Every once in awhile, there’s a special conference that comes around that you just can’t logically miss. SMX did it when Danny Sullivan broke away from SES and provided a better experience by paying attention to the details. ThinkTank did it when DK went outside the box and brought a small group of doers to the beach in San Diego for a weekend of play and low-pressure (yet high-quality) networking. I believe Blueglass is doing this with a conference agenda that’s both unique and packed with accomplished Internet superheroes. Not to mention the quality of attendees that makes networking here a severe opportunity cost to miss out on.

Let me just put it this way; if you can’t get at a minimum, 10x direct ROI, from attending Blueglass LA, you should just quit the Internet altogether. It just isn’t for you.

Register here, enter code cam15 and you’ll get an extra 15% off. I don’t make any money from you registering but my friends running this event will probably like me more and maybe even buy me a drink.

See you there!

Earth is an interactive map for surf, skate and snow spots as well as pro shops and company headquarters. It’s almost like local search for action sports. Check it out…

Tax Poem

Be sure to read all the way to the end!

Tax his land,
Tax his bed,
Tax the table
At which he’s fed.

Tax his tractor,
Tax his mule,
Teach him taxes
Are the rule.

Tax his work,
Tax his pay,
He works for peanuts
Anyway!

Tax his cow,
Tax his goat,
Tax his pants,
Tax his coat.

Tax his ties,
Tax his shirt,
Tax his work,
Tax his dirt.

Tax his tobacco,
Tax his drink,
Tax him if he
Tries to think..

Tax his cigars,
Tax his beers,
If he cries
Tax his tears.

Tax his car,
Tax his gas,
Find other ways
To tax his ass.

Tax all he has
Then let him know
That you won’t be done
Till he has no dough.

When he screams and hollers,
Then tax him some more,
Tax him till
He’s good and sore..

Then tax his coffin,
Tax his grave,
Tax the sod in
Which he’s laid.

Put these words
Upon his tomb,
‘Taxes drove me to my doom…’

When he’s gone,
Do not relax,
Its time to apply
The inheritance tax.

Accounts Receivable Tax
Building Permit Tax
CDL license Tax
Cigarette Tax
Corporate Income Tax
Dog License Tax
Excise Taxes
Federal Income Tax
Federal Unemployment Tax (FUTA)
Fishing License Tax
Food License Tax
Fuel Permit Tax
Gasoline At x (44..75 cents per gallon)
Gross Receipts Tax
Hunting License Tax
Inheritance Tax
Inventory Tax
IRS Interest Charges IRS Penalties (tax on top of tax)
Liquor Tax
L uxury Taxes
Marriage License Tax
Medicare Tax
Personal Property Tax
Property Tax
Real Estate Tax
Service Charge Tax
Social Security Tax
Road Usage Tax
Sales Tax
Recreational Vehicle Tax
School Tax
State Income Tax
State Unemployment Tax (SUTA)
Telephone Federal Excise Tax
Telephone Federal Universal Service Fee Tax
Telephone Federal,
State and Local Surcharge Taxes
Telephone Minimum Usage Surcharge Tax
Telephone Recurring and Non-recurring Charges Tax
Telephone State and Local Tax
Telephone Usage Charge Tax
Utility Taxes
Vehicl e License Registration Tax
Vehicle Sales Tax
Watercraft Registration Tax
Well Permit Tax
Workers Compensation Tax

STILL THINK THIS IS FUNNY?

Not one of these taxes existed 100 years ago, and our nation was the most prosperous in the world. We had absolutely no national debt, had the largest middle class in the world, and Mom stayed home to raise the kids.
What in the hell happened?
Can you spell ‘politicians?’

My Twitter handle is @factive, so follow me there if you still care about my thoughts.

I will still be posting here about as infrequently as I ever have… Whenever I have deeper thoughts that I want to expand on.

New Laptop Battery
I’ve had my MacBook Pro for a few years now. So it was no surprise that a few months ago my battery went to complete crap. It was basically at the point where if the power cord got disconnected, the laptop powered off. Apparently I’m lucky that I even got the few years out of it that I did. From my understanding, it’s completely normal for laptop batteries to start going bad after roughly 300 cycles. Well, lucky for me, I have a client who sells replacement batteries so it was easy for me to just call him and up and ask for a replacement. It wasn’t something he had to do for me though and when he sent me a new one, he didn’t ask for anything out of it. And to my pleasant surprise, the replacement battery for my MacBook Pro actually works better than my original Apple battery ever did… and that’s pretty cool.

Surf Art
I was pretty stoked the other day when the UPS guy showed up with a package at my door and I opened it up to find this….

It’s a killer painting from Hawaiian Surf Artist, Clark Takashima. Perfect, I’ve been needing some nice surf art. And again, something that was sent to me with no expectations. Clark is someone I’ve developed a friendship with over email in the last year. Never in a million years was I expecting him to send me one of his paitings. I love it though and it will look perfect in my office. Thanks Clark!!

1) Patience – It takes a long time to learn to surf, it’s hard and one should not expect to be ripping waves their first day out. Same with building a business. It’s an exercise in patience. If you think you’ll be successful overnight, you’re sadly mistaken my friend. You will fall a lot at first but the more you do it the better you will get.

2) Thinking fast – No two waves are exactly alike. Every way breaks differently and when you’re riding a wave you always need to be making split second decisions. This is a skill that’s required in business too. You can’t predict exactly how the wave of your business will break so be ready to make decisions and adapt on the fly.

3) Positioning – This is pretty much what the other two articles I referenced above talk about. With surfing, you’re relying on so many elements to come together to make a surfable wave. When then do, you need to be positioned correctly to catch that wave. The same thing with business. Lots of waves will come your way, be in position and be ready to ride the good waves.

4) Wave selection – Being in the right position to catch a wave is one thing. Catching the right wave is another thing. As a surfer, you learn to read the shape of the waves as they’re coming in. If you pick the wrong wave it might close out on you and there will be no where to go. Like I mentioned in the point above, pick the good waves to ride. In business you need to learn to recognize and pick the right waves that you can ride to success. Get on the wrong wave and you might put your business in a position that it has no where to go.

5) Competition – There are a lot of surfers competing for the same waves as you, just like there are a lot of entrepreneurs competing in the same marketplace as you. If you don’t get aggressive while surfing and take waves, there are a hundred other surfers in the lineup who will paddle right around you and do so. In business, if you don’t jump on the opportunities presented to you, there are a hundred other people waiting who will. I love surfing next to the candy-ass surfers who aren’t aggressive, that way I can take all the waves I want. I also love competing in marketplaces where candy-ass entrepreneurs don’t leverage the opportunities that come their way, that way I can and I will.

If you’re a surfer, I’d love to hear some of things surfing has taught you about business.

Is he a greater athlete than Tiger Woods? Michael Jordan? Lance Armstrong? I think so. There is no other athlete that has dominated his respective sport the way Kelly has.

I’ll be in Vegas all week and I hope to meet everyone of you that will be there. Please come say hi to me, if you mention this post and there’s a bar nearby, rounds are on me. Looking forward to seeing you all there.

Wondering what I’m talking about? ThinkTank, an un-conference that’s being put on here in San Diego by my buddy, David Klein, is bringing together about 40 or so of the top Internet Marketing minds to network and learn from one another in a casual environment. I noticed there were a bunch of very cool activities lined up (i.e. MMA Training sponsored by Surehits) for the event but I also noticed no mention of surfing. I thought, hmm, how can there be an event here in San Diego that doesn’t even include surfing, especially an event that will be happening on the beach??

So I contacted DK and asked him what he thought about one of my sites, 5ones, sponsoring an activity that would give surfing lessons to all the attendees. Seeing as dk loves surfing (almost ) as much as me, he was thrilled with the idea. So, my action sports website, 5ones, is hosting surfing lessons to any of the attendees that have the sack to get in ocean and try. Yes, that’s a direct challenge to Neil, Shoe, and all the other attendees. I have hard time picturing Neil on a surfboard but I will try my hardest to get him out there, that’s a promise.

I’m beyond thrilled to be able to share my passion of both surfing and the ocean with my friends. Surfing is one of those things that unless you’ve done it, you just have no idea what an amazing experience it is. There truly is nothing else like it in this world, and on so many levels too. Not only is surfing fun, and physically rewarding, but it also serves as a form of mental therapy. It doesn’t matter what stresses I have in my life, or how bad a day I’m having… when I go surfing, it erases all of that from my mind and I always leave the water with a smile on my face. Hopefully I will be able to pass this passion on to at least a few of the ThinkTankers.

PS – I think there still might be a couple spots left for this event. It’s a small investment for the amount of knowledge you will leave with and I’d recommend that any serious Internet Entrepreneur attend.

The only difference between my success and someone else’s lack of it is that I refused to accept, and still do refuse to accept, anything less than what I want for myself in life. I don’t give myself excuses. I don’t wait for shit to be handed to me, I go in search of what I want.

I love reading posts like this because I can relate to them on so many levels and Rae inspired me to write a post about my experience. I struggled for years to get to the point where I’m at now and to be honest I still have at least a few more good years of struggling left in me. Otherwise, I’d be retired on a beach somewhere, surfing epic waves all day. And until I’m there you can bet your ass I’m still busting my ass and making sacrifices every day. I’m now starting what will be the third business I’m currently running. I work hard, even if it doesn’t always seem like it.

Most people don’t realize the amount of work that I’ve put in over the years to get where I am. Like Rae, I wasn’t handed an audience or a reputable name in my industry, I had to work hard for those like anyone else. My family and I sacrificed years of our lives for the hope there would be a payoff (better quality of life) at the end of the rainbow. We’ve gone through many times where we literally didn’t have a dollar to our name and we’d stay up all night wondering how we would come up with a few bucks just to eat the next day. Luckily for family or we’d have starved to death. But I also want to point that family only helped in times of emergency… the only unfair advantage I’ve ever had is my burning desire for a life that doesn’t consist of a dead-end job. I instead desire a life where I have as much free time to spend with my family and surf as I want.

I have friends and family (you know who you are) coming up to me all time asking if I can teach them to do what I do. The problem is that they’re expecting quick success because they chose to look the other way all those years I busted my ass with nothing just to get where I am today. All they see now is what looks like a pretty glamorous life from the outside (I can assure you though, it’s not always glamorous, far from). I am in no way trying to disrespect these people because I love them, but to be quite frank, none of them have been willing to do what it takes to become successful online.

Even though it may sound like it, I’m not trying to toot my own horn here. That’s not at all what this post is about. I’m just trying to point out that if you want to be successful in life you need to get off your lazy ass and do something about it. It will not be handed to you. It all comes to down to how bad you really want something. I’ve had every excuse and reason in the book on why I shouldn’t be successful but I refuse to accept that there’s nothing I can’t do or have.

I definitely recommend you check out Rae’s post.

Our audience is growing at a very rapid pace… I couldn’t be happier. The best thing is that it’s super defensible traffic too, we get a very healthy mix of Google, direct, social, and referral traffic. We’re now at the point where we’re ready to start monetizing our sites. Exciting!

I love the fact that I’m building a company around something I love so much. I wish I would’ve done this sooner as it makes life so much more enjoyable to combine work with your passions. At that point it no longer becomes work, as big of a cliche as that is. For example, ‘board meetings’; instead of sitting in an office, I now have meetings with people while I’m surfing. I get to go hang out at cool places like the Red Bull headquarters. I can fly around the world on exotic surf vacations and call it work. And companies are backing their trucks up to my door with free products for me to review. Its got it’s perks to say the least.

My advice to you is: get into something you truly enjoy and figure out a way to make money doing it.

Consistent year-round swells, offshore winds 300+ days a year, low crowds, white sands, crystal-clear water, low cost of living…. sounds like the dream to me. I certainly can’t think of any good reasons not to move there. Seeing as all I need is an internet connection to make my living, work certainly wont be stopping me. At the very least I’ll probably be buying a second home there where I can spend 6 months a year.

I have never really worried about attacks around here just because they are so rare. I guess now I will have something to be cautious of. This is sad news and my thoughts go out to this man’s family.

Chalk one up for the skiers….

This is something I’ve never really worried about too much with this blog. Mostly because it’s my personal blog and I don’t monetize it, nor do I have plans to ever do so. So now I have another hat to wear at my company, content police. Although I have to admit, I do slightly enjoy it when I find their phone numbers and I can actually call these people. It’s pretty funny.

I’m curious, how did you all find my blog? I’d also love to hear your feedback on what you think I should be blogging about. What kind of stuff are you guys/gals into and what would you like to hear from me?

PS – I’m expecting about 826 more comments… ummkay

What exactly is it? 5ones is an action sports news and information site covering surfing, skateboarding, snowboarding, and other industry happenings. Right now what you see on the site is just a small taste of what’s to come in the future.

Although technically started last July, due to both of our busy schedules it didn’t take long before the site was placed on the back burner, as neither of us could find the time to keep it regularly updated and give the TLC it needed. It’s around this time that I started to realize I was taking on too much client work and I needed to slow down or I’d never have time to focus and build out my empire. So that’s what I did, I started to make the time and refocus on doing this thing proper.

Fast forward to Jan ‘08. I hired a couple writers, gave myself the position of Editor in Chief, and started pumping out regular content again. Although we originally launched the site back in July ‘07, we feel that we didn’t really start the site until the first of this year. Since then we’ve been keeping the site updated regularly. We just finished the redesign and now we’re launching what we call version 1.0. I must say that I am very impressed with the design, which was done by Pat Bennett from Modern Web Design. I would highly recommend using Pat for design work as you can see he did a fabulous job with 5ones. He also did all the custom WP hacks/programming.

One of the questions I get a lot is – what’s the meaning behind the name? To be honest, there isn’t one. As most of you know, finding domain names is pretty damn hard these days, most everything we wanted was taken so we just brainstormed, that name came up, and it stuck. I wish I had a good story about how the name came about but I don’t.

5ones is the first of many projects that I’ll be releasing through Factive over the next year. It’s a joint project in partnership with 97th Floor, who will also be involved in one other Factive property that is expected to launch this summer.

I also want to give a shout out to the wonderful staff of writers we have on the team. I am very pleased with their work and their desire to step it up and progress with the site. We have had tremendous success with traffic and growing our audience in just a few short months and much of that is because of the quality of content our writers have produced.

I love that book so if you have anything similar let me know. Otherwise, I’m looking for business, motivational, or life hack type books. I’d love to hear some of your ‘must reads’. Thanks.