An Early-Retirement Revelation

There might be a few of you wondering what the heck happened to "The MaudMan". And I'm sure many more of you are asking, "Who the heck is MaudMan?" 🤣 Either way, I wanted to post a quick update on my current status since I was super active, and then seemingly vanished after a few months.

I came back to WA as a Premium Plus member in March this year after an 11 year gap where I did almost nothing related to affiliate marketing. Why did I come back? Well, as you can read in my bio, I retired at age 55 in May of this year, and I decided WA was the best way to get back into writing and affiliate marketing. I also looked forward to the community engagement, especially after retiring from Corporate America. I viewed the WA community as an excellent way to fill the void created by no longer interacting with co-workers on a daily basis.

As I hoped, WA definitely provided these things. I was learning, writing, and actively engaging every day. I even achieved Ambassador status with a ranking of 24 or 25 within a few short months. I reached this level simply by interacting with other community members, commenting on content, and by answering questions whenever I could. That was pretty cool and great fun, but it also gave me a slight feeling of "imposter syndrome" since I am far from an expert and not making any money from my niche website yet. I did make one affiliate sale early on, but it was barely enough commission to buy myself a cup of coffee. ☕🤣

While climbing the WA ranks, and eventually achieving Ambassador level, I also observed that certain long-time members don't like this so much. It seems Ambassador status is very competitive for some, and they might feel threatened by others, especially us "newbies" who haven't been around very long. 😊 That experience was a bit of a turn-off and motivation-killer for me, but I kept going in spite of it.

The days continued to come and go, and I noticed my motivation and desire to write and interact slowly diminishing. The more training I consumed on the WA platform, and the more members I chatted with and read their stories, the more I questioned if this is really what I want to do in my retirement. I no longer need to work or earn money to be happy or feel like I've achieved success in life. I can literally do whatever I want now. Fortunately, I'm very blessed in that regard.

With each new WA training video I watched, or blog post I read, I started to realize something and had to be honest with myself about it. While I do love sharing knowledge and solving problems, I have no desire to be involved with all the different social media and other platforms, constantly producing new content with the hopes of building a following, and eventually an income.

I do enjoy the process of creative writing, and I love sharing my thoughts, experiences, and knowledge with others. But I was feeling like I'd just created another full-time J.O.B. for myself that kept me sitting in front of a computer for hours on end. I never gave myself time for the reality of early retirement to sink in, or to enjoy any of my newfound freedom to explore other interests and passions.

This part might elicit a chuckle from some WA'ers, but I also found myself feeling a lot of daily pressure to use up my word credits before they would expire each month. Is that "FOMO"? LOL! I would frantically pump out a bunch of draft articles to eat up credits. And there they would sit, staring back at me from the long list of potential articles I could publish. 👀🙄

Additionally, I gave a lot of thought to the whole idea of AI and "The Algorithm" that now seems to rule all forms of online media. It has a voracious appetite for new information. Regardless of how much content is already out there on a particular topic, or how good the quality of said content is, "the algorithm" will vacuum up as much new content as people (or AI's) are willing to create, as fast and as often as they are willing to create it. It seems the only way to climb to the top of the affiliate marketing ladder of success, is to create as much content as possible, on as many platforms as possible. Sadly, very few people put forth the effort to produce high-quality content that is truly valuable to others.

I'm not trying to bash the whole affiliate marketing process here, because I understand this is the world we live in now and this is what is required if you want to make money online. But for me personally, it was starting to feel like a soul-sucking endeavor considering my complete lack of desire to be involved with so many different social platforms. They've all become a cesspool of clickbait, poor-quality content, and divisiveness. I don't possess the gumption required to break through all that noise.

If I could just write on my lonely little blog, without having to worry about optimal keyword research, SEO, backlinking, making videos, posting on social media, site analytics, and all that other jazz, I could probably be satisfied doing it as a hobby. But then I have to ask myself... What's the point of all that? Is it really worth my time and effort, when very few people will ever see my content unless I do all the other requisite tasks to beat "the algorithm"? There's already a TON of great quality content online related to my niche, and all I was trying to do is outrank it in the hopes someone will view my content versus theirs.

So what does this mean for me going forward? Being totally honest, I really don't know yet. I'm still doing some soul searching around what retirement means for me, and what I want to do with my newfound freedom.

I'm trying to maintain a positive attitude about the whole experience so far, and I view the cost of my P+ membership as a bit of an education about myself. So this post is nothing negative whatsoever about WA, Kyle, Carson, or any of the other talented and helpful folks providing regular training content and support. It's all about ME and my current thought process. I totally respect the mission WA is on and the opportunities it can provide for many people. There's also no denying the platform is constantly improving and the training is top-notch. Those facts are not up for debate.

To wrap this up... I'll still be logging in periodically, reading blog posts, responding to PM's, and checking out live chat from time to time. I'm still exploring what I want to do with my main niche site, and WA in general, from this point on. I was contacted by someone who owns the #1 ranking site in my niche, and he asked if I'd be interested in writing content for their site. So that's a possibility, but we'll have to see where all this leads.

I'd love to hear any thoughts, perspectives, or advice from other members who may have already gone through this process of self-doubt and soul-searching, or who may be going through it now.