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Getting back to work

December 12, 2008 by John Dilbeck
Filed under: Affiliate Marketing, CafePress, Friends and Family, Success and Failure

I’ve been missing in action the last couple of weeks.

After Mom’s funeral and burial, I thought I was doing okay. For about a week, I was surrounded by family and some of my closest friends and everything was going well.

Then, last week and this week, I have been alone in this house with so many memories of my Mom and Dad, and I just haven’t felt like doing anything. So, I took some time off. Mostly, I’ve been watching movies and TV shows I’ve rented from NetFlix and sleeping.

I’ve downloaded a couple of thousand emails and responded to the most important. The others will be skimmed or just deleted. If you sent me an important email and I haven’t responded in the next week, please resend it. I’ll try to keep up from here onward.

This week has been rather miserable. I woke up from a nap and thought I was getting a kidney infection or worse. The pain was sharp and intense. I couldn’t get comfortable sitting, standing, or lying down.

Fortunately, after a few days, I was sure it was a pinched nerve instead of a kidney infection or stone, so I started doing some easy stretches several times a day. Yesterday, I felt a pop when I moved just right and the pain is now much less and seems to be going away. That’s a very welcome relief.

If you’ve ever been in constant pain, you know how hard it is to concentrate on doing anything while you’re hurting.

I didn’t expect Mom’s death to take all the wind out of my sails, but it did. So much of my life has been focused on caring for her that I just didn’t know what to do. So, I gave myself permission to do nothing, for awhile.

This morning, I woke up for the first time feeling like I wanted to get back to work.

I tried making myself get back to work last week, but it wasn’t working. Today, however, I feel very different. I’m looking forward to getting my business back on track and writing about the things that have been working for me.

Fortunately, even though I haven’t felt like doing anything for the last three weeks, my websites have been working night and day for me. I’ve continued to make affiliate commissions for sales of Site Build It! and other products I’m proud to use and promote.

Even though I haven’t done much of anything with my Squidoo lenses for the last couple of months, I still received a payment from Squidoo this week and that doesn’t take into account the sign-ups to various offers and affiliate commissions I’ve made on those lenses.

Lots of you have been purchasing t-shirts, calendars, mugs, shopping bags, and other products from my Shirts-Mugs-Hats.com shop, powered by CafePress. While sales are lower than last year, it’s always nice to see lots of “You made a sale at CafePress” subject lines in my incoming email. Thanks to all of you who have purchased this year!

And, of course, there are quite a few other, smaller, income streams that add up to enough to make working at home profitable and worthwhile for me.

I have plans for more systematization of my marketing efforts in 2009 and I’m going to share what I’ve been learning with you in the coming months.

To be sure you don’t miss anything, you may want to subscribe to this blog’s RSS feed (see the large RSS icon at the top-right of every page) or subscribe to the postings via email by filling in the form at the top of the right column of every page, right below my photo.

I’ll do my best to make it worth your while.

Despite the world-wide economic problems, it is still worth promoting quality products – whether they are your own or via affiliate links – and earning from every sale.

Everything moves in cycles. The economic situation will improve in time, and those who put in the work now will be in a good place when confidence rises and people start spending more in the future.

It’s okay to take some time off, now and then, but it’s not okay to quit.

I’ve just been taking some time off, and now it’s time to go back to work.

Act on your dream!

Tags: family, time off, work

Comments

11 Comments on Getting back to work

MiMi on Fri, 12th Dec 2008 11:25 am

Hey, John

Great post. So glad you took the time to lay low and start healing. Welcome back!

Love.

MiMi

Nancy Oram on Fri, 12th Dec 2008 11:41 am

You’re very wise, listening to your body telling you what it needed most. Better than forcing yourself and paying the price later. Glad to hear from you again.

John Dilbeck on Fri, 12th Dec 2008 11:41 am

Good morning, MiMi.

Thank you.

I feel much better today and I’m looking forward to getting back to work doing the things I love.

It makes it even better when great folks like you are here to share it. I appreciate you.

Act on your dream!

Carrie on Fri, 12th Dec 2008 11:47 am

Glad to hear you’re back! You need time to heal and it’s good to know that you received plenty of support from friends and family. Take care x

Carries last blog post..What it is to be a HSP

John Dilbeck on Fri, 12th Dec 2008 11:49 am

Good morning, Nancy.

Yes, sometimes the best thing we can do is nothing – at least for a little while.

I’m feeling better and I have a little bit clearer idea of what I want to do in the coming weeks.

I’m happy to hear from you, again, too. I hope things are going well for you and your family.

Act on your dream!

John Dilbeck on Fri, 12th Dec 2008 5:00 pm

Good afternoon, Carrie.

Thanks for the welcome.

Yes, I’m lucky. I have received a lot of support from family and friends. It made a difficult time in my life considerably easier.

All the best,

Your daughter on Fri, 12th Dec 2008 9:25 pm

Hey!! Leave it to you to make sure nobody knows ur miserable until after ur NOT miserable anymore. *grin* I’m glad ur feeling better though and I’m really glad to know that ur affiliates are making money for you! woo hoo!! Since ur feeling so fine – I’ll see you at MY HOUSE Christmas morning for Christmas breakfast! Love ya!

John Dilbeck on Sat, 13th Dec 2008 11:36 am

Good morning, Dena!

Yes, I know what you mean. I needed some time to myself and I knew you were feeling bad last week, so I didn’t tell you what was going on.

I’m feeling much better, now. Still some back pain, but it’s much less and still diminishing.

It’s not so much that my affiliates are making money for me as it is that my marketing efforts are providing ongoing commission payments from the merchants and companies I promote.

I have sponsored some sub-affiliates in a few companies and I occasionally receive commissions based on their efforts, but that is a much smaller part of my income than what I receive from my own efforts. Of course, I don’t earn anything from their marketing unless they generate sales and earn commissions, themselves.

Still, there are several people I’ve sponsored who earn nice paychecks and I’m happy to get override commissions based on their efforts.

I’m looking forward to Christmas breakfast with you and your family.

Kathy told me I need to be there early in the morning. I told her it was the first time in years that I’ve gone further than the coffee pot at that time of the morning, but I’ll be there and I’ll try to be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.

(grin)

Love you, too.

moi

Dennis Edell on Sat, 13th Dec 2008 9:19 pm

Daily pain here my friend, I sympathize. I’m glad to see you’re making it back; just take it slow and easy.

Dennis Edells last blog post..How To: Evaluating Competition For New Site Niches

John Dilbeck on Sat, 13th Dec 2008 11:58 pm

Hi Dennis,

I’ll extend my sympathies to you, too. chronic pain is hard to deal with. My back’s feeling much better now, but I’m doing what you say: taking it slow and easy.

I can tell that I’m getting old because I talk a lot more about feeling bad than feeling great. I’m going to have to stop doing that.

If I’d known that my knee was going to hurt just about every day, I would not have played football forty years ago in high school. The pleasure of getting closer to the cheerleaders wasn’t nearly enough to compensate for decades of pain, even though I thought it was at the time.