As mentioned in the past, this blog is about my search for ways to make money from the Internet. Periodically I write about other things that interest me, but for the next few posts we are back to finding ways to make a living off the Internet. Internet World Stats tells us that as of June 30, 2012 the estimated number of Internet users in the world was 2,405,518,376 with a population penetration rate of 34.3% (source – Internet World Stats. (Copyright © 2001 – 2013, Miniwatts Marketing Group, All rights reserved worldwide.) With figures like these it’s obvious that the Internet is the world’s biggest market place. And, there must be a lot of ways to make money online from it!

We’ll start with Affiliate Marketing. An Affiliate, acts as an agent for an online e-commerce company introducing customers to the company by using their own marketing methods. Should the customer purchase from the company the Affiliate gets paid a commission. This commission can be anything from 10% to75% of the retail price of the item purchased. Wikipedia defines it as “a type of performance based marketing in which a business rewards one or more affiliates for each visitor or customer brought about by the affiliates own marketing efforts.”

So how does one go about this? Basically you use the Internet via your own website or blog to market products that are of interest to others. Be warned though, it’s not as simple as it seems.

More to follow ….

Successful people be they sportsmen, musicians, businessmen, professionals like doctors, lawyers etc. all have the ability to focus! To “focus on” something means to pay attention to it. Now, Wikipedia tells me that “Attention is the cognitive process of selectively concentrating on one aspect of the environment while ignoring other things. Attention has also been referred to as the allocation of processing resources. Attention is one of the most intensely studied topics within psychology and cognitive neuroscience.” Focusing or paying attention is not easy. Try meditating for 15 minutes and all you do is focus on your breathing. Find yourself a quite place where you can sit comfortably, close your eyes and focus on your breathing. Random thoughts will enter your mind, dispel them and focus on your breathing. Try it. It’s not easy to start with, but you get better at it.

Have been posting on discipline, discipline is a habit. Habit is what turns you into a couch-potato watching TV all day, habit is what gets you exercising regularly and eating correctly instead of pigging out on junk-food. How do you change bad habits into good ones?

Habits are controlled by the sub-conscious/unconscious mind. Richard Bandler and John Grinder the founders of NLP(Neuro Linguistic Programming) say that the part of your functioning (habits etc.) which is responsible for about ninety-five percent of your learning and skill, is called your unconscious mind. It’s everything that’s outside of your awareness at a point in time. “Conscious” is defined as whatever you are aware of at a moment in time. “Unconscious” is everything else. They go on to say that “ninety nine times out of a hundred when a person wants to make a change, there’s going to be a dissociation between their conscious desires and some unconscious set of programs. The unconscious is far more powerful. It knows far more about your needs than your conscious mind.” and it’s this unconscious mind you have to change!

So, how do we change our habits? A little bit at a time, you slowly reprogram the unconscious. Do one thing everyday towards a better you than you did the day before, even if it only takes as little as five minutes. But do it regularly, everyday!

We behave as our unconscious tells us to. People are continually ‘turning over a new leaf’ or making New Years resolutions and never sticking to them. Why do the majority of dieters having reached their goal weight put it all back on again plus! I believe that your unconscious that dictates what you do. Lets use the ‘dieter’ to explain what happens. They loose weight and the unconscious has a look around and says ‘wait a moment, this is not the normal me, I am not this slim, trim person, I am an overweight person’ and very subtly guides you to eat the wrong foods and stop exercising and you put on weight again. In order to change permanently, one has to change the perception of you that the unconscious has.

Reprogramming your unconscious is a bit like learning to drive a car, you have to go through the process a number of times until it drops into unconsciousness. Consciousness seems to be occupied by things we don’t know how to do too well. When we know how to do things really well, we do them automatically. In the case of the dieter in addition to going on diet they have to constantly tell/see themselves as a slim, trim person and when this drops into the unconscious they don’t put on weight again.

Exactly the same applies to discipline, when your unconscious believes that you are disciplined you are!

The Oxford Dictionary defines it as “training or way of life aimed at self-control and conformity” Wikipedia says “Discipline is the assertion of willpower over more base desires, and is usually understood to be synonymous with self control.”

All the motivational books talk about goal setting, procrastination, getting more done in less time, focusing on key areas, identifying constraints, taking baby steps, preparing before you begin etc. etc. Not one talks about discipline! Without discipline you cannot address any of the above. Why is it so difficult to be disciplined? I believe it has all got to do with your sub-conscious/unconscious mind. I might be wrong about this and welcome comments.

If you haven’t heard of NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming – explained as a methodology intended to understand and change human behaviour-patterns) you should read a book by John Grinder and Richard Bandler called Frogs into Princes. Google it, there are downloadable .pdf’s available on the Internet or you can buy it through Amazon.

Grinder and Bandler say that the part of your functioning which is responsible for about ninety-five percent of your learning and skill, is called your unconscious mind. It’s everything that’s outside of your awareness at a point in time. “Conscious” is defined as whatever you are aware of at a moment in time. “Unconscious” is everything else.

So, if we are ill-disciplined how do we change, and, more importantly stay changed?

More on this tomorrow.

Zig Ziglar passed away on November 28, for those of you who did not know him he was a salesman, motivational speaker and author. Ranked by some as America’s #1 motivational speaker, he emphasized the need to set goals, without goals you achieve nothing!

This is what Seth Godin had to say of Zig.

“My teacher Zig Ziglar died this morning. He was 86.

Thanks for teaching me how to sell and why it mattered.
Thanks for reminding me how much it mattered to care.
Thanks for telling us a fifteen-minute story about Johnny the Shoe Shine Genius, so compelling that I flew to the airport just to meet him.
Thanks for 72 hours of audiotapes, listened to so many times I wore out the cassettes twice.
Thanks for that one day we spent backstage together in Milwaukee.
Thanks for making goal setting so clear.
Thanks for elevating the art of public speaking, and making it personal, not something to be copied.
Thanks for believing in us, the people you almost never met in person, for supporting us with your voice and your stories and your enthusiasm.
Thanks for teaching so many people, people who will continue to remember you and to teach as well.
You’ll be missed.”

Hamba kahle Zig…

The estimated number of Internet users in the world for year-end 2011 is 2,267,233,742 and the penetration rate is 32.7% (source – Internet World Stats. Copyright © 2001 – 2012, All rights reserved worldwide.) With these figures it’s obvious that the Internet is the world’s biggest market place. And there must be a lot of ways to make money online, this blog is about my search for ways to make money from the Internet.

I began my search with HYIP’s (High Yield Investment Programs), go here to find out more http://hyip.tuanpickard.com

‘Dark Continent’ – A 19th century expression previously used to describe Africa, particularly Sub-Saharan Africa. As little was known about the continent’s interior geography, map-makers would often leave this region dark – Still is!

I am reading a lot about the Laws of Attraction, therefore when you get writers block, all you do is attract more of it. So I went looking for inspiration and found it, sort of, in a short story by Ayn Rand “The Simplest Thing in the World”. This is the introduction to the story, I quote “The story illustrates the nature of the creative process – the way in which an artist’s sense of life….” we’ll stop right there. It’s this “sense of life” thing that is the problem, it comes from what we have inherited from our tribe/family/call it whatever you like and their respective mindsets. Now, if you grow up believing that you can’t do it, you can’t! This is what you have to change. It requires constant vigilance of what you are thinking about, only good positive thoughts are allowed.

On to other things, if you have not heard of Leo Babauta, go read his blog, http://zenhabits.net/about/ and as he says “smile, breath & go slowly”

Till next time.

‘Dark Continent’ – A 19th century expression previously used to describe Africa, particularly Sub-Saharan Africa. As little was known about the continent’s interior geography, map-makers would often leave this region dark – Still is!

Today is Nelson Mandela’s 93^rd birthday. If he had not been around to guide South Africa to democracy I fear the country would have gone up in flames. This quote from him I believe is also appropriate to the Laws of Attraction “We must use time wisely and forever realise that the time is also ripe to do right.” My spin on this is don’t waste your time thinking negatively!

I am currently reading two books on the Laws of Attraction; an eBook by Dr Joe Vitale – Attract Money Now, and The Law of Attraction by Esther and Jerry Hicks and will be quoting from them liberally in my blogs. If you want to download Joe Vitale’s eBook go here: http://www.attractmoneynow.com/

Now, to quote from Attract Money Now “Remember, your lack of money, love, health, wealth and happiness comes directly from your mindset.” “Shifting your focus to where you want to be, rather than focusing on what you don’t have, shifts you out of the scarcity mindset into receiving mode.”

If you’re going to think, which you do anyway – be positive, know what you want from life and focus on that!

‘Dark Continent’ – A 19th century expression previously used to describe Africa, particularly Sub-Saharan Africa. As little was known about the continent’s interior geography, map-makers would often leave this region dark – Still is!

This weekend our car broke down. Its done a few miles, and various components needed repair and/or replacing. I have been delaying this, hoping to get it to last a little longer so that I can scrap it and sell it before we emigrate to the UK. However, I do fret and worry about it all the time! Now it has broken down, all the parts that have been showing signs of trouble packed up at the same time! I now wonder whether with all my fretting and worrying I didn’t bring this on? You know, manifested it, in terms of the Laws of Attraction – nonsense! I know of course, that if I had done the repairs this would have not happened!

This is the whole point of the Laws of Attraction, for instance when it comes to money, don’t think about how to actually bring in the money: think about what you must do in order to let the money come to you. You actually have to do something!