Mike's Life - An Update

You may remember that in the early days of this blog I put quite a lot of personal stuff on here, and one or two of you have pointed out that I stopped doing that. So what I’m going to try to do is write a personal update post from time to time to let you know what’s happening in Mike’s Life!

Work

We started our blogging business in December of last year. We had, and still have, an offline business, but that was really struggling at the time, and we were looking to create another source of income and to change our lifestyle, injecting more fun back into work. Our aim was to create three blogs, with me as the principal writer on two of them, and Julie heading up the third. Our objective was to exceed our income from the offline business within six months, and to lay the foundations for a long term sustainable business in the future. I’m very happy to report that we have achieved both of those within 5 months! Mike’s Life and Lanzarote Information have consistently exceeded what we hoped for them. Both are growing at a massive rate, both are earning good income from our own products, from a few well chosen affiliate offers and most recently, from direct advertising. Gordonisimo has been less successful, but that proves the old adage that content is king. I simply haven’t been able to write as often for that site as I originally planned. I’ve slowed down the posting schedule on that one to three each week, and we plan to let that build more slowly. Do have a look at the other two sites – I’d be interested in your feedback.

The other major change has been in work style. We do still have a responsibility to our offline business, and to the people working in it. The benefit we have is that there are some excellent managers in the business, who are keeping things going despite the recession. They run every aspect on a day to day basis and we have now limited our input to offering help where they need it, and to maintaining all the marketing of the business. We simply take a percentage of the profits generated. This has meant that we have been able to greatly reduce our time spent doing stuff for that business, and we have used that to our benefit. We’re really enjoying our new regime, which involves working through the morning, taking a couple of hours off in the afternoons to get out and about in our fantastic weather, and then spending time working again in the evenings. People talk about the .com lifestyle, and I guess we’re living it now. We still work hard, but it’s a joy to go to the beach on a Tuesday afternoon, or to shop or a Thursday afternoon when the stores are empty. It’s a great freedom after spending our whole working lives having to be in “business mode” and in business clothes from 0900 until 1700 every single day.

The truth is, we haven’t really exploited this as much as we should have. We do still have that very strong work ethic during conventional business hours. But I think as we evolve, we’ll learn that we can do what we want, whenever we want. And that’s a real freedom.

Lifestsyle

We moved to this little rock just off the coast of Africa for lifestyle reasons. But towards the end of last year, the strain of our financial difficulties really began to take a toll on that aspect. You don’t feel like going out, even to take or walk, which costs no money, when you have big financial problems. I’m very happy to report that we have been able to get back to doing the stuff we love about living on this island. Afternoons out exploring and taking photos for the blogs, the occasional indulgent Friday lunch, ocean swims, diving, surfing or just lolling around reading – we’re back to doing them all. Socially as well, we’re back to barbecuing often, and enjoying the company of very many good friends.

This place is fabulous – it’s said we have the best weather in the world here. Daytime temperatures, even in mid winter, never drop below about 16 centigrade, but are usually in the 20’s. And in summer we are always at between 27 and 32, with the trade winds kicking in just when you think it’s getting too hot. We hardly have any rainfall – in fact we won’t see any rain now until around October! We’re surrounded by a clear, blue and warm Atlantic Ocean. Although we’re part of Spain, we’re actually 1,000 miles from the mainland, our nearest neighbor is the African Sahara, which is just 72 miles from here. We’re duty free and our taxes are low. The culture here is very laid back and relaxed, and Canarian people are family orientated, fun filled and friendly.

As the island is so small, you can get a feeling of claustrophobia sometimes, but that’s easily resolved by jumping on a plane to Madrid. And the Spanish government, to encourage travel to and from the islands, offers a 50% discount for residents! It means a ticket from here to Madrid, which is as far as Madrid is from London, costs as little as €34! Madrid is a wonderful city, full of culture, passion and great shopping. We love it there and will be heading over in the next few weeks.

The Future

More of the same really. If we can continue the growth we’ve had over the rest of the year, things look very good. We’re aiming to get to Australia later this year to see some friends – that seemed like a pipe dream not so long ago, because of the cost, but now it’s looking possible.

I’m also very excited about the launch of The Beginners Guide to Blogging, which starts on 1st June. There are eight places left, by the way. What I’ll be doing is working with 60 people to help them achieve with their blogs, what we have with ours. That’s going to be fun and interesting, and there are some fascinating niches there as well.

It’s not an exaggeration to say that becoming a blogger has changed my life. It’s put me in touch with some old friends, and made literally thousands of new friends. It’s overcome a very difficult financial situation, and it’s made me totally relaxed about our long term financial future. I will never again have to rely on other people to provide the money for my family to live on. It’s a wonderful feeling to be able to type that and to know it’s true.

I plan to run BGB twice a year, then to create an intermediate course, and perhaps one day, an advanced course. I’m also working on some other book products, the current one is The Beginners Guide to Twitter – aimed at people new to Twitter. As always, pricing will be low, there won’t be any affiliates and one in ten will be free to a blogger who can’t afford it.

So, that’s where Mike’s Life is. I’d love to hear in comments what you think of it so far.