“Every morning I jump out of bed and step on a landmine. The landmine is me. After the explosion, I spent the rest of the day putting the pieces together.”

- Ray Bradbury

Why do some people seem blessed with infinite luck and passion? Why do a lucky few get to do what they love and get paid extremely well for it? Why do so many things seem like uphill battles?

Their secret is intensity. Without intensity, all their effort is wasted.

Understand: If you half step, you will fall on your face. You will create things nobody cares about, and you will waste your own time. You’ll grow frustrated, and nothing will go your way.

Care about what you do, and only do that which you can focus completely on.

The Power of Intensity

Let me start with a story about a skateboarder I knew.

He would come to the skatepark, and skate for thirty minutes. Everyone else would be skating for hours, but for him, it was always thirty minutes. Like clockwork. He’d warm up, then just take off. Everyone else had to stop and watch. He’d be operating at a level five times higher than anyone else. The energy level he brought couldn’t be sustained, but that wasn’t the point. He was literally shutting down the entire place and every one just stood with their jaws on the floor.

He did it all with intensity.

This is what so many people miss in life. They never figure out how to build intensity and focus completely.

Building Intensity, Building Focus

How can you come correct? I’ve wondered this myself, I’ve wondered how I could bring a complete, all embracing focus into my skateboarding, into my businesses, and into my writing. Yoga helps, and so does meditation, but it doesn’t break the real barriers down:

How to get around my judgmental mind, and get to that state of complete intensity, immediately?

Time spent unfocused is just time wasted. We must always be chasing the tail of our own focus, in whatever we are doing. Nothing happens outside of the moment, and yet it is so rare for us to ever give it complete attention.

Where does passion come from? From pretty pictures, from grand ideas, from big dreams late at night? We all want to experience this emotion called passion, but it seems nearly impossible to find it in the real world. Instead of great jobs saving the world, we’re giving jobs flipping burgers or turning out code like a machine.

Hacking Your Mind Into Passion

The trick is, we must trick ourselves. Our “passion” is nothing more than an emotion we give to ourselves. We don’t need visualization, we don’t need positive reinforcement, we don’t need any of that.

Understand: We dole it out from our own minds.

It’s tough to believe, but it’s true. Our minds are in complete control. We can decide how we feel about something, and instantly we will connect with it or not. It is up to us to see things from a point of relation, or not.

Passion is when you relate to what you create, and have a higher purpose for it. A moral imperative, plus a relation. It’s almost a formula.

Moral Imperative + Relation to Work + Enjoyment = Passion

What do you relate to, what can you give back, what do you enjoy doing?

We can enjoy doing any damn thing we commit ourselves fully to. Humans beings have done it all, but the only ones who get to truly enjoy themselves are those who give back. These are the people who get blessed with that thing called “passion”, and these are those people who don’t get burned out. It’s impossible to walk uphill every day, to push against your own inner inertia every day. We must give ourselves the leg up of passion, of compassion. We must ask ourselves what, if anything we have to give back.

Then we can step on the landmine of ourselves, and be proud putting ourselves back together.

1. Serve A Purpose or Be Pulled Out

Every year, we gardeners work our asses off for our plants. We prepare the soil, clear the ground, and bring in fertilizer so our plants can grow to their maximum potential. We work hard so our plants can grow strong.

Because they give us fruits, we give plants all they need.

On the other hand, plants which do not serve a purpose, plants which only seek to take fertility and light, without giving something back are called weeds. We pull them out because they give nothing back to the garden. They are selfish, and because of this, they are quickly pulled out of the productive garden.

Lesson: Contribute first, and you will be taken care of.

2. Work With Forces, Not Against Them

There are two philosophies when it comes to a garden. One believes the world is out to get your precious plants, and the other believes the right ecosystem must exist for optimal growth.

The one who believes the world is out to get his plants uses chemicals and synthetic fertilizers to keep his plants alive and productive. In doing so, he contaminates his food with chemicals, kills insects, and creates a “sterile” environment for his plants.

In the other, companion plants are planted, birds and insects encouraged, and flowers planted for others. The farmer hopes everything will balance itself out in this biodiversity. If an insect starts to take over, it is immediately eaten by its predator.

Can you guess which type of gardening is more fun?

Lesson: It takes too much effort to fight against the will of the world. Seek a place to work within natural forces.

3. A Little Every Day

If you’ve ever had a garden and left it for a few days, you know what this means. A garden left untended for even a week quickly becomes and impossible task. Weeds quickly establish themselves and entangle the rest of your garden. It becomes a monumental task to undo all the work of weeds and insects.

Working a on a garden every day, it’s almost as if there is no real work. Walk, look, pick a few weeds, and chew on a few tomatoes. There is no massive effort required.

Lesson: Work against entropy. Visit your garden frequently and check its health.

4. The Best Gardens Are Symphonies

The best Gardens are truly symphonies. There isn’t a plant in a place where it doesn’t belong. Individual plants have their own strengths and weaknesses, and a great gardener knows his plants personalities.

Every plant is planted according to its personal cycle. The quick growers are planted to give shade to the slower growers, and everything works together.

Lesson: Work from the personalities of individuals, and give them the communities they need.

5. Work According to the Season

Gardeners only have one year at a time. And each day within that year happens within a season.

So we focus on what needs to be done, today. Even though we constantly look to the future, we spend time within our garden today, working on its immediate needs. Within the winter months we plan and scheme, but during the Spring, Summer, and Fall we work.

Lesson: Put in the hours when necessary. Plot and scheme when the time is right: when there is no growth.

6. Screw Subsidies

For most corn and soybean farmers, growing food is a losing proposition. It isn’t until after they get their couple hundred dollars in subsidies that they “make” a profit.

Gardeners, on the other hand, get no subsidies. Everything planted must create more than was put in. The properly designed garden outputs more than put in. An improperly designed garden requires support and subsidies.

Lesson: Make sure you get more than you put in.

7. We Are All Farmers

No matter where you live, you must eat. Your food purchases decide how food gets grown.

So like it or not, you are a farmer. We are all farmers. We all decide how plants get grown, either directly or indirectly.

Lesson: We are all leaders, we are all in business for ourselves.

Welcome to Part 2 of a 4 part series on Mailing Lists for Web Developers.

In Part 1 we went over Mailing List Providers, and in Part 2 we’ll be discussing mailing list templates. In Part 3 we’ll integrate a custom mailing list into Wordpress. Finally we’ll do some tracking and statistics with our mailing list in Part 4.

Download the example template used in this tutorial here. (You may need to right-click Save Target As)

Keys to Building HTML Template

• HTML/Minimal CSS Only
• CSS must be within HTML (No linking elsewhere)
• Tables Must be Used for Layout (No layout with CSS)
• Not every reader allows images
• Tracking can be done with embedded images ONLY
• Variables Must be Set According to Mailer

As you can tell, our email templates are very limited. But even just with CSS, HTML, and Images, we can create a clean, pleasant template.

How an Email Template is Built

Email readers are funny things. While browsers have Javascript and Flash and interactivity, email is stuck in 2001. We have no Javascript functionality, very little CSS support, and no Flash interactivity whatsoever. We must be very careful about our design too, if we are to have it look consistent.

This is not the time to get insane with design. Simplicity is key with newsletter emails.

That being said, let’s look at the CSS code for our standard email newsletter template:

CSS Code

<body>
<STYLE>
 .headerTop { background-color:#FFCC66; border-top:0px solid #000000; border-bottom:1px solid #FFFFFF; text-align:center; }
 .adminText { font-size:10px; color:#996600; line-height:200%; font-family:verdana; text-decoration:none; }
 .headerBar { background-color:#FFFFFF; border-top:0px solid #333333; border-bottom:10px solid #FFFFFF; }
 .title { font-size:20px; font-weight:bold; color:#CC6600; font-family:arial; line-height:110%; }
 .subTitle { font-size:11px; font-weight:normal; color:#666666; font-style:italic; font-family:arial; }
 td { font-size:12px; color:#000000; font-size: 80%; line-height:120%; font-family:arial; }
 .sideColumn { background-color:#005F79; border-left:1px dashed #CCCCCC; text-align:left; }
 .sideColumnText { font-size:11px; font-weight:normal; color:#000000; font-family:arial; line-height:150%; }
 .sideColumnTitle { font-size:15px; font-weight:bold; color:#333333; font-family:arial; line-height:150%; }
 .footerRow { background-color:#8C0042; border-top:10px solid #FFFFFF; }
 .footerText { font-size:10px; color:#996600; line-height:100%; font-family:verdana; }
 a { color:#960; }
</STYLE>
<!-- First Table would go here --!>

You’ll notice the CSS is put within the BODY tag, with an old fashioned STYLE tag. That’s as fancy as we can get with our CSS. So deal with it, and change the things you need to individually. As in within the TABLE.

Sylin’ Tables

Yes, you heard that right. Everything needs to be individually styled within the TABLES you create. So it’s a lot of rewriting code, and most things end up looking like this:

<table width="100%" cellpadding="10" cellspacing="0" bgcolor="#FFFFFF" >
<tr>
<td valign="top" align="center">
<table width="600" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0">
<tr>
<td style="background-color:#FFCC66;border-top:0px solid #000000;border-bottom:1px solid #FFFFFF;text-align:center;" align="center">
<span style="font-size:10px;color:#996600;line-height:200%;font-family:verdana;text-decoration:none;">Email not displaying correctly?
<a href="*|ARCHIVE|*" style="font-size:10px;color:#996600;line-height:200%;font-family:verdana;text-decoration:none;">View it in your browser.</a>
</span></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td height="108" align="left" valign="middle" style="background-color:#FFFFFF;border-top:0px solid #333333;border-bottom:0px solid #fff">
<center>
<a href="">
<img src="http://travelingforever.com/blogs/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/example.jpg"></a>
</center></td>
</tr>
</table>

This process can be greatly sped up by using something like Dreamweaver. Yes, this is one time where as a web developer you’ll appreciate all the work that’s gone into FRAMES in Dreamweaver. So take it while you can.

Images

As you might have noticed above, you need to upload your images to your webserver before you can use them within your template. I find it easiest to do this from within Wordpress. Just click the upload/insert image, and then select the files you would like to insert into your newsletter. Once it finishes uploading, copy the url to your IMG tag.

Of course, you’ll need to resize your files way down, to under whatever your design calls for. My design calls for main images at 306px x 170px, and side images at 188 x 300. Just make sure it fits.

<img src="http://travelingforever.com/blogs/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/example.jpg" />

Variables

If you look through the template, you’ll see there are place holders for template variables. Such as the mailing list name, the subscriber’s name, etc. Depending on the mailing list provider you use, you may need to change these codes. In Part 3 we’ll run through these, and pick out just how to set variables.

In case you missed it, you can download the example template here.

Welcome to Part 1 of a 4 part series on Mailing Lists for Web Developers.

In Part 1 we’ll go over Mailing List Providers, in Part 2 we’ll discuss mailing list templates, and in Part 3 we’ll integrate a custom mailing list into Wordpress. Finally we’ll do some tracking and statistics with our mailing list in Part 4.

Today, we’ll run down the Open Source options for people trying to get a mailing list up and running on any platform. I use Wordpress for most of my work, and all of the following have great integration with Wordpress.

We have three options:

Free hosted provider – Such as feedburner. Robust tracking, but mailing list isn’t very customizable.
Commercial Hosted Provider – Such as Constant Contact. Robust tracking and mailing list, but paid monthly, hosted elsewhere.
Free Local Provider – Such as PHPList. Hosted on our webservers, robust tracking and mailing list, but a pain to set up and maintain.

Free Hosted Provider: FeedBurner

FeedBurner makes managing RSS feeds and gathering statistics very easy. Since being acquired by Google in 2007, they have also made email newsletter subscriptions available for free. They offer very robust statistics, so you can tell everything about your subscriber’s habits. However, you can only fill your newsletter with an RSS feed.

Pros:

• Easy Setup
• Robust Statistics
• Integrate with Wordpress Immediately
• Copy and Paste Level Difficulty

Cons:

• Feed controlled by Google
• User statistics owned by Google
• Stuck with RSS feeds turned into mailing list contents
• Not very robust for customization

Verdict: Best For Newbs

If you’re just starting out blogging, you need to have some way to keep in touch with your readers. Google’s feedburner makes it easy as possible. What you give up in control of your list you make up for with ease of use and robust tracking statistics. Get up and get running quickly with feedburner.

Commercial Hosted Provider: Constant Contact

Constant Contact is a good example of a commercial mailing list provider. Almost everything is taken care of for you, from template management to subscriber tracking, to Wordpress integration. It’s all there, and you get a level of quality only available for paid software.

Pros:

• Immediate functionality
• Robust Tracking
• Strong Customization Features
• Prebuilt Templates

Cons:

• Not Free
• Data Still hosted Elsewhere (Although you can back up locally all information)

Verdict: Best For Paid Clients

This is a great solution for paid clients. They just want functionality, robustness, and ease of use. If something goes wrong, your clients can call customer service instead of you. Giving clients a commercial product gets me out of the way and lets them take care of things for themselves.

Free Local Provider: PHPList w/ Custom Integration

Pros:

• Open Source, Free
• Robust; Powerful
• Own all Information
• Complete Control

Cons:

• Difficult to use
• (Possibly) Difficult to integrate
• Steep learning curve

Verdict: Developers Only

Even though PHPList is easy to install, configuring it and setting it up for your own personal use can be a headache. There is documentation, but there are a thousand little steps that take time. It is, however, worth your time to learn the process, especially if you are a web developer. There are some things you can only do with PHPList as your base. This is my preferred mailer, but it is only because I have put so much time into learning the process of building a list within it.

Summing Up

We have 3 main options for a mailing list provider:
Feedburner – Free service from Google, not very customizable. Best for beginners.
Paid Option – Best for clients, sign them up, then let them do the work. Best for Businesses.
Open Source (PHPList) – Best for developers. Learn the process of building a mailing list at every step.

What’s next

In Part 2 we’ll discuss building our mailing list templates. These are built using basic CSS and HTML. Depending on our provider, we’ll have a few variables we can use, such as a subscriber’s name, custom tracking software, etc. It’s easy enough, but it’s not well documented. We’ll also discuss how to make our Mailing Lists readable from within web based mailers, something nobody seems to get right.

In sport and in business, there is a consistent pattern that keeps people from success.

It is this: Expecting perfection too early.

It is self sabotaging, like cutting a head off the Hydra. It only leads to more frustration, more problems. Always expect failure at beginnings.

In doing anything difficult, we fail consistently at the beginning. We must not get disappointed in this failure. The difficulty in doing something worthwhile reward itself. Most people get frustrated when things don’t work out the way they planned. Learn to accept imperfection in yourself and keep working.

Don’t expect to look cool

It’s an incredible thing, watching someone learn how to skateboard. They’ll sit there and try, the board will spin, and go flying away from underneath them. They will look like a complete idiot. And it is at this point you can tell whether or not someone will become adept.

If they become self conscious about looking like a fool, it’s over. If they can laugh at themselves, they will at least learn to ollie.

But do it anyway

The best way for humans to learn is by doing. And failing, constantly. Entrepreneurs do not strike it rich on their first project. Instead, they fail again and again, until finally they almost accidentally succeed.

In the meantime, the failure teaches them how to laugh at themselves, and to not take the world so seriously. And eventually they become indifferent to the outcome of their work. Fail or succeed, they could care less.

Eventually, results won’t matter

Life becomes about the practice itself. Of attempting new and difficult things all the time. And it matters less and less, what is success and what is failure. It all turns into a game of play.

My business is this way now. A year ago I was making less than $10 an hour at Whole Foods. I never thought I’d be able to charge $60 an hour. But in one year, I have grown enormously, failed enormously, and along the way become indifferent to the success or failure of my business. I merely work and produce, and leave things at that. I am not attached to winning, becoming the biggest business, or losing it all. I’d much rather enjoy contributing whatever it is I decide to give.

That’s when the best results come

Some days that’s hanging out with kids and teaching them how to skate, and others it’s building web software, and still others it’s just sitting in a quiet room writing. No matter what I create, it will never live up to any idea of perfection. And so I approach everything with a lightness that makes creating a happy process.