How Bourland.com Changed My Life

I had three major motivations for starting Bourland.com last December.

1) I wanted to get mentally up to speed again. After my heart attack(s) four years ago, I spent most of my time dealing with the fallout: low energy, learning to handle and juggle a myriad of medication, fighting off deep depressions, anger and periods of lethargy, constant doctor’s appointments and subsequently, multiple hospitalizations per year… dealing with all that and still trying to maintain some semblance of a life. Mentally, I was not with the program. My short term memory was shot for the most part (I still struggle with this, but with a recent modification in my medications, that is improving). My interest in learning new things, reading books, staying current on technology, business and other areas went by the wayside. I couldn’t carry on an intelligent conversation with people for whom I was considered a guru just a few short years earlier. Folks, it was pretty bad.

2) I wanted to reconnect with people. As you can imagine after reading the paragraph above, I became fairly isolated over this period of time. I lost more friends than I gained. Business deals I attempted went sour. My email inbox actually became manageable. I hoped that by putting the ball in play again, even if it were a blog, I could reconnect with another community, make new friends and see what might come of it.

3) I wanted to redefine myself as a businessperson. I had success at ClickZ (an internet marketing site), but subsequent attempts at capitalizing on my reputation as internet marketing guru (I bought Adventive and it failed, I sold Oldtimers at a loss, I sold MarketingVox at a loss, I lost major bucks in a weird deal I made with Marketing Experiments) all seemed to fall flat on their faces. Most of the failings were my own doing. Not the market. Not someone else. It was me. So I felt a need to start all over again from scratch and just see where it goes.

So I started Bourland.com (actually resurrected it… I had tried to blog before but always ran out of things to say or were afraid to say them).

There might be a few of you hardy readers who remember that it was originally focused on providing reviews of get-rich-quick e-books.

It evolved into reviews of books about making money with Google Adsense. It developed a small but steady following, but the more I got to know about Adsense, the less I believed it really presented much of a long term (emphasis here on long term) opportunity for publishers to make money. Yes, there are those who make money with Adsense ads on their site, and a very few get rich (temporarily at least), but as time went on I didn’t think I was doing anybody any favors by encouraging them to waste their time on this. Some of you may disagree and that’s fine. That’s just where I’m at on that.

I dabbled in reviewing online publishing and copywriting e-books for a short while, but I ran out of steam for that…. and for a time didn’t publish too many articles on Bourland.com.

But over the summer months, I got more and more fascinated with videocasting. I had actually put together a business plan for doing a videoblog in the spring of ‘05, but health problems (hospitalized for pneumonia, then a pulmonary embolism, then got my gall bladder removed because of a “suspicious growth” which turned out to be benign) prevented me from ever doing anything about it.

I continued to dig in and find out more about who was doing what, how, why and where. I saw a number of amazing possibilities for the medium, so I decided to indulge a long held interest of mine, interviewing entrepreneurs of early stage companies and getting their stories.

I’ve always been fascinated with business startups and entrepreneurs, and this gave me a great opportunity to pursue that passion.

What evolved was ZBIZ.TV, which will launch Monday morning. I’ve already got six broadcasts ready to rock and am busily tweaking the site for launch… as you know.

In any case, all of this to say that simply by using Bourland.com to put the ball in play, I have managed to get back with the program mentally, intellectually, socially and business-wise. Having more focus in my life has actually improved my physical and mental health. I’ve actually managed to stay out of the hospital for nine months now (I was in the hospital for a week at a time at least every other month until 2006), so I’m feeling particularly blessed.

Why the tell-all from Andy today? Sometimes in sharing the truth about what you’ve been through, you connect with others who have been through the same thing… or are going through now.

I’m feeling blessed for having good things start to happen, even though I had to stumble a bit to get there… Now, on to the next phase of my life!