“Oh, I should have… done this and that”. You knew it somehow but you simply just didn’t do it. That’s the last piece of the puzzle. You’ll only know if you get a complete picture when you put the last piece down.

If you do nothing, you’ll get nothing. If you do something, you’ll get something, even if it’s a failure. That’s how we learn and progress. Most people a just are piece of puzzle away from being better than the last time. The fear of failure and negativity puts them away from putting down the last piece of puzzle.

Like Nike always say. Just do it. And you’ll know it.

Removed my cast also about a month ago.

Feeling a bit confuse but not anymore. There’s so much opportunities out there. So many Gold Mines for you to work on. One moment you want to do this and the next moment you want to do that. It’s very confusing.

As an entrepreneur you need to know everything and that can be a little overwhelming if you’re starting out. It’s impossible for you to do everything though and that’s why we need to delegate some of our work to people who have better knowledge.

Focus on the things that you’re good at. Marketing? Building systems? And continue to learn more about what you’re good at. You can be in 101 different niches or markets but your core expertise is in marketing. I think that’s what make you different.

I recommend you to read more about E-Myth if you have problem putting things together.

Me on Cast and Crutches

If you’re a sports person and you’ve torn a ligament and had to undergo an ankle reconstruction surgery, you know how frustrating the recovery process is. Three months back, I sprained my ankle during a game and it was so bad that every step I take my left ankle hurts. I went for some physio therapy sessions but it didn’t help much, recovery was slow so my doctor recommended surgery. I went for it.

Learning to Use the Crutches

I remember as a kid I played as an injured soldier who got injured during our imagination game and I had to use an umbrella as a crutch to move around. Now I know exactly how it feels like on real crutches for a real reason. It’s tough at first and I’ve slipped a couple of times and tweak my injured leg – I just slipped another time two days back.

As Buckminster Fuller said in one of his book, Grunch of the Giants…

“I do not look upon human beings as good or bad. I don’t think of my feet as a right foot and a wrong foot. …”

That’s probably why you have a left foot. You take a right step, then a left step and it goes on until you reach your destination. Most people see their left foot as their way of falling back when they miss their right step. If they made a wrong choice, they’ve their left food to fall back on. In life, your left foot might be your job, family, friends, things that you familiar with or simply just anything that you’re comfortable with – your comfort zone.

What If You Don’t Have a Left Foot?

After slipping off my crutches and causing more pain to my ankle for a few times, I finally realized how it was like to have nothing to fall back on. It’s tough and once you fall down it’s very hard for you to get back up. You simply can’t afford to fall down anymore! The only thing for you is to move on – strong!

Your crutches are like whatever resources you have left. Carefully, smartly and wisely, you use them to do whatever you’re doing and surely enough, you strive and move on.

Crutches = Success?

Most successful people strive well on pressure. Some of the world richest people didn’t complete school. Do they have a Degree to fall back on if their business venture fails? No, I don’t think so and that’s why they are rich today because the only ‘right’ thing for them to do is to keep going.

Crutches forces me to do the things that I’m uncomfortable with. (walking with sheer arm power, going up and down stairs, taking the public transport). Crutches forces me to keep moving even without my left leg to support and balance myself. Crutches forces me to keep moving with cautious. Crutches forces me to get back up even if I slip and fall. Crutches made me appreciate my right leg more!

Translate all these into whatever you’re doing in life and they will make a difference. Think about Lance Armstrong and Terry Fox, they are great examples – they kept going!

It was about 11am, on a Wednesday morning and my dad gave me a ride to the hospital for an ankle ligament reconstruction surgery. The surgery was scheduled at 1pm. I had to be there early to get ready. By then I was already very hungry – I was not suppose to eat or drink anything 12hrs before the surgery.

It was my first time going under general anesthesia and I was kinda excited but yet a little unwilling to proceed with the surgery. There’s a little bit of fear in me but I know I have to do it because if I don’t I won’t be able to run or jump like I use to do during sports. I put my fear aside, and went on.

Into the Operating Theater

I changed into my surgery clothing and followed the nurse into the operation theater waiting area and she asked me a few standard questions. I was getting nervous. That moment, I noticed a young boy with his mum and an elderly man at the other corner of the room. I was thinking, if they are not afraid why should I. Ok maybe they are but at least I know I’m not alone. I’m showing all signs of fear, like, I don’t want to be alone and what if I don’t wake up after the surgery – 1 out of 50,000 patients shows complication when under GA (that’s like 0.00002%).

I literally put all these thoughts aside, knowing that my ankle will recover much faster if I undergo the reconstruction surgery. The odds are not against me, what’s 0.00002%? Instead, I will do better after the surgery. See the math?

I went into the operating theater, saw my doctor and greeted him. I lay onto the operating bed and everyone in the room was getting ready. The nurse plug me onto the heart rate monitor, the anesthetist was injecting stuff into my hand, my doctor was just marking out on my ankle and the next moment someone put a mask over my mouth and asked me to take in 2 deep breath… in less than 5 seconds I’m gone to sleep.

Overcoming Your Fear In Business

I feel that many small businesses are just like going for a day surgery. The fear of failures, the fear of what if this and that happen, the fear of going out of their business ‘comfort zone’ which was probably what made them stay small and stagnant. If you want your business to grow you have to get out of your comfort zone.

3 Ways to Beat Fear

1. Start being rational.

Take my day surgery experience for example, at first I was being very emotional, I know that 1 out of 50,000 patients show complication when under GA but when I took a second look, it’s only 0.00002% chance. I’ll probably have a higher chance winning the lottery. Know your facts such as, know where your business stand financially, know who your team members are and most importantly do you know yourself. Make your decision base on relevant facts and not assumption.

2. Stay positive.

Being positive and forward looking is absulotely a plus point when in comes to leadership in businesses. It gives you a better advantage when you rationalize situations. Just imagine being extremely negative and trying to figure out the facts, emotion will definitely get into your way. Stay postive and keep your cool, you’ll not only think better but present yourself well as a leader in your business.

3. Just do it!

This is the obvious that most miss. After all the hard work of analyzing facts and coming to a point where you are going to go ahead with what you have decided, you hesitated. Someone disagrees with you and wants you to do more research. I say, if you have done all your due diligent work and research, just go ahead with your decision. In marketing, how do we know if a strategy works? We just do it, test it, make changes, track the result and improve. I think it’s the same for other business strategy.

I Woke Up

2 hours later, I woke up. I can hardly move because of the anesthesia, I tried to get up, a nurse got my attention and attended to me. She remove my oxygen mask and took my blood pressure. I barely recall much, the only 2 things i remembered clearly was I opened my eyes look at my left leg and asked for food – I ate a MacDonald Fish Burger, 6 pieces of nuggets, fries, a coke and some chicken wings when I got home that day.

Like I mentioned earlier, if you never do it you’ll never know. Just Do It!

We get contented and comfortable with what we have. A 3 years relationship not going anywhere and we think it’s stable. A job paying you the same salary for 3 years and you’re happy for not being retrench. A business not making incremental profits for the past 3 years and you’re glad for making some money.

The only way for you to grow – step out of your comfort zone and make breakthroughs.

Not excuses.

Here’s the benefits…

You can run your affiliate business from anywhere (as long as there’s a laptop and Internet access), no inventory, no product to ship, no payments to collect, no customer support to worry about, no employees to manage, low start up capital, no website needed, the list just goes on.

There are 3 main challenges working on your Affiliate Marketing business which Opportunity.com is created to help those starting out and those who are already in business.

*Watch the Opportunity Video as John Reese (founder) explains in detail about solving those challenges.

A list of Affiliate Offer Directory

Opportunity.com is like an individual research center where you can do your research on finding the best Affiliate opportunities from a list of Affiliate offer from different markets and niches. There’s a broad range of market to choose from, like Health & Wellness, Automotive, Books etc.

A group of staffs from Opportunity.com will be consistently looking for the latest affiliate offer and updating them on the directory. You can see from the screenshot below on 15 May alone, there’s more than 20 Affiliate opportunities being discovered and it even shows your the commission they are offering.

Affiliate Training Center

The information and video in the Affiliate Training Center are specifically created to help you succeed in your Affiliate Business. Most of the tutorial videos are taught by John Reese himself. There are about 20 over videos tutorials now covering Market Research, Keyword Research, How to use Google Adwords, build traffic from content (Article marketing, trend watching, blog participation, social bookmarking) and many more… It’s a step-by-step training guide.

There’s a few more features in the member section like News & Research, My Opportunities and My Alerts. You can actually set specific alerts to notify you when there’s a new affiliate offer that you may be interested in.

The Price Tag?

There’s many gurus out there offering Internet Marketing courses from $997 to $1997 and no doubt they are great courses. But if you’re heading towards Affiliate Marketing, you can put those aside because what Opportunity.com has to offer is way more than you can ask for at a monthly subscription of $39.95 (there will be a 40% discount if you pay for 12 months straight).

In my opinion, this will be the ONLY system you will need if you want to be a successful affiliate marketer and seriously, the Training Tutorial Videos are worth much more than the monthly subscription itself. There’s a 30 days money back guarantee so give it a go!

Click Here to Start Building a Profitable Affiliate Business

Mine Thesis is at it’s raw form, still it look great. Check out Thesis and you’ll know what I mean when it comes to CUSTOMIZATION.

Maybe there’s a better way to kerb this?

Enough said, boring stuff aside.

A new book read…

I am about to finish reading Robert Kiyosaki’s new book, Rich Brother Rich Sister, if you have been reading his books you’ll know he talks more about financial knowledge, real estate, investments… blah blah blah… the list goes on. But this new book shares a different aspect in life. In my own words, it’s about Living Your Life.

It’s about your Whys, that make you took the first step towards what you want. His sister, his biological sister is a Buddhist Nun and what she discuss about in this book was totally eye opening. Totally different from his brother’s view but all towards a common thing – happiness.

Call this book a Bible, Holy Book, whatever that sound right to you. You’ll find the meaning of balance in life.

After Robert Kiyosaki talks so much about Dr Bucky Fuller, I had to go check him out. Some of his concepts and ideas are simply just extraordinary. They sound simple yet complex. Here’s an example of how he view the continents as one big connected world.

Facebook ads done…

Finally, my ads for my Pet Retail Business on facebook is up. It’s been running for 4 days and here are my stats:

Impressions: 139,278
Clicks: 113
CTR: 0.8%
Max Bid: $0.08

And 27 successful double optin. A 0.238% optin conversion.

If you are doing facebook ads, what’s your stats like?

How true is that? How sure can you read some one’s mind when you are not him or her? How do you know that they are not going to do it now?

My trading teacher forbids us to use the word TRY. That’s perfectly okay if you’ve positive mindset and have set yourself to achieve a goal, like Trading for instance. Of course, when you have a target and you’re clear of what you want, you know which direction to go. What if you’re confuse, unsure, in doubt, mentally depressed or simply just don’t know what to do? Can’t you just try? Yes you can! (that’s how I thought, you’ll need to try to get out of that state of mind)

I’m a positive person in general and for all the positive thinking people out there, you’ll always have some uncertainty in some point in life. We have to agree on this. We are humans and it’s natural for humans to have fear, doubt and uncertainty. It’s the individual mindset that sets each of us apart but some just don’t have and it doesn’t mean that they are not going to do it, they’re just unsure. Some are quick minded, they get things sorted out fast but some take a little longer.

Fear, Doubt and Uncertainty

You don’t need to be a psychology to know this, everyone has Fear, Doubt or Uncertainty in one way or another. Well, that’s basic human reaction i guess. (I’m considering to take a Degree in Psychology – 90% sure)

Don’t Tell a Person to Stop Using the Word “Try” when…

Remember hearing friends telling you not to use the word try when you’re lost or confused? Well of course they meant good in a way but for god sake they’re not you and how would they know what going on in your mind, right? That might not work for a confused person – at least for me it won’t. It will only work better if the person is sure of what he or she is doing.

So the next time you see a friend feeling down don’t give him or her motivation encouragement. Give him or her your hears and listen. The last thing he or she would want is motivation, it simply just won’t work.

That’s part of life – The Ups and the Downs.

The Lunar New Year celebration is over. It’s the year of the Ox and I believe that everyone should stand strong and start working smart to overcome the recession.

Valentine’s Day is over. Spend the afternoon having a take away picnic lunch with my girlfriend. We had Spaghetti Alio Olio with Teriyaki Chicken and Seafood each with a bottle of white wine. And of course, a bouquet of roses for her. How did you spend yours?

So much for catching up.

Today, I want to talk about the topic on “Selling”. The fact is everyone sells. They’re either are good or bad at it.

Can’t be, I’m not a salesman! Frankly, you don’t have to be a salesman to sell. Let me just bring you back to Valentine’s Day. If you want to ask a lady out for a date, what would you do?

You’ll probably do a pre-sell right? You’ll dress up smart and reasonably fashionable, style your hair, pluck your eye browns (pretty common for guys now) and put on perfume. You’ll then ask the lady of your choice out for a pre lunch so that you can upsell her to be your date on Valentine’s Day. Right? Everything sound familiar? Yeah, good old fashion style of a guy wooing a lady and it work for god who knows how long.

Get what I mean? You’re trying to sell yourself that you are the best guy among the other 10 to go out on a date with.

You sell to your boss that you’re one of the best in the company, you sell to your children that you are the best dad and mum around, you sell to your business partner that your new business idea is going to work big time… the list just goes on.

If you are going to sell anyway why not learn to sell the right way?