If you thought my traffic method of sharing traffic to get traffic was nuts, you’ll love this. My extra traffic method, which shall not today be numbered, is … Give Thanks.
We’re sometimes rushing about on a rough day and life becomes a blur. Let me tell you a quick story of today, then I’ll tell you why my thank yous are going to become semi-daily content and actions.
The Story of Today
At about 3:30 this morning, I woke up with a start. Bolt straight up in bed with that little panic thing in my throat. It’s getting to the end of the month and for the next few days every extra penny that comes in is of critical importance. Because of the holiday coming up, I have to generate two week’s income in one week to stay ahead – working at half speed means getting paid at half speed, lol….
So anyway, of course I was already on edge.
And then. I find out the server is acting up. I swear I can feel it in my chest when the main site starts flaking out, and I’m convinced that’s what awakened me… So after scrambling around trying to fix that problem, I was a bit of a mess. Got zero marketing done. So I did what I always do when I’m in temporary despair.
I thanked some friends for their help and went to do something for someone else.
I’m telling you that gratitude and doing for other people is the best way to turn a bad day around. Until then, I was having the worst day I’ve had since I came back from the hospital.
Here’s the series of events that followed my deliberate abandonment of despair.
1- I went to check on the 69 Traffic articles collection that Robert Scoble was gracious enough to include in his linkblog on. Despite our traffic issues, we started to get a lot of traffic from ISEDB’s Scoop today, I think because Tariq Ali scooped it, turning it into a top story.
(You can Scoop us too. 
If you have time, you know?)
Since Todd mentioned it in a recent Geek News Podcast too, I wrote him a note of thanks.
That made me think… maybe I’m helping more people than my fellow Warrior who I put that list together for, so I wrote a new article after about a day’s silence, the one about Sharing Traffic to Get Traffic.
(Back to Scoble a second. I don’t care what people say about his videos from Sunday. What kind of world is it where we judge people as a whole, expert or not, by the one day we disagree with their views out of 365? Lunacy. And yes, I’d say that even if he never linked to me again.)
2- Andy Beard, reigning King of Niche Marketing read it and linked to it. He really goes above and beyond the call of duty for the bloggers in the No “No Follow” Community at BUMPzee. Scott Jangro deserves some sort of award for that site.
3- As I continued to struggle with this site’s problem, Andy wrote with very supporting words. I asked him to just reprint the article on this site so his visitors then didn’t have to go anywhere, but he wanted me to get some kind of benefit, so he linked to my FeedBurner version instead. He is both a gentleman and a scholar.
4- Maki from DoshDosh, who I’ve never spoken to or even corresponded with before, both commented on the article and submitted it to Sphinn. Being that my fanaticism about DoshDosh reaches groupie levels, this was a special moment for me.
(Please vote for us at Sphinn. There’s like, cool people there. No pressure. But if you love me, you’ll do it, lol.)
5- I smiled the rest of the day away and finally finished an article I was writing about Facebook with a pretty clear head.
The moral? The mere attitude of gratitude works. The way you feel changes the way you color the events of a potentially bad day.
And sharing traffic as well as resources/advice freely works too. There’s no way I would have gotten all of this attention being stingy.
Semi-Daily Thank Yous Will Be Here to Stay
Not only do I plan to do a special post about each one of the wonderful people who have shared me by Monday, not only have I already shared them on Facebook and elsewhere, but I’m permanent linking to them as a testament to what sharing does.
This all started with two thanking and sharing incidents. I created the 69 article list, a project I’ve been positively dreading, a week early for a Facebook Friend who I’d had a really cool discussion with.
That was my sharing, because this person was thinking about buying a guide, but as much as I could use the cash, I like people to verify for themselves that my advice works for them first.
Next, I thanked one person privately, and another in public, and from other sources came floods of goodness. Gratitude and open sharing is a killer traffic combination. you heard it here first.
