🌐 Justin's Blog

Time Under Tension

July 19, 2021

Time under tension builds character, but it can also be dangerous. Here is how I deal with stress.

If you have ever lifted weights, then you probably have heard about “time under tension”. The longer your muscles are under tension in an exercise, the more strength you can gain.

But I’m not talking about weight lifting… I’m talking about life. Similar to the gym, time under tension in our lives is good. Instead of muscle, it builds character and perseverance. We find out who we are when we are living out days under tension.

I usually thrive under pressure. That’s not to say that I like it. I don’t. I prefer things to be going smoothly in life, just like anyone. Yet, there are always stressful times and I seem to find a way to rise above it mentally to get things done – whatever that may be.

But sometimes I start to run out of energy. My mental fortitude weakens. The time under tension is too long. If you’re under tension for a long time, it starts to feel normal. But it’s not normal. It’s dangerous.

The Best Medicine

I don’t know about you, but sometimes I get into a routine and don’t even realize it, and this includes existing in a stressful state.

I have found that the most effective self-care tactic is to exercise. For me, it’s Muay Thai.

There is something incredibly therapeutic about punching and kicking the crap out of a heavy bag. Maybe it’s the primal aspect of it… “Me angry! Me hit things!”

You don’t have to buy all kinds of fancy fighting gear or join a smelly boxing gym, either. There are some boutique fitness gyms that specialize in boxing and kickboxing. The energy is great, facilities clean, and the workout will leave you feeling better physically and mentally. TITLE Boxing, Kickboxing.com, and CKO Kickboxing come to mind, but your city may have others.

The body and mind are connected. If they aren’t in sync, then that’s when I start to spiral a bit.

Most of the time my mind is taking care of my body, but every so often my body has to take care of my mind to relieve that time under tension.

#mindfulness

6 Types of Tweets

July 14, 2021

The tweets that make it to my Twitter home screen can be categorized into these six areas.

I am on a plane right now and the internet is broken… so I need to fill my time. That is the real reason behind this post.

Anyway… 😅

So, I have been more active on Twitter for the past six to eight months. In that time, I have noticed a bit of a trend in tweets that I see, be it from people I follow or “viral” tweets.

My totally 💯 super scientific analysis concludes that my Twitter-sphere types 180-240 characters that fall into the following categories (in order of popularity):

Pontificating
Passive Aggressive Complaining
Marketing (self or company)
Aggressive Complaining
Humorous
Life Updates

1. Pontificating Someone knows something, and they are going to tell you what’s up. I’m guilty of writing these tweets and that bothers me. I feel like I want to share things I’ve learned as an entrepreneur, but when I go back to read them, I cringe a bit. I don't know it all, and what worked for me might not work for others.

2. Aggressive Complaining The tweets where someone is “tired of XYZ” and they call it out in a somewhat nonspecific manner. Politics to business, parenting to driving and everything in between. It’s all there. I think people tweet these to reaffirm their position on a subject. It’s nice to see you’re not alone on a worldview. Confirmation bias at its best.

3. Marketing (Self or Business) Thought leaders. You know what I mean. Men and women sharing their thoughts. Building that trust. Growing that personal brand. Rocking those FB pixels when you visit their articles. Eventually, trying to sell you stuff. Nothing inherently bad here. I even find the content enjoyable from time to time.

4. Aggressive Complaining Directly calling someone out. Using profanity at times, but not always. People type out platitudes at one another. Arguments ensue. I mute these if they come up too often from someone. Ain’t nobody got time for that.

5. Humorous Sort of rare now, which is a shame because they are my favorite. I’m a sucker for a perfectly timed meme or snarky remark. Like this one…

6. Life Updates What the FB status feature used to be. I like these too. They are inherently friendly. Sharing pieces of life makes me feel like I get to know someone on a different level. Unfortunately, these are often “humble brags” in disguise.

#personal

Mexico City

July 12, 2021

After over a year of trying to get to Mexico, Lorena and I are finally on our way and I cannot wait!

It has been a long time coming, but I am finally going to Mexico City!

This will be my first time visiting CDMX, and I have to say that I'm pretty excited. As one of the largest cities in the world, I cannot wait to learn more about its culture. It's also where Lorena grew up, so I am just as excited to learn about her childhood and to experience the areas she frequented before she moved to the U.S.

We have a few concrete plans, including seeing Lorena's friends to celebrate her birthday. We will also be taking some time to visit some other cities (a few hours from CDMX).

We'll be there for an extended amount of time, which is perfect because I want to jump right into the culture... not to mention refine my Spanish a bit!

Vamanos!

#personal

ROI on Google Ads

July 7, 2021

I get $10 for every $1 spent on Google Ads. Here is how I do it, and it's not as hard as you may think.

I see many similar questions come up about Google Ads, and the surrounding confusion with implementing them.

I've talked about this before in my old newsletter but figured it would be worthwhile to address it again in a more concise manner. Consider this your “cheat sheet”!

Getting a positive ROI on your Google Ads takes time and attention. You need to be constantly monitoring your ad performance, dropping the dead-weight and increasing ad spend on the winners.

Here are some beginner tips I followed to make Google Ads work for me:

Keep keyword groups small / narrow. Don't “bundle” related keywords to create massive groups. Instead, create many small groups that are more closely related so that you can better analyze the themes that are working.
Test each ad group for one or two weeks. Don't throw a bunch of money at the group right away. Keep daily limit modest before spending a lot. Once you have some winners, ramp up the ad spend.
Implement the Google suggestions. As you create ads, Google will suggest changes to your ads. Do them! Your ad optimization scores will go up. Oh, and just because you do this once doesn't mean you're done. Google will keep making suggestions.
Set up a conversion pixel. This is slightly technical, but I was capable of doing it, and all I did was use Google's help docs. Your ads don't mean anything if you can't track conversions (i.e. money made). This is also a great metric for determining which ad groups to drop and which to keep.
Revisit every week. Google likes to see activity in the account. This doesn't mean you have to change something every time. Monitor what is working, what is not, add some of Google's keyword suggestions (you'll get these as you have ads running). Adjust the times your ads show, configure dynamic ads, create the maximum number of ad variations for each keyword group.
Monitor competitors. Google makes this easy to do with a ton of useful graphs and charts. Use a tool like SpyFu to dig deeper into the specific ads your competition is running and for which keywords. You can't exist in a silo. You need to monitor the activity of other people in your market.
Landing page score must be minimum 7 out of 10. Your landing page score (Google gives you this for your specific URLs that you put for ads) needs to be 7 or above. You're wasting your time and money if it's lower than that. If you're going after competitive keywords, it better be a 9 or a 10 out of 10 for your ad to have a chance at being shown above the fold.

#entrepreneurship

Denver Holiday

July 3, 2021

Lorena and I are off to see my brother, sister-in-law, and nephews in Denver, Colorado.

Profitable Mistakes (#1)

July 1, 2021

When you run a successful business, you start to see opportunities everywhere for making more money. You develop a sense of what will work. It's pretty neat, but that intuition is not always 100% accurate.

I once saw an opportunity in the market for a service that would authenticate (validate) certifications for online courses. There was one major player in the market, and they were still pretty new. The timing was perfect. So, I started building this complementary business. I would integrate it first with LearnDash then extend to other learning management systems.

The market was huge, and I was excited to run a traditional SaaS business! The business was SimplyCertify (I spent $2,000 on that domain name).

I created a few sales pages, early adopter sign-up forms, and then hired someone to start blogging. Some people started to sign-up, which was encouraging. Then I started a Facebook Group. During this time, I hired a well-respected developer to create the initial prototype. I spent around $30,000 for it.

In the end, it never launched.

The project never saw the light of day. Not because it was a bad idea. It was a great idea. I simply did not have the energy to turn that start-up into a successful business.

One reason I knew SimplyCertify would be profitable was because I could leverage the success of one business to feed its early growth. I was going to upsell the existing customers into this new product.

Even create a pricing tier in LearnDash that would include SimplyCertify. I did this once before with a non-SaaS product (ProPanel, a reporting tool for LearnDash).

This would allow current LearnDash customers to help round-out the feature set in SimplyCertify before taking it to other markets. Sujay Pawar is someone who does this incredibly well. His flagship product Astra Theme is the foot-in-the-door for all his other products (such as Starter Templates).

I learned the value of focus.

When you have success, you need to focus on really refining that success so that it is optimal, then you can leverage it to make more money. Avoid the temptation to start something “entirely new” just because you see an opportunity. Find ways to use the work you have done already.

Maybe I was doing too much at the time. In hindsight, I probably should have had someone else take on that project to see it through completion. But you know what? I don't regret that experience.

First, the individual blogging for SimplyCertify (Laura) started to write for LearnDash and the blog took off! She's incredibly talented at what she does, and I'm grateful that she became part of the LearnDash team.

Secondly, I learned a lot about what it takes to get a minimal viable product out the door for a SaaS. I paid for that education. I took these lessons learned and applied it to the LearnDash 3.0 launch — the most successful (and profitable) update done for LearnDash.

The update changed the trajectory of the business entirely with the revenue growth. If you hit a dead-end with a project that you're working on, don't consider it a failure. All of your learnings from the process will make you better.

Experience isn't something that you can buy, and it's incredibly valuable.

#entrepreneurship

Food From Local Farms

June 29, 2021

It's scary how we put things into our bodies yet don't have the slightest clue where it comes from. Source local!

Over the weekend, I tweeted a picture of me on a tractor.

If you missed it, it's the one above.

As natural as I look in that element, there's a reason I am at this farm.

Lorena and I have decided to level-up our health habits. We have always exercised, but lately have started being more regular (as in doing something daily). But as you probably know, food is arguably the most important part of the fitness equation.

Without getting onto a soapbox, let's just say that the food available in grocery stores (even organic options) aren't always the best. The reality is that you really don't know much about the produce and meat you buy unless you know the source.

And that's what we did over the weekend!

The picture of me on the tractor was taken at Urban Roots Farm in Austin, Texas. More than a farm, it's a nonprofit designed to empower the city's youth. From their website:

Urban Roots provides today's young leaders with paid opportunities to grow food, learn new skills, and make a difference in their community.

So, not only are we getting locally sourced vegetables, but by purchasing produce at the farm, we are helping their youth program as well. Double score!

We got our produce bag, which consisted of locally grown carrots, beets, sage, cilantro, eggplant, peppers, potatoes, and tomatoes. The tomatoes were remarkable. I've never tasted a tomato with such a rich, deep flavor.

The farm only has produce, so we have been trying different local farms for products such as beef, chicken, and eggs. We found these at Shirttail Creek Farm.

Super important to me and Lorena is that the chickens and cattle are treated properly according to the Global Animal Partnership's 5-Step Welfare Rating. Shirttail Creek Farm met this requirement. We picked up some grass fed beef (grass is better than grain fed), pasture raised chicken, and pasture raised chicken eggs.

I particularly loved the eggs. Unlike the eggs that you get at the local grocery store, these weren't all the same size. That alone made me feel like it was more authentic. Some were large, others a bit smaller, but all were great!

The only thing we are missing is something for fish. For now, the salmon from Whole Foods will have to do.

I will be the first to admit that all of this is pretty new to me, but I'm enjoying learning more as we go. I love that we have initiatives like Urban Roots Farm nearby to support.

I encourage you to take a minute to do a quick Google search for local produce in your area. Aside from being a great way to support your local farmers and ranchers, you get the piece of mind knowing exactly where the food you put into your body comes from.

#health

Not Liking Someone

June 27, 2021

You're not required to like everyone, all the time.

It's okay not to like someone. No need to beat yourself up about it.

It is under very rare circumstances that I don’t like someone, so when it happens I often think that there is a problem with me rather than the other person.

At least that’s what I thought in my 20s.

I would even go out of my way to be around that person more in hopes that I would understand where I was at fault. Maybe there was something I was missing?

Perhaps you feel that way too. You meet someone and something just doesn't sit right with you, and you have a hard time pinpointing what it is exactly.

Now that I’m a little grayer, I’ve actually learned to trust my intuition. Some people I just don’t mesh with. It doesn’t mean I’m rude to them. I always show respect. I just choose to limit my interaction with them and spend my time with others.

They are not bad people. I just know very much who I am and where my personality, values, and life outlook may clash with someone else.

I like most people, but not everyone. And not everyone will like me. And that’s okay.

#happiness

Moving Towards Privacy

June 25, 2021

Recently, I have been thinking more about web privacy and what it means to me. In short, I'm tired of being “spied on” all the time by websites so that they can send me creepy advertisements.

As I reflect on this, I am keenly aware that I am over my head into the data distribution ecosystem.

Every day I use Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, iPhone, Google Chrome, Google Fi, and Google Fiber. My life is very much intertwined with these services. Honestly, I'm not sure how to disconnect but still enjoy the benefits that these offer. I guess it's a question of benefit versus cost that I am still trying to determine.

But while I am still working on ways to become a little more anonymous in my personal life, I think about my involvement on the “other” side.

So, I have my personal website: JustinFerriman.com.

Today I went through and removed anything that would “spy” on someone who visits, and then I updated the privacy policy to reflect these changes. The result is probably the shortest privacy policy on the internet.

If you sign up to receive my weekly newsletter, then you can opt out at any time (naturally).

I plan to look at other areas of my personal and professional life to see where I can further respect the privacy of others, as well as defend my privacy. It's a big undertaking, and one that will come with sacrifice, for sure – but I'm sure it's worth it in the end.

#personal

Excuse for Everything

June 23, 2021

How many times have you heard someone say that they would start a business, but just don’t have the time?

Or that they could get into better shape but simply don’t have time to exercise?

Or that they really want to hang out with you, but they have been super busy lately and just don’t have enough free time?

People who say things like this believe they are out of control of their circumstances. Life happens to them, and they just try to “stay afloat” with the obligations first and then when they have extra time (and only then) will they accomplish their “other” main goals.

I don't believe that for a second.

For starters, there is no such thing as “extra time”. There is time and then there is what we do in that time. Nothing more.

Logically speaking, we can only do something in the time we are awake. So, if you are in fact busy from the very moment you wake up to the very moment you sleep, then wake up an hour earlier every day. There ya go. Like magic, you have time to do that special project, to do that exercise routine, learn that new language, or whatever it is you want! 🙂

Of course, the more fundamental issue here is not the quantity of time, but the qualifying of it. People tend to think of their obligations first and then all the “other” stuff.

The thing is, we have a choice as to what we make our obligation. Life is full of choices. Even happiness is a choice.

If you have been wanting to start a new business but haven't yet, perhaps you should look at why you are choosing not to. Or if you want to lose 10 pounds but haven't yet, ask yourself why you haven't. The answer is never “because I don't have time”.

Perhaps you fear what others will think of you if you try to do something and you “fail”, or maybe you don’t have the confidence. Maybe you are confused where to start. Maybe you actually don’t want to start something, but it sounds like a cool thing to say to people.

Or, maybe you will start that special project. Only time will tell. 😉

#happiness