This is the second video in a series, the first being 16 yo Rides an Uber, in which the 16-year-old Uber rider asks his friend about whether he took Driver’s Education this summer and if he had Gary as a driving instructor. They both love McDonald’s.
My daughter, Magdalena, is coincidentally in Driver’s Education right now and so she actually did the student driving in this video. My son, Kevin, did the videography. Kevin has his own YouTube channel where he covers video games, The Game Boys.
Shirts from the video are available on Amazon.com here (affiliate links):
Have you ever had someone say something positive about you to you that stuck with you? Maybe it was a teacher, parent, friend, or stranger who saw something in you and felt so strongly about it they told you about it and in doing so, it changed how you thought about yourself for years if not your whole life? These are a few of those stories for me and hopefully, they’ll remind you of some in your own life.
When I was in elementary school a teacher noticed there was something different about me and recommended me for advanced classes, which I stayed in throughout high school. I was also chosen to be a part of the school play (it wasn’t something that you auditioned for then). Since then I’ve had other people notice things that they feel are special about me in some way. Kudos to them for sharing those thoughts with me in an attempt to lift me up. I have remembered them and I’m documenting them here today.
When I was in high school I took a psychology class and one of the exercises was to draw in lines around ‘gibberish’ lines on the page in order to make a painting or tell a story. What I saw stood out right away. I drew a picture of Spock from Star Trek by connecting the lines as I saw them. When the teacher saw it, he said no one had ever done that before in all of the classes he’d taught with that exercise. Similarly in that same class, when a right brain and left brain test was given in that class, the teacher told me I answered the test differently than every other person in the class.
In college, I had a friend (a girl) who liked one of my friends and as a result, we hung out a lot. She once told me that my brain works differently than anyone she had ever met. She was 18 at the time and hadn’t met that many people. I hadn’t met that many people at that time either. She really liked my friend. He didn’t like her as much.
When I was at Old National, just out of college, I had my name printed on my monitor as one letter off from the home keys like this: RTOVJ. One day an IT guy was fixing something at my desk and asked me about it. When I told him what it meant he said something like, “I can tell you’re going to be a successful person in life.” Looking back, it strikes me that he may have been sarcastic, but I remember his body language as being what I found to be overly impressed. It struck me as odd at the time that he would say that, but since then I have noticed that several people have told me that I think differently than other people.
One day I was driving home after my last day at First Merchants Bank and I was a little unsure about my career, my source of income, and my life in general. I was now a full-time, independent IT/web consultant and there would be no more regular, biweekly paychecks. As I was pulling into my town, I noticed a man with wood that used to be in the back of his truck had turned the corner and the wood was now laying on the street. I pulled over and helped him load the wood back in his truck. Afterward, he turned to me and said, “Everythings going to be alright for you.” I think he was an angel.
Shortly after I become a full-time, independent IT/web consultant, I started working more with one of my client’s wife, Joy, and her son. I helped him start an import/export company that eventually became Skinny & Co. Coconut Oil, but before that we worked on fixing her husband’s dentist office. While working with her I got to know her better and one day she said to me, “I’ve never met anyone who thinks like you do” and then later added, “There is no doubt in my mind that you will eventually be a millionaire.” I’m not one yet, but I have a friend who told me he believes I will one day surpass him in income. I believe I can if I change into someone who can.
If you ever think about these things about others, I encourage you to tell them as it may be something they remember for the rest of their lives. We never know what impact even the smallest comments can make on another person’s life. I’ve heard stories of a single comment changing a person’s goal in life, what college they went to, and what career they chose. And the person telling it hardly remembered saying it. It goes to show we all have an impact on each other. Words matter. They hold the power of life and death. All things begin as ideas in the minds of man and it is only when they are shared that they can take life. Like mustard seeds, they grow.
This is a story of how a joke from a 3-year old, a 100-year old house, and a rainy afternoon helped me to move on.
Carmina’s Joke
“Daddy, there’s a cow in the sunroof,” my 3-year old daughter said to me as we were driving through the country to see my brother and parents for Thanksgiving. Not knowing what to expect, I slid open up the sunroof to hear, “Mooo!” from the back seat. I quickly shut the sunroof as to not let out the cow.
“Daddy, there’s a pig in the sunroof,” she continued. Again I slid open the sunroof and a new sound emerged from behind me, “Oink, oink, oink!” she squealed in joy. Not knowing exactly how many barn animals were up in my sunroof, I again quickly shut it, which silenced the pig. She paused to think.
“Daddy, there’s a house in the sunroof.” Based on the previous two farm animal sounds I had no idea what to expect when I slid open the sunroof, but nonetheless, just as I cracked it open, my 3-year old in her lowest, deadpan voice said, “A house.” It was a good memory and a fun story to share.
The House in Tipton
For the first 15 years of our marriage, my wife and I lived in a tiny town called “Tipton” in north central Indiana. The house was built in 1919 and at the time was nearly 100 years old. My wife’s parents had owned it before her dad died. Soon after we got married, my wife’s mother got remarried, moved out, and we bought the house.
In the time we lived there, we went from having no children to 6 of them. Magdalena was our first child. Carmina, the one who told the joke, was our second. We then had two boys, Kevin and Samuel, followed by another two girls, Amalia, and Lilianna. We had many Thanksgivings and Christmases there. We had many good times and bad.
At some point while living there I realized that despite all that had changed in my own life and in my family’s lives since living there, from the vantage point of the house, after nearly 100 years, it had already seen many families come and go, rise and fall, grow and die, come together, and break apart. Our time was just one among many.
Jordan Peterson’s 7 Epochs
Jordan Peterson is a clinical psychologist and Professor of psychology at the University of Toronto, a post he has occupied since 1998. He previously served as a professor at Harvard University. He has authored two books: Maps of Meaning & 12 Rules For Life: An Antidote to Chaos. He also has a popular YouTube channel, Jordan Peterson Videos.
In an online course called Self Authoring, professor Peterson guides you through writing a story of your life. One of the exercises is called “Past Authoring” and in it are exercises where you divide your life into seven different time periods or epochs, identify the most significant events, and describe how those experiences shaped who you are today.
I had heard about professor Peterson only through his appearances on the Joe Rogan Podcast, but it was only when a friend of mine sent me info about the Self Authoring course that I discovered it. My wife and I both signed up one rainy afternoon but before I started the program, I went up from my basement office to my bedroom to reflect.
Watching the Bluff in the Rain
In 2017 my wife and I moved from Tipton, Indiana to La Crosse, Wisconsin. It was a new house and a new start. We went from seeing nothing on the horizon but corn cobs and windmills to tree-lined bluffs and bountiful rivers. The town of La Crosse sits nestled in a coulee region between steep, rocky bluffs and the Mississippi River.
When I lay down in my bedroom I can see the bluff out over the tops of the houses in a way that is reminiscent of Norman Rockwell’s November 5, 1949 cover of the Saturday Evening Post where a man is hanging his new TV antenna while a church cross towers in the background. In this afternoon, it was raining, so I opened the window.
While I listened to the rain and stared out the window, looking at nothing in particular, my eyes settled on the roofs of the houses between our house and the bluff. It’s at that moment that I remembered our house in Tipton and how we had only lived there 15 out of its nearly 100 years and I wondered what other stories these houses had to tell.
The T-Shirt
I make t-shirts and because of Carmina’s joke, I had wanted to make a t-shirt for myself that just said, “A HOUSE“. I figured I would be the only person to buy it, but I wanted to buy it so I made it and published it on Amazon to sell. I just happened to make the shirt the same day I heard about Jordan Peterson’s course and went upstairs to reflect.
As I laid there staring at the tops of the houses and thinking about the house in Tipton and thinking about the Self Authoring course I had just bought and the shirt I had just designed, I realized that there was a common theme and that’s when I had my epiphany. That’s when I realized that my life was a series of stories in my body, “A House”.
Aside from major events in your life, even if you did nothing, the cells in your body will mostly replace themselves every 7 to 15 years, while some cells, such as neurons in your brain, are never replaced. In this way, your body is more like a house where cells come and go. In the same way, different epochs take place in your body, which is just “a house”.
Who Are You?
You may have heard that you are the sum of all of your past choices. An often-used anecdote is that “You are what you eat” or what you think about comes about. What I have found is that I often feel trapped by past choices or condemned by them. Sometimes I have done things I regret and other things I regret having happened to me.
When I had my epiphany that afternoon and I started to think about my body as “a house”, I realized that, like families who move in and out of houses, the house looks the same from the outside, but the insides are different. And the house may contain scars on the inside from previous dwellers, it has no care or further connection to them.
In thinking of my life in terms of epochs with specific endings and my body as “a house”, I was able to disassociate my current reality from past realities and stop reliving bad memories over and over. While I may look the same from the outside, there is a new ‘family’ living inside me now, a new set of cells making new choices and living a new epoch.
QVCA stands for, Quality, Value, Consistency, and Authenticity. When you go to post your next social media post or send the next email for your business, ask yourself:
Q – Quality – Is this a quality post or email? People expect quality and your content lives for years online.
V – Value – Does the post provide value to the viewer or reader? Does it entertain, delight, or educate?
C – Consistency – Give people what they expect when they expect it. Create a schedule and stick to it.
A – Authenticity – Be real, know yourself, know your viewers and readers, and be yourself your brand.
If you follow QVCA with all of your social media posts and email marketing you will be more successful than creating shoddy posts that sound like noise, are sent haphazardly.
O God, Thou sellest all good things to men at the price of effort.” -Leonardo da Vinci
This year was about getting re-settled and getting re-situated. The main themes of the year were moving the family to La Crosse, selling the house in Tipton, the ramping up of t-shirt sales, and the ramping down of client work.
The work I was doing was different. Instead of making blog posts I would make over 1000 t-shirts. Instead of listening to podcasts on my way to and from work, I would spend more time with my wife eating out or taking the kids to the park.
January
At the beginning of the year I lived alone in a one-bedroom, studio apartment.
I designed t-shirts and sold them on Amazon when I wasn’t at Marine Credit Union.
One day in January, Jason and I went to the ice caves with his family.
And towards the end of the month I went up on Grandad Bluff to take a selfie.
February
In February I went to Kansas City to meetup with my wife and my aunt Peggy in Garden City.
Later on that month my boys visited me in La Crosse and took them to the quarry.
I’d go on walks along the La Crosse river during breaks at work.
And I kept making new t-shirts. This is from a bumper sticker my Grandpa Wade had on his truck.
March
In March, Suzanne and Carmina visited me and we went to the Mall of America. We haven’t been back since.
After they left I played Minecraft with Samuel remotely online.
Jason and I explored the coffee shop on the corner. It was the only time we did that.
April
In April I went back to Tipton to visit for Easter.
I took the kids to the park for one of the last times.
My brother, Mitch, came over and I gave him a t-shirt.
We took the kids to see their Grammy.
I went for my first bike ride of the year.
Jason and I went to Taco Bell.
I went to a payments conference in Austin, Texas with Jason.
I saw my aunt and uncle in Austin while I was down there.
I hiked the Balanced Rock Trail along Devil’s Lake.
And then Carmina came to help me move out of the apartment.
May
I rode my bike across the Mississippi for the first time. It was an odd feeling doing that from my house.
I continued walking on the trail at work. The leaves were starting to come out now.
We celebrated the lives of Joe and Helen O’Banion, my wife’s grandparents, in Tipton.
I was back at home alone. I mowed the yard for the first time.
June
I had to make my own breakfast.
But then I met this guy at Taco John’s. He recognized me from Instagram.
But at home I was still all alone in an empty house.
But then the kids arrived (along with a lot of help from my Mom, Dad, Mitch, and Jennifer)!
Magdalena setup her workstation in the basement.
July
I took the kids out for hot chocolate at the Root Note.
The Cobb’s came over for ice cream.
And we met new friends, the Miller’s, at Ranison’s for ice cream.
Samuel enjoys building things. We sold the house in Tipton. Suzanne drove back to sign the papers.
I went on a Dragon Boat race with Jason and Marine Credit Union.
Because we live close to work now, Suzanne would come bring me lunch and we’d go to the park to eat.
For my mom’s birthday, we drove back to Indiana to see her. My aunt, Mary, also drove to see her from Missouri.
But then my Aunt Peggy got sick so I went and visited her before she died.
August
The family came together for a meal in Garden City.
Never thought we’d get old, maybe we’re still young
May we always look back and think it was better than it was
Maybe these are the moments
Maybe I’ve been missing what it’s about
Been scared of the future, thinking about the past
While missing out on now
We’ve come so far, I guess I’m proud
And I ain’t worried about the wrinkles around my smile
I’ve got some scars, I’ve been around
I’ve thrown some pain, I’ve seen some things, but I’m here now
Those good old days -Macklemore
As an IT and marketing guy I’m often asked to setup new software or help integrate one system with another. This post is about Shareasale datafeeds: what they are and how they are used – from an IT point of view. If you still need professional help, there is a link at the bottom.
Summary:
a datafeed is just a file that affiliates can download that contains links and info on our products
once the datafeed is downloaded, affiliates can use it with special widgets on their site
some affiliates specifically look for merchants who have a datafeed they can download
if the datafeed is visible in our Creatives under Datafeed, then affiliates can download it
it is not an integration, it’s only a file that can be updated at any time, overwriting the old file
What is a Shareasale datafeed?
The Datafeed functionality allows merchants like us to upload lists of products to their ShareASale account and provides us with the ability to manage multiple stores and product level commissions as additional options. The Datafeed upload completely replaces the existing product listings in our merchant’s account with every upload. Any items not included in the uploaded file will be removed from the product listings. The full overview of the Datafeed specifications can be found at this Shareasale datafeed setup link.
Why use a datafeed?
It allows any affiliate that wants to feature a product on their page or through one of Shareasale’s content tools to display our products on their page. Some affiliates specifically look for merchants with datafeeds.
How long have they been around?
At least since 2013.
How do I check to make sure a datafeed is working?
It appears to be something only an affiliate can see, but the documentation makes it seem like it’s not an integration, it’s just a file that affiliates download and then use as a source file on their sites. So as long as it’s in your creatives and approved, then it’s “working”.
Why would it not be working or how to update the file?
We could find that either Shareasale has an issue with the file or the affiliates themselves have an issue with the file once they go to use it. Once we have feedback, we can upload it again at any time and it will overwrite the file that is currently in Shareasale. Here are some common datafeed problems to watch out for and here are some examples of how to create a product datafeed.
Conclusion
I didn’t know anything about Shareasale and I didn’t take the time to learn it before, but when I did take the time to learn it and build context I was finally able to know what a datafeed was used for and to tell whether or not the datafeed was setup correctly. This blog post is meant to help others like me who are tasked with setting up a Shareasale datafeed know what a datafeed is and how to check it so I have more context about what they are for and how they are used.
Professional Affiliate Setup Help
If you’re reading this you may be a merchant on Shareasale that is looking for an affiliate management company to help you get setup and build a network of affiliates to help market your products. This is not a sponsored post, but I have worked with Priest Willis and his team at Affiliate Mission and have been pleased with their work, their communication, and their integrity. I highly recommend Affiliate Mission for affiliate management and marketing services.
General Motors pushes a new car off of their assembly line once every minute, but it takes 2 months in total to make a car. How is that possible and how does that apply to writing blog posts?
To use another example, the online retailer, The Grommet, launches a new product every day, but it takes them two months to prepare for a single launch. How can both timelines be true?
A New Way of Thinking about Blogging
What if I told you that you could publish a new blog post every day by only working one day a week? Would that interest you? What if you didn’t have to do it in one day, but could stretch it out?
The reason why General Motors and The Grommet and you can do all of these things is because of the power of batching work. Instead of building one thing at a time, each sub-task is batched.
The idea is that each sub-task can be optimized by not having to get your workspace and mindset setup for working a particular task before putting it away and switching to the next part of the process.
Playing Devil’s Advocate
However, there are also studies that have showed that when a human is tasked with making something with multiple steps that in the short run it’s actually faster to finish each item instead of batching.
There are also advantages to building something to completion if time is a critical element. If you only have a short time to do something, it’s better to get 1 thing done than 1000 unfinished things done.
However, I have found that there is a difference between physically building something to completion and doing the mental work of creating a blog post due to the cost of task switching between the different steps.
How to Batch Creating Blog Posts
Writing a blog post is actually a series of several different, distinct steps:
Determining what to write about – this could include browsing BuzzSumo, news sites, or Google Trends to see what people are interested in; it could also include asking customer support or the social media marketing team for what questions they’ve been getting or seeing online lately
Researching a topic – once you’ve determined what to write about, it’s time to research the topic to see what sort of angle you can bring to the story. You want to add value to the conversation. One way to do that is to find an answer to a problem someone has (where our product is the answer).
Writing the first draft – this process could involve two steps of writing an outline and then going back and filling it in or you could write it all down as fast as possible. The goal of this step is not to write a finished draft, but only to write as much as possible and as quickly as possible.
Editing the first draft – after you’ve given yourself some time, come back and (or have someone else) review your work. Don’t be afraid to delete things you’ve written. Your words are not your babies. Some writers even go so far as to delete their entire first paragraph. Edit for grammar.
Editing the second draft – after some time has passed, go back through and edit for readability and SEO. Make sure it flows in the right order, has the right sub-headers, and has the right amount of keywords and internal and external links, and also make sure it has a call to action.
Finding images to use – I add this as a distinct step because it’s a different mindset and skill to find an image for use with a blog. There are different ways to do this from searching Dropbox, to asking the Marketing department, to taking a photo yourself, to making an image, to stock photos.
Publish the blog post – when a blog post is published, there are several things to consider such as what the title of the blog post is, what URL is used, what the description of the blog post is, what thumbnail is used, what tags are applied, and when the blog post will be published.
Promoting the blog post – this step could be as little as handing off the URL of the new blog post to the social media marketing department or it could be doing the posting yourself to Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest. You could also make a custom graphic of the post for Instagram.
Repurposing the blog post – [optional] once you have the blog post created, then you can record yourself with some b-roll cut in reading the blog post in your webcam. The resulting video could then be uploaded to YouTube. In this way each blog post could also become a video.
Aggregating the blog post – [optional] once you have a series of blog posts, they can be combined into an ebook and sold on Amazon or used as a giveaway to attract new email subscribers or as a free gift in an email newsletter.
If you did all of these steps in one day, you would likely be worn out from all of the task switching. But if you could spend one day doing step 1 and found 20 things to write about, that would be one month’s worth of blog posts. On day 2 you would spend all day doing step 2 for all 20 blog posts. By the end of the second week you’d have 20 blog posts published one month in advance and scheduled on social media.
For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he: Eat and drink, saith he to thee; but his heart is not with thee.” -Proverbs 23:7 KJV
Grandmommy’s Funeral in Tipton
In January, my wife’s grandmother, Helen, died and my Grandpa Stauffer started to get sick. My oldest daughter turned 12 and my wife took her to Universal Studios. My mom ended chemo therapy and started radiation treatment. I flew to Orlando for work at GoServicePro.
Erich at the WWETT16 Show in Indianapolis
In February, my best friend, Jason Cobb, told me he was moving to Wisconsin. My brother, Mitch, moved into a new house. Skinny and Company offered me full-time employment. On the last day of the month, GoServicePro moved offices and I let them know I was moving on.
Erich and Jason at the Wakey Wakey Concert in Fountain Square
In March, my Grandpa Stauffer died. Our family decided to wait to get together. I began working nights at Skinny and Company and went full time March 28th. I started to notice that our kids were starting to grow up.
On the weekends I would take the kids down to the park by the church. The Catholic church had decided to tear down the old church in the background as maintenance costs were too much to repair it.
Working at Skinny was fun and exciting, but also challenging. We were setting up new systems and so I had to do a lot of learning really quickly. This also uncovered other areas, which needed improvement so there was a lot to do.
My mom’s cancer went into remission and her hair started to grow back. I admired her pursuit of health and her consistently positive attitude through the whole ordeal. Here she is at a band concert:
In April I went and visited Jason in Wisconsin. It was a long drive up there and back, but I’m glad I did it. We walked along the Mississippi river and up on top of the bluffs. While I was there my wife told me she was pregnant.
Later on that month I went to my first Pacer’s game with Skinny. That’s Mike, Luke, me, and Matt in the picture. Jordan, Landree, and Mike’s wife were also there (she was pregnant, too).
Samuel keeps growing up. He really likes going to the park. He’s my little buddy.
At the end of April we drove out to Missouri to see Peggy before going on to Dixon for the funeral for Grandpa Stauffer.
It was a good way to remember Grandpa.
Here we are all together in front of the church where my parents got married.
In May I finally setup my own office at Skinny. My brother-in-law, John, got married, and Suzanne and I went to a “Rev Indy” event at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway with Skinny.
By the end of the month, I stopped to smell the roses. I bought a season pass to Eagle Creek Park and would go walking there during lunch kind of like I used to when I worked at Worksmart Systems.
I took the boys out there, too.
We went to the 100th running of the Indianapolis 500. It was my first time going. It was hot.
And we started going to the Silver Beach off Lake Michigan.
In June, Jason and I went to Chicago. I’ve been to Chicago with Jason more than any other person (so far). We watched a Cubs game.
We road bikes to China town to see the famous “Post No Signs” sign. It wasn’t there anymore, but we remembered it.
In July I thought I was going to Atlanta, but I didn’t get to go so I went to the 100 Acres Woods instead.
I went and saw my mom playing in the Greenwood band at a Greenwood park. She did good!
Worlds collided when Hans from GoServicePro went out with me and Mike from Skinny and Company to Amber Indian.
Kids got some ice cream and started growing up.
In August I went on a walk around Tipton with Samuel.
Magdalena left me a note.
We went and visited Jason and his family in La Crosse, Wisconsin.
And here’s us at the top of a bluff.
Here’s the office I had setup for a while at Skinny.
In September I bought a new bike (the first bike I’ve ever bought myself as an adult). My goal is to ride the Hilly Hundred in 2017.
Me and Magdalena went for a walk in Carmel on the Monon.
I took Samuel for ice cream.
Kevin learned how to ride a bike.
And I started going to the gym (or at least took at least one picture of myself at a gym).
In October I told Skinny I was moving on and I had Mike and Matt take this picture with me (thanks to Allison for taking it).
Carmina had fun seeing Skinny Coconut Oil at grocery stores around Indianapolis. She’s a good spokesperson.
I went and visited Jason in La Crosse, Wisconsin and made a movie of the trip.
The Cubs ended up winning the World Series. I had nothing to do with it, but I did visit them (twice).
Jason and I went for a bike ride on the trails at the top of the bluffs.
In November I accepted the job at Marine Credit Union in La Crosse, Wisconsin and moved into a hotel.
I came home for a bit and ate some tacos with Hans.
It was hard to say goodbye to my family after the weekend.
Samuel learned how to ride a bike and we went for a ride to the park.
In December I had a baby. We named her after Helen.
My mom wrote this recently when the power was off. She had, “no WiFi, & time to reflect.”
Power is off and sensors are beeping. So here goes:
Things I want you to know about Life
It can change in an instant.
Don’t wait to do the things you love.
Don’t waste time on things that don’t matter.
Do something new.
Think about others needs & feelings. Express your gratitude.
See the beauty all around you.
Listen more Get off your phone.
Look up.
Write personal notes, not texts. Handwritten notes express your heartfelt appreciation
Be trustworthy always.
Build your character & integrity.
Keep a journal to record the highlights you will forget.
Good times can be very simple. Enjoy them as they come.
Watch the sunset.
Smell the rain.
Read a child a book.
Take them for a nature walk.
And the power is back. Hallelujah.
Time is too slow for those who wait, too swift for those who fear, too long for those who grieve, too short for those who rejoice, but for those who love, time is eternity. Hours fly, flowers die, new days, new ways, pass by. Love stays. —a sundial
