Image Credit: © Aerrin99

This  is  all about my dad because it’s his birthday on Saturday. But he does not know that I’m doing this article about him so could you keep it a secret for me? This is also one of my presents to him so this is really important to me.

Dear daddy

I hope you have the best birthday ever.I hope you like this article about you but honestly I did not know how to publish this article but somehow I’ll do it.

LOVE YOU LOT’S FROM KAITLYN!

Did you like the letter I did for you? For you to answer below.This is a song for you!

  
    I hope you have a happy birthday
    you may get some great presents
    but never get something as great as this

    it's my love yes my love
    if I wasn't made you wouldn't get something as good as this
    it's my love yes my love

    you could have anything
    but nothing be as great as this

    it's my love yes my love
    I said yes it's my love yes it's my love
  

Thank you very much.

That all I can say ….but HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD!xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo.

Get paid for liking stuff!

About a month ago I read an article on WassupBlog where my fellow Aussie, @AussieSire was writing about a new “word of mouth” advertising mob, called MyLikes.  I’m normally quite skeptical of things like this, but this time I thought I’d check it out.  I signed up that day, and a month later here is what I think…

What Is It?

To quote their “About” page, MyLikes is:

MyLikes is a word-of-mouth advertising platform that allows the long tail of influencers on the web to create endorsements for products and services they like. We are attempting to change the way brand and discovery advertising is done on social media and other places on the web where influencers have a more engaged following, by letting the influencers (who are the ones who understand their audience the best) choose and write endorsements in their voice. By paying the influencers on a cost-per-click basis, we incentivize the influencers to make these endorsements as relevant to their audience as possible.

OK, so this is PPC advertising.  You can use it to monetise your Twitter stream, FaceBook wall, website/blog.  But what sets MyLikes apart from all of the other advertising crowds in town is control.  You have a lot more control over what is published.  In fact, you write the ads yourself.  You get to choose what you will promote, sorry, I mean “like”.  You get to choose when and where.  MyLikes, themselves, puts a hard limit on the number of “sponsored likes” you can publish in a 24 hour period.  That limit is one!  I reckon you’d have to be a special kind of anal retentive to think that one ad per day was spamming.

Is There More?

Yes!

From what I can gather, they are trying to foster a community of publishers (that’s people like you and me) who will put in the effort to let those around them know about stuff that they like.  Now that’s pretty easy really because it is human nature to talk about stuff with our friends.  There’s no reason why we can’t talk about the things we like.  We also tend to gravitate to people who like the same sorts of things that we do.

What MyLikes wants you to do is just to tell your friends about what you like, and to do it through them.  They then crunch the numbers and data on the stuff you are liking and use that to match up advertisers to you and your audience.  No they don’t go behind your back and start spamming your friends with ads.  The match ups they get from analyzing your likes are offered to you as sponsored likes that you can send out and get paid for.  Obviously, the more things you like, and by “like” I mean genuinely like, the better the system works.

Hold the phone!  Didn’t you just say that there’s a hard limit of one per day?  Yes, I did.  But that is one “sponsored like” per day.  MyLikes have two types of likes:  A sponsored like, which is the PPC you get paid for; and an unsponsored, or “normal” like.  You don’t get paid for the latter, and there is no limit (that I can see) on how many you send out.  They use the data and trends extrapolated from your normal likes to fine tune what they are offering you as sponsored likes.  This benefits everyone.  The advertisers are willing to pay more for their advertising because the target audience is no longer a blind random cross-section of people, it is finely targeted.  Your friends and followers will see ads about things that interest them.  And you’ll make more money.

In my opinion, if this was all that MyLikes had to offer, it would still be worth your while to check them out and give it a go.  But I haven’t told you about their referral programme, or their contests yet!

Referrals

Once you sign up with MyLikes you will be given a special URL that you can publish anywhere you like to have people sign up under you.  They don’t pay you any sort of subsidiary income or percentage of what the people you refer earn (my fingers’ are crossed that they might do this in the future), but they do pay you a $4 referral bonus for each person that signs up under you.  Yes there are conditions to be met before a referral qualifies for you to be paid the bonus, but those conditions are pretty easily met.

Breaking News:  I’ve just found out from @AussieSire that even if the person you refer doesn’t meet the bonus qualifications when they sign up, once they have met them you then get your bonus.  That is sweet!  That is integrity!

They also occasionally have other referral incentives as well.  For instance, right now you can win an Apple iPad if you refer the most number of people.  Though I think that incentive is almost over.

Contests

These guys also run contests all the time as reward for effort.  The contests are usually of the form of “Best List Of…”.  You see, you are able to categorise your likes into “lists”, and occasionally they run a contest to see who has the best list of whatever… Favourite glee songs, or Must-have gadgets, for example.

The prizes for these contests are pretty cool.  They are nearly always a cash prize.  Anything from $10 to $200 (that’s the highest I’ve seen).  It’s not always a cash prize, sometimes it is a Amazon gift card, or a Visa gift card.  Sometimes the prize is a cash donation to a charity.   And as if that wasn’t enough, just for participating in one of their contests, MyLikes donates 20lb of carbon offsets in your name.

Show Me The Money (Getting Paid)

Hands up if you have used Adsense?  Keep your hands up if you think it completely sucks.  I have been using Adsense for going on 3 years now.  I’ve done the math based on past performance and I have calculated that I will get my first ever cheque from Google when I turn 73 (I’m 43 now).  In the 3 years I’ve earned roughly $4.  That’s for the entire 3 years.  Adsense doesn’t pay out until you earn more than $USD150.00 in a month (luckily it is cumulative).  And they pay you at the end of the following month.  So even if you are lucky enough to have the traffic required to generate enough clicks, you still gotta wait at least 2 months to see the money.

What does MyLikes do?

They too have a threshold before they will pay out.  It is $2 in a week.  Yes, two dollars.  Every Friday they transfer everything you have in your “account” above $2 to your Paypal account.

But maybe you already have enough income and don’t want any more money, or maybe you are just a nice guy who wants to do good.  MyLikes has you covered… instead of being paid, you can choose to have your earnings donated to a charity of your choice.  I haven’t looked too deeply into this, but I think you can donate a portion of your earnings or all.  Not too sure though.

What’s The Down Side?

Yes, I’m sorry, but there is a down side to this.  When you first sign up the quality of the sponsored likes that you are offered is fairly poor.  So poor, in fact, that I nearly gave up on it.  Then I learned more about their “system”.  You do need to work it, and put in a little bit of effort.  The more “normal” likes you make, the better everything else becomes.

My personal advice is that you investigate the thing you are going to like before you like it.  Even the likes that you do not get paid for.  Don’t like anything that you would not be prepared to stand behind.  These guys will never pressure you into liking anything that you are not completely comfortable with.  From what I have seen, their integrity is high, keep yours high too.

Final Word

Definitely check them out.  I don’t know if you’ll make mega-bucks from MyLikes, but at the very least you’ll make a nice bit of pocket money.  I concur with @AussieSire, they get my thumbs up too.

Till next time…

Image Credit: © matthamm, arrayexception

The other week I came across an interesting article on Twitip by Chris Webb (@FreeWebApps).  It was about a new service (for want of a better term) from Twitter called @Anywhere.  Let me tell you… @Anywhere is nothing short of amazing!  With it, you can give any website the ability to interact with Twitter directly (no need for any 3rd party apps) with just a few lines of javascript.

Show Me The Magic

I guess you are wondering just what this @Anywhere thing can do.  Well, before I tell you what it can do, I want to point out that everything that it does do, it does so without your reader leaving your site.  That in itself is worth the price of admission.

OK, lets take a little tour.

First of all, “Follow” buttons.  Have a look at the top right of this page (sorry, RSS people, you’ll have to view the original article on Steve Youngs dot Com), just under that picture of that devilishly handsome guy there.  You’ll see a “Follow @SteveYoungs on Twitter” button.  If you click that you’ll start following me.  If you haven’t already given the app, “Steve Youngs dot Com” permission to connect with your Twitter account you’ll get a pop up asking for that permission.  That only happens once, and I’m sure it is something that you have seen in the past already.

The next ultra-cool thing would be the automatic linking of any Twitter style user name, and “Hovercards“.  Every Twitter user name mentioned on your page becomes a link to that user’s Twitter profile (there’s no need to manually add the href).  But that’s fairly boring, the coolness comes when you put your rat pointer over the link.  Up pops this “Hovercard”.  From within the hovercard you can follow or unfolow the user, see the number of people they follow, the number following them, the number of tweets they’ve sent, their bio, and their last tweet.

Try it out on some of these (all awesome folks that you should be following): @6aliens @giveabrick @HorstBurkhardt @garyvee @problogger @SteveYoungs

But I Want More!

You want more, you say?  How about this…

Does that look familiar?  It should.  It is the exact same tweet box that you see at the top of the page on twitter.com.  Try it out.  It is a live and working tweet box.  If you type something in the box and hit the “Tweet” button it will be sent to twitter.

You can, of course, customise the tweet box…

Again, that is a live tweet box.  Oh, and if you do try out this second one, I’ll see it (providing you leave me in the content), and I promise I will reply to you.

The Tweet Box’ Hidden “Feature”

I do encourage you to try out one of the tweet boxes on this page, especially the “Retweet” one at the bottom because there is something I want to show you.  After you have tweeted from here, go to your normal Twitter client (or to twitter.com itself) and have a look at the tweet there.  You’ll see that the app used to send the tweet was called “Steve Youngs dot Com”.  Depending on your client, that will be a link back to this site (the twitter website does this if your client doesn’t).  Woohoo!  Free publicity!  Maybe even some extra traffic.

Alright, I’m Sold, How Do I Get This?

There are a couple of things that you have to do to set this up, but it isn’t too painful.  The basic steps are…

1. Sign up with @Anywhere to get an API key
2. Use that key together with some javascript on your site

Signing up with @Anywhere is fairly straight forward.  Just go to their sign up page and fill out the form there.  On that form, “Application Name” is the text that will show up on tweets as the app used.  And for “Default Access type” you must choose “Read & Write”, otherwise write actions such as tweeting won’t work.

Once you have filled in and submitted that form, go to “View your applications” and you’ll see your new app listed.  Click on its name and you’ll be taken to a detailed view of your app.  Your API key is listed there.

WordPress Setup Without Getting Your Hands Dirty

Yes, you are in luck, there are already some WordPress plugins for @Anywhere integration.  I’ve seen two so far, the one that Chris listed in his article, and “Twitter @Anywhere Plus“.  The latter is the one that I would personally recommend.  The plugin does lack a couple of features, but if you go to the plugin page you’ll see that I left the guy a comment explaining what I felt was missing, and he replied saying he was adding those things in a future version.

This plugin is available through wordpress.org, so you can install it via your dashboard in the normal way.  It doesn’t come much easier than that.

WordPress Setup — The Dirty Hands Way

Some people just have to dig into the source code and stick their grubby hands all over everything (yup, that’s me!).  So I have set up most of the @Anywhere integration here manually.  Now, if you are likely to want to do it this way, my guess is that you have no trouble following instructions and documentation, so jump right in from the @Anywhere docs.

Bonus — Code For Retweet Box Used Here at SYcom

At the bottom of every article here you’ll see a “Retweet box” that is pre-filled with the article’s title and a shortened URL.  That comes from a few lines of javascript and jquery in single.php (the file that displays a single article).  Here is the code that brings the magic to life (you can copy/paste into your own site)…

<!-- Tweetbox -->
<div id="tbox" style="text-align: center;"></div>
<script type="text/javascript" src="http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.4/jquery.min.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript">
twttr.anywhere(function (T) {
    function CompressURL(url,success)
    {
        var link = 'http://to.ly/api.php?json=1&longurl=' + encodeURIComponent(url) + '&callback=?';
        $.getJSON(link, function(data){
            success && success(data.shorturl);
        });
    }
    CompressURL(document.location.href, function(shorturl)
    {
         T("#tbox").tweetBox({
                height: 40,
                width: 550,
                defaultContent: "RT @SteveYoungs " + document.title + " " + shorturl,
                label: "Tweet this article!"
         });
    });
});
</script>
<!-- End Tweetbox -->

Please remember that you need more than just that code snippet to make it work.  @Anywhere has to be initialised on your site, and that is done via a one-liner that goes into the “head” section of your page…

<script src="http://platform.twitter.com/anywhere.js?id=YOUR_API_KEY&v=1" type="text/javascript"></script>

You won’t need that if you are using one of the WordPress plugins I mentioned earlier.  They do that for you.

I hope you enjoy the new Twitter integration, both here and on your own site.

Till next time…

Image Credit: © oddly_bent

Quick note from Dad… Here is a quick little story from my 8 year old son, Blake, for his Mum on Mother’s day.  Blake typed half of it and then got me to do the rest, but it is all his own words and ideas.  Over to you, Blake…

This story starts with four people called Blake Kaitlyn Dad and MUM! They are all super heroes.   Dad and Blake were Iron Man, and Kaitlyn was super strong.  Mum could fly in a big circle, and she could shoot anything she wants.

On Mother’s Day Kaitlyn got kidnapped!  Blake, Dad, and Mum all went out to save her.  When they got to the kidnapper’s lair Blake blasted through the door.  Blake and Mum went to find the kidnapper.  Dad went to find Kaitlyn.  When Dad got to Kaitlyn he untied her.  Kaitlyn hit him on the head and yelled,

why didn’t you come and rescue me an hour ago?

When Blake and Mum got to the kidnapper’s secret room Blake blasted through the door.  Mum was taken by the kidnapper, and Blake went out to find her.  Blake caught the kidnapper and knocked him over, and then blasted him with his hand lasers and saved Mum.

When they all got back home Kaitlyn was mad at Blake because he had accidentally broken one of her things.

-=The End =-

Hi Mum!

I hope you liked my little story.  Here is a picture I drew just for you.  It is all the characters in the story.

The Heroes In My Story

I love you with all my might.

From Blake xoxoxo

Image Credit: © mikecogh

Very quick intro from Dad… This article was written by my gorgeous almost-ten-year-old daughter, Kaitlyn.  It was all her idea and the only thing I had to do was fix 2 typo’s.  Well done, baby!  Love you sooooooo much!  Now, over to Kaitlyn…

Mother’s Day is the best day of the year in my opinion.

I like Mother’s Day because you get to spoil your Mum for all the work she’s done.  Like going to work, washing up, making dinner, taking their kids to school, looking after their kids, making lunches and lots of other things.  And Mums should be appreciated for what they do.  I am only nine and I still have heaps more to say about Mother’s Day!  I think Mums like it the best when you give them a hug and a kiss.

To give you an example, I write my mum a letter…

Dear Mummy,

I hope you love Mother’s day.   l was the one who asked Daddy for the coffee and banana smoothy.  And I hope you love the presents.

Love from Kitty-Kat Kaitlyn Rose Bear.

That’s my example of a Mother’s day letter.  And here is a picture of the Mother’s Day card I made for my Mum…

My Mum, and me

Image Credit: © jaeming

6:00pm

It’s Friday night, the kids are cranky as, and you’ve had the longest day on record.  Now, you’re a very thoughtful and caring person and you figure that you’ll do something nice for your family and offer to go and grab some take-out for dinner.  The kids immediately cheer their approval and begin the ritual of begging Dad to let them come for the drive.  To prevent the tears and tantrums you agree.  Of course, they’re not dressed for outside so the hunt for something appropriate to wear begins.  Side note:  your idea of “appropriate” and their idea is vastly different, but some how you manage to get them suitably attired.

6:12pm

Hold on, you two!  You did go to the toilet, didn’t you?

You tend to learn pretty quick as a parent that you never ever take any child on any journey in a vehicle without a toilet run before you leave.  You’re just asking for trouble if you don’t.

6:17pm

Finally!  You are in the car and on your way.  You feel good.  You’re saving time.  You’re making your life easier, nobody will have to slave over a hot stove tonight.   Then you get out onto the main road and find out that every person in the city who has a car has decided that now would be the best time to be on the road. This road.

6:47pm

At last, you get to the take-out joint.  Normally you can do this trip in 5 minutes.  It took you 20 minutes this time, but that’s OK, you have no control over the traffic conditions.  Not your fault.  The whole point of this is the convenience, yeah?  You’re saving so much time and effort tonight.

Oh hell!  The drive-thru is backed up for 3 blocks!  Lets just find a park and order inside.

7:03pm

You and the kids are inside now and gazing up at the succulent delights on offer on the menu board.  It’s going to take a few minutes for the 50 people in front of you to be served so you know you have a little time to make up your minds.  What do you mean you’ve changed your mind on what you want to order?  Well you thought you knew, but that was at home.  At home there isn’t a huge menu board with giant pictures of mouth-watering yummy stuff everywhere.

7:22pm

This is the point where you are at the counter and the teenager with pimples and braces is apologising for your wait.  You see, she’s brand new.  It’s her first ever shift.  And they are also short-staffed… so-and-so is off sick, and somebody else couldn’t work because of school exams… yada yada yada, blah blah blah… Alright, lady, I don’t care.  Just take my order, already.

Guess what they’ve just run out of?  Yup, everything you want to eat.  For about half a second you toy with the idea of asking the kids to choose something else.  Luckily, you come to your senses and just take the bull by the horns and order for you, your wife, and your kids.  You don’t flinch when the pimply faced trainee informs you that there’ll be a 2 minute wait on some part of your order.  You’re not phased at all, even though you know full well that “2 minute wait” is code for “it’s gonna be at least 10 minutes before we even start on your order, buddy”.

7:38pm

You are back in the car and on your way home.  The traffic has died down considerably by this time, so you make it back home in a much more respectable 7 minutes.

7:47pm

You’re eating!  They messed up your order, and the food tastes like cardboard, but you are eating.  Pat yourself on your back for being such a thoughtful, time and energy saving, cost effective soul.  Your family will praise you for all eternity because you have bestowed this wonderfully convenient feast upon them.

And to think, it only took one hour, forty-seven minutes, and about $50.00.

Was that story exaggerated?  Yeah, quite possibly.  But not by as much as you think.  In fact, I have had many a Friday night exactly like this.  And I bet you have had some that were close.

Lets take a look at how things actually went down here, tonight, regarding dinner…

6:27pm

We have a little ritual here where Blake & Kaitlyn will have a look around the kitchen to see what food is available, and then give me suggestions as to what we could have for dinner.  I often have to steer them toward more healthier choices, but that’s beside the point.  It is rare that I’m not given 3 or 4 really good ideas for dinner.  And tonight was no exception.

It should be noted that, at this point, the meat we were going to eat for dinner was still frozen solid in the freezer.

6:35pm

The meat is thawing nicely in the microwave.  The fresh potatoes, snow peas, sweet corn, and broccoli are all pretty much washed and prepped.  A few more minutes and all the vegetables are in the steamer.  Time to prepare the garlic, pepper, herbs, and extra virgin olive oil that we will grill the meat with.

Confession time.  I cheated with the herbs.  I used dried.  But it was fresh garlic, and whole pepper corns.

6:40pm

The meat is now cooking, and the next 5 to 10 minutes are spent cleaning up the mess we have made so far.  I have found that it is always a lot easier to clean as I go.  It makes the final cleanup at the end so much easier because there is hardly anything to do.

6:48pm

The meat is done.  Time to let it stand.  The general rule of thumb about how long to stand your meat is that it should stand for about half the total cooking time.  Our meat took roughly 8 minutes (medium rare if you are wondering), so it should stand for 4.  There is plenty of gorgeous yummy juices from the meat, so add a little booze (a shiraz in this case) and onto the heat with it.  That’s going to be some killer gravy.  (I never ever use gravy powder).

6:50pm

The vegetables are done and the gravy will be ready in about a minute.  That gives me 2 minutes to mash the spuds.

6:52pm

Tonight's Dinner

6:53pm

We’re eating!  We’re eating exactly what we wanted, nobody messed up the order.  Trust me, it tasted absolutely gorgeous.  There wasn’t a single scrap of left-overs.

We went from an idea and frozen meat to a full blown healthy meal for four people in about 26 minutes.  For a total cost of less than $10 to $15 (yes that’s an estimate, but pretty close I’d say).  And did I tell you?  I didn’t cook this meal.  My kids did.  Oh, sure, I helped them, but my role was more supervisory than anything else.  I jumped in when little hands couldn’t do the job, or when things got a bit too hot to handle.  But this meal was predominately their doing.  Blake is 8, and Kaitlyn is nearly 10.

So, the next time you are strapped for time, prepare yourself a home-cooked meal.  It is much quicker, easier, and cheaper than “fast food”.

Till next time…

Image Credit: © Very Quiet

When Kaitlyn (my almost-ten-year-old) woke me this morning I had no idea what the day would have in store for me.  I figured that it’d be another boring old day without anything exciting or amazing happening.  Then I opened my RSS reader…

I never read everything in my RSS reader, I’m actually very picky and fussy about what I read.  I’ll quickly scan through the list of article subjects and pick what appeals to me.  Very often that means I just mark everything as read and close the reader.  I was just about to do exactly that when I noticed that one article might be worth a look.

Not only did I read the article in its entirety (something else that I don’t do all that often), but I actually decided to leave a comment.  I then promptly forgot about it and went out to do the grocery shopping.  It was later on in the day when I got back to my computer that I noticed I had a new comment on an article here.  And then another.  And then a retweet.  These things were happening on an article here.  They were happening as a direct result of me leaving a single comment on another guy’s blog.

I decided to track as much of the activity as I could, just to see what the true value of a single comment on a blog can mean.

• 7 new comments on an article here that was published a fortnight ago
• 1 of those 7 was from someone who had never left a comment here before
• 14 tweets about this fortnight old article
• 2 new people following me on Twitter
• A couple (can’t be certain of the number) of new comments and tweets on Sire’s article that started all this in the first place because they saw me comment and/or tweet.

Perhaps I’m easily impressed, but I was floored by the amount of activity that my one comment has snow balled into.  And the total numbers could quite well be higher than what I see.  I can only track what comes past me directly.  There could quite easily be a trickle effect happening with each person in that list above that I can’t see.  Another thing that my “stats” don’t take into account are the people who came and read the article, but didn’t leave a comment, or didn’t retweet it.  Same for those that were driven to Sire’s blog and left no trace of their visit.

Oh, something I should point out.  The comment that I left on that article at Wassupblog wasn’t one of those “yeah, me too…” or “great article mate” comments.  It actually had some substance.  I doubt I would have seen this follow-on activity if it didn’t.

I’ll be sure to be mindful of the value of a comment from now on.

Till next time…

Most people think success is all about luck. That in order to be successful you need to be in the right place at the right time with the right skill set. This is very rarely the case and one of the first things that superachievers learn is that success is just a game you have to play and there are rules to that game. Providing that you play to those rules and follow some simple instructions then success can come easily in any area of your life.

Now there are many rules to the game of success and if I wrote about them all here in some detail you’d be reading for the majority of the day, if not longer. Instead I’m going to focus on a simple part of the game that if you can apply it to your life, you can start to produce results in any area of your life.

The success cycle is very simple. Made up of 4 interlinked areas, it helps to show how variation in any part can change the results you get out at the end. It also helps to show that momentum can be built in one area which can then be rolled over into something else, building more success.

The idea is simple. Your potential, which can include what you perceive is your potential, determines the actions you take in order to produce  results. The results you get are dependent on the type and quality of the actions you take and they also directly influence your beliefs and attitudes, which in turn then shape your future potential.

Here’s an example of how this might work in the negative sense.

Billy is a saxophone player. He practices a couple of times a week but never usually for very long. His mates at work say he should audition for their Rhythm and Blues band because they are on the look out for a new Sax player. Billy agrees and goes home to practice for the audition. The problem is Billy has never thought he was very good at the Saxophone and never thought he was skilful enough to be in a band, even though he secretly wishes he could be in one. So he practices a bit, but never truly puts his heart in to it because deep down he doesn’t think he’s got the chops to cut it. The audition comes around and he manages to not make a mistake, but the performance he gives doesn’t really have any funk to it, so he gets to be turned down. Billy walks home despondent thinking over and over in his mind: “I knew I wasn’t good enough.”

You think Billy ever auditioned for a band again after that? Or that he even picked up the Saxophone again? It’s very doubtful isn’t it? But let’s look at this from the other perspective.

Billy rushes home from work that day, after being asked to audition and begins practicing with gusto. He knows that he’s got a real shot to do something he loves and maybe make some money out of it. Billy knows he’s not put the practice in really in the past but vows to put the hours in now. So he works hard on his audition piece and by the time he goes to try out, Billy’s Saxophone playing is sounding amazing. He nails the audition and gets the gig. He walks home with a surge of self-belief that he has never had before and he knows that he can now do anything he sets his mind to.

The great thing about the success cycle is that you can have impact on the results at 2 key points; the Actions you take and the Belief / Attitudes you have.

Actions:

Action is everything in life. Every action you take or don’t take, determines the results you get whether good or bad. If you fail to take action or you take little actions that are poorly executed, you’ll always get poor results. If you’re getting consistently poor results then your actions are always the first place you should look. If they’re well thought out, well executed and there are enough of them and you’re still getting poor results, then go back a step through the cycle.

The quality and quantity of your actions however are determined by your perceived potential. If you don’t think you can do something, then the actions you take will match that. If you think you have the potential to do really well then you’ll take lots of positive actions and subsequently get a lot of positive results.

Many people fail to take action in their life and instead cling to wishful thinking. Don’t!

Beliefs and Attitudes:

Everything you experience in life creates and fuels your beliefs and attitudes. If you are a witness to an awful and bloody murder then it wouldn’t be at all too surprising if you developed the belief that the death penalty is a good thing. You can develop a belief and attitude in anything if you can find enough things to support it. A good friend of mine, Tim Brownson, explains beliefs like a stool. If you can find enough legs to support it, you can get the stool to stand up on it’s own. To deconstruct a belief all you therefore need to do is remove enough of the legs to make it topple over.

The power of beliefs is immense. Limiting beliefs, the ones that stop you from doing something, are equally as powerful. If you have the belief that you can’t achieve something or that you won’t be any good even if you try then you’ll perceive your potential as quite low. This will have a detrimental effect on the actions you take and the results you get. This will further confirm your beliefs and the whole cycle starts again. Where as if you can develop some positive beliefs, by finding evidence to support them from past experiences, you will have a high perceived potential which will affect the actions you take and the subsequent results. Similarly a lax atttitude towards what ever you’re trying to achieve will have the same effect.

So…

You can fit the success cycle to any situation you like and each area will still be applicable. In order to produce consistent results all you have to do is ensure the actions you take are positive as are the belief and attitudes you develop. You have 100% control in these two areas and it’s your responsibility as to whether you have a positive or negative influence on them.

Ben Lumley is a Motivational Speaker and Trainer from the UK who writes about personal development at 6aliens.com. Why not connect with him on Twitter @6aliens or if you liked this article then why not subscribe to his RSS Feed?

Image Credit: © sgroi

According to an article in New Scientist magazine, Nokia has filed a US patent for a cell phone handset that recharges itself by harnessing the energy produced by the owner’s movements.

Simple Design

Nokia sees a phone where the heavier components like the battery sit in a sturdy frame supported on two sets of rails.  The rails allow the frames to slide along two axis, one set of rails for up and down motion, the other set for side to side.

Strips of piezoelectric crystals sit at the end of each rail and generate a current when compressed by the frame.  So when you walk around with the phone in your pocket, or otherwise move the phone about, the motion generates electricity.  That charges a capacitor, which, in turn, trickle charges your battery.

My Thoughts

I can’t say if this system would alleviate the need for a traditional charger.  In all likelihood, it probably wouldn’t.  I’d see this as a means to keeping an already charged (or mostly charged) battery topped up.

Another thing to consider is that this will be totally useless if you are like me and your cell phone spends most of its life sitting on a desk, going nowhere.  Fantastic for walkers, runners, cyclists, and active people though.  Maybe this is Nokia’s way of getting us healthy?

I’ll try to keep an eye on this and bring you any developments as they happen.  Who knows, maybe one day I’ll be able to review a self-charging phone for you.

Till next time…

Image Credit: © Greything

Yes, you read that right, Kangaroo Salad. I just threw this one together, and it was delicious! If you have never eaten kangaroo meat before you are really missing out. It tastes a tiny bit gamey, but not so much that even folks who normally don’t like gamey meat would still enjoy kangaroo.

The key to cooking kangaroo is to not over cook it. If you go beyond medium-rare, you’ve ruined it and it’ll be as tough as boot leather. So, remember, rare to medium-rare, and it’ll melt in your mouth.

BTW, kangaroo is really good for you, it’s high in protein and iron and has a low fat content.

Lets take a look at the recipe…

Ingredients

• kangaroo meat
• oregano
• whole cummin seeds
• mixed herbs (yeah I cheated, but what ya gonna do)
• 1 garlic clove
• 2 tomatoes
• lebonese cucumber
• lettuce (for god’s sake don’t use crappy iceberg, get something decent with a bit of bitterness to it)
• cheese (a matured cheddar is good)
• parmesan cheese

Method (meat)

1. Cut your roo into strips about 3 to 5cm wide (1.5 to 2″)
2. Chuck the oregano, cummin, and mixed herbs into your pestle and mortar and bash the crap outta it. Don’t go overboard, you’re not looking for powder here, just wanna release the flavours.
3. Finely slice the garlic and chuck that in with the herbs.  Bash it around a bit to let out the juice and release the flavour.
4. Add in a bit of extra virgin olive oil to get a runny coarse paste going. This helps to both spread it evenly over the meat and to help stick it to the meat.
5. Bung ya frying pan on the stove on high with a little olive oil.
6. Coat the roo in the herb/garlic/oil mix. If your pestle and mortar is nice and big like mine, you can throw the meat in there and toss it around. And letting it sit in there for a few minutes while the pan heats up doesn’t hurt either.
7. Put the meat into the pan and sear him on both sides for no more than 2 minutes a side.
8. Turn the heat down to medium – medium-high and cook both sides of the roo for another 2 to 3 minutes.
9. Take it off the stove now and let it stand. While it is cooling you can prepare the rest of the salad. (you don’t really want piping hot meat in your salad so you don’t need to rush about like a chook with its head cut off)

Method (salad)

1. Cut up the tomatoes and cucumber how ever you like and chuck them straight onto your plates.
2. Rinse and spin your lettuce (you do have a salad spinner, don’t you?). And then shred it into strips that are maybe twice as wide as fetucini. Put this aside for a moment.
3. Cut the roo across the width of the strip into pieces 3 to 5mm thick. So yeah, pretty finely.
4. Grate a small amount of parmesan over the meat and then toss the meat through the lettuce.
5. Whack it onto the plates and grate some cheddar over the top of it all.
6. Lastly, drizzle some extra virgin olive oil over the top

Bon Apetite!