Hypothetical – Take It or Leave It

First, my apology for missing last week’s hypothetical. I figured it was inevitable I would eventually miss one, but no excuses, just slipped by. Which leads me to the hypothetical I have for this week. It deals with the old saying, “If I only knew then, what I know now!”

If someone gave you the option of taking all of the knowledge you have right now and starting your life all over at the age of 18 would you take this chance, even though you have just as much of a possibility of failure as you do success?

or

Would you take what life has dealt you to date and continue on the current track, but you’re given the guarantee that you will live a happy and comfortable life?

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Hypothetical – Goo or No Goo

Hypothetical PlanningHappy Wednesday everyone. I have a pretty simple hypothetical today that has to do with the monopoly of search, Google. I know, define monopoly and they’re not quite there “yet”, but well on their way.

With that being said, we all know how important Google is if you’re doing anything online that involves driving people to your website. But let’s not forget the other search engines out there that make up the rest of the search. There could be a “millionairesearch.com” out there that only millionaires search. (Update, this site really exists! HA) Why would you forget that group of people? You could own that one market and make more money than trying to compete in Google with the 10’s of thousands of other advertisers in your market.

Anyhow, you get my point. So here is the hypothetical for today:

Would you be willing to give up all of your listings in Google, but in exchange, your website listing will appear in the #1 position for all of your keywords in every other search website on the net. This includes Yahoo, MSN/Live, Ask, AltaVista and many others.

Basically, you have the chance to be seen by 35-40% of all searchers online or take what Google gives you naturally, plus all other engines.

Would you accept this offer?

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Better Late Than Never – A Late Night Hypothetical

Today’s hypothetical has to do with flying and being invisible.

You are awarded with either the ability to fly or the ability to be invisible when you want. Of course, this is a hypothetical, so they don’t come without a catch.

If you choose the ability to fly, you also will become horribly afraid of heights and getting more than 10 feet above the ground will give you an instant stomach ache that only goes away when you’re back on the ground. It’s something that you’ll never get over and will often cause violent nauseous episodes.

If you choose the ability to be invisible, the minute you become invisible, you also lose the ability to see anything. All other senses still work, but as soon as others are unable to see you, you cannot see anything.

Which would you choose?

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Hypothetical – White Hat or Black Hat

It’s Wednesday and time for another hypothetical. This week I figured we would bring it back to our industry. It’s something that everyone in our industry is up against at one time or another, but let’s see which direction you go.

You come up with a new idea that you think will do really well online. A website is put together, product developed and you’re now at the point of promoting your new site and product. You’re faced with two options:

  1. Black Hat Techniques – You can apply a few black hat techniques you know are against the search engine terms but the techniques guarantee you’ll be put in the number one spot for all of your search terms for a minimum of 3 months. The problem is, your site can be dropped out of sight at any moment after the 3 month mark.

    or

  2. White Hat Techniques – You go strictly white hat and stay so far away from anything shady, other white hats look at your site and think you’re the cleanest webmaster on the block. The only guarantee is you’ll be in the top 20 for a few of your search terms after 6 months of hard work. The problem is, 50% of the sites ranking higher than you are using black hat techniques and you’ll never be able to out rank them and the other 50% are large corporations and wikipedia that will always be ranked higher.

Which way do you turn and why?

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Another Round of Hypothetical Wednesdays

Since this is our 2nd week, for those who are new to it, each Wednesday we will feature a hypothetical to help people step outside of their daily work for just a few minutes. Use your imagination and try to put yourself in each situation and how you would handle it. So here we go.

Today’s hypothetical comes down to money and personal space.

You learn that you’ve just won the largest lottery prize in the history of lotteries. You have the only winning ticket. $50,000,000,000 (50 BILLION). You have two options to bring home the money:

  1. You can keep all $50 billion, no taxes owed, but your life will become a headline story on a daily basis. Everything you do will be plastered all over magazines and every wrong move you make will turn into headline news. Paparazzi will always be on your tail.

    or

  2. You will have to continue your full time job without the option to quit, be fired or terminated. Your money will be a complete secret, meaning you cannot tell a single person what happened. This includes spouses, kids, best friends, attorney, mom or dad. After taxes, charities, and miscellaneous fees, you’ll walk away with $20 billion.

So which would you go for? The full $50 billion dollars and the crazy public lifestyle or a very secretive life always having to dance around the fact you just paid cash for a nice car?

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Hypothetical Wednesday

A station that we listen to will occasionally have a segment where a hypothetical is thrown out. They’ll peak your imagination, creativity and will throw in a little fun to your day. We’ll start out making it a weekly thing and since today is Wednesday, we will call it “Hypothetical Wednesday’s”.

Our first hypothetical will be quick and easy just to get everyone in the swing of things:


You wake up tomorrow and you are sitting in a time machine. Before you can get out of it, you have to either travel to a date and destination in the past or a date and destination in the future. Which would you choose, where would your destination take you and why?

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