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Last night I attended a special movie screening of the documentary, “Food Matters“. Here’s the trailer -

The gist of the film is that our medical system at the moment is not good at dealing with diseases. We focus on symptoms rather than the root cause of the problem and - here’s the big deal - doctors rarely consider nutrition as a cure or preventative solution, instead it’s all about cutting things out, or radiation treatments and drug therapies after the fact.

The drug companies like this because they can sell more product. If you have a culture like ours, which tends to react to problems only after they occur and then treat them using drugs, you have a formula for a billion dollar industry. We tend to think about popping a pill when something is wrong, rather than eating good food to stay healthy.

Food Matters looks at nutrition - the food we eat - as the best prevention and cure for health issues. It’s ridiculous how much sense this makes, yet people don’t follow the advice.

What’s The Key Ingredient For Business Success?

You might think the answer to the question in the heading above is marketing, or customer service or a superior product, but for every business in existence today, the key ingredient is people. If you don’t have healthy functioning people, then your business is not going to thrive.

In the home business, solo entrepreneur and professional blogging world, it matters even more because you work independently as the main cog that keeps the business going. If you can’t work, you can’t earn a living.

The message in Food Matters is a simple one: Eat organic foods, if you can - eat raw foods, and add superfoods to your diet too. Look to food as the best prevention and even the cure to any ailments you suffer from.

I’m not saying take on board the ideas in the movie as fact, you can make your own mind up, but the core message - you are what you eat - is just so obvious, yet it needs to be stated. Even those of us with the best intentions have trouble sticking to healthy eating all the time.

How Hard Is It To Stay Healthy?

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Recently I was the willing target of several audio interviews. The topic of course, was blogging, however as is customary, most interviews begin with a little background study of the person in question.

As a result of telling my recent business history I found myself reminiscing about some of the ventures I was involved in during the previous 8 years or so. Most of them were online enterprises, but there was one experience where I was running a start-up based in the real world, an English tutoring school called “Aussie Tutor”.

If you dig into my earlier archives you will find several posts and podcasts were I mentioned my English school. It was an interesting time in my life, which taught me many lessons about business and in particular what I want from a business and what I don’t want.

Working 9 to 5 by Choice

While in charge of my school I came to fully realize what I had always known - I do not like having to be anywhere nine-to-five, five days a week.

Before I avoided a full time job specifically because of not wanting to be anywhere for such long periods of time to work for someone else. Not surprisingly, despite working for myself, I still did not like that I had to be somewhere during working hours.

Unfortunately, as a business with a physical premises, the English school demanded my presence every day unless I was willing to forgo any possible patronage that might walk in off the street. Ironically, despite my immaculate attendance, many days my English school was empty and I spent the time working online.

It didn’t take long for me to realize, despite my passion for the idea and my entrepreneurial spirit, my tutoring service was not going to work unless I made a significant commitment to it. I would need to either shut it down, or invest money and time and treat it like a true start-up.

At the time I had a growing Internet based business demanding my attention that was profitable (BetterEdit - an online proofreading service I sold in 2007). It wasn’t too hard to decide what to do next. I closed down Aussie Tutor, broke my lease and went back to working at home.

A Web Based Life

I am very thankful that I grew up during a period where the Internet also grew up. My very first casual job was web based (crafting websites for the business school at university) and my very first self created income stream came from the Internet too.

I can’t remember what life was like before the Internet, but I know it wasn’t nearly as good as it is now.

Tomorrow I hop on a plane and fly to Fiji. I’ll be there for 5 days before I board another plane where I’ll head to Hawaii. I’ll spend a week in the land of aloha, before jumping on another flight, this time to Vancouver, where a week of fun awaits. I’ll then make a short flight to Winnipeg, visit my grandmother, before settling in Toronto for 5 months. I intend to visit the USA for conferences and other fun things during my time in Canada too.

In Fiji I will be in a hotel but during the rest of my travels I’m staying in rented apartments with kitchens, private double beds and all the usual trimmings, at two thirds the price of equivalent standard hotels (I’m practicing a little 4-Hour Work Week accommodation hunting). I’ll have ample time and funds to do what I want and it’s all thanks to the World Wide Web. There’s not many occupations today that grant you this much freedom.

Ever present during this trip will be my laptop. My computer that connects me to the online world will serve as a communication tool to keep in touch with friends, family and colleagues. I’ll blog, create content, work on products, market, network and effectively live a very similar life to what I usually do at home in Brisbane.

The scenery might change, but the purpose and lifestyle doesn’t - and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Live the Stereotype - Laptop on the Beach

We all know the archetypical image of the entrepreneur sitting on the beach with their laptop, logging on to check how much money they made during the previous night and then settling back to a day full of sun, sand and sleep - a perpetual holiday.

I’ve already written about my disdain for the traditional non-working holiday, however the gist of the laptop on the beach image is definitely something I appreciate because it represents fantastic freedom. A business that can function - and even grow - despite your absence or location in the world, and the freedom to choose when to work, how to work and what to work on, is a great business.

This is a far cry from waking up at 8am to open the doors to a 3rd floor English tutoring school.

How To Build a Framework for Life Portability

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Like most people, some mornings I wake up and feel less than enthusiastic about working. Sometimes, this feeling doesn’t stem from laziness or apathy, it’s a stronger power, a sense of futility and helplessness.

I know a lot of people look to my story of success as a source of inspiration and that is one of the greatest benefits I enjoy as a blogger, but - and I’m not afraid to admit it - I don’t always feel energized to pursue business and sometimes in my darkest moments, I even consider throwing in the towel.

This feeling is not so common for me now as I have lifestyle flexibility, a more stable income and a better mindset about work, but earlier on, it definitely was a problem. I want to explain how I overcome these moments (and still do the same thing now on occasion) to stay on track and how you can even have a productive day when you are not really feeling the mojo on the inside.

I expect you have felt similar feelings of despair or a lack of motivation at different stages of your business development, especially if you are yet to establish an income stream online that is sufficient for you to live off, or if you are right at the beginning and you have not seen one cent of return for the work you have put in.

Inspired or Dejected

Depending on your world view and personality style, when you hear of the success of others you may either feel inspired or dejected, and while it’s obviously more fruitful to look at other people achieving what you desire as motivation, as a fallible human, jealousy, depression and anger may be your initial responses.

Your mind is your greatest asset for success in business, but it can be just as strong a force of hindrance, sabotaging your efforts, destroying your work ethic and leaving you with no option but to return to the soul destroying job you promised yourself that you would never go back to.

How To Work When You Don’t Feel Like It

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One of the great selling points of many online programs - I use this myself as part of the marketing approach for Blog Mastermind - is the appeal of following the steps of someone else who has done what you want to do. A system that has worked for someone else should work for you if you do exactly the same as them, right?

Well not exactly…

Let’s state the obvious. We are all different. It’s not possible to do something in EXACTLY the same manner as someone else, but you can certainly come close, yet that doesn’t mean the end result will be close to the person you attempt to replicate. If only it was as simple as that!

There are so many variables at play, for example - the external environment, luck, timing, skill, talent, resources - that it is almost ridiculous that anyone can claim if you follow their system you should expect the same results.

Let’s take my blog and my blog training program for example.

I grew a blog over several years and now make six figures a year from it. In 2007 I sat down and over six months documented, in a teaching format, the steps to replicate what I did to build my blog.

I couldn’t completely cover everything I did, but I’m confident I comprehensively covered the key points. It’s probably better for someone to go through the lessons in Blog Mastermind as a study resource rather than follow exactly in my footsteps since I made so many mistakes. You get the benefit of my hindsight to help you avoid my mistakes, you get the benefit of my insight so you don’t have to work it out for yourself and it’s all nicely packaged in an easy to consume program (and all of that’s part of the marketing spiel too!).

Yet, even with the road map laid out, no one will reach the same destination.

How many students who take Blog Mastermind will build a profitable blog? Not many. Of course I’ll do my best to highlight the success stories to lend credibility (and hope) that it’s possible, but I think it’s important to be realistic too. I’d love it if every student who studied my program experienced big time success and met all the objectives I state are possible. Most won’t even come close, a few will make it and maybe one or two will excel beyond my achievements (the grasshopper surpasses the master ).

I’m comfortable posting this to my blog because I know it’s not a reflection of my training that people don’t succeed. I know what I teach works, given the right conditions, which sadly are rarely met. I don’t publish this to discourage people from aspiring to become a professional blogger or take any online program - that’s definitely not my intention - but I do want you to understand why it is that so few people make it in the end so you can avoid the same fate.

Why Do People Fail?

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I’m presently sitting in a cafe called the Gelato Bar, which apparently has been here at Bondi Beach (Sydney) since 1958. If you have ever been to Bondi it’s the cafe with all the amazing cakes in the window…

Hmm…cake. This was a traditional eastern European eatery - they even had borsch (ech!)

I’m in Sydney for three days for a short holiday and of course my holidays always include some blogging, so here I am typing away.

I popped into the World Internet Summit to catch the beginning of the event, where the first few speakers were talking about forming a vision for what you want your life to be like, with a successful Internet business granting you a fantastic lifestyle that most ‘normal’ people only dream about.

I’m not staying at the summit for the full four days this time, I have another workshop on this weekend back in Brisbane and frankly I don’t think I could take four days of presentations on various methods to make money on the Internet. It’s just a bit much.

The networking at events like the summit make it worth while and that’s the only thing I feel like I am missing out on by leaving early. I was only there today for about an hour and talked to three people, including one of my blogging students (hi Corinne!). It’s amazing how good it is to be in a room full of people with shared goals and aspirations, along with various experts who are presenting on stage.

Make The Decision To Do Something

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