It has been an incredibly busy few weeks. Some of you recall that last week I went to Elite Retreat.

I don’t have that many impressions about the Elite Retreat itself. It means different things to different people.

I do however have impressions about my time there, the experience of my trip, and the kind of things that settle in my mind.  So this post is going to be more on the personal side…

The Flight

I left Wednesday morning, and it took over 6.5 hours to get to San Francisco. Longer than usual, but it was a very smooth flight on JetBlue.

The personal TV you get in front of you helps to pass the time by a bit. I also tried to get some sleep, as the night prior I barely got 4 hours of sleep.

Picked up a rental car at Budget, and headed on over to my brother Alex who lives in Belmont.

The Conference

Elite Retreat had about 35 seats to sell before it was deemed sold out. This made for a very private conference, where everyone could meet and talk to everyone else – my favorite aspect of conferences like this.

People have asked me just exactly what this gathering was about? It’s a bit hard to tell someone who’s not in the know (most people), so this is the best way I can describe it:

It was a gathering of people who mostly like to make money online in ways that you are not taught at any schools. Since you can’t really learn this stuff in schools, besides niche blogs on the subjects the next logical step is to meet the people who are on the edge actually doing this stuff.

Most people there are self taught, and most make oodles of money doing it compared to any standard job you or I may hold. Affiliate Marketing, SEO, Marketing, Social Media – it’s the combination of these that participants want to improve on, and find new ways of applying it to their businesses.

What I Came Away With

The great thing is that I met a lot of interesting and smart people. You never know how roads manage to cross in doing business online, and budding heads with people who make a good buck online is never a bad idea.

It was also useful to tell a number of them about my upcoming project P2A. I am happy to say that the majority of the folks I talked to really loved the idea. The few that said they don’t see it being adopted, well, I am perfectly fine with that. If everyone loves your idea then it’s probably mediocre.

And lastly, I did not learn anything new that is worthy of a separate post. That’s not to say that Elite Retreat isn’t a good source of info. It was actually a useful confirmation that I’ve caught up with the things I needed to know. A few important words on that…

Getting Out of The Monkey House 

In the past I’ve been kind of stuck in what Shoemoney once described as the Monkey House. You are stuck in your cage, working on your own business, and after a while you don’t sense the stench anymore. You don’t see so much that is happening elsewhere, so many things which are being done in different ways.

Within the last year or so I would say I’ve gotten completely out of the monkey house. I’ve caught up on blogging, on marketing, on affiliate marketing, on SEO, on domaining, and so much more. To me personally it’s a complete transformation, I feel like in the last year the amount of knowledge I’ve picked up and actually processed really aged me by extra 5 years.

What’s to show for it? That is a huge question. I sit here and write to you about the transformation in my head, about different ways of doing business for years to come. Yet if you look at the websites of my businesses they are not exactly cutting edge to say the least.

The truth is that project P2A has been one result of what I have learned recently. And in about a week or so I will spend the time to introduce you to it, as I am very passionate about it.

But working on P2A sucked out much of the resources I was going to be spending on completely redoing Digitally Imported Radio.

I would be the first to admit that the website is old, and downright sucks according to my upgraded standards. It’s the stuff that keeps me up at night -  knowing how different it has to be, and yet not getting to change it and show that I really do know what needs to happen.

It’s not entirely true. Some back-end efforts are already underway for the new DI. But I am not sure that aside from developers people really understand just how far in advance I am trying to plan out, so it takes time, not just a pretty new skin.

So after P2A gets launched, I look forward to getting a new skin as well. Let the nightmares stop

Being in San Francisco

I did not get to see that much on this trip. But here are some worthy mentions:

• San Francisco seems much more chilled out compared to New York. If New York is like hard dance music, then San Francisco would be House music.
• Went to a fancy French restaurant one evening with my brother and his wife. A guy at some table actually called out to get everyone’s attention. He got on his knees and beautifully proposed on his knee to the woman sitting at his table. I think the couple left in a very happy mood that evening, everyone applauded.
• The weather was great. The roads are much better than in New York. Less restaurants than in New York
• And overall my wife and I are actually looking into moving there by September! She’s finishing her residency and job opportunities are much better there, and the place seems to be better for our two small kids too. If only it wasn’t called the “left coast”

Lots to do, taking over the world is a big job, see ya later.