For more info on the typhoon check out this article about the aftermath or this one, or google it.

The whole thing is terrible.
You can donate to help out at the Red Cross.

One of my customers forwarded me an email from one of her GUYS.

Dear sir and ma’am,

this is the daughter of [NAME]. sorry for no updates lately. i am now at the city just to email you. there is a calamity happen to our place HINAPLANON ILIGAN CITY. there is a huge flood happen to our place.

Thanks God that we are all alive in our family and there is no one in harm. right now, there is no electricty and internet in our place. and our was was damaged until to our 2nd floor. we will send you some pictures and videos to what happen to our place. it was very horrible.

we stayed all night until morning at the roof looking at the rising water. all our things were damaged except for our computer and laptop, we saved it so that my mother can still work on you ma’am. maybe this will be the last email until we haven’t recover yet. we will just email if have recovered sir and ma’am. we need your help and consideration sir and ma’am. until now, our house was full of mud because of the flood. and some of our neighbors and close friends died. thanks to God sir and ma’am that we are safe… thank you sir and ma’am. just see the news at our place HINAPLANON, ILIGAN CITY, it is the one of the major destructed place.

The most important thing to save was their LAPTOP!

If you have people in southern Philippines, consider sending money to help them recover.

I got a response back from someone saying:

Hello,
I signed up for [PRODUCT NAME], but I wanted to ask you honest opinion.
So many of these services get so little results. Is this service really effective?

This was my response

That’s a good question.

I’ve never tracked any of them. I don’t have time to track things like “does this one work for SEO or does that one?”

I just know that the more you do, the better results you get.

My GUYS do everything.

• They use backlinks ninja.
• They use UAW
• They use TG
• They use SEO Link Vine
• They use Linkvana
• They use …I don’t know…there are so many tools we use.com

So, is it effective? Yes.
Do I use it? Yes.
Will it ALONE get you results? I don’t know.

The reason I outsource is so I can use EVERYTHING!
NOT so I can try and figure out if one tool works over another.
I don’t care which one works…as long as we get results!

He also talked about “removing friction” from your business (and your life).
Things like:

• You sit down to work and don’t know what to work on
• You do keyword research once, don’t write it all down, and end up doing it again later
• You didn’t make a plan so you do it wrong the first time, and have to redo your work
• You don’t like the work you’re doing on your business, so you don’t do it at all
• Moving from one project to the next to the next to the next to the next…so you never follow through on any of them
• Worrying and dealing with the minute details of your business, instead of the big picture

The first half hour or so is a bit slow, but after that people on the webinar gave us GREAT praise about it.

If you want to join Marc’s system, here’s my affiliate link: My Affiliate Link to Join RapidFreeTraffic.com

After a long, painful process, I was able to successfully recover the account.

Before you read this blog post, let me tell you that one of the things I discovered was
Google’s account recovery process is 100% automated! No humans involved at ANY level.
More on that below.

In getting my account back, I learned a LOT.

Here are the things I learned about my account

1. My account was disabled/deleted because a hacker got into it.
   When I was finally able to recover it, during the “change your password process,” I found this:

   
   So I at least know the account was hacked. The first thing the hacker did was change my password and the account recovery email addresses, so it would be really hard for me to get my account back.

2. The hacker also deleted my Youtube account and added 2 more of his own to my account:
   

   Jerk.

   I did manage to get my youtube account restored, but he deleted all the videos out of it and I can’t recover those. Good thing I make TONS of backups of things.

3. The hacker deleted all emails in my inbox (I had probably 15 emails from 10 people in my inbox, 5 of which were to remind me to do something).
   If you were expecting a reply from me recently…sorry…your email got deleted.
   Keep your inbox clean!
4. I still don’t know how he got into my account. I had a very strong password. I can only think of 3 scenarios:
   1. a brute force password attack (unlikely)
   2. I used the same password somewhere else and he hacked into some other database that had that password (most likely). My own stupidity.
   3. I logged into my gmail account over an unencrypted connection on a public wifi network and he got my username/password (unlikely)

What I learned about Google’s account recovery system, and what it means to you!

I learned a couple awesome things about recovering a deleted google account during this process…a couple things Google doesn’t want you to know (or…things they don’t tell you).

1. If you’re not prepared, forget it
   If you’re not prepared to recover your gmail account and can answer the questions google asks, basically you can forget getting your account back. They ask obscure things nobody would ever know (not even you).
   Here are 2 screenshots of the page they make you fill out. I took these so I could remember what I had put in. My personal info is blurred out.

   These are screenshots of the google account recovery pages
   
   

   To recover your account, here’s my take on the difficulty:

   • frequently emailed people – easy
   • labels – slightly more difficult
   • invitation url – difficult depending on how you got it
   • all questions about orkut and blogger: if you answer yes they want to know the url of your profile and when you started using it – almost impossible to find
   • 4 services you use – Impossible, unless…you have a backup of your gmail account in a searchable location like zoho mail.
     I was able to find these things by searching through my zoho for things like “calendar,” “docs,” “orkut,” …
     It still took a LOT of work.
   • Account creation date – Impossible without a backup
2. Google’s account recovery system is 100% automated!
   No human will ever even see your account recovery attempt.
   Don’t try to put identifying info into the fields for a human to look at. It will just hurt your chance of getting your account back.
   You really just have to figure out how to give enough accurate info to get the computer to say “Yeah, this is over 80% correct, give the account back” or whatever percentage they have.
   The reason I know this is:
3. How Google responds to your account recovery attempts
   Google says it may take between 24-48 hours for them to reply to you.

   The first time I submitted the account recovery form I got an answer back in 44 hours.
   It was a NO.
   The second time I submitted the account recovery form it took 40 hours.
   It was a NO.
   The third time I submitted the account recovery form, it took 2 minutes.
   It was a YES!

   Now, I don’t know this for sure, but here’s what this tells me:

   • You submit your info to Google and a computer validates it against the data the computer knows about your account.
   • If the computer matches the info and it’s correct enough, it fires off an email immediately to you saying “You can change your password now!”
   • If the computer looks at your info and it’s not correct enough, it waits 24-48 hours before sending you an email saying “NO, you’re screwed for a while longer!”

   If it were humans looking at the requests, why does it take so long to say no, but only 2 minutes to say YES! (I literally got an email from them within 2 minutes of submitting the successful request).
   It’s done on purpose!
   Google doesn’t want to give too many chances to people who don’t have the right info.
   If you get a NO back from Google after submitting the account recovery form, and you don’t hear back from them within 15 minutes, start gathering more data to recover your account.

This whole thing was a big, painful, learning process.

Things I’ve learned and things I’d do differently

• Make backups of everything – I already had pretty good backups. In the future I’ll have rock solid backups.
• Prepare for the worst early – I was slightly prepared. Now I’ll be better prepared.
• Don’t use a free gmail account – I’ve since bought a domain and set up my email through google apps.
• If you want to migrate your email and your docs to another account, I highly suggest this email and data migration company, MigrationBox.com.
  Their docs migration needs a little work (only try to move 100 docs at a time)
  but their email migration is solid. It moved 175,000 emails of mine no problem.
  I chatted with them for a while and they gave me a 40% off coupon for my readers:
  JOHNSYNC 40% Off Coupon
  What a lifesaver MigrationBox was for me. I now get all my old emails in my new email account. Everything seamless.
  They’re also good for:
  • moving between gmail/google apps
  • moving between just about any email service providers
  • syncing email accounts (ummmm…backup anyone?)
• NEVER use the same password for your email, facebook, bank, anything else you care about – I now keep one “junk” password, and like 6 completely secure passwords that I don’t use anywhere else.
• This is a bit extreme, but I’m now keeping an email account that I use to sign up for everything. I won’t sign up for things with my real email address anymore. That way, my real email address isn’t out there in too many databases, and it doesn’t have any passwords associated with it in case I slip up somewhere.
  The other email account just forwards to my main one so I still get all the emails.
• UPDATE:This post on lifehacker by adam pash details a new security feature google is JUST NOW rolling out (they’re about a week too late for me…although I’m now using it).
  Amazing…as I was going through this nightmare, I had wished google would have some sort of 2-step verification system.
  I also wish lastpass had the same thing!

Maybe I’m a bit extreme.
Maybe not.
What I do know is that the internet isn’t going anywhere, losing your email account ISN’T fun, and hackers aren’t getting dumber.
It’s getting more and more common. I’ll try to stay ahead of the game from now on.

Please learn a lesson from my misfortunes and mistakes!

UPDATE: I got my gmail account back. Read this post to find out how. But first, continue reading what I learned before getting it back.
THIS IS DIRECTLY RELEVANT TO YOU!

Part 1: My Google (Gmail) account is gone

Tuesday night at 10:06pm my phone couldn’t connect to my Gmail account.

I tried the password…it didn’t work.

I came up to my computer and tried to login…no luck.

After putting my account into the “Forgot Password” system I got:

WHAT!!!

That’s right: “No account found with that email address. Please try again.”

I tried again. and again. and again. and again. Nothing.

So I searched:
No account found with that email address. Please try again.

Turns out lots of people have had their gmail accounts deleted (or disabled)…with very little success getting them back.

Seriously?
OH MY GOSH!!! WHAT IS HAPPENING TO ME!!!

I’ve had my account for 7 years. Never deleted a message. I’ve gotten 170,000 messages in that time (I’ll tell you how I know in a minute).

I can’t login to my google docs, google calendar, google voice, youtube.com, or google sites where I had LOTS of documentation for my business. They’ve all been deleted (or disabled…yet to be determined).
I can’t access anything!

What the heck was I thinking trusting so many things to a company who has a ZERO policy:

• ZERO tolerance
• ZERO warning
• ZERO communication
• ZERO acceptions
• ZERO phone numbers

Don’t get me wrong…google provides the best services. There’s a reason I’m using all these things. But there has to be a safeguard when you’re using a company who will disable such vital information without warning or repercussion. Be warned.

In the end I found this link:
http://www.google.com/support/accounts/bin/request.py?ara=1
which is an account recovery link for if your account has been disabled.
Go through that link right now! WRITE DOWN EVERYTHING THEY ASK FOR BEFORE THIS HAPPENS TO YOU!

Fortunately for me, I had read a blog post about this a while back so I had written lots of this info down and put it in a drawer thinking I would probably lose the paper before I needed it.

I have the info. It’s not as complete as I’d like (or as complete as google would like as of right now), but I have a lot of info. Google has already said NO to my first request to get my account back. I didn’t have enough information in my first try. I’ll update this blog as things progress.

Right now all my email is just bouncing back to people who email me. My email address no longer exists.

What I *think* happened?
I think a hacker got into my account. Either

1. they did what they wanted and then deleted the account
2. they sent a bunch of spam, google caught it and disabled the account

It’s also possible that I did something google didn’t like (I mean…they wouldn’t tell me if I had…), but I don’t think I did anything different than I have for the past 7 years…
In any case, I’ll never know because even IF I get my account back, Google will never tell me what happened.

Part 2: What I learned from having my gmail account deleted

First: I learned (again) that with google, there is 1 chance.
If something goes wrong, there are no warnings, no communication, and very little shot at a second chance. Even if you’ve done nothing wrong.
That being said, I still believe google puts out the best products and I’m still using them as I reconstruct my life.

Second: MAKE BACKUPS OF EVERYTHING YOU HAVE!!!
I had backups of my gmail and google docs. My life isn’t over.
I backup in 2 ways.
Here’s how you backup your gmail account:

1. Zoho.com will give you a free email account and they’ll POP your email from gmail. I’ve had them doing this for years. Zoho is amazing.
   As of right now I have over 175,000 emails backed up in zoho.
   
   Zoho has also been invaluable in figuring out all the info google wants to get my account back.
   **UPDATE**: I just read this post which details some ways to backup google services. It also says that using POP3 to grab all your emails is against google’s TOS. Be careful before you do it. I can’t find anything saying it’s against their TOS, but we know what happens with TOS violations…
2. Backupify.com is an amazing backup service.
   They backup all kinds of online data including gmail, facebook, flickr, blogger, and picasa.
   I also had Backupify backup google docs…so I have a copy of all my docs (that’s a big deal…over 4 years of documents).
   With Backupify, they automatically backup your data and you don’t have to worry about it. It’s an amazing service.
3. Here are more ways to backup gmail:
   • http://www.gmail-backup.com
   • http://www.mailstore.com/en/mailstore-home.aspx
   • http://gmailkeeper.com/
   • http://www.labnol.org/internet/backup-gmail-emails-online/13477/
4. There are lots of other ways to backup gmail. Just search google. Those are the two I use.

Third: I will never again use a free email address that I don’t own.
When someone else is in control of your contact location (your email address), when they decide to take it from you, you’re out of luck.
From now on I’ll have my own domain and have Google Apps handle the email.
Now, if something happens to my account, I just change my DNS settings to somewhere else and my email address doesn’t disappear.
Because I have backups of everything, if they disable my account, I can just reconstruct everything.
Yesterday I bought a domain from Godaddy for less than $8 (search “godaddy promo code” and use a coupon when checking out). I have already set it up in Google Apps and have a new email address.

Fourth: Dealing with passwords
I shouldn’t have to say that using an insecure password is just playing with fire. At some point you WILL get burned. That’s just stupid.
Most people use a secure password, they just use the same password for everything.
I’m fine with that…to a point.
Now I know you should always have a different password for the things that matter to you:

1. email
2. facebook
3. bank
4. paypal
5. godaddy (or domain registrar)
6. hosting
7. …figure out what’s important to you

Use a different secure password for each of the important ones.

Fifth: Prepare for the worst with ALL important accounts
I’m in the process of going through the account recovery steps for things that are important to me (especially the google account recovery process). When I lose another account, I want to be able to get it back fast.

Sixth: Lastpass
I love Lastpass. I love that I have all my passwords in one place, and that I can find out all the services that I have passwords to just by looking through the list. I also love that I can change my important passwords as often as needed and I don’t have to worry about remembering them. Lastpass does it for me, across all my computers and my phone.
Before you hate on me and say I’m stupid for using an online service to store my passwords, look at the security Lastpass uses. It’s pretty darn good.

Conclusion

If you have a gmail.com address as your primary email you’re playing with fire.
I’m not saying don’t use gmail. I’m just saying:
Make backups. Lots. Often.
Make sure you’re prepared to go through the recovery process of your important digital data.

They watch american movies and TV shows. They listen to american music and radio.

They know english better than they think they know english.

For example, I got an email from my good friend Robert Murgatroyd the other day. He forwarded an email that one of his Filipino employees had sent him.

Not everyone you find will have such amazing english like this, but there are plenty of Filipinos who have perfect english.
You can find people to hire at OnlineJobs.ph. Be sure to look at the advanced search to search for multiple skills at once.

A great way to show appreciation is to come meet your team.

On March 19, 20, 21, in Boracay Philippines I’m putting on an outsourcing retreat seminar.

This seminar is NOT FOR FILIPINOS!

It’s for Americans, Australians, Brits, Canadians…
Basically, for people who want to understand why the outsourcing they’re doing to the Philippines is working SOOO darn well.

And…if you’re not currently doing it, you can come and find out exactly why it will work so well for you.

At the event I’m going to teach some stuff about how I do outsourcing that I’ve never talked about before. Stuff that will literally double the productivity of your GUYS.

There are a couple reasons I’m doing this:

1. because when we did it in Costa Rica 2 years ago it was sooooo fun for everyone who was there
2. because it gives me a chance to meet other people (you) who are succeeding in their businesses
3. because it’s a tax deductible vacation
4. because I’m already going to be in the Philippines on vacation with my family for the whole month…
5. because (this is a big one) it will give lots of people an excuse to come and meet their GUYS and make their outsourcing efforts WAY more effective.

It’s going to be 3 days of networking, learning, fun, and face-to-face question answering.

We’re also going to go on an excursion together which I will announce later.

The hotel where we are doing it can accommodate 70 people for the event. I already have at least 6 of those spots taken (me, Dan, speakers). This will sell out.

I’m finalizing all the plans for it right now, and will make it available next Tuesday.

The Outsource Retreat is available here

In the email he gives you an example of a profitable affiliate site he has!

I’m reading the new edition of the
4 Hour Work Week by Tim Ferris and
I want to share a few thoughts with
you.

First, is the new edition worth buying
if you already own the first?

If you’re a big fan, sure. Why not.
I’d have to compare the books side by
side – and I haven’t read the complete
second edition so it’s hard to say
exactly what the new info adds.

Instead it’s a reminder of principles
that have influenced my work.

If you want to believe 4 hours per
week isn’t enough to make six-figures
or more, go ahead. I could tell you
otherwise but you probably wouldn’t
believe me otherwise.

Here are some quick notes you might
find useful.

DEAL – Define, Eliminate, Automate and
Liberate. That’s the outline of the
book.

Define – what do you want? Almost
cliche we’ve heard it so much but when
you take the perspective that you work
as much as you do because you’ve been
too lazy to come with enough reasons to
NOT want to spend most of your time
working . . . well that’s a paradigm
changer for me. I could probably work
1/4 the hours I do and my income wouldn’t
change (it might even grow).

AND I could have a really kick-ass life,
all made possible by my Internet marketing
lifestyle.

Eliminate – what if the goal is to reduce
and simplify your life instead of acquiring
more information, more responsibilities,
more crap?

People usually look at me like I’m crazy
when I tell that that after the initial shock
of losing everything in a house fire passed,
I felt the weight of the world off my
shoulders. Plus, the really cool thing is
that instead of living with a couch Tara
hated – but I was attached to because I paid
a ridiculous amount of money for it 15 years
ago – we got to go buy a new one we both liked.

Man, life is so much easier than we make it
when we’re just willing to let go and eliminate
the things which hold us back.

“The stuff you own ends up owning you.”
- Fight Club

Automate – The end goal of your online business
should be to automate it. Need an example?
Go see http://abundancecourse.net

It’s simple.

1. Find quality product with affiliate program.

2. Setup up site with 6 pages. Page one is
squeeze page, page 2-6 are information that
leads into a sales pitch (recognize the
similarity with how Nanoblogger was sold?)

3. Create autoresponder follow-up series that
highlights points from your 5-lessons.

4. To capitalize on competition, it’s great if
the affiliate program is 2-tiered (this means
even if you decided to try to copy and swipe my
campaign you can assume all the cost of running
ads and I’ll still make a 10% commission for
your efforts – thanks man!)

5. Setup Adwords campaign and drive traffic.

This particular site was created FIVE YEARS AGO.
Except for moving the site from a static HTML
site to WordPress 2 years ago for Google Slap
reasons, I have virtually not touched this
system otherwise.

December check = $2400 from one affiliate
program. Oh, and then there’s the list.

Sure, I’ve left out plenty of key details here
but this isn’t rocket science.

Plus I have ZERO customer support and all that
other good stuff that comes with being an
affiliate.

Finally, Liberate – This is all about creating
the conditions in your life that mean you’re not
tied down.

The crazy thing is discipline means freedom.

You must have systems and you must have standard
operating procedures so you can hire someone
else to do it all for you.

I’m getting better and better at this.

Final Thoughts -

The place to start here is defining the life you
want.

Me? This year I want to get into better shape
than I’ve been in since I was 20. I don’t want
to sit on my ass all-day anymore.

I also want to have the freedom to spend more
time at home with my family. I want to be a part
of educating my kids and enjoying them fully
while their still little.

And I want them to have adventures they’re going
to remember for the rest of their life.

Next -

Evaluate what makes you money NOW. Not dreaming,
hoping, etc, but what do you KNOW works?

That should be your focus – do more of that and
waste none of your time doing stuff you *hope*
might work for you.

If you’re trying to free yourself from a J-O-B
then you may need to find someone who has a
system you can put some faith in.

(I know someone who has one

Thing is, if you’re going to put your faith into
that system then put ALL of your faith into that
system and work it until you succeed with it.

Don’t give up when it comes to work.

Don’t give up when something high gloss grabs
your attention.

DECIDE to make it work. Cut yourself off from
any other possibility other than making it work.

NOW -

Don’t just close this message and move on.

You deserve to have what you want as much as any
other human on this planet.

Take 5 or 10 minutes and think about it.

Define what you want and evaluate what you know
to work.

There is no magic pill to swallow here – doesn’t
exist.

All the best to you – X

PS – Thanks to all those who wrote to congratulate
on Noel Patrick’s birth. I just haven’t had time
to write everyone back yet. The little man is
doing great and I’m happy to have this time with
my family. When our first was born I had a J-O-B
and was called back to work when she was 3 days
old. That SUCKED. I’m grateful to be free of
that.

If you’re not already on John’s mailing list, go here right now and subscribe:
http://blackbooksblog.com
He’ll mail you like once a month (IF that much), and when he does, it’s pure gold!

1. Try To Hire Someone To Do Everything

Here’s an actual email I got this week

So wait…you want a programmer, graphic designer, webmaster, who is fluent in english and likes to write, who can write sales copy, autoresponders, forum posts, ebooks, and reports.
Oh yeah, sure, let me help you find that person!
Oh wait, that person doesn’t exist.
Hire someone to do a specific task! Then train them to be able to do everything.

2. Hire A Project Manager

Filipinos don’t know how to run your business for you.
Don’t try to hire a project manager first along with 6 others, and expect that “project manager” to manage those other 6 and get things done. They don’t know how.
YES! They’re very capable of being project managers, but very rarely will you find someone who has been involved in enough internet business that you can just turn a project over to them and have them manage other people for you.
Eventually…yes! After you’ve trained them and they’ve seen how the business is supposed to work.

3. Hire Someone And Ignore Them

You have to train the person you hire. They don’t know how to run your super-niche internet marketing business. Don’t expect to hire someone and just let them go do everything themselves. Expect to spend some time working with them.

4. Ask Someone To Do Work Before You Offer Them A Job

This is my favorite.
I get an email that says

Can you please tell me why I can’t successfully hire someone, they all keep disappearing.
Here’s the email I send them:
I want you to start by doing a trial task.
Write 20 articles, submit them to article directories, do a bunch of directory submissions for me, build me a website and write all the content for it.
Then, I’ll evaluate your work and see if it’s going to work out.

hahahahaha.
Yeah right!
They’re not going to do work until AFTER they know they have a full-time job working for you.
Don’t give them a test task. Give them a job. Tell them the first month is a probationary period.

5. Expect Immediate Results

This is a long-term proposal here. I’ve been doing it for 4 years. You’re not going to see the same results in 4 days.
Don’t expect it.

6. Search and Search and Search For The Right Person, Then Email Them

Hey John,
I searched for 3 days and I found the perfect candidate. They can do everything you said wasn’t possible back up in #1 on this blog post. Why won’t they respond to me?

Why?
Because they already have a job and they’re loyal to their current employer.
Instead of trying to find the perfect person up front, try contacting 20 potential fits, see who responds, then sort through them.

7. Set The Wrong Expectations

When you hire them, don’t tell them you expect them to be totally self-directed and to work without supervision and to be able to figure everything out on their own.
If you do, you’ll never hear from them again.
Try telling them

I expect you to try to figure things out, but I understand that I’m going to give you tasks that you won’t know how to do, and sometimes there won’t be any way to figure it out. In these cases, please know that I’m here to answer your questions. I’m here to help you. Please don’t hesitate to ask me when you get stuck.

Otherwise, when they don’t know how to do something they get embarrassed and will never talk to you again.
If you set the right expectation with them about asking for help, they’ll ask, you’ll help, and all will be happy and good.

These aren’t hard things to avoid…you just have to know about them to avoid them.
There’s more good stuff like this as a member of ReplaceMyself.com.