At the end of this post is a quote of the month by Jay Leno. If you don’t read anything else, please read what he said. Very well stated, Mr. Leno!

TO ALL THE KIDS WHO SURVIVED THE  1930’s, 40’s, 50’s, 60’s and 70’s!!

First, we survived being born to mothers who smoked and/or drank while they were pregnant.

They took aspirin, ate blue cheese dressing, tuna from a can and didn’t get tested for diabetes.

Then after that trauma, we were put to sleep on our tummies in baby cribs covered with bright colored lead-base paints.

We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, locks on doors or cabinets and when we rode our bikes, we had baseball caps not helmets on our heads.

As infants & children, we would ride in cars with no car seats, no booster seats, no seat belts, no air bags, bald tires and sometimes no brakes.

Riding in the back of a pick- up truck on a warm day was always a special treat.

We drank water from the garden hose and not from a bottle.

We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and no one actually died from this.

We ate cupcakes, white bread, real butter and bacon. We drank Kool-Aid made with real white sugar. And, we weren’t overweight. WHY?

Because we were always outside playing…that’s why!

We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on.

No one was able to reach us all day. And, we were O.K.

We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps and then ride them down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. After running into the bushes a few times,we learned to solve the problem.

We did not have Playstations, Nintendo’s and X-boxes. There were no video games, no 150 channels on cable, no video movies or DVD’s, no surround-sound or CD’s, no cell phones, no personal computers, no Internet and no chat rooms. WE HAD FRIENDS and we went outside and found them!

We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth and there were no lawsuits from these accidents.

We ate worms and mud pies made from dirt, and the worms did not live in us forever.

We were given BB guns for our 10th birthdays, made up games with sticks and tennis balls and, although we were told it would happen, we did not put out very many eyes.

We rode bikes or walked to a friend’s house and knocked on the door or rang the bell, or just walked in and talked to them.

Little League had tryouts and not everyone made the team.. Those who didn’t had to learn to deal with disappointment.

Imagine that!!

The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law!

These generations have produced some of the best risk-takers, problem solvers and inventors ever.

The past 50 years have been an explosion of innovation and new ideas.

We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned how to deal with it all. If YOU are one of them, CONGRATULATIONS!

You might want to share this with others who have had the luck to grow up as kids, before the lawyers and the government regulated so much of our lives for our own good.

While you are at it, forward it to your kids so they will know how brave and lucky their parents were.

Kind of makes you want to run through the house with scissors, doesn’t it?

~

The quote of the month is by Jay Leno:
‘With hurricanes, tornados, fires out of control, mud slides, flooding, severe thunderstorms tearing up the country from one end to another, and with the threat of bird flu and terrorist attacks, are we sure this is a good time to take God out of the Pledge of Allegiance?’

For those that prefer to think that God is not watching over us…go ahead and ignore this.
For the rest of  you…pass this on link to your friends.

Happy Chinese New Year!
 
They say that the 21st century will be the Chinese Century after the American 20th Century and British 19th Century.

If you live in Asia or where I do, you would not doubt it.

Many Westerners see this strategic reality as an enormous threat yet whatever you think, get used to it or, do as I do, embrace the whole concept as an exciting challenge.

I think of the British giving the world the legal, economic and administrative systems so important to cultured life.

I think of the Americans giving us the entrepreneurial managerial systems so important for wealth creation and life improvement.

I see the Chinese 21st century giving us the cultural, personal and family systems so important in an open and rapidly changing world. We can easily forget that the Chinese were developed peoples living in grand cities inventing technologies when our fore-fathers were in animal skins. They have learnt what is important in a world of change. 

Their lessons for us will always be based on ‘long term investment based on natural principles’ - Some lessons:

• Family is everything. We have lost sight of this so much in our modern open world and we wonder why we are having so many problems with our next generation. Their rule is that you do business with your family FIRST, or the business is not worth going into.
• Health is the base of all things. The Chinese will spend a fortune on natural health products. They laugh at our Western medicine philosophies. 
• Financial discipline is critical. They understand that this debt-spend binge of the West over the past decades will be our downfall. 
• Education is the base of all long term success. Their kids are taught to learn from day one.
• The greatest lesson the Chinese will teach the world is that you cannot force nature. Water will take the easiest downhill path. An extreme focus on beauty produces ugliness.

I welcome the Chinese Century. We, in the West, need their wisdom.   In fact, we need the wisdom that comes from all old cultures who have endured centuries of dramatic change, whether this comes from Sweden or Peru, Swaziland or Indonesia, Bulgaria or Mexico.

If you have any wisdom to send me from your culture, you bless me.

This is the year to build for the long term. To build it once so it lasts.

“This article is used by permission from Ed Ludbrook’s free monthly e-newsletter 100% Success available at www.edwardludbrook.com.”

The start of a New Year is also a good time to clear the decks of stuff that serves no useful purpose and which doesn’t  contribute to your goals. I assume you have your goals clearly defined for 2009?

Here are some of my suggestions:

1) Stop reading and listening to the news!! This is so important - why?  Just read this story 

2) Carry out due diligence on any company you may be thinking of joining and that includes Network Marketing/MLM companies. MLM companies can and do go bust just like any other business. Perhaps in the current environment you might also avoid new startups as well! Also, only ever join one MLM business at a time - there is no way that you can ‘ride two horses at the same time’, I should know, I have a horse called Toby - 17 hands IDxTB - you will know what that means if you are into horses!

Don’t follow the example of those so called financial experts who invested billions with Bernard Madoff!  Clearly they didn’t check him out! They failed to do thier due diligence! With a name like Madoff I would have thought that was enough of a warning!!

3) Develop multiple streams of income. Perhaps from a Multilevel Marketing business, Affiliate Marketing and from Blogging. No longer can you afford to have all your eggs in one basket! 

4) Avoid getting overwhelmed with emails from lists you’ve signed up to in the past.  I am unsubscribing from many of these and restricting myself to just five.  Whether I’m able to stick to five is another matter but I shall try!  Not easy to do but necessary if I’m to stay focused on what needs to be done for the achievement of my personal goals. 

The five I’m following in no particular order are Tiffany Dow, Mike Dillard, Ann Sieg, Rosalind Gardner,and finally Yaro Starak and his partner Gideon Shalwick. Why these five?

Tiffany, a very successful work-at-home Mum, is very accessible and has produced some great ebooks on a variety of subjects which have been very helpful to me and my partners in producing ebooks, understanding Squidoo and a lot more besides. She is very on the ball when it comes to new stuff on the Net and will often produce a short video on YouTube to show you how things work or can be implemented with programs. Here is just one of her ebooks - a ‘must read’ if you  want to succeed with Squidoo.

Mike Dillard and Ann Sieg are the top mentors when it comes to building a Network Marketing/MLM business online.   Take a look at some of their free stuff if you are in or are thinking of joining an MLM business. Mike’s videos about Building a Network Marketing business on a budget and Ann’s controversial book I refer to later in this post - there’s no cost so just take a look folks.

Rosalind Gardner is one of the most successful affiliate marketers in the business and has an excellent must have ebook if you plan to enter this market.

Read the amazing true story of how one woman, with no previous business experience, earned $436,797+ in 2002 and now earns MUCH MORE than that … just by selling other people’s stuff online!

In her down-to-earth, sincere and often humorous style, Rosalind Gardner guides you through the entire process of building an affiliate marketing business on the ‘Net.

Frequently revised and updated to reflect industry changes, the Super Affiliate Handbook now consists of 236 pages and 124 screenshots that will show you step-by-step how to become a Super Affiliate. You’ll learn how to pick the best affiliate programs, negotiate a commission raise and save time, money and effort on everything from affiliate software to web hosting.

To learn exactly how she does it, Click Here.

Yaro Starak and his partner Gideon Shalwick are amongst the top bloggers on the Internet - what they don’t know about making money on blogs isn’t worth knowing. If you don’t have blog or it’s not producing an income for you take a look at their free videos.

Now I appreciate there are many other excellent people out there yet you can only follow so many at a time. Too many and you will not only get overwhelmed but will run out of time to do any work!

5) Ignore the hype!  This is so important at any time but especially so if you are financially vulnerable just now.

No one, but no one, can make millions overnight. When you see a website showing how someone made $1million in 24 hours with the launch of his/her new product and promises to show you how to do the same just be aware that this ovenight success probable came about after years of hard graft!

Similarly, with Networking/MLM do not believe that all you need to do to make your fortune is to sponsor two people then teach them to get two etc. Also be aware of the lure of residual income.  It is not easy to achieve. If it were so why do most MLM companies experience a drop out rate as high as 90%?  Just take a look at Ann Sieg’s controversial free ebook and see if any of it sounds familiar

I hope these few ideas may prove to be helpful to you.

Have a great profitable 2009 - Yes you can!!

Robert

Just imagine…
You’ve heard about the blogging phenomena making the rounds lately.
And you’ve even thought about setting up your own blog.
But perhaps the biggest question you’ve had sofar is:

“What on earth shall I blog about?”

But don’t worry, you’re not alone.
And there’s some good news for you as well…

Not many people know what they want to blog about when they’re just getting started.

And that’s why Yaro Starak and Gideon Shalwick have just created a special X-Factor Strategy video that shows you how…

If you’re in any doubt as to what you should be blogging about, this X-Factor strategy video will get you off to a great start.

The video is an elaboration of one of the X-Factor strategies inside Yaro and Gideon’s report - The Roadmap To Become A Blogger, which has already been downloaded 8,789 times in the last week!

It looks at a little-known feature of the socialmedia giant Facebook, and shows you how to use it to your advantage and uncover multiple exploitable niche areas.

You can watch the whole video, without paying a cent or even giving away your details, over here:

xfactor-facebook video

Just go ahead and watch the video…It really wont cost you a thing, and it even comes with a full transcript that you can print out and follow along while you watch the video.

It’s a no-brainer - just go and watch it now:

xfactor-facebook video

If nothing else, you’ll get to know how to make friends with people from all over the world at the click of a button. And that could be very handy when you’re doing research for your new blog project.

Robert

You will also have heard of the expression, “If you think you can, or think you can’t, you’re probably right”

If you think constantly about recession and believe you will be adversely affected by it, you probably will! If you think you won’t…..well you know the rest!

Below is a well known story with a powerful message, which does the rounds from time to time -well worth catching up with it again.

The Hot Dog Vendor

There was this elderly man who had a profitable little business selling hot dogs on a busy street corner in a major city. He wasn’t particularly well educated, but he sold great hot dogs and his customers loved him.

During the early morning rush hour, he’d wheel his mobile hot dog stand to position it near the exit of the central railway station in town. A year ago he’d added a bacon and egg roll to his range and sold scores of them to this breakfast crowd every day. At lunchtime, he’d move his stand to a popular park where he had lines of regulars.

In the afternoon he’d be back at the station entrance and then later most nights he knew a great spot near a nightclub where young patrons rushed him off his feet. He had even installed special lighting and a flashing neon sign. Even people driving by would stop.

He’d worked hard for years and done well enough to put his only son through university who later became an accountant with a large accounting firm.

One day his son warned him that a recession was on the way. The old man asked his son what this meant. Being an educated man his son gave a very detailed explanation of how the recession would severely impact everyone in the community, particularly small business people like his father. There would be enormous unemployment; people would not be able to afford to spend money as they did now. He painted a gloomy picture of the future and warned his father that it would be wise to cut back on his expenses and “tighten his belt” financially and prepare for the worst. The old man didn’t know much about the economy or interest rates, but he trusted his son. After all, he was an educated man. Recession mentality kicked in…

The old man began to cut back on the quantity of sausages and bread rolls he bought. He didn’t want to get caught with stale rolls as business began to drop off. But it was hard to judge and some days he actually ran out of sausages and rolls earlier than he normally would. So he went home early and spent more time worrying about this recession that was coming

Soon he knew that what his son had said was right. He noticed that his takings were indeed falling. This depressed him more and so he tended to get out of bed later each day. After all, why get to the station so early when obviously more people would be eating at home rather than spending money on breakfast in the city. He decided that his bacon

and egg rolls were too expensive for most people now. After all, they were twice the price of a hot dog, so he cut them from his menu and his sales continued to plummet.

Wow, his son was right, this recession was hitting hard!

He decided to save more money and not replace the batteries that powered his neon sign and lights at night. Now because he was in the dark, fewer people bought from him and soon he decided that it wasn’t even worth his time setting up at night. Eventually he decided to sell off his equipment and his trolley. He was in luck though because the young woman who bought his trolley didn’t seem to know how bad business was, or how severe the recession was going to be. He managed to unload the trolley for more than he thought he would get. Now day after day he stayed at home, depressed, and occasionally his son would visit him and they would discuss how bad the recession was, and how lucky the old man had been to have an educated son who had warned him in advance about this terrible recession.

So what’s the moral of this story?…………………….

Recession mentality starts in one’s own head. If you believe that a recession is coming and that times will soon be tough, then they will be for you. Like the old man in the story, you’ll start to change your successful behaviour patterns and replace them with less resourceful habits. You’ll sleep in later. You’ll take longer lunch breaks, make less phone calls and go home earlier.

But it needn’t be that way…

If you are a follower of Neale Donald Walsch known for his marvellous ‘Conversations with God’ series of books, you will want to hear what he has to say about the two candidates for President of the USA. 

Have a listen to find out why…http://mail.finerminds.com/cgi-bin/arp3/arp3-t.pl?l=29&c=143857

I urge you to listen to this interview and pass it on to friends - it is vital for the future of the world that the best man wins this election!

Well, If you have been working with the LOA for some time you will probably have a Vision Board with pictures of things you want. You might also have affirmations written large as well. Both ideas recommended by one of the stars of that movie.

Personally this has not worked for me - perhaps because I forget to look at the board often enough!

If you have this problem and especially if you are not getting the changes to your life you were hoping for, you just might want to take a look at Mind Movies, which you can find here at this link

http://www.tinyurl.com/6yfkpu 

The clever thing about Mind Movies, in addition to playing like an ordinary video, is that they can play continuously on your computer screen behind anything you are working on - bit like a faint water mark - subliminally in fact.

So, instead of just looking at your Vision Board/Mind Movie once or twice a day -it plays subliminally all the time you are working at your computer.

Making your own Mind Movie is so easy with the tutorial videos that anyone, and I do mean anyone, will be able to get one up and running within a very short time.

Take a look at my first attempt which I have put on YouTube http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=XAVeO66fymU and that is a first for me too! Then check out the Mind Movie site.

Enjoy

My line of work is in petroleum and has been for about 31 years now. So here are some tricks to get more of your money’s worth for every litre.

Here are some tips from the industry….

  
Only buy or fill up your car in the early morning when the ground temperature is still cold. Remember that all Service Stations have their storage tanks buried beneath the ground. The colder the ground the more dense the fuel. When it gets warmer petrol expands, so buying in the afternoon or evening, then your litre is not exactly a litre. In the petroleum business, the specific gravity and the temperature of the petrol, diesel, jet fuel, ethanol and other petroleum products play an important role. A one degree rise in temperature is a big deal in this business but the Service Stations do not have temperature compensation at the pumps.
 
When you are filling up do not squeeze the trigger of the nozzle to a fast mode. If you look you will see that the trigger has three (3) stages; low, middle and high. In slow mode you should be pumping on low speed, thereby minimising the vapours that are created while you are pumping. All hoses at the pump have a vapour return. If you are pumping on the fast rate, some of the liquid that goes into your tank becomes vapour. Those vapours are being sucked up and back into the underground storage tank so you’re getting less worth for your money.
  
One of the most important tips is to fill up when your tank is HALF FULL. The reason for this is, the more fuel you have in you tank, the less air occupying its empty space. Petrol evaporates faster than you can imagine. Petroleum storage tanks have an internal floating roof. This roof serves as zero clearance between petrol and the atmosphere, so it minimises the evaporation. Unlike Service Stations, here where I work, every truck that we load is temperature compensated so that every litre is actually the exact amount.

DO NOT FILL If there is a fuel truck pumping into storage tanks when you stop to buy, UP. Most likely the petrol/diesel is being stirred up as the fuel is being delivered and you might pick up some dirt that normally settles on the bottom.
  
Hope this will help you get the most value for your money. Remember to always fill your car when the tank shows ‘half’. Always fill up in the early morning. Always fill up in slow mode.
  
 Notes from a driver…. I tried early Saturday morning before I came to work. $30.00 from 1/2 tank filled up my car. Usually it is $55.00. Amazing…..this has got to be the most useful e/mail I have received all year.

Accustomed as we are to branding pervading our lives from the Coca Cola Cup to the ambulance that rushes us to hospital on the fateful day that we require it, the media has chosen to brand events throughout history. This is especially so for those financial events that have punctuated our existence over the last 100 years or so. The Gold Standard, the Great Depression, Decimalisation Day, Black Wednesday, and I am sure there are more.

I am concerned that we do not miss the opportunity to allocate ownership for the current financial downturn that has us all looking for our parachutes, in the light of fading economic comfort, increasing unemployment and the likelihood that the next 12 months will put us back into post war style austerity.

It is, after all, the bankers who, through their careless, greedy and self-centred investments have broken the rules on prudent money management and exceeded their brief as guardians of our savings and our economic prosperity.

I propose and I hope many will agree with me that we should call this period economic instability ‘The Bankers Recession’.

Let us all hope that having got us into this state, they find the courage of their convictions and the balls to get us out of what is likely to be a prolonged and probably the most disillusioning period in Post War economics. Why should we all suffer for their selfish greed.

Let us hold them responsible and publicly remind them of their actions, in history, through the brand, “The Bankers’ Recession”. 

If you have ever taken an Internet marketing course or attended a seminar specifically for beginners, you have probably heard about the two different methodologies. Whenever the business model is based on content, and if you blog for money then the model is based on content, people are taught to either start as reporters, or if possible step up as experts.

I’ll be frank; you want to be the expert.

Reporters leverage the content of the experts and in most cases people start off as reporters because they haven’t established expertise. Experts enjoy the perks of preeminence, higher conversion rates because of perceived value, it’s easier to get publicity, people are more likely to seek you out rather than you having to seek others out, joint ventures come easier, etc… experts in most cases simply make more money and attract more attention.

Most Bloggers Are Reporters

The thing with expertise is that it requires something - experience. No person becomes an expert without doing things and learning. Bloggers usually start out without expertise and as a result begin their blogging journey by talking about everything going on in their niche (reporting) and by interviewing and talking about other experts (reporting again).

There’s nothing wrong with reporting of course and for many people it’s a necessity at first until you build up some expertise. Unfortunately the ratios are pretty skewed when it comes to reporters and experts - there are a lot more reporters than there are experts, hence reporters tend to struggle to gain attention and when they do, they often just enhance the reputation of the expert they are reporting on.

Don’t Replicate Your Teacher

If you have ever spent some time browsing products in the learn Internet marketing niche you will notice a pattern. Many people first study Internet marketing from a “guru” (for lack of a better term). The guru teaches how he or she is able to make money online, and very often the view that the student gleams is that in order to make money online you have to teach others how to make money online.

The end result of this process is a huge army of amateurs attempting to replicate what their teacher does in the same industry - the Internet marketing industry - not realizing that without expert status based on a proven record and all the perks that come with it, it’s next to impossible to succeed.

Even people, who enjoy marginal success, say for example growing an email list of 1,000 people, then go out and launch a product about how to grow an email list of 1,000 people. Now I have no problems with that, I think it’s fine to teach beginners and leverage whatever achievements you have, the problem is that people gravitate to the same niche - Internet marketing - and rarely have any key points of differentiation.

How many products out there do you know of that all claim to teach the same things - email marketing, SEO, pay per click, affiliate marketing, and all the sub-niches that fall under the category of Internet marketing. It’s a saturated market, yet when you see your teachers and other gurus making money teaching others how to make money (and let’s face it - making money as a subject is one of the most compelling) - your natural inclination is to follow in their footsteps.

If the key is to become an expert and you haven’t spent the last 5-10 years making money online, I suggest you look for another niche to establish expertise in.

Report on Your Process, Not Others

The secret to progress from reporter to expert is not to focus on other experts and instead report on your own journey. When you are learning how to do something and implementing things day by day, or studying other people’s work, you need to take your process and what you do as a result of what you learn, and use it as content for your blog.

It’s okay to talk about experts when you learn something from them, but always relate it to what you are doing. If you learn a technique from an expert it’s fine to state you learned it from them (and affiliate link to their product too!) but you should then take that technique, apply it to what you are doing and then report back YOUR results, not there’s. Frame things using your opinion - your stories - and don’t regurgitate what the expert said. The key is differentiation and personality, not replication.

Expertise comes from doing things most people don’t do and then talking about it. If you do this often enough you wake up one day as an expert, possibly without even realizing how it happened, simply because you were so good at reporting what you did.

You Are Already An Expert

Most people fail to become experts (or perceived as experts) because they don’t leverage what they already know. Every person who lives a life learns things as they go, takes action every day and knows something about something. The reason why they never become an expert is because they choose not to (which is fine for some, not everyone wants to be an expert), but if your goal is to blog your way to expertise and leave the world of reporting behind you have to start teaching and doing so by leveraging real experience.

Experience can come from what you do today and what you have done previously; you just need to take enough steps to demonstrate what you already know and what you are presently learning along your journey. I know so many people in my life, who are experts simply by virtue of the life they have lived, yet they are so insecure about what they know, they never commit their knowledge to words for fear of…well fear.

Blogs and the Web in general, are amazing resources when you leverage them as a communication tool to spread your expertise because of the sheer scope of people they can reach. If all you ever do is talk to people in person and share your experience using limited communication mediums, you haven’t much hope of becoming an expert. Take what you know and show other people through blogging, and you might be surprised how people change their perception of you in time.

Reporting Is A Stepping Stone

If your previous experience and expertise is from an area you want to leave behind or you are starting from “scratch”, then reporting is the path you must walk, at least for the short term.

Reporting is a lot of fun. Interviewing experts, talking about what other people are doing and just being part of a community is not a bad way to blog. In many cases people make a career of reporting (journalism is about just that), but if you truly want success and exponential results, at some point you will have to stand up and proclaim yourself as someone unusually good at something and then proceed to demonstrate it over and over again.

Have patience and focus on what you do to learn and then translate that experience into lessons for others, and remember, it’s okay to be a big fish in a small pond, that’s all most experts really are.

This article was by Yaro Starak, a professional blogger and my blog mentor. He is the leader of the Blog Mastermind mentoring program designed to teach bloggers how to earn a full time income blogging part time.

To get more information about Blog Mastermind click this link:

www.BlogMastermind.com