It sure was one of the most exciting years in my life and I’m glad to have shared some of my experiences with other people.

I wish you all to sooner or later achieve financial and personal freedom and enjoy your life to the fullest.

I’ll be posting the winners of the “comment contest” soon so stay in touch and thanks again for all the Stumbles, links, del.icio.us bookmarks and other ways of supporting Freedom Ideas blog.

Talk to you next year…

I wanted to share my ideas with more people than just a few kids on a court (who weren’t even really interested).

It never occurred to me at that time that my online business would help me to achieve financial freedom and freedom from being stuck in a job.

Learning To Walk In The Online World

I asked a friend who worked for an IT company to help me out, and he suggested a website design firm that would create a website for me.

The design, the ability to write text and upload pictures, cost $700. I thought I had a good deal.

The website domain name was www.mentalwinner.com (it’s now expired and full of sponsored links; don’t click on any of them), and this is what my first header looked like (made for free by my good friend):

I wrote some tennis-related articles for the site and thought that eventually Google and Yahoo would find me. No such miracles happened.

Then I read some Internet marketing tips which told me, that the $money$ is in the list.

Okay, so I asked the IT company to give me a newsletter module.

“Sure,” they said, “this will cost you additional $300.”

At that point, I started thinking about other options. If this goes on, they will suck my account dry with all the extra modules that I wanted to add on later (like some forms, RSS, a blog module, complete traffic stats, and so on)

I started researching and asking some questions in IM-related forums.

And then one guy answered my question and told me to email him. He said he would help.

And he did. He sent me lots of tips, ebooks and ideas on how to start a website.

He didn’t want anything in return, which was quite strange. He said he was once at my stage, too (he was, and still is, making a nice living from his online businesses), and he hated seeing people being scammed all over the place.

After 20 or so emails, I asked him if I could build a website myself, so that I didn’t have to pay every time for a new module or something that I wanted to add to my site.

Tim, that’s his name, suggested Sitesell.com.

Learning From Ken Evoy With SBI

I had come across Sitesell before, but had never really researched it thoroughly. This time, I did.

One weekend, I spent almost 10 hours, split between 2 days, reading everything I could find on the web about Sitesell, Site Build It, and Ken Evoy.

It was unbeleviable (and still is) that I couldn’t find a negative opinion about Site Build It.

The only post I found in one forum was that their Brainstormer (at that time) was sometimes a little buggy.

Tim also told me that their Action Guide was the key to building a successful website and that there isn’t anything like it on the web.

The tools and hosting are all very good and probably above-average, compared to other similar products, but it’s the Action Guide and Make Your Site Sell, written by Ken Evoy, that really show you a step-by-step plan to building a successful and profitable website.

The final thing that convinced me of the power of Site Build It and that I could use my tennis expertise to build a high-traffic site was when I checked their results page.

When I saw that even a website based on baby showers could have an Alexa ranking under 100.000 (I knew something about Alexa by then), I knew that I, as a tennis coach, could create a high-traffic website.

So, on November 1st, 2005, I took out my credit card and paid $299 for my first Site Build It package. What a life changing decision!

I’ll write a review of Site Build It (Update: added a link to the review I wrote later) in the next few weeks, but for now, I’ll just share the most important moments from May 2005 until now:

The Journey From $0 To Financial Freedom

May 2005
Bought a website for $700 from a local IT company in Slovenia. Posted around 20 articles in English and Slovenian and realized that this wouldn’t work.

November 2005
On the 1st, I bought my first SBI package and on the 6th, I registered my first domain name www.tennismindgame.com.

I did my best to create quality content and started to write my first ebook. I also hired a graphics designer Thomas Breher to create header and ebook cover for me.

February 2006

Completed my first ebook called The Mental Manual for Tennis Winners and earned $51.32 from Clickbank by selling 3 copies.

I also tested some Adsense on my tennis website but was disappointed not only with the average pay per click, but also with the poor quality of tennis products advertised through Adsense.

After a few months, I decided that there would never be Adsense on my tennis site.

July 2006
I started writing my second ebook and bought my second SBI site. The reason for that was that I had subscribed to Andy Williams’ newsletter and he offered a new niche blueprint every month.

I decided to buy one (at that time they cost $50), and it was all about vacuum cleaners.

So I registered www.vacuum_______.com and started writing articles and looking to outsource them too, since I wasn’t really an expert on vacuums.

I found some writers on Elance.com and tested about 5 of them. I asked for 10 articles from each one and then decided on the best one afterwards.

August 2006

I completed my second ebook, Tennis Strategy Encyclopedia and earned a whopping $441.31 in this month.

My earnings from both ebooks were around $500 during the next 6 months.

It was a nice extra income, but I was still far from being financially free.

December 2006
The traffic on my vacuum site started to grow really fast, since I targeted some good keywords on my homepage.

I started to monetize the site in November and the final earnings for December were $436.68.

I also sold two SBI sites through my affiliate links and earned an additional $150 in that month, so for the first time, I earned more than $1000 in one month from my online business.

That was 13 months after I started my first SBI site. Things were soon going to get much better.

I also bought one more Niche blueprint from Andy Williams, which he claimed was one of the highest-paying niches in Adsense.

I also bought my third SBI package and started to build a website based on conference calls, audio, video and web conferencing, which was the topic of that niche blueprint.

Here are some numbers from the Google Adwords tool:

Oh, and I also won the $500 prize from an SBI video contest for this video that I created.

February 2007
I initially monetized my vacuum site with Adsense and Amazon affiliate links, but I was really disappointed with the conversion on Amazon. I was getting a lot of clicks, though, but not much revenue.

That’s when I discovered Chitika. I was accepted and started testing different types of ads.

I earned $2107,94, which was more than I was earning by working in the Tennis Academy of Asia. My salary there was $2000.

March 2007
Chitika was exactly what I was looking for – getting paid per click instead of purchase. I went through the painstaking work of replacing the Amazon affiliate links on over 100 pages with Chitika eMiniMalls.

Result? With traffic growing and Chitika ads, my earnings shot to $3647.97.

April 2007
I started to use Need-an-article.net more and more for my vacuum articles. Most articles were pretty good, and if they weren’t, I used them for article submissions.

I was also always on the lookout for good link partners and got some good links to my internal pages. This helped me rank even better in Google and I started to occasionally get more than 1000 visitors per day on my vacuum site.

I also completed the How to Play tennis videos, which I sell for $37. Since I had already built a nice list of subscribers on my tennis site, I could promote my videos to them.

The combined earnings from my ebooks and videos through Clickbank reached $1986,30, and my the total income with Chitika, Adsense and a few Amazon links reached $4795,64.

That was more than double my monthly salary.

I realized that if I kept creating quality content and followed my strategies, I could achieve total financial freedom without the need to work for someone else.

June 2007
The traffic and income from both my tennis and vacuum site grew nicely and reached $5602,72.

I still hadn’t monetized my conferencing website, since it was in an extremely competitive niche and it was hard to get good links to it.

July 2007
My average daily income from Adsense surpassed $100 per day.

In the middle of the tennis summer season (lots of traffic and sales), and me getting more experienced with Adsense and Chitika combos, my monthly income reached $7580,17.

I still remember the day at the start of August when I added everything together and stared at this number for a minute or two. Wow.

Maybe I should start another website…

August 2007
The big number inspired me to share my ideas about financial freedom, although I was still in a job.

But I knew that my contract would end on the 30th of November and that the 1st of December would be the day that I achieved financial and personal freedom.

So I started this financial freedom blog to share my ideas and help more people achieve financial freedom through home-based online businesses.

I also came across a nice niche while I was doing some keyword research in Nichebot. It was about water filters and related topics, so I registered my fourth SBI site and started to work on it.

The traffic and income still grew and I surpassed $8000 with $8361,17 total monthly income.

October 2007
My first month earning more than $9000 per month.

I was accepted in the Chitika premium publisher program, which allowed me to add Chitika Linx links to my vacuum site.

With some optimization tips from Ryan Travis (great guy!), my Chitika earnings surpassed, for the first time, my Adsense earnings – both over $3000.

I was getting smart-priced in Adsense, too, and I think I managed to get out of that by then. I’ll share my experiences with smart-pricing and how to escape it soon.

Total earnings for October : $9547,20

November 2007
This Financial Freedom Ideas blog started to get some traffic from Google, since it started to rank for the keywords that I am targetting with it: financial freedom, achieve financial freedom, financial freedom online and others.

(Hint; if you ever link to this blog, try to use the above-mentioned keywords in the anchor text. I’ll return the favor! )

As you can see, I promote mostly Site Build It, since I really believe that without the guidance of Ken Evoy, his Action Guide and the complete Site Build It package, you have little chance of really succeeding online.

I came across a few good products in my online journey and a few hundred crappy ones.

My mission on this blog is to earn money from affiliate links, only if I really believe that the products are worth what you pay for them.

So here’s what I used to earn $9302,11 in the month of November, 24 months after I bought my first SBI package:

Internet Marketing Tools I Use

1. Site Build It by Ken Evoy – Here’s a link to review of SBI 2.0 where you’ll also find a link to the first review I did. The best time to buy SBI is around Christmas where Sitesell.com offers a special 2-for-1 sale which is only once a year!

2. Niche Blueprints by Andy Williams – Andy is the real deal and has my highest recommendation. The niche blueprints give you already-researched niches with keywords, affiliate programs and suggestions on how to structure your website.

And Andy’s newsletter is one of the few that I still subscribe to and read every week. Most other Internet marketers just promote IM products without any really valuable content.

3. Nichebot by Jim Morris – Jim has put together a fantastic suite of keyword tools and I use it often to get more data from Wordtracker or to find good LSI keywords for my niches.

4. Master Plan by Charles Heflin – The Master Plan is that additional 20% of expert knowledge that Ken Evoy’s Action Guide doesn’t contain.

If it did, it would confuse beginners too much. Most of the information from the Master Plan can be found in SBI forums, but you wouldn’t know what to look for, right?

Highly recommended for beginners and experts.

5. Need-an-article by Scott Foster – I would give Need-an-article 4 stars out of 5. The articles can be bought for an affordable price and they are of good quality most of the time.

If NAA implements its promised Choose a Writer program, I would give it 5 out of 5 stars. (Update: The NAA did implement the Choose a Writer program and I use them very often.)

Monetization Programs I Use

1. Google Adsense – The easiest to implement and a solid earner. Has its pros and cons; I’ll share my experiences with Google Adsense in the near future.

2. Chitika – Chitika rocks, and so do all the people behind it. I’ve already shared my top 10 reasons why Chitika rocks and it was the best earner in this month where I made more than $200 per day on a few days.

3. Clickbank – the easiest way to promote digital products from other people, sell your digital products and get affiliates for them.

4. CJ – CJ is slowly becoming a good earner for me since I’m getting ebay sales through my vacuum site and an occasional sale through my conferencing site.

There are thousands of affiliate programs available, and you’ll be getting only one check, which is very convenient.

So that’s about it.

As you can see, it’s not that complicated, and with the above-mentioned Internet marketing tools, you have everything (with extra bonuses!) you need to build a successful website.

Besides the tools, you’ll need motivation and discipline to follow 2 simple steps to achieve financial freedom, working from home.

Thanks for reading my story, and don’t hesitate to ask a question or share your comments on this blog.

The feeling hasn’t settled in yet, but I feel an incredible relief and peace of mind.

My mind keeps going into the future to check what I HAVE to do and there is nothing. No pressure, no deadlines and no work that I don’t like to do.

The only things that I see in the future are things that I WANT to do.

I am moving from Thailand back to Slovenia in 4 days where I’ll celebrate my freedom and financial independence with my family and friends.

This New Year will also be a special one since it will be all about NEW beginnings. It’s like I can start writing a new chapter in the book of my life.

I sincerely hope that you have this same powerful desire to achieve financial freedom and become totally independent of a regular job.

I am aware that this achievement is a product of my perseverance and burning desire to free myself, but I have a great deal to thank Ken Evoy, the whole team at www.sitesell.com and many SBI-ers who shared their advice in the SBI forums.

Thank you all!

P.S. I’ve outlined my journey towards financial freedom in the 10-step process:

1. Freedom Starts In The Mind
2. 5 Reasons to Follow Your Passion Instead of Money
3. How to Make Money Online and Enjoy Freedom
4. Ken Evoy and Site Build It
5. How to Write Content That Attracts Visitors And Natural Links
6. On-page Search Engine Optimization
7. Make Your Site Known – Link-Building Strategies
8. Intelligently Monetize Your Website
9. Test and Tweak To Maximize Your Website Income
10. Enjoying Financial Independence And Making The Best Of Yourself

“If you think you can do it, or you think you can’t do it, you are right.” Henry Ford

Basically I asked for an earlier leave since there are only a few kids here at the academy and I would like to plan my USA journey from my home. The boss had no problems with that.

And of course, it will be nice to celebrate new year with my friends and family.

I am planning a series of articles for the last 10 days before freedom. They will show you a 10 step plan to financial freedom and how I got to this stage.

On another note, my October monthly earnings have grown for 10% since September so I was only $452 short of my monthly income goal.

It seems I’ll have to raise the bar again. So… What was my monthly income goal?

But if you then ask them WHY they want to make more money, you’ll often see a blank expression on their face accompanied with no immediate answer.

So many people get stuck in this more-money race that they completely lose sight of the big picture.

Think about it: money is either metal, paper, or numbers.

So what if you have a lot of paper or metal?

Does that make you happy? No, not really.

If you are after the numbers, they are only good for your ego, i.e. you can brag about them.

But other than that, the numbers in a bank account are just numbers.

The big picture of making more money lies in WHY you want to make money.

Why do you want earn more money? What are your goals? What do you want to buy with this money? What do you want to invest this money in?

The answer to that question is your real goal.

Chances are that you have been completely sucked into this money-making “competition,” that you are sitting behind your computer day after day just wanting to make more and more, and you are not living your life anymore.

I recently saw a video of a very successful blogger, who makes tons of money every day and he showed a video tour of his office.

At one point of the presentation he said,: “This is where I spend most of my day.”

So sad. Isn’t it?

That is where he will probably spend most of his next ten years. Why?

Just to make more money? To be a #1 blogger? To get the most traffic?

How are those things important to life?

Life is meant to be lived; it should allow one to experience new events, new people, new countries, new cultures …

It’s about having a great relationship with your partner and spending your time with people you like.

It’s about learning new things and challenging yourself with new goals.

It’s about pursuing financial and personal freedom and enjoying it when you get there.

It’s NOT about sitting behind a computer desk for most of your day and trying to increase the numbers on your screen.

And it’s not about trying to compete with your neighbours and other people just to be better than them.

As this article about millionares in Silicon Valley points out, there are so many people stuck in this money-making race, and they are still very unhappy.

Do you actually believe that having more money than someone else makes you a better person?

Set up some exciting goals of what you want to do with this money. Think about how you’ll feel when you are on your deathbed looking back on your life.

What did you DO in your life?

You may answer, “I sat behind a computer screen for ten hours every day.”

On the other hand, you may answer, “I became financially free, enjoyed life with my partner and friends, travelled around the world, grew as a person, served other people with my talents and effort and made the best of the the cards I was dealt when I came to this world.”

Make a choice NOW.

Find out how much time you have left and what you want to do with it.

Do you want to make more paper, metal, and numbers or live a life?

“All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”
– Gandalf to Frodo,
J.R.R. Tolkien, Fellowship of the Ring

That means that on the 1st of January 2008 I’ll be a free man.

My online income gives me the financial freedom to do what I choose to do and not be forced into some work that I don’t like.

Although I never really suffered teaching tennis in various clubs and academies, I always HAD to work.

I couldn’t take a break to see US Open if the whole club didn’t have a time off. I couldn’t travel to another place for more than a week and then I had to be back at work.

I will definitely stay in the tennis coaching since that is my passion and my expertise except I’ll be my own boss.

The online income provides me with freedom and I am not forced to work all the time. And I hope to grow my earnings even more although I’m not obsessed with money as many of the internet marketers.

Maybe it’s the American competitiveness or something…

Anyway, I came across this neat Countdown timer plugin which shows how much time is left before I become free.

You can check it out in the top right area of this blog.

So hopefully you’ll join me on this journey and set up a goal for yourself too to achieve financial and personal freedom as soon as possible.

Even though you may have enough, there is always the desire for more.

This, on the one hand, can drive you to really securing your financial freedom and thus your personal freedom.

But, on the other hand, you still work and work and compare yourself with individuals who earn even more than you and you never stop to actually enjoy that money and freedom.

I recently read an interesting article on the topic of money and happiness and I share the author’s views.

Actually, I not only share the views, I also enjoyed my money recently (hence no posts in the last four days).

My jailor boss was kind enough to grant me a four-day holiday, so I flew to Malaysia with my girlfriend (from Thailand, where I stay right now) to check out Kuala Lumpur, Putrajaya, and its International Fireworks competition.

Here are some of the photos:

And what I really LOVE about earning money online is that when I subtract all the expenses of the trip (air tickets for two, hotel, other costs) from the income I made from my websites in those four days (doing nothing about them), I earned $400.

In your normal job, not only does your income stop when you stop working, but you also spend some of your saved money.

When you are making money online, you might even end up in the black after you subtract your traveling and other expenses.

Have you started your journey to freedom yet?

And you probably think that when you make a lot of money, you’ll be happy.

The goal of this post is to open your mind a little a bit and show you the real path to happiness, so that you won’t waste too much time and energy working ONLY to earn more money.

Let me share my personal theory on what makes people happy and hopefully, you’ll see this making money thing from a different angle.

First, it is a fact that many rich people are unhappy. It is also a fact that many rich people were so unhappy that they commited suicide.

So just having a lot of money does not make you happy.

You may think, “Yeah, but I’m different. When I am rich, I’ll be happy!”

I am quite sure that this is not the case, so let me try to convince you otherwise.

Three things are necessary for your happiness. Without them you CANNOT be happy.

(Of course, many smaller factors also affect your level of happiness, and we’ll talk about them, too.)

1. You MUST do what you love.

There is no way around this one. If you have to be in a job where you do things that you don’t like, you won’t be happy.

It’s logical right? Not like = not happy

Many people blind themselves and say, “Well, it’s not so bad; I’m quite happy. I earn a good salary and spend weekends playing tennis, going to the movies, going out with my friends and…”

What they are saying is that if they are happy two out of seven days, then they are happy.

I am saying that there is a happiness with which you can be happy seven out seven days, and it’s a much deeper and more fulfilling feeling than this superficial, short-lived, flying high feeling.

You need to be involved in some kind of activity that makes you happy. Something that is your passion.

For me this was and is tennis. I used to watch tennis on TV for hours, although I was a semi-profesional volleyball player and I was studying electrical engineering.

I liked volleyball, my teammates and all the social parts of it, I hated electrical engineering and I was obsessed with tennis.
I could watch it for hours, and I could play it for hours without ever getting bored or tired of it.

You need to find something like this in your life and then STICK to it. Do whatever you need to to make this passion your main activity.

Your happiness depends on it.

2. You MUST make other people happy.

This one is often overlooked, and the main reason is ego – selfishness.

Although you might think that you just want things for yourself, you will realize sooner or later that we are social beings and we thrive on being appreciated and loved.

We must feel that we are NEEDED, for whatever reason.

As a tennis coach I get this feeling from sharing my experience with other people, and from their appreciation of my sharing.

It gives me great pleasure when people tell me how their mental game or their general tennis game has improved.

It gives me great pleasure when I receive e-mails from people who didn’t buy anything from my website, but enjoyed the free information I offer.

It is also the main reason I started this blog- to share my knowledge and help other people, even if I don’t always earn money at the same time.

—-
By the way, this is one of the reasons that blogs are so popular. It’s easy for people to leave their opinions and thoughts about certain topics, and this makes the owner of the blog very happy (hint ).
—-

It doesn’t matter what you do as long as you are USEFUL.

You can clean streets or hotel rooms, make pancakes or ice cream, be a waiter, make bicycles, sell juicers, repair vacuum cleaners…

Whatever, there are millions of things that people need on this planet.

And as long as you feel useful and appreciated by other people, you will find the second third of happiness.

Before you see the last third of happiness, entertain this question for awhile: WHY do so many wealthy internet gurus (and other rich people) STILL sell their services, make new products and work hard every day, when they could just replicate, add new websites and earn more passive income doing almost nothing?

Why?

Because they NEED to be appreciated.

How come Ken Evoy, the nr.1 guru, still works hard, posts almost every day in the SBI forums and keeps Sitesell.com running, when he could just build a passive online empire and enjoy Anguilla?

Yes, I know that some people never have enough and just want more and more and more. I don’t think Ken is one of those, and I know some internet marketers who show this greedy pattern in their e-mails.

But still, the main drive of most people is to be appreciated, to be useful, and that’s why they still keep doing what they are doing even if they have massive amounts of money.

Just think about all the IM names such as Russell Brunson, Mike Filsaime, Joel Comm and tons of other people who have incredible wealth, yet you still receive their promotions about home based business ideas, hear about new products they’ve developed and find their names all over the Internet.

Some of the reason is their desire for power and money; yet some of it is because of the two basic human needs: to help, and to be useful and appreciated.

You have this need to be appreciated, too; so before you jump into this making money thing, think about how you can earn money and, at the same time, be useful to people and actually be able to hear or read their responses to what you offer.

This will build the second pillar of happiness.

3. You MUST receive GOOD income – MONEY!

I do not believe in the theory that money is not important for happiness.

Maybe if you live in Tibet, stay in some isolated cave and meditate for 12 hours per day, then OK, you got me there.

But if you live in a modern society with cars, cellphones, the Internet, TV, computers, movie theaters, Disney parks, hotels, holiday resorts, airplanes, electricity, TAXES, schools and other things that complete the full package, then you need money in order to live a good life.

And you need a lot of money (what “a lot” is depends on your perspective, of course).

How much do you need? I say you need at least $5000 monthly to live a good, modern life. That’s $60,000 per year. You are not poor, you are not obscenenly rich, yet you can afford most of the pleasures that life offers.

(I’d be happy to hear what you think is a good monthly income in the Western world…)

But the actual key to happiness is not only HOW MUCH money you are earning, but HOW are you earning it.

The power of the Internet allows you to earn money effortlessly. It’s passive income, and money just keeps coming in day after day, even of you don’t do anything about your websites for awhile.

That is the real freedom: not only financial freedom, but also personal freedom.

Additional factors that make you happy

Of course, other factors also make you happy but, in my opinion, they all are less important than, or are consequences of, the three pillars of happiness discussed above.

The first of those is to be loved. I mean by a partner; whether you are straight or gay doesn’t matter.

As long as you have a special soulmate, a boyfriend, a girlfriend, a husband or a wife who loves you and whom you love, then you are adding to your happiness.

But know that before someone loves you, you must love and like yourself. How much you are able to like and appreciate yourself is how much someone else will be able to like and appreciate you.

And that’s why I believe that doing what you love, making people happy and earning good income precede being loved by someone.

Because the first three pillars WILL make you happy, and that way, you will automatically attract into your life partners who will love and enjoy your happiness, and make you even happier.

Another thing that makes you happy is health. It is, of course, the most important pillar of happiness.

No way can you be really happy if you have cancer and you know your life is going to end soon.

But I assume that because you are reading this your health is okay right now (or at least not too bad), that you are interested in learning how to become finacially free, and that you are not worried too much about your health.

But still think about it, and don’t let junk food and lack of movement spoil the happiness of earning money and being financially free by causing you to become sick.

In summary

Many big and small things make us happy. If your main goal is to earn money and you think that will make you happy, think about it some more.

Money, in my opinion, makes one third of happiness and, unless you do what you are passionate about (what your purpose is) and receive appreciation from other people for what you do, money will not make you happy.

Once you combine all three of these factors, many other things will automatically fall into place, and your life will become a joyous adventure.