My blog

OK, that’s a grand title for a post so let’s get into the meaning.

Part of the 6MProfitMethod course includes Power Talks by Lisa Diane designed to assist focus on what it is each member wants to achieve. Wow, do they work.

I was listening to a Power Talk this morning and felt compelled to write this post about the things that came to my mind.

Lisa teaches that whatever you think about you become. Now that probably sounds alien to many people but it is the core teaching of all Self Development “gurus” and is in fact the foundation of “Think & Grow Rich” by Napoleon Hill.

Now, I’m no expert in this field but I do have experience of this working in life and want to mention two instances that you may be able to relate to. Essentially, Lisa is teaching that you must be careful what you think about because it will enter your life whether you want it or not!

Some while back I became extremely worried about my financial situation – increasing credit card borrowing, difficulty balancing income & expenditure and I spent much of my time juggling money, thinking about my debts and generally worrying about it. So much so I was waking up in a cold sweat in the middle of the night. I could take no more and decided to take the plunge and re-mortgage my home to clear all outstanding borrowing. This meant an even bigger mortgage but as long as I could generate the required monthly income I no longer needed to focus on the debt.

In days, my worry ceased, I no longer found myself thinking about the debt BUT about my future wealth. Within a week, yes honestly, a week of taking that action my Adsense income and affiliate sales had increased and my overall position improved. With that came confidence, belief and a new found “mindset” of having. I’m now focusing only on what I want and not what I fear and it is working!

The other illustration of this will mean something to anyone who plays golf.

If you can hit say a 6 or 7 iron 150 yards at the driving range then WHY when you are at a course faced with a 130 yard shot over water do you go to pieces? I know it happens to me, playing partners and I see it happening everywhere. It’s simple. The mind focuses on what you don’t want to happen (hit the ball in the water) rather than the desired outcome – a clean strike high over the water onto the green.

The subconscious mind is brilliant but doesn’t think! It just carries out the instruction it receives from the conscious mind. It is vital to give your subconscious mind the correct guidance so “see” the ball flying high on the green rather than sinking in the water.

The same goes for life in general. See what you want and that’s what will be brought about into your life.

One of my current goals is to get a Caterham 7 – pictured here. To help I need to keep one in my mind, imagine I’m driving it and keep the focus. I want a blue one so that’s what I’m thinking about – imagine the wrong colour turning up!

For more guidance in this area I really do recommend you join Lisa in her 6M Profit Method – it’s so much more than just a business strategy.

Want. A simple four letter word perhaps but for many people it is a curse!

From an early age many children hear “What do you want?” spoken in an annoyed tone as the child interrupts again. Others are taught it’s not “nice” to be always wanting something – be happy with what you have already.

As a result the adult has impaired thinking around the subject of “wanting” something. Maybe it’s not good to keep wanting things, a BETTER LIFE, A BETTER JOB, MORE MONEY. The result is far too many people putup with what they have and struggle to come to terms with achieving the greatness that is theirs for the taking if they only try.

During every seminar I’ve ever attended, most programs I’ve listened to the speaker states that only a very small percentage of the students or attendees will ever taken any action. Many internet marketers state that the bulk of their sales are to people who never even open the package. They are clearly striving for something and feel that by buying the next “fad” they will achieve overnight success without any work.

In the 6MProfit Method Lisa Diane teaches that it is imperative that to get what you want you must focus on what you want and not what you fear. I’ve known this for a very long time (some 20+ years ago I really wanted a TVR Sports car and spent all of my time really desiring this car, I had pictures on the wall and imagined I was driving one as I sat in traffic on my way to work – I’ll write more about this another time) and used it successfully without understanding the concept at the time. BUT, and it is a really BIG BUT, it is so, so simple to fall into the trap of worry.

With mounting debt, family pressures, health issues it is so hard to believe everything will be OK and avoid worrying about what might happen. It’s all very well saying to yourself “I must focus on the positive and the outcome I require” but when you wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat worrying about money and where the next mortgage payment is coming from it is not as simple as just saying – I am wealthy.

The way I used to get round this challenge (yes, I’ve woken up in cold sweats too) is to tell myself:

“If I knew, without a shadow of doubt, that I could achieve my goal to be debt free how would I feel and what would my life be like”. I found that that phrase removed the barrier to my success (i.e. the massive mortgage) and enabled me to focus on my goal and not the negative outcomes I was fearing. Admitedly it took some time of repeating the phrase to myself but sure enough each time I tried this method I shook of the demons and got back to sleep having relieved the worry.

Shortly afterwards I found myself restructuring my finances and now believe 100% in my success and ability to live a debt free life in the near future.

I now totally focus on what I want and not what I don’t want. The cold sweats are a thing of the past.

If you have experienced similar challenges and have a great strategy for changing your thinking please leave a comment.

Some while back I met Stephen Pierce (yes, the internet marketing coach / mentor) and whilst I’m not a student of his I am impressed with much of his work. I got on one of his mailing lists and today received a link to a Report download he has written.

Although focused on his coaching students who feel things are not working out too well for them I read through the 9 page report which I found quite inspirational.

Stephen has given me permission to share Do Not Quit with my readers. Download it now and if you ever feel like giving up give it a read.

“So you want to open a business bank account”

“You need to see our small business adviser”

Oh, dear, I hear the conversation in my nightmares. I’ve been on both sides of the fence – trying to open a business bank account and also as a Small Business Adviser with a UK High Street Bank.

Here’s the problem:

He / She is a bank clerk with an employee mentality who knows nothing about business from a business person’s point of view. Yes, a training course has probably been completed but it’s from a bank’s perspective and not an entrepreneur’s.

You think the bank clerk must know about business so you listen as a spiel regurgitated from a business manual, written before time began, encourages you to get an accountant, a lawyer, write a 100 page business plan, monthly management figures, think about factoring, overseas trade partners, overdraft limits, yawn, snooze, I’ll go back to my 9-5 job!

Most accountancy practices and lawyers preach from a similar standpoint – wake up THEY ARE NOT BUSINESS PEOPLE. At best they are self employed but in a job they created for themselves.

YOU MUST, I REPEAT MUST ONLY TAKE ADVICE FROM:

SOMEONE WHO HAS ALREADY DONE WHAT YOU WANT TO DO.

Why listen to me? To start with I’ve been that bank clerk – I received minimal training and was set loose to assist business start ups with my new found knowledge and business experience!! In the main I learnt more from the customer than they did from me.

I’ve also set up and run a several successful Financial Advisers practices BUT because they were dependant upon me to give the advice meant they were really nothing more than self-created jobs.

Realising I would be working forever unless I started to work on my business rather than in it (reference Michael Gerber – E-myth) I knew I had to take a huge step sideways and change the way I thought about business.

Lisa Diane in her brilliant course 6MProfitMethod classifies mindset as the starting point and probably the most important area to get right.

I am sorry to break this to you but maybe you’re not cut-out to make it in business. I know, you didn’t want to read that and surely Mark “Wizzer” Wilson is wrong because every other website and blog preaches about overnight success and riches even if you have no education, no money, no skills, no idea, no hope but just $27 in your pocket!

If you don’t get your mind straight and in business mode then I advise you not to waste your money or your life dreaming of making your fortune in business.

It is not easy, at least to start with. There are a million new things to learn, you’ll probably work long hours and harder than you did in your 9-5 job. You’ll get complaints from your family – “you’re always working”, “where’s all the extra money you promised”, but is it worth it? The simple answer is a resounding YES. But…

It really isn’t for everyone. You need to be motivated, to be able to take set backs and move on. You cannot dwell on problems – you have to be willing to learn, to take chances, to make decisions – sometimes very quickly. You have to learn who to trust and who to avoid. You need to be able to get on with other people, you need to be persuasive, you need to be focused and above all you have to be brimming with a desire for success.

Think you can hack it? STOP READING HERE IF YOU ARE NOT PREPARED TO DO WHAT IT TAKES AND IF YOU STILL THINK THERE IS A WAY TO OVERNIGHT RICHES WITHOUT ANY WORK BECAUSE I CAN’T HELP. Keep spending your hard earned money on the next get rich scheme or lottery tickets and all you will do is dream of the life you want rather than living it.

Still here? Good, because for you there is a way. Get your mind straight and focused on what you want in life and your business, keep believing beyond any doubt that success is yours and it will be. You’ll need to work out exactly what you want – I have a cork board in front of my desk on which I have pictures of the material things I really want and if I feel a little jaded I remind myself what I am working towards. Stretch yourself with your thinking and your aims BUT never slip into questioning mode. You can and will achieve your goals.

Read motivating blogs and books (try Abundance Highway & Success Chronicle) but above all remain positive and think about what you want to happen rather than what you don’t. The Law of Attraction will bring to you what you think about so forget those demons!

By the way if you want some great FREE photos to liven up your blog or website you need Stock.Xchng

Until next time…

This isn’t what I planned to post this morning but it is so important that my other post must wait until later.

A few days ago I decided I needed to be more proactive and ask the world for more. I can’t categorize this as anything in particular – possibly law of attraction / seek and ye shall find – I’m not really sure it matters. What I discovered, which I already knew deep down, is that there are some fantastic people in this world!

It’s so easy to focus on the bad & evil, particularly when the TV and newspapers seem to only reflect on negatives (I haven’t read a newspaper for years for this reason) but since we’re in a POSITIVE ZONE here I want to highlight two people who really touched me.

Yesterday, I asked for some help in getting my Costa Esuri lens up the Google rankings. Within a few hours it was up from position 11 to 8 and two people in particular may have helped. Neither sought anything in return and both just gave freely. Now the “human kindness” is working here. They helped me and I hope by mentioning them this post will in some small way help them.

Suzie in her post about abundance says “The words themselves conjure for me a variety of different images and feelings: images of the sea, the waves rolling in, white sand that stretches for miles, a wad of hundred dollar notes, a pile of gold coins, feelings of happiness and joy, full of vitality , energetic, expansive, a knowing I can do anything, there are no barriers. A total absence of scarcity.”

For me, knowing that people I’ve never met have helped me towards abundance has given me those feelings of happiness and joy and I’m feeling energetic and believing. Thank you Suzie.

Jes writes a great blog about fitness and very interestingly for me, many of her posts also contain “life lessons” – whether that is part of her strategy I’ve not asked yet. Perhaps you’d like to comment here Jes? In her post about Burning Fat she says:

“Like my friend, we can all learn to work smarter instead of longer. Working longer often leaves you frustrated and fat. Take the time to identify your problem areas in each of the 4 areas of fitness success (cardio, strength, nutrition, mindset) and the results will come faster and easier than ever before!”

I’d like to add to that -it’s not related to body health but mind health – “the longer you work the less you achieve”.

Radical? Maybe but concentration levels fall, mistakes happen, energy depletes and if kept up regularly long working hours lead to physical illness. I’ve been there – stay away!!

Reducing working hours may seem impossible but it’s really a question of sorting out your priorities and what’s really important and focusing on the activities that will move you towards your goals. I found myself working very long hours recently and in the main I was doing what I call “stuff” – that is shuffling paper, reading articles that might help next century etc.

There’s also possibly a deeper reason for working longer hours – escaping from something else?If you find yourself working long hours stop and think very hard – “Am I avoiding something else by working”.

I leave you with that thought as I now head off for some much needed exercise. Thanks for reminding me Jes.

At the end of last week I posted about Squidoo.

Today I checked my stats and found something quite incredible.

A lens I created on 22nd February 2007 CostaEsuri is now sitting at position 11 out of 73,500 for the term Costa Esuri.

What I need to explain is that I’ve done nothing about Search Engine Optimisation for that lens. I simply created it and have been steadily adding small amounts of extra content on a regular basis.

Yes, I’ve joined a few groups and have used the link in forum comments but the real issue is that Google just loves Squidoo Lenses.

I’d dearly love to see this site at number one on Google - I can virtually guarantee there’s nothing in it that will be in competition with anything you do – so I’m looking for your help.

Please go over to the Costa Esuri Lens – rate it 5 stars by clicking on the “Your Rating” stars at the top. Then go to the Guestbook at the bottom of the page and add a comment with a link back to your site or blog. The best way to do this is to add your comments and include a link in your comments using the following format:

<a href=”http://www.YOUR SITE” target=”new”>YOURSITE TITLE</a>

When you’ve done that I’ll add you to my lensroll if you have a Squidoo Lens or visit your blog and add it as a favourite increasing it’s visibility. Thanks in advance – please leave a comment below if you’d like me to provide more information re Squidoo in future posts. (By the way I used Squidoo Secrets to get me started on this method – see my Blog Traffic post).

I listened to Yaro’s interview with Collis Ta’eed this afternoon and thought I’d take a quick look at his blogs. Funny how giving out the address in an interview helps traffic!!!

There’s a great article on NorthXEast setting out 9 things a new blog should do to avoid looking brand new. Great advice – how many blogs have you visited that show the number of readers as zero? Maybe I should disable comments here for a while!

I mention his other blog, The Freelance Switch, for the simple reason I think it is visually stunning – since it is about freelancers I’m not surprised but when I have wsome cash maybe I’ll get a design done like this.

I’d love some comments here about blog design and your thoughts as to how a great design helps stickiness.

This post may turn into an epic! If you don’t have time to read the whole post now bookmark/favourite this page or subscribe to the RSS feed so you know where to return. You’ll be glad you did because there is an enormous amount of great information and resources here that will save you time and really get your business rolling.

Over the past two weeks or so I’ve spent much of my time collecting together and researching resources that I’m going to need as my business builds. I thought that anyone following my journey may also find these useful – it will certainly save you hours of time searching out these resources and information.

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Years ago I read THE book, yes the definitive book, about getting your mind straight for business & life success – “Think & Grow Rich” by Napoleon Hill

Get your complimentary copy, my gift to you, by clicking the link above. I’m not even asking for your email address but if you’re grateful please add a link to this blog from yours and click the “Vote for Me” button. Thanks

The first M in the 6M Profit Method is all about getting your mindset right and focusing on what you do want rather than what you don’t want.

PLEASE – read that paragraph again. This is the most important lesson someone embarking on a business venture could ever learn. The concept may be new to you, it may sound too spiritual or even a little weird but think about it. If you smile at someone they tend to smile back – kindness attracts kindness. If you’re rude to someone they’re usually rude back. YOU CREATE YOU’RE OWN REALITY so make sure you create what you want.

I’ll be posting more about mindset and positive focus later.

As you may know I’ve been “messing about” online for a while and have a couple of blogs and sites already (nothing earning anything but a few Adsense pennies) and I had been getting tired of paying $8-10 per month for each site I wanted to host. After about 3 it starts to get expensive and costs mount up. That has all changed. I hadn’t realised that by setting up a “reseller” package I could have unlimited domains hosted all for just over $20 per month. The best thing is each domain has it’s own cPanel (let me know if you need help with this) and a simple WordPress blog install. I used it for this site.

I use HostGator (OK I like the Gator as well as the service) and I have found them faultless so far. Each time I want a new domain I simply add the name (purchased elsewhere – see below) and a new account with it’s own login in details is created immediately. If you are likely to run more than 2 or 3 sites then I really recommend you think about setting up a reseller package with HostGator.

For domain names I’ve recently taken to Go Daddy. Why? Firstly they’re very competitive (if you avoid all of there up-sell techniques), you can find discount vouchers on line, and I’ve found the change of nameservers to my hosting company to be virtually instant.

At this point I’m still deciding on my exact market for my new business – all will be revealed very soon – but in the meantime I needed to get proficient with blogging as I see this as a great way of learning much about the internet and in particular generating traffic.

WITHOUT TRAFFIC A WEB BASED BUSINESS SIMPLY ISN’T A BUSINESS!!!

I’ve already mentioned Squidoo in previous posts but I’ll add some more details here because I’m finding out more all the time. I decided to create a lens (Squidoo terminology for a kind of website) listing all of the free resources I’ve come across that have been really useful to me. Things aren’t included just because they’re free but because they are valuable. Rather than list them here take a look yourself (add some more free resources if you know of any) – there are links to sites to create polorised images; free graphic design software; free text editors; ftp software; hex colour identification and so much more.

The point of mentioning this lens is that I’ve discovered the traffic benefiting actions of joining groups, adding comments to other lenses and adding existing sites to your lensroll. Essentially, the way I see it, the more links and exposure your various sites can get the better chance of increased traffic. At this point I’m just testing and experimenting so when I go live with my “new” business I know just what needs to be done.

I’ve been following a blogger called Yaro Starak for some time now. He’s Australian and calls himself the Blog Traffic King! He’s just released a free report Blog Mastermind Blueprint, which I recommend to anyone with a blog. It covers everything from why blog, how to monetize your blog, how to generate traffic – in short a complete guide to blogging. Of course, it leads to a suggestion you should join his Mastermind Group but that’s OK with me, particularly since I’ve seen his blog grow over the past year or so and he clearly knows what he’s doing. I’ve learnt a great deal from this report already and will continue to improve my methods using his teachings.

In the next few days I’ll post about creating a Squeeze page, in particular a video based page I’ve come across – if you can’t wait for the details you can take a look at the page I created here – and how to cloak affiliate links.

It’s arrived. Yes, my pack containing my 6MProfitMethod has finally been received.

While waiting I’ve not been idle! I’ve decided that initially my business focus will be on selling other people’s products on an affiliate basis.

Over the past few weeks I’ve been bombarded with emails telling me that “video” on websites is the way to go. So, perhaps just as a test to start with, I’ve created a squeeze page with a video that offers a free report about affiliate marketing.

On the back-end of this I’ve attached a great product by Ewen Chia -one of the most successful online affiliate marketers – that provides a step-by-step blueprint to starting an online affiliate business. I’ve also made the product available via Clickbank with a 50% commission if anyone wishes to copy my strategy. The product is simple to use and includes a series of top quality videos. I’m convinced this will do well subject to the biggest challenge faced by all online marketers – getting the right targeted traffic to the site.

I’ll be really grateful for any feedback if you take a look at the process.