When your life changes in a radical way, what do you rely on to keep yourself moving forward? That’s a good question to have a solid answer to, I believe.

Many people define themselves by the accumulation of their material belongings, their careers, or their family roles. There is nothing inherently wrong with this, unless it is the primary method you use to define yourself TO yourself.

Take a young parent who immerses themselves in the very important job of being the best parent they know how to be. This can include a lot of sacrifice, especially in the early years. As children get older and more self-sufficient, that dedicated parent can find themselves feeling directionless if they have not maintained perspective on their personal goals in life.

Another example would be a career-minded person who has devoted themselves to being a loyal employee, which also can include a lot of sacrifice. In these unpredictable and tumultuous financial times, executives and individual contributors alike are surprised to discover that loyalty means nothing when shareholders are demanding better returns on their investments or a private company owner must cut back on expenses to keep their business viable.

When one door closes, another opens; but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us.

~Alexander Graham Bell, US (Scottish-born) inventor (1847 – 1922)

When One Door Closes, Another Opens...

We have choices to make at the time of a significant change. If our moorings are based on a self-perception that can withstand exterior influences, we will embrace the changes and use the opportunity to GROW.

Goals
Establish some goals for your new life. Make sure these goals are aligned with your personal passions so they are goals you will enjoy pursuing and bringing to life. Once you have selected goals, find a group of people who share similar interests and hopefully people whom you can look up to so you can emulate their successes and learn from their mistakes.

Reality
Appreciate the fact that reality, as you previously understood it, has changed. If this causes you to feel dread, you must find a way to adjust your mindset. Perhaps it could be something as simple as finding at least one thing everyday about the difference that you like better than your previous reality.

Options
Know all of your options. If you feel limited in any way, introspect about what is the source of that feeling and create a solution where the problem exists. Truly creative often see a problem seeking a solution long before anyone else. Could that be the purpose of the perceived limitation?

Will
Especially for entrepreneurs, there are times when sheer force of will is all that propels you forward toward your goals. If you are willing to believe in your own success, that will make all the difference in the world.

Perhaps the most important thing to investigate each day is your willingness to get out of bed. It is important to know why you are living and working each day. Write these things down and keep your list near the alarm clock. If you find yourself hitting the snooze button, rather than getting up right away, you might need to make a new list or evaluate your priorities. Face it; If your “whys” aren’t compelling enough to get you out of bed, they clearly aren’t important enough.

We’ve all been taught to avoid the truth if we fear that our news has potential to upset someone whom we like and respect, but being honest about your feelings doesn’t mean that you have to be tactless. If we understand and appreciate that everyone has varying degrees of skill with regard to handling feedback, and that they aren’t always in control of their emotional responses, there’s always a way to talk over any issue and reach a reasonable compromise.

Honesty is the best policy and, in my humble opinion, a lie by omission causes the most harm. The world would be a much better place if everyone was capable of directly confronting differences of opinion and, if these cannot be reconciled, choosing to disagree without the having the discussion escalate to an argument or parting of ways. Over time, I’ve decided that the culprit impeding this outcome is ego … and egos can be so demanding of respect!

So what can you do if you know you’re onto something and your ideas are repeatedly ignored by your business associates? Do you give up and become resentful or do you try to find another way to get your point across to them?

You can’t cross the sea merely by standing and staring at the water. Don’t let yourself indulge in vain wishes. ~ Rabindranath Tagore (1861 – 1941)

In any business, risk is necessary but risks should always be meticulously researched and measured against your assumptions before making a change. Consider carefully whether or not your idea is too great of a leap to be considered at this time but, by all means, don’t give it up if you strongly feel it can work better than the track you are currently on. With just a little more thought, you may find a way to redesign your proposal that seems less risky to your associates. 

Only a fool tests the depth of the water with both feet. ~ African Proverb

Because the river moves around it, a rock appears to be stronger but physics have proven that moving water will prevail and keep its own course over time. After many attempts to dictate the route of the Mississippi River, The Army Corps of Engineers have learned that the river knows its own way and serves no man.

In the confrontation between the stream and the rock, the stream always wins – not through strength, but through persistence.- Anonymous

Although the process that makes water stronger than a rock is erosion, we aren’t disempowering anyone by gently persisting about something that we know, in our hearts, is a better way to go. There are people who will not pursue any idea that they don’t feel is their own. With theses sorts of personalities, planting the seed of your idea and waiting for them to embrace it as their own usually does the trick, however, it does require that you don’t have a need to be recognized for it. Giving the idea to your business associates from the onset with phrasing like, “Have you considered …”, is an extremely non-confrontational assertion and somewhat of a subliminal command to for them to at least think about your recommendation.

Bodies of water also give us another metaphor for our business relationships. Many rivers open up to the sea but the sea is its own force and returns tides to the rivers. The mixture of salt and fresh water produces a brackish habitat where creatures from both worlds can adapt and thrive. Using this metaphor, when your original idea is improved upon through your business colleagues’ consideration, blending thoughts can result in a better plan and those who are capable of adapting can prosper more.

So it all seems to come down to being open and honest to learning and not being attached to the outcomes of your suggestions, doesn’t it? If we can keep our demanding egos out of the way, forward progress is always an option. Whether the progress is a business idea or a shift in how you interact with your associates, a positive change of direction is normally a sign of growth.

We all know there are times when it is necessary to have a conversation that has potential to become awkward. If you are a good communicator, you can usually find a way to avoid arguments but there are times when the only option available is to agree to disagree. If you are capable of speaking your mind, in spite of any fears, and managing your emotional response to having your ideas rejected, you’ve risen above the constraints that your ego can create.

James Arthur Ray was featured on Nightline this week. It seems that some of the participants of his Spiritual Warrior Retreat, held in Sedona in early October, died in a sweat lodge exercise at the end of a grueling week of motivational activities. The sweat lodge exercise was mandated after the people had spent days in the beautiful canyons of Sedona, without food or adequate rest, to connect with their inner truth … supposedly.

Human physiology is fragile. It didn’t seem at all odd that some people might have been dehydrated and unfit to go into a sweat lodge for hours on the heels of their Sedona experience. I’ve wandered through the trails of Sedona. The trails to the vortexes are not paved and most of them involve a climb. As I listened to the statements on Nightline, made by survivors of this experience, as well as from family members whose loved ones had died, I pondered the huge industry that has grown around The Law of Attraction and The Secret over the past couple of years. If you are operating in this niche, you are well advised to monitor the progress of this story!

Don’t get me wrong, I watched The Secret, in the fall of 2007, and the movie was nothing other than inspirational. The underlying message of this movie, and others like it, is that you have the ability to change your viewpoint, and in so doing, have an opportunity to change your life’s course. If you are under the tutelage of a charismatic leader, like James Arthur Ray must be, it’s probably easy to get swept into a belief system that causes you to want the success he says is so easily attainable. And, to his credit, he has a large following.

The fact that our mental approach to a problem can either resolve it or lead us further astray isn’t new information. In the United States, this was discovered by a couple of drunks as they commiserated with each other over a cup of coffee, so the story goes. The relief these two men felt led them to start a movement called Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) that has helped millions of people all over the world for nearly a century. AA text suggests “stinking thinking” is the source of emotional problems that lead people to make bad decisions, in this case, drinking. In fact, AA could possibly be the very first Law of Attraction program!

The big difference between AA and programs like James Arthur Ray’s is that AA doesn’t define its membership by the amount of money they have to spend to join. This is written into their 12 Traditions at article six, which is a spiritual tradition recognizing that money, property and prestige can distract an AA group from its primary purpose … to help people.

James Arthur Ray’s Spiritual Warrior Retreat was selling for a whopping fee of $9,695! This adventure built on a previous product offering called Practical Mysticism which sold for $5,295. The funny thing about reading Ray’s promotional materials is that they are merely sales letters, no different in psychology than the sales letters that compel one to purchase anything they’ve never heard about before. Personally, I doubt that Ray is any different than any other person who knows the truth about mindset; he’s just used his connection to The Secret to create a multi-million dollar enterprise.

One person might say this is clever. Another might say it is opportunistic. In the end, only James Arthur Ray knows his motivations and, in light of civil suits already filed against his organization after the Spiritual Warrior debacle, with the strong possibility of forthcoming criminal charges, the law will intervene to make judgment. This judgment could lead to a need to regulate the industry which will wash out a lot of self-help charlatans.

What disturbs me most about Law of Attraction practitioners-for-profit is the disparity of their words against their self-serving style. Last year, I observed this in a “joint venture” where the time I spent developing technology wasn’t recognized as having value and my “partner” asked me to pay for an EFT session. Without exception, every client that I’ve worked with who practices a “wealth attraction” coaching or information business has seemed to be the most tight-fisted and demanding client on my list for, when it comes to completing a project paying the final bill, they will always manufacture excuse after excuse for not producing a final payment when the terms of our contract have been fulfilled.

Is this indicative of the industry at large? One can only hope it isn’t…

Yesterday marked the one year anniversary of my new life in the place that I’ve always wanted to live … San Diego, California.  This transition would not have been possible if I had not decided to become an internet entrepreneur and learned what it takes to get income online.

The year has been personally exciting.  It was delightful to experience a winter without sub-zero temperatures, far too much snow, and long, dark, gray days.  Enjoying bright and sunny 80 degree days for the Holidays, without the temperature being an anomaly, put a smile on my face too.  I haven’t tired of driving through the marvelous mountains while traveling around the area on business and roaming along the shores of the Pacific Ocean whenever I choose to is nothing other than magical.

From a business perspective, San Diego has opened new doors of opportunity.  For example, I was privileged to attend a local chapter meeting of Glazer-Kennedy’s Insider Circle this evening.  After some power networking and a few business card trades, I gazed around the room to see what sorts of people were also interested in moving their business beyond mediocrity.  Attendees came from all walks of life.  There were lawyers, doctors, building contractors, mechanics, holistic practitioners, artists, and, of course, non-pretentious internet millionaires in baseball caps.  What was most important was one common thread.  Each person in that room was there because they knew that there is always something more to learn.

Equally interesting to me was one of the motivational posters taped to the wall which read:

The most successful entrepreneur is the loneliest person in the world 

I’ve experienced some entrepreneurial success and I totally  understand that statement from personal experience…

It isn’t that entrepreneurs are aloof or choose to walk alone but the road we are on is certainly a road less traveled.  When the scent which will lead to success is found, it requires fastidious and incisive intellect to hone in upon the source and follow the trail. 

Sometimes discovery leads to changing strategies or tactics but the rewards are great when things begin to come together.  The path might not be straight forward and seeing around the bend requires occasional leaps of faith, at times.  One of the most important skills you must have is to stay the course and believe in your vision.

In my work as a freelancer and service provider, I frequently find myself in competition with overseas talent whose rates don’t even meet minimum wage requirements in the United States.  While I am all for supporting the global economy, it is impossible for me to meet their prices.  Sometimes my clients decide to go for the lowest cost bid, even though they would prefer to work with me … or so they say.  And sometimes my clients return to me with a partially completed project and a story to tell.

What is funny about this is that there are also overseas buyers who know they could acquire talent for a lower rate who grasp the importance of working with someone who is readily available and also has skills that meet the needs of their projects.  I’ve delivered projects to business owners in third world countries who admitted this was true.

In the early 1990s, when corporations began to shut down divisions of their companies and eliminate jobs, to subsequently open them up again on foreign soil where labor was cheaper, there was a public outcry.  Corporations were accountable only to their shareholders, however, so the devaluation of human capital became a common method of meeting those demands.  And what has been the effect on the global economy?  It is my opinion that liberal credit policies are not the only contributors to the current crisis.

Wikipedia defines Human Capital as being the stock of skills and knowledge embodied in the ability to perform labor so as to produce economic value.  The wiki goes on to say that it is the skills and knowledge of a worker acquired through education and experience.  I acknowledge that some overseas service providers have equivalent skills, education and experience to a US based service provider.  I also acknowledge that some overseas talent fall far short of the line drawn in the sand.

Until the effect of offshore outsourcing begins to affect your income, it is easy to explain away choices that keep a local service provider from working with you or declare that US labor prices need to be lowered so offshore competition is healthy.  I value your insightfulness and honor your decisions.  After all, you are in business and the economics of your projects balanced with your sales will define the return on your investment. 

I would like to present another side of the coin for your consideration.  If your project is intended to target the market whose labor rates you feel are inflated, your sales may be affected because your target market has to make difficult choices about how to allocate the income they are able to attract. 

In the end, there always is a balance to things.

Listening to the Prairie Home Companion program today, I experienced a bit of home sickness. The program aired from the Minnesota State Fair. As Garrison Keillor spoke of fall, apples, harvest moons, and the fair, all the sights, sounds, and smells from my home state and that event rushed to my senses. These are all pleasant memories. You can take the girl out of Minnesota but you can’t take Minnesota out of the girl, I guess.

Garrison Keillor is a delightful story teller. He may even be remembered with the likes of Mark Twain, eventually. His stories have a way of creating empathy for his predicaments and the laughter that bubbles up when imagining his scenarios is totally spontaneous and impossible to suppress.

How does this relate to Online Marketing? We’ve all heard of “My Story Marketing” by now. This is a method used to evoke empathy, build excitement and gain sales as a result. I’ve sure read some long-winded sales letters in my day. None of them were happy stories, like Garrison Keillor’s witty tales, and most were so tedious and predictable that I didn’t even finish reading them, let alone feel compelled to press the buy button.

In fact, the recipe for “My Story Marketing” is to begin with a problem that you have faced in order to grab people’s attention. After doing this, you can explain what you’ve done to effect a change and how your life is now. Supposedly, this will inspire your visitors to buy your product or join your business. Having never tried it myself, there is no way to know how effective it really is but there are enough proponents of the tactic that it is worth evaluating.

In my former career as a Realtor®, I learned that there were two ways to write compelling advertisements. One was to use a headline that evoked fear.  The other type of headline permitted people to imagine or dream.

Statistically, most of my guests came to an open house because they saw the sign while they were in the neighborhood or were neighbors who were merely curious to see the inside of the house but, in my experiments with print advertising, I found that using the positive headline drew more people in, if they came as a result of seeing the ad. If “My Story Marketing” is effective, it would be interesting to see the split test results, assuming they tried a page with a positive and happy story too.

So let’s apply my real estate marketing experiment to Internet Marketing. When we have internet real estate, we use many different methods to bring our websites to the attention of surfers. In a way, some of our website traffic is similar to people driving by an open house sign and deciding to stop in along their way. How are they affected by their visit?

Generally, you have less than a minute to entice someone to stay at your site and have a look around so the look and feel of your site is your curb appeal. This includes color, font, image, and layout choices. If your page is too slow to load, uses garish colors, or has too many blinking ads, visitors will abandon it quickly. But that is aesthetics and one person’s “ugly” is another person’s “beautiful” so you’ll need to experiment with things to see what works best in your niche.  More importantly, look and feel is not what helps you to get income from your website.

For several reasons, the most important part of your page is your content. The area above the fold (i.e., seen without the need to scroll down) is critical real estate so you need to use it wisely. Do you want to frighten your visitors into reading on and possibly taking action or would you rather build a relationship with them established through interest, truth, value, and trust? From my viewpoint, the latter goes miles further than the former.

I’m advocating that Internet Marketers start creating “My Story Marketing” stories that are entertaining. We all need more joy in our lives, don’t we? Enlightenment or laughter must be equally compelling and writing about things like that certainly is much more fun for the author too. Current studies indicate that leveraging humor can lead to a potentially big payoff. Social scientists have long documented that people who are perceived as being witty, clever and funny are destined for popularity and greater success in their work and relationships.

If you actually have had a difficult problem and your business or product has resolved it, by all means write the traditional “My Story Marketing” story. I caution you to be honest in the results you claim, however. Credibility is very easy to lose and nearly impossible to recover.

When we consider the amount of time we spend imagining and pursuing success, is the accounting a fair balance?  Putting it another way, do you spend too much of your time working to get income?

Pondering the difference between what we want and what we have can lead us to inspiration.  The gift of human ingenuity and creativity is a blessing.  That is the truth.  There is joy in bringing our ideas to life.  Hours of refining our vision, laying out a plan for monetization and developing our product bring great satisfaction.  The aroma of success lingers with each accomplishment along the way.  We taste it when we get income as a result of our efforts.

When we look up from our work, what do we see?   Has our success changed us and, if so, is the change positive?

Take a few minutes to watch this video.

The video embedded in this post originally aired over a decade ago.  At the time, it evoked a strong emotional response, even though my interests were vastly different than they are now.  It seems appropriate to share it with my readers for, no matter what you are dreaming of, I don’t want you to ever lose the fire in your belly that inspires you to continue to create more.

This post is not about business or marketing in any sense other than we have to pursue our passions to live our life dreams. Sometimes, we are so caught up in our material pursuits, we do not take the time to pause and consider what we may be missing by choosing to not be aware of what is beautiful in our midst.

This poem arrived in an email subscription from The Writer’s Almanac years ago. I have never forgotten how this profound poem affected me when I first read it and have since shared it with many of my friends and colleagues.

 
The Size of Spokane 
The baby isn’t cute.
In fact he’s a homely little pale and headlong stumbler.
Still, he’s one of us-the human beings stuck on flight 295 (Chicago to Spokane);
and when he passes my seat twice at full tilt this then that direction,
I look down from Lethal Weapon 3 to see just why.
He’s running back and forth across a sunblazed circle on the carpet-something brilliant,
fallen from a porthole.
So! it’s light amazing him, it’s only light,
despite some three and one half hundred people, propped in rows for him to wonder at;
it’s light he can’t get over, light he can’t investigate enough, however many zones he runs across it, flickering himself.
The umpteenth time I see him coming,
I’ve had just about enough;
but then he notices me noticing and stops-one fat hand on my armrest-to inspect the oddities of me.
****
Some people cannot hear.
Some people cannot walk.
But everyone was sunstruck once, and set adrift.
Have we forgotten how astonishing this is?
so practiced all our senses we cannot imagine them?
foreseen instead of seeing all the all there is?
Each spectral port, each human eye is shot through with a hole,
and everything we know goes in there, where it feeds a blaze.
In a flash the baby’s old;
Mel Gibson’s hundredth comeback seems less clever;
all his chases and embraces narrow down, while we fly on (in our plain radiance of vehicle)
toward what cannot stay small forever.
 

Hinge & Sign

This young lady has a message.

When we consider the things that are important, the reasons why we want to succeed, are we thinking of those things that really matter and how we might do a little something every day to make that better?

Many of you who visit my blog will notice that there is a philosophical bent to my message online.  It is part of who I am, being an introspective sort of person.  As I was walking along a local path this morning, I found myself pondering the definition of success.  What resulted from this reflection was no less than an epiphany to me.

I was in a conversation with a friend yesterday afternoon.  This person is also on a spiritual path as well as being a business associate of mine.  He has an idea about what conveys a message of success and attracts people to each other.  I appreciated his point of view and relate on many levels to what he said but the fact remains that success has a personal definition for us all. 

Sometimes we have to wander through a few turnstiles that don’t necessarily lead to the sort of success we had envisioned but each leg of our journey is necessary for us to evolve and grow.  Isn’t the journey more important than a destination?

For many, success is closely coupled with the amount of money or material possessions they have gathered and can point to as a testimonial about their successes.  Their achievements are portrayed in the form of vehicles they drive or places that they live.  While money is useful and facilitates a lifestyle, money is a false God that has been idolized by our society for far too long.

Along my way, I have become acutely aware of something that I feel is important to share.  I have met many people who define their success though an identity or role.  That might be as a parent, spouse, lover, child, sibling, professional, or any one of a number of other choices we make about how we are living our lives.  In fact, most roles are temporary and are all too frequently influenced by people, places and things outside ourselves.  When that landscape shifts and too much importance has been placed on that particular identity, we can lose our way.

Underneath everything external in life is Being.   As humans, we are blessed with the gift of self-awareness.  This begins in the crib when we first discover our toes.  As our awareness matures, we learn to notice other things about ourselves.  Not everything is tactile or visible.  Whether or not we like what we discover, the choice is ours to make as to whether or not we want to keep that as part of our core way of Being.

We are all stimulated and energized differently.  When we are one with our passions, there is nothing that can stifle our creativity or keep us from being successful.  For me, success is not measured by money, possessions, identity or the vastness of my circle of friends.  It is measured by the amount of TIME that I have to freely pursue my passions.  

I’d like to end this post with a question to answer for yourselves. What defines success for you?