Alright.. so it was a Saturday night and I was playing on the internet with a glass of wine in hand (yeah I know… how much excitement can there be in one girl’s life!!).

I’ve been thinking a bit recently about the way that I think about affiliate marketing and how I come up with my ideas. Much like my keyword research techniques, I’ve always had trouble describing exactly what my thought processes are.

Most of my ideas seem to come from nowhere, but I’ve always had this odd thing where I make rapid “associations” between different topics. What people who are talking to me seem to find is that I change the subject randomly.. A LOT. However, there is always some kind of connection… it just seems that I make somewhat “obtuse” connections between things.

I *think* this is one of the things that helps me come up with business ideas… and as I’m not sure where it all comes from at times, I thought it would be fun to note down where I went on some of my internet wanderings… and what made me do it. So

Welcome to the murky world of my mind late on a Saturday night…

“Hmmm…. I wonder which personal blog will be listed first in Google for the search term ‘blog’?”

Unsurprisingly, a blog by one Matt Cutts appears on the horizon, about halfway down the search results (which is odd, cos today when I looked it was Seth Godin… SERPS timeshare perhaps?).

“Lemme just have a look at this. I wonder if he’s got anything on here that will give me a bit of blogging inspiration” (see, I think about you guys all of the time).

So what catches my eye. Blinding secrets about all things Google revealed? Contents of Sergy and Larry’s underpant drawers? Nope. Its a totally random post about a business card he found in a book he bought once.

“That’s odd. I’m sure I remember a Billy Connolly concert that mentioned something similar to that. I wonder where this comes from?”

So off I go in search of the origins of this particular saying… on my way I land up on Pats Palace.com and discover that the site owner Anthony Glesner is a truly remarkable guy with an inspirational CV.

“Cool,” I thought. “This guy’s been in the Navy and the Coastguard then did a Masters degree after he retired, before re-entering the workplace, circumnavigated the globe in a boat, and finally got a job as a History instructor at Western Michigan”

But that didn’t find me the answer to the pressing philosophical question “where does the saying on Matt Cutts’ business card post come from?”

So off I trot back to Google (via the fridge for some more wine) and ended up…. on a law enforcement forum where I learned an interesting piece of Military Trivia.

“Ooohh… I’m on a winner here and no mistake about it. Look, there’s a bloke with that quote with a funny name below it. Hurahh!!”

So I Google Erin Co Braugh. Pah! It’s not a name, its Irish and it means “Ireland Forever”.

“Ohhh… That’s interesting” I think. “I wonder what that other bit in his forum signature means?”

Nár laga Dia do lámh is duly Googled. I discover it means “May God Not Weaken Your Hand”

“Oh, how beautiful.” Thinks our by now well-oiled intrepid internet wanderer. *Cue Misty Eyed Celtic Moment*

“That was dead set profound. Ahhh… I remember I used to read a tome by a mystic type chap to give me inspiring moments at uni… those were the heady days, eh?”

Which led me to go off in search of all things Kahlil Gibran related.

“Oh, shit. What was I meant to be doing? Ah.. affiliate blogging inspiration. Hmmm… there’s not much here is there? I know. I’ll go and look for some inspirational quotes I think might apply to affiliate marketing.”

So here’s what I came up with guys: -

“Your living is determined not so much by what life brings to you as by the attitude you bring to life; not so much by what happens to you as by the way your mind looks at what happens.”
Truly good affiliates see all the same stuff as every other affiliate. Yet somehow again and again, they come up with blinding ideas and make seemingly-impossible niches highly profitable.

“To understand the heart and mind of a person, look not at what he has already achieved, but at what he aspires to.”
One for the newbies I reckon… this reminds us that there are more than a few future super affiliates out there. The way to spot them is to look at their determination. A lot of people say to me “I really want to make money as an affiliate”. Very few say “I will do whatever it takes to make this work”.. which is the hallmark of a super affiliate in potentia.

Look, I’m going to stop these internet wanderings right here. There was a whole load of other stuff afterwards including an exploration of life after death, investigation of lucid dreaming techniques (might help me with my keyword research), oh and my all time favourite… the Color Personality Test.

The above either shows you how an affiliate marketer thinks or reveals that I have Attention Deficeit Disorder. I will leave the diagnosis on that one up to you guys!

*NB… My next post will really be about how an affiliate does and should think… I really must stop trying to get blog ideas after 5 glasses of wine!

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