Webmaster Failure.....
 

Webmaster Failure: One Webmaster's approach

I remember reading a book on Judo a long time ago. It advised that to be a good martial arts practitioner one must
learn how to fall. It made a lot of sense since if a person is trying to learn Judo and doesn't learn to minimize
one's fall, great injury is probably bound to happen. As a small online entrepeneur, I wasn't aware at the time
that this same wise advice can also apply to running your own online business. In order to be a good businessperson,
you have to learn how to fail.

Failure is endemic in everything we do. The world is uncertain and many of the best laid plans don't always bear fruit.
At best, many of them do not bear the kind of fruit we expected. People should expect disappointments and obstacles since
they are part of life. However, expecting obstacles and being ready to learn from them are very different from expecting to
fail and giving up. The ability to fail "the right way" goes a long way in helping us avoid the number one enemy of success
in the real world--quitting. Quitting is the sure fire way to lose at anything. You have effectively stopped the clock.
Game over. By learning to fail "the right way" we try to plant the seeds of success borne by learning from our failures.

I don't claim to be a super success in what I do but I have learned a couple of things along the way. Hopefully, you'll find
them useful. Please feel more than free to add to this thread. The best way to illustrate failing "the right way" is to
analyze ways to fail "the wrong way."

Wrong Way Number One: Take things personally

Many things happen to webmasters that are out of their control. Servers crash. Traffic fails to appear. Old ways of
making income/generating traffic change. Content delivery/quality gets botched up. Subcontractors flake out.
The list is endless. One of the worst things a webmaster can do is to take things personally and say to themselves
"Maybe I'm just not cut out for this." Another variant is "Maybe
I'm too dumb" or "I don't have 'touch' for this." Or "I don't have the connections." Or "I started too late in the game."
By focusing on the "I" in these silent statements and assessments of what has gone wrong, webmasters let their disapointments OWN them. Your disappointment does not OWN you--you are more than just a website that was laid out or promoted wrong. You are more than an income statement. However, by saying the negative statements above, you make your identity indistinguishable from
your failure.

A better way to state failure is to take ownership and control of them. "I designed my site wrong." Or "I
chose to pursue my niche the wrong way." Notice the difference? The "I" in these statements are in control. If you decided to do something, then you can decide to do something else or finetune that action. The "I" in this situation is in a position of control. This is similar in operation to the old saying that "losers" ask 'what happened?' and "winners" MAKE it happen. Your perception of whether you are in control goes a long way in determining your success.


Wrong Way Number Two: Blame someone else

Failure and disappointment are everywhere. That's the way it has been, the way it is, and the way it will continue to be.
Many of the successful people in this world didn't hit it big with their first try. Many of the most successful businesspeople
in the world only became a success with their second, third, even thirtieth venture. However, they still became successful
because they realized that ultimately--THEY were in control of their own success. Many people choose to fail because they
blame other people for their failures. This may take the form of hosting deals gone bad or designs that failed to produce
the desired effect. The problem with blaming others for failures that beset us is that it takes US out of the equation.
By being out of the picture, it absolves us of having to take action. This is a huge problem because it breeds personal
complacency and just gives us an excuse.

Don't get me wrong--there are many instances when, rightly, others are to blame. However, when we are feeling so cheated
and so defeated by others' mess ups, it is really only up to us to get up and try again. Partners will steal. People will
lie. Government agencies will make adverse rules. That's just part of life. However, by giving up and just sulking and pointing
the finger at the responsible party does not absolve you of taking action to correct your personal situation.


Wrong Way Number Three: Habit vs. Evolution

There's a reason people laughed at Columbus because he thought the world was round. Or at Copernicus because he argued that the Earth revolved around the Sun. People have a mental habit of how the world and the things in it should be and how they should operate. We all have mental habits. However, by failing to break past these mental barriers, we are only limiting
ourselves to what is possible with what we currently have. If conditions change (and they always do), we are left only with
our assumptions and disappointment. Break your habits. Question why you do the things you do. Question whether you are settling for the results you get. Obviously, someone out there is generating more results than you. Learn from them. Challenge your personal limits and attitude to accommodate what they do.

There are two main types of people. On the one hand, there are people that naturally gravitate towards a higher level because they are curious and have a strong sense of possibility/wonder. On the other, there are people that go to the next level, because they are FORCED to. There's no right answer here--you are either one type, the other, or a mix of both. However, it's up to you to realize what motivates you and to break your mental habits so you can evolve to the next level of your personal journey to greater success.


(c) 2004 WebmasterLabor.Com http://www.webmasterlabor.com Open license: please feel free to use in your newsletters, websites,
or publications--just publish in original/unmodifid form.

You really think anyone is going to read all that?

bah..cant read - drinking...cheers! :glugglug

Fucking awesome $5, you write that yourself ?

Yep, I was a having smoke on the deck when I started thinking about sites I did in the past that didn't pan out. Then I started thinking about the Judo book. So I just decided to bang it all out quickly on the laptop and share it with fellow webmasters.

I read half of secton 1, then read the titles of the other sections... :)

Good job $5 :) Not sure if many people will read it all though :glugglug

nice shit $5, like always...

:glugglug :thumbsup

Again good article, this is turning in to a daily thing.. don't know if GFY can handle this many quality posts..

ppl take the time to read it through :glugglug

nice....thanks....i read it all

Excellent, that was a good one. Cheers. :glugglug

I just gotta ask one thing....





























...why do you hit the return key mid
sentance and start new
paragraphs?
:Graucho

Nicely done. Interesting eveni n my driunk en state! ::thumbsup

I typed it out in Notepad and pasted it onto GFY. Formatting got messed up. The bottom part I fixed a bit.

Nice post!

You'll get more interested eyeballs if ya spread it to other boards. :winkwink:

Kudos on raising the average iq level of gfy!

I'll put it on my board and it will give you some free advertising as well...:)

I did.. and enjoyed it. He is right.

:thumbsup

Thanks, Raven!

What I've got to add is....

FUCK the haterz. You only fail if you CHOOSE to fail. If you choose to ignore haterz and follow your heart, you are on your way to succeeding.

Great post $5. I agree.

Guys/girls. You [presumably] are in business for yourself. If someone posts something beyond a single complete sentence or two and you just say, "I won't read that, too long..." you really should question if you should be in business for yourself.

No one working for themselves can sustain or develop a business on their own merits alone. It takes work, input, and attention, much of which cannot come from yourself unless you have twenty credit cards and subscribe to your own sites/sponsors twice with each one. Which is just another form of delusion like...ok, never mind, I won't go there. Outlining GFY delusions is a website in and of itself.

There are, I would say, three sorts of personalities when it comes to adversity. There are those who take it, pardon my, er, I can't say French on GFY, but, up the ass and complain. Those who just take it. And those who fight.

"that is the Question:
Whether 'tis Nobler in the minde to suffer
The Slings and Arrowes of outragious Fortune,
Or to take Armes against a Sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them"

Especially in this biz, this is a serious test. Conversions are one issue but the bigger one is all the processor shit going on. So xxx processor just fucked you for whatever reason. What do you do?

1, Those fucking assholes just screwed me. This sucks, life sucks, I quit. And I'll make sure I trash them to hell and back when I do.

2, Oh. Well, that sucks but I figured it was coming. Oh well. Maybe I should get another job.

3, I'm fucked now. OK, what do I do? Options - new processors, new ideas. Hell with cutting my losses. I love doing this, I realize that, despite the bullshit, I'm doing what I love and that's what matters. Maybe diversify. I've got traffic, I'm creative, I have skills and ability. I can fix this.

I'd say if you choose anything but 3 when there is a snowball's chance in hell of a comeback you can't cut it running your own business these days. Not everyone is that way, and even though I usually am, like many others the first two options are a lot easier to swallow sometimes. It's a question of how much will you take, can you take?

Because that's running your own business. Running on empty or momentum, you're still in the same stew, it could all go away. Not to be extreme but as Paul Newman said: "This is the life we chose, the life we lead. And there is only one guarantee: none of us will see heaven."

It's an art. Not a pretty one, since if you are an option one person and you trash someone you might find yourself in an untenable position needing them later.

I'm a bit of a nihilist. I don't necessarily expect the "struggle in this life, pleasure in the next" argument (keep quoting movies, sorry) to pan out. It just might. But that's like not having a secondary processor. My dad always told me when I was younger it'd be interesting to see how that perspective changed me. And I think that comment applies especially here.

You do your own thing, make your own way. You treat others with respect and honor. You do a good job at what you're good at, and just perhaps it helps others. I'm sure, paradoxically, we've probably all been part of the glue in many marriages. Not everyone can be a Mother Theresa. But everyone can live their lives by the Hippocratic Oath: do no harm. Which is more than can be said for the corporate governance of late.

If you're in business for yourself, you're in it for yourself. All the way. And that doesn't mean screwing other people over, that's not right. It means fighting, pretty much every day, to keep your head above water on multiple fronts. He not busy being born is busy dying.

Take on new projects, try new things, that push your skills and talents. If someone tells you something is inappropriate and you disagree, make it moreso. Realize the odds are against us.

But I ramble. I'll close with an inspirational quote from Catch-22:

US Army Capt Nately: It's better to die on your feet than live on your knees.
Old man: You have it backwards. It is better to live on your feet than die on your knees.

-doug

good post. going to print it out

Great insight. Definitely goes to the heart of the issue that every failure has the seeds of success in it.

I read the first sentence, but that was about it.

Seriously, these posts have no place in GFY. We need more "Would you Hit It" and drama threads (preferably ones with threats of violence).

:1orglaugh

Obviously if something with your business is goin wrong then you srewed up. You can't blame anyone else. When you fail at something, you get up and do it again. Don't really need a book to teach you that.

That's true, but from the looks of it, not even that lesson has sunk in among many webmasters. :helpme

That's fine :)

habit vs evolution

excellent point there. people get too caught up approaching their business just like everyone else and not trying to do things different:thumbsup

great read $5

Great post. I know it all too well, but it's never bad to repeat it.

Awesome fucking article, man!