And the only reason I bought that too was because Internet marketers were telling me that that’s the very first thing you should buy because domain names are limited and you definitely want to own your very own name. You’ll never know when you’ll need it! And so I listened and paid.

That’s how this blog was born. And after coming across another blog which chronicled one particular young man’s journey to financial freedom, I thought I’d COPY it (shameless…) and do the same for me, but with an Internet marketing twist. I simply wanted to share my experiences with Internet marketing, the stuff and work I did, the results (and screw ups) I got, and ultimately have this whole blog be kinda like a public record of my journey online.

And now look at what has happened over the last 36 months…

Starting from nowhere, as an undergrad student who had never really achieved anything huge, this whole project has brought me to launch and run a successful Internet business, on my own time and freedom, work with an esteemed mentor, and at the same time, truly live the Internet lifestyle. I’ve generated six figure revenues online, written a top 10 bestseller and I think, most valuable of all, this entire experience has given me the belief to dream EVEN bigger dreams and know you can have them manifest! I’m definitely not stopping at where I am now.

I remember three years ago when I generated my very first dollars on the Internet — it was some adsense clicks that I was getting from some article sites that I laboured to set up. Back then, I was making about $5 a day and I was ECSTATIC!

Well, when you’ve never made any money online before and being a student receiving pocket money, creating $5 a day out of nowhere was like hitting the proverbial gold mine. I believe the very first cheque I received for my online efforts only amounted to, what… $136 — small amount of money, but at the same time, it was REAL money that I generated on the Internet.

And then the results grew. The very first product that I sold online made US$10,011 in a little 7 days from its launch. And the product wasn’t even mine to begin with! It belonged to my partner.

I still feel I was very lucky during that period because of the two big affiliates (that popped from out of nowhere — I know one of them now was David Vallieres) that helped to promote my product and really drive sales. The HUGE start really convinced me that maybe I had the chops to do this Internet marketing thing after all. If I didn’t have that big bang of a start, things may very well be different now.

BUT then at the same time, I’ll also say I did PREPARE for the luck that came my way. If you’ve read my story (click here), you’ll see that everything didn’t just fall neatly onto my lap. I had to work and strive as well for things to happen. Guess all that time fidgeting with html and constipating about copywriting was worth it after all!

If you’ve just come across this blog or have only been around for some time, then I’d like to share certain posts on this blog that highlight certain points in my journey from here to there.

My Mentor
How I Got To Work With A Multi-Millionaire
How We Started Making Money (Part 1)
How We Started Making Money (Part 2)
Secrets Of Self-Made Millionaires Is LIVE!
US$1175 In 48 Hours!
This Pre-Launch Is Getting Mad!
SOLD OUT! $9400 In A Week!
It’s Not Always Plain Sailing
It’s Over
Are You Focused Enough? (Part 1)
Are You Focused Enough? (Part 2)
Are You Focused Enough? (Part 3)
Behind The Scenes
24 Hours Later
Result
Internet Marketing Too Cheap For You?
US$2,300 In A Few Days
US$21,154 In December!
Find An Expert To Work With You
The Anatomy Of A Money Making Site
Getting On To The Internet Marketing Highway
Good Ideas Are Not Good Enough
Why I Don’t Believe In Sacrifice
I Am One Lucky Bastard!
How This Bastard Was Born!
Lucky Bastard Debuts At #6 On Bestsellers List!

You can go through all those posts (they’re in chronological order) and get a very good summary about how all this humble success I’ve achieved so far has come about. I still can’t believe some of the good and wonderful things that have happened to me on this journey.

For me, I guess the highlight of this entire project that started in (near!) desperation three years ago is my bestselling book – Lucky Bastard! It’s like a summation of what the heck I’ve been up to in my life and how I got to where I am today.

To have my first book hit #6 on the Sunday Times bestsellers list and stay Top 10 for three weeks (so far) is VERY VERY satisfying for me. I never ever thought I’d ever be a bestselling author — just goes to show how much you know about yourself and what you can do!

Well, I hope all of this inspires you to maybe do something you’ve always wanted to do yourself. It doesn’t have to be on the Internet, of course. For me, it just happened to be this way. But if my short little story can serve as a role model for your future one, I’ll be absolutely stoked for you.

If you take a look at the scan on the right, Lucky Bastard! is tucked right in the middle of the non-fiction bestsellers list.

WOW! My book is #6 in the whole of freaking Singapore. I AM STOKED. I mean anyone would be when your book is being recognized as a national bestseller. And it’s my first one as well. I am really grateful.

It’s been 4 weeks since the book’s out and every Sunday, I’ve been checking to see if it made the list and this Sunday, well… it did!

I remember having a discussion last year with Adam Khoo about how to write a book and I mentioned that I only wanna do this if it becomes a bestseller (I want the ego trip! muahahha!) and AK took a look at my idea of a book and told me ‘Yes. Why not?’ and whadayya know, it’s come true.

I can now check off one of my goals. Fweuhhh… I honestly thought this one was going to be left hanging but I guess I was being a tad impatient thinking a book will go straight up the charts first week of its launch.

If you’re interested to get a copy of Lucky Bastard!, you can go to any good bookstore in Singapore (Borders/Kinokuniya/Times/etc) and you can find it there. If you purchase a copy, I really appreciate the support. I do. And if you’re not in Singapore, you can always opt for the cheaper (we save costs because we pardoned the trees) digital version we retail online over at www.VeryLuckyBastard.com.

Anyway, I am really happy with this latest bit of news (obviously) and ahhh.. I’m off to play the guitar now. tata

Hey! It’s been about 3-4 weeks since Lucky Bastard! was launched in the bookstores and as a first time author, this is obviously a very exciting time for me. Anyways, first time anythings are always exciting! (Remember, the FIRST time you passed your driving test on your 176393396th attempt? Something like that exciting!)

Personally, I’ve only been around to two bookstores – Borders and Kinokuniya Orchard – and I’m REALLY stoked to see my book and name in bookstores. It is unreal sharing shelf space with luminaries like Kiyosaki and Obama. I’m a nobody!

According to a friend, Lucky Bastard! is #6 on the Border’s bestsellers list — she saw the list while she was there (but I didn’t catch it myself). So even though I wanna be number 1 in the entire freaking universe, this will do for now.

Anyway, I never thought I would EVER write a book in my life. I mean, writing just a blog post every now and then is tough enough. But an entire freaking book?! OMG. Too painful. I remember meeting some friends over a year back and one of them kinda confused me with Adam Khoo’s name on one particular book and he thought I wrote it. Whereupon, this look of incredulity came over me before I scowled “Noooooooo… I’d never write a book!” But looky here, one year on – I’m eating my own words.

If you’re wondering, this is how idea for the book came about. A year ago, I was on a private coaching program with Michel Fortin. Michel’s the #1 copywriter on the Internet today and an extremely successful Internet marketer and businessman as well.

So one day, Michel wrote an entry on his blog asking his readers to share their stories about how they got started in the world of Internet marketing. I read that blog post and decided to share my personal story with Michel on our private coaching platform. And this is what Michel had to say:

Now when I read that, I went “Wow! You mean people would actually pay to read about what I do?” It never really occurred to me that my knowledge was bankable because I was just simply doing what the Internet marketing gurus were teaching. But then, if Michel thought so, then he must be right.

Now even with someone like Michel backing me to write a book, I never really got into action at all (we all procrastinate — and I’m really good). I mean… like I mentioned earlier — write an entire freaking book?! Ughhh…

So as you can see from the screenshot above, that whole exchange happened April 2008. I got excited the very day Michel floated the idea to me and the very first page I wrote was my acknowledgments page. I was imagining my book already out and these were all the great people that helped me get to where I am now.

After I wrote that one page, I then procrastinated for 3 whole months, dilly-dallying, swinging back and forth about whether I should ever write that darn book. Until the Universe tapped my shoulder and quite explicitly told me to get the thing done. Seriously. This is how it happened.

I went down to this casting call – it was for some TV advertisement Starhub wanted to do, so my agency sent me to audition for the role. So anyway, I went down and this is the scene the casting studio wanted me act out — They wanted me to sit down at a desk and pretend I just finished typing my book, and celebrate as I hit the final keystroke to complete the book.

WTF.

When I heard that, my brain was going whooooaaaaaa…… this can’t be real. This is TOO freaking coincidental. I was in daze the whole time I was at the audition (didn’t get the job anyway) going “Okaaaaaaaay… now I REALLY need to get the book started asap” (or I’ll get struck by lightning or whatever).

So after 3 months of procrastinating and deliberating, it needed a sheer act of providence to get my ass moving. Not that I mind anyway! It’s always nice to know that there are certain things you MUST get done.

So I took another 3 whole months to write the book. I spent every Sun-Thu night and wee morning (brain only works at those times!) typing away at the computer writing my book page by page, line by line, word by word. It was VERY painful at first because I’m a very slow writer. I really take the time to craft my sentences to express whatever the heck it is I want to share – it’s got to express my personality, ideas and essence at the time I write it.

So I’m a very slow writer. It can take me 20-30 minutes just to write ONE freaking page. ONE freaking page – half an hour! There were nights I spent 5-6 hours just completing four pages! Arghhh! And you know how a book has at least 150- 250 pages. I was DEAD.

Anyway, somehow bit by bit, the book started to take shape. I aimed to complete a chapter every week. And a chapter being 15-20 pages long. So I just wrote and wrote and freaking wrote. Every night for three whole months. Until finally one late afternoon (inexplicably writing at that time of day for some reason), I finished the thing! I hit the final keystroke and BAM! I completed the first draft of Lucky Bastard! All DONE. From acting out a similar scene at some casting call three months ago, I was now doing it for real for my own book. FUCKING AWESOME.

Of course, it didn’t end there. Now came the endless rounds of editing. You see, I’m a perfectionist PIG. I tinker my personal projects to death until I think it’s perfect enough to show to the world. I’m really bad (and good) this way. I’m actually much better now; I used to be terrible when I was younger. I’ve learnt to let go and let things be as I’ve grown older.

As for the book, I then spent the next month editing, adding, subtracting and rewriting portions of the draft until I was satisfied. I then handed it over to an editor to clean up the manuscript, got it back and then I tinkered some more! Gawd! I’m terrible! In fact, I tinkered with the book all the way till the final week before print! Mad! But it being my first (and maybe my only) book, I wanted it to be as ‘perfect’ and as true to my heart as I wanted it to be.

I can know safely say I’m pretty satisfied with what I’ve come up with. There are things I’d like to change here and there still, but if I go on, it never ends does it? There are still typos and errors here and there (if you spot any, please let me know. Thanks!) but I’m happy and the book is out there now sitting pretty in the bookstores.

And speaking of pretty, the bright orange cover was no accident either (but of course, everything in life happens by design). When I first imagined how my book cover would look like, bright eye catching orange popped into my head. And I guess it kinda stuck. We had a white cover design done up as well, which was really nice too. But I went for the orange, because in a sea of books you want people to take notice.

Which is of course why I chose to name the book Lucky Bastard! buahahhahaa! I mean, what if I were to name it “Internet Marketing 101″ or “How To Make Money Online”? Decent enough, but it doesn’t stop people in its tracks. I betcha if you were to browse through a bookstore and come across a book that screamed “You F___king Twit!” (hahahahhaha!) — I mean you’d stop and at least pick up the book to find out more, right?

And I’m not the first anyway. There’s a New York Time’s bestseller called Skinny Bitch (a diet book), Rich Dad, Poor Dad, online there’s the Rich Jerk. So the formula works. Because I learnt this from somewhere; people DON’T buy books (because they haven’t read the thing yet), they buy book titles.

When I realized that tiny bit of fact, I went “ohhhhh… that’s true.” Cos that’s the way I buy my books anyway. So BAM! Lucky Bastard! Great title! I think I really picked the right name for this book because it really suits the whole essence of what I’m doing. Just have some freaking fun while you’re doing the stuff you’re doing in life. Besides… who needs another ‘boring’ IM book, there are tons out there already. I can’t compete.

So to leave with some bit of inspiration, I just wanna share with you that for any goal you have right now – just do it! Like me, I had NO idea how I was going to write a book. Never done anything like that before, no idea how to start, and I wasn’t sure if it was going to succeed or not. But it got done. Not in one night or two or three. From idea to manifestation, it took 10 MONTHS. It got done step by step.

And it is AMAZING.

To see something that only existed in your mind. An idea, the bright orange cover, the vision of it on shelves of major bookstores — all of that was just imagination. But now it’s manifest into reality. I tell ya, when you do stuff like this; to see something that’s only in your head and have it made real, you know you can CREATE the very world and life you want. Might not take a day, or two or three. But you get there in the end.

So! If you’re interested to know more about the book, I’d be really pleased. You can go to www.VeryLuckyBastard.com and download the first chapter of the book absolutely free. You’ll receive in your inbox when you opt-in and I hope you enjoy the read.

Follow your bliss,
Adam

Anyway, that’s private stuff, but I want let you know I’m on Twitter right now. Well, I’ve actually had an account there for the longest time (a year maybe?), but I just never really got around to tweeting. If you don’t know what Twitter’s about, it’s basically this nifty little site that allows you to update your friends and stalkers about whatever it is the heck you’re doing right now.

So if you’re doing the garden, cutting a million dollar deal, or taking a dump – you can tweet that and let your friends know. If you’re asking why in the world would you wanna tell the world about what it is you’re doing (i had the same question myself — that’s why I didn’t tweet before), I just realized that people are naturally bored and having nothing better to do with their lives, so they’re naturally curious about what the other bored people are doing in their lives. But it’s wonderful! Really.

Obama used Twitter to great effect during his campaign and I mean if you’re interested in what the heck that bloke is doing 24/7, you’d follow his twitter right? And yes, over a quarter MILLION people (i think) follow his twitter. Which is amazing. He’s got a quarter million people glued to his every freaking move — but then he is president.

As a net marketer, I hope you’re starting too see how powerful twitter can be at connecting with people out there and to naturally create awareness about your online business and eventually drive traffic there as well. Very powerful. After email, twitter’s the tool that people respond to the most.

But you DON’T want to use twitter to spam people about your websites, products and sevice. It’s a networking tool and just like facebook, if you’re just using it to sell, sell, sell. It’s not gonna work. Look at this this way — Twitter’s kinda like microblogging (you can only type 140 characters per tweet). If your blog’s all about promos and products, NO one’s gonna be interested. But if your blog is interesting to read, funny, and helpful — you’re gonna gain a loyal audience. SAME with twitter.

If you’re not on it yet, I highly recommend you do. Because even if you don’t plan on twittering right now, you should still get an account because the url extensions are limited. So if you’re John Doe and some other guy’s already booked twitter.com/johndoe — too bad. You have to think of something else. Like for me some other chinese dude’s already snapped up /adamwong, so I had to go with adam_wong, which is still ok thankfully. But to make the point again – get your account quick.

I’ll be twittering more often form now onwards, so if you’re naturally bored/a stalker/wanna know what the heck I’m up to, you can follow me at www.twitter.com/adam_wong.

Ain’t that a sight? My book’s just out and it looks mighty fine. I’ve been working on this for months now and after all that work and wait – it’s finally here! It’ll hit the bookstores I’m thinking Wednesday, Thursday-ish so look out for it (if you want to, of course).

I’ll end now, but I’ll post more details after CNY’s up.

Now back to the titular statement… it’s true – I don’t believe in sacrifice. (And I’m not talking bout some fancy Aztec ceremonial here…) You see, I get kinda amused whenever someone moans that they have to make a TON of sacrifices to achieve whatever heck they wanted to achieve. woo hoo…

I used to believe in sacrifice myself too — ya know, the no pain, no gain mantra. But nowadays, I kinda disagree with that perspective. Here’s how it happened…

One afternoon, kinda like over a year back, I had a friendly bloke who came over to my place to interview me. He was compiling interviews of successful people into a book and he wanted to do one on me. (omg! I always cringe whenever someone deems me successful. There are loads more people way more successful. Really. I’m just a BUM. I’m telling you now — I work successfully so I can BUM. no shit. AND I like to do my bumming now. Not when I’m octogenarian risking heart failure.)

Anyway, one of the questions he asked me was – “What type of sacrifices did I have to make to achieve success?”

And I was gonna go on some tangent about how I had to do this and that and sound all heroic at the same time, when I realized that ‘Hey! That’s not true!’ — I DIDN’T have to make any sacrifices at all. I’m exactly where I wanna be and I’m HAPPY being where I am and doing what I did to get here.

You see, I believe that if you have to sacrifice something, it usually means you need to lose, to give up something in order to attain something else. Well, that may be true for some sucker who wants EVERYTHING and can’t make up his mind. But for me, I didn’t feel that I lost anything to achieve my success. Nothing. Zilch.

I wanted to spend all those hours ‘toiling’ away at the computer, figuring out how to create a website. I wanted to spend my weekends reading books and going through courses on how to build an Internet business. I wanted to spend weeks writing and crafting salesletters, emails, reports, etc, etc. etc. I WANTED to do all those things. Even though it was tough at times, I wasn’t complaining. I wanted to do all those things to achieve my goals.

In other words, there was NO sacrifice. I was doing the things I wanted to do. And even though spending all that time playing computer games (I am so geek. Sometimes.) would have been a lot more enjoyable. I didn’t actually want to play computer games; I wanted to get all that work done, because you know deep down, you’ll be happier doing all that work instead of killing another pixelated dragon.

So you see, there is no sacrifice. For example, if you wanted to hit the gym to build a better body — you just bloody hit the gym. No complaints, no whining. Stop thinking you have to sacrifice all your TV, leisure, drinking time just to go to the gym.

If you are going to gym, it means you WANT to go to the gym over spending time getting drunk. You honestly want that for yourself. So again, even if you may find it more enjoyable getting knackered, you don’t actually want that, because it gets you no where — and that won’t make you HAPPY.

So if you’re feeling that you’re missing out on or ’sacrificing’ something just to achieve whatever it is you want. Whoa.. hold on. You’re not. You are consciously choosing your own actions. No one’s forcing you to do anything. So if it means you spend countless hours toiling over something — hey! you actually wanna do it. And you’re happy doing so.

All the best for 2009.

I mean, it is just so easy to just leave it for tomorrow (and tomorrow, and tomorrow) because you always assume that it will always be there — till it’s gone, of course!

So you can imagine my reaction when I bloody woke up one day to find my ALL blogs gone. Everything – kapish! At first, I thought my eyes were fooling me because I was still in my half-wake daze (with hair all over the place), so I do what I normally do online when you think your eyes are playing a trick. You hit the F5 button.

But to no avail! This time (after countless attempts at mashing the refresh button) my blogs just wouldn’t reappear. It was only then that I really woke, raised my right eyebrow, and my brain kinda registered what the heck was going on — I just freaking lost over 2 years of hard work and labor in an INSTANT. Just wiped out from the face of this earth! (Not funny AT ALL.)

After I finished my obligatory cussing, I wanted to find out how in the world my blogs could be literally here one day and gone the next. I logged into my backend and checked my SQL databases and there was the answer — ALL my SQL databases were gone without a trace (POOF!) — confirmation that my blogs were really gone.

I had back ups but they were many months old (like I said – I was procrastinating) and now in the moment where you really wished you hadn’t waited all those months to do something so darn right important, it was too bloody late.

Maybe I haven’t really painted how crucial this really is; losing all your data is akin to having your factory and retail stores all burnt down to a crisp — and you didn’t buy any insurance! In just one day, your business is gone and you have to START ALL OVER AGAIN.

On the Internet, that means all your websites, products – the stuff that makes you money – is entirely obliterated and your income goes all the way to ZERO (which is not very sexy at all!).

And something that would cost you 30 minutes to do (the backups) is now a god-knows-how-long struggle to build all your websites back up again. Not very smart. So now if you can see how really important backups are, whoppee!

Now here’s the best part about the whole thing…

My blogs weren’t really gone at all. My webhost was doing some maintenance and my SQL databases just vanished for awhile (they were back up later in that afternoon), so I was very thankfully granted a very timely “reprieve”.

But you know, it was probably life’s way of tapping your shoulder (or actually smacking your face) to remind that you have something really important to do that shouldn’t be put off any longer.

So now, I’m not taking anymore chances, every freaking thing is now fully backed up and I can rest easy knowing that if anything silly does happen, I can have everything back up online with a simple click.