloome. She is so talented. I rock at knowing who the change-makers and great minds are, and she is one of them. She is authentic and humble. Her work is amazing. I feel so blessed to be part of it.

Working with The Village has helped me to get my mojo back after a sucky 2011. The experience helped me to identify and appreciate my skills. It also forced me to learn so much more about marketing.

I have been trying to make my way online for a bit over four years. This has been my favourite work experience.

Attending the Problogger conference

Why, yes. This is me working at the same table as Chris Guillebeau. It was a similar feeling I had that time I sat next to Yaro Starak on the plane on the way back from the conference in 2010. Both instances amused the heck out of me. Other people in my situation would have gone total fangirl but in both cases, I was only sociable because it was polite to do so.

I am so like Sheldon from Big Bang Theory sometimes.

Anyhoozle. The Problogger event was the first time that it felt like I had it all together professionally. I volunteered to help out with the tweeting and I rocked it. People viewed me as a professional. People loved my work. I gave a freddo frog to Eden Riley, which only confirmed that she had great taste.

It was so satisfying to be considered part of the ´team.´ People said that missed me at the networking get together, as I should have been part of the team photo.

It has been a long time since I have felt like I was part of a community. I have been burned so many times by ´professionals´ and don´t trust many marketers/bloggers. It was awesome to find a bunch of passionate, talented people that weren´t wankers.

Moving on from the work scandal

Last year, and for the first part of this year, I was consumed by the Salty Droid scandal. My actions had helped Dave in the early stages of The Launch Coach. I recommended that Dave attend Blogworld.

I felt like I was responsible for the whole mess. I know that the thought process isn´t logical but seriously, nothing about anxiety is logical.

I stopped blogging. I hated the industry. I wrote about what I knew and posted on Salty Droid site, encouraging people to look for information that will actually lead to something being done to stop the dodgy behaviour.

Then I read this post on Ittybiz.

For the first time in 2 years, I felt like I was free of the guilt I had been carrying around. My ex boss made his own decisions. I may not have reacted the best but he was the one that chose to create this ´alternate reality´ without telling anyone about the change of plans.

I don´t believe that the entire industry surrounding blogging/MMO is a shame. I do believe that is a wank. However it is not my job to save everyone. I can try to guide my friends but ultimately, they need to learn from their own mistakes. They will learn more from that experience.

It is not my responsibility to try and fix everything.

Finding my voice

2012 was also the year where I grew a set of balls.

It´s hard to have confidence when your brain is constantly arguing with you over every. little. thing. I doubt myself all the time. For most of this year, I have believed every negative thing that was said about me. I believed that I shouldn´t be part of this industry. That I had no right to be teaching anyone. I was a broke wannabe blogger that was struggling to keep her shit together.

Slowly, I have realized that these experience have made me who I am today.

My mistakes don´t mean that I suck. They show that I had the balls to experiment with something despite the odds. I have a lot more information that I can apply to future projects.

I know who I am. I know what I stand behind. I have the courage to state and defend my opinions. Personally, this is huge.

What does 2013 hold?

Next year will be a year of massive change. It will also be the year that I claim my awesomeness.

I´m going to start blogging again

I can´t wait to start blogging again regularly. I stopped because I didn´t have anything to say that would benefit others. I hated my previous work and didn´t want to be associated with it anymore. Yet I still wanted to be somebody important. I wanted to be featured on list posts and have my work go viral.

It took a long time to cut ties with my previous community. I´m starting afresh. I will be writing the type of content that I would like to read. It may not be targeted to any community and it may have little impact. I´ll be analyzing and commenting on word of mouth and blogging trends. It will be awesome.

I also have a rockin´ new design to show you guys.

I will be returning to product development

I won´t be talking too much about this yet. Frankly, I´m still developing ideas. I will say that 1) my books will be a bullshit-free zone and 2) they will be affordable kindle guides.

I will (hopefully) buy a house

The main goal in the first half of the year is to buy a house and move in with the boyfriend. I miss him so much when he isn´t here but feel suffocated when both of us share my small flat on his weekends. I want to be there when he goes to bed every night. I want to grow loquats and become a clichéd housewife.

I´ll be working on the launch of Love with a Chance of Drowning.

This book, by Torre de Roche, is one of the best books I have read in a long time. It is a great memoir. Ivan was such a captivating character that I blushed the first couple of times I met him. The writing made me swoon. The boyfriend copped the ´it´s okay if I need to travel for long periods of time, yeah?´ conversatin.

I read a lot of books. I have rarely read a memoir as good as this.

I´ll be helping out Torre with the launch in the new year. I´ll do some of the behind the scenes stuff so that Torre can focus on just being awesome. I´ll be talking about this more next year. I just wanted to let you guys know before everyone else finds out just how cool her book and blog are.

Over to you:

So! What have you guys accomplished over the past year? Are there any ways I can help with your 2013 goals?

xx

Jade

I´ve talked a little bit about what it was like after the ex-boss drama. I´ve written about the difficulties and how it´s changed my perspective on networking and online marketing.

I haven´t written about the nuances of my career transition. Change is hard enough but it is even harder when it is forced on you while you are going through an emotional upheaval.

In this post, I take you behind the scenes of the past 12 months. My goal is to take you behind the emotions and uncertainty, just in case you are going through similar changes.

Remember: You are awesome. Life is constant change. Don´t fight it

Self-imposed exile

I´m not going to talk about how I felt disconnected from many communities after ´stuff´ happened. Some of it was natural. People make judgements based on what people say just as much as what they don´t say.

I distanced myself off from people at the top. I had no tolerance for certain people after seeing the ´side´ they took when it came to certain things. The lack of integrity made me uncomfortable so I decided to cut myself off completely.

In retrospect, I´ve realized that I ditched these communities. Have you ever cut yourself off from the people that form your entire identity? I don´t leave the house much – most of my life is based on interactions over the internet. It felt like I had lost a lot of the stuff that made me unique.

I stopped writing about stuff in Launch Watch. I focused more on startups. I focused on local work. Eventually, I started to feel like I belonged. I felt like I was contributing to something. Even better, I was making an income.

Lessons:

• You need a support system when you are making a big change.
• It´s okay to let people go.
• I shouldn´t have wasted so much time longing for your previous career  status. See it as the foundation of your new career
• The Startup of You is fantastic for those making a career pivot. I´ve felt a lot stronger after reading it.

The really bad times

There was a time earlier this year when I wanted to through it all in. It had been nearly 15 months since the drama involving the ex boss. The fallout had happened in late ´11 and I thought people wouldn´t be too scared to work for me.

In retrospect, people didn´t know what I did. Even my close friends struggle to define what I did. I hadn´t blogged that much and most of my recent posts were me writing about what I was up to personally.

My boyfriend had been supporting me financially for about 7 months. It had gone beyond buying extra food and paying for the internet. He was covering all my living expenses while I was sitting in front of the computer packing about my lack of income. I had launched some great projects but none of them were taking off financially. I believed that I was a joke in the industry and wanted to give up.

I very nearly did. They were advertising for help in the fish and chip shop near here. I thought about applying. I would get a regular income. I wouldn´t have a rocking career, but I also wouldn´t get the hate mail that I had been getting.

I knew I couldn´t go for it, though. Part of anxiety means getting nausea, migraines and other irritating symptoms at random times. A normal job would likely make me sicker.

It got to the point where my boyfriend would regularly find me crying. Once I cracked it, tried to hide under the desk and realised I wasn´t alone. I went outside to sulk on the trampoline (my favourite thinking spot) but it was wet. I laid down on the ramp outside my house and tried to let the cold snap me out of it.

My boyfriend came out to talk. He explained that things take time. He reminded me about the things I had been working towards and said that he didn´t mind helping out.

Shortly after that, things started looking up. I noticed that I improved mentally as my career improved. I started thinking about the next step to improve and stopped seeing myself as the victim.

Changing your career after a massive shake-up is hard. It´s scary and causes you to question everything about yourself. It means confronting the hard truths about yourself – the stuff you don´t want to acknowledge let alone talk about.

I´d rather have a panic attack then face that again. A panic attack is isolated and follows a pattern. There is relief as soon as you stop hyperventilating. Career change can involve months of feeling shit about yourself. Feeling like you aren´t a person and are just a drain on society.

Lessons:

• Accept that some of the time things will really suck. Don´t make decisions when you are emotional.
• It´s okay if you need to change strategy mid way through.
• Some things take time – and that´s okay.
• The book Uncertainty helped me through some really tough times. It made me feel normal.

The industry is evolving. It´s okay if you are still figuring out your place

I´ve always been on the forefront of massive change. I´m the type of girl that will identify new trends and research the heck out them. I make information easy to understand, especially in new markets.

There are no words for what I have done, and what I currently do.

My career makes no sense. My work makes no sense. Everything changes so quickly and I often have no idea what to do with the new information.

You know what? It´s cool if it takes a couple of years for me to figure out my role. I´m young. I don´t need to specialise now. I just have to get enough work to have an okay lifestyle and focus on learning. I have to focus on the career I want to have, even if it only exists in my head.

I am a god at what I do. I help those that I work for look amazing. It doesn´t matter if I can´t describe what I do in one sentence.

I need to understand that my work will evolve. Heck, this blog will evolve while I figure stuff out. I can´t keep on avoiding my community every time I feel uncomfortable with my career changes. I need to accept that I´ll lose some people along the way, but this transition has the potential to help a lot of people.

Where am I right now?

Right now, I feel fantastic. I have a great client that I really enjoy working for. She listens to me and lets me explore my ideas for mutual gain. Professionally, it is so satisfying.

I´ve been able to help other people for free. People who I respect and admire, and who seem to really appreciate my help and knowledge.

One of the key shifts of the past few months has been my confidence. I feel confident that I am knowledgeable, even if my knowledge is niche and targeted at a very small audience.

I feel confident selling that knowledge, even though I´m very selective about the work I take on. I also think it´s possible that I´ll rival the boyfriend when it comes to income over the next 12 months.

My career and life have so much potential over the next year. Sure, I´ll continue to mess things up. But, that´s just part of pushing the limits of my work.

I’ve been doing this for four years. Thanks to multiple pivots, I’ve been at all levels of the success ladder. I’ve seen the good and the bad qualities of A-Listers and newbies alike.

There are some qualities in most digital business owners that are detrimental to our communities. Many times, we are so focused on the the success of our business that we forget to focus on the next generation of bloggers.

We’ve developed habits and processes that, in many ways, do mirror multi level marketing. There isn’t anything inherently wrong with that. However we are relying on certain practices despite the evolution of our business models.

In this post, I’ll be talking about a few of the behaviors that really piss me off. I’m not singling out any particular person or group of people. I just believe that we should be doing a better job.

People make recommendations based on the quality of the friendship – not quality of product.

When people talk up a product, they’ll often talk up the person involved. They’ll share a story about how the person has helped them and hint towards the possibility of you having similar success.

Really, who can blame them?

We always show our best sides to those closest to us. We’ll work with them 1-1 and be brutally honest. However being a good friend does not mean you make a good teacher.

Most people wont check out a product by a mate. They’ll base their recommendation on blind trust. People I barely know have spoken incredibly highly of me when my product was part of an only72 sale, which freaked me out.

I think being an affiliate to a product that is presold is extremely dangerous. I know of examples where people have just gone AWOL. Where does it leave those that recommended the product?

My belief is that networking, and friendships, can make affiliate marketing dangerous. People are focusing on their friends, and bottom line, rather on taking care of their community. And, because of how interconnected everything is, people won’t speak up.

People wont make negative comments about friends products.

I’ve left two negative reviews on Amazon. In both cases, I got emails from the writer that left me guilt-ridded and upset. The second was justified as I wrote a public post about why I disliked a book.

The reality is that bloggers either have to praise or shut up. I know of someone that wrote a positive review of a product but said that it probably wasn’t right for her audience. She explained why in clear and precise terms. She got an email from the product creator expressing his disappointment.

Negative reviews can be dangerous. If you alienate one person, you risk alienating everyone else in that verticle. Heck, you risk pissing off those in complimentary niches. No-one wants to piss off the big kahuna.

People wont publicly say they’ve been ripped off.

I know of several people who wont ask for a refund because they don’t want to risk annoying the product creater. Everyone talks, and you don’t want to be ‘that guy.’ I know so many stories, especially when a blogger went AWOL for a while and were slack in customer service. I bore the brunt of many frantic emails but I know that there were many stories left unsaid.

In one case, a (former) popular blogger would publicly bitchslap anyone who sent a nasty email. She’d reframe the situation to make it look like she was the victim. No-one would speak out as they believed they’d be next.

If you publicly speak about it, you risk annoying their fans. They’ll be sympathetic and can be mob-like when pulling people into line. Their friends will contact you privately to justify their behaviour.

Granted, I know very few cases of people directly getting ripped off. Mostly, I see cases of people being disappointed in products who are willing to write off the ‘investment’ as a loss.

The ‘anyone can be a consultant mentality’

This is often spouted by people who really, should be responsible. Yes, anyone can be a consultant. It doesn’t mean that everyone should. Some people make lousy consultants and shouldn’t be charging that much. Others can give advice that is downright irresponsible.

1. Some people should have training before even thinking about offering coaching
2. If your only ‘business’ has been teaching others how to start a business then you should back right off. You have no right to be teaching other types of businesses unless you have a comprehensive understanding of different business models, markets etc.

The guru effect

People are selling information for success when there only success is selling information to that audience. In many cases, they don’t have the skills to teach people for real business.

Peter Shallard wrote about this in Why being a “How-to” expert will destroy your potential. I wont rehash his advice but I like his emphasis on how it ruins innovation.

I can understand why people do this. There is so much uncertainty and risk associated with creating something new. Being a guru means you get a moderate amount of fame and regular income.

If you are comfortable with this model, fine. Just know that you risk become a one-hit wonder and having to work harder to regain your credibility.

The guru guest posting effect

This little number is a guaranteed way to make me disrespectful. Each year, there are a couple of people who are the guest post darlings. They write at all the A-List blogs and, naturally, increase their audience. They then use this ‘success’ as a selling point for everything else they do.

~Yawn. If that is your selling point, then you suck. It’s so easy to get a post on a top blog. It’s a matter of connections and understanding the audience. However guest posting success doesn’t mean you are talented at other things.

It’s easy to get caught up in the allure surrounding the guest post stars. But you know what? Each year it’s the same tactics on the same blogs. It’s dull, it’s repetitive and only the newbies think that you’re cool. Your peers are just kinda embarrassed for you.

I’m not against guest posting. I think there are a lot of people that are doing it in an intelligent manner. But the wannabe A-Listers that write guest posts about how to write guest posts make me cringe.

The student becomes the teacher

Social proof is everything. If you want to succeed as a coach, then you need examples of people that have achieved something as a result of your training.

Usually, you see a standout person. You give them extra mentoring and access to your connections. This is what people have done with me. You then use them as a case study testifying to your awesome.

The problem with this model is that your success is linked to your coach and his audience. It takes a lot of extra work to break into other verticals, so most people avoid it. People will go for the easy option to boost their success and it becomes this incestuous circle.

Listen – being a student is a great way to network and accelerate your career. I’ve done it and others have done it successfully. But it means you have to learn faster and have a higher calibre of product. If you aren’t ready for the extra work then stay small until you’ve achieved the necessary skillset.

Hyping up a product

There are two main launches going on at the moment. I see people tweeting about them, emphasizing how much the training has helped their business. In many cases, I know that these tweets are inaccurate and that the business owner is struggling.

I’m all for enthusiasm but this is wrong. Ethically, it’s wrong. Don’t do this.

Over to you.

This post may come across as a bit cranky pants but I wrote it because I think we can do better. The friendships that helped our career are the same ones that are stifling it.

We are capable of so much with our businesses. We can help so many people. We can’t if we aren’t doing the due diligence required to protect them from poor quality people and products.