As I surfed the web today thinking about personal growth, this article on near death experiences really popped out at me: http://www.seekeronline.org/journals/y2008/dec08.htm. I’d always thought that you can’t experience death unless you cross over this barrier of no return; hence, anyone who has experienced it do not live to tell the tale. Yet, here are all these people, telling their tales, so maybe there’s something wrong with that logic

The book The Power Of Now, seems to spark some interesting ideas on the issue (this is based on the first 15 pages or so, since this is all the Amazon preview allows and I can’t find an ebook anywhere and it’ll be a while before the physical book gets to me). The author was in a state of depression until he one day thought along the lines of “I don’t like myself like this”. He then proceeded to realize that the “I” and the “myself” are two different entities. “I” is the actual him, the observer, while “myself” consists of the actual body, including the mind and thoughts that come along with it.

This does appear to be quite true based on my own experience. I have always been able to observe myself as I think, run, or cry. Even while my mind holds angry thoughts at things, another part of me just sits and quietly observes that, as if watching a movie. It doesn’t really judge or react, it just watches.

Which brings us to interesting point #1: If the actual you and the body you inhibit are separate, and the exact point at which you can leave the body is in a very near death state (but seems like one where you can actually come back to “life” from), then with technology, it seems like we can experience this longer. So 100 years from now, maybe someone can be in this “dead” state for an hour or two, instead of 5 minutes, and then be brought back to life again.

In fact, if technology can reverse some cell damage, etc., maybe you can actually induce this state. What actually happens in the cases of those near death people? They probably weren’t breathing, their hearts stopped pumping blood, and the cells just sat around in their own juices for a while. So it seems like if we just deliver an electric shock to the heart, stop it for maybe 5 minutes or so, there’ll be a decent chance that your body is “dead” enough to easily leave it and explore for a bit. Then reshock our heart (hopefully this part will work), and you’ll once again be alive. In 1000 years or so, maybe this 5 minutes will be more like 60 minutes, and the chance of damage to your body would be .00001%.

This could actually be a way to travel, or maybe it’ll be some very in depth spiritual journey. After all, if at some point, you can spend half your time alive in a “dead” state, freely doing out of body things, it kind of starts blurring the lines between being dead and alive. It’ll also be extremely interesting to see just how this “spiritual” world interacts with the “real” one. It seems obvious that you are connected to this particular physical body, but why this one, and how? Can you also connect to other physical items? If you can be “dead” at will for 60 minutes, there’s quite a bit of room for experimentation

Of course, if the body and the “observer” is truly separate, then who says that you have to die to separate yourself from the body anyway? What exactly would be the force that is gluing you to this particular body? Some people say, absolutely nothing, and supposedly, out of body experiences have happened. It’s certainly easy to doubt the validity of the claims, because we have not been through the same things. However, it also seems hard to disprove. How do you relate to the experience of a person who says he left his body, when you haven’t had the same experience?

It does seem like something worth looking into some (although, maybe not too much as it does take effort to be alive, and you’ll 100% find out about this when you die; so it might be best to just kind of enjoy life while it lasts. I guess, unless you’re an engineer who kind of gets his kicks hacking things ).

Also, it makes one wonder: what exactly happened before birth? How exactly did this “observer” get intermingled with this body? And why can’t we remember anything before being born?

Maybe, just maybe, we always were. The memory is actually part of the body you are inhabiting. To the “observer”, maybe time has no meaning, and it has no memory. Our current body started perceiving the time and having these memories after it came into existence. It’s kind of like we always were, and then the body added a new dimension of experience, complete with senses, thoughts, feelings. It’s got a lot of stuff going on, and we just kind of forgot that we are also this spiritual being.

It kind of reminds me of this Star Trek episode Demon and Course Oblivion where the crew of a ship got duplicated by some materials on a foreign planet. The materials then took shape and thought that they were the crew. This just kind of forgot who they were, and started to go on the mission of the crew. It was only when they started dying that they realized, hey, this crew member I think I am isn’t actually who I am.

Who am I? I guess I’ll find out!

For whatever reason, I started reading the chapter on The Sixth Sense: http://www.eskimo.com/~ghawk/TGR/CHAPTER14.htm

where Napolean Hill underwent the exercise of imagining people he respected every night and holding a council with them to gain their opinion. Soon enough, these characters became so real in his life that he stopped for a while. And then this experience happened:

These meetings became so realistic that I became fearful of their consequences, and discontinued them for several months. The experiences were so uncanny, I was afraid if I continued them I would lose sight of the fact that the meetings were purely experiences of my imagination.

Some six months after I had discontinued the practice I was awakened one night, or thought I was, when I saw Lincoln standing at my bedside. He said, “The world will soon need your services. It is about to undergo a period of chaos which will cause men and women to lose faith, and become panic stricken. Go ahead with your work and complete your philosophy. That is your mission in life. If you neglect it, for any cause whatsoever, you will be reduced to a primal state, and be compelled to retrace the cycles through which you have passed during thousands of years.”

I was unable to tell, the following morning, whether I had dreamed this, or had actually been awake, and I have never since found out which it was, but I do know that the dream, if it were a dream, was so vivid in my mind the next day that I resumed my meetings the following night.

Even though I have read various parts of this book countless times, this is the first time I’ve noticed (and felt drawn) to these paragraphs. Two factors really jumped out at me. 

When I came over this sentence, I had to reread it over and over again:

 If you neglect it, for any cause whatsoever, you will be reduced to a primal state, and be compelled to retrace the cycles through which you have passed during thousands of years

As I read it, it occurred to me that people gel together for a purpose. When there is a goal, a direction, a purpose, people start to overlook their differences in the interest of promoting that purpose. But when you just put a group of people together and ask them to stay together, they inevitably lose motivation. This has been truth in terms of the forums I’ve ran as part of WM Media, as part of my dating experience, and just friendships in general.

When there is a goal, people of simliar interests gel together to accomplish that goal. Once that is accomplished though, they just disband until something else comes up (or the relationship just deteriorates as common interests fade). Just think college friends, high school friends, etc. Do you really have a desire to talk with people in your past on a regular basis unless you want to reminesce about the past or have something in common to do right now?

This has some astounding implications for me. First, on a macro level, it reminds me of a previous post Why Sex Is The Most Important Emotion. Not only does sex drive you to understand other people as mentioned in the post, it gives you a desire to exist. In fact, the emotion of sex might very well be the desire to exist. It had always confused me before when I read the book as to just what the emotion of sex is (especially with the whole chapter on sex transmutation). Now I think I know. It’s not something that can be satisfied by repeatedly having sex, just as it’s not that satisfying to never have sex. That’s why Napolean Hill keeps suggesting that it’s important to have both sex and sex transmutation. I think it’s also what Dale Carnegie calls the feeling of importance. The emotion of sex. A desire to exist. A feeling of importance. Purpose.

On a micro level, I’m reminded that cells and other little units within ourselves are just like people. They have their own capabilities as individuals and must work together as a whole for a purpose. The more concrete and solid your purpose is, the more they will work together. Remember that you have the power to control what the purpose of the whole machine you call your body is.  But that would mean the key to a long and fulfilling life is simply…. you really want to.

As I’d sent out a batch of resumes to three recruiters who had called me, I immediately got a first and second round interview with the company Salesforce.com, located in San Francisco.

I hadn’t had an interview since college, and it’d never turned out quite well when I did, so naturally, I felt a bit apprehensive at the prospect of another interview. For some reason, while I was at Cornell, I never seem to have satisfactorily answered the interviewer’s questions!

Luckily, it seems like my personal skills have improved somewhat and the first interview went quite well. I was interviewed by a CMU grad student who’d worked there for 1.7 years, so it was more of a “connecting with a stranger project” more than an interview since I was a Cornell graduate having worked at BEA for 2.5 years! The technical questions were surprisingly not too bad, as I just indicated the normal route I’d take to solve the problem, instead of trying to come up with the solution as I’d done in college.

This propelled me to my second interview, with a more senior staff member. Here’s where things got interesting!

As I believe being straight up with my intentions is always the best policy, I simply told him that my main focus is on my own company WM Media and that I’d like to have a job there in order to expand my skills. Naturally, he asked me about my focus with WM Media and asked me what I’d do if I was faced with hiring such an employee. I replied that we do have contractors that do one job and then leave, but apparently that wasn’t what they were looking for.

The interesting thing about that interview is that the person on the phone was also very honest and straight up. Additionally, he talked about how the success of a startup is based on the motivation of the employees and that our purpose in life is to create value for people. If my ultimate goal for creating value is through WM Media and not Salesforce, it doesn’t seem like we’d be on the same path.

I was very surprised by the depth of that discussion and that person’s understanding of motivation and life. Unfortunately, I didn’t quite get his name as it was pretty hard to spell and pronounce, but I was truly impressed by the type of person he was. If everyone at the company had that thought process and energy, salesforce.com would definitely be a stock buy

Later, the recruiter called me back and said that the person who interviewed me said it was a very interesting interview, but ultimately I wasn’t a good fit for the position, which I whole heartedly agreed with.

This made me think about my motives for interviewing in the first place and I felt that I was mistaken to have gone on the interview.. It was kind of like dating a bunch of people that you didn’t really have much interest in just because you should date. It’s not fair to the people you’re dating (and the company you’re interviewing with) if you’re not actually interested in that position that much!

As I thought about this, I declined the other two interviews that were scheduled.

It made me realize that I should respect the time of the interviewers and focus on things that are much more interesting to me, such as WM Media and my blog. And if a right job comes along, it wouldn’t be that hard to convince the recruiter that I’m the right one for it! This is one of those cases where my honesty about my intentions has kept me from going down the wrong path and focusing on something I truly enjoy and have passion for.

As an addendum, out of the three leads, I was surprised that I was scheduled for three interviews. If you’re looking for a job, I’d highly recommend word of mouth over anything else!

When I first heard the news, I’d felt shocked as I didn’t expect a layoff. After all, I was maintaining a decent chunk of the code, so it seemed like there should be some need to have me around! As things stood though, I wasn’t quite sure how to react.

On one hand, the severance pay was really high. Most of the people seemed to want to get a layoff so that they can get the severance package. On the other hand, I was still in the US on a H-1B visa and needed company sponsorship in order to continue working (or so I thought). As a result, I just sat there for a few minutes, feeling a bit stunned.

This is where being an INTJ seems to be very helpful! From my perspective, it didn’t actually matter much how I felt, only what I needed to do! “So what are my options?” My brain immediately launched ahead.

Well, aside from the overhanging problem of being possibly deported from the United States, the layoff was a good thing. I get a huge severance package and get to move on to a new project that probably would interest me more than the one I did at BEA! Not to mention I’d probably get a big raise and another sign on bonus, so things weren’t exactly bad on that front! Additionally, my other option was to work on my own company WM Media, which I’d wanted to focus on more anyway!

Yet, having struggled for so long in the US for a chance at a green card, this doesn’t seem like a particularly good turn of events! Therefore, the first priority is to figure out just exactly how long I have!

With the help of my girlfriend, we immediately dove into Google to see just exactly what my status was. While doing that, I forwarded my resume to a few job leads provided by my coworkers and manager, just to get the ball rolling If you’re curious, here’s it turned out: Warren Wong’s Resume!

After hours and hours of research, we finally figured out what my status in the US was! Because my I-485 (Adjustment of Status to a permanent resident) application had been pending for more than 180 days, I was essentially free to work anywhere! I had an EAD (Employee Authorization Document) card which allowed me to work on any job as long as the job classification was “same or similar” – so basically, any software engineering job! Furthermore, I am allowed to work on any side job, as well as be self employed! That means I can be an employee at WM Media (my own company), and work on my blog as a side income!

After discovering this, I suddenly felt so free! After years of struggle, I am now free to devote my attention to anything I want and do anything I want! On top of that, I get a pile of cash while I take my time to figure it out!

Not bad for a layoff!

One particular day, as she laid on my lap, I started humming an old tune that I knew as a kid. I only knew a few phrases from the music, but it comes to my mind from time to time. I had no idea what song it was, where it came from, or where I’d heard it. I’ve often hummed it by myself and wondered just what it was.

As the notes escaped my lips, my girlfriend’s eyes suddenly widened as she asked in surprise, “How do you know that tune? I know it too!” At that moment, I felt like a little kid in Shanghai again (we are both from there) singing the song. It’s from at least twenty years ago, and I haven’t heard it in just as long. What exactly was it?

Luckily, my girlfriend remembered some of the lyrics from the song. And thanks to the power of Google, it wasn’t long before we found a rendition of it:

http://music.sina.com.cn/yueku/m/363131.html

As we listened to it and focused on the lyrics, it’s literally as if we were two little kids back in China. I felt alive and inspired. Tears came to my eyes as I thought about the brighter tomorrow that the song sings about and I felt a surge of motivation and compassion. At that moment, I felt I could forgive anything and accomplish anything. All my troubles suddenly melted away as I focused on creating a better tomorrow.

This incident reminds of just how powerful music can be as a source of motivation. It has been listed in Think And Grow Rich as #4 in the list of positive motivators – right below love, sex, and a burning desire!

Indeed, this has not been the first time that I have been moved to action by music. It’s probably the only thing that kept me going at the end of a run as mentioned in Singing While Running. It allows me to temporarily remove myself from this reality and concentrate on a greater purpose. It makes me feel connected and part of a greater whole.

Not only that, but singing does have some physical benefits too as it relases endorphins just like exercise does. During the period of life in college when I wasn’t actively involved in some musical group, my emotions were more volatile and my purpose in life was less clear. However, as I started singing again, my emotions became much more stable and I felt more inspired.

As I thought about this, it dawned on me that music has a powerful ability to focus our thoughts. When singing or listening to music, we can become completely engrossed in the lyrics and rythm to the exclusion of everything else. It allows us to be immersed in a specific set of thought patterns. Since thought creates reality, this is an extremely powerful form of influence! Few things have the power to completely suck us away from our problems and worries and focus on a greater purpose!

It’s no wonder it’s listed so high in Think And Grow Rich!

As I woke up in the morning, I’d practically forgotten about the box I’d put up. It had been up during the middle of the night – so it was unlikely that anyone would even have noticed!

However, as I checked my email, the first message that I saw was a paypal donation for $111! This took me completely by surprise, as both the timing and amount was quite unexpected. A rush of feeling greeted me as I saw the identity of the donor – who else but my loving girlfriend?

As feelings of warmth and happiness passed through my body, I caught another email from her through the corner of my eye. Eagerly, I opened it. In it contained what is probably the most romantic gift I’ve ever received.

It was an emailing describing how much she loved me and appreciated my work.

As I read the email, I felt so warm, loved, supported, and happy!

The degree to which it filled my heart with meaning was quite surprising to me. I’d viewed the donation box as just an additional form of monetization, but with this gift, this blog has taken on a new level of meaning for me. I felt truly appreciated and very responsible and motivated to produce more content! If I don’t write some articles on a regular basis, I would feel a bit guilty for letting my readers down! Try getting that kind of motivation from adsense earnings!

This makes me think about working together, motivating employees, and getting along with people in general. If this simple gesture of appreciation and love can bring me so much motivation, imagine what it can accomplish when applied on a larger scale!
When two people feel like this, they are in complete harmony. There are no fears or doubts, and each is motivated to do his or her best! Everybody just works as hard as they can towards a common goal, and things get accomplished at an astonishing rate.

Such a simple letter.

Such an overwhelming effect.

Have you expressed your appreciation to your loved ones today?

That has been the way it is for most my posts on the website. However, as I write some of my entries on my way to work and on my way back from work, I sometimes have to stop in the middle of an entry when the train arrives at its destination. When I pick it up later though, I don’t always remember what I was thinking at the time!

For example, I’d started the How To Deal With Worrying entry on my way to work today (incidentally, it was a holiday and there was no one there!) and started a new sentence with the word “Maybe” before I got off. Unfortunately, as I tried to pick up where I left off when I got back home, I just couldn’t quite figure out what the rest of that sentence is supposed to be! The irony is, I remember thinking about picking it up later and distinctly remember that this would be an obvious trigger word for me to continue that thought later! Whoops, guess that didn’t quite work out!

Therefore, there seems to be a huge difference between writing half an article, stopping, or just writing the whole article at one time. So many new ideas come to my head when I am writing, but it seems to take a while to get into it. When I stop and pick up, it takes another 10-20 minutes before I can get back to the same state I was in before I stopped. On a 40 minute train ride, that context switching time is quite expensive! Those two half articles don’t quite add up to just one article while sitting still!

In fact, this is a general issue for everyone I think. Especially for complicated work like programming, context switching can be a very important issue. If it takes you 5 minutes to get into a fixing a bug or writing a program, being interrupted a few times an hour can have serious consequences on your productivity. Not to mention that when you realize you haven’t been getting much done, your morale might suffer and you’ll get even less work done!

Just sitting here writing these three articles, my brain has automatically come up with three more ideas! I could probably just sit here and write 10 article, and I wouldn’t feel drained at all! When the creative juice gets flowing, I guess it really flows!

What I have been doing recently is jotting down unique ideas and experiences that come up and then writing about them later. However, I have found that there is some difficulty when I actually get to it. I remember the general idea and the experience that triggered it, but sometimes, an effort is required to recall that experience in its entirety. Oftentimes, that experience is not fully recalled and some important details slip through. Whereas right now, the words just seem to be flowing. I guess when you actually have something to say, it’s not all that hard to say it!

This makes me think that I should perhaps change the times during which I write my articles. Perhaps, I’ll dedicate some blocks of time every few days to writing a couple articles instead of trying to squeeze it into the 40 minutes on demand. Or maybe I’ll just start writing when I think of something instead of just jotting the idea down.

After all, it’s so much easier to write in the second situation and the quality of the entries are of much better!

We’ll see… maybe a lot more articles coming on whatithinkabout.com in the near future!

Over the last month or two, I distinctly remember hearing that message many, many times. Additionally, there have also been numerous times when there is some car broken down on the tracks and we had to wait there for what seemed like hours! What was going on? Only two months ago, I’d noticed that these trains are almost always on time! How come all of a sudden they seem to always be early or late?

This is a very interesting case of perception. Two months ago, I wasn’t wondering whether the train was early or late. I got to work and focused on my attention on work. I got home and was happy to jump on my bed. As a result, even if the trains were late, I probably didn’t notice!

However, ever since I wrote that article and the engineer thom responded with some insightful comments, I have been looking for evidence of what he says! And that is exactly what I found! Trains are suddenly showing up late. We’re suddenly waiting at stations because we’re early. We seem to constantly have to take bus bridges because one track or another is broken.

Yet, this is the same track with the same light rail service! Unless something weird has happened in the last two months, all this is simply in my perception of the situation!

When I was focusing on work, my brain probably did not retain information about the train schedules. As a result, nothing the trains did really made it into my memory banks. I probably just remember getting to work and getting home and concluded that the trains run on time.

However, as I focused on the train schedules and why they arrive on time, this information stream started becoming relevant! Train delays and announcements that went in one ear and out the other before suddenly got stuck in the middle. “Hey, that’s contrary to something you’d written before”, my brain tells me. For the last two months, this is all I remember about the trains as its smooth running has become “irrelevant” information.

It makes me wonder just how many other situations this applies to. There is just simply so much information floating around in the world that nobody can really process all of it from all the different angles. So each person really just sees a little piece of the situation based on their values and their understanding of the universe. People’s perspectives really are very, very different.

It reminds me of that story about the blind men touching an elephant (yeah it’s kind of a corny and cliche example, but kind of applies here). One guy grabs the trunk, one guy grabs the tail, another guy grabs a leg, etc. and each describes the elephant differently. It sounded grossly exaggerated to me at the time, but based on this experience, maybe that’s not nearly as out of proportion as I thought it was!

Incidentally, as I’d just finished writing How To Deal With Worrying, this experience seems even more relevant! It is even more important to focus on solutions rather than the problem. If you focus on problems, you’ll just start to see problems everywhere. If you focus on solutions, then you’ll see solutions everywhere and things will seem so easy to solve!

Same information, different perception, different feelings.

Sure sounds better to be the second guy though!

The thing to analyze in these situations is just why exactly the decision was made. Making mistakes is not that big of a deal as long as we learn from them. After all, there are only so many major mistakes! If we learn from them and don’t repeat them again, it’s only a matter of time before everything is “fixed”!

So what made us decide to offer $2700 for a website that we didn’t do much due diligence on?

Well, as mentioned in the previous post, we had just concluded a $38,000 deal with this particular web development firm. They had indicated that they were interested in a long term relationship. Additionally, the quality of the sites we got were quite good and the general attitude of the company is one of integrity where they want the customers to be happy.

We can see the conversation that resulted in a checkup:

(9:22:39 AM) asheesh: hope the sites are doing well and you are happy?
(9:22:58 AM) Warren: yeah.. pregnancy site is doing well.. very happy with it
(9:23:23 AM) asheesh: Thanks
(9:23:34 AM) asheesh: and how about the Payday one?
(9:24:07 AM) Warren: hmm.. that one is doing pretty bad so far
(9:24:15 AM) asheesh: hmmm
(9:24:17 AM) Warren: no search engine traffic at all hehe
(9:24:24 AM) asheesh: really?
(9:24:27 AM) Warren: like mabye 5-20 visits / day
(9:24:30 AM) Warren: yeah.. weird
(9:24:31 AM) asheesh: and income?
(9:25:24 AM) Warren: actually 5-9
(9:25:28 AM) Warren: < $1/day I think
(9:25:35 AM) asheesh: its still in the nascent stage, might take a month or so to generate results
(9:25:44 AM) asheesh: but I am sure it will
(9:25:54 AM) asheesh: still if you want to change your mind
(9:26:02 AM) asheesh: you can ask for a refund
(9:26:06 AM) asheesh:
(9:26:20 AM) asheesh: We are not interested in short term gains
(9:26:42 AM) asheesh: hope you recall I told you about this before you purchased it
(9:27:05 AM) Warren: yeah.. I definiately remember you told me about it
(9:27:14 AM) Warren: Apparantly I didn't listen too well hehe
(9:27:19 AM) Warren: Hmm.. I"ll talk it over with my partner
(9:27:26 AM) asheesh: you can change your mind if you want to
(9:27:28 AM) Warren: Your dedication to long term value is really reallly admirable!
(9:27:40 AM) asheesh: or keep my offer
(9:27:46 AM) asheesh: wait for 60 days
(9:27:58 AM) asheesh: and if you don't see any major change
(9:28:04 AM) asheesh: you can give it back
(9:28:44 AM) Warren: cool.. that sounds very reasonable
(9:28:55 AM) asheesh: we are here for long term my friend
(9:29:12 AM) asheesh: actually the immediate gains at times are not visible
(9:29:24 AM) asheesh: but this site has a good potential
(9:29:35 AM) asheesh: do some promotions
(9:29:38 AM) asheesh: we will do some
(9:29:47 AM) asheesh: and we will see results in about 2 months
(9:29:57 AM) asheesh: and you have a no risk offer
(9:30:01 AM) Warren: really appreciate it!
(9:30:03 AM) asheesh:
(9:30:06 AM) Warren: sounds great hehe!

As you can see, our perceptions of the web development firm was correct - they were interested in a long term relationship and didn't want us to lose money! They brought up the topic of how the website is doing, indicating a genuine interest in having us do well. Not only that, but they offered to take it back because we weren’t happy with it!

It suddenly struck me why this decision was made. We’d gone ahead with the deal anyway despite their warnings that the revenues may not be so good currently. We did that because we trusted our feelings in the integrity of their company! They said they didn’t want us to lose money, and we believed them!

This would not have been a type of decision I would make or understand a year ago, but it makes a lot of sense now. Our goals are aligned in the long term (web development and investment in web properties), so we’re better off with each other than without! Why jeopardize that by “screwing” each other? That’s the main point of a mutually beneficial relationship – there’s stuff that benefits us both and that’s why we’re talking in the first place!

As a sign of returning the gesture of trust, we decided to keep the website for 60 days and try out their offer. If it doesn’t work, we’ll return it to them with any ad earnings we’ve made from it – a no lose situation!

Of course, just because we did make a good decision in this particular case doesn’t mean we should dismiss the lesson in the other article! We do still need to be careful and remember to do our due diligence. Just because one experience gives two sometimes contradictory pieces of advice doesn’t mean that either of them are any less valid!

Growing up, I had some interest in collecting stamps, so there is some familiarity with this topic. Over the course of a week or so, I researched the various rare stamps and built the website. Then, I went out to related websites and exchanged links, promoted on forums, etc. After only about a week, my website was already #1 for the search term “famous stamps” on Google!

Of course, not a whole lot of people actually search for “famous stamps”, maybe a grand total of 2 or 3 visitors per day! Nevertheless, I was happy at my accomplishment! Next, I decided to try harder and go for the term “rare stamps”. That one took a lot more effort, but it did eventually pay off as I hit #1 for “rare stamps” a few months later. Eventually, I also promoted the site for “postage stamps” and now, “stamps”.

That’s actually going pretty well, as the website is #4 for “postage stamps” on Google, and page 3 for “stamps”. Bright future ahead!

From all these search terms, the website gets about 150-200 visitors/day with a very low bounce rate (indicating that people found exactly what they’re looking for and want to see more). That is why I was extremely surprised to see that over 4000 visitors visited the website in about 2-3 hours of time yesterday! That’s almost 3 weeks worth of traffic! What was going on?

My first thought was that it’s probably some sort of social bookmarking traffic. After all, what else could send so many people to a website in such a short period of time? Since Google Analytics hadn’t updated their data yet, I checked my adsense account as I knew that social bookmarking traffic wouldn’t yield a lot of money. I was pleasantly surprised however, as adsense showing 10x a normal day’s earnings in only a few hours!

Tick, tick.

Tick, tick.

I waited eagerly to see where this new source of traffic had come from. Would it be a recurring source of traffic? Is it just a one time thing? Where on earth did these people come from?

Tick, tick.

Tick, tick.

Finally, a few hours later, the analytics data updated and I saw the source of my traffic – 4000+ people had searched for “rare and valuable stamps” on Yahoo and clicked through to my site, in the span of 2-3 hours!

That just caused more questions… what on earth is going on?

One guess is that maybe Yahoo did some sort of special TV coverage on rare and valuable stamps? Maybe people just flocked to yahoo to see what the show was talking about?

Maybe you have an idea?

Or maybe this’ll just be an unsolved mystery.

Either way, it was certainly a good day for my postage stamps website!

Incidentally, this is a good example of how doing something that creates value for people can bring unexpected benefits. I certainly didn’t have to ask anyone to give me money here, nor did I have to ask anyone to make a show about stamps. However, because the website was of value, those people came to me because they wanted to it!

Another reminder of a good business lesson: Make stuff people want and tell them about it. They’ll come