Arkansas Gambler

I’ve spent years in corporate America, and the last 4-5 years in the affiliate business. The skills needed to survive in Corporate America are the same skills needed to survive as a small business owner. There is a few things they both have in common:

• Hard Work
• Time Management
• Networking Skills
• Backstabbing
• Drama

The last two are the ones most of us hate. In any business there are winners and loser. The winnings want to continue to be winners and the loser usually fall into two categories.

1. They have the desire but do not yet have the skills needed to succeed

2. They are lazy, easily distracted and spend far too much time resenting the winners.

The good news, is that people can learn the skills needed to succeed, they can train themselves into new habits of hard work, educating themselves, and learning to be a success. You can learn to be a winner if you have the desire. One thing you have to do to accomplish this is too let go of the jealously, envy, and resentment. You have to understand that successful people didn;t get where they are by wasting time on issues they cannot control, or by engaging in un-productive actions.

In the corporate world people are always jockeying for position with the high-ups, sometimes that means finger pointing at others and their failures and short comings. The corporate world liek the affiliate would routinely monitors their competiton and tries to one up the other. As silly as it may seem, I’ve learned that the business world is actually more professilonal than most small business owners and especially affiliate marketers.

The affiliate business and especially gaming is filled with man many shady people that have failed at most things in their life. What usually happens is they are either too lazy to get a real job, turn to internet marketing hoping to make money. Usually they lack the skills to have a regular job/business  and are desperate to find a way to make money without doing real work. The other side is smart people, who although they have good skills in other areas, want to make money online but again lack the self discipline to put in the hours and work. These type usually are at the bottom of the affiliate food chain and are the constant spammers, or junk site operators.

The rest of affiliates are usually the well intention and hard working group that is willing to put in the time, effort, and self discipline to eventually make money. I would suggest that less that 15% of current gaming affiliates actually make money. Everyone else is still clinging to the dream and hoping it one day happens. The cold hard fact is that most of them will fail for a number of reasons.

Over the last couple months I’ve unfortunately been involved in a bit of silly drama that has really bothered me. I now see that this was a great wake-up call and opportunity. I have been accused by a group of people of being an asshole (hard to argue that lol) but also accused me of being a bully, and a self centered person. Those I don’t agree with. What I foudn most interesting is that the same people who over the years have not hesitated to ask for my help, advice, or opinion were some of the same people jumping on the bandwagon. It is true that people love to do the easy thing and go along with others mindlessly.

None of those people knew the facts, asked for the facts, and probably were not interested in the facts. They love drama, and the feeling of being a part of “groupthink”. Now I wish I could take all the credit for realizing that these people are two-faced, wannabe affilaites without a clue. But thankfully the true friends and assoctiates I have pointed this out to me and even offered to let the truth of some of the situations know. While I know this would have made me feel better, and just the fact they we willing to speak up for me made me feel great. I knew that feeding into the drama queen bullshit would just be pointless as we all have real business to run.

Since the first incident, I recently saw another one come up. Where a well know industry hustler decided to one again call me out for being a bully and a 2+2 like bully moderator. Once again I was tempted to feed into it, but once again my better judgment told me I had nothing to gain. I know who I am, and at the end of the day I have work to do and a business to run.

Finally, this week I saw another affiliate or should I saw wannabe affiliate decide to take issues with events that are more that 4 months old. Out of the blue, no rhyme or reason to it. Once again I have to ask myself, “Do these people not have anything better to do with their time”. The obvious answer is NO they don’t lol. Their businesses apparently suck enough that they spend their time trying to force their opinions on others. Also I want to add that I made thge decision to remove and block a ton of people from my skype, IM, etc.

Over the years I’ve allowed people to contact me at will, but something my good friend and fellow affiliate pointed out to me, is that most of these people are “takers” and they take, take, take, and have nothing to offer in return. They use people, and eventually they will fade out of the business anyway because they cannot focus on important aspects of running a business. I like to call these people the “crusaders” They are always looking for a cause to fight. IE – 60 Day Rule, PS FPP’s, Iframes, etc. There is always a cause which distracts them.

Anyway back to the point of this post, in the affiliate business or the normal business world you will be faced with many tough decisions and even more distractions. Make sure you are putting yourself into a position to have success, and keep your eye on your goals. Being a winner brings you resentment, jealousy, and people that want/need to see you fail so they feel better about themselves. Do not be one of those people, and keep doing the hard work.