Well, it’s time for another Survival On Purpose Newsletter and I have to tell you, it has been a wild week. Before we get into tall that, here’s a word from our sponsor (OK, really just a banner ad but I’ve always wanted to say that)
OK, we’re back. For some crazy reason I had the wild idea this week to release a video about the news that President Obama will be joining Bear Grylls on the NBC show Running Wild with Bear Grylls. That would probably have been reasonably innocuous but I had to go and start rambling again. Which led to me opening a pretty big can of worms concerning the whole “Climate Change” debate.
First, I promise I am not about to repeat any of that here (nor, to tell you the truth, do I have any inclination to repeat that type of video). I do have to admit I was a little disappointed at the level of animosity I generated from some people because I dared to “bring politics” into a video.The truth is, I knew it would be controversial, even though I think I was pretty UN-judgemental in stating what I acknowledged was my opinion. I knew that politics and religion are supposed to be taboo subjects but I really don’t know why. What have we come to as a society when we can’t have a free and open discussion about any issues without it devolving into name calling and hostility?
Anyway, I have come to the conclusion that it was probably a mistake to post that video on the channel. It really has nothing to do with what the channel is all about and I get it that a lot of people are absolutely sick of being bombarded with that stuff from all angles and just want to have a little brain candy and maybe learn something. So, while I think complacency is a dangerous disease, I also recognize I am not going to solve much of anything with some silly videos. Bottom line, I think in the future I’ll stick to knives, guns and stuff that burns.
Having said that, you may have noticed I have been trying to add a little more variety as far as content. I have always owned and messed around with guns so I decided it would be fun to include some firearms related content. I am by no means any sort of expert on the subject but I am not totally ignorant about it either. I have also been working on some more “non-review” videos and maybe some Boy Scout skill stuff. Hopefully it will help keep things interesting and we can have some fun together.
Oh, and one more thing, I am shamelessly working on adding some type of financial sponsorship to the channel and/or website. I am not sure exactly what form that will take. I already added some ads on the website and am working on more, I figured that was pretty normal. I am exploring the possibility of maybe having sponsored videos or weekly/monthly sponsors. I’m not really sure how all that works to be honest.
My main concern is making sure I work with companies that I trust and respect because I don’t want even the appearance of any sort of dishonesty or shenanigans. I actually had one company set up to do a sponsored video but their product did not perform well for me so I had to back out of the deal. I actually think it was a good product but it didn’t work for me so I couldn’t recommend it.
As I mentioned last week, I am also going to try to include some sort of sponsored offer in each of these newsletters. Hopefully they will be of value to you. If not, just ignore them. If it turns out to be something you think is worthwhile, hopefully I will make a couple of bucks for my efforts.
