True story, back in 2006 I had just graduated from college at Ohio State…and I made a decision that was the catalyst for why you’re on my email list today.
Here’s the story…
When I graduated college, I basically had two options…
I had a job offer with Rivals.com that would pay me around $55,000 a year to work in their marketing department.
This would give me a steady paycheck…
And a lot of security…
Plus my parents and my girlfriend would be proud of me for landing a “big boy” job.
So that option was appealing…
Now the other option was to ignore the traditional job route and go on my own path.
At the time, I was making a few hundred bucks a month with affiliate sites I had built in the poker niche.
Which meant I’d get paid $100 for every new player I sent to places like Party Poker or PokerStars.
So one month, I’d make like $300…
And the next I’d make $500.
Which was good money for me at the time…
But it wasn’t exactly a full-time job.
It wasn’t enough to live on.
However…
Deep down I knew that I wasn’t putting a whole lot of effort into this.
And I figured if I actually went “all in” on the affiliate stuff, I could probably start making around $2k a month.
Which was enough for me to live on.
Cause I was living in a $250 a month apartment…
And driving a beat-up Ford Ranger.
So I didn’t have a lot of expenses.
And if I could just make $2k a month, I figured I could live off that.
So in my head, that sounded like a good option.
Only problem was, no one else around me saw it this way.
My girlfriend at the time (who had just graduated from college as well) was all about me taking the “traditional route” to success.
She herself was headed to medical school at Case Western…
And she wanted me to take the safe, good-paying job with Rivals.
“I just don’t think this affiliate thing is a career” she would say. “It could all go away tomorrow”
I’d try to explain my plan to her…
And show her other guys I knew who were making the affiliate thing work…
But she didn’t want to hear it.
She wanted me to take the safe, traditional job, even if I wasn’t happy doing it.
So what did I do?
I hemmed and hawed over the decision for a few weeks.
I made a big pros & cons list…
And I went back and forth numerous times.
But eventually I decided I was gonna do my own thing and keep trying to make money as an affiliate.
My thought was that if I put 8 hours a day into this, I could easily get it to $2k a month.
And if worst came to worst, I’d get a job bartending to pay my bills (and work on my affiliate stuff during the day).
That was my plan.
Funny thing is, I naively thought my girlfriend would be supportive of this once I made the decision.
But she wasn’t.
And when I made that decision, she slowly started pulling away from me.
She was always “busy”…
And we went from hanging out a few nights a week and spending the night at each other’s house to barely seeing each other.
I wasn’t sure what was going on…
But the whole thing came to a head a few weeks later when I was on Facebook and noticed that she had changed her relationship status from “nothing” to “In a relationship with Nick Fornberg”.
I had no idea who Nick Fornberg was…
I had never heard of the guy.
But I later learned he was some tech dude who she met through a mutual friend.
So her and Nick were officially together.
And we were done.
Just like that.
I was crushed.
I felt like the biggest loser in the world.
And started to question myself…
I wondered if she was right and maybe I made the wrong decision.
I was not in a good headspace to say the least.
However…
I didn’t have time to feel sorry for myself.
I needed money.
And I needed it fast.
So I got to work…
And I basically worked like a mad man for the next couple months.
I built more affiliate sites…
And worked on my SEO for each site…
Eventually my hard work started to pay off.
I not only hit the $2k a month I was shooting for…
But after a few years, I blew past that mark.
I went from making $2k a month all the way up to $10k a month.
I was able to move out of my shitty apartment.
And stop eating beans and rice at every meal.
So my life got a whole lot better.
And from that point I was able start a whole bunch of successful businesses over the years.
That included a fitness ebook company that did 7-figures in sales in it’s first year…
A supplement company that eventually hit $23 million in a year…
A copywriting mastermind that changed the lives of hundreds of copywriters…
And that all led to what I’m doing today, which is teaching you about email copy, list building and more…
So that one decision I made back in 2006 had a huge ripple effect.
And if I had let everyone else around me influence that decision (instead of going after what I wanted)…
Who knows if I’d be writing this email to you today.
I might be stuck in a corporate office somewhere, wondering what it would be like to have my own business.
But I’m not.
I’m here.
And I have a pretty damn good life because I had enough conviction to bet on myself, and to not let everyone around me influence my decision.
Which I think is an important lesson.
Cause people are always going to try and get you to do what THEY want you to do.
And what they want you to do, might not be the best thing for you.
So you gotta learn to tune them out…
And go after what you want.
That’s what I did.
So my hope is that you’ll follow in my footsteps and do the same.
Be strong in your decisions, and keep betting on yourself.
That’s all I got for ya today.
Hope you enjoyed this one…
Enjoy your Friday,
– Justin
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