Autonomy, Mastery & Purpose
Ever wondered what it is that really drives people? What gets them motivated and what incentives will help them achieve greatness? I know, every single day, right? Well, watch this and learn everything you ever needed to know about motivation!
This is brilliant, very informative and very, very entertaining, sit back and enjoy.
Start Blogging Today
There has never been a better time to be an Entrepreneur, never a better time to be a Blogger, there has never been a better time to be an early adopter. In many respects, if you started your Blog today, you would be an early adopter. Why? Well, there are only 1.8 Billion People on the Internet, not all have a Blog, and there is still another 3 Billion people coming over the next 3 – 5 years. That’s 3 Billion people you will be ahead of when the dam breaks, you’ll be on high ground, ready to serve the other 3 billion yet to come regardless of whether selling a service or product, or if your giving your help away for free. Imagine what a time such as this could do for you & your blog, do you have a Blog, are you thinking of starting one, I would, and I would start right now. But where do you turn for help?
Look no further than a site called Start Blogging Today! The site is all about you and your success as a Blogger, an incredible support team that takes the stress out of wondering what to do next. I charge you to make a good decision and visit Start Blogging Today, get involved with the community and ensure your blogging experience is a positive one. Imagine, help at your finger tips, the kind of help you can’t find anywhere else! A site that provides weekly training and tools for your blogging success.
Start Blogging Today is run by true blogging professionals, Grant Griffiths, founder of the Headway WP blogging theme, and Michael Martine of Remarkablogger. Meet the rest of the team standing by to help you.
Why do I endorse this program? The people, it’s the people behind SBT. They have built a first class how to system for any business professional who’s starting out with a blog, or even for those who’ve been around for a while and want to take their blog to the next level.
Patsi Krakoff a veteran blogging professional herself, interviewed Grant Griffiths and here are a few words from Grant, I share it with you here, taken from Patsi’s blog word for word:
“The thought which became Start Blogging Today came into existence because we saw a need and a desire in a marketplace. Every single day we saw businesses struggling to gain an online presence.
While they could all throw up a simple web site similar to the Yellow Page ad they were running. what they really needed was a way to communicate and engage with their target audience. And we knew blogging was the method they needed to use.
The problem too many businesses, whether they are home based, small or any size, face is that they think they are seeing too many other bloggers. How can they compete and where would they fit in?
What we set out to do with SBT was to provide a framework of 26 core lessons to get them past that unwarranted concern and to learn how a blog and social media can market and promote their business.
The other roadblock to their own online marketing success was their lack of knowledge on how to actually use a blog and blogging platform. SBT deals with this by giving them the tools from day one to get a blog up and going from day one.
From the very beginning of mapping out SBT we wanted to build a community and we feel we have done that with the members’ only forums and the structure of the site. We are even using Twitter and “protecting updates” so members of SBT can use twitter to communicate with us and we can make announcements for them too.
Also included with SBT is a members-only blog category which members will only see when posted. We wanted to show members that all of the tools we were suggesting to them to use could be used and used well.
While our target audience for SBT might be the noob blogger, the newbie or the brand new blogger, it’s good for others as well. The just started, and even the blogger who has been around for a while can use Start Blogging Today to correct their course and kick an existing blog up a notch. We feel any level of blogger can benefit from the core and bonus lessons in SBT.”
THE END
Enough said, whether you’re a veteran blogger or a blogging noobie, or you haven’t considered setting up a blog, before you do anything else right this moment, visit Start Blogging Today right now, get a free report on blogging while your there!
When The Light Comes On
There have been many times when I went to a conference, sat in a workshop, or just talked with one of the speakers, and then walked away talking to myself, mumbling and processing. Everytime, and I mean everytime, I ask myself why I can’t see somethings but others do. You know, when you have that Uh Huh moment, the moment you get excited because you just saw or heard that thing, that thing you were missing or waiting to someday get so you could finish that whatever.
I do a fair bit of public speaking, workshops and think-tank sessions, and I always get a charge out of watching someones light go on. That moment of epiphany, the eyes get big, the smile and then SHAZZAM the light goes on. What a treat, it’s the high of highs for me, I love it when you get to play role in someones great idea or pain of figuring something out. It happens almost everytime I speak, I show them the future and then help them figure out how to adopt it. The creative juices always flow from something they didn’t know or just saw, the pen starts scratching on the pad an then the million question come at me like a Gatling gun. Fun stuff I must say.
Today was one of those days, I punched out the information in my workshop and it was as if someone pulled the blinders off and they could see once again. I love seeing people light up, they are always grateful after I share with them. Being surrounded with great people makes it even more special.
Do you turn lights on in people, are you helpful and giving of yourself, are you sharing in such a way that people want to hear more, get more, an then share what they learn from you. If you’re asking me, that’s the social currency, when others talk about you in a positive way, that you helped them solve a problem or just simply brightened their day. It’s called getting Attention.
I challenge you to give yourself away and turn the lights on in people. You will be blessed and rewarded ten fold.
Twitter Hashtag #openandfree
I recently started using the Hashtag #openandfree on Twitter to track my conversations on the topic (Open & Free as a Business Model), some very interesting things are starting to come out of these conversations. The conversations also trickle away from using the hashtag, but I still get the interaction. Whether I’m speaking or consulting, there is always a series of questions, How do I know what should be free content and what do you mean by open? I’m usually surprised by the questions because, well, when I dig a little bit, it becomes obvious to me. It’s not that I’m smarter than anyone, it’s just what I’m listening for and or looking for are the opportunities in and around their business. Most people are too close to the problem(s), that’s the difference, if they could step outside of themselves and look at their business the way they did when they worked on the first draft of their business plan, they might see what I see. I think it’s human nature to see other individuals challenges and have solutions for them rather than our own.
I’ll touch on the 1st question of what content should be free. It’s can be easy to figure out, but it’s mostly confusing for most, because business owners are trained for control, conditioned to old business models where free is not done. It’s always about what you can get, rather than what you give. Being open means you aren’t keeping all your content behind walls, where access is much more difficult to obtain. It put things out in the open and trust the quality of that content, and you need to learn to trust the people formerly known as consumers. They might pay for your content on their own, you can no longer force them to pay, because they will go and not come back. The new acronym is PFE (Proudly Found Elsewhere).
The thrill is when the lights come on after just a couple questions, and then show a simple effective way to get the creative juices flowing again, that’s all it is really. We need to think outside the box, even unlearn what we know about commerce and advertising. Sometimes we get stuck, sometimes we can’t see the forest for the tree’s, it’s like writer’s block and the like, you can sit and spin your wheels for what feels like hours, or hire someone to come in and kick start the creative gene.
By using the hashtag (#openandfree) on Twitter I’m collecting data, I’m looking for ways to help, and I will always direct you to come here for the basic steps. If you are a DIY (Do It Yourself) kind of person, then poke around here on my blog and chip away.
A recommended exercise is, ask yourself this question:
What is your CORE Business about?
Now we tend to struggle with the CORE because nothing is static anymore, press on and you will get the picture. Don’t stop on the first answer, drill down and ask yourself the question three or four times until you can answer the question in a preferably short accurate sentence. Get your answer down to a simple statement, crafted in a clear concise way that the masses will understand easily. Sometimes it can’t be kept short, but you want your prospect or the person you are sharing with to get it quickly, then you can move on to the next point or question knowing they understand.
Once you’ve arrived to a satisfactory statement, you now can begin the process of figuring out your content questions. But that’s another blog post.
This step also helps you design the why of your business, assuming you haven’t completed a business plan, that’s called the vision.
Does this make sense to you?
Cable TV going, going GONE!
Today the Internet Wins, our family has decided to cut Cable and get our TV online!!!!!! Yep, that’s $65.40 (CDN) that now goes to something else in our budget, maybe an evening out for dessert and a movie, a date night for sure.
The decision was actually very easy, we had a family meeting with our two boys (19 & 22), they looked at us somewhat bewildered, they almost laughed out loud at us when we asked them if they cared whether we had cable TV or not. Sometimes you get nervous bringing up the topic of dropping something you thought everyone wanted. Our youngest son said, we don’t watch TV, we get what we want online through our Media Center Computers.
That was it! No discussion, no fussing, no justifying why we should have it. So, we cut cable TV from our household and we are now using the Internet for yet one more service. I won’t cover all the services available online, I’ll let you do your own research. The truth is, this is going to happen more and more often over the next couple years. The trends show that 30% of all commerce will be done online in the next 2 – 3 years, including Internet TV.
Just this morning there was an announcement that we will be able to make deposits to bank accounts through a company called Banksimple.net via mobile capabilities. Alex Payne left Twitter to co-found Simplebank, this has huge ramifications to commerce online, I am really interested in this movement and will keep a close eye on this company.
Have you considered cutting Cable TV or any other service you feel you can get on the Internet, we don’t rent movies from the local Video store due to free movies online. It’s a matter of time before Cable TV and or any other service like it has to make serious radical changes to their model of control. Control is dead!
Our household is cable free, now I need to find a new toy : )