People ask me why I do what I do. So here goes.
1. My purpose in living is to help people thrive. Everything I do is driven by it.
I get the world’s biggest kick out of finding a solution to a problem that makes it so that someone else can flourish and prosper. You can see it in all my career choices–nanny, Â teacher, tech support, internal team support. Â Once I started working with PHP and MySQL, I got hooked. I was a web programmer. Then I was an SEO, and finally I got roped into doing PPC marketing. But every turn this job takes, it takes only because of this:
I love finding that my clients are succeeding because of something I did for them that they couldn’t do themselves.
Well, Web Design, SEO and PPC are the internet’s best position to be in if you want to help others. Which I do, passionately.
2. I love my family and friends. And I want them to succeed.
I don’t know what I did to deserve it, but nearly everyone I know and love is an entreprenuer. These people are passionate about their ventures. Their little corner of the world is a small to medium sized business and they are working hard to carve out their niche. Because I care about these people, I want to see them thrive. Sometimes I even get paid for the pleasure of handling a bunch of SEO mumbo jumbo for them – helping with all kinds of work that they don’t understand how to do and didn’t realize they needed.
But the point is:
I have been able to help nearly all of these people I know and love with my web expertise over the years.
3. Â I believe in a free market. And in today’s world I believe that “free market” = “internet”
OK, I do realize that I risk sounding political here. And I am generally allergic to politics.
But let me just say that the only place left in the world where the little guy really has a chance to thrive in business and become a major player is here. Right here in the flowing rivers of commerce, in the marketplace of ideas, etc.
It may have been said a lot, but it’s true. The internet is the best and most workable free market ever invented. But, what’s rarely mentioned is that this is the last bastion of the free market – one of the only  places where this holds true with wild abandon anymore. Without the web, I’m not sure there would still be much small business happening at all. And so I’m deeply thankful for it.
I want to help people thrive here. Not Office Depot or Kinkos, but the little guy who as a corner copy shop he wants to have found in local search. The guy who knows your name and throws in the smile for free.
Yes, I’m one of those. I’m sentimental. Please don’t tease me about it.
But I want that guy to succeed, and I know how to help him. So here I am doing it for a living. It comes down to this:
The free market is online, so I’m online helping it out.
4. I love a challenge. And this is a challenging technical field that requires continually learning new tools for my craft to stay competitive.
Every day something changes about how the web works. Aside from major shifts in the algo, there are also minor shifts; new technologies, improvements in the semantic nature of the web, new tools, new marketplaces, and new ways to accomplish my job. Every day.
And I love that. I love to be challenged to stay abreast, to make things work in an increasingly complex environment.
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Why are you doing what you do?