9 Hidden Keys to Happiness and Success

We all love to feel motivated. I know I do. It’s absolute nirvana to be on purpose and on task at the same time. But life often intervenes in my plans and that can mean stress, frustration and setbacks and I find that I have to live my life on Inner Motivation – particularly when the proverbial chips are down. Most of us wait for someone else to give us a reason to move ahead or we wait for circumstance or opportunity to line up in just the right way so we can move ahead with the inner commitment we’ve been holding back. We wait for our partner to say ‘I love you’ first, we wait for a sign of acceptance before we commit to revealing some part of ourselves and we wait for the evidence of the result before we commit our belief.

To many of us this seems like a smart or even shrewd way of going about business and life. We think we’re protecting and insulating ourselves by not putting too much ‘out there’ and therefore avoiding disappointment or (God forbid) rejection. In reality, though, this is actually a very dangerous way to live life because it puts your life and your happiness in someone else’s hands - a sure fire equation for misery. From the inside this may seem like a very controlled way to live life, but it’s actually a very out of control way to live life. That’s why it makes us so unhappy and leaves us so unfulfilled. There’s nothing dependable or controlled about it.

One of my favorite movie scenes is from the Indiana Jones movie where he (played by Harrison Ford) and his father (played by Sean Connery) are searching for the Holy Grail. Indiana’s father lies dying at the hands of the Nazis and to save his life Indiana must find the Holy Grail. To get to the Grail, Indiana has to accurately decode his father’s Grail diary which will enable him to make his way through certain life-threatening challenges. After successfully making his way through several of the tests, he comes to a huge chasm that lies between where he is and where he wants to be. He reads the Bible passage from his father’s diary which has to do with “faith being the evidence of things not seen”. He picks up a handful of sand and throws it out to the chasm only to see the sand fall on an invisible bridge.

I personally believe there lies a bridge across every chasm we face, no matter the depth or the breadth of the canyon. The path to whatever we want in life always exists and we can find it if we have the unwavering commitment and willingness to learn and grow in the ways required of us.

“Courage is the price that life extracts for peace of mind.”
Amelia Earhardt

When the relationship or the job or the project doesn’t go the way you wanted it to, you need to have Authentic Inner Motivation to get you to where you want to be. You can’t force yourself to be motivated. You have to develop it from the inside out. Having Authentic Inner Motivation at your disposal whenever you want it requires focus, commitment and discipline.

How do you do develop Authentic Inner Motivation? Let’s take a look at the formula:

1. Set Goals - First, decide what you want. Take your sales, income and personal goals, and be crystal clear about them. Write them down and look at them several times throughout the day. A vague goal of doing the best you can or giving your best every day won’t get you there. You have to clearly see what you want – and often.

I have a Vision Folder. Inside it I have photographs, pages from magazines and mock-ups that reflect my goals. It’s an easy and portable way to keep my goals in front me, and I look at them every morning and evening.

2. Commitment – Nothing happens without complete and total personal commitment. If you’re leaving out even 1% of your total dedication to accomplishing your goal, you won’t get there. Think about this…what would happen if your doctor had a 99% commitment to healing you or your loved one? Would that be enough for you? Would you have respect for them?

If you want to sleep well at night, if you want to be respected by those you’re in relationship with and if you want to have overwhelming self-respect – commit 155% of yourself to your goals and watch your life change for the better.

3. Self-Honesty – This is a tough one for some folks. Not everyone is comfortable taking a hard look within. But if you’re serious about being successful you need to look within to see what you’re doing to create your own experience. You also need to be honest about what skills you need to learn to get you to where you want to be. Also, take an honest internal inventory of your emotional health. If you’re carrying resentment from your last employment experience, your last relationship or any other experience, it’s limiting the success you create today.

Think about the people you’ve known that use resentment as insulation in their life – now notice how betrayal is a common theme in their life. There’s a reason for that. Call it the Law of Attraction, Karma, a self-fulfilling prophecy or the “as ye sow, so shall ye reap” principle, it means you are creating your own experiences. When you hold on to resentment, you are (subconsciously) believing that you don’t have a choice or any power in your current situation, that the other person is against you in some way and so this situation will turn negatively and there’s nothing you can do about it. Resentment always breeds betrayal in your life. Take an emotional inventory and heal and release the reasons for the negative emotions – particularly the resentment and watch the prosperity roll in!

4. Accountability – It doesn’t matter whether you listen to a minister, your favorite self-improvement author, your Mom or Dr. Phil, they will all tell you the same thing…your life is created from the inside out, so you might as well own it. Blame of any kind is a jail cell for your spirit.

5. Commit to Faith & Belief – Hebrews 11:1 says “Now faith is the evidence of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” - the faith and the belief has to come first – the evidence comes after. There was a book written several years ago under the title You’ll See It When You Believe It. Great title. In the tarot deck, the first card is the card of the Fool which shows a picture of a young man ostensibly walking off of the edge of the cliff – it’s said to be the bravest, most powerful card in the entire deck.

6. Have an Attitude of Gratitude – The most powerful words you can ever use, think or write is THANK YOU. Just as resentment can shut down your prosperity and relationships, an attitude of gratitude will open the floodgates of prosperity and love in your life. (Remember to use these powerful words with yourself as well!) Every life experience is a gift and a perspective of appreciation makes the inherent wisdom of our experiences all that more evident to us.

7. Practice Tolerance – Judgment is another self-limiting behavior that limits your success and hampers your motivation and creativity. Judgment is a terrible burden to carry around and creates a paranoiac state of mind. Practice tolerance and lighten your load!

8. Get Inspired – Inspiration comes from different sources for different people, and it’s essential that we know what works for us and that we prime these sources often. I have a writer friend who has her most motivating songs on a separate section on her iPod. When she feels blocked or frustrated or discouraged, one of the things she does is listen to those songs one by one. Long before the end of the songs she’s belting out the words right along with her favorite artist and she’s ready to take another stab at her project at hand. I like to go for a walk or a run outside. With two small children in my life I may only get ½ hour to squeeze in a run or a walk but that time is so inspirational to me. It really stirs my creativity. Meditating is inspirational as is a good movie, a good book or talking with someone else whose success you admire.

9. Take Care of Your Health – If you don’t feel well, it’s hard to stay motivated. So take good care of your health! Eat well, take vitamins, exercise every day, play, rest and enjoy your work! There’s a saying…anyone would give their money to have health, but no one would give their health to have money. Right now I’m really into juicing. It’s an idea that came to me while I was sitting outside (of course) next to the koi pond at Children’s Hospital when my son was ill last summer. As often as my husband could he would join us and come turn cartwheels to distract and make our son laugh so I could get some food into him. When –pop- there was the idea – juicing. It’s worked beautifully. Our son began drinking his veggies and since they’re masked under pineapple or apple or strawberries, he loves every drop. The rest of our family has started juicing as a result and I’m amazed at how good it makes you feel and how much energy it gives you! A friend of ours picked up the Jack Lalanne juicer for us while we were still in the hospital and he has a neat video on his site at www.powerjuicer.com .

Authentic Inner Motivation isn’t just a skill that will help you earn the kind of money that you want or that will make you happier while you’re doing it, it’s a way of living that will help you to live a happier and more successful life.

Use the AIM Formula in your work and let yourself shine! You’ll be happier, more successful and more prosperous for doing it.

3 Simple And Low Cost Marketing Ideas To Create Visibility

Marketing your business is one of the biggest challenges for any solopreneur – it’s a task we all find quite daunting, and are simply overwhelmed by all the information that’s available. Below I have put together some information on 3 simple and low cost marketing ideas, which you can easily implement right away to create more visibility for your online business and web site. They all work well for me!

To help you decide which is the best strategy (or strategies) for you, I have listed the pros and cons of each one.

Create a Blog

Pros

You can really show off your expertise by posting on a regular basis.

Blog posts don’t need to be very long – approx. 200-350 words.

If you have some important information to share, you can instantly create a post – no waiting for your next newsletter to make your announcement!

If you use a blogging platform such as WordPress, this is hosted on your website. Each time you post to your blog you are creating fresh content for your website, which the search engines love!

Cons

You need to post regularly - at least once a week – in order for this to be an effective marketing strategy.

You need to feel confident that you will be able to write fresh content regularly.

It can be difficult to build a direct relationship with your reader.

Publish an Ezine

Pros

Unlike a blog, readers sign up to receive your newsletter so you already have a connection with them.

You can build a relationship with your newsletter reader and encourage one-on-one communication.

You can go into more depth in your newsletter article than you can with your blog posts.

Your clients/target audience can get to know you through your newsletter.

Cons

You have to make a commitment to publish on a regular basis, otherwise your subscribers will see you as unreliable, and may even forget about you!

There is more work involved in putting together a newsletter than writing a simple blog post.

You will need to subscribe to one of the ezine distribution services – I strongly recommend you do this and not send your ezine via your email client!

Article Marketing

Pros

If you are already blogging or publishing a newsletter, you have your articles written.

It is highly likely that once you submit your article to one of the article submission sites, it will be picked up and published on other article submission sites.

Regularly submitting your articles will elevate you to ‘expert’ status within your field/niche.

Cons

You have to write the articles if you’re not publishing a newsletter or posting to a blog.

It takes time to manually research suitable article submission sites and submit articles.

In order for this strategy to be effective, you have to submit your articles regularly – at least once a month.

Conclusion: You can just pick one strategy to focus on, or you can do all three! Whichever one you choose make sure it’s the right one for you. The key is to be consistent in your approach. If you decide to go with a blog make sure you have the time and motivation to add new posts regularly – at least once a week. Don’t start a newsletter if you know you won’t be able to keep to a regular publishing schedule! And for article marketing to be effective you need to submit articles on a regular basis.

Exploring Business Opportunities With Internet Marketing Research

The information collected and leveraged from Internet is invaluable from the marketing research point of view. Imagine gathering impartial information from literally millions of sources each day and deciding the marketing campaigns on this data. The information collected and leveraged from Internet is invaluable from the marketing research point of view.


Imagine gathering impartial information from literally millions of sources each day and deciding the marketing campaigns on this data. Internet marketing research provides a better vision to the business, which helps in delivering better products and better results.


There are many advantages of applying Internet to the marketing research. — Market Know How Online market research can give the comprehensive information about the various factors and aspects of the market such as market profile, trends, size, segmentation, competition, SWOT and demand prospects.


This exclusive and extensive online marketing research report certainly gives a big picture of the market scenario. — New Domains of Use Not only online research can be used for the market intelligence, but it can also be put into great use for many areas such as advertising, public relations, and interactive communication activities.


Internet marketing research is also useful in numerous other business functions such as Branding, Competitive analysis, Consumer Behavior and Customer Relationship Management and Investor Relationship Management. — New Opportunities Internet marketing research can provide insight into new market opportunities that may never be discovered.


And also, research can identify new business ventures, and offer the possibility to streamline the existing business processes, which results in more efficient execution of the process. New business opportunities and ventures result in the competitive advantage in the market by delivering better products at less value. — Competitive Advantage Competitive advantage enables the firm to create superior value for its customers and superior profits for itself.


There are many areas of competitive advantages including the firm’s cost structure, product offerings, marketing research, distribution network and customer support. Internet marketing research allows to gain advantage from the competitors by delivering accurate results at affordable costs.


The main task after getting the market research report is to implement the findings. The ultimate goal of the report is to make the research work for the enhancement of the business. While Internet market research is an integral step in improving the visibility online, its quality and flexibility of use allow it to be effortlessly applied to all aspects of marketing activities.


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Social Network That Pays Members

Yuwie Social Network That Pays Members

Madness can be defined as a severe or mild mental disorder. But the Madness I'm posting about has another definition: The enthusiasm, excitement and with what vigor Yuwie is being embrased by just about everyone

How Yuwie Works

Yuwie

..The worlds first social networking website that pays it's users.

Yuwie is Facebook and My Space combined. You can access all types of information, contact friends, start groups, list events, posts announcements and much more. Yuwie was launched in June of 2007 and is expected to grow to huge numbers by late December.

MySpace alone makes millions of dollars every
month and who does all the work?

You Do!!!

How much did MySpace amd Facebook pay you last month? I thought so...zero....zip....nada...Right!

How would like to be paid for the very same things you do at Facebook and MySpace!

I don't know about you...but I sure like being paid for things I regularly do...and Yuwie is FREE!

Yuwie was right betting that people would be attracted to a Social Network that gave back by sharing a portion of their revenue with their subscribers.

It's easy join and get started:

You sign up just like you do for My Space or Facebook, Upload your pictures, choose a layout (there are so many to choose from), and create your profile. Once you do all the above (which is 100% free) you are now ready to start making money with Yuwie. You just go on doing the same thing you were doing before.

Yuwie gets paid by advertisers just like MySpace does but Yuwie shares a portion of the the money they earn with it's members.....and that's ME and YOU!

Yuwie

How Can Yuwie Pay You

Page views to your pages is money in Yuwie's pocket, that's the money Yuwie will share with you.
When anyone views any of these pages, it counts as 1 page view for you:


1)your profile page
2)your blog pages
3)view all your friends
4)view all your comments
5)your picture pages
6)if someone views one of your shared layouts

When you view any of these pages, it counts as 1 page view.
Any of your control panel pages, including but not
limited to: settings, messaging, friends, referrals, favorites, etc.


The following do not count as a page view:
1)Refreshing/reloading a page
2)Any page that's viewed within 3 seconds of the last
page doesn't count

What counts as a hit? Whenever someone views any page for more than 3 seconds counts as a page view.View A Page For At Least 4-5 seconds to make sure it is counted.