I’m a guy that likes a process. I enjoy procedures to maximize my time. I love sayings or mantras to help remind me how to maximize my efforts and stay on a path.

I’ve been in the technology sector for a long long time working in various areas – development, networking, server administration, etc. One of the first sayings I adopted was “start from inside out”. Simple saying, but I definitely see it applied in other areas, etc. Basically, the idea is this – you start from the closest point to the furthest point while debugging problems. For instance, your internet is down. I would first see if *all* applications can’t see the internet (browser, email, etc). Then I would see if the network cable was plugged in and link light is there. I would then check the switch.. then the modem.. then ping different areas of the net.. then eventually call the ISP. What happens a lot, is people will just call the ISP and get pissed while on hold to find out their anti-virus is blocking their Firefox application. It’s about eliminating the controllable variables first.

This leads me to the second saying. “Start with what you know”. This is a slight twist on “Start from inside out”. A good programming buddy of mine would lay that on me all the time. It’s so much easier tackling a programming challenge with areas of what you know to gradually get you to where you need to be. Versus saying.. shit, I don’t know how to do that. Break it down and isolate section you do know how to do. Start building a base and eventually the hard stuff.. is the small stuff, and the majority is done. This is a attitude for swallowing a challenge and keeps the thinking clear.. and the fingers typing.

Now, the reason I wrote this post, is the Josh Whitford’s blog posted this great TED speech by Simon Sinek. This talk was awesome and inspiring, but it touched on the same philosophy. The golden circle.. why->how->what which emanates from the inner circle to the outer.. [cough]inside out[/cough].

So why am I bringing this up on my programming affiliate marketing blog? I watch/hear things all the time, and I’m always thinking on how to leverage things for affiliate marketing. This is thinking outside of the box.. I guess, but why -> how -> what might be the outline for my future squeeze pages. Could be the new direction for PPC ads? Could be the direction for blog posts or general web content? Who knows, but the bottom line.. it’s food for thought.