Entrepreneurs-Journey.com Down-To-Earth Advice For Bloggers and Internet Marketers

I’ve been debating for a while whether to publish this blog post because it’s a bit off topic and very self indulgent, however lots of people have been asking me questions about these two changes to my life, so I’ve decided why not tell you about them.

Consider yourself warned, this article will not likely improve your life or your business in any significant way, but if you’re curious about what’s going on in my life, read on.

(On a side note, it never ceases to surprise me how talking about your personal life on your blog, no matter how unrelated it is to your blog topic, can enhance relationships with your audience. Voyeurism is alive and well in the blogosphere and is a great traffic technique. So there you go, I did manage to sneak in an on-topic lesson.)

I Finally Got The Chop

You probably know me as that blogging guy with the long hair and the funny name who looks like this –

Late in 2009 I decided, after more than five years with long hair, it was time to go back to the short hair version of me.

The funny name stays, but today I look like this -

As a kid growing up my mum was in charge of my hair. She figured what’s the point of hair cuts so I just looked scruffy most of the time and was often confused for a girl when I was very little.

Read the rest of this entry >>

I’m sitting at a Max Brenner “chocolate by the bald man” shop, slurping a dark chocolate iced frappe in Melbourne as I type this on my macbook air.

This is the first chance I’ve had to get some laptop time in the past three days because I’ve attended a wedding of a high-school friend. What made the wedding unique is because it was an Indian wedding, which means it’s a big occasion, with over 250 people showing up at different ceremonies, held over three days.

Melbourne is a great city, my second favorite in Australia after my hometown of Brisbane. I love the trams, and although the weather is a bit unpredictable, I like how much cooler it is compared to Brisbane. It’s like Brisbane winter temperatures in summer at night in Melbourne – that means long pants and no sweating, a welcome relief from what has been a hot summer in Brisbane so far. Most of the biggest events come to Melbourne, including the Australian Open tennis, my favorite tournament of the year.

The wedding has been an amazing experience, with such a variety of ceremonies, including traditional Indian customs, food, dancing and clothing. I have a small family, so seeing such a massive group of people come together essentially just for two people, along with all the emotions involved, is at times overwhelming, yet an inspiring experience too.

If you want to see photos from the wedding I’ve tweeted a few of them, so just check out my Twitter profile for the links. And if you’re reading this – a big thank you to Venkatesh and Nishi for the invite to your wedding, and congratulations again.

The Year That Was

Now that the wedding is over I’m back to the real world, thinking about what’s coming next in my life. No doubt you’re thinking about what’s coming up for you in 2010 as well.

This is the last blog post I’m going to write this year, actually – this decade. That makes it a great time for reflection.

In 2009 I turned 30, and celebrated that milestone on this blog with a reflective blog post looking back over the last ten years of my life. You can read it here -

How To Become Comfortable With Yourself

Since I’ve already covered the highlights of the last decade, and this blog is a chronicle of the last five years of my life, I’m going to focus now only on the year that was and also what’s coming up next.

Looking at small time-frames works a lot better for me. I don’t make five year plans. I don’t even make one year plans. I do look to the past to help me frame my future intentions, however they serve more as learning tools and reference points for what I want now more than anything else.

2009 has been a particularly inspiring year for me because I realized how completely in control of my reality I am. Sure I’ve understood that idea long before this year, but it was more a concept to me, something that made sense but didn’t always manifest exactly how I would expect it to if I was in control. In 2009, especially now in December as I look back, I realize this year more than any other year, was a reflection of what I wanted to experience and thus made physical.

The Law Of Attraction

Earlier in the month I attended a live one day seminar by Jerry and Esther Hicks, who you may know as major players in the movement that is the law of attraction. The Secret DVD featured a lot of content from them, though I should clarify, it’s not specifically these two people who teach, it’s an entity named Abraham, who speaks through Esther, who does the teaching.

If you’re skeptical when you hear the idea of someone “channeling” another being, I don’t blame you, I’ve felt similar judgments in the past, although it’s not such a big deal for me any more. I don’t care where people say information comes from, we just put labels on things to give different meaning. Whether it’s experts, channeled entities, or even god who is speaking to you, it’s all the same thing. Listen to the message, not the messenger, and if it resonates, take it on board.

If you need the messenger to help lend credibility, that’s fine, just don’t be too quick to judge before you listen to the words. Far too many people miss out on potentially life changing insights because they refuse to take on ideas simply because of where the information is coming from. If something challenges your way of thinking, don’t reject it on principle, keep your eyes and mind open, listen to the words, see how what is being said can fit into your world view, and grow from there. You don’t have to like or even trust the messenger, to benefit from the message.

Setting Intentions

Seeing Abraham speak live on stage was a great experience. However it was the days that followed the event that I realized I had turned a corner in my ability to control what happens in my life.

What was interesting about this awareness was not that I suddenly could manifest whatever I wanted, it was that I had already done it – and in this case, manipulated aspects of my life that I previously struggled to change. I’m talking about aspects of my personality and life that had remained rigid for years, which in the space of months had completely changed, and it was all thanks to what I was thinking, the actions I was taking as a result and what thus manifested in my physical world.

Since we are reflecting, it’s worth taking a moment now to look back over the previous 12 months of your life and ask yourself these questions -

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Reflections On My 30th Birthday

As I type this I just turned 30 years old and if you’re reading this and it’s still Sunday July 19 where you are, make sure you wish me a happy birthday .

I had a conversation leading up to my 30th birthday with a fellow 29 year old who was heading towards her 30th with a little trepidation. She had just divorced her husband, so needless to say she was experiencing significant changes in her life.

Personally I don’t look at 30 as a big deal, although there was one comment this particular girl made that caught my attention. She said as people turn 30 they usually are in one of two places – they have their “shit” together or they don’t. I told her I was about as happy as I could remember in my life as I turned 30, so her conclusion was I was one of those people who has their “shit together”. Yay for me.

It Was The Worst Of Times

It’s natural to reflect on your life as you get older, especially at milestone ages. If I look over my twenties I can certainly say it has been a wild ride, full of highs and lows.

I left my teenage years and entered my twenties while I was at university, not really enjoying my studies, not very motivated by much and just uncomfortable in my own skin.

The problem when your own self worth is low, is that you have great difficulty digging yourself out. You generally attract experiences to enhance your low self esteem because you view the world in “sad” glasses. Until you can switch the conversation going on inside your head from negative to positive, your experiences in the outside world will reflect this, further enhancing your negative belief structure.

In order to truly become confident, you need to have experiences that have a positive impact on you. There’s only so far re-framing your interpretation of events and thinking positive can take you, eventually you have to actually have the positive experiences to build your confidence.

As a result of my dogged determination to remain unhappy, I experienced many low-points. I’d have to say my time with panic attacks and anxiety during my early twenties was one of my least-favorite periods.

As always, thanks to the wonderful world of polarities that we exist in, the trauma caused by these experiences forced me to seek out answers to big questions. If I didn’t suffer the pain, I wouldn’t have gone looking for answers to certain questions either – you need the ying in order to see the contrast and thus fully experience the yang.

I won’t go into detail here, but if you want to read more about my experience with panic and the resultant search for happiness, you can read this –

The Key To Happiness

During my early twenties I had a few part time jobs and experimented with different web projects. My most successful at this time was my Magic: The Gathering card game website, which I grew to the largest site of its kind in Australia and then later sold for $13,000, the first big website deal I made.

I also started my proofreading business BetterEdit.com in my early twenties, which I would invest serious time into growing, including trips to university campuses in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Hawaii, Vancouver and Toronto to promote using posters.

From 20 to 25 years old I spent a lot of time playing with different projects and gained a lot of experience. I also began my study of Internet marketing during this time, and delved into more philosophical and spiritual studies too, as a means to figure out why the world is the way it is and what I could do to be happier in it.

I don’t look back on my first five years in my twenties as the most fun of times. Sure there were good times in there, but much of the experience was sabotaged by my attitude. I’m glad to have gone through that period for the growth it provided for me as a person, but I wouldn’t want to go back there again.

It Was The Best Of Times

A clear contrast to my first five years in my twenties, from 25 to 30 my life went from good to better to great, and thankfully, it’s still going!

It’s funny how as you get your “shit” together, people start to look at you as if you have answers to a question that has been bugging them for a long time – what to do with their life. Read the rest of this entry >>

The day you start a business you enter the public sphere of perception. This means that what you do and what you say will be judged by everyone who is listening or purchasing your offerings.

The day you start a blog something similar happens, where every word you publish becomes available to the entire world for all to see and scrutinize.

In my four plus years of blogging now there have been a handful of what I like to call “incidents”. Moments when a particular person has taken offense to me and what I said or did and decided to present this feedback in a public way, by leaving comments on my blog or another blog, or by writing a blog post on their own blog specifically accusing me of something.

Since I can count the number of times this has happened on one hand and I’ve been in business for many years, I can say that I’ve had a good ride so far. Most feedback I get is glaringly positive and supportive, which I truly appreciate. However, we all know that it’s the negative words that hurt the most, so even if they are few and far between, each time I’ve become the subject of a public attack, I’ve felt a strong emotional response.

Attention Is A Good Thing

Let’s set one thing straight. Whether or not you are happy about the reason, whenever you are the subject of someone else’s focus, that’s a good thing. That means you have attention, which ultimately is the hardest thing to gain online. In fact, often the most controversial events, that you may not feel great about, result in a big spike in traffic. People love to watch a fight, it’s human nature. Controversy is a great traffic technique, if you can bear the accusations that will be flung your way.

Anyone who becomes moderately successful and has a public profile, even a big fish in a small pond, will have detractors. The nature of the world is that we all have different opinions and you will never please all of the people all of the time. The more famous you get, the more people will have an opinion about you, both good and bad.

The real problem is if no one is paying attention to you – that’s when something is wrong with your marketing. If you’re doing well and you’re in the public space getting attention, you’re going to need to know how to deal with negative and positive feedback.

At First You Get Emotional

I remember the first time a major incident broke and I was the focus. I experienced what it was like to have a true “hater”. Of course I reacted strongly with emotion and in the heat of the moment attempted to defend myself. What a mistake that was.

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I know you have been waiting patiently for this ever since I released the Masterplan report last week. You’re probably curious how much my new course, Membership Site Mastermind is, right?

I just turned the order page on and you can sign up to my six week intensive training program, Membership Site Mastermind, right here, right now –

www.membershipsitemastermind.com/signup/

I’m leaving the doors open for one week, then I’m closing and I’ll begin running the weekly live coaching calls and working with the students as they go through the modules.

My Best Fast-Action Bonus Is Yours If You Act Today

I haven’t told anyone about this yet, so this is a particularly special bonus.

Later this year, in July, I’m doing something I’ve never done before – I’m teaching an entire live event focused just on my materials.

The title of the seminar is “How To Live The Two-Hour Work Day“.

(Tim can keep his 4 hour work-week, I like to work a little each day because it’s fun!)

I’ll be presenting my entire formula for living the ideal lifestyle where you can work a few hours a day and live comfortably with the freedom to do what you want when you want.

I’ll be teaching everything I’ve done to realize this lifestlye, including how I’ve bought and sold websites to make over $180,000 part time, my success principles to grow a profitable blog and how to make big money with membership sites.

This is the first time I’ve ever done a live workshop and depending how it goes, it might be the last, because I don’t want to commit to too much work (proof that I really do value freedom over money).

So, here’s the bonus…

The event will be held in Brisbane Australia, my home city. If you can’t make the trip down under to attend the event in person, you will receive access to the live recordings of the event online.

I recommend you book a trip to Australia, you can visit the beaches after you fill your brain with ideas at my event. It has never been cheaper to fly, so it’s a great time to travel.

What’s Inside Membership Site Mastermind?

I’m not going to explain what’s in my program here as I have a detailed info page and video that breaks down everything. Yes it is a long sales page, but if you don’t want to read it, either scan the parts that interest you, or watch the video at the top, which explains everything in detail (and you will learn a thing or two as well!).

If you’re still not convinced after reading my report, the Masterplan, and watching the videos I’ve released during the previous week, then see this page, it has the answers to your questions –

Membership Site Mastermind Info Page

You have precisely one week to join my program and that’s it. Once the doors close it won’t be open to the public again for many months.

If you’re ready to go after the best online business model there is and launch your own successful membership site, you need to take this course, it’s the best way to get started quickly.

I can’t wait to start working with you to help you launch your membership site and guide you to that dream goal – $10,000 a month from your own membership site.

I’ll speak to you on the inside.

Yaro Starak
Mastering Membership Sites