Starting A low Capital Business With Huge Potential

"Patience and perseverance have a magical effect before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish."
- John Quincy Adams

I've discovered a small business you can start for as little as $100 - one that can make thousands in a single night. Better yet, once you've got it going, you can rapidly expand it. I'm talking about the event-promotion business.
I've been promoting events part-time for over 10 years. In 2006, for example, I promoted the International Sketch Comedy Championship in Los Angeles. Because of the success of that event, I expanded it for the 2007 Championships to include three preliminary competitions in New York City, Chicago, and Los Angeles.
Top sketch comedy groups competed in comedy clubs in the preliminaries. Then the winners went on to the finals, held at the world-famous Laugh Factory on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood. All of the venues were packed, and the entire competition was a resounding success.
I like the event-promotion business for several reasons:
It can be started with little capital.
You don't need experience or "connections."
You can easily run it part-time.
It can be extremely profitable.
You can promote many different types of events.
It has enormous growth potential.
All of these qualities make this business exciting for aspiring entrepreneurs. But today, I'd like to focus on just one of them - its enormous growth potential.
Whenever I'm considering launching a business, I always ask myself one crucial question: "Does this business not only have the ability to make a profit, but also the potential to make BIG profits?" Since profits are tied to revenues, the question becomes: "Once this business is off the ground, is there an easy way to expand it and bring in more money?"
Depending on the kind of business you're in, you can increase revenues by (1) charging more for your product or service, (2) selling more of it, or (3) doing what you're doing, but more often and/or in more places. This third method works perfectly with the event-promotion business.
You see, once you've developed a formula that works, it's pretty easy to simply do the same thing in other, similar markets. Hit more markets, and you pull in more revenues. Which means more money in your pocket. That's what I did with the sketch comedy competition. I took a formula that worked for one event, and turned it into four events. In doing so, I quadrupled my profits.
Here are some of the most important things I've learned about successfully creating and expanding an event-promotion business:
Choose venues for your events that don't require a big advance payment.
As a fledgling event promoter, you're not going to be able to rent out a stadium and produce a giant concert with a famous rock band. That would be an enormous cost up front, which would tap resources you don't have. That's why you want to host smaller events at venues that can be secured without making a major financial investment. Some ways to do this are by signing with venues that will accept little or nothing in the way of an initial deposit, by signing with venues that will do revenue-sharing deals, or by obtaining sponsors who'll fund the cost.
The trick is to make them an offer that can make them money with little risk or effort on their part.
For example, I have promoted ballroom dance competitions that were videotaped and shown on local cable television. These events drew enthusiastic crowds to the dance halls where they were held, so the owners of those places were not only willing to do a 50-50 split with me on the price of admission, but also paid additional promotional fees. I've also promoted many comedy shows at clubs that allowed me to keep the entire admission price if they got to keep the food and beverage revenues.
Choose to promote events that will not only attract audiences but also local participants.
Ice shows, circuses, theater companies - there are many promoters that produce extravaganzas that travel around the country and even the world. They may make lots of money... but think of what it costs to transport all of those people (not to mention costumes, scenery, and equipment)!
I prefer to keep my business simple (and low stress). So I make sure any event I produce will attract audiences in many different parts of the country, as well as lots of local participants. You might, for example, decide to promote a series of beauty contests... or hot rod exhibitions... or stand-up comedy nights... or even dog shows. These are all events that, once you have a winning formula, could be easily expanded to additional cities.
Develop a marketing plan that can be executed the same way in each city.
Most cities have a local newspaper or two, radio stations for popular music genres, various cultural and ethnic groups, and entertainment venues ranging from theaters to nightclubs. This will make it easy for you to produce your event in different places with similar demographics, just by using your already established and proven marketing strategy.
In the case of my sketch comedy competition, I used a three-pronged approach:
1. I took out small classified ads in local entertainment-orientated publications.
2. I got the comedy clubs to promote my events to their customer base. They put up signs, mentioned my competition in their local advertising, had the hosts of other comedy shows mention it to their audiences, and included it in their online advertising and e-mail promotions.
3. I strongly encouraged - but didn't require - the groups that would be participating in the competition to promote it to their friends and relatives. I pointed out that professional judges are human, and are bound to be influenced by audience laughter. So having a room full of supporters couldn't hurt their chances of winning. I also noted that if we had a good turnout, the club would probably be happy to hold sketch comedy competitions in the future - something that was important to all the participants.
The potential profits from the event-promotion business vary quite a bit, depending on the type of events you choose to produce. But even smaller events - such as a local fashion show - can net around $1,500. Larger events - such as concerts or athletic competitions - can bring in $5,000 to $10,000 a night.
There's one more advantage to this business that I want to mention. Once the event is over, it's over. You can go back to your regular life until you decide you want to promote something else. It gives you the best of both worlds. You can be involved in the glamour and excitement of a live event... but you don't have to disrupt your entire life to do so. Plus, there's almost infinite room for this business to grow, which means it could help you achieve the wealth you've always wanted.

How To Get Those Potential Customesrs Calling You.

"Any time that you're making cold calls..., you're going to call 100 people, and if you get one good result you're happy. It's a numbers thing."

I won't deny that cold-calling can work. Yet in 99 out of 100 cases, my advice is never to do it. The reason is that, even if the prospect on the other end of the phone expresses interest in your services, the very fact that you cold-called him puts you in a weak position - for three reasons.
First, people want to deal with vendors who are successful, not those who are desperate and need the work, right? Well, when you cold-call, your prospects assume that you are not busy. After all, if you were, you would not have time to sit there calling strangers and asking them for their business.
Second, cold-calling puts you at a disadvantage when estimating prices and quoting fees.
A large part of what determines how much you can charge is the law of supply and demand. When the demand for what you sell outweighs your supply, it's a seller's market and you can name your own price. By cold-calling, you are signaling to the prospect that the demand for your services is less than the amount of time you have available. Therefore, prospects generated by cold-calling are more price-resistant - and more likely to haggle.

Third, cold-calling puts you in a weak position when negotiating terms.
Again, cold-called prospects know that you want and need their business. You are perceived as being easy to hire, and, therefore, they feel they can dictate things like deadlines, payment schedules, and work arrangements.
Why is cold-calling so ineffective? Because it violates the "Silver Rule of Marketing."
The Silver Rule is a universal principle, first stated to me many years ago by my friend, marketing consultant Pete Silver. The Silver Rule of Marketing states: "It is better for them to come to you, rather than for you to go to them" (with "them" being your potential clients).

You can see why the Silver Rule makes sense.
If you go to a potential client, seek them out, ask for an audience, and plead with them to use your services, you are seen as needy and desperate. Your prospects think you can't be any good at what you do. After all, if you were good, your schedule would be filled to overflowing - and you wouldn't be spending your valuable time on the phone, dialing for dollars.
The only prospects who buy from needy and desperate vendors are those looking for the cheapest bid. So cold-calling risks dooming you to being the low-priced provider.
When they call you, the dynamic reverses. They call because they have a need or a problem... and they are hoping you can help them.

But how do you get prospects to call you? There are two methods. The first is good, and the second is better.
The first method is to generate inquiries through traditional marketing. This includes Yellow Pages advertising... magazine ads... TV commercials... direct mail... radio spots... billboards.
When someone calls in response to your ad in their industry trade magazine, you know they have either an immediate need - or at least some interest in what you are offering. Otherwise, they would not have called you. However, all they know about you is what they read in your ad. Therefore, they may not be convinced that you are the right one to hire.

The second method of getting people to call you eliminates this problem. I'm talking about establishing yourself as a recognized authority in your field. You can do this by writing articles for an industry trade publication... being interviewed on radio talk shows... writing a book... giving speeches at industry meetings... and/or publishing an informative print or online newsletter on your specialty.
When people call you because they read your book, they - like prospects who respond to your ad - are telling you that they have a need. However, unlike those who merely saw your ad, they are already predisposed to buy from you.

After all, prospects are skeptical of advertising claims. But authors are perceived as experts. So by writing the book (or the article or column or content-rich website) on the topic your prospects are interested in, you will be the one they call first when they need help solving problems in that area.
Think about how you can establish your reputation as a leading expert in your field or industry. Can you volunteer to be a speaker at the next big industry conference? Publish a white paper? Write letters to the editor? Publish a blog?

The best place to start: Write an article about the solution to a big problem your prospects are likely to have and publish it in a magazine, periodical, or on a website where they are likely to see it.

The Cardinal Rule Of Marketing.

Recently, I reviewed some copy from a copywriter who's been writing for a while. It wasn't bad. But it didn't rise above the vast heap of promotions clamoring for attention.
So - as it stood - I knew it wouldn't get read. And the product wouldn't get sold.
The problem? Simply this: The copywriter was trying too hard to sell the product... by focusing too much on the product itself.

It's a common mistake made by novice and B-level copywriters. They put too much effort into describing the product... what it is... and how it works.
That breaks the cardinal rule of copywriting: Keep the product invisible.
Michael Masterson calls this the "Secret of Transparency." The idea is to make your product transparent, or invisible, by focusing on the benefits and the ways the product improves your prospect's life.
This is a VERY important copywriting rule.

Your prospect doesn't want another book, manual, or gadget. What he wants is to be successful... or wealthy... or healthy... or attractive. The copywriter's job is to get to that "Aha!" moment where he'll suddenly realize that what you're selling will help him get there.
Let's look at a concrete example.

Imagine you're selling a new personal success program written by a self-help guru. The basic promise of the program: "You can be successful without really trying, simply by switching on an internal mental switch."
If your copy focuses on the product from the beginning, you run a very real risk. First, your product will sound very ordinary - like so many programs out there. Second, your prospect - spurred by your copy - can easily go to Amazon and buy a book that makes a similar promise. You made a sale. But the wrong one.
In our example, you're selling the secret to automatic success... in anything your prospect sets out to accomplish. You're selling a "secret" that's used by some of the world's happiest and wealthiest people... something they learned very easily that transformed their lives.

So you focus on your underlying big promise, which, in this example, might be simply "automatic success." You do it by revealing just a little bit of the program here and there - and focusing on the benefits and the resulting impact these simple little secrets can have on your prospect's life: wealth, success in business, better personal relationships... and that magnificent feeling of knowing that he can accomplish anything. All because he alters his thinking in a very small but profound way.

What you don't want to do is give him a long-winded dissertation on the history of the program and how it works. This sort of approach gives the prospect too many chances to opt out. It's boring to him because it isn't about his needs, wants, desires, fears, or passions.

The bottom line is this. Your prospect needs to leave your sales letter convinced he's found the "missing key" to his success. Finally, he's discovered what makes successful people successful. This is his lucky day. Had he not read this letter, he might never have known about it.
And now he wants more.
One more thing...
When you use the Secret of Transparency by keeping the product invisible and focusing on benefits, be sure that, throughout the copy, everything you say is subtly connected to your central and main promise - "automatic success," in our example. Always keep in mind that once you slip into explaining what the product is, it loses its luster. It becomes ordinary. And you risk having your prospect lose sight of the "big idea" behind your sales message.

And how do you find your product's "big idea"? After collecting and studying all your research, step back and ask yourself: "What's the most exciting thing this product can do for me? What can it do for my prospect?" Get excited about the product's benefits - and share your enthusiasm with your prospect.
Adopting the Secret of Transparency may seem counter-intuitive. But when you apply it to your marketing copy - while less-informed marketers continue to focus their copy on the product - your sales campaigns will be successful when your competitors' fail.

How To Build Real Estate Portfolio.

When done right, foreclosure investing can be one of the most lucrative ways to build your real estate portfolio. And with foreclosures soaring, there's rarely been a better opportunity to buy quality properties at steep discounts - and have owners thank you for getting them off the hook.
You can't just show up at the door with a handful of cash and expect to be welcomed with open arms. But by using three proven - and cost-effective - techniques, you can get your foot in the door with foreclosure owners, convince them that you're the best solution to their financial woes, and make sure you're spending your time on the best prospects.

1. Distinguish yourself from your competition.
The moment a lender files foreclosure papers with the court, the information is a matter of public record. Anyone can get their hands on it. In fact, some people organize this information and sell it to the many investors who are trying to find motivated sellers.
Within days of the foreclosure filing, the homeowner will be deluged with mail from would-be buyers. People will be pounding on the homeowner's door, too, calling her on the phone, leaving notes in her mailbox. Buyers would contact homeowners via smoke signals if they thought it would work.
Problem is, the letters from these buyers are all pretty much the same. Most of them ask the homeowner to make a call right away to get a quick offer. Often, the homeowner hasn't yet decided if that's what they want to do. This is one reason these letters get a poor response.
But you don't want to be wasting money on ineffective marketing. To make sure you get your message noticed in the sea of other offers, you must be different.
Don't send your letter in an ordinary envelope. Capture the homeowner's attention by using a different-sized envelope, a colored envelope, a postcard with a compelling headline, an audio CD. The possibilities are endless. We have even sent letters in brown paper lunch bags. The point is, you want the homeowner to pick up your letter and read it - not toss it in the trash with a dozen similar letters.

2. Educate your prospect and establish credibility.
Most people facing foreclosure haven't been in this position before. They don't know what to do, and they are mistrustful of everyone. So if you hope to get them to contact you, you must establish your credibility.
A good way to establish credibility is to educate the homeowner about his situation. In particular, make sure he fully understands all his options. In your letter, explain that he could file for bankruptcy, refinance the property, or deed the property to the lender. You also want to explain why selling the property to you is in his best interest.

Then lead the homeowner to your website to get more information. On my website, sellers see testimonials from people I have helped. I then ask them to fill out a form to see if I can help them too. By first educating them about their options, I get many more leads than my competition.
Here's a perfect example of how this strategy works...
Steven and Pam were in a tough financial situation - and a few weeks away from losing their house. Since they'd entered foreclosure, they'd been bombarded with mail from investors offering to "help." They contacted some of those investors, but were disappointed.
I sent them a letter that was not only educational, it outlined a precise "remedy" for their situation. I even offered them some guidance on steps they could take to help themselves.
Now even the best letter with a perfect message is worthless unless it gets opened. That is why I mailed the letter in an unusual-looking envelope, addressed it by hand, and added a personal return label. When Steven and Pam saw something that stood out from the other mail they were getting... and read the useful information inside... they could not resist calling me.
The very afternoon that they called, we put a deal together that helped them avoid foreclosure, save their credit, and get paid for part of their equity. I ended up with a nice house that had over $60,000 in equity - and with a 30-year fixed loan at a low six percent interest rate. (I used the existing loan that had been originated by Steven and Pam, and I brought the loan current by paying the late fees.)

3. Pursue only the best leads.
Whether you hire an assistant, set up a lead-tracking database, or automate common clerical tasks, leveraging your personal time will free you up to focus on the activities that maximize your potential to make money. People without systems trust their memories. (A terrible mistake!) So they never really know what they are doing from day to day, don't know if their marketing is effective, and, consequently, don't do well in this (or any) business.
I have automated systems for my marketing, and automated systems that sort and sift my leads. For example, my computer sends faxes while I sleep. When I get a response, I know I've found a motivated seller. I never waste time where there is no chance of a deal. I spend my time ONLY when the situation matches my search criteria and I have a high probability of success.
The name of the game for me is to lead a self-directed life, with lots of time for family and friends, travel, and other things that interest me. You can do this too if you systemize your business and leverage your time.
Don't spend another dime on advertising and marketing until you memorize the above three rules. Foreclosures are at an all-time high, and the opportunity to make good money is here. Take advantage of it.

How To Get That Traffic To Your Website

"Nothing succeeds like the appearance of success."

- Christopher Lasch

How to Get a Bunch of Useless Traffic to Your Website

By Patrick Coffey

The Internet has been buzzing with praise for "social media" as the way to drive traffic to your website. By "social media," I'm talking about sites that (1) allow you to submit content and (2) allow other people to comment - and even vote - on it. The higher they rate your submission, the more exposure you get, with lots of people clicking on your link.

But today, I'm going to show you that this massive traffic isn't all it's cracked up to be.

So far, some of the major players in the social media world are:

Digg - digg.com

Stumbleupon - stumbleupon.com

Sphinn - sphinn.com/

Reddit - reddit.com

Del.ico.us - del.icio.us/

Myspace - myspace.com

Facebook - facebook.com

These sites - and dozens and dozens of others that I'm sure I'm forgetting - have quickly become behemoths in the online world. In fact, many of them are getting even more traffic then the all-powerful Google.

At first, this might seem like an online marketer's dream...

"If I could only get my article or blog post on the home page of Digg or Stumbleupon, my site will be flooded with traffic."

It's easy to see why so many marketers are foaming at the mouth over the idea of tapping into all that traffic. But real online marketers understand that traffic does not mean anything without conversion. In other words, if you can't turn your traffic into sales or e-mail sign-ups, it's pretty much useless.

You may have heard of website traffic referred to as HITS. I'm sure you've been to websites that have a little counter at the bottom that tells you exactly how many HITS the site has received.

Well, this is my definition of HITS: How Idiots Track Success.

Just think about it. What should you really care about? How many people visit your site? Or how many people buy from your site?

Now you might be thinking, "Patrick, how do you know the traffic you get from social media is useless?"

This thing is, Alexis Siemon, ETR's resident Search Engine Marketing Specialist, has been experimenting with trying to drive traffic via social media channels.

You can see how this is done by looking at the funny little logos at the bottom of each Early to Rise issue. These logos allow you to submit our content to various social media sites. And they have been helping us get "free" traffic. Through some trial and error, Alexis was able to help our natural health e-letter site get a boatload of traffic from Stumbleupon. In fact, in the last month, one page generated over 28,000 new visitors.

When I heard this, I thought it was great news. You see, when we get traffic from outside sources, we can generally convert at least 10 percent of it into e-mail sign-ups.

So how many of these 28,000 social media visitors do you think signed up for our natural health e-letter?

500? 1,000? 1,500? 2,800?

No! Try 80. That's a conversion rate of just over 0.2 percent.

Compare that to the conversion rates we're getting from search engine optimization (SEO), e-mail marketing, website advertising, pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, and even direct mail. I've seen traffic from these sources convert to e-mail subscribers at rates of up to 50 percent.

That's not the only reason I say social media traffic isn't all it's cracked up to be.

Recently, several of the top marketers here at Early to Rise and I went to the Webmasters World Conference in Las Vegas. We wanted to learn directly from many of the world's top search engine marketers and see what they made of all the buzz surrounding this supposed traffic goldmine.

When I looked at the schedule, I was excited to see a panel discussion titled "Monetizing Social Media Traffic." After all, isn't making money the point of getting website traffic? So we all attended this session with great anticipation...

The consensus of the panel was that it's difficult to monetize social media traffic. For whatever reason, this traffic is resistant to advertising and tends not to stay on the site very long. In fact, it appeared to them that one of the only ways to monetize this traffic is by using a CPM (cost per thousand) advertising model. This is where you sell ad space on your site and charge the advertiser based on the number of people who see their ads. Certainly not a good model for those of us who run direct-response websites - because not only are these visitors not buying from us, they're also not clicking on our advertisers' links.

Even worse, this heavy influx of traffic can put a strain on your hosting servers and cause your site to crash. So you have a bunch of people visiting your site who don't buy, don't subscribe, and wind up crashing your server. Talk about turning your social media traffic dream into a nightmare.

But I don't want you to think social media is all bad. Of course, we are delighted to allow our readers to share ETR articles that they think are good. And we are very grateful that, in one case, 80,000 people read our extremely valuable content as a result of this free traffic.

Many of the top stories on Digg and Stumbleupon get picked up by blogs and other websites. And when an article from your site is being bounced around the Internet this way, you'll get inbound links from various sites. These new links help you get direct traffic from the linking sites. Plus, they help you with search engine optimization, which can, in turn, lead to more converting traffic and more subscribers.

At Early to Rise, we will continue to test social media and use it as a link-building tool. But if you're looking to build your online business, it's better to focus on the proven direct-response marketing methods we've been telling you about. Don't be afraid to pay for traffic through e-mail list rental, text-link ads, and pay-per-click advertising. These methods might cost a little bit of money... but you'll be attracting targeted visitors who will buy from you.

Conquering Your Greatest Creativity Killer

"There will be good days and bad, which means that some days I may be cranky and some days really cranky!"

- Peter Jennings

Despite all the great things going on in my life, I began feeling a little down in the dumps last week.

That's not good. For creative folks like me - and for all marketing pros - depression can be a career killer.

When you're depressed, your energy flees, your focus fuzzes up, your creativity goes AWOL - and if you don't do something about it (and quick!), your income craters and your reputation and career chase it right down the tubes.

In short, depression is one of the costliest business problems any of us ever deal with!

Conversely, the ability to identify and neutralize depression quickly are two of the most valuable skills any entrepreneur or marketer could possibly acquire. They empower you to add scores more productive and profitable hours, days, and weeks to your year.

In my experience, depression comes from three places...

1. Too many drugs, so little time

When I say "drugs," I'm referring to my three personal favorites: (1) Grey Goose, (2) Starbucks, and (3) Marlboro Lights.

Once upon a time, I could pretty much party for 48 hours straight and never pay the piper. I could do Friday and Saturday at Sloppy Joe's, ride the 14 or 15 hours home from Key West, and still show up for work bright and bushy-tailed first thing Monday morning.

These days, not so much. My 54-year-old body demands at least 72 hours to get over a weekend like that. And it puts me through a period of pretty intense chemical mopery before my wife, friends, total strangers, the local constabulary, my lawyer, and my creative muse begin speaking to me again.

Goes without saying: Losing 72 hours of creative time each week would make it nearly impossible for me to continue living the comfortable life to which I've become accustomed. And so I've been forced into a life of relative abstinence - punctuated, of course, by the occasional not-so-graceful swan dive off the wagon at vacation time.

Caffeine and nicotine are something else altogether. I can't walk, speak, or think until I've had a couple of mugs of Joe in the morning. Problem is, it's 2:00 p.m. before I know it, and by then, my get-up-and-go has got up and skedaddled.

And of course, it's even worse if I'm inhaling nicotine - an infamous depressant - with all that coffee.

What's the solution? The dreaded "M" word: Moderation.

On the plus side, there is a mood-brightening drug I can't recommend highly enough - one that I absolutely hate getting.

I'm talking about endorphins. You get them by doing exercise: swimming, walking, running, that kind of stuff.

Work out for two weeks in the morning before you go to work, and you'll be absolutely amazed at how much happier you are, how much more productive you become, and how much more moolah you rake in!

2. Lies your brain tells you

Has some terrible thing happened that gives you the right to be depressed? The promotion you just knew would make you a gazillion bucks flopped flatter than a flapjack? You're broker than a sailor after shore leave, and the bill collectors are calling non-stop?

Hey - I've been there. It sucks.

But it doesn't mean you have to suffer from depression-related brain-block, too!

The fact is, you get to choose how you feel in response to just about anything that happens to you.

See, everything that happens to you passes through a little "belief filter" in your brain - a conviction you've come to hold about yourself and/or the world around you.

These filters can be positive - as in "I'm brilliant," "I'm a winner," "I always come out smelling like a rose"...

... or they can be negative - as in "I'm a dope, a fraud," "I'm a loser," "Everything I touch turns to crapola."

Here's the golden key: Nearly all the belief filters we have are utter nonsense.

The objective truth is, nobody is always a winner or a loser... creative or dull... brilliant or a dunce.

So the next time depression has you creatively hog-tied, try this...

First, identify the negative thought that triggered your lousy mood.

Then, ask yourself, "Is that thought valid?" (99.9% of the time it is not!)

And then ask yourself, "Is the belief filter that triggered that negative thought valid?" (Again: Almost never.)

Finally, ask yourself, "How should I change that belief about myself and/or the world to bring it in line with reality?"

You'll be amazed at how quickly even the lousiest mood evaporates in the blinding light of the objective truth.

3. Self-obsession

I learned this simple fact of life many years ago - and re-learn it all the time. In fact, you could say it was my guiding principle for launching The Total Package e-zine last year.

The simple fact is, when my focus is on others' well-being, I'm happier.

Conversely, I notice that when I'm trying to find things that will make me happy - new toys, vacations, etc. - I'm actually less happy.

So where's your focus? Are you obsessed with your own feelings and the state of your life? If so, there's a good chance those feelings are not positive ones.

Try doing something to improve someone else's life today. You'll be amazed at how quickly your mood lifts!

What do You Do When An Investment Law Stops Working?

"Wide diversification is only required when investors do not understand what they are doing."

- Warren Buffett

Diversifying your investments is like boarding up your windows against an approaching hurricane. It gives you some measure of protection, but isn't going to prevent the roof from falling in.

Diversification is one of the fundamental and unquestioned rules of investing. It's supposed to protect you from huge losses. But what if it doesn't? You could be facing potential disaster. Could conventional wisdom be so wrong? And if it is, what can you do about it?

The idea behind diversification is intuitively compelling. If you spread your investments around, chances are not all of them will get hit at the same time or with the same severity.

But it's not a bulletproof vest. You don't necessarily get off injury-free. And the flip side is that when the markets are going strong, your gains are somewhat curbed. But giving up some upside is well worth the price of not losing your shirt in a free-falling market.

Or so the theory goes. The only problem is, it doesn't work anymore. Or at least you can't count on it working.

Just look at the sharp January 22 correction and you'll see what I mean. When the U.S. market slipped the week before that, so did markets in Europe, Asia, the sub-continent, and Latin America. And the slide continued the following Monday, when the U.S. markets were off because of the Martin Luther King holiday. For a few days, even gold and silver fell. Oil didn't escape. Nor did blue chips, tech, and small caps. In other words, practically everything went down.

Then, after the Fed cut the benchmark interest rate 75 basis points to 3.5 percent, everything went back up. The China market ticked up. Europe and Asia made up some lost ground, and the U.S. market rebounded. Oil stayed down, but gold and silver, copper, nickel, corn and wheat, and cocoa all rose.

Yes, practically everything went back up.

The China market has since wandered down a bit, but you get the idea. If everything pretty much goes down and up together, what's the use of diversifying? Good question.

It seems that many of the correlations (corresponding and inverse) we've relied on for so long are deserting us. If you're sensing that the markets are getting more and more unpredictable, that's probably a big part of the reason.

Oil used to move in step with the market. (Because a thriving economy stimulates oil demand and allows the market to grow.) But oil prices declined as the Dow was reaching new highs over the second half of 2006, and went up last year as the economy showed signs of slowing down.

And gold is supposed to strengthen as the market goes (or threatens to go) into decline and vice versa. But the long-running bull beginning in 2002 saw gold go up. And, for a few days anyway, gold was unable to escape the recent downturn.

Why the heck are some of our most cherished notions of market behavior crossing us? Because the market has transmuted in some very fundamental ways. Four historic shifts have altered how the market behaves. As a smart investor, you need to know what they are.

1. The global reach of multinationals. Recent studies have shown that multinationals from different countries are becoming more and more correlated. It makes sense, doesn't it? They're in the same major markets, and the mix of minor markets they sell to in the developing world doesn't have much of an impact on their stock prices.

2. The world is drowning in money. Global liquidity knows no national boundaries in either its origins or destinations. It comes from China's enormous one-trillion-plus dollar reserves, the carry trade (from Japan, Switzerland, and elsewhere), petro-dollar countries, and cheap credit from both east and west. And it ends up wherever there's a quick (as opposed to safe) buck to be made.

Now I'm not saying that China invests the same way as Saudi Arabia. But all that money looking for a place to land has caused asset inflation in many markets and submarkets around the world. As these markets rise, investment flows into them at a sometimes furious pace because much of the money is leveraged. And at the first sign of the bubble bursting, the hot money leaves just as quickly.

3. Risk modeling reinforces herd behavior. Technology has made such synchronous investment behavior possible. As a common tool of institutional investors worldwide, computer trading based on risk models directs the flow of a great deal of money.

The problem is, the trend is toward more aggressive (and riskier) models, since they get the better returns... at least in the short term. It's not so bad that funds are getting into rising markets at the blink of an eye. What worries me is that they're getting so adept at fleeing markets first and asking questions later.

It's a worldwide meltdown waiting to happen, feeding on its own out-of-control momentum rather than reason (even besotted reason). That makes me very nervous.

4. U.S. and China rule. In the political and military realms, the U.S. dominates. But as far as investment goes, it's a bipolar world. Despite its huge economy and robust consumerism, the U.S. has to share the stage with China - with its huge appetite for energy, technology, and raw materials.

These two markets exert so much influence over individual companies as well as major country markets worldwide, it begs the question: Can we avoid a bear market if either of these two economies seriously stumbles?

I don't believe so. Let's imagine for a second that the U.S. can't control inflation at the same time as the economy encounters serious headwinds. Where can we invest? How about Australia? Their economy is commodity-driven and they don't rely that much on the U.S. to buy their exports. But they do feed China a big chunk of raw materials.

Safe bet, yes? Not exactly. China fills the shelves of American stores from Wal-Mart to Lowe's. If these stores begin milking their existing inventories and stop buying from China, China's economy would downshift from fifth gear to second virtually overnight. And Australia would have just lost its main customer.

The period culminating in the sharp January 22 downturn could have been the "perfect storm," a scenario in which markets everywhere crashed when the economies of China and the U.S. encountered big problems at the same time. It turned out to be a false alarm, but only because the Fed cut interest rates that day.

The real day of reckoning still lies ahead of us. But we did get a hint of what could happen to the markets... and to your portfolio.

China and the U.S. are supposedly dealing with opposite problems: China's economy is growing too fast, and the U.S. economy is growing too slowly. I don't buy that view. When you look a little deeper, you see that both are suffering from too much liquidity and asset inflation.

So what can you do about all this? A few things.

• Convert your holdings to cash.

You could take your money out of your IRA or 401(k) and put it into your savings account or a CD, but why subject yourself to the stiff tax penalties? Instead, look for money-market options or mutual funds that invest in short-term (1-2 year) Treasuries. If you're having trouble finding them, call up your IRA or 401(k) administrator and ask, "Do you have money-market accounts?" "Do you have 1-2 year Treasury investments?" Any decent 401(k) plan should give you a choice of several such cash offerings.

• Invest in funds that invest in dividend-paying companies.

Companies that pay dividends are the only ones that can withstand a sudden or serious market downfall and still fork over the cash. Since 1965, the cash payout of the S&P 500 has never fallen significantly. And in the brutal crash of 2001-2, dividends dropped just six percent (compared to the 50 percent downturn in profits).

Don't confuse "income" or "dividend" funds with funds that invest in dividend-paying companies. Income and dividends can come from bonds and other debt instruments too. Most of the funds I'm talking about come with even more specific mandates - like investing in blue-chip dividend-paying companies.

Most likely, your 401(k) or IRA will give you a choice of dividend company funds to choose from. In general, they're all safe. It's a matter of personal preference. But keep in mind that overseas dividend-paying companies could be a little more volatile than domestic ones.

• Go with what you know.

Even if what you know is one thing (which, of course, is the opposite of diversification). The business or sector you choose to specialize in may not be immune to a bad fall. But you'll have such a good feel for it that you should be able to see any downturn a mile away and get out in plenty of time.

In such circumstances, there's no shame in holding your investments in cash until the nastiness blows over. That's pretty much how legendary billionaire Warren Buffett invests, and it's made him more than $52 billion.

It's better than employing a diversification strategy that's showing signs of becoming less and less reliable.

Protecting Yourself From An Insane World

"Insanity in individuals is something rare, but in groups, parties, nations, and epochs it is the rule."

- Friedrich Nietzsche

In a fit of insanity, I relented. I let my wife talk me into stopping off at a supermarket on the way back from D.C. You would think that, as a professional social observer, I would enjoy wandering through supermarkets. Not so. In fact, I would prefer a visit to my urologist.

As we were checking out (behind a woman who was writing a personal check to pay for her groceries!), I glanced at the magazine/tabloid rack. And there it was - that paragon of journalistic excellence: the National Examiner. Splattered across the front of this literary masterpiece were the following headlines:

In her own words: DI LETTER REVEALS CHARLES' PLOT TO KILL HER!

There's something about the name Charles that makes me suspicious. Charles Manson... Charles de Gaulle... but, most of all, the Prince himself - Charles Philip Arthur George. How can you trust a guy with four first names?

REGIS-KELLY FEUD EXPLODES!... nasty insults spark battle

Who's Kelly? What happened to Kathie Lee? What year is this, anyway? I wish someone would put me back in the time machine so I could get back to where I belong.

WIN $3,700 IN PUZZLES & GIVEAWAYS

Sounds like more of a sport than NASCAR. Which, admittedly, isn't saying much.

STUDY: BOOZE BEATS ALZHEIMER'S

Finally, alcoholics have a foolproof excuse for getting tanked.

LOSE 11 LBS IN 7 DAYS - on amazing peanut butter diet!

Yes! Alcoholics have nothing on me. This is the excuse I've been looking for all my life. I couldn't wait to get home and head for the pantry.

But the most meaningful headline of all was for the feature cover story:

WHO'S GAY... and who's NOT among Hollywood's female stars

Below were photos of Martha Stewart (still backlashing after finding her husband making love to their babysitter years ago?), Queen Latifah (Queen who?), Vanna White (the talent of the century), Mariska Hargitay (never heard of her), Jodie Foster (old news), Angelina Jolie (No! You're kidding!), and two gals, Drew Barrymore and Liv Tyler (another one I've never heard of), poised to kiss each other. (Arghhh!)

It gets better. Stamped on Vanna White's picture was a sunburst that said:

PLUS GAY SERIAL KILLERS!... ROUNDUP

Gay serial killers? Are they the guys who sing "Don we now our gay apparel" as they prepare to escape from prison? Hmm. Maybe I'm confused about that.

So, can we learn anything from headlines like these?

I would assume that most people already know that most Americans are addicted to nonsensical garbage in all forms - print, radio, TV, and Internet. Nothing new there.

We pretty much know why the Hollywood crowd is so screwed up: too much fame and fortune, usually achieved too quickly and almost always with too little real work. We've seen it over and over again, from Marilyn to Anna Nicole, from Elvis to John Belushi.

Yes, the rich and famous have an excuse. But what's the average American's excuse? Why is he so addicted to silliness, nonstop sports, trivia, perversion, thrill seekers, people in pain, and, above all, unreality?

One reason, of course, is that most people don't have a meaningful purpose in life. But I think it goes way beyond that.

We are taught, from a very early age, to believe in that which is unreal - known in street parlance as B.S. It becomes so ingrained in us that we jeer those who try to talk straight. Nothing can make a person more unpopular more quickly than daring to be truthful - especially when the truth threatens the instant gratification of others. "Woe to him," cautioned Will Durant, "who teaches men faster than they can learn."

Who wants to hear that the 60-year-old "Mideast peace process" (yawn) is an aberration that helps make U.S. presidents look important?

Who wants to hear that the only way to fix Social Security is to abolish it?

Who wants to hear that it's not the government's duty - or right - to "get the economy moving," create jobs, or redistribute wealth?

Which leads to the presidential primaries that have hijacked our TV sets. Who wants to hear that today's current crop of presidential candidates (with the exception of Ron Paul) are varying shades of charlatans?

If you want reality, try this: The Western world - and the U.S., in particular - has lost its collective mind. Which is very profitable for politicians and big corporations. Politicians promise to keep spreading the wealth, which gives big corporations an ever-expanding market of addicted buyers for their electronic gadgets and other toys.

That being the case, my advice to you is this: If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs, that is your best insurance policy to protect yourself from the financial and societal chaos that lies ahead.

If you happen to be one of those people who believe that today's world is a spinning insane asylum, be sure to stick around for another 20 years. I've already made a number of mental trips back to the future, and... well, I'll refrain from saying anything that might cause you to lose interest in whatever it is that you're watching on TV.

Heck, the Geico lizard and Aflac duck may be running for president by 2028. And, from what I've been seeing and hearing on television, they might just be a big improvement over the turkeys who are now on display.

Thanks for bearing with me after I carelessly stumbled out of my time machine. Now that I'm safely back on board, I'll do my best to stay away from supermarkets. It's a dangerous activity that could lead to my becoming addicted to the National Examiner.

Are You Setting Goals Or You Are Still Dreaming?

We all have dreams. We all carry movies in our minds about how life could be for us in a better world. Sally dreams of a big house with a built-in pool. Harry dreams of an eight-car garage filled with vintage Porsches. Jill fantasizes about painting pictures at the seashore. Jack wants that corner office with the view.
Chances are, Sally and Harry and Jill and Jack will never get what they dream about. They will go on playing those mental movies for themselves or talking about them to friends and family members.

Failing to live your dreams is not necessarily a bad thing. Lots of people are perfectly happy dreaming of one life but living another. The problem arises when the gap between fantasy and reality results in unhappiness or even depression. When this happens, it's time to master plan a new life. And the first step is to establish goals.

Goals are different from dreams in four ways. They are specific, actionable, time-oriented, and realistic.
Specific: Being rich is a dream. Developing a $4 million net worth is a goal.
Actionable: Winning the lottery is a dream. Winning a foot race is a goal.
Time-Oriented: Developing a $4 million net worth is a goal. But developing a $4 million net worth in five years is a better goal.

Realistic: Developing a $4 million net worth in five years is probably reasonable. Developing a $4 million net worth in four months is not.
Goals are also different than objectives - more long-term and broader in scope.
Your master plan will be broken down into seven-year and one-year goals, monthly and weekly objectives, and, finally, daily tasks that will make it possible to achieve your medium-term objectives and long-term goals. For example:
Seven-Year Goal: Develop a $4 million net worth in five years.

First-Year Goal: Eliminate $36,000 worth of debt.
Monthly Objective: Land a part-time job netting $36,000 annually by year-end.
First Week's Objective: Get my first job interview.
First Day's Task: Write personal letters to CEOs of my top 10 "dream job" companies.

Okay, that's the plan. Starting today, you are going to be performing tasks every day that support weekly objectives that, in turn, support monthly objectives that, in turn, support yearly goals that, in turn, support seven-year goals. All of this will be done formally. All of it will be done in writing.

At this point, you may be wondering: "Does it really matter whether my goals are specific? Does it make any difference if I write them down?"
Glad you asked.
Several years ago, I found a very interesting bit of information in a book by Tom Bay -

Look Within or Do Without - that was completely mediocre except for this one little gem. According to Mr. Bay, Harvard Business School did a study on the financial status of its students 10 years after graduation and found that:

·As many as 27 percent of them needed financial assistance.
·A whopping 60 percent of them were living paycheck to paycheck.
.A mere 10 percent of them were living comfortably.
·And only 3 percent of them were financially independent.
The study also looked at goal setting and found these interesting correlations:
·The 27 percent that needed financial assistance had absolutely no goal-setting processes in their lives.
·The 60 percent that were living paycheck to paycheck had basic survival goals (such as managing to live paycheck to paycheck).
·The 10 percent that were living comfortably had general goals. They thought they knew where they were going to be in the next five years.
·The 3 percent that were financially independent had written out their goals and the steps required to reach those goals.

And that's just one study. Here's one that shows the power of setting specific goals:

Researchers from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University asked 56 female undergraduates to do as many sit-ups as they could in 90 seconds. One group, told to "do their best," averaged 43 sit-ups on each day of the four-day study. The other groups, which had been given the specific goal to do consecutively more sit-ups at each session, performed significantly better, averaging 56 sit-ups on the last day of the experiment.
Studies are great, but personal experience is better.

I spent the first 17 years of my life dreaming about success but having none. In my freshman year of college I decided to change that. I learned to learn and became an A student. Twenty-two years later, I discovered goal setting. Three years later, I was a millionaire. When I began writing ETR in 2000 - eight years ago - I learned how to prioritize my goals. That allowed me to achieve my first and most cherished dream: becoming a successful writer.

At ETR, needless to say, we set long-term business goals and medium-term objectives. This helped us grow our revenues from zero to $25 million in seven years. And it will help us grow to the next stage of our development, above $50 million, in the next few years. Using a master plan to grow our business is gratifying - but what's better is seeing our employees use personal master plans to improve their lives.

One, for example, used a master plan to go from being a low-level employee answering the phone to a management position in a few years. He is now a major profit producer for the company. Several employees have used master plans to meet their weight-loss and physical-fitness goals, including one who lost 30 pounds through diet and vigorous exercise and overcame significant health problems.

These laudable results happened because these people took the time to turn their dreams of wealth and health into specific, actionable, time-oriented, realistic goals.

You can spend your whole life dreaming. And dreams are wonderful things. By all means, dream away. But if you want to turn those dreams into reality, you need to transform them into goals.

What's your wildest, longest-held dream? How can you make it specific? How can you make it actionable? How can you put a time limit on it? How can you make it realistic? Use these four questions to create goals you can aim for... then take action. And you'll be living your dream in a few short years

The Best Source Of Business Start Up Information

The Best Source for Business Start-Up Information
By Simon Matovu Peter
About 50 percent of new businesses fail in the first five years, according to the Small Business Administration. But don't let a scary statistic like that one knock you out of the running. Keep in mind that the percentage of new businesses that succeed is just as substantial.
Of course, when you're beginning a new venture, you want to stack the odds in your favor. And there's a proven way to do it - one that's helped thousands of new businesses get off the ground and churn out cash for years.
The secret? Get inside your competitors' heads.
I mean your direct competitors - the people who are already making money in the business you want to start. What they've learned through hands-on experience is very different from what you're likely to learn from most academics and other business "experts."
For instance, conventional wisdom suggests that it's necessary to do a ton of technical research before you even think of launching a new business. And in the business classes I took in college, my professors taught us quite a few ways to do that. For one thing, they stressed the importance of studying market conditions to determine whether or not a particular type of business makes sense. (Because of the current writers' strike, for example, the production of many TV shows has been shut down. So now would not be a great time to try to start a business that caters to that industry.)
I don't mean to knock their advice. This is certainly the kind of information that every start-up entrepreneur should be aware of and consider. Problem is, it's easy to get bogged down in a lot of theory. And before you know it, you've lost the enthusiasm and momentum behind my approach to starting a business.
That's not going to happen with the "market research tool" I'm talking about.
So, how do you get people in the know to reveal the strategies they've used to succeed - and warn you about the mistakes they've made along the way? How do you get them to open up and reveal practical, nuts-and-bolts advice about running the kind of business you're interested in? You can't just call them up and ask. They'd probably just laugh in your face.
Here's the trick: You talk to people who are either scaling back or retiring and are, therefore, selling their businesses.
Naturally, you've got to take what they say with a grain of salt. After all, they have a vested interest in presenting their business in a favorable light - especially if they think you might be a potential buyer. Still, you're likely to walk away with some golden nuggets.
Before we go any further, let me make one thing clear. I'm not suggesting that you should mislead the seller. Fact is, you are a potential buyer. Although your primary purpose is to pick his brains, you may find that he's offering a great opportunity. Just tell him that you're thinking about (or are in the process of) starting a similar business, but thought you'd investigate the possibility of buying one that's already up and running. And that may happen. You never know.
Keep in mind that he knows he may need to "kiss a few frogs" before he gets a serious buyer. So if you turn out to be just another "shopper," no harm done - and no need to feel guilty.
I know this technique works, because I've used it myself. It helped me turn a cash-sucking business into a profitable venture in the blink of an eye.
I had started a business to produce local cable television shows. My plan was to lease time from local cable operators, and then sell enough advertising to pay for the air time and production costs while making me a profit.
But the cable company was charging about $750 for 30 minutes of air time. And it was killing my profits. One day, while scanning the classified ads in my local paper, I saw that someone was selling a business that produced local cable television shows.
I called and scheduled an appointment. When we met, the producer shared some of the basics about his business. One of these basics - a little-known rule mandated by the FCC - turned out to be critically important to me. He told me that when cable companies charge other producers for air time, it must be done according to a specific formula. And that formula made buying air time much more affordable for me.
By following this formula, the $750 I was paying per half-hour would drop to $90. I notified the cable company - and, suddenly, a business that was losing money became profitable.
Had I not taken a few minutes to talk with the producer, I would have continued losing money until I was forced to give up.
Now, you may not get such powerful insider information every time you interview a seller. But you will certainly get a perspective that you won't get from doing academic, impersonal research.
Here are three steps to take to put this technique to work:
1. Locate businesses that are being sold.
Classified ads are usually a fertile source of direct leads. Contact business brokers, too, which you can also find in classified ads, as well as in the Yellow Pages and on the Internet (CraigsList, for example).
2. Prepare your questions.
When you meet with a seller, come prepared. If you've got a good idea of the problems you'll be facing, you'll ask more. Where will you find suppliers? How much will they charge? What competition will you face? What regulations will you encounter? Where will your best customers come from? What's the best way to reach those customers? And on and on. The more knowledge you demonstrate about the business, the more interested you'll appear to be to the seller.
3. Keep an open mind.
Your main purpose is to get insider information from the seller - but your conversation with him could lead to a different kind of opportunity. Maybe some sort of partnership arrangement. Or perhaps he could act as a consultant to you in exchange for a small percentage of the profits.
When it comes to getting the real facts about how to make a buck in a new business, you can't go to a better source than a current business owner. The information you uncover could mean the difference between success and failure.

The Law Of Attraction

The Law of Attraction simply says that you attract into your life whatever you think about. Your dominant thoughts will find a way to manifest. But the Law of Attraction gives rise to some tough questions that don’t seem to have good answers. I would say, however, that these problems aren’t caused by the Law of Attraction itself but rather by the Law of Attraction as applied to objective reality.

Here are some of those problematic questions (all are generalizations of ones I received via email):

• What happens when people put out conflicting intentions, like two people intending to get the same promotion when only one position is available?
• Do children, babies, and/or animals put out intentions?
• If a child is abused, does that mean the child intended it in some way?
• If I intend for my relationship to improve, but my spouse doesn’t seem to care, what will happen?

These questions seem to weaken the plausibility of the Law of Attraction.I personally reccomend that you visit www.makingyousmarter.blogspot.com for some attraction advice.
Sometimes people answer them by going pretty far out. For example, it’s been said by LoAers that a young child experiences abuse because s/he intended it or earned it during a past life. Well, sure… we can explain just about anything if we bring past lives into the equation, but IMO that’s a cop-out. On the other hand, objective reality without the Law of Attraction doesn’t provide satisfactory answers either — supposedly some kids are just born unlucky. That’s a cop-out too.

I’ve never been satisfied by others’ answers to these questions, and they’re pretty important questions if the Law of Attraction is to be believed. Some books hint at the solution but never really nail it. That nail, however, can be found in the concept of subjective reality.

Subjective reality is a belief system in which (1) there is only one consciousness, (2) you are that singular consciousness, and (3) everything and everyone in your reality is a projection of your thoughts.

You may not see it yet, but subjective reality neatly answers all these tricky Law of Attraction questions. Let me ’splain….

In subjective reality there’s only one consciousness, and it’s yours. Consequently, there’s only one source of intentions in your universe — YOU. While you may observe lots of walking, talking bodies in your reality, they all exist inside your consciousness. You know this is how your dreams work, but you haven’t yet realized your waking reality is just another type of dream. It only seems solid because you believe (intend) it is.

Since none of the other characters you encounter are conscious in a way that’s separate from you, nobody else can have intentions. The only intentions are yours. You’re the only thinker in this universe.

It’s important to correctly define the YOU in subjective reality. YOU are not your physical body. This is not the egoic you at all. I’m not suggesting you’re a conscious body walking around in a world full of unconscious automatons. That would be a total misunderstanding of subjective reality. The correct viewpoint is that you’re the single consciousness in which this entire reality takes place.

Imagine you’re having a dream. In that dream what exactly are YOU? Are YOU the physical dream character you identify with? No, of course not — that’s just your dream avatar. YOU are the dreamer. The entire dream occurs within your consciousness. All dream characters are projections of your dream thoughts, including your avatar. In fact, if you learn lucid dreaming, you can even switch avatars in your dream by possessing another character. In a lucid dream, you can do anything you believe you can.

Physical reality works the same way. This is a denser universe than what you experience in your sleeping dreams, so changes occur a bit more gradually here. But this reality still conforms to your thoughts just like a sleeping dream. YOU are the dreamer in which all of this is taking place.

The idea that other people have intentions is an illusion because other people are just projections. Of course, if you strongly believe other people have intentions, then that’s the dream you’ll create for yourself. But ultimately it’s still an illusion.

Here’s how subjective reality answers these challenging Law of Attraction questions:

What happens when people put out conflicting intentions, like two people intending to get the same promotion when only one position is available?

Since you’re the only intender, this is entirely an internal conflict — within YOU. You’re holding the thought (the intention) for both people to want the same position. But you’re also thinking (intending) that only one can get it. So you’re intending competition. This whole situation is your creation. You believe in competition, so that’s what you manifest. Maybe you have some beliefs (thoughts and intentions) about who will get the promotion, in which case your expectations will manifest. But you may have a higher order belief that life is random, unfair, uncertain, etc., so in that case you may manifest a surprise because that’s what you’re intending.

Being the only intender in your reality places a huge responsibility on your shoulders. You can give up control of your reality by thinking (intending) randomness and uncertainty, but you can never give up responsibility. You’re the sole creator in this universe. If you think about war, poverty, disease, etc., that’s exactly what you’ll manifest. If you think about peace, love, and joy, you’ll manifest that too. Your reality is exactly what you think it is. Whenever you think about anything, you summon its manifestation.

Do children, babies, and/or animals put out intentions?

No. Your own body doesn’t even put out intentions — only your consciousness does. You’re the only one who has intentions, so what takes precedence is what YOU intend for the children, babies, and animals in your reality. Every thought is an intention, so however you think about the other beings in your reality is what you’ll eventually manifest for them. Keep in mind that beliefs are hierarchical, so if you have a high order belief that reality is random and unpredictable and out of your control, then that intention will trump other intentions of which you’re less certain. It’s your entire collection of thoughts that dictates how your reality manifests.

If a child is abused, does that mean the child intended it in some way?

No. It means YOU intended it. You intend child abuse to manifest simply by thinking about it. The more you think about child abuse (or any other subject), the more you’ll see it expand in your reality. Whatever you think about expands, and not just in the narrow space of your avatar but in all of physical reality.

If I intend for my relationship to improve, but my spouse doesn’t seem to care, what will happen?

This is another example of intending conflict. You’re projecting one intention for your avatar and one for your spouse, so the actual unified intention is that of conflict. Hence the result you experience, subject to the influence of your higher order beliefs, will be to experience conflict with your spouse. If your thoughts are conflicted, your reality is conflicted.

This is why assuming responsibility for your thoughts is so important. If you want to see peace in the world, then intend peace for EVERYTHING in your reality. If you want to see abundance in the world, then intend it for EVERYONE. If you want to enjoy loving relationships, then intend loving relationships for ALL. If you intend these only for your own avatar but not for others, then you’re intending conflict, division, and separation; consequently, that’s what you’ll experience.

If you stop thinking about something entirely, does that mean it disappears? Yes, technically it does. But in practice it’s next to impossible to uncreate what you’ve already manifested. You’ll continue creating the same problems just by noticing them. But when you assume 100% responsibility for everything you’re experiencing in your reality right now — absolutely everything — then you assume the power to alter your reality by rechanneling your thoughts.

This entire reality is your creation. Feel good about that. Feel grateful for the richness of your world. And then begin creating the reality you truly want by making decisions and holding intentions. Think about what you desire, and withdraw your thoughts from what you don’t want. The most natural, easiest way to do this is to pay attention to your emotions. Thinking about your desires feels good, and thinking about what you don’t want makes you feel bad. When you notice yourself feeling bad, you’ve caught yourself thinking about something you don’t want. Turn your focus back towards what you do want, and your emotional state will improve rapidly. As you do this repeatedly, you’ll begin to see your physical reality shift too, first in subtle ways and then in bigger leaps.

I too am just a manifestation of your consciousness. I play the role you expect me to play. If you expect me to be a helpful guide, I will be. If you expect me to be profound and insightful, I will be. If you expect me to be confused or deluded, I will be. But of course there’s no distinct ME that is separate from YOU. I’m just one of your many creations. I am what you intend me to be. But deep down you already knew that, didn’t you?

30 Days To Success

A powerful personal growth tool is the 30-day trial. This is a concept I borrowed from the shareware industry, where you can download a trial version of a piece of software and try it out risk-free for 30 days before you’re required to buy the full version. It’s also a great way to develop new habits, and best of all, it’s brain-dead simple.

Let’s say you want to start a new habit like an exercise program or quit a bad habit like sucking on cancer sticks. We all know that getting started and sticking with the new habit for a few weeks is the hard part. Once you’ve overcome inertia, it’s much easier to keep going.

Yet we often psyche ourselves out of getting started by mentally thinking about the change as something permanent — before we’ve even begun. It seems too overwhelming to think about making a big change and sticking with it every day for the rest of your life when you’re still habituated to doing the opposite. The more you think about the change as something permanent, the more you stay put.

But what if you thought about making the change only temporarily — say for 30 days — and then you’re free to go back to your old habits? That doesn’t seem so hard anymore. Exercise daily for just 30 days, then quit. Maintain a neatly organized desk for 30 days, then slack off. Read for an hour a day for 30 days, then go back to watching TV.

Could you do it? It still requires a bit of discipline and commitment, but not nearly so much as making a permanent change. Any perceived deprivation is only temporary. You can count down the days to freedom. And for at least 30 days, you’ll gain some benefit. It’s not so bad. You can handle it. It’s only one month out of your life.

Now if you actually complete a 30-day trial, what’s going to happen? First, you’ll go far enough to establish it as a habit, and it will be easier to maintain than it was to begin it. Secondly, you’ll break the addiction of your old habit during this time. Thirdly, you’ll have 30 days of success behind you, which will give you greater confidence that you can continue. And fourthly, you’ll gain 30 days worth of results, which will give you practical feedback on what you can expect if you continue, putting you in a better place to make informed long-term decisions.

Therefore, once you hit the end of the 30-day trial, your ability to make the habit permanent is vastly increased. But even if you aren’t ready to make it permanent, you can opt to extend your trial period to 60 or 90 days. The longer you go with the trial period, the easier it will be to lock in the new habit for life.

Another benefit of this approach is that you can use it to test new habits where you really aren’t sure if you’d even want to continue for life. Maybe you’d like to try a new diet, but you don’t know if you’d find it too restrictive. In that case, do a 30-day trial and then re-evaluate. There’s no shame in stopping if you know the new habit doesn’t suit you. It’s like trying a piece of shareware for 30 days and then uninstalling it if it doesn’t suit your needs. No harm, no foul.

Here are some examples from my own life where I used 30-day trials to establish new habits:

1) In the Summer of 1993, I wanted to try being vegetarian. I had no interest in making this a lifelong change, but I’d read a lot about the health benefits of vegetarianism, so I committed to it for 30 days just for the experience. I was already exercising regularly, seemed in decent health, and was not overweight (6′0″, 155 lbs), but my typical college diet included a lot of In-N-Out burgers. Going lacto-ovo vegetarian for 30 days was a lot easier than I expected — I can’t say it was hard at all, and I never felt deprived. Within a week I noticed an increase in my energy and concentration, and I felt more clear-headed. At the end of the 30 days, it was a no-brainer to stick with it. This change looked a lot harder than it really was.

2) In January 1997, I decided to try going from vegetarian to vegan. While lacto-ovo vegetarians can eat eggs and dairy, vegans don’t eat anything that comes from an animal. I was developing an interest in going vegan for life, but I didn’t think I could do it. How could I give up veggie-cheese omelettes? The diet seemed too restrictive to me — even fanatically so. But I was intensely curious to know what it was actually like. So once again I did a 30-day trial. At the time I figured I’d make it through the trial, but I honestly didn’t expect to continue beyond that. Well, I lost seven pounds in the first week, mostly from going to the bathroom as all the accumulated dairy mucus was cleansed from my bowels (now I know why cows need four stomachs to properly digest this stuff). I felt lousy the first couple days but then my energy surged. I also felt more clear-headed than ever, as if a “fog of brain” had been lifted; it felt like my brain had gotten a CPU and a RAM upgrade. However, the biggest change I noticed was in my endurance. I was living in Marina del Rey at the time and used to run along the beach near the Santa Monica Pier, and I noticed I wasn’t as tired after my usual 3-mile runs, so I started increasing them to 5 miles, 10 miles, and then eventually a marathon a few years later. In Tae Kwon Do, the extra endurance really gave a boost to my sparring skills as well. The accumulated benefits were so great that the foods I was giving up just didn’t seem so appealing anymore. So once again it was a no-brainer to continue after the first 30 days, and I’m still vegan today. What I didn’t expect was that after so long on this diet, the old animal product foods I used to eat just don’t seem like food anymore, so there’s no feeling of deprivation.

3) Also in 1997, I decided I wanted to exercise every single day for a year. That was my 1997 New Year’s resolution. My criteria was that I would exercise aerobically at least 25 minutes every day, and I wouldn’t count Tae Kwon Do classes which I was taking 2-3 days per week. Coupled with my dietary changes, I wanted to push my fitness to a new level. I didn’t want to miss a single day, not even for sick days. But thinking about exercising 365 days in a row was daunting, so I mentally began with a 30-day trial. That wasn’t so bad. After a while every day that passed set a new record: 8 days in a row… 10 days… 15 days…. It became harder to quit. After 30 days in a row, how could I not do 31 and set a new personal record? And can you imagine giving up after 250 days? No way. After the initial month to establish the habit, the rest of the year took care of itself. I remember going to a seminar that year and getting home well after midnight. I had a cold and was really tired, yet I still went out running at 2am in the rain. Some people might call that foolish, but I was so determined to reach my goal that I wasn’t going to let fatigue or illness stop me. I succeeded and kept it up for the whole year without ever missing a day. In fact, I kept going for a few more weeks into 1998 before I finally opted to stop, which was a tough decision. I wanted to do this for one year, knowing it would become a powerful reference experience, and it certainly became such.

4) More diet stuff…. After being vegan for a number of years, I opted to try other variations of the vegan diet. I did 30-day trials both with the macrobiotic diet and with the raw foods diet. Those were interesting and gave me new insights, but I decided not to continue with either of them. I felt no different eating macrobiotically than I did otherwise. And in the case of the raw diet, while I did notice a significant energy boost, I found the diet too labor intensive — I was spending a lot of time preparing meals and shopping frequently. Sure you can just eat raw fruits and veggies, but to make interesting raw meals, there can be a lot of labor involved. If I had my own chef, I’d probably follow the raw diet though because I think the benefits would be worth it. I did a second trial of the raw diet for 45 days, but again my conclusion was the same. If I was ever diagnosed with a serious disease like cancer, I’d immediately switch to an all raw, living foods diet, since I believe it to be the absolute best diet for optimal health. I’ve never felt more energetic in my life than when I ate a raw diet. But I had a hard time making it practical for me. Even so, I managed to integrate some new macrobiotic foods and raw foods into my diet after these trials. There are two all-raw restaurants here in Vegas, and I’ve enjoyed eating at them because then someone else does all the labor. So these 30-day trials were still successful in that they produced new insights, although in both cases I intentionally declined to continue with the new habit. One of the reasons a full 30-day trial is so important with new diets is that the first week or two will often be spent detoxing and overcoming cravings, so it isn’t until the third or fourth week that you begin to get a clear picture. I feel that if you haven’t tried a diet for at least 30 days, you simply don’t understand it. Every diet feels different on the inside than it appears from the outside.

This 30-day method seems to work best for daily habits. I’ve had no luck using it when trying to start a habit that only occurs 3-4 days per week. However, it can work well if you apply it daily for the first 30 days and then cut back thereafter. This is what I’d do when starting a new exercise program, for example. Daily habits are much easier to establish.

Here are some other ideas for applying 30-day trials:

• Give up TV. Tape all your favorite shows and save them until the end of the trial. My whole family did this once, and it was very enlightening.
• Give up online forums, especially if you feel you’re becoming forum addicted. This will help break the addiction and give you a clearer sense of how participation actually benefits you (if at all). You can always catch up at the end of 30 days.
• Shower/bathe/shave every day. I know YOU don’t need this one, so please pass it along to someone who does.
• Meet someone new every day. Start up a conversation with a stranger.
• Go out every evening. Go somewhere different each time, and do something fun — this will be a memorable month.
• Spend 30 minutes cleaning up and organizing your home or office every day. That’s 15 hours total.
• List something new to sell on ebay every day. Purge some of that clutter.
• Ask someone new out on a date every day. Unless your success rate is below 3%, you’ll get at least one new date, maybe even meet your future spouse.
• If you’re already in a relationship, give your partner a massage every day. Or offer to alternate who gives the massage each day, so that’s 15 massages each.
• Give up cigarettes, soda, junk food, coffee, or other unhealthy addictions.
• Become an early riser.
• Write in your journal every day.
• Call a different family member, friend, or business contact every day.
• Make 25 sales calls every day to solicit new business. Professional speaker Mike Ferry did this five days a week for two years, even on days when he was giving seminars. He credits this habit with helping build his business to over $10 million in annual sales. If you make 1300 sales calls a year, you’re going to get some decent business no matter how bad your sales skills are. You can generalize this habit to any kind of marketing work, like building new links to your web site.
• Write a new blog entry every day.
• Read for an hour a day on a subject that interests you.
• Meditate every day.
• Learn a new vocabulary word every day.
• Go for a long walk every day.

Again, don’t think that you need to continue any of these habits beyond 30 days. Think of the benefits you’ll gain from those 30 days alone. You can re-assess after the trial period. You’re certain to grow just from the experience, even if it’s temporary.

The power of this approach lies in its simplicity. Even though doing a certain activity every single day may be less efficient than following a more complicated schedule — weight training is a good example because adequate rest is a key component — you’ll often be more likely to stick with the daily habit. When you commit to doing something every single day without exception, you can’t rationalize or justify missing a day, nor can you promise to make it up later by reshuffling your schedule.

Give trials a try. If you’re ready to commit to one right now, please feel free to post a comment and share your goal for the next 30 days. If there’s enough interest, then perhaps we can do a group postmortem around May 20th to see how it went for everyone. I’ll even do it with you. Mine will be to go running or biking for at least 25 minutes or do a minimum 60-minute hike in the mountains every day for 30 days. The weather here in Vegas has been great lately, so it’s a nice time for me to get back to exercising outdoors.