Thirty Day Challenge 2008 Is Here, And I’m In!
The Thirty Day Challenge 2007 launched this blog, started my career in Internet Marketing and indirectly went on to change my life in huge and permanent ways. It also happens to have produced at least 4 millionnaires! This year will be the 4th year and it is set to start on 1st August. However the ‘pre-season’ has just started and lasts for 2 months this year. I highly recommend the Thirty Day Challenge to anybody so let me tell you more about it…
What is the Thirty Day Challenge?
Is is a completely FREE 30-day long training course designed to teach absolute beginners a way of starting a business making money online, and helping them earn their first dollar within that 30 day period. It is the brainchild of Ed Dale and Dan Raine and started back in 2005.
I first came across it last year and took park very actively. The early posts on this blog are nearly all about the 30DC. Here’s a funny thing - I failed last year’s challenge! The goal was to make $10 and I didn’t do it; I didn’t make a single cent in fact! Not only that, but I continued with the process for some weeks after the teaching ended and I still never made any money!
What Does It Teach?
In year 2 the basic idea was to research a niche, create an information product in that niche, sell it for around $29 and then drive traffic to the site using pay per click. Last year the strategy was very different. It started with niche research but then we didn’t even create our own website, let alone a product! We used a strategy where we created content on third party sites such as squidoo and hubpages (so the traffic was free) and made money via affiliate sales. However Ed emphasised that this was just a testing strategy and if it proved the market to be successful then the next step would be to go on to create your own site and product.
This year Ed has said that they are testing two new strategies and they have not yet decided which one they will teach. One of the great things about the 30DC is that it is up-to-date using the very latest techniques. It is worth doing each and every year even if you are a veteran just to keep up with the latest goings on in the world of Internet Marketing.
What is the Teaching Style?
Ed Dale loves video and last year all of the training was delivered via downloadable videos. This year it is very similar though he is making more use of interactive (web-based) TV as well. Also, this year he plans to deliver ’show-notes’ some days after the videos in addition.
Ed’s philosophy is to only teach the very minimum that is needed in any one chunk. He does not give you the big picture. He does not tell you why he is teaching what he is teaching. Instead he asks you to trust the process, do the work and take it step by step. He doesn’t give away the notes right away because he wants people to really watch the videos and totally understand the process.
What he doesn’t want is for a person to look at it and say ‘oh yeah, yeah I know all that’ and skip over the important parts. As such, some people find Ed’s method of delivery to be slow and painful! If you are somebody that wants to get the facts fast (I gotta admit, I am like that!) it can be difficult to discipline yourself to work through it at Ed’s pace but I can tell you from experience that the overall process is worth it.
Watch Ed’s Launch Video Here (listen out for him mentioning my name near the end!!)
What is Pre-Season?
Thirty days is not all that long to teach a complete newbie enough about Internet Marketing to allow them to start a business and start making money, especially if that newbie is not familar with the various tools that will be used. Pre-Season is extra teaching delivered before the month of August and used to cover all of the tools that will be used throughout the course.
For example, Ed has just released the first pre-season lesson which is all about the Flock Browser. By covering all of this stuff before the real teaching starts, everybody can start on a level playing field and he can get right to the core marketing lessons without worrying about whether or not people have their browser setup, whether or not people are on Twitter and so on.
What Else Can I Say About the Thirty Day Challenge?
Lots! There is nothing else like it anywhere on the Internet. This isn’t just some course. Every day Ed creates the training ‘live’. This is not pre-recorded stuff, well only by a few hours. So as the challenge unfolds, the training adjusts accordingly. Last year the shit hit the fan with something called ‘Tumblrgate’! If the training hadn’t been live, many members would have been screwed!
Not only that but the community is amazing. The forum is absolutely buzzing with activity and the support in there is nothing short of phenomenal. There is now a strong army of moderators (including MOI!) ready to help those who may be struggling. I am still friends with many of the people who I met in last year’s challenge.
Seriously, I can’t recommend it highly enough - if you have a couple of hours a day to spare in August then head over there right now and register to start your pre-season challenge!
I’ll Be Blogging This Year’s Challenge
At first I wasn’t sure whether or not I’d be able to take part as I was due to go on holiday in August but that’s not happening now so I guess the upside is that I can take part in the challenge. I’ll be starting a project on the blog and I’ll be blogging periodically as I go along. Over pre-season I don’t imagine I’ll have a huge amount to say about it but I’m sure that I’ll have a LOT to talk about come August.
I’m looking forward to it because this year I’ll actually have the time to work through it properly. Last year I was trying to hold down a full-time day job at the same time. You can see why I had to quit - I just wasn’t getting any work done :-)
So I’ll start up the project page in a week or two on the next update as there’s not much to say right now. On a more personal note, I mentioned at the top of this post that the Thirty Day Challenge changed my life in massive ways. If you’d like to know more about that then read on, but this gets a bit off-topic so feel free to stop reading here if you’re just here for the IM-fix!
How the Thirty Day Challenge Changed My Life
Strangely enough, the challenge itself didn’t change my life directly. I didn’t complete the challenge, and I was never able to make last year’s technique work for me but indirectly, it changed my life in three very big ways…
It Got Me Started In This Industry
Before doing the challenge I had been reading a lot about Internet Marketing (which is how I heard about it) and I had been fantasising about quitting my day job to start working online. 22 days into the challenge I was so excited about the whole idea of making money online that I handed in my resignation to my job. I have never looked back since!
Even though I didn’t make money with the techniques taught in the challenge itself, I learnt enough about the industry that I know in the very depths of my soul that I could make it in this industry and I felt an absolute compulsion to quit my job! 9 months on I am still not making a full-time income but I have not regretted my decision for a single day. In fact, this job has been a life saver in some ways as I’ll explain in a moment.
It Introduced Me To the Law of Attraction
Indirectly. During the challenge I got a really strong feeling that I wanted to meet Ed and Dan though that didn’t seem very likely seeing as Ed lives in Australia and I live in the UK. However, I got my wish - a few weeks later Ed flew to London to meet up with Dan and arranged an afternoon at Starbucks for anybody who wanted to come along. I jumped at the chance and had a brilliant afternoon.
But there was actually somebody else there who I met who was far more important though I didn’t realise it at the time. A chap called Mark Attwood. We got chatting about all sorts of things and he mentioned the Law of Attraction. I had heard of it but didn’t know what it was. He told me to watch the movie, The Secret. I forgot all about it but a few weeks later, I found another reminder and watched it - it has changed my life.
It Broke Apart My Relationship
Indirectly again. Another member of the 30DC befriended me and then later befriended my partner at the time. They ended up having a ‘virtual affair’. It all went horribly wrong for them of course but my relationship with my partner broke up permanently and this has changed my life in a very profound way.
I was in a very bad place when it first happened but then I met somebody else, was happy for a while but that broke down too a short while ago. So, it would seem that life hasn’t treated me well. However, from what I now understand of the Law of Attraction - it all makes perfect sense and I attracted all of this. My life is now an open book and I’m free to create exactly the life I want from this point on. I’m already doing exactly the work I want to do (how many people can say that?) and I have nobody to answer to, and no obligations that I didn’t choose for myself. It’s scary as hell but an incredible opportunity nonetheless.
Going back to the job - after the split I had to move out of my house and the only place I had to go was with friends and family, none of which were anywhere near where I was living and where my old job was. If I had still been in my day job there is no doubt that I would have lost it during this time. Because I had already quit and already got started in business, I found that I could survive and move forwards regardless of the crap that was going on in my personal life.
Right now I am back living with my mother again and again, I am so grateful to be in this line of work and have this freedom to work anywhere with an internet connection!
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Vered
June 4, 2008
Thank you for the recommendation, and for sharing your life with us. It makes you that much more credible and authentic.
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