jonwashburn: June 2008

Yesterday we launched Outside Blogs beta and as expected we have discovered a few issues with the product.  I would like to use this post as a place to update all of our members with the list of known issues and their current status.

Outstanding Issues:

• New issue - DNS rerouting does not seem to be working correctly.  We found one bug and fixed it, but that did not seem to solve the problem. This is of highest priority and we will keep you updated. (This is the reason some custom domain names are not working yet)
• No Index tags should be placed on all sub-domain Outside Blogs.  See Bob's duplicate content post for further explanation.
  
• Some changes on ActiveRain blog posts are not showing up on the Outside Blog 
• Single sign on functionality for commenting on Outside Blogs is not always working.
• Outside Blogs need to add an email field for commenters so that they can be notified of new comments and blog owners can contact them.
• Email address of blog owner should not be displayed on Outside Blog (front page and about me page). Fix to include similar contact box as ActiveRain.
• Under blog post title on Outside Blog, authors name should like to about page on Outside Blog, not back to ActiveRain.
• Front page of outside blogs doesn't have meta-description and meta-keywords set.
• Alternative "about me" text entry field
  

Resolved Issues:

• Header Image not able to upload from Internet Explorer.  
• Header Graphic section is suggesting that the header image should be 760x105, when the image should be 742x105.
  
• Link to Localism on Outside Blog is not showing correctly.
  

This video has so little to do with real estate that I cannot even think of a clever tie in.  No abstract principle. Nothing.  I saw it first about a month ago and enjoyed it, and then just stumbled upon it again this morning and realized that I needed to share it.  I hope someone else out there likes it as well. F.A.B.

In reply to the post I wrote yesterday addressing some of the contributing factors to my success I received a number of comments that suggested that it is better to work smarter instead of harder. While that sounds good in theory, I do not think that advice is very pratical, and even if it is practical I don't think it is accurate.

It is not practical because working smarter is often something outside of my control, while working harder rarely is.

It is not accurate because a vast majority of the most successful people I know are definately harder workers than they are smart.

"Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination are omnipotent. The slogan press on has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race. No person was ever honored for what he received. Honor has been the reward for what he gave."
      (John) Calvin Coolidge

About 7pm tonight we made the last update to our server platform by adding two new database servers, both about 4 times faster than the last ones.  Right now ActiveRain is loading ridiculously fast. Or as Jorgen, one of our developers, puts it: "We went from a leaky dinghy to a multi-million dollar speedboat".

Now that we got all that server stuff out of the way maybe we can launch a couple new products (HINT HINT).  Stay tuned over the next couple weeks.

I regularly receive emails from people around the country asking me how to achieve success in real estate and business. Although shocked and flattered with each letter I receive, I feel that at this stage in my career, I am still fighting for survival each day. Still, I understand that to those looking in on my career from the outside, things look much better than they may seem firsthand.

I was responding to one of these emails today, and it occured to me that others may be asking the same questions and that I should be sharing these responses on my blog.  This particular response is practical advice, but I know that if I post answers to only the most unique questions, nothing will ever get published. So, without further disclaimers, I present an email Q&A:

____

"...I'm making a switch from a market research sales career into real estate and I'd really love any advice you have to offer as to how you've been so successful..."

____

The answer that immediately comes to mind is simple: Just keep pushing forward.  I remember the period of time from when I was 18 until I was about 25 that everything seemed so hard.  I worked too many hours, and there were many times that I felt like giving up and getting a salary-type job. During those times, I had two silly things I would do to help provide the extra motivation necessary to allow me to push through:

1. I would repeat this mantra in my head, over and over, "I made my first million dollars in real estate."  (Crazy, I know.) I don't know exactly what it meant because at the time I was broke and hadn't yet made much money in real estate, but somehow it worked for me.

2. I would visualize myself pushing a train up a hill. Of course the train represented my business endeavours. I would always gauge how tough business was by how heavy that train felt.  Doing this gave me comfort because I knew that all of that work would pay off when the train reached the top of the hill and I was able to ride off the momentum for the rest of my life.

Sure enough, after a long while, it started to feel like the incline was getting less steep, and eventually, I had the sense that I was at the top of the hill; now, it seems I am at the stage in my career where my focus is on increasing the momentum of the train. Once you have some momentum at your back business gets much easier!

Real estate sales and business are still very hard. It has also been my experience that everything I attempted to do in business is always 300% harder than I thought it would be when I began.

To sum it all up: work harder than everyone else, don't be afraid to make a lot of mistakes, and be open to learning from every experience you put your back into and every experienced person who shares their own struggles with the weight of success.