Journalled on Tuesday, 23 August 2024 | Flamengo, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: 22 degrees, warm and sunny.
Today has been a contrast of contrasts in my personal and professional lives.
In my professional life, it is clear that I am moving in a different direction very quickly. I contacted Alex to resolve the monetisation issues with my blog, ‘the long gringo’, and to better structure and configure it.
This has been much more than either of us expected from the start. This should have taken a couple of days, but it’s now almost a month. It is more my fault and Alex’s capacity. Because I didn’t study or prepare, I set up the blog haphazardly, got it running, but not correctly, and now I’m paying for it.
I knew while I was in England that it needed to be more structured. This was one of the reasons I came back to Brazil. It would be easier to find the right person, or to find that person, and cheaper in Brazil than in England, and it has been the case.
I like Alex, trust him, and believe in his work and technical capacity. Every day, he resolves a problem and cleans up something else on the blog. What seemed straightforward to monetise through Google AdSense has hundreds of layers of technical issues, one on top of the other, and if they’re not 100% in line with Google’s standards or demands, you suffer.
We have been dealing with this for the past couple of weeks, but it should be resolved within a week or two. In Portuguese, there is the saying, “if you buy badly, you buy twice”, and it is true. For me, this has a little to do with what I’m going through with the monetisation process.
“If you do it wrong or badly the first time, you have to do it again or pay a lot to put it right!”
or
“If you do it badly, you have to do it again and better”!
Was my work subpar due to ignorance, driven by a desire to get the site up and running as quickly as possible, or was it just “good enough” and I accepted it as sufficient?
In Brazil, there’s often a mentality of settling for “more or less” as acceptable, rather than striving for excellence and doing our best. Perhaps it’s a combination of both ignorance and carelessness, and now I’m facing the consequences of that choice.
We always pay, with the outcome either a profit or a loss, depending on the professionalism and quality of our work.
The monitoring of the blogs is progressing, much like peeling away the layers of an onion. More importantly, during my online meeting with Alex, he expressed great interest in my ‘Teahogui’ project.
From the start, he saw its potential, and today’s meeting laid the groundwork for its development and implementation. This opportunity is challenging, as it is a large project. However, the universe has presented this chance to me, and I am ready to embrace it and see where it leads us.
So, a completely new business is in the pipeline and is already underway.
And personally, out of the blue, Julie contacted me. We did not actually talk, but exchanged messages. It was nice and simple. Towards the end, I wrote about what I had felt whilst I was in England, and until now, I think it was a little of a shock for her. She did not expect such frankness from me.
It was not to accuse, point the finger, or put the person down. It was simply to help her, as a man, understand what I want from a woman, how I would like it to be as a couple, and what the essential principles are that are missing.
Again, I felt she was shocked by my sincerity, but it had to be done. We are not children; the clock is always ticking, and time is very precious.
Although I’m not earning more money from these projects right now, my life is improving because I am laying the groundwork for the future. I believe this is a wise approach; even if I’m not seeing immediate benefits, I will reap rewards down the line.
In bed by 10:30 p.m.
Thank you.
Thanks for reading this blog post. Please explore my other posts and share your thoughts in the comments section.
Richard
