Who Did We Become?

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Apr 262011
 

Where is this world going?

What are we favoring?

Who are we honoring?

Those are some of the questions I ask my self from time to time (every day). Where is this greed for MORE and MORE money going?

Where is media shifting us?

Why is Charlie Sheen 24/7 on TV  for past few weeks, yet soldier that died today who fought for his country was not even seen by local news.  Who are we favoring, Who is our hero? Who is our idol?

We all know that it’s wrong, we all have that feeling that its wrong, but we still at the end of the day do exactly what others tells us to do. By the time you go to bed, sometimes people don’t realize that a peace of their heart and soul just died, and it’s dying every single day, because we resist that feeling, we don’t want to feel guilty, we want to be happy for that moment.

But then again, who am I to say those things, right? ……..

YOU: That’s right Joe! …..who the f** are you?

Sincerely,

Your Guilt.

 

 

 

 

 Posted by Joe Hobot at 8:43 am  Tagged with: , , , , , ,

Joe Hobot Live on ABC 5 and WebCastOneLive

 Joe On The Move  No Responses »
Mar 192011
 

Tonight I will be on ABC 5 (Who-TV) at 10PM. Some of you might land on this page by searching for Joe Hobot, so I wanted to say… Thank you for watching.

I am not sure how the news will come out on ABC but if it needs more explaining in detail, I will update this page tonight (03/18/2011).

Today I created new YouTube channel called JoeHobot (Simple,eh?) that will contain all the stuff that I will be doing forward on, I also will upload videos on regular basis.

So, if you do have Gmail or YouTube account please do subscribe to my channel , that way you will stay up-to date with all my progress of helping those in need.

Thank you again for watching and coming to this page.

If you have questions or comments please leave creative responses in the section below.

 

 Posted by Joe Hobot at 9:15 am  Tagged with: ,

Don’t Let Your Website Traffic Go Down

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Dec 142010
 

My No.1 rule for any blog I start is to keep traffic growing, no matter how. I have been really lucky not to break the No.1 rule and that’s why I own blogs with over 50.000 visitors per month for each blog.

I check blog traffic once a day, and  let’s say my average blog visits per month is 15.000 a day.

So, if today I get 12.000 visitors I’ll do my best next day to recover lost visitors by posting more articles, I target low ranked keywords and I must reach 18.000 visits that day.

If I don’t I don’t kill my self over it.

Back in July my goal was to reach 1.000.000 pageview per month on MWD blog, but unfortunately I am not going to make it. Currently MWD is at 600-650.000 pageviews and it’s really impossible to reach 400-450K pageviews in 20 days unless I do some scandal or expose iPad 2 :).

Basically what I am trying to tell you is that you should not let things slide out of your hand. The rule above can be applied almost to anything.

Let’s say that your goal was to lose 50 pound this year, and you said every month I will lose 4 pounds and you were doing great January, February, March because you lost 16 pounds already. But then in April you lost only 2 pounds, well don’t let it get to you, try in May to lose 6 pounds, work bit harder.

Whatever you do, the hard work you are performing is going to pay it self off.

I know a lot of people that start something and they do good hard work for month or two, but then later on they get bit lazy, and that laziness increases month after month, until they give up (mostly after 6 months).

Don’t get me wrong I do same thing, but I keep trying to do my best at what I am best at. So even though your website traffic might be plunging a bit at the moment,be proud because  your health and weight might be in really good condition…

Praising your self for some good stuff you did for your self, increases your level of motivation to do other things.

Sorry for my grammar above, I really had to type this fast and get it out of my chest, ill do my best to get back at this and revise it.

 Posted by Joe Hobot at 12:11 am  Tagged with: ,

How Movie Industry Can or Did Hurt Iowa

 Random Thoughts  1 Response »
Oct 152010
 

Last night I watched movie “The Crazies” and let me tell you by the end of the movie I was so pissed off!!!!!! Here is why…

The movie is about bunch of people getting sick from water that was poisoned by plane that crashed into river…blah blah blah…

…… and Crazy people start killing “normal people” .

But if you look at the movie from other prospective it shows how Iowan’s live and where they live.

The movie Crazies made Iowa look so bad and so backwards without showing any the good parts that Iowa has to offer.

Movie only shows:

  • Farms
  • Corn Fields
  • How people have old phones (flip phones)
  • How people dress (like rednecks)

But that’s not all folks!

At the end of the movie guy and woman moved out from Little Town in Iowa walking towards Cedar Rapids (Population: 128.056) which is quite big city if you ask me compared to the rest of the cities in Iowa. Thing is what pissed me off is what the last few minutes of the movie showed.

Small city (Cedar Rapids) surrounded only by corn field. When I saw that I was like what the fuck?

Everything that I work for in Iowa and not just me thousands of others got crushed in one simple movie by showing how people in Iowa have no knowledge of technology, have no laptops, have still 1995 flip phones and that we are just living on farm fields surrounded by corn. But some outsider from (in movie: government official) drives 2010 Suburban has awesome laptop and latest technology etc..

For investors and entrepreneurs when they see movies like The Crazies they will question them self, if they should invest in some startup made by farmer or someone that is still on Windows 98.

Movie as you can tell, really hurt my feelings because I am US Citizen *from Europe* who lives in Iowa (West Des Moines).

I am trying to bring the community to the standards that East and West coast are perpetrated as in technology industry. I promote our best startups such as Dwolla for example. I help people to code, blog better and reach out for other Investors and Entrepreneurs (I owned 1.2 Million page-views blog, currently owning 450.000 page-views blog).

Some people ask me if Midwest could someday be Silicon Valley, well my answer going forward will be: Stop producers to make movies like The Crazies and we might become Midwest Valley some day.

Thoughts?

 Posted by Joe Hobot at 11:55 pm  Tagged with: , , , ,

Do You Think of Unexpected Things?

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Oct 062010
 

How do you deal with unexpected things that happen in your life? Are you prepared?

When you are prepared for unexpected its always easier to deal with it emotionally and physically. Unexpected things in life can be negative and positive yet we deal with it differently right?

Two weeks ago co-worker of mine sent email to group (including me) that University in town has open position for Networking Administration Professor.

I immediately replied and said I am IN! Following day I was contacted by HR department and landed interview the day after. Interview was great and I already sensed that I will be the final candidate just by observing their body language and talk.

Now that’s a positive unexpected thing because 3 weeks ago I didn’t even think about getting new job, non of the less to be Professor! Whole family and friends were proud of me and I was happy.

But how would I deal with unexpected thing? Lets say my father could die (God Forbid) any day due to his age and illness. I already thought about it, about the day that I get phone call with message that my father died. Just by thinking about it makes me sad but I rather be prepared emotionally because there are many other things that life needs to be moved on.

What about you?

Have you thought about how would it be if your identity would be stolen and all your savings is gone? Or you get in fight with some idiot and you both land in jail and day after your boss says “Sorry but you are fired” How would you deal with that?

Point is, that life is full of unexpected things, but it is good to think about those “things” from time to time whether is positive or negative.

Once a week think of unexpected thing that can happen to you. First think about one that is negative and then one that is positive.

In one year you will be prepared for at least 104 unexpected things 52 weeks x2= 104 (Just in case you ask your self why 104)

 Posted by Joe Hobot at 8:11 pm  Tagged with: ,

Best Thing About Online Business

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Sep 182010
 

Yesterday somebody asked me how much money I make from Online Business.

I did not answer question in detail, but I did made that person aware that I make as close to as  1/3 and sometimes 3/4 from what I make at my full time job.

Not to long ago, somebody asked me if I made more money from online business than my full time job would I ever consider leaving and do only Online Business?

My answer to that is NO, because I like to be managed in some way or another, I get great benefits and why would I leave my full time job that I LOVE with passion.

So again, let’s get back to the topic…

Best Thing About Online Business

In most cases you get to be your own boss, but not only that, you actually get more freedom, because you can do it from wherever you want as long as you are not shipping something from home to your customers.

Now let me give you my big picture…

Imagine you live in New York City / Manhattan you have 1 bedroom apartment and you pay around $1500-$3000 per month just for that 1 bedroom apartment

(As you can see I did not include any other expenses)

Now Imagine you move to Des Moines, Iowa… and pay that same apartment $500 in greater suburb. Des Moines as city is nothing like New York City I know that too,  but you get to keep $1500-2500 per month in your bank savings account, that’s $18.000 or $30.000 per YEAR!

So what is it going to be?

Live in glamorous city that never sleeps or in city that you can drive through in 20 minutes?

I would chose 20 minutes city because I can visit New York anytime I want. Blogger being from New York City or from Des Moines makes no difference , the customer of yours is not interested (most likely) who you are, they are interested in your company and product or service you offer.

For a second forget about New York or Des Moines. Lets move your online business oversees!

dubrovnik

Above picture is from Dubrovnik I took, most beautiful and historical city in whole Europe. It’s city that never sleeps, has best food and restaurants and on top of that.. you can rent one bedroom apartment for less than $500 per month.

Sure you won’t speak “croatian” or “serbo-croatian” language for a while but you get to see most amazing sculptures, restaurants, food that is all organic and more…

You might ask “Joe so why did you come to America, if you like Dubrovnik so much?, Why don’t you move there?”

Well, the thing is that in USA you get more opportunities, you can become whatever you want as long as you have passion, money and education and that’s why I am here for, the land of dreams. Maybe down the road 5-10-15 years I would move to places like Dubrovnik, Croatia. Or Spain, Italy etc…but that’s another story..

Anyway, point of this whole story is that sometimes places we live in right now and have steady online business, can be transferred.So if you are starving for freedom , why don’t you stop playing games on Facebook for 2 hours, PS3, Xbox360? Stop going out every weekend.

Take that time to learn about other things that will benefit your long term goal…whether that is for your online business, life success, love… etc..

Sometimes taking that small luxury time you spend daily or weekly can be increased later on in your long term goal.

If you have an online business, can you work from anyplace on this earth? If not, why not? What’s holding you?

Ok I got to wrap things up, hope you understood the message…and I really wish that people would stop wasting their time..and focus more on goals they want to achieve.

 Posted by Joe Hobot at 12:13 am  Tagged with: , ,

Depending On Google, Bing, Yahoo and SEO is Business Time Bomb

 Random Thoughts  No Responses »
Sep 172010
 

The other day I read how one guy lost $4.000.000 because Google removed him from search engine. Sorry  I forgot the name of the guy, if I find it I will update this post.

So basically what that tells you is that if your business depends on Google and other search engines to that extend its like Business ticking bomb when it will explode and ruing your business.

I recently (2 days ago) filed for LLC for my blog and I have given a though of “What if”

What if Google removes me from Google News?

What if Google marks my page as “Malware” because some hacker decided to place malicious code on my blog?

After so many “What if’s” I was not one bit terrified because I experienced that all in past 7 years of blogging. And I know how to deal with it. 

If your business depends so much on search engines like Google, Bing, Yahoo start thinking about how much money, audience and customers would you lose if your business is not listed for certain keywords or not listed at all.

Don’t think what you would do then, think as if it will happen in next 5 minutes.

Who would you contact?

How would you find the problem?

How will you get removed pages back on search engines?

And most important which I will write about next, How many audience or customers do you have who talks highly about your business? (Word of mouth).

Back in 2009 when I was at the verge of success with blog called LiveCrunch, reaching million point two visitors per month, some hacker decided to place malicious code into my wordpress blog just moments later Google and all other search engines including Firefox (Mozilla) marked my blog as “Spam, Malware”.

You get that big fuc***ing banner with text like …Enter this website with confidence, there is known malware on this website that can harm your computer…

My website plunged 95% down! 

The visit rate was horrifying.

Anyway, I took immediate actions: Cleaned Code from WP, Contacted all parties that marked my blog as spam. My site was operational 16 hours later.

The next day and almost month later my site of 1.2 million pageviews dropped to 700.000 because after they removed my site, keywords I ranked high for, ware taken by others.

Let me not bore you too much with my real life examples…

The message here is to you that you shall be prepared. You should not always count on SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and Search Engines to drive your traffic.

Word of mouth can’t be killed if you do good! It spreads like virus… and that is exactly what I am doing lately.

Fu** the SE’s I want to connect with my audience because they either chose to love me or hate me. But it’s our responsibility to be loved and gain that word of mouth confidence.

Your homework for business:

  • If your business depends on Search Engines how would you minimize the workload and who you would contact for help?
  • Gain more word of mouth in positive way of speaking

 

My name is Joe Hobot and I approve this message :)

 Posted by Joe Hobot at 2:12 am  Tagged with: , , , , , ,

Live Your Life While You Can

 Random Thoughts  41 Responses »
Sep 112010
 

I heard few times sentence like “I hate my life” and what aggravates me the most is that person does not know, how lucky they are to have one at all.

The other day I was just thinking about Life in general but most of the time I am thinking about how lucky I am to have one and here is why…

To be honest this is my 3rd life on earth, yes I was clinically dead twice! No I have not seen God or bright light but what I have seen is how dramatically realization of death can change your life forever.

First time when I was clinically dead I wasn’t even born, that cord (Umbilical Cord) that feeds us throughout the pregnancy was strapped around my neck and when the doc was pulling me he noticed that my whole body skin was blue-green (my mom explained…) . Not only that but they noticed that I had no pulse, and docs immediately gave me some shot in my tongue. And that saved my life but that’s not the point of this story/article/post…

Second time when I was clinically dead was much serious and I was at age 7. As kid I was very curious, so I went to this electric transformer that feeds electricity to 5 story building because it was open and I thought that nobody will find me if I hide in there. We were playing hide and seek, remember this was 80’s we didn’t have cell phones!

So I touched one of the wires that was 380 volts and in split second my lower arm got burned and thanks to one guy, he pulled me out of electric transformer with the carton board.

At that time I was really lucky…

  1. The wire next to it was 15.000 volts
  2. I survived death by 15 seconds
  3. Guy showed up at the right place and right time
  4. Electricity was going around my lower end of my arm and bones did not allow it to go my heart. Otherwise I would be dead within 0.5 seconds

So that’s the short story of what happen to me, now lets go back to that original topic… “Enjoy your life while you can”

After being 4 years in hospital and have 24 surgeries I am still alive and healthy. At first I did not realize what life means, because I was only 10 years old at that time. But by the age of 14 I started to notice a lot of changes and difficulties which I faced in my life. And all I really had to do is go back 7 years (now 23 years) to remember f how loosing your life can take only 0.5 second.

Ladies and Gentlemen I can not describe you how powerful that moment is, you get that feeling that you could move Mountain Everest by just blowing at it. And that my friends is just what I feel.

I think everyone in their life can feel that way: Nothing can stop You. There is almost nothing in this world that can not be achieved, it can be achieved but you must find the right way and will to do it. As far as people that say “I hate my life” try pulling trigger at your head and see how that feels ?

Compare it to the feeling of “I hate my life” …

Anyway, I started rambling here and probably not making much sense.

Well I just wanted to let you know that no matter how financially broken you are, no matter how much love hurts, no matter in what trouble you are, one thing you should  remember is that you are still alive!

Treat your life as you are testing it in this world.

Here is another quick story of mine…

I came to united states 10 years ago with $60 legally! I have been given $300 in food stamps, a small apartment and rent paid in full for 2 months. In those two months I had to find job, speak English, and pay rent for the 3rd month…

I found a job within 10 days as paper or plastic boy, placing groceries for people in bags.  Year later I worked as Security Guard for Wells Fargo and year after that is where I looked at my life back at age 7 and said enough is enough… How many years do I have to spend doing what I am not happy about?

That same year I quit job, I applied for Associate Degree and land job as Tech Support I in cable company. In 2004 I became Tier 2 , in year 2005 I became Network Analyst / Engineer!

I love technology!

I quit that job and landed best job I could have that makes me happy every day but not just that, I am investing in startups, I buy and sell domain names, I build blogs that had/have over 1.000.000 pageviews per month…

So really, nobody can tell me at least that life is hard, boring etc.. because I had bit taste what death is.

Anyway, that’s about it…for now, leave comments tell me what motivates you?

 Posted by Joe Hobot at 6:25 am  Tagged with: , , ,

Books That Can Motivate You In Any Business

 Random Thoughts  5 Responses »
Aug 312010
 

Lately I have been listening to audio books that are quite motivational and inspire me to do more things. Not because I need to be more motivated or inspired, but because sometimes you just need that little step-up to understand this world differently.

I get motivated by different things and not just money, like some people do. Earning 6 figures and working 80 hours per week is something I would say NO to on any given day because I like to be more open-minded and freed up for things I want to do or things I care about.

Enough of jibber, jabber lets get to those books that I think might help most people who are entrepreneurs, business owners or just somebody that wants to do something different in their life…

Book Names:

  • 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
  • 4 hour work week
  • Drive
  • LinchPin

I will write and lay these four books in a way that  I think they should be read.

Drive by Daniel Pink

I am still listening to that book and I pretty much know what is init even though I have 3 chapters left out of 8 total. This book explains in detail what motivates us, it gives lots of examples why people get motivated and inspired in certain moments. Book talks about mostly from business stand point of view but in the beginning first two chapters at least also explain how we think and what triggers that motivation within us.

7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey

This book goes into different areas on how people think, how do we resolve problems whether at work, home or with people you meet on daily basis. It gives you good explanation on understanding how people react to certain things. How to be understood and how to understand people (how to listen to people). I am one of those guys that few years back couldn’t stop talking about them self, I still do but am very careful on how I use the word “I”. It’s really good book for everyone not just for entrepreneurs.

LinchPin by Seth Godin

I think Linchpin gives you motivation to be successful, it provides good reading material on how to become irreplaceable at work, home or in this world. I mean, why would you work something you don’t really like…or how do you advance in what you are currently working on. Overall it’s good book…

4 hour work week by Timothy Ferriss

This book is very valuable to people that have tight schedule (me, duh!) When I listened to this book it gave me so much ideas on how I could maximize my time with what I care about and still enjoy same thing what I have been doing for past 15 years (IT stuff). For example: I had trouble blogging every day (my main income source) and could not keep up with things because I was remodeling my whole kitchen, basement and bathrooms. I noticed my income dropped for 20% and due to that my sleeping time dropped from 6 hours to 3-4 hours a day. After reading that book I hired 10 people to do things for me, I make 5% more income, I sleep 6-8 hours and I have Saturday and Sunday off like I should have for years now. Out of all books above this book is a must read in my opinion.

Well my dear audience, I hope some books above will help you achieve goals that you are after.

Remember that no book in this world can provide you material that will guide you through the life to be happy, successful and enjoy the life you want to.

It’s all you…It’s all about how much you care for about your life and life of others.

This is my 3rd life in this world and I understand how valuable life is. No, I am not kidding! I was clinically dead 2 times..but that’s something I will write about probably in few days…

PS: I don’t link to sites where you can buy books, if you found this blog I am sure you know how to copy paste and find sites like audible, Amazon or Barns and Noble :)

 Posted by Joe Hobot at 9:54 pm  Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,

How To Find Motivation

 Random Thoughts  No Responses »
Aug 232010
 

Inspiration, Motivation, Feeling Happy and things like that is how our life gets that insulin and drive to keep things going or done.

Today I felt like writing about how motivation and inspiration effects me and also how I get motivated to do things, which might give you that Aha! moment.

You don’t need self-help books or motivational speakers like Tony Robbins or even reading blog posts like this one. All you need is heart and brain, oh wait! Isn’t that few billions of people in this world?

Sometimes people get stuck with questions like How am I going to do that? or This is my goal but I don’t know where to start.

Well, you started already by asking questions and that’s a good start!

I don’t want to give you yet another speech of successful stories because that’s pretty much a quick fix (patch) in your brain that will fade out in few minutes, hours or a day.

So here is how I motivate and inspire my self in certain things…

To be honest, I never liked reading books. I haven’t done that in high school or college, even though I finished my association degree with honors at 3.75GPA.

But my internal feeling and passion told me differently. I wanted to read books, yet I just didn’t have that drive or push… like for example… Joe read the 50 page book god damn it! it’s just 50 pages, you can do it!

One day I was thinking about reading a good book, recommended by many but I did not have the guts to do it (I hate reading hard cover books, magazines…) so I was bit brainstorming… “Why do I read 50-100 blog posts each day which end up with 10.000 – 50.000 words per day , yet I can’t read one damn book?”

I got that Aha! moment….

I read stuff online, I don’t have to flip pages, I don’t get distracted because I do read usually in my free time ….so there must be a way that I can read books.

You are probably thinking “Oh he started reading e-books” No, I did not.

I went to Amazon.com check-out the book it was recommended to me and I found out that there is an Audio book, so I said ill give it a try! I basically went though that book in two days (250 pages) with joy because:

  • Book was really good written and I learned a lot
  • I did not get distracted
  • I did not have to flip the pages and hear that noise….kschhhtt…
  • I listened to that book everywhere I could on my iPod Touch…

I am not telling you this because I want you to do the same

….think about it…

I hate something but internally I want to fix it…and to fix it I had to find another way of doing it….doing it with joy…

It’s simple as that…

I applied that method to everything nowadays. I get inspired because I found a way to fix what I have been wanting to fix for long time and I get motivated by accomplishing those goals.

You can do it too. You want to make something out of your life? You want to be rich, but for some odd reason you are still working that same job for 12 years?

Why?

I mean internally (emotionally) you want to, but you don’t know how to….

Well my friends, take 30 minutes of your 24hours without distractions and think (brainstorm) how would you change your life by enjoying things.

Start off with small things… as you get better at accomplishing small goals your desire and motivation will give you that happy feeling and inspiration to do big things.

Hope this article made sense to you.

 Posted by Joe Hobot at 11:50 pm  Tagged with: , , ,
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