Just Keep Going

I had that written on the wall next to my desk while creating my digital writing academy – Web Copy Masterclass (WCM).

Every morning, I’d read it, take a deep breath, and repeat it to myself as many times as I needed to believe it.

When I opened my eyes, I’d get hit with the typical creative doubts.

“What am I even doing with my life?”

“Why did I quit a cool job to do this?”

“Kevin, you F***ING idiot. You gave up making $4,000+/month to chase YouTube dreams in the Philippines and quit. Now here you are, going to quit again. You F***D up big time”.

“Why am I living in a little 1-bedroom apartment when before I had enough money to live in a duplex?”

“Why the hell am I awake before 9am? What is this strange morning-like atmosphere?”

Then I’d look over at my desk and see it.

Just keep going

I’ve Always Been a Quitter

I’m a pretty damn good copywriter, and I’m not too shabby at the guitar either.

But any time I tried to break out of that shell and “level up”, I always quit.

Playing music always came natural to me, and I always just learned at my own pace. Nothing too demanding. 

And writing….

Writing is EASY for me. It’s literally a joke sometimes. I can write 4,000 good words in a day, pocket a bunch of money, and still have brain power left to hit the bar and have a good laugh.

But any time something got hard for me, I quit.

A content agency?

Quit.

Building a YouTube channel for an online marketing blog?

Quit.

When I first moved to Chiang Mai, Thailand in 2016 I started building a dropshipping store.

QUIT, QUIT, and QUIT!

I hate to sound super, ultra-Hollywood-drama-y but I finally just told myself:

YOU ARE NOT GOING TO FUCKING QUIT THIS LIKE QUIT EVERYTHING ELSE!”

No matter how hard it got with this course, I couldn’t quit. I had no choice. 

And let me tell you, it was way harder than I ever imagined.

Steve Buscemi. No reason. Just because.

Just Keep Going

Matt – creator of the uber awesome Affiliate Lab SEO Course – tried to warn me.

I said “I understand”, but I actually didn’t.

Creating a course – a good one at that – is fucking hard.

Never mind wasting a month making Trello cards with all my ideas that I never used, because a mind map was a better alternative (wish I knew that before spending 4 hours a day making cards, but who’s listening?).

My first conception of this course, done mostly at Wako Bake in Chiang Mai!

Or putting your dream project on hold to make a course just because you think there might be a lucrative market for it.

Or, you know, a world-destorying pan-fucking-demic that trapped me in a studio apartment for nearly a month in Vietnam.

Didn’t matter. 

Just Keep Going

Even after I got the basic structure down, recording the videos was a NIGHTMARE.

Vietnam is a tornado of development. 

I’m convinced the Vietnamese rent power tools and just play with them in their apartments for fun. There’s no way there can be that many jackhammers, drills, hammers, and nail guns going off all day. There’s not enough real estate for it.

So half my videos had obnoxious drilling in the background.

One even had a street vendor screaming BAP XAO! (corn) in it. 

Great, one week wasted. Time to re-record those videos at night.

Just Keep Going

I finally got over 40 videos recorded, edited, and uploaded to the online teaching platform.

I had done it. 

My students were about to learn everything about writing killer web copy: Tone, format, purchasing emotions, benefits, details, personality, jokes, memes.

Man, this was going to kick ass. 

Then I got feedback from smart people

“It’s pretty bad, dude. Sorry”

Oh, cool. My life’s work sucks. Good thing to read first thing in the morning.

The feedback I got was mostly the same: The content is solid but the format and delivery are really bad.

So, I had to delete everything, completely change the structure, re-record every video, edit, then upload again.

Nice, exactly what I was hoping for. More bullshit.

Oh, well. That’s life. Could be worse, right?

It didn’t matter. I had my little piece of paper. 

Just Keep Going

I started working on this course in the middle of November.

Now it was the middle of April and I had nothing to show for it except a deleted course and about 200 PowerPoint slides.

And things were about to get worse than I could ever have imagined.

Tommy, my buddy from school back home messaged me April 14th.

“Kevin, Vinny passed away last night”.

I really thought it was a joke.

Vinny? I had just talked to him less than 48 hours before. It didn’t make any sense. It STILL doesn’t make any sense.

Vin and I were good friends back in school, but didn’t get really close until he and I started working together. When I came home from Asia and my sister said “NO WAY ARE YOU AND I SHARING A HOUSE FOR A MONTH” – rightfully so – he let me move in.

His face is still on the front page of my site, Freelanceaholics.com.

He was the first successful “student” I ever had. I use that term lightly, since he did all of the work on his own – I just answered questions whenever he had them. 

He was a go-getter. I was in awe of his determination.

He worked full time at his family’s company, worked part-time writing for me and other clients, commuted to Long Island from CT to see his girlfriend, and still somehow found time to attend school online. The guy was a machine. 

Any time I had any problems in writing, I knew I could turn to him to get it done.

To this day, I still think about messaging him when I have a logjam with clients. Then, when I bring up his Facebook Messenger, it hits me.

I laid in bed for the better part of 3 days drinking cheap whisky (Woodford Reserve – good stuff).

I finally got my shit together. What would Vin think of me if I quit? I had no choice but to get back to it.

So I got up, dusted off, sat down and repeated it again…

Just Keep Going

I had to get out of Ho Chi Minh. My mind just wasn’t in the right place.

I ended up in a little beach town for some peace and quiet.

No distractions.

It was perfect.

I started churning out videos like a demon – at least when there was peace and quiet.

That is, until Camtasia (my video recording program) corrupted hours of footage.

I left it open too long, I guess. I don’t know what went wrong, but when I tried to edit about 3 hours of footage, it just kept returning an error message.

Lesson learned: Edit as you go along and save your work to Google Drive.

Whatever, just go back and do the modules again. It’s not that big a deal. Only a full WEEK of work, who’s counting?!??!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

At this point, I was numb anyway. I expected everything to go wrong, so this was nothing.

Just Keep Going

When my grandfather passed away, I couldn’t even process it.

He was a tough man. He’s seen some shit in this life. Bombings in London, going off to war at barely 20 years old, immigrating to another country with no guarantee of a job_We’ve got it easy.

I was near the end of the course, and I just knew the universe was going to try something to throw me off. I’m happy I got to video call him from Vietnam one last time. He’d done so much for me in my life.

But being so far away, I just couldn’t even process it. 

At that point I was so far beyond driven to get this thing done that nothing was going to stop me.

Just Keep Going

When I finished uploading the final video to the web, I realized I had 0 clue how to promote it.

Run ads? Do features on websites? Hustle it out on Facebook? Give it out for free?

At that point, nothing phased me. I knew I had a good product and most of the hard work was over. This was all smooth sailing compared to the shit I’d been through before.

Eventually, I got a spot on SEOButler.com to write about website copy and how improving your writing will improve sales for your business.

And something INSANE HAPPENED:

I started in November of 2019.

And through travelling to 4 different countries, a worldwide pandemic, wasting months doing it the WRONG way, endless background noise, deaths of people near and dear to me, Camtasia being a joke of a recording software, and more bullshit than I have the time to write about I FINALLY did it.

I got 1 sale!

Then two more!

Then Black Friday happened. I ran promos on a bunch of different groups, and people in the digital marketing world started raving about how good my course was. A few even put my Black Friday deal up on their website!

I made 16 sales in 24 hours. I still can’t believe it. The sky’s the limit for this course. It was worth every bit of stress it put me through, and the white hairs in my beard too. I swear I’m shaving this thing off if I find any more though. 

You can do anything you think you can, so long as quitting isn’t an option.

If you get anything out of this article, I hope it’s the following:

Just Keep Going

Thanks for reading. Keep on keeping on, everyone.