Are you curious about a 3-month delay? I explained it in my first income report.


October 2020 income reportI started October sick and finished it worse than sick. This was the month I got COVID.
For the first week of the month, I functioned so-so. I was cautious not to move too much around since I had strong suspicions that my weakness at the end of September was the COVID. I worked from home and went to the office just once because I had to pick up a new phone.
On the 8th of October, I went to my church community yearly meeting. I spent four days there. It was awesome to meet everybody first time since March even wearing the masks. BTW, the pandemic situation in Poland was OK. The numbers were climbing quickly, but they were climbing from such a low level that we generally weren’t concerned, nor alarmed.
Another three days were quite productive, I finally closed September in my books.

COVID

I woke up on the 15th of October sick like a dog. I had COVID. The next week was rough. The sickness wasn’t much worse than a cold – coughing, a sore throat, and a fever. I suffered most from the fever since I am very sensitive to that and it jumped 2 degrees of Celsius (3.6 degrees of Fahrenheit).
I was weak as a puppy most of the time. I had little trouble with my fitness. I remember doing over 50 burpees one morning that week. But I felt constantly tired. After each physical effort (including these burpees), I needed to go to bed and catch a nap. On the last day of sickness, I napped FIVE times!
Needless to say, I didn’t do much that week.

I didn’t take a sick leave in my day job. I could work for 10 hours a week from my bed with the laptop in my lap (pun intended). When I got better, I didn’t commute to the office anymore. I switched to the fully remote work.

Family Drama

On Monday, right after I got back from the retreat, a huge family disruption blew away. I won’t get into the details; I will only say that it was a super-tense situation between my wife and my daughter and my wife accused me of taking the kid’s side. It was ugly. The emotional turmoil was off the chart. I remember that I spent the whole Tuesday mastermind call talking about this.

Financial Crisis

My Canada-only customers left me, all but two of them, and I was making the most money with them. Also, the results of the rest of my customers in Canada went down.
My book sales were awful. I sold 582 copies, comparing to 575 sold in September. Considering the additional day in October, it was actually a decline. The US data showed it without any day-counting – I sold 44 fewer copies in October.

Mental Meltdown

COVID, a sad family situation, and a poor financial situation all at once. I had it. I also had a COVID brain fog. Fatigue was something I could explain at the physical level. But this brain fog? It is impossible to describe. Saying it was a mix of depression, procrastination, and overall indifference simply doesn’t give it justice.
It became even more apparent in November when I fully recovered physically but was still mentally and emotionally impaired. I saw no reason for being so lethargic, I had plenty to do, but I just couldn’t force myself to work.
Oh, and at the end of October, another semi-lockdown was introduced in Poland. Our kids stopped going to school and we were all imprisoned in the four walls of our home.

Support

As you can tell from the above description, I wasn’t functioning well in October. In hindsight, it could’ve been so much worse. I had a couple of support pillars that got me through.
First of all, my habits. I do most of them on autopilot and I don’t appreciate them enough. Journaling, gratitude journaling, prayers, exercises, writing- all those activities gave a structure to my days. Even half-alive I did most of them. Even with a fogged brain, I did them.
I suffered physically, mentally, and emotionally, but not as much as I would have without this habit structure in my life. In fact, if not my habits, then what could stop my downfall on the slippery slope?
Secondly, I had other people. My friends. Mastermind. Accountability partners. Readers. Despite what my instinct said, I couldn’t isolate myself. It’s not that I was showered with great advice or resources. Most of the time, others could only sympathize with me, that’s all. Nobody could cure me of Covid. Nobody could fix my feeble family dynamics. Nobody could boost my book sales.
But I had ears to speak into. I knew I had to show up for others. I couldn’t escape into self-pity, depression, idleness. I kept going because of and for other people.

One Thing I Did Right

There were many setbacks and some downright catastrophes in October, but I managed to progress with my vision for 2023. My church community retreat gave me enough time and mental space to hammer out the vision in writing. For the rest of the month, I chiseled what I wrote and the vision statement was at least half-baked at the end of the month.

The October 2020 Income Report Breakdown

Income:

Amazon royalties: €1,497.71 ($1,729.15)
Coach.me fees: $117.6
Audiobooks royalties: $17.52
D2D royalties: $43.14
PWIW personal coaching: $810.65
AMS service remuneration: $2,376.77

Total: $5,094.83

Costs:
$23.37, BirdSend fee
$1,165.17 Amazon ads
$500, ISI mastermind
$1039,64 RAs’ remuneration (RAs = Real Assistants; my team)
$30, SiteLock fee
$84.47, royalties split with co-author
$202.47, Advanced Amazon ads
$95.09, an obligatory monthly fee for LLC
$92, my accountant’s monthly fee
Total: $2,916.27

Net Result: $2,178.56


Previous Income Report: September 2020

Ninety First Income Report – October 2020 ($2,178.56)

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