Why I Quit Facebook
by David Paul Krug · 0 comments Follow me on Twitter
So I haven’t deleted my profile on Facebook because their are a lot of people I’d like to be able to communicate with who still religiously use Facebook. But a few things I’ve noticed since I quit posting. I feel 100% freed from the notion of needing to spend time there. Not saying I was using Facebook in a bad way but there are better avenues for my creativity than lost in the silo of Facebook.
The time I once used to spend on Facebook I can now spend writing, swimming, doing things I love. Or developing a new hobby.
Regardless when I look back on life I really doubt I will say I wish I spent more time on Facebook.
Ride
by David Paul Krug · 0 comments Follow me on Twitter
There is so much I could say about this song/short film.
But the biggest thing I could say is that it sums up more than anything how I’ve felt the last 10 years of my life in one epic classic song…
It’s like she opened up my soul and wrote a song that explains to me what I’ve been going through…
Powerful, healing, and transformative.
May It Come Back To Me
by David Paul Krug Follow me on Twitter
As a child I remember everything had such richness. Colors. They were everywhere. The color of leaves. The color of the creek by my house. The colors were everywhere. Then one day colors ceased to exist. I lost all sense of family. I was sent away. I was disowned. Even though there are people on this planet who share my same last name Krug I am the only one I am connected to. Nothing had color anymore. Everything faded to grey.
For nearly 14 years I’ve been trying to make sense of that. What I did wrong. And to make it harder it’s not the first time. I used to be a Cummings until I lost that family too at age 6. In fact most of my life I’ve been separated from the people I loved and cared about most. Until there’s nothing to remember. No faces, no memories, no sounds. Nothing.
I finally have come to the conclusion that it’s not my fault, and that I have to stop blaming myself.
I’ve never mourned the loss of my families. Instead I’ve become an extremely independent and strong person. On the outside. But there’s another side of me. I waited my entire life for someone to notice and point it out to me.
I think I met an angel. They are only an angel because they saw right through me. Almost instantly.
Within moments of meeting they said:
I see your pain.
These four words have literally changed my life.
I’ve been stuck on them for days.
What is my pain ? What did they see… I want answers. But I realize I’m the only one who can answer that honestly.
And the only way to really begin to see color again is to mourn the pain, feel it deeply, experience why it’s here and try my hardest to overcome it…
1 I mourn, and release the loss of my innocence
2 I mourn, and release the loss of my biological connections
3 I mourn, and release the loss of my father
4 I mourn, and release the loss of my childhood
5 I mour, and releasen the loss of my love for soccer
6 I mourn, and release the loss of my stability & rootedness
7 I mourn, and release the loss of my eyesight
8 I mourn, and release the loss of my closest friends
9 I mourn, and release the loss of my time I have spent avoiding my pain
10 I mourn, and release the loss of my old heart
These ten things are the very root of my pain. And the cycles of independence do not allow me to connect deeply with people who I should be loving, cherishing, and valuing in my life.
For the last month I’ve been really happy. I can’t explain it. I don’t think its temporary. I was focused on other people. Not me. I wanted to be apart of a bigger story. I wanted to sacrifice something great to help others. I didn’t want to just be comfortable anymore. I wanted to take action.
No one else in the world can bring color back into my life but me. I have to invite it. Today I’m reinviting color back into my heart. I’m letting go of everyone behind me. Sadly all hope is lost that I can bring the dead back to life, or the lost back into my life on my own.
Finally today I let go. No, I really let go. I sat around today and cried. And then I pushed the pain out of my heart ever so slowly, envisioning it finally setting sail having completed it’s purpose in my life.
After letting the pain go. Colors have begun to reappear. More pain will surely reenter my life. The scars of yesterday leave behind marks, but no longer will I allow them to be what defines my heart.
Today I invite colors, and new stories to shape who I am. A new journey defines my future.
My greatest dream is that my heart might be reborn. That true love might enter in. Not selfish love. But true, innocent pure love. The love we all had when we came into this world…
May it come back to me.
The Tale of Two Assistants
by David Paul Krug · 0 comments Follow me on Twitter
This is a true story. For the last month I’ve been trying to figure out what I’m supposed to learn from my life situation. I have two part-time assistants. Both equally good at different things. One is better at cooking. One is better at being an amazing sounding board to life’s challenges. She also challenges me on spanish more than the other. I’ve questioned both of them at times for being a bit flaky. Which is why I have two assistants to cover the gaps.
But I knew that wouldn’t last for much longer as I really don’t need two. But I didn’t have the heart to let one of them go. I kept giving one of them second, third, and fourth chances. Believing that one day she’d show up and be remarkable.
And she did.
Last night a Hurricane washed ashore bringing with it chaos, and winds. I guess that’s been the story of my life the last few weeks. I fully didn’t expect either one of my assistants to show up. In fact both of them had called in “sick” the last two shifts putting me in awkward position of having a messy unorganized house, and no groceries in the house. I even pondered canning both of them and moving forward with finding someone else.
Needless to say I was a bit stressed when the hurricane landed. I was going to have to eat leftovers, cereal, and drink coffee and let the storm pass over.
At 10am I went down to make a phone call in the office. And walking past me in the pouring rain and wind is one of my assistants holding an ugly umbrella, and carrying hot soup. And she lives over an hour away.
Needless to say she still has a job. And proved my intuition correct yet again.
She’s something remarkable. Even if it’s not always obvious to me.
The lesson I learned from this is simple. Trust your instincts believe that people are remarkable and keep pushing them to do the amazing and eventually they will. That’s what leadership is all about. Teaching them how to be remarkable, and amazing!
Twenty Principles of Innovation
by David Paul Krug · 0 comments Follow me on Twitter
1: Experience the world instead of talking about experiencing the world
2: See and hear with the mind of a child
3: Always ask: “How do we want people to feel after they experience this?”
4: Prototype as if you are right. Listen as if you are wrong.
5: Anything can be prototyped. You can prototype with anything.
6: Live life at the intersection
7: Develop a taste for the many flavors of innovation
8: Most new ideas aren’t
9: Killing good ideas is a good idea
10: Baby steps often lead to big leaps
11: Everyone needs time to innovate
12: Instead of managing, try cultivating
13: Do everything right, and you’ll still fail
14: Failure sucks, but instructs
15: Celebrate errors of commission. Stamp out errors of omission.
16: Grok the gestalt of teams
17. It’s not the years, it’s the mileage
18: Learn to orbit the hairball
19: Have a point of view
20: Be remarkable
Source: Diego Rodriguez
Saying Goodbye To Plan B
by David Paul Krug · 0 comments Follow me on Twitter
Today is day one in taking back my business success. Thanks Google for kicking me in the ass. I used to be relentless if something wasn’t successful after 3 months I closed it.
Targeted Visitors has made me considerable money this year around 15,000 dollars. Guess what ?
I’m closing it’s doors today.
Not because it can’t make money into the future. But because it trades my time for money. And that’s not how I want to live.
Bryghten is my future, and my present. Today is the day I pull the cord on Plan B. And go all in on Plan A.
Goodbye Plan B
Hello Plan A
What about you are you still holding on to your Plan B, just in case Plan A doesn’t work out ?
The Turnaround
by David Paul Krug · 0 comments Follow me on Twitter
About this time last year I was struggling…Cancer was rearing it’s ugly head and really it almost killed me not physically but emotionally. I’ve never experienced anything quite like what I experienced emotionally from that.
Rock bottom doesn’t even define what I went through. Darkness had surrounded me. I had pretty much given up. I started writing again more out of neccesity for survival than anything else. Hoping somehow that writing would shake something loose and I would find some strength to get through. Somehow it gave me hope. It reinforced meaning in my life again.
I went back to the United States for awhile and overcame. But it took everything I had.
The last 9 months I feel like I’ve been coasting. Largely utilizing the momentum from last years fight to propel me forward. And now the gas feels like it’s almost empty. My tank feels empty.
Maybe I was crazy starting a new business just after recovering from cancer. Maybe that was nuts. Maybe I wasn’t ready. I dont’ know. I’ve had a great year. A new business has been a great distraction. I don’t have the energy I once had. But I’ve got a lot more wisdom.
But most days I feel like my tank is empty.
And I feel like that’s a good thing.
Battle-mode is on. I feel tired, but sure of one thing. If there is a fight to be had. I’m ready for it. Like I wrote recently happiness is something we have to constantly fight for.
Success, like happiness is something we have to fight for. Day in and day out in the trenches.
I’m not Steve Jobs.
I’m not Bill Gates.
I’m not Richard Branson.
I’m not Jack Dorsey.
But that doesn’t mean I can’t have success. Lots of it. And I’m going to share my journey over the next 31 days of ME righting the ship of my business, and my life right here on this blog. In many ways my business is starting over after the latest Google FuckOP. Or update as they’d like to call it. We still have some serious assets but in terms of our marketing and content strategy we’ve had to retool.
And that’s the best part of this journey. Because we can build and plan for the future NOW instead of waiting for someone else to tell us how to run our business we are going to do it our way. Saddle it up. I have no idea what the future holds but I plan to share my vision, my weaknesses, my struggles, and my journey with you right here.
For 31 Days and maybe more…
The fight is on.
Sometimes Everything’s Broken
by David Paul Krug Follow me on Twitter
This year has been amazing. And that’s the side effect of hard work, determination, and effort. But sometimes things don’t work out. You have to deal with setbacks.
When things become rough and uncertain we have a couple of options. We can withdraw or we can draw up a plan. I’ve spent the better part of two weeks drawing up a short term andd long term plan to not only overcome my own setbacks but to grow my business at a faster smarter rate.
I’ve also taken a hard look at relational struggles and decided to let go of the relationships, and everything that was out of my control.
Sometimes you just have to let go of things that you have no control over. And not look back.
You really do have to fight for happiness…. at all costs. If you want it.
Right now I’m fighting harder than I normally do. One of my friends here in Mazatlan is moving.
My business has taken a few setbacks in the last month or two. I’m a bit tired.
And…
I dread that we are heading into my hardest time of the year to focus.
The holidays is always hard on me emotionally. The feelings of being alone for Thanksgiving, and then Christmas always sidetracks me into emotional bankruptcy. This year I hope I can do something different. Maybe I can channel my pain into making other people’s lives brighter and more beautiful.
Times like these make me remember something amazing about life.
Side Trips are part of the Road Map…
We will get there when we are supposed to. No sooner. No later. And if the car breaks down along the way and we have to walk we will walk, if we have to hitch a ride, we hitch a ride. All of this is apart of life’s journey. No journey is the same. Yours is different than mine. And mine is mine to cherish.
Right now mine feels rather broken, and that’s OK.
Because I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be. Fighting for my happiness. Just like you.
This Could Have Been The Longest Weekend But It Wasn’t
by David Paul Krug Follow me on Twitter
7 years ago I would have gotten angry, and been irrational. This weekend my business took a punch in the gut. This weekend I looked at everything calmly and rationally. Frustrated by the circumstances I sat down took a deep breath and meditated on the importance of my business.
I turned to friends, business allies, and my partner.
A bit of wisdom was imparted by a good friend.
She asked me this question…
Do you love what you do ?
The answer is YES. I love what I do.
She went on to explain that you don’t win every time, and that when bad things happen you dust yourself off, and keep battling. Like I always have.
She reiterated that no one ever won anything by quitting in the first quarter of a game. And through adversity even greater success is achieved by determination and by overcoming the obstacles we face.
By business is about my LONG TERM goals. Not just the short term ones. And that’s how I look at these challenges. They are short term challenges.
The best part about this weekend was I didn’t let it effect my emotions. I didn’t get depressed, or feel hopeless. I breathed in positive energy, and breathed out the negative energy. Instead of focusing on things that were out of my control I focused on the things that were in my control.
My emotions are in my control. Outside factors don’t need to determine my inward happiness, and contentment. My dreams and desires are things I create for myself. They are not destroyed by outside circumstances. They are achieved through hard work and determination.
The weekend could have been the longest weekend instead it was an education in how to grow smarter, better, and gave me ample opportunity to plan for the long haul.
How I’m Going To Retire In 2 Years
by David Paul Krug Follow me on Twitter
Retirement. The end of work as I know it. 2 years, and a few months. It’s going to happen. Here’s why. I want to write more, I want to learn to play the guitar, I want to get married, I want to raise my children my way, and teach them about life. Not just send them off to school. I don’t want to be a workaholic. I want to spend quality time with those I love and help them achieve their dreams. This is truly my dream.
The first step to retirement is figuring out how much I will need to retire. For me $100,000 +/- a year is the magic number. It’s a number far greater than I’m currently living at. But it calculates in future inflation, and a future family. In order to have that level of income based on interest assets such as an immediate access annuity I would need to have access to roughly $2,000,000 in assets to put into an immediate access annuity.
In order for me to be able to sell my business for 2 million+ dollars I need to be earning roughly $110,000 in passive monthly net income. From there I would rely on my past experience brokering website sales and my connections in my industry to command 2+ million dollars in any sale. Minusing out taxes, and investing in a tax free annuity would allow me to live tax free for the rest of my life at roughly $100,000 annually. Now considering I don’t live at that means now I could re-invest a good sum of that annually into other ventures that I could oversee part-time until I’m at a point where I just don’t want to anymore.
Business Plan
Currently my business is not setup to scale at those levels. Sad fact is I need to make some changes. But others in my industry are scaling at those levels with far less talent, and strategy IMO. What they have is capital, what I have is intelligence. So for me scaling is more a matter of bootstrapping and capital adjustments. Next step really is developing a rock solid plan to get there. That could potentially mean raising a small amount of private capital, more than I already have, or potentially just minimizing overhead and reinvesting wisely. Or possibly a combination of the two.
Overall I don’t see any personal or business obstacles to achieve my goal. I already live in paradise. So that adjustment has been made. Now it’s onward to developing a path that will accomplish my goal within the set out timeframe.
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