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I rarely post on Saturdays because it's the lowest traffic day of the week and... it can be tough to write every single day.

But... I want to make an effort to post every single day. I've been reading Proverbs a lot and so I decided to post one proverb each Saturday that I really liked and could write about. Not only will this help me read more frequently, but could lead to some interesting discussions.

So today is from Proverbs 13:20

I think this verse is really true for life and business.

If you desire to be more successful in business, try to place yourself around those who are more successful than you. If you want to be wise, find those people and "walk" with them.

I know that as I have continued to be friends with people like John Chow, Shoemoney, and others who are very successful, I have learned things that have helped me to not only grow my blog, but my business as well.

And that's one of the main reasons why I am going to be attending Elite Retreat this year. There are going to be a ton of really smart people that I will be able to network with and come up with new and interesting strategies.

This is also why you should be reading Affbuzz.com!

Enjoy your weekend!

© JonathanVolk.com - A Blog about Making Money Online, 2010.

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I've been reading a few REALLY good books recently. I honestly have never been much of a book reader until this last year or so. Most everything I read is online material but some material, you can't find online.

Recently, I've discovered two new books which have quickly become my favorite books that I have ever read.

The first is the book by Tony Hsieh called Delivering Happiness. This is one of my all time favorites. I nearly read the entire book in two days because it's such an easy read and very addicting to read. Essentially it's a complete history of how Tony went from entrepreneurial kid to selling his website to Amazon for $1.2 BILLION.

The next book is equally as awesome to me. It's called The Blessed Life. This book is all about the importance of tithing, something I am a strong believer in. I've read this book a good 2 and a half times now. Highly recommended, especially if you're a Christian.

Next up on my reading list are 4 books by the same author. Basically, after watching a bunch of material by Frank Kern and hearing that he learned a lot of his stuff from Dan Kennedy, I just had to go out and get a bunch of Dan's books. I have not started reading them yet, but I'm REALLY looking forward to it.

A few books I have reviewed / written about in the past:

• Predictably Irrational - This is one of my favorite marketing books. It has a ton of great tips - the decoy method for example - that just make so much sense and can help you make all that much more money.
• KaChing - KaChing is a book written by Joel Comm. It's a book similar to John Chow's Make Money Online book and provides a lot of great basic information on starting out making money online!
• John Chow's book - Make money online - This is a book that John Chow wrote. It's really a starting guide to making money online through making your own blog. The part about this book that I really enjoyed was reading a comprehensive, detailed history of how John went from regular guy to one of the most popular bloggers on the internet.
• Integrity - Another good book that was given to me by my Pastor. Really good book!

© JonathanVolk.com - A Blog about Making Money Online, 2010.

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This past week Maria and I went to visit our family in Ohio. Though we both were born, raised, and met in California, our parents grew up in Ohio – talk about coincidence!

We were able to see my grandparents and her mom’s siblings (she is one of ten, whew!), and had a blast playing Euchre and eating Marion’s pizza. (Ohio favorites - haha)

But before I get into details, let me tell you my horror story of plane flights. I swear this was the most difficult vacation I have ever been on! First off, we arrived late to the airport due to some wacko walking on our public train system, BART, resulting in all the San Francisco trains being shut down for about 45 minutes.

We missed the check-in deadline by 15 minutes, proceed in getting lectured by the ticket agent (*rolls eyes*), and told that there are no other flights that could get us to Ohio that day. We talked to about three other agents (one telling us we could pay $1000 one-way ticket, another telling us we’ll have to wait till the next day, and the third basically having no clue what to tell us) before finally someone simply put us on a later flight free of charge – why this couldn’t have happened three hours earlier, I’m not sure!

After sitting for twelve hours at the airport, we caught the red-eye to Chicago/O’hare, then grabbed a 6am flight into Ohio. At this point I was just happy we arrived! But, the adventure wasn’t over yet. Somewhere along the way they lost both of our suitcases. We finally get our luggage the next morning after being in our clothes for 36 hours (although it felt like an eternity)... yuck!

Basically we are finished using United from now on, lol. I think I'm going to be using Virgin Airlines. I've heard it's really great.

Despite all of the trouble, it was actually a blessing in disguise – my wife and I haven’t had that much one-on-one time in awhile, and we actually had a pleasant time passing the hours together .

Once we got there, we had a blast. I hadn’t seen her extended family ever so it was really great to meet all of them. We got to see some family history and visited the Wright Brothers’ Bicycle Shop where Maria's great great grandfather worked with Orville and Wilbur. We also stopped by the cemetery where my Mom-in-law's mother, father, brother and sister are buried.

Pics:
- Wow... This was something I have never seen before... Automatic seat cover. You wave your hand in front of it and it automatically changes the seat cover. Lol. Ok... maybe I love technology a little too much.

This was so gross and amazing that I had to take a photo of it. Seriously, two grilled cheese' with a hamburger sandwiched in between. No, I didn't get one. Maybe when I stop caring about my heart!

We went to the college that my great uncle and father in law went to.

Apparently Bob Evans is another Ohio staple. My dad actually worked in one when he was younger. Haha. I took this for him.

At one of the family's house. I love how much land people have in Ohio. Getting any land in the SF Bay area is super expensive.

Wright Brothers Bicycle shop.

Family just hanging out.

© JonathanVolk.com - A Blog about Making Money Online, 2010.

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This last week I went to Ohio for a family reunion (my Mother-in-Law's side of the family). This trip turned out to be one of the best little vacations I have been on but it certainly had it's share of terribleness.

Let me start from the beginning.

Day 1: We get up and head to Bart, which is a subway like train that takes us directly into the San Francisco airport. Because it takes a bit of time to get through the SFO airport, we leave a good 2.5 hours before our flight leaves to ensure we have enough time to get through.

On the way to SFO however, some protester decided to walk on the tracks and basically block all trains from going past a certain stop. Delay, delay, delay. We end up basically getting stuck in a traffic jam due to all the trains being turned around and show up to the airport 30 minutes before our flight leaves.

Unfortunately for us, the cut off for check in is 45 minutes. Dang!

So we try to fix it and arrange another flight. Problem is, I booked the tickets via Hotwire. The airline (United) actually brokered the flight through 2 different airlines or something.

We go talk to someone after waiting in an hour long line at United. They can't help us. They tell us to go to this other airline because the flight was brokered through another airline.

So, we take the train to the next terminal and wait in another line. They send us to another airline. - Another hour wait. They cancel our tickets and offer us to rebuy tickets for another flight @ almost $600 per ticket for a 1 way flight. I said, no thanks.

Not knowing what to do, I head back to United and wait in another 1.5 hour line. By this time it's almost 6+ hours in the airport and I wanted so much to go crazy. But my great wife helped me keep my sanity.

I go up just asking for any help and the nice lady simply says, ok... Changes the tickets to a red eye flight and that was it. Not sure why they didn't do that the first time. This lady was great - wish I grabber her name.

Now, because the flight was later that night we wanted to go back home and relax until the flight. Unfortunately, the lady said we needed to wait another couple hours before we could check in. So we end up going to get coffee at one of the airport coffee places.

After a few hours had gone by, we went back to check in. Unfortunately we had to go through the special "something is wrong" line to check in - you know the one where they have 2 people working for a line of 30+ people. So after waiting in the line for what seemed like an eternity, we were checked in and had our tickets.

We couldn't leave for home because by time we got home, we'd have about 30 minutes of time before we'd need to head right back. So we waited.

Finally we get on the plane. Phew, that was such a pain. Oh wait... delays. We get to our transfer flight in Chicago. Lightning storm delays. Bleh... haha.

During the flight, I try to sleep but this little kid next to me decided to sleep with his head on the arm rest. During his sleep he continued to push his head farther and farther into my stomach / chest making for a night long battle of me trying to push him away. I mean, he was like 5ish years old so I didn't want to be mean but it really tested my patience. Haha.

Finally, we get to the Dayton airport and wait for our bags. Except, the bags never came. Ok great.

We head over to the assistance counter where we find 1 person working and a line of about 20 people.

After waiting for about an hour or longer, we finally fill out some paper work so the airport can deliver our bags to our hotel.

The bags don't come until the next morning. Yup - 48 hours in the same clothes.

All of that aside, the trip was really great! Hahaha. I had a great time meeting my wife's family, hanging out with my grandparents (who are also from the same area), and just enjoying the down time.

One last story:
When I finally got my bag, I was excited to hook my laptop back up so I could sneak some quick work in. Except... I couldn't find the charger! Oh no. I had forgotten my charger. So I go the whole week without charging my laptop or using it.

When we are packing and getting ready to leave to go back home, I notice a pocket I forgot to check. Yup, I had the charger the ENTIRE trip and didn't realize it. DOH!

Anyways traveling can suck but this trip made all that suckage worth it.

Photos:

© JonathanVolk.com - A Blog about Making Money Online, 2010.

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Hey! It's been a crazy week for me as I helped both prepare everything to move into our new offices (<-- pix/post soon) and also took a few days to be a counselor for my church's youth camp. It was such a great time!

It's always crazy to realize just how much I do each day for this online business because when I get back... it seems like a never ending pile of work to do.

A few times a year however, you just have to take the time off. Life goes by too quick to not take time off and just focus on friends, family, and FUN.

This year's camp was really the best year I have gone. I have been going for many years, both as a camper and a counselor. We have some guest preachers come in and overall just have a great time. One of the fun things we do is have theme dinner nights where everyone in the camp dresses up during dinner. Here is one of my favorite pictures of my wife dressed up for "80's rocker" night.

So - now I am back, refreshed, and ready to work again. Time to catch up on all of those emails, forum posts, and Facebook questions.

If you've been trying to get ahold of me these last couple days... Sorry about the delay - I am going through all 1000+ emails now.

© JonathanVolk.com - A Blog about Making Money Online, 2010.

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Would you like to know how I made $33.11 and got a FREE iPhone 4 at the same time?

I bet you're wondering if this is just a link bait... truth is, I REALLY did make $33.11 and got a free iPhone 4 and you can too!

The other day I was researching the beautiful iPhone 4. I've been an iPhone fan boy since the first gen iPhone. (Yea... I paid $500 for the original iphone...)

I was convinced that I was not going to get the iPhone 4 because I had purchased the 3GS the day it came out... What a great phone!

That's when I saw an ad for a place where you can sell your iPhone via a site called Gazelle

I found out that by selling my iPhone 3GS, I would make $222 from Gazelle! This site is awesome because you answer a few questions and they give you an estimate right away. After researching the website for a bit, I found that 85% of the people who send in their phone get the quoted price. If you don't get the quoted price and can't find a price to agree on, you can have the phone sent back to you for free.

Further more, if I chose to be paid via amazon gift card, I would make an additional $11 dollars! So, I went ahead and purchase the iPhone 4 (just $199) and am now selling my iPhone 3GS for a net profit of $33.11.

Yup, simple as that. Pretty epic if you ask me!

Now, I'm going to be taking EVEN MORE pics now that I have a 5MP camera phone and 720p video phone!

PS > To my affiliate managers: No, I will NOT do video chat with you! Haha

© JonathanVolk.com - A Blog about Making Money Online, 2010.

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If you've been following my blog for a while, you know I follow and admire the Zappo's CEO Tony Hsieh. I've made a post about Tony before.

I found out today from a post on Chris' blog that Tony wrote a book called Delivering Happiness.

This book looks like it's going to be a good one as it gives detailed background information from Tony about the founding of a BILLION DOLLAR company.

Anytime you can find out how someone who has run a company worth that much has done things, I think think it's worth investing your time into.

Anyways... I just got the book and will let you know how I like it once I am done reading it.

© JonathanVolk.com - A Blog about Making Money Online, 2010.

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