I’m a firm believer in a good work/life balance, but even more so now that I’m a parent. That being said, I wouldn’t be in the position to work part time hours that suit me, from home without having first put in those years of 100 hour weeks.

You don’t have to go to those extremes, but you have set yourself a realistically achievable goal. If you’re prepared to work your arse off until you get to that goal, then you’ll probably succeed. Yes, that will mean not having a life for a while. The key is not to keep on working for the sake of working once you’ve reached your goal.

To answer your question “if you had your time all over again, would you still take the AM route and has it afforded you the life you wanted?”, yes I would still take the AM route, as I love the life that AM now lets me live, but I wouldn’t choose to waste the years and money that I did in the mid 2000′s chasing mega-bucks when I was already making more money than I actually needed.

Having said that, I’m a big believer in “no regrets” – If I hadn’t acted like a total arse and blown a shedload of money chasing a big pot of gold, I wouldn’t have the mindset I have right now (and I’d still be acting like a total arse), so I say “No regrets. Make some mistakes. Make some bloody huge mistakes. Just make sure you learn from them”.

This one here about negative AM points is just so spot on. It was written a couple of years ago and it’s very interesting to see how you as a person have changed your viewpoints in this time. I mean you obviously make a decent living out of AM and I am just starting out, making a £400 a month profit with 3 sites (only 1 is actually earning anything) and I read these posts of yours and find myself wondering if its all worth it?

I spend every spare moment online, trying to ‘make more money’ because I look at AM as the key to me getting out of the day job and back into self employment. To do this, I’d need to bring profits up to around £1500 a month but when I read your posts (I havent read all of them by the way, just a few these last couple of days), they make me really ask myself if it is worth it. For example, I have the 9-5 job now, I come home, switch off from it until the next day and get paid at the end of the month. But Ive ran my own business before and I want that feeling again, to be in charge of my own destiny…I see AM as the platform for that and I know several ‘succesful’ affiliates have told me to keep going but I find myself in the ‘no life anywhere else category’ of your problems with AM above.

It doesn’t feel healthy to work like I work but at the moment, it seems ot be the only way to get those earnings up to a respectable enough amount to start and think about taking my foot off the gas.

I guess what I’m asking is, if you had your time all over again, would you still take the AM route and has it afforded you the life you wanted?

I did nothing at all for the first 3 months – just recharged the batteries, and had my first 2-week holiday in 5 years! I then started to look at getting back to business..

I looked at several businesses, and very nearly bought a pub – In the end I ended up working on an old business I had, working as a Utility Warehouse distributor, which suited me down to the ground, as I could run it in about an hour a day (rather than the 100 hour weeks I was doing in AM) – it didn’t earn me huge amounts, but I was well on the way to building up a significant income with them when AM came calling again.

I’ll probably go back to that one day too, as it was such a great “lifestyle” business – I still get paid a fair bit of commission every month still (3 years since I did any work for them!), and they sent me on a cruise around the med in 2007 (all expenses paid), but for now, I’m focusing 100% on Affiliate Marketing.