Some might say that it’s been a resounding success. My view? It’s been one of my biggest failures to date. Let me explain…

If you’ve been following me here for the last few months, you’ve probably gathered that it’s been quite the process to extract myself from under the cover of Location Independent. For a while there, I lost myself. To begin with I saw the project as a good thing:

• I’d created a strong brand
• I’d stuck with a project for longer than my customary 6 months
• I’d created something way bigger than myself
• The project also happened to make some decent money

But somewhere along the way I lost the plot. I also lost myself. And it’s been an enlightening, awakening and frustrating process to find myself again.

As I’m now coming out of the other side, I’m gaining many insights into what the whole experience taught me…and boy did I learn a lot. Which is exactly why I’ll never regret it, nor would I choose to have done anything differently even though I can now see many things I could have done better. Here are a few of the biggest lessons I’ve learned…

More does not equal better

That goes for domain names, blogs and websites. At some point I decided to split the site off from the single domain locationindependent.com and create a network of sites – that included locationindependentprofessionals.com, locationindependentparents.com and more. I stand by the original logic of doing this, however from a management perspective it was a total nightmare.

Every re-brand had to be replicated across all 5+ sites (and if you know me, I like to refresh things frequently!), every update to the technical platform (wordpress, plugins, themes) had to be updated on all 5+ sites and don’t get me started on trying to maintain link integrity and ensuring everything linked to the correct stuff on each site.

It took me the best part of 2010 to bring it all back under one roof and one domain again into the site it should have been all along.

Lesson learned: Don’t over-complicate something, thinking that bigger and more is better. Why have three sites if one will do?

Complex problems have simple solutions

Because of the way we created products, it meant we had all sorts of complex affiliate, partner and joint venture agreements. Keeping track of sales and payments was a nightmare. I searched and tested practically all the affiliate software programmes out there simply to find one which could handle the various agreements we had in place.

It was either going to cost a fortune to implement one that didn’t get the best reviews or require me to do it all manually every month – I opted for the latter. It was an ongoing headache.

In hindsight, the simplest solution has been to get rid of the complex agreements, entirely removing the need for complex software to manage them!

Lesson learned: If you can’t find an external solution to help, then maybe it’s a problem which needs to be resolved internally.

Your values are everything

When I originally started the site, I had a vision for it to help people like I had been – corporate workers who knew they didn’t want to be there but who didn’t know there were any more creative options available to them. Somewhere along the way, this audience got lost – I never reached them.

Instead the site and community grew with an audience that, I grew to realise, didn’t share many of the core values I hold and live by. This caused some personal friction for me – but I never really stopped to think about it, yet alone address it. Much of last year was about realising and addressing this.

While there was always mutual respect, the cognitive dissonance caused by sharing differing core values but similar goals with many of the people in the same community and niche, became a bigger and bigger problem for me on a deep, personal level.

Lesson learned: Think very carefully and mindfully about the company you keep and the people you’re attracting…not at a superficial level but at the deepest, core value level. That’s the only level at which it really and truly matters.

You can’t force the awesome

Ugh yes, yes I did just say “awesome” but in this case it fits. Sorry. I realised a few years ago that many people in the online world like to jump on the latest bandwagon. From my perspective, it was really very flattering…I’d managed to create something that people thought was cool enough to want to start up their own blogs about it and spread the word.

The problem is that it soon gets to be a crowded niche with everyone saying the same things over and over and over again. It gets boring, it gets tired and even I got sick of the same old, same old blog posts and issues being debated over and over.

As a natural non-conformist and contrarian, I fell into the trap of trying to be more awesome, to be different, to be innovative and to be trailblazing – instead of just “being” all of those things, I tried to force it. It worked for a while but it was exhausting – as it always is when you’re not being your true, authentic self.

Lesson learned: As soon as you stop being true to yourself, you may as well jump off the bandwagon and leave it to everyone else. In the short term, you can fake it – but in the long run, you’ll never make it.

Know when to let go

At some point last year I recall saying to Jonathan, “I’m so tired of pushing. I just want things to flow…to happen. This doesn’t feel fun any more.”. That’s when I began to realise it was time to start letting go.

For 3+ years, the Location Independent project had been my baby and my primary focus and I’m proud of myself that I focused so exclusively for that long on one thing. I proved a number of things to myself with the project:

• That I can make something happen from nothing
• That I do have the focus to stick with something for longer than 6 months
• That I can play with the big boys, if I really want to (and yep, it’s a pretty male-dominated arena still)

But it became clear that the fun and passion had gone and it was time to let go. That didn’t come easily – you can probably tell I’m suffering learning from the after-effects of such a big project. I had some help – namely the support of a small, trusted group of online friends – who gave me the courage and strength to let go and move on.

Lesson learned: You’ll know deep-down when it’s time to let go. Trust your instincts and follow them when the time comes and they tell you it’s time to release.

Earlier in the post, I referred to this project as one of my biggest failures – that’s not a negative. I believe we learn the most from our failures – from how we respond and react when things don’t go according to plan and I see failures and mistakes as opportunities to grow.

Making a statement like that sounds like I’m more awesome than I am (ugh, there’s that word again). I’m not – this hasn’t always been the case. I’m a recovering perfectonist, after all. But perhaps one of the biggest things the location independent project has taught me is this…

What you perceive to be your route to success, could well be leading you down the path to failure. Either way, you’ll end up where you were meant to be all along…the important thing is what you learn from it and take forward with you on to your new adventures.

NOTE: The Location Independent site is still there, it’s still one of our projects and I still add resources to it (I enjoy writing the monthly Odyssey newsletter which is where most of the action happens at the moment). It simply isn’t my primary focus anymore…that honour goes to a number of other projects which will, for the moment, remain secret ;)

I’ve often thought how much more productive I’d be if I didn’t have constant access to high speed internet – and indeed my theory was proved correct when I frustratingly couldn’t connect to the wireless network when we first stayed in Grenada.

End result?

I wrote a book (which is still being considered by a NYC publisher who has said they’re “VERY” interested in publishing it…but waiting for a contract before I celebrate).

And this time round in South Africa although we do have wireless in our apartment here, the router annoyingly keeps going down and when we do use it, it gobbles up the data usage (how ridiculous is it that the biggest package you can buy is 3GB?!?) and means we have to keep paying more.

So our main solution at the moment revolves around us spending large chunks of our days in internet cafes…and even more so at the moment as we have a number of web/blog build projects on our books and some tight deadlines to meet.

What it means though is that we’re being hugely productive when it comes to our connected time – and to do this, we make detailed lists of all the tasks we have to accomplish each time we connect and disconnect as soon as we’ve done these.

Additionally, given the current power crisis in South Africa (I know, I know…it’s not painting a good picture of the place for LIPs), it’s making us seriously think about risk & contingency planning for the business….something that not too many small businesses take seriously enough.

So what do you do to ensure your business can keep running in the event of a power cut or an internet cut?…And how much more productive and focused would you be, if you had to pay for every MB of internet data you used?

Photo by cyrus

I’m up, I’m up, I’m up…it’s Christmas morning and I woke up bright-eyed and excited to give everyone (all 2 of them) their gifts.

An hour later and I’m still waiting because they’re all still in bed!! Daniel went to a party last night and we had a cosy night in so there’s no excuse. WHY AREN’T THEY UP?!??

We’ve got bacon sandwiches and Bloody Marys (D’s idea of course) lined up for this morning to help stretch our stomachs before our super extravagant feast at the Ritz Carlton for lunch and then an afternoon of blobbing on the beach.

Enjoy your day, however you’re celebrating it!

P.S. If you want a little gift, hop on over to the LIP blog, let me know what you’re doing and you’ll get a copy of my ebook, X Marks The Spot! Merry Christmas :-)

If you would like to get a sneak preview of the first 2 chapters, then all you need to do is this…

1) Click “Book” on the navigation bar over on the LIP blog (or just click here to go there)

2) Enter your name & email address to join the LIP list (of course, I will never, ever sell or give away your details to anyone else…and membership of the list entails being on the receiving end of freebies, tips & anything else vitally important to LIPs not spammy, hype-y, sales emails)

3) Keep an eye out in your inbox over the next few days for details on where to go for the first 2 chapters.