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

I remember a year or so ago I was trawling a popular Internet marketing forum. This particular forum has some successful marketers, but mostly the members are opportunity seeking newbies, including lots of young guys who are looking to make money online quick and care little for hard work.

I did an “ego” search in this particular forum for my name (market feedback I swear!), and came across a thread from some people discussing my Blog Profits Blueprint free report. Someone had asked how to make money blogging and my report was referenced by another member.

Some of the feedback was positive, but there was also a few replies that were along the lines of…

“It’s full of too much fluff”
“Just show me how to make money”
etc…

My report talked too much about things you control with your mind, like being consistent and persistent, finding passion and then narrowing down to a focus, and not enough about specific techniques that just make money flow like mana from heaven.

Put in other terms, these particular people wanted to know the “how” without really knowing the “why”. Unfortunately, you can make a little money by implementing certain techniques, but if you don’t know why you are doing something and how it fits into the big picture, and most importantly, how you as the owner of your business impact your results, then any success you have will be short lived.

I wasn’t really upset about these comments, rather I felt bad for people who wanted a quick fix and weren’t seeing what they were doing online as building a long term sustainable asset. They preferred to flutter from technique to technique hoping to strike it rich one day, just like miners digging for gold.

Impatient people rarely have time for “mindset” lessons, thus they will stop reading an article like this after the first few paragraphs. Discussing things like the inner game seems useless to them. In their opinion all you need to do is figure out what works and do it, there’s no need to worry about much more than that. That might work if we were all robots, but we’re not, so you do need to pay attention to your fallible human characteristics, like your thoughts and your feelings.

The Inner Game of Business

What the people in the forums were neglecting is the importance of your “inner game”. The concept of the inner game is widely used in fields like personal development, in the seduction community and is talked about in business circles as well, yet I find people often have trouble grasping exactly what the inner game is, since it’s such an intangible aspect of life.

Some people, particularly men of course, don’t like to talk about things like feelings and thoughts, when they consider what really matters are actions and outcomes. That’s true, but behind every action and the resulting outcome is a thought and a feeling. Doesn’t it make sense to track back all the way to the origin of something to make sure we have all aspects of the process congruent? Of course it does if we want success, and that’s exactly what the inner game is about.

Are You Tired Of Failure?

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Everyone is a procrastinator on some level. Some of us are terrible offenders, spending hours doing useless things like browsing facebook or blogs or walking up to see what is in the fridge multiple times a day, all in an effort to avoid the work we know we should be doing.

Over the past few weeks I implemented a method to help get the most from procrastination. This technique means you still procrastinate, in that you do something that is not exactly what you know you should be doing, but you still get results from your activities rather than waste time on idle tasks.

I call this efficient procrastination and here’s how it works.

Your focus needs to be on action. The whole reason I started thinking about this technique in the first place was after writing my article - Are You Drowning, Treading Water or Swimming? - which made me realize as long as the majority of daily activities moved me forward in some way, I could count that day a good one.

Once you realize that action is key, the next step is to isolate actions that lead to results of some kind for you and your business. Generally some tasks require more work than others and some you enjoy more. It’s precisely because of the tasks that you don’t enjoy, yet are critical for your business to move forward (or for you to move forward personally - like say studying for an exam), that you look for ways to procrastinate.

When you are sitting down, working on something you don’t really enjoy or you are tired of and that procrastination urge hits, it’s time to go and do something else, however that something else is still an activity that helps your big picture. You must choose a swimming forward task, not a time waster.

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The most common and powerful advice dished out by every expert on this planet is one word: Action.

At the heart of almost all business and personal development education is the concept that in order to realize a goal you have to do something - sometimes anything will do - to get a result.

It may seem obvious, and intuitively you understand why action works, yet it’s common advice because most people fail to do it.

I regularly refer to taking action in the articles here on Entrepreneurs-Journey.com and also in the blog training materials I produce for my newsletter and mentoring program. I read similar advice on other blogs and in books I read on business and self improvement.

There is one tip you hear more often than any other at the end of podcast interviews or speaking presentations from experts. It goes along the lines of “do something if you want results” - yes, more take action advice.

In many ways if you really want the true “Secret” to success in life, it is taking action.

Why People Fail

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I know I said there would be no more self development articles on Entrepreneur’s Journey, but what I meant to say there would be no more by me! Matt kindly contributed this great article on self development and I wanted to publish it here since my personal development blog won’t be launching for a while. Enjoy! - Yaro

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By Matt Lindsay from A Car Too Far

“If you can’t believe in yourself then who else is going to believe in you?” - I heard this mantra a while ago and although it’s not a pillar of my everyday living, it serves to illustrate at least one of the key issues that often send people on a path of self development. There are other reasons of course, ranging from those who are picking themselves up after a fall (maybe you lost your job or broke up with a partner) to those who are only hitting the 7 out of 10 mark and feel they could do better. Whatever your reason for starting a program of self development, once you dip your toe, you could well find yourself in for a splash.

Self Development is, by nature, an open loop structure; as you develop and improve your personal characteristics, the more you will desire to achieve and strive for better things. In order to get that bit extra from life, you will need to develop more and so on and so forth and if this cycle is left unchecked, this can rapidly lead to a serious burnout. Fortunately every day constraints or “frictional losses” will erode the speed at which this cycle accelerates but ultimately you will need to be careful about what aspects of your character you wish to improve and more importantly how many you try to improve at once.

I recently decided to quit my job in order to chase my dream. I realised that if I was working from 5AM to 12PM everyday already, then I had the commitment it would take to go it alone. I have a few months in which to work up enough money to give me a few months breathing space, but at some point I will have to decide what business of mine I’m going to run with. How did I make this decision? Well Steve Pavlina’s excellent approach to the relative risk strategies of being in a job to working for yourself were instrumental in the decision and this all started because of my journey of self development, so, well I know these risks.

If you are reading this article it is likely that you have an inkling as to what self development involves and you may even have a few good resources for advice. This is not the domain for this article but I am happy to put you in the direction of my favourite reads. If, for example, you pop over to Steve’s site, you will find a plethora of articles and blog entries on self development. The easy mistake to make is to harvest them all (or a large number), read them and try to implement them. Take this strategy and it is next stop: Burnout City .

For instance, we would all like to get a little more out of our day. How about trying Polyphasic sleeping, having better time management or just getting up when your alarm goes off (this worked wonders for me). We could benefit from giving up coffee, sanctifying our workspace, making money from our blogs, overcome fear and there aren’t many of us out there that would turn down the opportunity to make $10,000 in an hour. There are, however, some things that cannot be rushed and self development is one of them. Not only will you burn out if you binge on self improvement but in actual fact some of the best advice and methods are mutually exclusive. Just as Steve often says, to get from a 7 to a 10 you sometimes have to go back to a 5 first.

I do not know the ultimate answer to applying self development, only the way it works best for me and the way that I would advise. I have split the two routes and addressed them separately:

Progressive Self Development

The way I like to look at applying self development is like a tan. If you try and get a great tan all in one, it will burn and peel off quickly. If you build it up, layer by layer, waiting for each application to settle and really sink in before laying the next, you will have a firm understanding of the things you have done, why they work and why you should continue to do them. It is also easier to do it this way as you only really need address one issue at a time.

Structured Self Development

If you are in more of a rush to be the million dollar man you might opt for a program of structured self development. This is where you consider certain aspects of your persona and group them into comparable and mutually inclusive groups. You might for example have a “Time management and optimization” aspect that you want to improve and similarly a “Finance and occupation” aspect. These groups will depend on you, but be sure to keep them fairly specific. For example if you tired to bundle “Time Management” and “Healthy Living” into a single group you may well come unstuck when you try and optimize both as the interrelationships between the two (extra time required for workouts or meal preparation compared to “time and motion studies”) will cause unpredictable or unrepeatable results at best or collide entirely at worst. Once you have these groups defined (on paper preferably) then set about reading up on one group at a time, or if you are impatient, one mechanism for each group. Try to deal with one group completely before moving to the next if you have time, or again if you are rushing this then one mechanism from each group only!

Ultimately, the process of Self Development is a difficult one, not least because of one of its own inherent anomalies. When dealing with self progression, it is commonly accepted that goals are required. A goal is a dream with a deadline, that is to say that as we, as humans, work best to deadlines, by attaching a “due by” date to our dreams we transmute them into actions. Self development however is an on going process and only a program of continual improvement will make for take you the whole distance. If you cannot put a time frame on it as an overall process and you can never complete it then doesn’t it break its own rules? Well, yes and no, but with no timeframe on it, at least it will work nicely with your new “Stress management” mechanism…

Provided for your own protection by Matt Lindsay.

Matt is an Aussie born, UK living, 26 year old working a day job, a night job and running an online business of two years (www.slothball.com). He has a blog at lindsayhart.co.uk/blog.

Matt is giving up his job in October to further follow his dream (see his blog) and to find a way to make mortgage each month - pretty scary really.

Continuing from the article - It’s Time To Reduce Your Stress - I’ve produced a series of practical tips for you to reduce your stress. I intended to include these in the original article about stress but they didn’t fit with the flow and made an already large article even longer. If you haven’t read the previous article I suggest you do that first before reading this article.

If you are feeling at a loss regarding how to reduce the stress in your life, here’s some techniques you can apply today. All of these tips I applied to my life and have had very positive outcomes.

Exercise

This is probably the single most important change. If you aren’t exercising, and this means something rigorous that makes you breath heavy for a good 20+ minutes per day, then you need to add it to your life immediately. You will know when you have worked hard enough because after you feel absolutely buggered but the adrenaline and lovely endorphins are flowing.

I’m convinced that regular exercise is the key to happiness (along with all that self awareness stuff). It creates a natural high which you don’t pay for in the morning (once you get used to it) by feeling worse like you do from other, not-so-natural highs, such as drugs and alcohol. Exercise helps you sleep better, increases your overall energy, makes you chirpy, you think clearer, can work and play longer, increases your general confidence and best of all - it keeps you living longer with less trips to the doctor (I have never taken any antibiotics in my life!).

If you haven’t adopted a regular exercise pattern then this should be your number one priority. Make sure it’s regular - aim for every second day to start. You will start to enjoy it so much that you will want to do something everyday, in fact you will crave some form of exercise and it just won’t feel right not exercising.

Personally I get quite bored of one physical activity so I try and mix my week up. I do rollerblading, swimming, weight-training, walking, jogging, bike riding, tennis, golf and wait for it…bowling! (bowling really isn’t all the strenuous though). Once you get confident in your physical health you will be more eager to try other sports too.

If you are just beginning start with what you know you can do, perhaps walking at a fast pace to get your heart rate up, then up to some jogging bursts, then maybe try some tennis or whatever takes your fancy.

Music

The best companion for exercise is music. Music soothes the soul as they say, and I’m sure I don’t have to convince you of the powers of music to reduce your stress. For me there are few better moments in life than a speedy skate with the Brisbane river and a marvelous sunset on my right side and some high energy music (I’m a trance fan) playing in my earbuds. This is when I experience the biggest high of my life. It’s better than sex (!) and just a tiny bit better than a two-fisted backhand down the line passing shot to win the point in a long tennis rally. Just.

Self Development - Raising Self Awareness

This won’t work for you unless you are ready and open to it, but I find that studying self development materials, and more importantly understanding, believing and putting the concepts learnt into action, is one of the best ways to reduce your stress. You realize that your worries are pretty trivial and life isn’t that complex.

I’ve managed to almost eliminate stress from my life. My next goal is to work towards a Steve Pavlina style sustained joyful existence.

I have good control over my emotions (not perfect mind you). I have strong self awareness, but I’m still somewhat a slave to certain impulses, basic drives and emotional conditioning. I always feel stronger and more relaxed with the world after working on my self development. Often things tend to drop in importance, I gain a stronger grasp over my emotional state and everything becomes calmer after new insights are gained or concepts reinforced.

In your case you will be somewhere on the levels of consciousness scale, which will determine how you should go about raising your own self awareness and improving your self development. The fact that you are reading this article means you probably are open to self development concepts and have the potential to help yourself. Steve Pavlina’s blog is a great place to start.

Food

Eating well benefits me in two ways - the obvious, it works because it’s healthy for your body, but also I find it healthy for my mind too. Knowing that I am eating well and sticking to certain self-imposed restrictions, means that I feel good mentally and physically about my food intake. This is great because these two areas of my life reinforce each other positively. When I am eating well I mentally pat myself on the back, have more confidence and find it easier to continue to eat well. When I break from this I feel worse mentally way before my body experiences any obvious negative effects from eating badly. I very quickly get back on track because my mind wouldn’t let me stray for too long. I guess you would call this self-discipline, but I call it maintaining peace of mind.

I don’t drink alcohol. I’ve had maybe the equivalent of half a cup of coke in my entire life. I drink only water, juices, milk and soy drinks. I strive for the five vegetables and two fruit servings per day rule. I’m not a vegetarian, I do enjoy meat even though I know it hurts animals - I’m morally against it but I have not decided to change my eating habits as a result.

I have been blessed with a metabolism that can deal with copious amounts of food without gaining weight - I certainly have never needed to diet to lose weight. Overall I believe in a balanced diet and mostly I eat what I like and I know is good for me - fruit, veges, nuts, breads, a little dairy, meat and plenty of water - always drink plenty of water. I have a solid love for chocolate too, but I have trouble eating excessive amounts nowadays because my conscious won’t let me get away with it, as compared to my fun-filled, chocolate overdosed younger days.

There’s enough information out there on eating right and I’m sure you know what parts of your own diet you would like to change. Eating right comes down to discipline. When you change something for the long enough it becomes a habit and you face resistance to change it. The trick is to make all your habits positive.

Sleep

This is probably the single most abused aspect of peoples lives when it comes to creating stress because of our “rushed” lifestyle, which tends to encourage not sleeping. Many decide to sacrifice sleep for the sake of deadlines, work and social outings. Not sleeping for the sake of a work deadline is something you probably already aim to avoid, sometimes unsuccessfully, but the idea that missing sleep because of a great party or a big night out may not seem like such a bad idea to you. You are probably willing to make the sacrifice, potentially wiping out your next day from being excessively tired, in exchange for a fun-filled evening. Everyone else does it and you don’t want to miss out on all the fun.

For me the decision whether or not to sacrifice sleep has always been one of opportunity cost. What do I potentially lose as a result of not sleeping well? Should I stay up to keep working longer or to stay at a party longer knowing that I’ll end up being tired the next day?

Some people operate better on no sleep than others and I’ve generally been the kind of person who always needs at least 8 hours to function properly. I also don’t enjoy that feeling of lack of sleep so 9 times out of 10 choose to get a full night sleep even if that means missing out on some potential fun (the fun factor generally drops for me as I get tired anyway).

In your case you know your body best. The only suggestion I have is that if you currently feel less than 100% take a look at your sleeping patterns and see if you can find a correlation between feeling your best with a good night’s sleep. I’m sure you will find that sleep is as important as food and exercise and deserves just as much attention when it comes to reducing your stress.

Balance

I’m sure you have heard this before - balance is key. The three factors - sleep, food and exercise - need to be in harmony. Build a lifestyle that optimizes those three variables specifically for your body, mind and lifestyle, and you will find that the other aspects of your life tend to work out well too.

Yaro Starak
Starship Exercisor