The Law of Attraction

I remember when I first came into Internet Marketing and lots of people talking about The Law of Attraction, The Secret and I really had no idea what it was all about.

However, I bowed to their wisdom and started looking into it to see what was so great about it and everything just seemed to make so much sense.  I bought a book called ‘The Secret’ and that is when I started looking at life in a much more positive light.

I have lost count now of the many ‘coincidences’ whereby really good things have happened to me.  This has happened both personally and within my business.  I have more patience now because I just ‘know things will happen’ and they will be as I want them to be.

Here’s 2 short clips that I really enjoy and hope you do too.

The Law of Attraction

Letting Your Results Dictate Your Mental State - Bob Proctor

Find Out How to Succeed at Being Yourself

I have to say right out the gate that this article is not based on any theory you may find in books, nor is it based on an academic’s teachings.  No siree, this article is written by someone who is renowned for her straight talking and honest approach to everything and everyone.  The author is also a graduate from that awesome University of Life having taken a few hard knocks along the rocky road.

How to succeed at being yourself is 100% down to you and what choices you decide to make in any given situation at any given time.

When we come into this world we come in naked, that is both physically and mentally and we are 100% being ourselves.  Yes the theorists amongst us would say there are many things we are genetically pre-disposed to.  For example, they would say that if one or both our parents had addictions then our chances of having that same addictive aspect to our personality is greater.  But forget all that because how you succeed at being yourself is down to one thing and one thing only – the choices you make.

When we are small children, choices are made for us by our parents and other family members.  As our personalities start to develop we quickly get a sense of what is right and what is wrong because everyone around us lets us know.  That is when external influences start to take effect and stop us being ourselves.  As we get that bit older and start kindergarten or school, peer pressure also starts to chip away at who we really are.  By the time we reach elementary stage, only about 30% of who we really are is on public display.  The remainder is blocked by filters and we can have a multitude of personas dependant on the situation.  We are only successful at being ourselves when we feel safe to do so.  Ask yourself when that time is for you.  Is it in the car in the morning driving to work when ‘you sing like no-one can hear you’, is it when you escape to that ‘space’ you have in the home?

We all choose how to respond when someone says something we don’t like, we choose to behave in a specific way in a variety of situations.  If your automatic response to a comment you did not like is to raise your voice and start shouting then just for that nano second ask yourself “what are my chances of dying here if I were to just smile and say nothing?”  If the answer to that is anything between 90-100% then by all means raise your voice……..

Now you may quickly respond to that by saying “if I were to just smile and walk away then that is not me being me”.  Well let me ask you something “how much fun is it being you?  Are you happy in that angry world?  What are you like when there is no-one around you, what sort of thoughts do you have, what dreams do you want to make happen, when was the last time you told yourself that you are an OK sort of person?  Was there ever a time when you allowed you to be just you and told yourself that it really does not matter what others may think about me.  When others judge us, their thoughts are mapped out by their own life experiences and there is little or nothing we can do to change them so why bother?

How would you like to be someone that people having nothing bad to say about?  The type of person that is warm, friendly and never sees anyone as a threat.

You can be that person, the one who all those years ago wanted to be a certain way before others told you it was not right.  Perhaps you love to make others laugh but somewhere along the way, you didn’t have the normal receptive audience and you lost confidence.  That was their issue and not yours, just go out now and find an audience that does appreciate your humour.  Maybe you wanted to be something in your career but many people told you it was impossible so you just gave up.  That says everything about them and nothing about you so ignore them.  If you have the belief, you can do it, I believe in you so just go and do it!  Make it happen, start making some small choices to change and you’re half way there.

You can be honest with people so long as you never deliberately hurt their feelings.   Before you speak, always ask yourself “how would I like to hear that something doesn’t look right on me, my essay is not quite up to scratch?” etc.

I would just like to finish up by asking you to ask yourself is “how successful am I at truly being MYSELF?”  If I started as a baby being 100% ME, what percentage is left today?  You can get back there; you just have to make different choices than perhaps you are at the moment.

Follow Your Dreams!

I remember quite a few years back being told by a senior manager that I had a unique ability to engage people and make them feel they could do anything.  This has always remained with me and although I don’t intentionally set out to ‘push people to achieve’ I naturally find myself doing it.

You see the way I learn is through doing or listening to other people relate their experiences, their failures and successes.  This does not mean I still don’t try things that haven’t worked for others, I do what I think is right and best for me.  I never allow anyone telling me I cannot do something to stand in the way of my success, to the contrary.

Success is a very personal thing but I think most people would agree that success is about being fulfilled in your life.   It’s that warm feeling you have, knowing you’re doing OK but more importantly that you are making a difference in other people’s lives.  Now this doesn’t mean heading off to third world countries to do voluntary work although that is highly commendable.  No, what I mean is just touching briefly into the lives of others.

There are lots of people I remember and think highly of and every one of those is because I can remember how I felt when I was around them.  Most are positive and the others – well, I just choose a different path than the one they are on.

The end result is the happiness I have and peace of mind now to know that I always do my best by others and if I can reach out a hand to help, that hand is there and I will stretch it as far as it needs to go.

How would you like to be able to look back on your life with a huge smile on your face knowing you made many of your dreams come true and you made a difference in others’ lives and helped them realise their own dreams?

Here’s a short video I shot with a few personal photos of people and things that are important in my life – everything else is the small stuff and I don’t sweat that!

2 simple words that will guarantee success in Internet Marketing

Do you look in the mirror every morning and like what you see? Do you see someone who has achieved or do you see someone who is always in pursuit of that next best thing but rarely gets there? What about your achievements, successes and things that haven’t gone so great for you – well to be frank, the buck stops with that person who is looking out at you from that mirror.

Just Do It!

Once you begin to really take responsibility for how you want your life to be, then that is when wonderful things start to happen. There are 2 simple words that will determine whether you get there or not. The first of these words is BUSY – yes, that’s right. How often have you used this word to stop you doing something you really know you should be doing?
I often used that word as some way of avoiding what I really should be doing, I would be ‘busy’ on some of the social networking sites convincing myself that somehow this was productive to my online business. Yes it was, but nowhere near as productive as I could have been had I taken ACTION, the second of these 2 simple words.

I knew I needed to have focus and that focus needed to manifest itself into action. Let us study both of these words for just a second in the context solely of internet marketing:

2 words explained

BUSY – being too busy doing the wrong things will do nothing to drive your business forward. Whilst it may be wonderful to spend time looking at others’ perceived online successes, this is doing nothing for you and you are losing money every minute you are ‘busy’ doing this.

ACTION on the other hand is doing what needs to be done to drive your business forward and you are making money whilst doing so. You can also take pleasure in striking actions from your ‘to do’ list each day and preparing your action list for the next day. Action will turn your dreams into a reality, being forever ‘busy’ will ensure they remain just that – a dream!

What intrigued me when I first started online is that I knew I was procrastinating, avoiding, being busy – call it what you will but what was that part of my brain that convinced me I was ‘busy’ all the time when in effect I was achieving nothing.  Whilst in normal terms, ‘being busy’ and ‘taking action’ may equate to one and the same, in the world of online business, there is a huge difference.

The funny thing about both these simple words is that almost every online marketer knows the difference and can easily see it in others.   Why is it so difficult then for us to see it in ourselves?    I’ll use a simple analogy of a smoker.  They know this habit is a bad one but they persist with it – they also know the damage that their passive smoking can inflict on others – but they continue to do it. They know fully what the long term results will be but they persevere with their bad habit.

So too will being ‘BUSY’, it will just eat away at you and in the long term all you will have will be broken dreams.

Busy people will have no end of explanations for why they did or did not do something.

What to do to avoid the ‘busy’ syndrome and get some ‘action’ into your business

• Firstly, do not go near your emails or any social networking site when you first switch on your PC.
• Have a list at your side and write down 5 things each evening you must do the next day
• When you switch on your PC start at #1 on your list and work through all 5 crossing off as you do them
• once this is done, allow yourself some time on the social networking sites because these are important to internet marketers but strictly limit yourself and go on there with a clear purpose
• The same applies to the forums – allow a time and when that time is up – LEAVE the forums

You will face some setbacks and when you do, the question to ask yourself is this “are my goals and dreams worth trying to get over this hurdle?” If the answer is a resounding “YES”, then take ACTION. If your answer is a defeatist “NO”, then you need to have a bigger dream

A dream without an action plan is just that – a dream and it will never be anything more unless you take those vital action steps to make things happen.

Follow Your Dreams & Never Give Up

Anyone who knows me will totally get why I have written this blog post.  You see, I absolutely adore dogs and any positive stories relating to a dog immediately has me going into meltdown.  This video below did exactly that but it also resonated with me on another level.

The message I want to pass to you from this and I hope you get it like I did is “never, ever give up on following your dream.”  If you believe you are worth something, let no-one tell you differently and just keep trying to find that way in.  It may be that your true strengths lie, not within your immediate goal but more effectively in doing something different although possibly related.

I really hope you enjoy Ricki’s story just as much as I did:

When one door of happiness closes, another opens;
but often we look so long at the closed door that
we do not see the one which has opened for us.
Helen Keller

Internet Marketing – Newbies can’t teach me anything!

Well, how arrogant does that title sound when you read it aloud?

But it was a comment made to me the other day and I have to admit it left me quite shocked.  I was showing a contact on one of the social networking sites some excellent training I had received and the remark to me was “how can someone who has only been in the Internet Marketing business for less than 2 years teach me anything”?

The successful Internet Marketer I had introduced this person to is an Award Winning Internet Coach, and when he hosts webinars, no less than 800 of his members turn out to hear and be educated with what he has to teach.  So, for someone to make such a snap judgement after listening to only a few minutes intro, left me quite speechless (not an easy feat by any stretch of the imagination lol).

You see, I have never been someone who is afraid to admit they don’t know something and I always say “a day wasted is a day I haven’t learned something”.  I am never too proud to ask whoever is the best person to teach me how to do something and that is because I do not judge people.

What I’ve found since coming into this industry is there are a lot of ruthless people – yes we find this in all walks of life but there seems to be an abundance of them in Internet Marketing.  People who profess to ‘know it all’ and really only ‘think they know it all’.  No human being ever ‘knows it all’ when it comes to anything, there is always room for improvement.

So, please forgive me venting in this blog post, but my message is to this type of person ‘don’t think you’re all that, allow yourself to swallow that pride you have but be careful of choking!  I would also ask you to be prepared to accept that newer people into the industry bring fresh eyes to what is an ever evolving and fast moving business that doesn’t rest on its laurels – you may do this inadvertently because ‘no-one can teach you anything’ and this will be at your peril!

Change is Good……You Go First, by Mac Anderson and Tom Feltenstein

“Change What Needs Changing, Not What’s Easy”

This is an excerpt from a book entitled ‘Change is Good, You Go First’ by the authors highlighted in the title.   I particularly liked the message I took after reading it and thought others may enjoy it also.

A few years ago, British Rail had a real fall-off in business. Looking for marketing answers, they went searching for a new ad agency – one that could deliver an ad campaign that would bring their customers back.

When the British Rail executives went to the offices of a prominent London ad agency to discuss their needs, they were met by a very rude receptionist, who insisted that they wait.

Finally, an unkempt person led them to a conference room – a dirty, scruffy room cluttered with plates of stale food. The executives were again, left to wait. A few agency people drifted in and out of the room, basically ignoring the executives who grew impatient by the minute. When the execs tried to ask what was going on, the agency people brushed them off and went about their work.

Eventually, the execs had enough. As they angrily started to get up, completely disgusted with the way they’d been treated, one of the agency people finally showed up.

“Gentlemen,” he said, “your treatment here at our Agency is not typical of how we treat our clients – in fact, we’ve gone out of our way to stage this meeting for you. We’ve behaved this way to point out to you what it’s like to be a customer of British Rail. Your real problem at British Rail isn’t your advertising, it’s your people. We suggest you let us address your employee attitude problem before we attempt to change your advertising.”

The British Rail executives were shocked – but the agency got the account! The agency had the remarkable conviction to point out the problem because it knew exactly what needed to change.

As Yogi Berra once said…

“Before we build a better mousetrap,
We need to find out if there are any mice out there.”

I found many similarities in what I read with what I and every other internet marketer is trying to achieve.  How do you treat your customers?  Are they valuable to you and your imminent success?  Of course they are because withouth them we have no business.

What I have always strived to do in any business I am in is first and foremost to find out what it is my customers are wanting and then I supply it.  If I personally can’t supply it, I will research and find someone who can so I will always look for a solution.

It can be very easy to become complacent, you make a few sales and that is the done deal – I don’t think it is at all, it is only the beginning of your journey with that person.  Continue to under promise and over deliver and you will have a customer for life!

Working at home in my own business, I know that my overall success or failure is solely down to me and how I treat people.  By continuing to value each and every person I come into contact with, I quickly built up a reputation as someone of trust, integrity and honesty and I really could not and would not work any other way.

If you too share similar values to me and want to change your life, then why not get in touch.  Simply enter your details at the top of this page, get a FREE eBook in the process and I’ll see you on the other side.

3900 Saturdays & 1000 Marbles

I read something today that really stopped me in my tracks and created some strange feelings followed by even stranger thoughts inside my head.  It was the story of the ‘1000 marbles’ and ‘3900 Saturdays’.

The story was about a man who, whilst working happily in his garage one Saturday morning had his ham radio on in the background, stopped in his tracks to listen to a conversation between two enthusiasts.  It sounded like an older man who was talking and initially it was the sound of his voice that brought him to attention; it was crystal clear with golden overtones.  He was telling the other person something about ‘a thousand marbles’.  The conversation went something like this:

“Well Tom, it sure sounds like you’re busy with your job.  I’m sure they pay you well but it’s a shame you have to be away from home and your family so much. Hard to believe a young fellow should have to work sixty or seventy hours a week to make ends meet. It’s too bad you missed your daughter’s dance recital,” he continued; “Let me tell you something that has helped me keep my own priorities.” And that’s when he began to explain his theory of a “thousand marbles.”

He went on to say “You see, I sat down one day and did a little arithmetic.  The average person lives about seventy-five years, some live more and some live less but on average, folks live about seventy-five years.

Now, I multiplied 75 x 52 and came up with 3,900 and this is the number of Saturdays that the average person has in their entire lifetime.  It took me until I was fifty-five years old to think about this in any detail, he went on, and by that time I had lived through over twenty-eight hundred Saturdays.  This led to me thinking that if I lived to be seventy-five, I only had about a thousand of them left to enjoy.

I went to a toy store and bought every single marble they had.  I took them home, put them inside a large clear plastic container in my garage here next to my working gear.

Every Saturday since then, I have taken out one marble and thrown it away.  I found that by watching the marbles diminish, I focussed more on the really important things in life.  There’s nothing like watching your time here on this earth run out to help get your priorities straight.

He then went on to say “this morning I took my very last marble out of the container and figured that if I make it until next Saturday, I have been truly blessed.  The one thing we can all use is a little more time.

The older man finished the conversation with “It was nice speaking with you Tom, I hope you spend more time with your family and I hope to meet you again here on the band,  this is a 75 year old man now signing off to go and do the things that matter most to me, while I still can”.

You could have heard a pin drop on the band when the older man signed off and he certainly gave us all a lot to think about.

So how do you spend your Saturdays?  Are you still working, do you tinker away in your garage, sit hunched up over your computer or do you do the things that really matter?  Cherish each and every day you have with your loved ones, it is time with them that counts, everything else is of lesser importance.

If you really wanted to make every day a Saturday and stop trading your time for money, why not consider working from home in your own home based business?  There has never been a better time to make money online and all it takes is that one step.  If you keep doing what you’re doing, you’ll keep getting what you’re getting!

Courage is not being without fear, courage is going forward despite having fear!  Have a great day and make it one you will remember FOREVER.

Lessons from geese – a leader is nothing without their team

The acronym TEAM represents Together Everyone Achieves More and there is no truer representation of teamwork and teambuilding at its best than through the geese that share out planet.  When I first read this, it just made so much sense to me and having always operated in a teamworking environment, I know that although I was in a leadership position, I was nothing without the backing and support of a strong team. 

I have carried this through to my current business in internet marketing, and although it is my own business, there is always a strong team with a positive mindset behind each individual that makes the opportunity and business sustainable and profitable for everyone.

Learn from the geese

As each goose flaps its wings, it creates uplift for the others behind it. By flying in a “V” formation, the whole flock adds 71% greater flying range than if each bird flew alone.
Lesson: People who share a common direction and sense of community can get where they are going quicker and easier because they are traveling on the thrust of another.

Whenever a goose falls out of formation, it suddenly feels the drag and resistance of trying to fly alone, and quickly gets back into formation to take advantage of the “lifting power” of the bird immediately in front.
Lesson: If we have as much sense as the goose, we will stay in formation with those who are headed where we want to go (and be willing to accept their help as well as give ours to others.)

When the lead goose gets tired, it rotates back into the formation and another goose flies at the point position.
Lesson: It pays to take turns doing the hard tasks and sharing leadership–with people, as with geese, we are interdependent on each other.

The geese in formation honk from behind to encourage those up front to keep up their speed.
Lesson: We need to make sure our honking from behind is encouraging, and not something else.

When a goose gets sick or wounded or shot down, two geese drop out of formation and follow it down to help and protect it. They stay with it until it is able to fly again or dies. Then they launch out on their own, with another formation, or catch up with the flock.
Lesson: If we have as much sense as geese, we too will stand by each other in difficult times as well as when we are strong.

By Milton Olson

Imagine being able to achieve anything you want – well you can!

I watched this inspiring video this morning posted by one of my Facebook friends and it really put my own life into perspective.  It was about a young man born with no limbs yet it has never stopped him doing anything he set out to do.  At one point in the video, he pushed himself forward and had it not been for his sheer determination and ‘can do’ attitude, he might very easily have given up.  His name is Nick Vujicic and you may want to check his videos out on You Tube.

A true inspiration

You see, all too often I would give up when trying to figure out how to do something.  I would perhaps read or watch how someone else does it and try it myself.   Why do some people give up easily whilst others persevere?  Perhaps these next few paragraphs may shed some light on possible reasons.

I took part in a personality profile session once when working in the corporate world and the aim of the exercise wasn’t explained to us.  The instructions were to go into this classroom and in each corner of the room would be a large sheet of paper with a heading and several bulleted statements.  We were to read the statements and whichever corner of the room had the statements that applied to us most, we were to sit down there.

Now, there were 19 students on this course and we all went charging into the room.  The first corner I approached had a heading ‘Reflector’ and after reading the first 3 statements, I quickly concluded this was definitely me.

Next corner I hit was Activitist, and spent a little bit more time here as many of the statements were how I went about business and life.

Third corner I approached had Theorist and I read all of the statements here but they definitely did not apply to me.

The last corner had the heading Pragmatist and I knew immediately on reading the sttatements, this was me.  I sat down,  being the first of the 19 of us to do so and our tutor immediately said “yes Trish, you’re definitely in the right place and it’s only taken you 4 minutes to figure it out.”  You see, we’d been working with this tutor for a number of weeks so he knew all our personalities.

I sat there and watched, and watched, and watched as others started to find their corners.  Only one other person had joined me but there were 2 sitting in the Activist corner also.  After about 10 minutes, 4 people were sitting down, myself included and getting quite bored I hasten to add when 4 others sat in the Theorist corner.

Now that left 11 people and I watched, getting quite impatient as they kept going round and round and revisiting each corner and just could not make their mind up where they should sit.  It actually took 19 minutes for them all, with the help of the tutor to conclude they should all be in the reflector corner.

I really didn’t know what the purpose of this exercise was, nor really what a pragmatist was.  It was explained to me using a very simple analogy.  It is someone who buys something that needs self assembly but who can’t be bothered wading through instructions preferring just to get stuck in.  That is me to a tee.  I hate instructions or wading through loads of script, I quickly move to the end then if I need to know something in between, I will look for that one piece of information only.

The whole aim of the exercise was to teach us that to have a really successful team, you need to have all 4 personality types in there.  Can you imagine if they were all like me, charging through at 100mph, not really thinking things through?

So how does that relate to this short video clip I watched and want to share with you.  Well, my personality type would suggest if I can’t find the answer straight away, or work out quickly how to do things, I tend to give up and move on to something else.

I won’t anymore though, I will find a way through the quagmires of life, because as this young man demonstrates perfectly “where there’s a will, there’s a way.”  and I will take the time to work it out.

The same mindset applies in your home business with online marketing.  In the early days, it may seem like you’re on a treadmill and going nowhere but if you’re determined enough and stick at it, you will achieve success.  Adopt the same attitude that Nick does on a daily basis, he allows nothing to get in his way in pursuit of where he is going.