Craig Ballantyne

“A smart man makes a mistake, learns from it, and never makes that mistake again. But a wise man finds a smart man and learns from him how to avoid the mistake altogether.” – Roy H. Williams
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A New American Dream

Ed O’Keefe was the 12th of 13 O’Keefe kids growing up on the south side of Chicago. His Mom stayed home and made sure all 13 kids experienced a loving environment and were well taken care of, while Dad put in 12-14 hours as an electrician just to get by. While his brothers went into trade unions, Ed got a nursing degree, and eventually stumbled across an audio recording by legendary success teacher Earl Nightengale. Ed felt like Earl was talking to him directly when he said, “You live in the best country in the world, where you can be, do, and have whatever you want regardless of your education or degree.” Ed knew right then he wanted to be an entrepreneur. Going out on his own wasn’t easy, in fact, it started with 4 years of one failure after another. Ed was the typical “Reluctant Entrepreneur“, as Michael Masterson calls it, and started bartending to have enough cash just to get by, while during the day he studied marketing and copywriting.

After a year, the pieces of the puzzle started to come together and Ed’s business took off. “My big breakthrough was focusing on developing the skills of copywriting and marketing while making enough money to get by. The dream is a by-product of being plugged in and focusing daily on the skills that will get you where you want to go!” Since then, Ed has achieved his American Dream by starting multiple companies and continues to do so today, while enjoying being a husband and proud father to 5 kids (following slightly in his parents footsteps).

Discover how to achieve your American Dream and Financial Independence here

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Retirement in Ten Hours
By Mark Ford

You don’t need to be rich or even have perfect credit to take advantage of the fantastic market for rental real estate today. If you are willing to invest about ten hours of work this month, I’ll show you how you can add as much as $80,000 or more into your retirement account.

For the purpose of this blueprint, I’m going to use the example of a $100,000 three-bedroom, two-bath house.

First, find two or three neighborhoods near you that have houses for sale in your price range (for the purposes of this example, assume $100,000). Spend an hour driving through the neighborhoods. Talk to people on the streets. Ask them about the community, safety, schools, and the same questions you’d ask if you were going to move in. (Invested time: three hours.)

Second, call up a few local brokers who are listed on these properties. Tell them your plan: buy multiple houses at this price range and rent them out. Ask the brokers about the market for rentals, the prices you can expect, the occupancy rate, the quality of renters. (Invested time: one hour.)

Based on your research, select the neighborhood that has the best overall values (low cost, high rental income, quality of renters, etc.). This is going to be your financial playground. Select the broker you like best, and spend several hours looking for houses for sale that meet your criteria. (Invested time: three hours.)

Next, call up several local banks and ask them if they provide loans for real estate investors. Tell them what you intend to do, and ask them what qualifications you would need to get an investor mortgage. Determine which of the banks you talk to are most interested in your business. (Invested time: two hours.)

Since you might not have good enough credit to get a loan on your own, you might need to partner with someone who does. Start your search by calling friends and family members who have good credit. Tell them what you are doing, and ask them if they’d like to become a partner in income-producing real estate. Be prepared to show them how much cash they can expect to earn every month and how many tens of thousands of dollars they will make when the property increases in value.

If they sound interested, propose the deal: You will put in the sweat equity in buying the house, managing the financing and repairs, and securing the first tenants. They will provide their good credit. Each of you will have equity, and each of you will enjoy the income and capital appreciation. (Invested time: approximately one hour.)

Determining the percentage of equity you each get depends on how you value the contributions made. In other words, it is negotiable. But to frame your discussions, here’s how I look at it: The good credit that your partner contributes is worth 25% of the equity. All the work you do in terms of finding the house, locating the financing, managing the repairs is worth 25%. That makes you 50/50 partners so long as you each contribute half of the down payment.

If the down payment is $20,000 (20% of $100,000) and you pay it all, you should get 75% of the equity. If you each pay half of the down payment, you should be equal partners. If you don’t have any money and your partner puts up the down payment, he should get 75% of the equity.

Why would this person lend you money? It’s not because you’re a nice person and they want to give you a hand, although that may be part of their motivation. The important, business reason is that you are giving them a chance to profit from an asset of theirs (their credit rating) that is currently doing nothing for them.

Did you get that? If not, read it again. They should be thrilled to make this deal because you are giving them 25% of an income-producing business in exchange for their signature. (Of course, it’s more than their signature. They are guaranteeing the mortgage. But with opportunities like these, the risk is almost very low.)

After you’ve completed your first deal and the money is flowing, look for another property. Find a second, similar property in your financial playground and offer the same deal to your partner. Chances are, he will jump on it because he’s been getting those monthly checks and thinking about the big payoff when you sell the property at some distant point in the future.

If your partner can’t do it, find another friend or family member who will. Remember, the deal you are offering is more attractive than the first one since you are now a proven performer! You may very well find that you have multiple friends and family members eager to work with you. Don’t get greedy when this happens and start buying properties that don’t meet your strict financial criteria (like ample cash flow and a dollar-per-square-foot price that is competitive for the area). A potential investor won’t disappear if you explain your conservative investing philosophy and put him on a waiting list. His desire to partner with you will just get stronger.

At some point, as your real estate empire grows, you may seek out an angel investor. “Angel investor” is a term usually applied to other sorts of financial transactions, but the idea is the same. It’s someone with lots of money but not enough time to research and manage every investment he owns. Most of the wealthy guys I know are looking to invest in real estate right now. The problem we face is that we don’t have time to find the deals.

That’s where you come in. As a proven performer, you offer the angel investor a great deal of value. You come with an understanding of the market and the process of buying, renovating, financing, and managing properties. And you also come with a good deal in hand. That is worth a great deal to a wealthy person with lots of money but little time. Trust me.

You can find an angel investor in your community by asking around or even placing small ads in local newspapers. (I know three people who have done this in my community in the past two years.)

The deal you will make with your angel investor is pretty much the same deal you made with your prior partners. You may find that they want more than 25% for providing their credit and their guarantee. (They know the value of this.) Depending on the size of the deal (several houses on the same block, or perhaps an apartment building), you may agree to give them more. But I don’t think you should agree to anything more than 35% for being the signer on the note.

By the way, there is a kicker in this strategy that I haven’t mentioned. After locating the first tenant, you can charge your business for managing the property. (You should form a separate business for each acquisition.) You can fairly charge between 6% and 10% of the collected rents for each of these transactions. That could be an extra $1000-$2000 a year in income for every small property you manage.

All this may seem a little daunting to you if you’ve never bought investment real estate before. But if you add up the hours I’ve indicated above, you can see that you shouldn’t be spending more than ten hours to launch every deal. (These numbers are best guesses, based on my experience. Being a first-timer, it may take you twice as long. But even it it takes you four times as long, it’s still a ridiculously small investment of time for such a big financial benefit.)

Now let’s look at how remunerative those ten hours are going to be for you on a long-term basis. Let’s assume that your plan is to own your first property for fifteen years and then sell it. You could reasonably make $20,000 (maybe more) in management fees over that time, but we won’t count that because that’s really just income you are working for.

Let’s look only at your share of the property appreciation. Assuming that it appreciates at an average of 6% a year over that time period, the $100,000 house will then be worth $240,000. At the same time, let’s suppose the $80,000 mortgage you originally put on the property was at 6%. In that case, after fifteen years, it’s now down to about $57,000.o you also picked up $23,000 in amortization (the reduction of your loan balance). That means the total gain for your partnership is $163,000. Your 50% share comes to $81,500.

Not bad for ten (to forty) hours of work.

Last year, my brother walked away from a $300,000-a-year job to devote himself full-time to cash-flow real estate investments. He grew his holdings from thirty-two units to 101 units in just over a year. His original portfolio was of houses, duplexes, triplexes, and quadplexes.ow, he is buying 20-50-unit apartment buildings at a time.is current cash flow from these investments is more than $50,000. At the rate he’s going, he’ll have 200 units by the end of next year. His five-year goal is 1,000 units, and I would be surprised if he doesn’t achieve it. In five years, his passive income could exceed half a million dollars a year, and he could have many millions more in equity.

In case you’re thinking, “This is not for me,” I want to say this: there is nothing about this kind of real estate investing that is difficult. You don’t need to take any classes to understand it. I learned the business entirely on my own, just using common sense. The main thing is to do your first deal. Invest those ten hours and see what happens.

Once you do your first deal, I won’t have to give you any further motivation. You will become addicted to it. (Making serious money is addictive.) After the first deal, you’ll be eager to do a second one. And after the second one, you’ll become a monster at this very lucrative and very safe way of building wealth.

[Ed. Note: If you're not happy with your financial situation, you're in the perfect position to change it for the better – right now. I've just recorded a special video from my office that covers five profit plays you can use to start growing your wealth. To watch this short video, click here.]

This is a profound lesson. Look at all the good you can do when you get in the habit of doing good things.

Today, Jason Leister explains why his “Green Juice” routine has a lot to do with the habits that also build his business and help him create his world.

Craig Ballantyne

“Good habits, once established are just as hard to break as are bad habits.” – Robert Puller
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A New American Dream

Addicted to sugar as a child, a nutritionist once told Jack LaLanne he was a “human garbage can”. But by the age of 18, following a strict diet (he never had a dessert since) and regular exercise, Jack had decided to turn his life around. He started training policemen and firemen from his home gym, and by 1936, opened the nation’s first health club (health food store and juice bar included). With a popular health club and remarkable feats of strength in tow, including an impressive 1,033 push-ups in 23 minutes on “You Asked for It”, Jack’s reputation as a physical fitness guru eventually led to his 34-year stint as host of “The Jack LaLanne Show”, where he taught exercise aimed primarily at homemakers, using little more than items found in the home.

Through pure will and determination, Jack had transformed his life from a “human garbage can” to a healthy inspiration for millions of men and women. Perhaps no better example of what dreams one can achieve than LaLanne’s extraordinary feat on his 70th birthday – swimming across the Long Beach, California harbor, while pulling 70 boats with one person in each of them, and all while being shackled and handcuffed.

Discover how to achieve your American Dream and Financial Independence here

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My Green Juice Habit
by Jason Leister

Just a minute before I sat down to write this, I downed (probably in record time) a tall glass of green juice. We’re talking spinach, parsley, cucumber and a hint of apple.

I spent most of my life doing anything and everything in my power to avoid foods that were green. So it’s pretty funny to me that a single serving of this magic juice is probably the equivalent of several weeks’ worth my vegetable intake as a child.

I’m on a mission to transform my physical health and start realizing my full potential in that area of my life.

So I’m working out, eating well and actually taking the required time to preserve my health FIRST.

Why now?

Because it’s the only time slot I can get since my first choice (10 years ago) is no longer available.

As I develop higher levels of excellence in other areas of my life like business, it’s becoming clear that anything less than excellence in all areas of my life simply won’t do.

That goes for my health.

That goes for my wealth.

That goes for the people I surround myself with.

I used to think that living a life of excellence sounded hard and boring. Like you always had to be “ON” and you could never let up. That certainly doesn’t sound fun and not something that you can sustain for a very long period of time.

Certainly not when you view it that way.

Living life FULLY, on the other hand, carries a very different energy.

When you are doing that, you are disciplined and focused enough to realize your full potential in every area of your life.

That is my goal.

And to reach my goal requires that I develop new habits.

Some days I do that well, and other days (or weeks) I show myself just how much growth I still have to do.

Why Didn’t I Do This a Long Time Ago?

Why did I wait so long to realize that pursuing excellence in every area of my isn’t a boring way to go through life but really the only way to live life fully?

I could probably come up with a few lame sounding excuses about why I didn’t realize this years ago. My first choice would probably be that I thought having “daily habits” wouldn’t provide me with the spontaneity I needed to not be bored.

I’m a musician/artist type of person. I don’t do well with authority or schedules or anything where I’m not in control to act in the moment. So the idea of “locking” myself into a schedule (even if it is my own) just isn’t that appealing.

See, I told you my excuse would be lame.

So here’s the truth:

The only real reason I haven’t concentrated on my health, insisted on excellence in every area of my life, and developed the habits required to achieve it is:

Because I didn’t think I was worth it.

The fact is, I’ve been living my life for years making other people’s priorities my priorities. When you write it out in black and white like this, it sounds like a pretty weak way to go through life.

That’s because it is.

You live like that long enough, in need of outside validation that much, and you end up losing sight of exactly what it is that you want in your life.

You can’t really answer the question, “What do I want?” because you’ve allowed your voice to be drowned out by the voices of others.

That used to be me. Thankfully, it is changing very quickly. I’m starting to develop habits based on what I want to do – based on how I want to live my life.

I was raised to believe this “do what’s best for me” idea is a selfish way to live. You could say I’ve been cured, because now I know the truth:

Living life “looking out for yourself…” is really the only way to go. First, no one else is looking out for you, so if you don’t do it, you abdicate your primary responsibility in this world.

Second, once you start to live this way, you realize that the best thing you can do for your own self-interest is to concentrate on improving the well-being of others!

What some call “selfish” quickly becomes a way of life focused on helping other people.

Nice.

So back to the creation of new habits…

This habit thing is 100% applicable to business of course. Let’s take working with clients as an example.

• If you don’t have enough clients, that’s because you’ve developed the habit of NOT doing enough to generate the volume you need.
• If your clients pay you late, that’s because you’ve developed the habit of accepting that kind of treatment.
• If you are working with clients who do not appreciate your contribution, that’s because you’ve developed the habit of BEING OK with clients like that.

See how this works?

Your habits create your world.

There is nothing hard or boring about reaching your full potential in every area of life.

It’s just that we’ve been brainwashed to believe that’s a difficult thing to do.

It’s not. It just takes some focus to create new habits.

That’s what I’m working on… are you?

[Ed. Note: Jason Leister is an internet entrepreneur, direct response copywriter and editor of “The Client Letter,“ the daily e-letter from ClientsSuck.nett, where he helps independent professionals create success. You can contact him via his website at JasonLeister.com.]

Craig Ballantyne

“Once you agree upon the price you and your family must pay for success, it enables you to ignore the minor hurts, the opponent’s pressure, and the temporary failures.” – Vince Lombardi
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A New American Dream

Named one of the top ideas of 2006 by The New York Times Magazine, and praised by Oprah, Bill Clinton and countless others, Kiva.org, a non-profit peer-to-peer micro-lending website and one of the fastest-growing social benefit websites in history was co-founded by businesswoman and entrepreneur, Jessica Jackley. Since 2005 Kiva has generated over $277 million for third world entrepreneurs, revolutionizing personal giving, while breading a new generation of philanthropists through technology.

A finalist for TIME’s 100 Most Influential People in 2009 and a recipient of USA Networks’ Character Approved award in 2010, today, Jessica is the CEO and co-founder of ProFounder, a new platform providing innovative ways for startups and small businesses in the U.S. to access start-up capital through crowdfunding and community involvement. Jessica is also an educator, frequently lecturing at universities around the country, while teaching Global Entrepreneurship at the Marshall School of Business at USC, and acting as a Visiting Practioner at Stanford’s Center for Philanthropy and Civil Society.

As active advisor and board member on several organizations, Jessica is careful to remind us “at the heart of social entrepreneurship, the relationships we form with each other and the extent to which we believe in each others’ potential are the most powerful forces for positive change.”

Discover how to achieve your American Dream and Financial Independence here

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Families That Never Fail… Wealth That Never Dies…
By Bill Bonner

I want to let you in on what I believe is one of the most intriguing investment stories ever told. The story of how the world’s wealthiest families have held onto their wealth over hundreds of years.

There are a lot of families. And there are a lot of rich people. But there aren’t many rich families… at least not ones that last long.

And there’s a good reason. Keeping money and family together over more than a generation is tough. Statistically, it is unlikely. In fact, it is way out on the edge of bell curve.

Which is precisely what makes it so fascinating…

You see, these families have managed to prosper through famines, wars, recessions, depressions, government wealth grabs…and self-serving wealth managers. (Maybe the biggest threat of them all.)

And the existence of these family fortunes is living proof that it is possible to make and hold onto wealth over the long term.

As chance would have it, this is probably more relevant now than ever. Because as conventional investment returns shrink and the financial crisis drags on, a lot of people are understandably concerned for their family’s financial future.

Luckily, these families have left a trail of breadcrumbs that we can follow.

And by using the same techniques…and the same wealth building secrets as these ultra wealthy families…you can follow their lead and secure our own family wealth.

This story might have passed me by, if it wasn’t for a chance encounter with an old friend…in Germany of all places.

His name is Norman Rentrop. He is one of the smartest people I know. And he is one of Germany’s most successful entrepreneurs.

Like me, Norman is in the publishing business. He sold his first magazine while still in collage. Not long after, he was running a multimillion-dollar business.

Norman and I became business partners in 1994. Soon after, we became friends. One thing that always struck me about Norman was how much he loved his business…and how much enjoyment he got out of it.

So you can imagine my surprise when I learned that Norman had suddenly “retired.”

I naturally wanted to know what had led him to give up such a successful career. So I flew to Germany to ask him what had happened.

This is what Norman told me…

“Bill, I realized that if I just kept doing what everyone else was doing, I would get the same results as everyone else. It was time for me to start treating my wealth differently.”

Then he explained how he had learned about the secretive world of how ultra-wealthy European families had been preserving and growing their wealth for generations through something called “family offices.”

And why he believed setting up his own “family office” was the best way to protect and grow his money too.

As you can imagine, I couldn’t get Norman’s words out of my mind…

I know Norman wouldn’t give up running a business he loves, if there wasn’t something even better to be doing with his time…and with his money.

I was hooked…

And two years ago…after much study and investigation of my own…I set up a family office of my own and started a small research advisory to share the insights I’ve learned with a small group of non-family members. I called it Bonner & Partners Family Office.

You may think it odd me studying these ultra wealthy family dynasties (the Rothschilds, the Rockefellers the Pitcairns and so on).

I grew up on a poor tobacco farm in southern Maryland. And my family never had any money to speak of. (As kids we didn’t even have running water. We had to carry water to the house from a natural spring.)

But I got an education. And I decided to make money the old-fashioned way – by starting my own business and working damn hard at it.

Back then I earned a grand total of $25,000 a year! And I had a growing family to feed, and, one day, put through college. But I was lucky enough to be able to grow my business. And now it is a large and successful newsletter publishing business.

And there’s the thing: Now that I have acquired wealth worth holding on to, I realize how difficult it is to hold on to it.

Not only is there the problem of poor investment decisions. (Let’s face it – we all make them from time to time.) But there’s also the taxman to contend with. And then there are all the brokers’ and bankers’ fees, commissions and costs.

And even if you manage to keep your wealth safe from these threats, you’re left with the even bigger challenge: how to pass it on to your kids without spoiling them.

You know what Andrew Carnegie said about inheritances: “The parent who leaves his son enormous wealth generally deadens the energies of the son and leads him to a less useful and less worthwhile life than he otherwise would.”

I don’t want that for my kids. And I’m sure you wouldn’t either.

Fortunately, these are all things that a “family office” strategy can help with.

At Bonner & Partners, for instance, we recommend a unique approach to investing (one that turns most conventional wisdom about wealth preservation on its head). And I’ve hired an ex-Swiss banker to help with that side of things.

But we also take a unique approach to the family side of things. This is what makes the family office strategy unlike anything else. It doesn’t just prepare money for your family. It also helps prepare your family for money.

If you are still on the path to creating wealth, our research won’t be for you.

But if you have accumulated wealth and want to make sure it stays intact for your kids to enjoy, I’ve found that following in the footsteps of the world’s great family success stories can help greatly.

But remember: To have and maintain family wealth you need two things. You need a family. And you need wealth.

If you ignore one element or the other, you will soon not have either – both the family and the money are likely to blow up.

[Ed. Note. Bill Bonner is the editor of The DailyReckoning.com]

Sure it’s early, but the best thing I’ve done so far in 2012 has been to cancel my home Internet. It’s probably going to be the smartest thing I do all year. So far this simple change in my life has made a huge difference in productivity and in my overall well being. See if you can make a similar change for your own good.

Craig Ballantyne

“A man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to let alone.” – Henry David Thoreau
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A New American Dream

Henry David Thoreau was an American author and philosopher. He is best known for his book, “Walden“, that advocated minimalist living. Walden serves as a chronicle of his experiments in minimalism. No doubt Thoreau would not be a fan of today’s 24-7 plugged-in lifestyle. If you have not read Walden, I encourage you to do so for a different perspective on the American Dream and freedom. “Most of the luxuries and many of the so-called comforts of life are not only not indispensable, but positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind.” – Thoreau

Discover how to achieve your American Dream and Financial Independence here

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How to Quit The Internet…and Still Make Money Online

By Craig Ballantyne

I pulled the plug.

It’s dead and gone.

I no longer have Internet access in my house.

Yes, I still run two Internet businesses with hundreds of thousands of subscribers, TurbulenceTraining.com and EarlytoRise.com, along with several smaller publishing businesses, like KettlebellWorkouts.com, ChallengeWorkouts.com, and InternetIndependence.com.

But I’m now doing this all without Internet access at home where I work from a small office.

Why?

Because it allows me to get more work done. Advanced results call for advanced measures and I’m embarrassed to admit that despite my ability to get a lot of work done, I was still wasting up to two hours each day on Internet-related activities. By cancelling my home Internet, I’m saving myself a couple of hours per day. Let me break it down.

It means that each day I’ll spend about twenty minutes less on Facebook and Twitter, fifteen minutes less on news sites, including ESPN.com, fifteen minutes less checking sales stats, and sixty minutes less in email with the time saved by batching all of my email reading into one or two sessions per day.

But here’s where the biggest time saving may occur. It’s an indirect benefit known as reducing transition time. That’s where you get ‘killed’ in your daily time management, as experts suggest it takes about 15 minutes to transition into a work task. Now imagine if you check your email multiple times per day when you should be working on a focused task. This transition time adds up to serious time wasted each day.

“The Internet isn’t going anywhere, but if people value calmer, more contemplative thought, they need to change the way they use the technology. The goal should be to clear considerable portions of your day for working, conversing, thinking, and playing without the mediation (or the interruption) of screen technologies,” says Nicholas Carr, author of the Pulitzer Prize-nominated book, “The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains”.

Carr is also a proponent of taking extensive breaks from connectivity.

“Once you start doing that – and I would emphasize that even modest cutbacks in connectivity are difficult to pull off – I think you’ll fairly quickly begin to have a better perspective on the proper role for digital media in your life,” Carr continued in his interview in Rotman Magazine.

Interestingly, of all my essays here at EarlytoRise.com since becoming the editor in July of 2011, the article on how to reduce email and my mention of canceling my Internet connection received the greatest amount of negative feedback. At first I was surprised, but then I realized what I was suggesting was tantamount to telling an alcoholic to give up drinking.

Exposing someone’s addiction is never a popular move. And the results was criticism as people defended their compulsion as a necessity. But I believe that over time many ETR readers will come to the same conclusion that I have, and will look for ways to reduce their time on the Internet and mobile phones. Carr agrees with the value in this.

“You’ll realize that we often reach for a computer or smartphone out of laziness, boredom, or habit, and that resisting that temptation can be healthy, particularly for the depth of our intellectual and social lives.”

Overall, I have increased focus and greater writing production in my work, but more importantly I feel as though I have more free time and less stress.

But someone asked, “How do you send email broadcasts?” (like this one).

The answer is…

Starbucks.

I now spend two 90-minute sessions at Starbucks each day answering email and setting up my various email newsletters to go out for my businesses. Again I’ll admit that I’m not happy with this amount of time it is taking, but with practice I should have email response and newsletter set-up time down to less than two hours per day. To do this, I simply have to create clear instructions and outsource more tasks to my assistant.

Soon everything I need to do on the Internet can AND will get done in less than 90 minutes each day so that my new daily schedule will look like this…

5-Write
7-Breakfast and dog walk
8-Exercise
10-Write
1-Lunch and dog walk
2-Write
4-Starbucks for email
5-Read my daily documents, plan the next workday, and feed the hungry little dog

Here are some of the systems in place to support this change.

1) My assistants will gather all email questions for me in a word document that I will answer once per week.

2) Assistants will set-up daily email broadcasts to go out and add daily motivation to Facebook account profiles.

3) I will do all audio and webinar recordings on one day per month when I’ve made arrangements to access the Internet.

4) I’ll use the phone for important communications. Revolutionary, I know. Also, I do not have email access on my phone. This is a critical component of controlling your email and Internet addiction.

5) I will give more responsibility to my assistants, editors, and affiliate managers in my business – all with clear, concise communication to manage expectations, of course.

To make the transition, you need to clearly communicate your plan to your team. You MUST manage their expectations. The best way to communicate with your team is through ONE itemized to-do list for each person as this avoids sending twenty emails to the same person throughout the day. Here’s the email I sent to my team when setting up my new Internet schedule.

“Hey Team Turbulence,

The following information will help reduce email overload for me and for you as well.

1) I do not have Internet in my home anymore.

2) I will be checking email daily from around 10am to 11am (EST) and from around 5-6pm (EST) ONLY.

3) If you have an emergency:

a) Matt D. you can text me
b) Lesa & Stephanie – please email Amy and she will text me
c) Ed & Dan you can email Jeff and he will get Matt Smith to text me.

4) Please minimize the number of emails you send me. You can put several topics into one email and send that summary email to me around the time I check my email (see above).

5) No need to reply to this email.

Thank you for your help on this matter,

Craig”

These steps will allow me to free up 2 hours or more per day for quality writing while reducing stress and eliminating time wasting that I do on the net.

My challenge to you is to set up your workspace and schedule to reduce Internet access Time, even if it is just 30 minutes per day.

If you can’t cancel your home Internet because your family needs it, then get your spouse to change the password each day and don’t let them tell you until you’ve completed all of your work, It will keep you offline and productive. The difference this will make will be dramatic for your productivity and for reducing stress.

NOTE: I don’t do online banking or similar activities at Starbucks. That is done at a family or friend’s house on a secure connection only.

In fact, while this new schedule has allowed me to be more productive, that benefit is far out-weighed by what I’ve experienced in lower stress levels. Knowing that the temptation of the Internet and email are a 5-minute walk away (in the cold, Canadian winter) has actually reduced my stress, rather than increasing stress.

There seems like so much more time in the day now, and even if I just spent the extra hours staring at a wall I’d be better off. An incredible burden has been lifted. I truly feel liberated from the email and Internet monster that I allowed to develop in my life.

Do what you can to fight your desire to access the Internet, check email, log-in to Facebook or Twitter, or get sucked into reading articles online.

Make today the day you finally leave a bad habit behind. Tell the habit “It’s me, not you” and kick it to the curb for good.

Draw the line, cut the cord, and free yourself.

[Ed. Note. With the time you save with these email tips, you'll be able to work on building a second income with a website-based business using of Financial Independence Monthly, a complete blueprint to helping you take control of your financial future. With your own web–based business, you can live and make money from anywhere in the world – including a coffee shop, your kitchen table, or even the beach. Discover how you can achieve the American Dream and your financial independence here. You've never seen anything like this before.]

Today, you’ll discover how your office set-up might be destroying your back and keeping you in pain. Don’t let it happen any longer.

Craig Ballantyne

“If you can dream it, then you can achieve it. You will get all you want in life if you help enough other people get what they want.” – Zig Zigla
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A New American Dream

Dr. Peter Osborne received his doctorate from Texas Chiropractic College and his nutrition diplomate in 2001. He is an expert in orthomolecular and functional medicine. Early in his career, he held faculty teaching positions at Texas Women’s University and HCC’s nursing program. He started his own practice in 2003 after working as an associate doctor for 2 years. His clinical focus is the holistic natural treatment of chronic degenerative diseases with a primary focus on gluten sensitivity and food allergies. He has helped thousands of patients recover from mysterious medical illnesses.

He lectures nationally to doctors on the topics of gluten sensitivity/intolerance, celiac disease, drug induced nutritional deficiencies, and many other nutritionally related topics. In 2006, he co-founded Nutra-MD, a nutritional supplement product line that addresses nutrient deficiencies caused by commonly prescribed medications.

He is the host for the radio program Alternatives for Health & Wellness and the Executive Secretary for the American Clinical Board of Nutrition. He started a second career online when he founded Gluten Free Society in 2010 to help educate patients and physicians on the far reaching effects of gluten sensitivity. He is the author of Glutenology, a series of books and videos designed to help educate the world about gluten. In a year’s time, Gluten Free Society has grown to be one of the largest gluten based sites online.

Discover how to achieve your American Dream and Financial Independence here

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How to Avoid Back Pain at the Office
By Jesse Cannone

On average, people spend from 8 to 12 hours a day sitting. And much of this time is spent in front of computer working.

But the fact is, in a physical, mental, and emotional sense this is not what we as humans are “designed” to do. We’re naturally meant to be moving around far more during the daytime, as people have done for nearly all of human history.

This extreme stationary lifestyle, dictated by how we work, relax, and travel today (computers, TV, driving, etc.), is the #1 cause of our contemporary epidemic of neck and back pain. It is also a key cause of the today’s epidemic levels of overweight and obesity, stress and depression, and the chronic conditions like heart disease and cancer that result from it.

In terms of back pain alone, an astounding 80% of all people today experience it at some point. Back pain is not only one of the most common ailments among seniors, but it is actually second on the list of reasons adults under age 45 miss work (behind colds)… a loss of some 83 million workdays every year.

But there is GREAT NEWS – you can overcome and prevent the pain, stress, and disease without quitting your job and becoming a sheepherder.

It starts with becoming aware of the most effective “office ergonomic” strategies to end and avoid the pain, and then making sure you put them into practice.

On that note, here are the top 4 most important strategies…

1) Invest in a Chair that LOVES Your Back & Body

People will spend hours, days, or longer researching the best cell phones, cameras, appliances, and cars.

But when you think about how much time people spend sitting, it is rather absurd that most people give little or not attention to what is easily one of the most important tools for their health and happiness… their office chair.

Investing in the right chair is the #1 smartest move you can make to stop and avoid pain and stress.

You’ll want a chair that:

• Allows you to MOVE around in it, even small motions… because your body abhors a chair that keeps you static!
• Matches your body’s unique center of gravity, and allows adjustments in order to do so… so your spine and your muscles are balanced versus being stressed
• Makes it virtually impossible to slouch… because slouching is one of the WORST things you can do (and many people, especially men, will tend to do it otherwise in poorly designed chairs)
• Makes it virtually impossible to “perch” on the edge of the chair and at odd angles (women especially tend to do this otherwise, and it is very bad for your back and neck as well)
• Offers adjustable and exceptional lumbar support, meaning your lower back is kept in a natural position preventing severe lower back pain!

Those are some of the keys to seek in this #1 most important office tool.

2) Take Plenty of Breaks that Include Moving Around and Stretching

Your body (and your brain) will suffer if you don’t get up, move around, and stretch frequently.

In the U.S. alone, over $50 billion is spent on back pain remedies… but if people just followed the tip about office chairs above and this tip alone, MOST of those expenses (and the great risks that come with conventional back pain treatments like drugs and surgery) could be avoided.

So stand up frequently and walk around a bit.

And for goodness sake, do some stretches for your back, neck, arms, and legs especially! I’ve got many great stretches you can do in videos that are FREE and immediately accessible on LosetheBackPain.com, and I am always publishing more in our free newsletter.

Right now you can check out two of my free videos for some great office stretches:

5-Minute Office Stretch Routine 1

5-Minute Office Stretch Routine 2

3) Position Your Computer Properly to Avoid Strain on Your Body

Here at the Healthy Back Institute we’ve researched over the years how people typically work in front of their computers … and to be blunt, it is horrendous. Most people contort their spines in unnatural ways, and considering that they do this day after day, year after year, the damage to their bodies – and resulting pain and stress – is massive.

But it can easily be avoided by taking these steps:

• Keep your monitor about arm’s length from your body, around 20-40 inches away. Position the monitor vertically so you can read it with your head and torso in a comfortable upright position.
• Pay attention to your body when viewing the monitor; are you slouching over to see it, or do you feel any strain in your back or neck? Many desktop monitors allow this up-down positioning. For those that don’t and for laptops, consider investing in an adjustable stand, or you can use books.
• Keep your monitor in front of you versus positioning it at angles in relation to where you are sitting. A rule of thumb: positioning your monitor no more than 35 degrees to the left or right of where you sit, and tilted no more than 10-20 degrees.
• Adjust your monitor’s brightness and contrast so it is as easy and comfortable to read as possible.
• Give your eyes frequent breaks by looking away from your monitor frequently.
• Keep your monitor clean of smudges and debris. And if you wear glasses, keep them clean, too. Debris force your eyes to strain harder over time, and that can add up to unnecessary stress on your back, neck… and brain!

4) Get Plenty of Exercise Away from the Office

You’ve heard how important exercise is for other reasons before… and it holds true here, too.

Pain comes from muscle imbalances, so remaining idle does nothing to correct any existing problems, and instead greatly exacerbates them. So get active!

It is particularly important to build your “core” strength. Your core are the muscles at the center of your body, such as your abdominals and lower back muscles. Strengthening these muscles is one of the most powerful ways to avoid neck and back pain at work no matter what type of work you do.

And if it feels like there is not enough time outside of work to get the proper exercises… OR if staying motivated in doing so is an issue for you … let me conclude with more great news:

When you head to LosetheBackPain.com and visit the “Products” link, you will find a top-rated exercise program called The No Excuses Workout. This program requires just 4 minutes per day to get the exercise you need to strengthen your body, including your core, entirely… so that you can avoid pain and stress at work and in all areas of your life.

For far more recommendations on how to overcome and prevent pain… and stress and chronic diseases of all sorts… visit LosetheBackPain.com today.

Most importantly, subscribe to our free newsletter, which provides you cutting-edge insights and practical steps you can take to stop pain, restore your peak health, be more productive, and enjoy life more!

[Ed. Note. Jesse Cannone, CFT, CPRS, MFT, is the Co-Founder of The Healthy Back Institute and author of the "The 7-Day Back Cure". Jesse has also written a special article on the 5 worst pain medications – read more here.]

Just do it. It’s less painful to do it than it is to sit around and think about it or feel guilty that you haven’t started yet. Once you get started, things will get done.

Craig Ballantyne

“The best way to get started is to get started. Life rewards action…not reaction. Wait for nothing. Attack life. Don’t plan to death or ask for permission…but act now…and apologize later.” – Kekich Credo #81
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A New American Dream

Even at a very young age, Tony had an entrepreneurial spirit, starting his first business – a worm farm – at the age of nine, and a few years later, a mail-order-make-your-own-button company. Then, while studying computer science at Harvard, Tony ran a popular pizza business. Soon after college, however, Tony tested the corporate world, only to realize it wasn’t for him, quitting after only five months on the job to co-found LinkExchange, a company he would later sell to Microsoft for $265 million.

Today, Tony is CEO of the online shoe and clothing company, Zappos, the $1 billion+ ecommerce business that was recently bought by Amazon. But Zappos wasn’t always the empire it is today. Desperate for sales back in 1999, Zappos brought in Tony, and his unorthodox approach to company culture, as a business consultant and investor, and within a few short years he’d built not only a lucrative business, but also one that was adored by customers and employees alike.

While still in his mid-twenties when he joined the Zappos team, Tony understood the importance of company culture, saying “our belief is that if we get the culture right most of the other stuff like delivering great customer service or building a long-term enduring brand for the company will happen naturally on its own,” – he couldn’t have been more right. What many don’t know is that despite his large role in Zappos’ success, Tony barely earns what one would normally associate with an entry-level customer service rep – $36,000. Clearly, there’s more to Tony’s Dream than just money.

Discover how to achieve your American Dream and Financial Independence here

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The Future-Based Self
How to get clear direction from the “future you.”

By Dan Sullivan

People naturally think of themselves as one person. But your one person is composed of three different selves: your Past-Based Self, your Present-Based Self, and your Future-Based Self.

Your Past-Based Self is who you believe you were in the past. It’s who you are when you dwell on your memories.

Your Future-Based Self is who you believe you’re going to be in the future. It’s who you are when you focus on your goals.

Your Present-Based Self is usually dominated by either one or the other of these two selves.

Only one of them can be dominant at a time; the one you choose colors your experience of the present moment and determines what you’re capable of right now.

To preserve and protect.

The Past-Based Self’s prime motivation is preservation, because it imagines that the past is where everything important, enjoyable, and meaningful happened. It resists the new, because any change threatens the possibility that you might somehow get to relive the past. This notion doesn’t make much conscious sense, but that’s how the Past-Based Self lives: unconsciously. This is where most people live–resisting their future, preferring to cling to the past, and reacting only when the future inevitably appears.

The Past-Based Self is driven by fear. It does everything it can to preserve the security and reassurance of the past by keeping things constant and predictable. There’s one major problem with this: There are no more rewards for you in the past.

No risk at all.

The Future-Based Self is attracted to new things. It wants to create and move forward, because it’s driven by expectation. The Past-Based Self might think all this hope about the future is unrealistic, but there’s far more evidence to show that you’ve consistently created solutions and become more capable. How could you possibly become less capable?

By establishing goals and following the momentum of your Future-Based Self, you have the opportunity to create new things with confidence and clarity. There’s no risk in future-focus, because the past cant be lost. True, it’s no longer available, but it acts as a rich source of lessons and memories to carry forward with us. Meanwhile, the future is unscripted, full of endless possibility.

The future as a tool.

This might seem like a theoretical distinction, this talk about the direction of your thoughts, but determining the focus of your thoughts is nothing less than deciding between stagnation and growth, nostalgia and possibility. The future and the past are not available in the present, but they do exert a great influence over our experience of the present moment and the actions we can take in it.

The unknown can be frightening. As an entrepreneur, though, you’re accustomed to a high level of risk, and have a mindset that can transform that vague uneasiness into a vision that provides a set of clear actions to take. When others complain about manipulation and powerlessness, you know that your future belongs to you.

How do you begin doing this? Observe your thoughts over the next little while.

If you’re operating from your Past-Based Self, you’ll find yourself worrying about losing something you’ve had or about something bad from the past happening again.

When you shift into your Future-Based Self, you’ll see a future that’s completely new, something more than just an echo of the past. You’ll see that your capabilities will naturally increase throughout your life.

Instead of reacting to events, you can articulate a future that you want and take the appropriate steps to reach it. The more you trust in your ability to create the future, the bigger and bolder your dreams will become.

[Ed. Note. Dan Sullivan is the president and co-founder of Strategic Coach®, a global organization that has helped tens of thousands of entrepreneurs grow their businesses exponentially while enjoying an exceptional quality of life. He is the author of more than 30 publications on the subject of entrepreneurship.]

Craig Ballantyne

“Pick one thing and become the best at it, and you’ll never be short of income.” – Thomas Plummer
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A New American Dream

Ali Brown has fast become regarded as the voice for women’s entrepreneurial success. But she started anywhere but at the top. While working at a small ad agency in New York City, she found herself frustrated at not being able to change and improve things, and her idea fell on deaf ears. Finally, in 1998, she finally decided to go into business for herself. As founder and CEO of Ali International LLC, she has created a dynamic enterprise devoted to empowering women entrepreneurs around the world, and currently has over 50,000 members in her online and offline programs.

Over the past two years alone, Ali has received the honor of being: ranked on the Inc. 500 list of fast growing companies in 2009, one of 2010’s Enterprising Women of the year by Enterprising Women Magazine, a winner of the 2010 Ernst & Young 2010 Class of Entrepreneurial Winning Women, named one of Forbe’s Women to Watch, and featured on the season finale of ABC’s Secret Millionaire show. She has also been featured on Forbes.com, More.com, the Business News Daily, The Huffington Post, Smart Business Los Angeles, Kiplinger.com, and more. Ali’s entrepreneurship and personal freedom allows her to be the embodiment of the new American Dream.

Discover how to achieve your American Dream and Financial Independence here

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The Triple D Strategy for Success
By Mary Ellen Tribby

On any given day, most of us dedicate time to our children, spouses, careers, friends, charities, churches, parents, siblings, clients, household activities, and, oh yeah, if there is a little extra time left in the day, ourselves.

So why is it that only a select few of us can make it look easy… while so many look like they have been run over by a tractor trailer?

The answer is simple.

Most busy people don’t evaluate the project or the task at hand before they begin. This holds true whether they are working on their business lives or on their personal/family lives.

Instead of taking a hard look at the task or project, they simply try to get it done. They do whatever it takes.

But unfortunately, the price they pay is very high.

They sacrifice special moments and milestones with their kids. They risk losing the closeness and tenderness of their spouses. They even jeopardize their own health. They take on all these hardships in order to prove that they are “superparents”. And to add insult to injury, in the end, they often miss their deadlines, fail to properly complete the project, and neglect their spouses and children.

Why do they do this to themselves?

Because all of our lives we have been told they have to multitask. You have heard the old mantra, “if you want something done right, you have to do it yourself” about a million times. And you don’t want to appear inferior.

If this sounds remotely familiar, I need for you to make yourself and me a significant promise.

You need to vow here and now that you are ready to read this issue in its entirety and apply my Triple D Strategy to your life starting today.

This strategy is so powerful that you will have an immediate sense of accomplishment and fulfillment.

When done correctly, it will allow you to have more free time and make more money in your business. Your friends and family will notice immediately that you are not stressed and moody. But most importantly, your “happiness meter” will be heading in the right direction – up.

And here’s the really beautiful part – it is so simple!

Allow me to introduce my Triple D Strategy.

Ditch, Delegate, and Duplicate

When you start to evaluate every project or task that you THINK has to be done and done by you every day, you will soon find that the task could fall into three possible categories:

1) Ditch: This is extremely important if you have a hard time with simply saying “no.” Most are unable or unwilling to say that a task is not important enough for their time or anyone else’s. Look: we all have the same 24 hours in a day – no more, no less. So why is it that we sometimes feel that we should accomplish 28 hours’ worth of tasks in a single day?

In order to turn down a task, just ask yourself the following question: “What will the result be if nothing is done about this project?” This makes your decision very easy. And when you are completely honest with yourself, you will find that 20% to 30% of the things you spend time on don’t need to be done at all!

2) Delegate: The art of delegating relies on finding the right person whose strengths are YOUR weaknesses. You need to do what you do best. Not spend time and energy on tasks that you are not particularly good at or that don’t excite you. Your time and energy should be spent on your natural gifts; things that are innate and that you love doing. You should apply this rule at home and at the office. For example, I’m not particularly good at building websites; this is something I delegate to team members. At home, I don’t enjoy cleaning my house. This is a task I delegate to a cleaning woman who comes to my home and – believe it or not – loves to clean.

Because I do not spend my time on tasks like these, I get to devote that time to tasks that play to my strengths. At the office, my strengths are marketing and content creation. At home, one of my strengths is helping my kids with their homework. These are things that I am very good at and I love doing.

3) Duplicate: Have you ever wished you had a clone? I sure used to! Now I have several. Being able to make more money and have more free time comes down to doubling, tripling, and quadrupling your output without YOU doing the actual work.

The reason so many people don’t duplicate is because they don’t understand the correct way to do so. Most people think, “I will never find anyone as good as I am.” Here is the beautiful part – you don’t have to.

You see, you must simply find different people who can do specific tasks as well as you can. So perhaps you need to find three or four people. These people need to share some of your qualities. You need to check your ego at the door and strive to find people who have the ability to be as good as and even better than you are.

If you write all of your promotional copy, make all the affiliate deals, and develop all your products, you need to find three duplicates: One person to write the copy better than you do now while maintaining your voice and style. One person to cultivate new affiliate deals. This person should have your vivacious personality and be extremely outgoing (if these are your personality traits). And one person to develop products – someone who has even bigger ideas and the ability to get the products completed faster.

These are three simple things that you can implement TODAY. But they only work if you do them and do them right.

In the name of full disclosure, you should know that while this Triple D Strategy will help you immensely in your quest to balance your work and personal life… It’s not the only proven, easy-to-implement technique you can use to create a happier, more productive, more balanced (and richer!) life for yourself.

[Ed. Note. MaryEllen Tribby has created the site, www.WorkingMomsOnly.com, as the leading website and newsletter for the empowerment of the working moms. Her mission is to supply the tools that can give EVERY working mom the ability to lead a healthy, wealthy, and more balanced/blended lifestyle. To create a community where millions of working moms from all over the world come together in support and celebration of each other.]

When you can make sense of your marketplace, you can punch your “Golden Ticket” in life, allowing you to print money on demand from any location in the world. Today I’ll show you how.

But more importantly you should be attending our Early To Rise bonus day at the Underground Online Seminar where I’ll walk you through these steps in even greater detail.

Today is your last day – NO extensions – to register for the life-changing Underground Online Seminar with me, Matt Smith, Yanik Silver, Brendon Burchard, and dozens of other online business experts. Reserve your spot here today and finally start creating the financial independence and freedom you deserve.

I look forward to seeing you there,

Craig Ballantyne

Small thinking is a BIG problem. People give too much power to the obstacles in front of them and don’t have enough confidence in their ability to overcome them. Most people OVER-estimate the obstacles in front of them and UNDER-estimate what they can accomplish. Flip this mindset around, because the opposite is true.

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A New American Dream

As the Founder of Experts Academy and the #1 New York Times and #1 USA Today bestselling author of The Millionaire Messenger, Brendon Burchard is widely regarded as one of the top business and motivational trainers in the world, boasting and impressive and diversified client list that includes Fortune 500 companies, startups, nonprofits, universities, and thousands of entrepreneurs and executives who have attended his seminars across the world. Brendon was lucky to receive life’s “golden ticket” – a second chance – after surviving a major car accident while traveling abroad. Since then, with a renewed appreciation for life, Brendon has dedicated his life to helping others create and master change, including inspiring others to start anew, find their voice, live more fully, and make a greater difference in the world.

Whether it’s creating the largest innovation-focused leadership development program in corporate history, or sharing the stage with the likes of Tony Robbins, Deepak Chopra, Marianne Williamson, and Jack Canfield among others, or creating College Summit LIVE at Walt Disney World Resort, the first, and only, comprehensive training seminar, teaching students to succeed in college emotionally, socially, academically, and financially, Brendon is leading the charge in helping others realize their American Dream.

Join Brendon, Craig Ballantyne, and Matt Smith at the Underground Online Seminar where Brendon will be the Keynote Speaker. Today is your last chance to get in on the Early Bird Registration and Bonuses.

Discover how to achieve your American Dream and Financial Independence here
_______________________

Making Sense Of Your Marketplace
By Craig Ballantyne

Starting out with your own online business is much like beginning any other new venture. One of the first things you need to establish to ensure that your business is going to be viable. Is there a demand for what you are thinking of doing? Can you tap into it easily? And how easy is it going to be to take hold of some market share?

Whatever you sell, there is likely to be competition, and you have to think very carefully about whether or not it is feasible that you will be able to attract business either away from the competition, or have newcomers to the market choose you instead.

Whether you are selling material products or information products like software, site subscriptions or e-books, weighing up the market online is as important as if you were launching something in “the real world”. To demonstrate how this works, let’s take a look at the tablet computer market.

We all know how popular the iPad is. And there are a lot of competitors. But there are not a lot of successful competitors. The Samsung Galaxy hung in there at first, but RIM failed miserably with their Playbook. The only non-iPad tablet that seems to have any momentum is the Kindle, but even its sales are much lower than than the Apple version.

Launching a new tablet in a market that is already dominated by one product, and where other serious players are failing, would be something to think long and hard about. This is probably why not all the major computer brands have tried to enter this particular marketplace.

So really what we have is quite an analogous situation, where there’s a product out there that might be in your marketplace. And you want to come in and you want to grab some market share. You basically want to have a product and build a business. And so you really have to be thinking and asking yourself some very difficult questions.

If you use this analogy, the question then becomes, why would a skeptical consumer buy your new tablet instead of the iPad? Of course, you’re probably not going to be developing and selling tablets, but why would a skeptical consumer go to whatever marketplace that you’re in, whether you’re going to be selling information, whether you’re going to be selling products, whether you’re going to be selling services – whatever your area – and choose you over an established and trusted competitor?

Why would these consumers who may have never heard of you, don’t have a lot of background about you, who are generally very skeptical online, choose to do business with you?

It’s a very difficult question to face, but one that must be in the back of your mind at all times when you are putting together a business, product or offering, whether it’s your first product or whether it’s your tenth product.

Everything new that you bring to market, you have to make sure that you have a really good reason for its existence in your business, and indeed your business’ existence in your marketplace. If you do not, it’s probably not wise to run with that particular idea. Others will come.

In some cases, your product may be unique. You may be offering something like an ebook or a smartphone app that you have developed, which is the only one of its kind. Even in these cases, you still have to consider whether that product first of all has a market online, and secondly, makes sense in it.

You may not have any direct competitors in terms of your actual offering, but you are still likely to be entering a very busy market where you are competing for consumer attention before you can even begin to make a sale.

This is not about looking at your idea negatively or pessimistically, but about considering its place in your planned market with an objective and realistic eye. Make sure you believe in the idea and its chance of success before you do anything else.

The exercise of considering your idea’s place in the market can also be powerful in helping you plan your next steps. If you know your market exists online, you must therefore know who they are, and where. Knowing that, you can plan out the best strategy to reach them and make them aware of what you’re offering.

If you know that competition exists in that market, you can hone your offering to make it a good choice, even the best choice, when compared with what they are bringing. You can make sensible decisions about your price points, and you can see where you have any advantages over the competition, which will basically help you establish where your own key selling points are.

This involves market research as well as being able to step back and critically analyze your own ideas. Luckily, for online businesses this is very easy to do, because there is a lot of transparency around what and where other people are promoting.

Simple Google searches and looking at some social media content on any rivals you can find will give you an idea of how well they are faring, and what their strengths and weaknesses are. You can also see how much interest there is in a given topic, service or idea very easily by looking at things like Twitter and people’s blogs.

When you know that your idea is sound, and understand your market and competition, you are in a very good position to be able to launch a successful internet business.

You will probably also have picked up a few ideas about marketing and promotion targeting that market along the course of your research and analysis. This will put you in the right place as you begin to make money on the Internet.

[Join Matt Smith, Yanik Silver, and Craig Ballantyne at the Underground Online Seminar where all three will be showing you how to build your own profitable web-based business from home – or from anywhere in the world. But hurry, today is your LAST chance to get in on the Early Bird Registration and Bonuses – NO extensions.]

Fortunately, there’s a simple technique that can overcome a lot of the stress in our lives and you’ll discover that method today.

Craig Ballantyne

“Presuming your personal performance is of extremely high or at least potentially high value, then everything that facilitates it best has value, and everything that interferes has (hidden) cost. Assembling, developing and taking good care of your inner-inner circle is a way of enhancing personal performance.” – Dan Kennedy
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A New American Dream

At the age of 22 Lewis Howes achieved a major goal in by being named an All American athlete. He was soon playing Arena Football with hopes of later playing in the NFL but suffered a career ending injury. He literally lost everything and ended up living on hi sister’s couch.

But his passion and commitment for success led him to join a local Toastmasters group to develop his speaking skills. It was there that he began learning how to use the executive networking website Linked-In as a way of making connections. Through his persistence and constant experimentation with the website, Lewis quickly became recognized as an authority on Linked-In.

This privilege allowed him to begin traveling the country, speaking at events and making incredible contacts. He built a business around his passion and expertise, and has created multiple six-figure online product launches and has shared the speaking stage with many of the world’s top marketers and business leaders.

During this incredible journey Lewis has learned one thing to be true; Principals like commitment and focus are as powerful on the field as they are off the field. Lewis considers it both an honor and a privilege to bring value and success to others and help them achieve their own American Dream.

Join Lewis, Craig Ballantyne, and Matt Smith at the Underground Online Seminar where all three will be speaking and sharing their secrets of success. Today is your LAST DAY to get the Early Bird Discount on registration.

Discover how to achieve your American Dream and Financial Independence here

____________________

Why You Must Manage Expectations
By Craig Ballantyne

In the week before Christmas, my business partner and Early to Rise Publisher, Matt Smith, set up an automated reply to all emails he received. It read something along the lines of, “I’m taking a break this week and will not be responding to emails.”

Not a problem. It was Christmas, most people were winding down the year, and there weren’t any major issues I had to discuss with him. It was a no-stress situation.

But I made a mistake, and that was in taking the message literally without confirmation. I fully expected Matt to be back online the following week. But after three more days after Christmas receiving the same “I’m taking a break this week…” response, I started to get a little agitated. After all, we were working on some relatively important projects that were to begin immediately in the New Year. Now was the time I needed to get his approval on the contracts I had sent him by email.

As you can see, small changes in expectations can lead to disproportionately larger increases in stress.

Here’s another example that I’m sure you have encountered. You wake up, whether at home or in a hotel room while on business travel, and you go to check your email. But your computer doesn’t co-operate and the Internet isn’t working. Your stress levels rise because you needed to check your email first thing in the morning for an important report, message, or meeting confirmation. You fully expected the Internet to be working and your expectations have not been met.

Contrast this to a Saturday morning when you’re at home and your spouse or your kids alert you that the Internet is not functioning. They are not able to access their email or Facebook pages, but that’s no stress to you because it is your day off and you had no plans – or expectations – to use the Internet at that time.

The same variable but with different expectations completely changes your stress level.

Stress is largely a factor of how your expectations are managed.

When running a business or managing employees, how you manage your own expectations and those of your team are critical to reducing stress and conflict. The solution to managing expectations is clear and concise communication.

Recently I was on the phone with one of my few executive coaching clients and we were discussing how to improve her schedule for productivity and to reduce unwarranted stress levels. She had been given a series of ‘homework tasks’ that she needed to complete in order to increase her work capacity while working less, and this included handing off of vital tasks to her assistants.

She reported back that some changes had gone smoothly, while others were stuck in the mud, and in fact, causing even more tension at home. When we looked at what had gone right and wrong, the answer was clear. She even pointed it out before I said anything.

The situations where the tasks had been delegated properly all worked because of clear, concise instructions given to her employees. The task instructions were specific with a clearly defined start and end time. Given the new set of rules, her employees were happy to help and had no problems freeing up more time for our entrepreneur. Expectations were managed on both ends. She knew was expected of them, and the employees knew what their boss expected from them.

It was all clear.

In contrast, where things didn’t go as smoothly, problems resulted due to a lack of expectation management. The employees thought their boss wanted X, when in fact, my client wanted Y. Or in some cases, she wanted X to be done in a different way or at a different time.

The differences in expectations were not major, but enough to cause stress for both individuals.

There’s an old saying, “Little hinges swing big doors”. This fits the task of managing expectations. Tiny misses in expectations can lead to big swings in stress levels.

The bottom line is that you must be clear in all of your instructions. It must be made clear what you expect from business partners, employees, printers, delivery men, your hairdresser, your real estate agent, your waiter, and on and on and on.

On the flip side, you must also be realistic and flexible. You cannot expect perfection. There will always be a few broken yolks in your life. But if you expect this to happen, then you’ll have the mindset to manage the set-backs. How you manage your own expectations is equally as important as how you manage the expectations of others.

When working to increase your productivity, be clear about your work goals, your work environment, your work time blocks, and what you expect from your employees and team members in terms of honoring all of the above.

Make these expectations well known and communicate them clearly. It will save you a lot of hassle and stress over time.

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Once you have your rules, you’ll have low-stress way of living how you want to live without dropping out of the mainstream. Robert Ringer explains why that is so important in the article below.

Craig Ballantyne

Not a fun one today…but an important one: “Ask yourself “Why?” you want to achieve something but you refuse to act in congruence with achieving it.” – Dan Kennedy

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A New American Dream

Described as the “Indiana Jones for the digital age”, author, entrepreneur, and public speaker, Tim Ferriss, has been featured in more than 100 media outlets, including The New York Times, The Economist, TIME, Fortune, CNN, and CBS, as well as being a popular guest lecturer at Princeton University since 2003, where he presents entrepreneurship as a tool for living the American Dream and world change.

Tim is widely recognized for his application of both Pareto’s Principle (80/20 rule) and Parkinson’s Law (work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion), and in 2003 he released his first New York Times and USA Today bestseller, The Four Hour Workweek, in which he promotes “mini retirements” as an alternative to the “deferred life” career path one typically follows when working a 9-5 job into retirement.

Also a prominent angel investor, Tim was recently listed at #13 in the “100 Most Influential VCs, Angels & Investors”, funding social media giants, Facebook, Twitter, and StumbleUpon just to name a few. Nominated as one of Fast Company’s “Most Innovative Business People of 2007″ and Forbes Magazine’s “Names You Need to Know in 2011″, Tim Ferriss is pioneering the new American Dream.

Discover how to achieve your American Dream and Financial Independence here

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Here’s to You, Mrs. Robinson

By Robert Ringer

Regardless of your age, you’ve probably seen what is arguably the best and most successful cult film of all time, The Graduate. Today, with oversexed, deranged female teachers playing out the role of Mrs. Robinson with increasing frequency, it can’t help but bring back memories of the film that launched Dustin Hoffman’s career back in 1967.

The Graduate was the surprise hit of the year, with Mike Nichols winning an Oscar for best director. In addition, the movie was nominated for best picture, and Dustin Hoffman, Katharine Ross, and Anne Bancroft all earned Oscar nominations as well. And who can forget Simon and Garfunkel’s time-defying musical score, particularly the memorable song that defined the movie. Is there anyone in the civilized world who hasn’t heard the words:

And here’s to you, Mrs. Robinson,
Jesus loves you more than you will know,
Wo wo wo.
God bless you, please, Mrs. Robinson,
Heaven holds a place for those who pray,
Hey hey hey, hey hey hey.

As I recall, Hoffman received $5,000 for his starring role in The Graduate – the last time he would have to perform for chump change. Of course, some might argue that getting paid $5,000 to be romantically involved with Katharine Ross and sexually involved with her movie mother, the late Anne Bancroft, was the Hollywood deal of the century. The modern-day Mrs. Robinsons turned out by America’s teachers’ unions would have a tough time topping The Graduate when it comes to appealing to the fantasies of teenage boys.

Preceding the movie was the original novel, written by Charles Webb, first published in 1963. At the time, Webb was a young, privileged suburbanite who based his famous novel on what he saw as the valueless, hypocritical life of his parents and their country club friends.

In the movie, Hoffman’s character, Ben Braddock, is a young man just out of college who has no ambition or sense of adult responsibility. Clearly, Webb was depicting himself in the main character, but his own life has played out even more movie-like than Ben’s.

One would assume that the author of such a great American novel would normally move on to ever more fame and fortune. But not so with Charles Webb, who is now more than forty years removed from the year in which his famous novel was first published. Though Webb did write a few more forgettable novels, he dropped out of the limelight by choice, rejecting mainstream society. The Graduate has made buckets of money for publishers and producers, but not for Webb. Why? Because – hold onto your hat – he and his wife signed away the book’s copyright to charity.

Further, they renounced a materialistic life and consumerism and refused to accept their wealthy families’ money, choosing instead to move to England and live the life of classic Bohemians. Early in their relationship, they lived like vagabonds, doing everything from picking fruit to running nudist camps. Most bizarre of all, Webb’s wife of 45 years, Eve, shaved her head and changed her name to Fred (with no legal last name) in a show of support “for men named Fred who have low self-esteem.” On reading this, my first thought was to call the ACLU and file a discrimination suit against Fred for failing to show support for men named Robert.

The last I heard, Charles Webb and Fred were residing in a seaside resort in Brighton, England. At the time (2001), they were living in a one-bedroom apartment with no TV and just a few pieces of furniture.

Webb likes to point out that when The Graduate was first published and became a modest success, his family (for obvious reasons) hated it. But when the movie became such a huge success that it catapulted the book into an equally huge bestseller, his family decided they loved it. As he puts it, “Success is what they (his family) related to.”

One of the reasons I find Charles Webb and Fred so fascinating is because, unlike most dropouts, they aren’t crusaders trying to save the world, and they at least claim they don’t begrudge the materialistic worship mentality of most of the other six billion people on our planet. In fact, The Wall Street Journal quoted Webb as saying, “There’s nothing wrong with wealth – it just didn’t work for us.”

Whenever I read unusual life stories, I try to draw meaningful lessons from them. But I had a hard time with this one. When I first read it years ago, it absolutely fascinated me. But I was cautious about drawing conclusions from the weird tale of Charles and Fred.

Because they don’t go around preaching revolution, harassing fishermen in an effort to save whales, or burning down houses to preserve the habitat of wild beasts, I have to respect their implied philosophy: Don’t tell us how to live, and we won’t tell you how to live. Hey, in America and the U.K., that’s a perfectly legitimate position to take.

But I also believe that what you don’t know can hurt you. It’s easy to say that Charles and Fred are doing what makes them happy, but I have to admit that when I first read about their strange travails, it saddened me. One part of me liked them because they were acting on their convictions, weren’t entrapped by the material world, and, above all, weren’t crusading to persuade others to give up their materialistic lifestyle.

I agree with them that Burbs Disease … rampant consumerism … keeping up with the corporate executive next door … whatever you want to call it, is an equally sad way to live. I believe Buddha was right when he said, “All unhappiness is caused by attachment.” And attachment to material things is the worst possible kind of attachment.

But completely dropping out of life – having no discernable purpose – seems like a gigantic waste of human resources. To live in the real world doesn’t mean you have to stay in step with everyone else. It doesn’t mean you have to be hypocritical. And it doesn’t mean you have to worship money or material things. You can be real, act real, and live real in the real world.

I hadn’t thought about Charles Webb and Fred for several years, but when a friend sent me an e-mail with the following words, these two rebels without a cause came to mind: “Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming … ‘Wow ! What a ride!’”

Life is meant to be lived, and I don’t believe it is possible to achieve one’s true potential by renouncing “mainstream” life in its entirety. Mainstream life is the ballpark. The players within that ballpark can be intense, goal-driven, and action-oriented or they can be dull, negative, and sedentary. But whatever kind of player you choose to be, you have to be inside the ballpark to play the game. If you want to be the ultimate risk-taker and break all the rules, fine. Just don’t leave the park. Those who have done so tend to become increasingly out of touch with reality.

[Ed. Note: If you're ready for a treasure chest of proven ideas, strategies, and techniques that are guaranteed to dramatically improve your dealmaking skills - and, in the process, increase your income many times over - you won't want to miss Robert Ringer's bestselling audio series, A Dealmaker's Dream.

Robert Ringer is a New York Times #1 bestselling author and host of the highly acclaimed Liberty Education Interview Series, which features interviews with top political, economic, and social leaders. His recently released work, Restoring the American Dream: The Defining Voice in the Movement for Liberty, is a clarion call to liberty-loving citizens to take back the country. Ringer has appeared on numerous national talk shows and has been the subject of feature articles in such major publications as Time, People, The Wall Street Journal, Fortune, Barron's, and The New York Times. To sign up for his e-letter, A Voice of Sanity in an Insane World, visit www.robertringer.com.]