Yes it does.

I have to laugh at myself. Back in March of 2008 I think I tried my 2nd round of P90X. It’s hard to remember but I have “before” pictures in October 2007 but then I have no records of anything after that. I never completed 90 days of P90X it until May of 2010.

P90X Round 1

In January of 2010 I got in the “biggest loser” competition at work. The first month and a half I didn’t lose a pound and wasn’t really trying much. Then my wife and I decided it was time to get fit and healthy. I had gotten up to 194 pounds. I know this because I remember my “biggest loser” weigh-ins. The #1 thing we did was set a date and planned out what we were going to be eating for all 3 meals. We decided on about 12-15 different big meals we would have at night so that way there was no question on what we were going to be making.

This was the first time we finished a full 90 days of P90X and had great results. I lost 20 pounds and was feeling good in the 175lb. range. That summer right we decided to try Insanity. That was a bad choice because I guess we still weren’t quite that committed and did not complete it.

During The Next Year

From August 2010 until August 2011 I really didn’t do much. My wife took off and completed P90X 3 more times. I did work out here and there by using the Cardio X DVD after work sometimes. So basically for 12 months I didn’t do anything AGAIN. What a waste of a good 3 months I had early on. On my wife’s 4th P90X run I stared with her and then “life happened” and I had to stop midway.

Round 2

August 2011 I was ready to commit and finish what I started. Since then my wife became really interested in being a Beachbody Coach. Through this she got excited about Shakeology and so she got me into it as well. After this 2nd round I’m a believer that Shakeology helped me get over the hump of getting rid of the extra fat around my muscles.

I started around 175 and finished this round at 160 and as you can see in the pictures I lost a lot of the fat that was on top of my muscle. All of my 34″ work pants are now to big and so I had to go buy new pants for work and new jeans. Sometimes a medium shirt fit if was made big but now I’m pretty much buying all mediums.

What’s Next?

Just a few days ago I started Insanity: The Asylum and hope that after 30 days of this program I’ll lose the final portion around my belly. You can see the top part of my trunk is tight but the bottom is still pretty loose. When the new year starts my wife and I will go through P90X2 together and see where that takes us. My basic goal is to get through the next 4 months without missing workouts and everything should fall into place.

2012 is coming up and it’s the biggest time of the year to get started with your fitness. I can’t wait to continue with my programs and see where I can get by April 1st. What about you? Do you need to set some health goals?

Category: P90X

Related posts:

1. BeachBody P90X
2. Low Golf Round

Background
A few years ago I got interested in affiliate marketing and actually was accepted to my first network Azoogle (now Epic) while my wife and I were in the hospital just hours before we had our daughter Isabelle. I was pretty excited to get started in affiliate marketing but didn’t really get going until I won $500 from Pro Blogger Darren Rowse. I took that cash and joined PPC-Coach dot com and started to learn paid traffic.

After a few years of ups and downs I’ve been pretty consistent recently with bringing in profits each month. I’ve moved on from adwords after their huge banning and jumped on board with social, cpv and seo traffic. Finally I’m able to take some time off and get to an affiliate summit and try and take the next step in building my knowledge.

Present
Affilaite marketing is actually a hobby of mine. I have a full time career in education and I don’t see myself leaving that anytime soon. The benefits and retirement plan are wonderful for my family. I have the house, fence, 2 cars, child and all of that jazz so I don’t “need” any more. But the freedom of being able to do have a secondary income coming in with this little hobby of mine sounds amazing.

Last June my wife and I took a 3 day trip to Boston and watched the Red Sox from the green monster and 3 rows behind the Sox dugout. All paid for by my little hobby. How awesome is that? We can’t take fun vacation trips like this without saving and planning. Even after a normal family saves and plans they may not get to do it as big as they want like I did. Sitting near the dugout and on the monster would not have been possible.

Ok so besides money, money, money what else?

Unless there is a random act of God we will be a 3 person family for life. Our little Isabelle took nearly 5 years of doctors, medication, procedures and surgeries but now she is here and we couldn’t be happier. When we got married 11 years ago it was my wife’s goal to be a stay at home mom and watch her children. In order for that to happen my wife needed to come up with a way to earn a second income for us while staying at home. She started a daycare in our house soon after we got married. For the first seven years she was watching other parent’s kids while we struggled with the fact that we were not having a baby of our own. Those were difficult times but with the help of fertility specialists, Isabelle was born. I don’t think people realize what it’s like to have 8 kids, all under the age of 4, in your house for 10 hours a day. Let’s put it this way, I rarely come home from work and complain because she usually beats me in that argument.

Future
Heading to affiliate summit is for our future. I have spent the past 3 years reading about everyone else’s experience of going to a conference and meeting some amazing people. These people also explain how inspiring the conferences are and build on that excitement with growth in their business. We look at this conference as the beginning of a new chapter in our family life.

My wife, after 10 years of daycare, has decided enough is enough and wants to do something else. With Isabelle leaving home for school soon this is the perfect opportunity for us to get a change of directions. This conference is the start of an 18 month plan to get my wife out of the daycare business and into the affiliate business. She has watched me become engulfed with this hobby and sees the potential for her to continue my work while I head to my “real job”.

Taking my wife to Affiliate Summit will hopefully boost her interest in what I do and get her excited about it too. This was her idea to stop her daycare and work at home on “something like what I do”. She has been focusing on her family and other families for a long time and now it is time for her to focus on herself. Hopefully now she can finally have a career of her own.

Summary
So Jeremy’s staff, this is my story and this is why I want to win the ASW contest. I want to continue to grow my small hobby into something bigger and better for my family. I want my wife to see what is possible in this industry and continue to get excited for her last day of daycare to come. (Trust me, she’s already excited) This is the first step in our 18 month journey of having some residual income going or having x months banked away for the start of her new venture.

Please consider me for one of the 10 entries in your contest.

Oh, one last thing. I’m a fellow Nebraskan, Helloooooo and if I win this contest and take away some cash from my blackjack game Shoemoney and his staff will have dinner on me. But I would also like to take some of my winnings and donate to an organization or two like these, resolve.org, fertiledreams.org

Related posts:

1. ASW 2011
2. Affiliate Summit West 2011

There are really only two ingredients for building your personal brand. The first part is that you must be an expert in a topic. I don’t believe I know anybody that is an expert in some topic. My definition of “expert” or authority is pretty loose but if you know more about your subject than the average bear, you are probably an expert. Let’s get back to Browie, he may not be THE expert in internet marketing but he certainly knows more than 99+% of the people out in the world.

The second ingredient is more difficult. The second part is to let the world know you are an authority in your field. Browie has done this in multiple ways. I learned about him as a moderator at PPC-Coach.com. He also has this web site in which he shares his expert insights. These are just a couple of ways that Browie has let the world know his authority status. It usually involves sharing information.

Personal branding ultimately does one important thing for you. It moves you from a sales person to an authoritative consultant. If you get nothing else from this article, remember that “People do not like to be sold things, However they love to buy”.

When talking to people as an authority on a subject, you have moved further from the sales end of the spectrum to the recommendation end of the spectrum. It just so happens that what you are recommending is something you can provide at a cost. Once you get to that position, the cost issue is much less of a factor because now you have your customers in a buyer mindset.

Email marketing should be done this way. Use email marketing as an information and relationship building vehicle. Use email marketing as a confirmation of your authority in the field. A sales offer or ad can be included periodically but build that relationship first and foremost. You will find many more opportunities for sales when you have a personal relationship with your followers.

Personal branding is more of a mindset than a set of definitive tasks. It’s a matter of looking for opportunities along with doing what you are already working on in your current capacity. Good luck on your journey.

Related posts:

1. Personal Branding – Part 1

I’ve read and written quite a bit about personal branding. Most of what I read about personal branding was related to getting a job or promoting yourself to get a better position. That is a fine use of personal branding but I am much more interested in the Oprah/Donald Trump type of personal branding.

For some people personal branding “just happens”. Like Internet marketing, you can be successful without trying but it doesn’t happen very often. If you want your personal brand known, you need to be proactive. Unless you have a website that is a well-known brand, you probably are concerned about branding the site. I suggest that it’s more important to brand yourself. I say this because things change.

You may sell the site or get bored with the online aspect of web sites. If you brand yourself, you can branch into offline (or other online) ventures much easier if you have the authority and reputation. There is an even more important obvious reason for personal branding that is more of a reminder than a revelation that I share later in this article.

Browie is a personal brand in the making. If you are reading this blog, it’s because Brian has stood out as an expert enough in the Internet marketing field to be considered an expert. I don’t know all of Browie’s IM background but I do know enough to know he is doing many of the things necessary to raise the level of his personal brand.

This idea of personal branding may be new to some of the readers. The nice thing about it is that you can continue to do things that have made you successful in the past. Just keep the personal branding concept in mind and look for opportunities to brand yourself. Many of you may do article marketing and that is one step into personal branding. Guest blogging like I am doing here certainly helps. There are literally thousands of media outlets that need time and space filled such as newspapers, magazines, radio, and even TV.

Check back tomorrow for Part 2 of Jeff’s post – Two Ingredients for Personal Branding

Related posts:

1. Rubik’s Part 2: The Solve
2. Math Camp Part III

So here is the story. I don’t get to do much work on my own campaigns during work hours as I have a “real” job. So when I have time I like to read the affiliate blogs and forums and see what people are talking about and get some ideas, like any other person.

Today i get an email from “browieisafag[at]hotmail” (obviously made up) telling me to quit commenting on blog posts. This person then goes on to say how I probably only make $100/day and that’s being generous. That wasn’t much of a bash because I do make less than that on average and only bring that much home from my real job.

1. I comment on others blogs because I’m interested in what they wrote. I also thought that’s what the comment section was for.

2. I never ever have said that I make “x amount” with affiliate marketing and I’m so good at it. I struggle and don’t claim to make huge amounts.

3. I have always said this is a hobby of mine.

So this person was reading Jonathan Volk’s Blam Ads post and saw that I commented on there. I guess they had enough of my commenting rampage and headed to my blog to use the contact me section to send that email.

So according to what I gather (could be wrong) this person from L.A. does not like me commenting on other blog posts. I can’t say that I’ll stop. I’m a fan of AffBuzz.com like a lot of people and love to read what others are writing.

Want me to stop commenting on blogs?
Tell it to me in this post right here and I’ll stop.

No related posts.