Eric Nagel

Eric Nagel

CTO, PHP Programmer, Affiliate Marketer & IT Consultant

Jim Kukral Kicked My A** For 40 Minutes

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I attended Jim Kukral‘s session at Affiliate Summit entitled, “How to get Motivated for Success” only to hear Jim speak. He has a natural stage presence, and I was going simply to listen to a great public speaker. I didn’t expect to get anything out of the session, but Jim definitely proved me wrong.

Jim’s first shot at the audience was: get over yourself. Lose your ego. The reason I’m bothering to bring this up is because that’s how I found my success in the affiliate industry. For years, I thought I knew how to be a successful affiliate, and I didn’t listen to anyone. Then, frustrated with my failures (more on this later) and presented with a training opportunity with Jeremy Palmer, I left behind everything I thought I knew and followed Jeremy’s training. 1-1/2 years later, I was a full-time affiliate marketer.

Next, you need to produce, or perish. Get rid of distractions: turn off Twitter, Gmail, and your phone and get some real work done. Stop reading my blog (when you’re done with this article & left a comment) and get back to work! A tool I use for this is online-stopwatch.com. I tell myself, I’m going to do “X” for 20 minutes, and that’s all I do. When something else pops into my head, I write it down, and get back to the task at hand. Focus.

You need to get out there & do something. Don’t worry about what others are doing – worry about what you’re doing. You need to work your butt off. At this part of the session, Jim called me out, but in a good way. Yeah, I work hard. I’m up between 4:30 and 5:00 in the morning, I hit the gym (while listening to GeekCast.fm on my iPod), then come home & help get the kids off to school, work hard all day, spend some time with the family in the evening, and often get back online to answer some emails or plan tomorrow’s to-do list. Even right now, I’m writing this blog post while flying home.

Doers get what they want, everyone else gets what they get – Jim Kukral

What’s your goal? Write it down, and work on it every day.

Besides being hard workers, Jim and I have something else in common: we’re failures. But, we’re not losers. Failures fail hard, fail fast, and try again. Losers give up.

Get rid of the negative people in your life. It’s hard when they’re family, but believe me, you’ll feel better about what you’re doing, you’ll be more focused, and you’ll get more done.

Jim ended his session by asking the audience what they’re going to do in the next 6 months. He challenged people to come up to him and tell him what they’re going to do. And at Affiliate Summit East in New York, Jim wants to hear back from them.

I’ll be at ASE10 in NY, too – what are you going to have done? Tell me in the comments, or send me an email if you don’t want to share with the world. How can I help you get there?

Comments
  • Matt McWilliams
    Posted January 21, 2010 3:36 pm 0Likes

    Well said Eric!

    I can’t add much more 🙂

  • Patrick Allmond
    Posted January 21, 2010 6:55 pm 0Likes

    It has been awhile since I’ve hung out with Jim. Sounds like he is still kicking ass and taking names. Thanks for sharing this information.

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  • keith burtis
    Posted February 3, 2010 2:01 am 0Likes

    Great post Eric! I am not in the affilaite marketing game so much but rather in the digital consulting and social media game. All of these factors still apply. When my motivation drops, my income drops and so does my production.

    Looks like you met a good frend of mine at the summit as well named Jay Berkowitz. He alerted me that you were form Buffalo. We should definitely get lunch some time. Good to meet local folks doing great work! Feel free to email me.
    -keith

  • Ron Givens
    Posted February 9, 2010 2:16 pm 0Likes

    That’s hysterical that you use onlinestopwatch.com – I have been using that tool for the *exact* same reason you have. ( It actually has a little “bomb” countdown timer that I like to use a lot ).

    Getting rid of distractions is such an important part of life, yet because the scan-click-jump nature of the medium, a lot of precious time can be lost.

    Great post!

  • Samuel
    Posted March 11, 2010 12:51 am 0Likes

    I have onlinestopwatch.com as my homepage also. Trying to get rid of distractions is the downfall of many. Takes discipline but the rewards are great!

  • james cooper
    Posted August 16, 2010 9:39 am 0Likes

    You know what, I’m really poor at focusing in one task. There’s too many information on the internet that’s worth checking and If I read them all I couldn’t get anything done. Okay now I need to go back to work!

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