30 Day recap: Back to Square One?

To be honest, I wanted to post an uplifting bells-and-whistles blog, but my plan changed after a phone call. I was eager to list my achievements, not to show off but to share a feeling that would encourage my followers to keep on rowing their boats. I also wanted to keep a log of my progress, another breadcrumb to show me how to get back on track if/when I got the blues...

So this recap will be less objective and organized than what I had originally planned. These are some facts:

• I worked about 320 hours
• I bought (snapped) 36 domain names (appraised $25000 in total)
• I sold one $700 (appraisal $1300)
• I wrote an average of 1000 words daily
• I invited friends and family to join WA, 4 joined, I paid with my credits
• I've been followed by 400+ members, mostly premium
• My rank went from 600000 to 15 (Ambassador)
• I asked 14 questions
• I've posted 39 blogs (including this one)
• I've started to research Pinterest platform with a plan
• I created my first Google form, connected to a shared spreadsheet
• I've installed 40 WP sites and researched some themes and plugins
• I created a virtual member to test WA and I upgraded it to premium
• I've connected and sponsored one padawan
• I've set goals for January

The good

I've learned a lot about myself and how I interact with people. Whatever I do with this new knowledge is my responsibility, but I'm pretty confident that I'll do good.

I learned a lot about time management, topic in which I usually got an F, but honestly didn't care too much.

I've met great people, whom I decided to follow as my leaders, each one of them with distinct talents and skills I admire and I have not given enough importance for my personal growth up to now.

The bad

I found that many people don't read and think before posting a reply. I do take my time and I've found that it's incredibly difficult to read a long blog and all the comments in the thread before posting. An encouraging polite comment now and then doesn't hurt, but when I detect a pattern, mmm...

The spam-no-no may be necessary to prevent degradation of the network's interaction, but sometimes I feel that some people take more pleasure reporting and setting red flags than actually helping some newbies that maybe just a little clumsy, not sneaky. My 2 cents.

I have some more, but I'll try to drip feed the negative aspects reporting and leave them for my occasional morning rants ;-)

The ouch

I love bloopers at the end of a movie. I would like to learn how to master the art of laughing at my own boo-boos and showing them to others to share the fun, while learning a lesson. If any of WA members can teach me, here I am!

The problem with critics is that sometimes they can hurt. People need to be approached with a kind attitude or they might adopt a defensive stance instead of listening. Kill the messenger!

I've learned that wise men can be firm, but kind. So I'll show an example of a reply to a comment I made in one thread:

I don't disagree with your strategy to get into ambassadorship for the right reasons. One of the reasons I'm not so impressed with is that you're a juggernaut in your own mind and you send out posts asking us to celebrate your awesomeness. Sorry, that doesn't impress me, but more importantly, it's not helpful for my personal growth here ;)

This comment showed me emotional honesty and clarity of purpose. He's one of my leaders now. My acknowledgement and gratitude!

Now, this was not the recap I wanted to share, I wanted to focus in facts, numbers, goals, strategy, deviations and corrective action. But I got emotional by the call I mentioned previously. My 88 y/o dad calling me from 10000 miles away to wish me luck with WA.

Life is good. I renewed my membership for 1 month, not because I'm not decided to double my effort and commitment in WA, but because I could not make the money to pay for my yearly...

So back to the basics.

Thanks for reading, I hope you can find this post useful.

Cheers