Blogging took the internet by storm a few years back, and it hasn’t slowed down for a second.  Every day there are thousands of blogs started, and it’s getting harder and harder to find a niche that isn’t full of blogs trying to make money off of it.

Everyday there are promises of thousands or even millions of dollars in blogging, and every day people lose heart and give up.

I’m not here to sugar coat blogging for you, or to tell you that it’s going to be easy.  It’s not.  The good news is that you can make a full-time income from blogging.  It takes a minimum of a year of dedicated, focused work.  It takes knowledge, testing, tracking, and persistence.

Making a high-traffic blog doesn’t happen overnight.  Or in a week.  Or in a month.  Or even in a few months.  It takes many months of work and consistent effort.

If you are willing to put in the work, write high-quality articles, do guest posts, comment marketing, forum marketing, video marketing, make high-class resources, and love your readers to death, you can make it.  The upside is that for every thousands of blogs that are created everyday, 1 or 2 of those will make it to the top and see a full-time income.  Why is that?  Every day they wrote articles, marketed their blog, loved their readers, and connected with other bloggers.  Every day they took at least a small step forward for their blog.

And for the other thousands of bloggers that quit?  They never wrote the articles, marketed consistently, cared about their readers, or formed relationships with their fellow bloggers.

If you can do those things consistently, for months, with maybe even no sign of hope for the first couple months, you can make it.  You have to learn how to calibrate yourself for success.

For all of you who are just starting blogging, or haven’t seen good results yet for your blog, I offer these 5 basic truths of blogging.  Follow them, use them, and even break them from time to time if you have to, but these are the lessons I have learned from blogging so far, and it would do other bloggers well to be reminded of some of these truths.

The 5 Basic Truths of Blogging

1.  You aren’t going to get rich overnight.

Maybe 1 in 10,000 sees quick success from their blog.  And that’s guessing generously.  For the other 9,999 it’s going to take time, effort, commitment, and sacrifice.

Blogging is full of sales pages that offer thousands of dollars of income in your first month of blogging.  Don’t bet on this happening to you.  These successes are the results of either a ridiculous amount of hard work and a high starting calibration, or a ridiculous amount of luck.

Some of you may be willing to put in the crazy amount of work that it takes to become a near overnight success, but I doubt that you have the high calibration for it.

Blogging is a medium that rewards experience, just like life.  You aren’t born great at anything, you become great through trials, mistakes, and a lot of failure.  When I first started my blog, I thought that in a few short months I was going to be raking in money and living the good life, and when it didn’t happen I lost heart.  I nearly gave up.

Just last month I relaunched this blog, with these truths in mind, and I have been seeing amazing results compared to the results I was seeing before.  (Which was partly because I had a faulty traffic-tracking tool I was using that said I was getting hundreds of visitors a day when I was really getting more like 10.  Since relaunching I have nearly surpassed the 50 visitors a day mark, in one short month.  And here’s a little blogging secret for you, traffic compounds. )

Be willing to put in the work, learn through trial and error, and meet countless failures before you start seeing success.  If those are things that you can face, you are well on your way to becoming a successful blogger.

2.  Don’t expect others to pull through for you.

Once you start telling your friends that you are going to make money online through blogging, you can expect a lot of backlash, and not very much support.  You might even meet a lot of resistance.

When I started out blogging, I was met with a ton of resistance from my friends who thought I was downright crazy.  That I needed to get a real job, make a career out of it, and live with it.

I wasn’t satisfied with that.  To be honest, I hate working for other people.  I would much rather work for myself and cultivate my own assets to secure my future.  How secure is a job anyway?  One word from your boss and you’re fired.  It’s over and your entire income stream is shut down.  Downsizing, layoffs, disability… I’ll take my chances working for myself.

The internet is constantly changing, and as long as you are willing to change with it, you can cultivate assets that will  leave you with more money at the end of the month, instead of having more month at the end of the money.

Your friends may leave you high and dry for help, and your family may not even support you, but as long as you have a dream and a desire, don’t give up on it.  The money will come, and once it does, it will come faster than you imagined.  Follow your heart.

3.  Don’t waste your money on Million Dollar Promises.

Like I said before, there are countless sales pages that are filled with ridiculous promises.  And let me tell you right now, maybe 1% of them are HALF true.

Blogging doesn’t require a quick fix, or a magic bullet.  The only guarantee in blogging is this:  Provide ridiculous amounts of value, get it in front of everyone that you can, and the traffic will come.  If you can provide good enough value, you will stand out from the other blogs, and become an authority in your niche.  Once you have that status you won’t ever have to worry about traffic again.  It will just come from your page rank, social media and bookmarking, and the crazy amount of back links that others will give you.

There’s is always room for another great blog in the internet.  It’s the scamming, drivel-producing, unoriginal, fake blogs that will be crushed and left behind.  Be original, provide amazing value, and market like crazy.  And that’s basically all you need to know about blogging.

4.  Don’t rely on others, learn to rely on yourself.

Trying to get others to help you with your blog will be like grating your nails against a chalkboard.  I doubt that it will happen.

To be a great blogger you have to learn how to rely on yourself to get the important things done.   There will be room for outsourcing later, once you’ve built up your traffic and are sure that money is on the way.  Then, you can outsource all you want, and I highly recommend doing it.

But until that point, the article writing, page set up, marketing, and networking are all going to be done by you and most likely ONLY you.

If you can’t rely on yourself to get these basic tasks done, you won’t make it.  You blog will flounder and be dying before you know it.

Take the time to learn the basics of blogging, and apply what you learn immediately.  (And I mean IMMEDIATELY.  Otherwise, you’ll never do it.  You’ll get stuck analyzing, learning, and making plans.  Action is what creates results, never forget that.)

5.  Think Long-Term.

Like I’ve said over and over again, blogging will NOT make you rich overnight.  If it does, you are either very lucky, or very skilled.

Pick a date that you want blogging to replace your income, and shoot for it.  I suggest making it one year from now.  In a year, if you work hard, you can build up a sizeable audience, learn how to monetize your blog, optimize your earnings, and get a good system going.

Now, it may take longer than a year if you don’t work hard.  The more you slack-off, the longer it’s going to take.

Here’s some helpful ideas to keep you going:

• Traffic compounds upon itself, which makes for exponential growth
• Nearly every blogger experiences a couple of huge leaps in their growth that get them on the map.  You, at this moment, are a few traffic leaps away from having a successful blog.
• No matter what anyone says, you CAN do it.

What’s Next?

Now you know the 5 basic truths of blogging, so what’s your next step?

1.  Review the basics of blogging and learn the trick of the trade (Blogging Basics: Click here to download the Blog Profits Blueprint I highly recommend this course.  It got my blog going, and cut a huge amount off of the learning curve.  The report is free, and contains all of the fundamentals of building an authority blog.)

2.  Setup your blog if you haven’t already done so, do this once, and leave it alone.  Don’t get caught up in optimizing your layout, there are more profitable tasks for you to do be doing.

3.  Make a writing plan (How to Make a Writing Calendar)

4.  Make a marketing plan (Do the same as your writing calendar)

5.  Execute

6.  Tweak your plan after reviewing your results, and execute again.

This plan is all you need to get going, and should be all you need in order to become a successful blogger.  Take it, use it, and I’ll see you at the top!

Some of you may think that power is a bad thing.  That it makes you susceptible to corruption, or maybe even corrupt in itself.  It is something to be avoided or given to others.  Too much power can break a man, and leave him in shambles, so it’s best to stay away and live a peaceful, powerless life.

You let others walk all over you, and give in without the slightest struggle.  The people in your life may run it for you, because you don’t want to cause a fight.  You don’t want to use your power to achieve your own goals and dreams.  And so you meander through life, living the way that others tell you.

You think that gaining power means treating others like a doormat, like you’ve been treated.  You think that the means to gain power are invariably cruel.  You have to stomp out the competition, and anyone that gets in your way.  You think that using your power means controlling and manipulating others to get what you want.

While you can use your power this way, it will lead you down a path of destruction.  You will lose friends, peace, and happiness because you will know that your existence is being used to control others.

Now, Time for a Little Tough Love…

Allow me to hit you upside the head with a ton of bricks.

You have no control.  You can’t help what happens to you 5 years from now, let alone 5 minutes.  Life may throw you a monkey wrench and completely destroy your plans.  In the next 5 minutes you could lose the very life that you have spent years building (which may not be a bad thing, if you’ve been living a cowardly life.)  Your car could be totaled, your house burnt down, and your finances go off the deep end all in a single day, and you could do nothing from stopping it happening.

Sure, you could set up precautions and safeguards to help prevent these things from happening, but if it is decided for you to experience these things, it doesn’t matter what you do.  They will happen, and there’s nothing you can do to stop it.

Control is an illusion that only exists in your mind.  It’s a made-up feeling of safety that allows you to live a comfortable life.  It keeps you at your steady job, with your steady paycheck, and you continue on, living a mediocre life.

Is this really what you wanted?  Is this the life that you had planned when you were a child?  Did the “real world” really get to you that much?  Has it shattered your dreams?

It’s amazing how many people live this way, how many people just stop trying.  It’s sad that you are probably going through your life right now, half asleep, never really experiencing it.

(Now it’s time for the other set of bricks…)

You have one life to live, and one life only.  Your time here on earth in this human body is it.  No matter your religion or belief, they all agree on one thing.  Once you have lived this life, you’re done.  There’s no going back to it.  Even if you believe that you reincarnate, you will never experience this life that you have been given right now.  You will never have this body again – it’s a one shot deal.

Are you happy with your life?  Do you have joy?  Do you have peace?  Is it what you want it to be? Are you satisfied?  Are you fulfilled?

I’m willing to bet that your answers to these questions are disappointing, even to yourself.  You’re feeling a twinge of pain inside because you know that you aren’t living the life you want.  You know that it isn’t right.  And you know that you feel helpless to fix it.

How do I know that you feel helpless to fix it?  Simple:  because you aren’t.  If you knew how to fix your life and make it one that you wanted to live, if you knew how to use your power to fix it, and believed that you could, you would either be in the process of fixing it, or be living a life that you want to live.

How do I know that you feel like you aren’t exercising your power in the right way?  Because you just clicked an article that’s titled “How to Build Your Power.”

What is Power?

Power is the conscious application of a person’s will to direct their thoughts, feelings, and emotions to create a reality that they desire.

If you have a high power level, creating different realities that you want to experience is easy.  You simply exercise the power that you’ve already built up and create it.  You go out there and do it.

If you have a low power level, life comes at you, and you simply go with the flow.  Someone tells you that something needs to be done, and you do it.  Someone says that you need to live a certain way, and you do it.  No questions asked.

How much better would it feel to live a life that you’ve chosen, rather than a life that was thrust open you by others and by your own limited belief in yourself?

Power is fulfilling your own needs, as well as the needs of others.  It’s something that is shared and used in a synergistic way.

Power is being strong, so you can show others how to be strong themselves.

Power is living consciously.

I want you to picture powerful people that you know, like, and trust.  People that have used their resources to impact that lives of others for the better, and used it to create a happy, joyous life for themselves.

Maybe a close friend, a pastor, a teacher, a business man, a healer, a lover, a fighter, a poet, a musician, a carpenter, anybody that exercises power to direct their thoughts and actions to produce an outcome that they desire.

Now I want you to think about all of those negative feelings that you had regarding power before, and remove them from your mind forever.  Those ideas on power are false.  That person(s) that you pictured in your head, the ones that you saw creating amazing lives that impact others, are the ones that are truly powerful.

They don’t have any of the tyrant qualities that you pictured when you thought of power, did they?

Nope.

Put those false notions from your mind and realize the truth of what power really is.

How to Build Your Power

Building your power is not an easy process, usually it is quite painful.  The best example I can give is that it’s a lot like exercising after you haven’t exercised for a long time.

Your body is stretched and used in ways that it’s not used to and it causes a lot of stress.  You feel uncomfortable and a good deal of pain as you settle into your routine.

The good thing about building your power is that, just like exercising, once you get the ball rolling, it gets easier and easier, and the results start coming faster and faster.

And like exercising, building your power is relatively simple, it just requires some basic fundamental knowledge.  And I’m going to give you a powerful example that will help you get started on the right path.

When I think of building myself up, I picture myself as an avatar in a game and I rate my scores on different attributes such as courage, discipline, fitness, love, mental toughness, communication skills, and power etc.

Once I go through and rate everything, I can see what areas in my life are lacking the most and immediately begin working on them.

When I work on building my power, I think of obstacles in my life that I can work on overcoming.

Let’s say I worked at a dead-end job, wasn’t using my innate talents, had a poor relationship, was in poor physical shape, was dirt poor, and ate too much fast-food.

It’s very easy to flip these aspects of life that you’ve become used to living with and make them into growth challenges and power-building exercises.

I flip them around and use my power to fix them and make it a situation that I desire and a life that I wanted to live.

In this example, if I was to quit my job, use my innate talents as an artist to start a business, either went to counseling and fixed my relationship or broke it off, started running and exercising 5 times a week, made money off of my personal business as an artist, and became a vegetarian – I would have successfully overcome all of the things that are currently (and quite literally) draining the life out of me.  I would have used my power to create a new reality that provides more value to others through my art, and more value to me because I would be living a life that I wanted to.

From there, I can reassess my life and see what steps I would like to take next to improve my life and the lives of others.  I can decide what aspects of life I want to experience and one’s I would rather not.  I can choose what direction my life turns to next.

Imagine if the situation above was your actual situation (and it may not be far from the truth).  Now imagine if you changed everything around and made it a life that you wanted.  You took things step-by-step, worked hard, and created something quite beautiful and valuable for you to enjoy and cherish.

How much would that help you the next time you wanted to change something?  How much more would you believe that you were capable of changing and attaining the results that you desire?

This is the “power” of building your power.

Go out today and create a day that you want to live, a day that you can remember forever think “that was an amazing day.”  Go out and start creating the life that you’ve always wanted to live.  Live life, and look back on it with gratitude for all of the amazing experiences and the awesome ride.  Go!

Polyphasic adaption is taking longer than expected, but it has also been going quite well.  I still feel my body adapting to the whole process, but everyday seems to be getting easier and easier.

I apologize for not updating as regularly as I should.  This wasn’t intentional.  One of the side effects I’ve been experiencing is a disorientation of days.  I never know what day it is anymore, unless I consciously make an effort to remember.  When I sat down to write this post, I thought that it had been 3 days, when it had been 5!

That’s not to say that time is passing slowly, because it is.  Veeerrrry slowly….

Time has taken on a different form, and one that my mind is still adjusting to.  It still feels like the first day that I started this trial.  The days blend into one, and there is no distinction between them.  They all run together, and it is a weird feeling.  It’s like staying up all night… every night.

Progress

The Good:

Every day is getting easier and easier.  At night I am fairly alert, and am able to be productive (it’s currently 2:47 as I am typing this).  The adaption is starting to take root and I am feeling tired right before naps, and am usually able to sleep and achieve REM.

My worst cycle is definitely from 5-9 am.  Drowsiness is at its peak during this time.  I have to take extra care not to put myself in a position where I could easily fall asleep.  I tend to stay on my desk chair or sit on the floor and play some video games to keep my mind active.  (Guitar Hero has been exceptionally useful )

During the first few days of this adaption, I was unable to make any creative content that held real value.  Now I am able to create content that I feel comfortable publishing.

The Bad:

Some oversleeping is still occurring.  It’s no more than an hour or two here or there, but I can definitely feel a difference when I oversleep.  I feel more tired!

I know that it sounds like a bad thing, but this is an awesome sign that this new sleeping pattern is beginning to set in.  My body would rather stick with the naps than sleep in larger chunks.

This morning I experienced one unplanned nap.  I feel asleep on accident, and woke up 25 minutes later thinking that it had been at least 3 hours!  I had an extensive dream that seemed to last forever, and I woke up refreshed (and a little pissed because I thought I had slept 3 hours.)

Again, this is exciting to me because my body woke up naturally after 25 minutes.  It didn’t try to sleep longer.  Another good sign that polyphasic sleeping is taking root.

The only real bad habit that I have grown accustomed to is having someone else wake me up.  If that person doesn’t pull through for me, I invariably oversleep.

What’s Next?

The next things on my polyphasic task list are these:

• Remove the need for extra naps
• Be able to get myself up after my naps
• Achieve REM in all of my naps
• Learning how to overcome drowsiness without the need for someone else to help

Once I accomplish these next things, I will have become a successful polyphasic sleeper!  Next on my list are psychological challenges that need to be overcome (what to do with extra time, how to deal with being awake 22 hours a day, the added hours of alone time, not having a reset button at night, etc.)

Well, it’s getting close for a nap, and I’ll be back with more frequent updates later in the week.

If you have any questions about this trial or want some coaching on your own, please let me know with a comment below!

Information on how to do things, how not to do them, when to do them, why to do them, which products are good, which are bad, which ones you should buy, which ones you shouldn’t, even down to someone’s personal blog/diary.

Being an entrepreneur online is no different, you have to be able to manage the flow of information to your readers in way that benefits them.

It’s ALL about creating as much value as possible.  The internet trades value for money.

Think about it, you only visit websites that are useful to you, you only buy products that are valuable to you- it’s value that’s the key to online success.

Why Most Online Business Fail

Most blogs and internet businesses are always struggling to make their next dollar.   They are constantly trying to extract as much value from the system as they can via money.

They may use all sorts of cheap tactics, such as spinning their articles and syndicating those spun articles in hundreds of places, blackhat SEO techniques, or just straight up lying to you to make a quick buck.

Some of you right now may be involved in some of these things, and I bet that it always feels like an uphill battle to you.  There’s always so many things to get done, and your days seem to get shorter and shorter.

Some of these tactics are no more than legal get-rich-quick schemes.  Let’s take article spinning for example.  If you aren’t familiar with what that means, here’s a little background.

Article spinning is taking an article that either you or someone else has written and putting in certain command codes that randomize the words that appear.  The process works something like this:  You go through and put in all of the synonyms for all of your words, and then you go through and rewrite the articles on a per sentence basis with a couple of extra sentences.  Here’s an example:

I got [very|extremely|pretty] excited about the [prosepect|idea|plan] of making [lots of| a lot| huge amounts| big] money when I [heard|saw| realized] that [providing|giving|creating|marketing] strong value will lead to success.

You take the same content and say it a different way over and over again.  Article spinning can make hundreds of variations of a single article for you to post as “original content.”

First off, I have no idea how this became popular, unless people are incapable of having an original thought to write about.  In the time it takes to spin a post, you could have written another original post that will undoubtedly help you with your link-building and web traffic more, let alone provide serious value to your readers and consumers.

Secondly, trying to make money online before you have provided strong value is just cowardly.  You aren’t willing to take the time to help your readers?  To take the time to craft something that will provide lasting value to them?  Something that will help them for the better?

The Mechanics of Providing Strong Value

Value always comes before making money, because money is a representation of value given.

Let’s say you work a regular job at minimum wage. That paycheck you get every week is that business telling you that you provided X amount of dollar value to the company.  (Now for the real question:  Is that what you really think you’re worth?  After all of that hard work that you did at your job, is the paycheck that they give you really worth the amount of work that you put in?  Probably not, huh?  Let me tell you something, you’re worth way more than that.  Don’t sell yourself short.)

The online world works the same way, value before money.  And the amount of money that you earn is directly proportional to the amount of value that you provide.

Here’s some examples:

On one hand we have a site like entrepreneur’s-journey.com. This site is filled with hundreds of useful articles, podcasts, resources, and videos.   It’s a literal how-to for entrepreneurs.

It took Yaro (the author of the blog) years to build up that kind of value to give to his readers.  He made next to nothing in the beginning, and spent months just building up his traffic before he made any money at all.

That initial investment of time that he gave paid off.  He now makes anywhere from $30,000 to $50,000 a month, every month.

How did he get there?  I’ll tell you his entire secret to success.  He went out and provided strong value over and over again.  For months and years he provided strong value, and now he’s at the top of the entrepreneurial food chain because of it.  He provided value to bloggers through guest posts, comments, and forum posts.  He provided value to his readers through his multi-media content.  Both his marketing and his writing were built around one thing, creating strong value.

Sounds like his strategy paid off, doesn’t it?  Well, the same story is true for nearly every blog that you regularly visit.  You keep coming back because the author provides strong value and has built a following based on how much value that they provide.

On the other hand, we have the spam sites that we come across from time to time.  The are always a nuisance.  Always getting in our way.  And yes, they provide very little in terms of value.  It’s most likely a fake blog filled with affiliate links and ads.

Now, that site may make a couple bucks here and there, but eventually it will be shut down due to google’s value that they place on strong, original content.

And in order for them to make a good profit, I’m willing to bet that they have to set up a multitude of sites with low value.

Now, you have a choice to go one route or the other, and I now you know which route is going to lead to lasting success, and which one might make you a quick buck. (but only for a little while…)

The Formula for Online Business Success

Success online comes down to a simple formula.  He who creates the strongest value the fastest and most consistently …. wins.

Every major online business follows this model.  Getting strong value out to their customers is what keeps their businesses thriving.  Think of Apple vs. Microsoft.

Microsoft cornered the PC market for awhile and held that position of dominance for a long time.  Now Apple is in the game and is making higher quality products that are easier to use and more user-friendly.  They provide more value with their marketing and general sales techniques, and they always try to be on the forefront of technology.

These things combined has given Apple dynamic success quarter after quarter.  Microsoft may still be king, but Apple is coming up behind them quickly.

Which Side Are You On?

There you have it, the ultimate formula for online success.  It can and will make you money (as long as you know how to monetize well.)  Provide fast, consistent, strong value and the money will follow.  Focus your business on these tasks and it will grow faster than it has ever before.  Focus your blogging efforts on this and your readers will be linking back to your content, comment, and go out and spread the word about your blog, because it gives something that the people crave on the internet.  Valuable information.

The majority of people’s plans go something like this

“I want to make money online, so I’m going to start a blog, write to it everyday, market it on forums and other blogs, do some guest posts, and hope for the best.”

Stupid.

I can almost guarantee you that this plan will fail.  There are no concrete answers, no objectives to be reached, no accounting for obstacles, and no way to figure out the important things that you need to know about a blog before you start.

I wouldn’t call that a plan, more like a hope or a wish.  An interest maybe… but not a plan.

Now, I bet you think that I’m going to tell you that you need to sit down for hours and plan for every little detail.  You think I’m going to say that you have to make your plans to the minute of every day in order to achieve success.

Wrong again.  You’re just not on a roll today are you?

Yes, planning does require some work; and yes, massive action equals massive results.  Those two principles will always hold true.

But planning is neither a one sentence goal, nor a 10 page pamphlet of your every day activities.  Planning is something much more natural, and much more fun than that.

I want you to take a minute to think about what a plan or a goal is.  It is a way to get from point A to point B.  That’s it, nothing else.  It’s an idea that we want to go somewhere, or get something that we don’t have right now.  The goal is the destination.  It’s a set of conditions that must be met in order for you to know that you’ve reached your goal.  The plan is the path to the goal.  It is the set of actions we plan to perform in order to meet those conditions.

You may have a goal to make money blogging this year.  That’s a wonderful goal to have, but you need a plan to go along with it.  And you need one that you know will work.

How Successful People Plan

1.  A successful planner knows that the only way to get results is to take action.

They know that you must NOT get stuck in the planning phase.  Lord knows, I was stuck there for months, and it’s one of my weak points.  If I’m unsure of what to do next, I’ll make a plan, and then another, and yet another.

And what do I have to show for all these plans?  (I bet you can get this one right…)  Yep, nothing.

Let me say that again.  NOTHING.

I was not one step closer to achieving my goals.  Not one single inch closer.

2.  A successful planner knows that they can’t plan for every obstacle.

Challenges and trials will come and go.  It’s part of the process.  In order to go somewhere, you have to encounter and overcome friction.  It’s the universe’s way of making sure that we are really committed to getting what we said we wanted.

See, once people hit their first major roadblock, they stall, make new plans, and do practically anything to move forward.  They may think that they are trying to move forward, but in reality they are afraid of the challenge and of failing.  They are afraid to move forward.  And once they stop moving, the results stop coming.

3.  A successful planner doesn’t plan for obstacles that they think they will encounter.

Planning for the future is one of the silliest exercises that we humans engage in, and for one simple reason.  We have no control over it.  Let me hit you with a dose of reality.  Today could be the last day that you are here on this earth.  Today could be the day that you die.  And what would you have to show for it?  Would you be happy about the way your day went?  Did you do something today that helped others, and was rewarding for you?  Would you be happy with your life if today was your last day on earth?

These are questions that you should ask yourself often, to get perspective on what’s important.  A person on his deathbed knows what’s important.  In a person’s last days, they realize more than ever what was important. They know what they should have done differently.  They see clearly.  And you can too, if you can answer those questions with positive answers.

But alas, I digress.

The point I’m making is this- you have no idea what the future holds.  Don’t make plans for obstacles that you think you will encounter, in doing so you will likely encounter them just because you planned to.

4.  A successful planner knows every objective to complete in order to accomplish their goal

In order to achieve a goal, you must meet a set of conditions.  And in order to meet those conditions, you must complete certain objectives.  (I’ll show you how to do that in just a minute.)

These intermediate objectives are the stepping stones to meeting your goal’s conditions and achieving it.

5.  A successful planner knows that there is no such thing as failure, only results.

Successful planners know that when they fail to meet their goals, it does not mean that they failed.  It means that they haven’t met the conditions to achieve their goal.  It means that maybe one of their conditions was off, and it gave them a different result.  But in no way did they fail, they just found out a certain way not to do something.

At it’s most basic level, this is the distinction between a successful planner and a normal planner.  When a normal planner doesn’t meet his goals, it’s depressed time.  They mope around thinking “What did I do wrong?”  When they should be asking themselves “What didn’t I do right?”

If they could answer the second question, they will know exactly what to do to remedy the situation and reach their original goal.

Realize this truth, and it will take you further than you realize.

How to Make your Plans Fail-Proof

Making your plans Fail-Proof is really quite simple, and it has to ability to take a huge amount of stress and confusion off of your shoulders.

First, I want you to write out a goal that you may have.  Whether it be to lose weight, spend more time with your kids, make money online, or exercise everyday.

And yes, I want you to write this down, because we are going to be working on this paper for about 15 minutes.

After you’ve written down your goals I want you to write down every obstacle that is in between you and reaching your goal.  Every single one.

Here are some examples:  I don’t have running shoes, I don’t know how to set up a blog, I’m not sure how to market effectively, my kids are never home when I am, etc…

This process should take about 5 minutes.

Once you have all of your obstacles written down, I want you to flip them around and make them positive.

Example:  I have running shoes that fit great and are comfortable, I know exactly how to set up a blog, I have a plan for marketing my blog, I have time allotted at home for my kids, etc…

Now I want you to take these positive obstacles that you’ve created and prune your list.  You’ll often find that nearly half the things that you think you need to achieve a goal aren’t necessary for your success.  While they may help you achieve success, they are not prerequisites for success.

After pruning your list… you’re done!

That really is all you have to do.  Once you can check off every box on your list of positive, pruned obstacles you will have arrived at your goal, and done so in one of the most efficient ways that I know how.

Some of the most successful people on the internet and in my own life plan this way, so why don’t you take a leaf out of their book and try it for yourself!

I must say, that despite your best plans and your best efforts, sometimes your plans just won’t work out the way that you want them to.  That’s when you readjust, refocus, and try again.  Remember, there is no such thing as failure, only results.  Continue readjusting until you reach your goals, it may take a little time, but you’ll get there.  Persistence conquers, not talent, not skill, persistence.

I’d love to hear what your goals and plans are, and of course I would love to help you with your plans to make them fail-proof.  I want you to achieve your goals, and as always I’m here for you.

Comment below with any questions that you may have, and I’ll give you some one-on-one attention to help you take leaps and bounds toward your goals.

Well, it’s been another 48 hours, and there have been some mishaps and some triumphs during this trial.

Let’s get the mishaps out of the way first.

I’ve had 2 oversleeps, one was a couple hours, and the other was around 6.  Now, I’m not one to defend myself, because defend oneself serves the purpose to protect your ego.  It means that you don’t want to hear or can’t take criticism, and that’s not what I’m about at all.

Instead, I’m going to explain why these oversleeps have been beneficial, as well as the negative effects.

The main negative effect of oversleeping is this: it takes longer to adapt.  Instead of it being 3-4 days, it makes it a couple days longer, depending on how much you overlseep.

This is because your brain has gotten it’s precious REM and no longer needs to be put into survival mode.  And without your brain going into survival mode, polyphasic sleep simply isn’t possible.

The other negative effect is that it makes you feel even more tired than if you had kept on going.  Counterintuitive, isn’t it?

Despite these negative side effects, I have found some wonderful benefits.  The first being this.  I made it past the 48 hour mark.  The first 48-60 hours of the adaption are the hardest.  After that, it’s basically downhill.  (And I don’t mean to say that it’s easy after that, it’s just easier than the first 48 hours, in which you feel like the living dead…)

Making it past the 48 hour mark is a new achievement for me, which gives me motivation to keep going.

Another reason that I know that I am well on my way to adaption is because I started experiencing both REM in my sleep as well as some time dilation.  Both of these traits are key indicators that an adaption is going well.

To be honest about the situation, the oversleep wasn’t because I was too tired.  It happened because one of my alarm clocks failed to pull through.  My actual alarm clock went off just fine, but during this point in the adaption, it’s common to not even wake up to your alarm.  Some even get up and turn it off without even knowing it.

The second alarm that I have is my partner in crime.  That’s the one that failed to pull through for me.  She fell asleep, and was unable to wake me up.  Hence, I slept through the alarm both times, accounting for both of my oversleeps.

Plan Revised…

We both realized that she was staying up to many long hours, and her body had begun to shut down as well.  To compromise, she know sleeps any time that I feel awake and alert enough to keep going.  I wake her up before each of my naps, and she wakes me up after I’m done with the nap.  (And usually goes straight back to sleep…;) )

This new plan has been working out quite well.  No oversleeps for the past 15-20 hours or so, and I’m nearing the halfway point again of the first 48 hours.  Tomorrow will be quite hellish, but I’ve been through it once, and I know I can do it again.

Strangely enough, after my second oversleep I started dreaming in all of my naps, save the last one I took.  Along with these dreams I experienced a tiny bit of time dilation, which helps with feeling rested.

All in All

This trial is going quite well.  As with any new major adjustment, there have been setbacks and unexpected trials, but with each new mistake I learn a valuable lesson towards the goal of becoming a polyphasic sleeper.

I’m excited to see what the next 24 hours hold, and the 24 beyond that as well.

I expect (and this is an educated guess) that I will be adapted to polyphasic sleep within the next 72 hours.  Break that down, and that only leaves 18 naps.

After physically adjusting to polyphasic sleep, I will also have to adjust psychologically as well.  Becoming a polyphasic sleeper literally rewires your brain in terms of how it perceives and deals with the passage of time.

For some, it’s a but much to handle.  For others, it’s an adventure.  I fall happily within the second category.

Wrapping Up

That’s about it for now, I still have some interesting ideas that I’m testing during this trial pertaining to sleep and such, which I will be sharing shortly after a few more tests.

Also, I apologize for the recent lack of content lately.  I’ve been diving head first into some great personal development material, and haven’t been as focused.

On the plus side, I’ve got at least 20 new, incredibly useful articles in mind for the near future.  Stay tuned!

(p.s.  If you didn’t see my silly video from the second night of the trial, it’s a good laugh, check it out here and feel free to tell me how crazy I am.  Polyphasic Sleep Log – Day 2)

went fairly well!  It’s now been 55 hours since I’ve had a full night’s rest, and I feel decent.  I’m still a bit sluggish, and I know if I laid down I would fall asleep, but I’ve been able to keep busy.  The key to this whole experiment is to not push yourself too hard.

I accidentally slept 2 hours for one of my naps, and last time around I would have beat myself up for it, but I know that I didn’t achieve REM because I had no dreams.  Due to a family emergency, I had to push back one of my naps for an hour, there was simply no getting around it.

Despite these “setbacks”  I’ve been feeling pretty good.  I’m sluggish when I wake up, but less so than last night.  Every nap seems to come easier and I’ve been able to get up on my own without much help at all.

I’ve continued to eat light after my naps, and rely on my friend to keep my up when I absolutely need it.  I feel that tonight won’t be very rough at all.  It will still be tough, but much more manageable.

I’m starting to dream during my naps, which is a huge plus.  I also have experienced time dilation for one of my naps as well!

Time Dilation

Time dilation occurs when you fall asleep for your nap, and wake up thinking that it’s a couple hours later.  You actually feel like you were asleep for 2, maybe even 3 hours.

This happened during one of my naps.  I woke up thinking that I had overslept, when I was actually right on time!  Pretty cool feeling, I must say.

Although it continues to add to my increasingly distorted view of time.  I feel like the past 2 1/2 days have run together.  I couldn’t figure out whether it had been 2 days since I started or just 1!  (I eventually pulled it together. )

I have some more thoughts to develop on this, which I will be expanding on tomorrow.  Actually, there are numerous odd things that have been happening during this trial that I’m planning on sharing, so stay tuned.

I have many other things on my to do list for tonight, so this update will be kept short, but I will be posting a meatier update tomorrow.  See you all then!

And for that Video I promised you…

The quality is a little spotty, it was dark.  As in 2 am dark.

Would you like to see more vids?

It’s been over 24 hours since I’ve taken a full night’s rest, and I’ve successfully completed Day 1 of my polyphasic sleep experiment.  Not having the reset button at night makes it difficult to decide which day is actually Day 1, but I’ve opted to say Day 1 is 24 hours after starting this experiment.  I’ve taken 5 naps now, starting at 1 am today until now.  My last full night’s rest was from 9 am until 4 pm yesterday, so it’s been 27 hours since a full night’s rest.

The past 27 hours have been filled with periods of grogginess and fatigue, as well of periods of normalcy.  Some of my cycles seem to be going pretty well, while others are rather hellish to get through.

The last 27 hours have been easier than I thought they would be, and that’s a pretty good sign.  I was able to dream in 1 of my 5 naps, which is the entire goal of the adaption period.  I’m training my body to reach REM within 25 minutes (my allotted nap time) and stay there until I wake up.

Polyphasic Lessons…. Pay Attention.

The one nap that I did achieve REM was the most restorative of all, but I made a critical error.  I woke up 15 minutes into the nap from my dream and decided that I should go back to sleep for the rest of the nap time.  Big mistake.  I woke up groggier, but still feeling better than my other naps.

Lesson learned:  If you wake up from a REM nap early, STAY AWAKE.

I was able to keep all of my nap times within 10 minutes of my target area, and I ended up taking one longer nap (about 45 minutes.)  However, during that nap I didn’t achieve REM, so I still am sleep depriving my brain, which is a good thing.  (Which sounds opposite of what it should be. )

I’ve been sticking to routine tasks that keep my mind occupied but don’t deplete my energy reserves too much.  My main tasks have been blogging, marketing, cleaning, playing with my dog, and watching movies.

My schedule is clear for the next week or so, to give me time for the adaption, and I have a feeling that was a smart move.  If you don’t have a clear schedule for the adaption, you are much more likely to fail.  Your brain will start playing tricks on you saying things like “You need a full night’s sleep for all of those things you have to get done tomorrow.  Go ahead, you can take it.”

It’s the same thing that your brain does when your alarm goes off in the morning, it isn’t able to think clearly and tries to override your body and get it to stay in bed.

This has been happening to me when my alarm goes off, but as I said in my post before, I have a partner in crime this time.  She was going to try to adapt with me, but that led to oversleeping at my 9 am nap this morning.  After that, we decided that she was to sleep when I felt capable of staying awake, and she was to get me up and keep me awake when I felt like I couldn’t.

I know from experience that I can get up out of bed, turn off an alarm, and go back to bed without waking up.  This has happened to me before, and I won’t risk it happening again.  She has been given full permission to do whatever is necessary to keep me awake and get me out of bed.  (Which is a little frightening… )

I highly suggest that if you try to adapt, have someone committed to being there to keep you awake and to wake you up when your alarm goes off.  It’s only for the adaption, which typically takes less than a week.

The reason for this is because your brain will try to trick you into going to bed.  My most overpowering thought is “I don’t want to feel tired all the time, why don’t I just go to bed and get some sleep like a normal person!  I’m tired of feeling like this, and we can fix it!”

I struggled with this thought last night, but had an a breakthrough today.  While I may feel tired at the present moment, that will all pass after I adapt.  I might feel like a train is perpetually running me over for the next 4-7 days, but afterwards I will feel even better than I did before.  I will be getting more REM, and I will have more time to work and pursue fun hobbies.

By placing some of the responsibility in another person’s hands, it relieves the pressure of the weak moments that you are bound to have during adaption.  Again, I highly suggest that you find a partner to keep you up.

I might add that I am going through the adaption without the aid of coffee or energy drinks.  While they may help in the short term, caffeine is known to hinder your body’s ability to reach your REM cycle.  And REM sleep is what my body craves the most.

I’ve tried to adapt with caffeine before, and it makes the adaption much, MUCH harder.

I also have found that eating light meals after every nap is the best was to handle food on this sleep pattern.  Eating before napping makes it harder to fall asleep, and eating big meals make you tired and groggy.  I also suggest staying away from meat as much as humanly possible.  I am an ex-vegetarian, and would love to go back.  Meat makes you sluggish and hinders your body’s ability to do many things.  Avoid it all costs while on this sleeping pattern.  Replace your meat intake with more fruits and veggies.  Fruit provides a nice boost in energy, which is why I always try to have an apple on hand for when I’m feeling groggy.

It’s time for a nap again, but I will see you all tomorrow with another update.

And I’ll be posting a fun video of what I decided to do last night to keep me awake.  (And no, it’s not what you think, you naughty person, you….)

Polyphasic Sleep 101

Ahh…. polyphasic sleep.  My old nemesis….

If you’ve been a reader of this blog you know that a few months back I tried to adapt to a sleep schedule called “polyphasic sleep”, and to make a long story short, I failed miserably.

I overslept, had to skip naps, incorrectly set alarms, and it was a mess.

Although a failed at polyphasic sleep, I succeeding in figuring out what it was going to take to succeed at this sleep schedule.

And right now is where I explain what polyphasic sleep is, isn’t it?

Polyphasic sleep is a form of sleeping in sequential naps.  There are a few different varieties of polyphasic sleep: everyman, uberman, and dymaxion.

You right now are a monophasic sleeper.  You sleep in one long chunk every night.  Darkness comes, you roll into bed, and crawl out when the sun comes up.

Polyphasic sleep is drastically different.  A polyphasic sleeper will nap throughout the day AND night in order to get the rest that they need.

How long do they sleep?  An average of 2-5 hours.

Yep, that’s it.

I can already hear your next question. “How is this possible?”

The idea is simple.  Polyphasic sleep starves your brain of your most important stage of sleep.  Your REM cycle.

Your REM cycle is the stage of sleep that restores your body, organizes your memories, and gives you dreams.

An average monophasic sleeper gets about 1.5 hours of REM every night.

Once your brain is sleep deprived, it will go into survival mode and skip past the other less necessary stages of sleep and put you straight into your REM cycle for nearly the full amount of time you are asleep.

Because you are achieving your REM cycle the same amount of hours as a normal monophasic sleeper, you are able to function just as a normal person would.

The amazing fact of the matter is, most people say that they feel BETTER as a polyphasic sleeper.  (Once they get through the hellish adaption period, that is.)

The Three Types of Polyphasic Sleep

Of the three different brands of polyphasic sleep, Everyman is the most normal.

In the Everyman polyphasic sleep schedule you take a core nap every night of 2-5 hours and take intermittent 20-30 minute naps throughout the day.

You get a grand total of maybe 2 hours back everyday, depending on how long your core nap is, and how many naps you take during the day.

Of the three types, Everyman takes the longest to adapt to, but it is the easiest of the three.  Your brain stay sleep deprived longer because it doesn’t have to go into survival mode to function.  It becomes more your body adapting than your brain commanding you to go into your REM cycle.

The most radical of the three is the dymaxion sleep schedule. (Which just happens to be the one that I had failed to adapt to.)

The dymaxion sleep schedule consists of taking a 4 naps throughout the day, each 30 minutes long.  These naps must be spread apart every 6 hours.

You sleep a grand total of 2 hours a day, gaining back 4-6 hours of your life every day.

I have looked, and have found no reputable or proven sources that show anyone adapting to this schedule.  (If you find some, let me know.)

The last of the three is the uberman sleep schedule.  (Which is the the schedule that I am currently adapting to.)

The Uberman sleep schedule calls for taking 6 naps, 20-30 minutes each.  You sleep an average of 2-3 hours a day.  The bummer of this schedule is the fact that every 4 hours you have to lay down to take a nap.

They are reputable and documented sources of people adapting to this sleep schedule very successfully.  I linked to them in another article that you can find here.

My Chosen Adversary…

After much deliberation and a few quick test runs, I’ve opted to adjust to the uberman sleep schedule.

It has the most documented success, the same amount of sleep time as dymaxion, and I have the work schedule to pull it off.  (One of the many joys of being self-employed )

So what makes this different than the last time I tried it?

• I’m doing a sleep schedule that has had successful attempts
• I have a huge focus in my life right now to provide motivation
• I have a partner in crime
• Finally, I’ve done my research, and know some tips and tricks of the trade

My last attempt was unsuccessful due to lack of knowledge, limits, and know-how.  Picking up certain tips like changing my diet, my habits, sleeping location as well as mindset will give a tremendous advantage.

I will be documenting my adaption both in video and text on this blog, as well as created a free PDF for you all to download with all of the tips and tricks that I have found that actually work.  (The Title is still in the works, but “The Definitive Guide to Polyphasic Sleep” sounds pretty good… )

I’ll see you guys tomorrow with more in depth info and updates on my progress.

Time for a nap!

Decisions, Decisions, Decisions…

Making tough decisions is a part of living life.  We all go through it.  We all have to bear that burden.  We put off decisions that we don’t know the answer to, and it ends up making things worse.

What happens when you put off a decision?  Eventually it will be made for you, whether you like it or not.  Don’t give up your power like that.  Don’t let someone make the decisions for you.  You are a powerful human being that is in charge of your own life.

You might tell me that God is in charge, or some other deity.  My personal belief is presbyterian christianity, and while I believe in predestination, I also believe that God has given us free will to act as we see fit.  He may influence us one way or another, but ultimately it’s up to us to follow Him or not.  (And yes, He knows what we are going to do ahead of time, so if you decide to disobey, He has planned for your disobedience as well.  But trust me, you won’t be as happy.)

So ultimately, it comes down to your own free will, and using your power to exercise your free will.

If there is nothing else that you get from this article, please get that.  You have the power to create the reality that you wish.  You have the power to create happiness.  You have the power to create joy.  You have the power to create relationships.  You have the power to create money.  YOU have the power.

Let me ask you a question.  Are you happy with your life?  Do you wake up every day with a smile on your face, and joy in your heart?  Do you live a life that isn’t held down by scarcity?

I hate to break it to you, but those of us who try and don’t give up, few of us actually make it to that state.

And if you aren’t in that state of life, you have no one to blame but yourself.  Bad things may have happened to you, you may have been born with disabilities, and any number of setbacks may be in your life.  But ultimately it is your responsibility and your right to create the life that you want.  You may have to go through some of the hardest times of your life to get there, but don’t give up.  You have the power and the ability.

One of the key areas of exercising your power to create the life that you want is in the realm of decision-making.  As I said earlier, put off a decision and it will be made for you, and you will live in a state of restlessness until then.

Don’t let that happen.  Go ahead and make that decision that you’ve been putting off.  It can be anything from should I break up with my significant other to should we let grandma continue living on life support.  Go ahead and make the decision.  It is your responsibility, and if you wait too long it will be made for you and there will be nothing that you can do about it then.  Use the time that you’ve been given to make the decision that you want.

That being said, decision-making is one of the hardest things that we do in this life.  It dictates where we go, what we see, who we love, how much money we make, nearly everything.  And to make wise decisions you are going to have to practice at it.  (Yes, I said practice.)

Practice the techniques that I’m getting ready to give you on small decisions and see if you are happy with the outcome.  Progress from there to bigger decisions.  This causes a kind of double win situation.  Because on the one hand you are strengthening your decision making ability to make wise decisions, and on the other hand you are making wise decisions that are improving the quality of your life.

1.  Follow your Gut

Instinct is something that we all have been blessed with.  And it isn’t always right, but it will normally steer you in the safest direction.  That being said, the safest direction isn’t always the wisest direction.

If you follow your gut all of the time, it will lead you down routes that never make your use your courage or bravery.  You will learn to be a coward instead.

To circumvent this, learn how to train your gut to give you the best decision.  Learn what the best decisions are from studying from your mistakes and successes as well as the mistakes and successes of other people, and make those decisions whether or not the coincide with your gut instinct.  (I would listen to your gut to tailor the decision though.  It has an uncanny ability for being at least partially right.)

If you do this enough times you will find that your gut instinct will start making the best decisions instead of the safest decisions.  Rinse and Repeat.

2.  Make a Split Decision

If you’re lost on what to do and you keep going back and forth between what is the right thing to do, make a split decision.  Ask a friend to sit down with you and ask you a question related to the decision at hand.

Say you can’t decide whether or not you want to break up with your current significant other, have a friend ask you what you want to do about with the situation, whether it be break up with them or decide to work things out.  Say the absolute first thing that comes to mind.  Typically, it’s what you truly desire.

This strategy works by putting a time pressure on the brain, making it think that it has to go with whatever answer you give, so it does some quick calculations, takes your feelings into account, and gives you it’s best answer for what you truly desire.

This decision making technique has helped me out in many circumstances, and I don’t hesitate to use it because I’ve been pleased with the results.

3.  Make a Fake Decision

Instead of debating back on forth on what you should do, just pick one.  Seriously, give it your best guess and make the decision in your mind.  Often times if you’ve made the wrong decision little alarms will go of on your mind to take the other route.

I’ve used this technique to make decisions about whether or not I want I reese’s cup or snickers, to whether or not I should invest in a thousand dollar online course.

After you’ve made the decision, start to carry it out and see how you feel.  If you still have no alarms, then you are more than likely good to go.  If you start getting a bad feeling about it, then you need to go down the other route and see if you have any negative feelings as you are carrying it out.

If you have bad feelings in both areas, that means that there is a third option that you aren’t exploring that you need to.  The reason for your indecision is that your mind is waiting for a decision that both satisfies it’s logic as well as your spirit/emotions.  Look through your close-mindedness and see the third option.  It’s there, I promise you.

4.  Make a Pro’s and Con’s list

This technique is old school, but it still works.  Sitting down and writing out a pro’s and con’s list on a sheet of paper will give you clearer insight than if you try to make the decision in your head.

Rule of Thumb:  If the problem can be written down on paper, it can be solved on paper.

Write down your pro’s and con’s and see how you feel about the decision then.  In many circumstances one decision will clearly outweigh the other in positive results, and you will go with that decision.

5.  Journal It

If you’ve never kept a journal, now is the time to start.  Nearly all of the leader’s in every field keep some sort of journal to record their thoughts, ideas, and breakthroughs.  I highly suggest daily journaling.  It clears your mind from clutter, organizes it, and usually gives tremendous insight into current circumstances.

If you are having a problem with a decision, sit down and journal about it.  Write everything that you think and feel about the decision, and your thoughts will usually follow through to a conclusion, which is your final decision.

Getting out all of your fears, ideas, expectations, and worries about an idea on paper usually helps you see clearly.

Writing things out also helps you think in a linear fashion, which is useful for problem solving because you end up chasing all of your mind’s rabbit trails on the subject and removing them from the equation, leaving you with the facts spelled out in front of you in black and white.

6.  Set a Timer

Personal development blogger Steve Pavlina tries to take less than 60 seconds to make decisions.  If he finds himself deliberating longer than that, he will set a timer for 60 seconds and make a decision by the time the alarm goes off.

And then he sticks to it.

This technique uses a combination of time pressure and split decision making.

Using this method also gets you geared to make quick decisions that you have to stick with and be happy with.  Because once the timer goes off, whatever decision you’ve come to you must stick with.

You will quickly learn from your mistakes and start to make better decisions.

(And yes, I have used this method with great results.)

7. Follow the Path with a Heart

When all else fails and I still feel stuck on what to do, I follow the path with a heart.  I choose the path that gives back the most, the path the benefits others the most (as well as myself.)  The best example I can give of this is my recent decision to restart and revamp my blog.

For the past 9 months or so of this blog’s life I have been mostly focused on drawing traffic, trying to make a sale, and build an e-mail list.  I’ve been focusing on doing what every successful person on the internet tells you to do.  (Well, nearly every successful person on the internet…)

And all I have to show for it is dismal traffic, no sales, no leads, and no money.  More importantly, I’ve had no fulfillment in my work.  I’ve been empty inside.  I chose the path that would seem the most logical, and it got me no where.

Then I decided the follow the path with a heart.  I decided to start giving away my best content.  I decided to start making resources for bloggers that were useful, practical, and FREE.  Who knows, I may decide at some point to start making and selling an ebook or course of some sort.  But I know that I would only do so if I felt that the content was truly 10x what I was charging for it.

I realized that I’m not into blogging and entrepreneurship to make money, that’s just not a driving motivator for me.  I want to make something beautiful for everyone to benefit from.  I want to help people grow.  I want to further myself.  I want to go to work every day excited as hell to get the day started.

So my last piece of advice on decision-making is this.  When you have tried everything you can think of to make a decision, and it still doesn’t help.  Follow the path with the heart.

And remember, most decisions that you make can be undone and changed.  Besides, you benefit more from the mistakes that you makes anyway…