There's less than 28 shopping days left until Christmas!
Have you already finished your Christmas shopping? Can you help a brother out?
Haven't started? Welcome to the club.
I'm not a big fan of Christmas. Too commercial. Not that I'm a scrooge or anything. I'm all for peace on Earth and good will towards man…I just hate the Madison Avenue sheep programmers telling the masses that their lives are small and meaningless without an LG videophone or a Sony Vega flat screen.
We can thank the damned Romans for the commercialism however. Before the December holiday became a Christian event, it was the Feast of Saturnalia. The Romans would dress up in their best togas, put on fancy hats, and give each other handmade presents. Even slaves were exempt from punishment during the week's festival. The greeting is even familiar today - "Ho! Saturnalia!".
Regardless, I want to get my wife something nice this year. We pretty much have everything. I don't want to buy more crap for the sake of buying more crap.
Any suggestions? Falia's passion is cooking…maybe I could buy something for the kitchen? We both love to travel…and are doing a lot of it in 2008…maybe something travel related? ARRRGGGG….I need YOUR help!
Puh-leeze….help me! Leave me a comment below with a tip, idea, suggestion, or some advice. What should I buy my wife for Christmas this year?
Last week I mentioned I attended The 4 Hour Work Week meeting through Meetup.com. One of the most memorable points of discussion was the importance of focusing on high payoff activities.
What's the highest return on YOUR time currently?
Prior to 1999 the highest payoff activity for me was drawing circles on a piece of paper, recruiting new distributors for my direct sales organization. With the expansion of the web, today the highest return on my time investment is writing. More specifically, creating information.
What's YOUR highest payoff activity?
One of the major complaints of new entrepreneurs is the lack of time. They get so bogged down on $10 an hour tasks they forget to focus on $100 an hour tasks. The freelance talent pool is so vast nowadays I think every single entrepreneur should be leveraging their time with it.
My bids to do the job ranged from $8 to $150. The cheapest is not always the best!
Luckily Elance gives you access to feedback and reviews from previous jobs, plus the ability to get samples done ahead of time, and an enhanced messaging system. You can set project deadlines, and even escrow the money. They are a top notch tool for entrepreneurs.
Take a quick look at your business. Where can outsourcing tasks that you aren't great at free you up to focus on high payoff activities?
Don't freak out…it's gonna be okay. Remember, deep, slow breaths.
The year started out with such promise. Do you recall all those wonderful goals you set for yourself back in January? What were they again?
Lose weight?
Eat right?
Get in shape?
Make more money?
Build your business?
Invest more?
Take a trip?
Write a book?
I have some slightly disconcerting news…you have less than 12 weeks of productive time left in the month. In North America, things start to slow way down after the US Thankgiving in mid November and grind to a halt in mid-December as the Feast of Saturn, Winter Equinox Celebration, and Christmas all coincide.
It's time for some drastic action my friend. You may only have enough time to really get 1, possibly 2 projects completed. I highly discourage you from starting anything new if you have uncompleted things on your plate. Focus on wrapping things up and clearing your mental desk over the next month or two. It will give you a tremendous feeling of satisfaction heading into the holidays. It will empower you to start 2008 fresh, with no lingering anchors from 2007 dragging you down.
What will you abandon completely?
What will you set aside until next year?
Where can you get help?
What can you delegate to others?
What's important?
What's urgent?
What's the best use of my time?
How has your year gone so far? What left on your plate for 2007? Leave me a comment below or join the discussion in the new Make Money Online Forum!
While you're thinking about your project schedule for 2007 and 2008, enjoy some thinking music….
"The quickest way to get killed is to ignore the past. Only shitheads ignore the past!" - Yoshi Kundagawa, Samurai
Stop. Look around for a second.
Does it feel like life is moving faster than ever before?
Well, it's not. The speed of life is an illusion.
Need proof?
Study this video clip from the past. Observe. Life moved pretty damn fast in 1983. It might have been the cocaine. Regardless, our ability as human animals to handle change and to grow and evolve is without equal. Don't believe the people freaking out that they "have no time". Time is the constant in the equation of life. Our perceptions and our game plan to cope and process time is what needs constant improvement.
I saw a bright yellow and orange leaf fall off a tree today. I cringed in horror.
No! Say it isn't so! What happened to summer? It can't be autumn already. Where is my year going?
It is with great shock and awe that I report to you that September is past half over. A mere 90 days remain until the productive part of the year is over. Just 12 short weeks and then 2007 as a creative time block ceases to exist. Men, women, children and politicians will shift into holiday mode and all work vanishes.
How could this have happened? Wasn't it just May a few seconds ago?
Here are 5 tips on how to boost your productivity over these last 90 days.
1. Establish A Plan
What are the 2 or 3 absolutely "urgent and important" tasks to complete no matter what before the end of the year? Write them on a piece of paper and tape it to the wall near your phone or computer monitor. If you don't know what you need to do, I can predict with relative certainty that no one else does either.
2. Establish A Routine
It's only going to get busier as the weeks roll by. Soon there will be all that holiday-related distractions to deal with. Learn to say "No!" to things that don't help you complete your "urgent and important" projects. Map out your days and weeks ahead of time. What about exercise? Book it. What about a 'date night'? Book it. Family time? Book it. What about your businesses? Book it. If you think you'll miss TV then set your personal digital video recorder ahead of time. Ugly Betty, Lost, House and Boston Legal look the same on a Saturday afternoon as they do in prime time.
3. Eat To Win
For 90 days, just try to eat like a top producer. Cut down on the pork rinds and Old Milwaukee. Step away from the Slimjims and just say no to eating at Denny's. Fuel up on vegetables, and not the deep fried kind. Increase the water intake, up the vitamins, and snack smart. You'll be amazed how you get things done when you don't have to pop the zits on your back or have a nap on the couch twice a day.
4. Make Shorter Lists.
Most of us crush our brains with massive To-Do Lists that set us up for daily failure. Cut it back! Just do 'mission-critical' work for a few days and see how great you feel. For example, when making Top 5 lists, cut it back to 4 and see how much faster you get your work done!
5. See #4
See! Now let's get out there and make the next 12 weeks count for something!
My private mentoring clients are often asking me to document my day as a working example to model. As my concept of "Lifestyle Architecture" has evolved over the years, I have given up working just for works sake. Yes, it was a little difficult learning to fill my day instead of sitting at a desk or computer and pretending to be busy. You are literally forced to challenge yourself to be an explorer of the world around you.
8 am. Woke up with the sun, no alarm clock. Shower, shave, breakfast while watching Daily Show on Tivo. Took coffee to my home office.
9 am - 10 am: Writing. Blog posts, 7 mentoring emails, post projects on Elance, assign tasks to outsourcers for week.
10 am -10:30 am - weekly staff meeting via Skype
10:30 - noon: went to club for weekly golf lesson with Falia, we both hit bucket of balls at driving range too
noon - 1pm : lunch
1 - 1:30 pm : Power Nap in Magic Chair (I have to do a post on this in the future. I did some research a few years ago on how to compress 4 hours of sleep into 30 minutes using a massage chair, beta sound wave light and sound machine, and subliminal cd)
3 - 4:00 pm - strength & conditioning training with personal trainer
4 - 7pm: shower, dinner, relaxing with Falia
7 - 11 pm : went downtown, we saw the Russell Peters show at the Air Canada Center - OMG, laughed so hard my sternoclidomastoid muscles ached in my neck! He's a stellar Indian-Canadian comedian, his homecoming last night was packed, over 20,000 people…amazing.
That was my day. If you want some help designing your life, may I suggest my 1on1 mentoring program?
If you haven't seen Russell Peters before, here's a taste — enjoy!
I had a fascinating email exchange with a good friend of mine on the weekend. I've known him since before he was old enough to shave, and I sold him his first website in 1997 for six grand. I've watched him become one of the top internet marketers on the planet in the past decade.
He asked me, "Dave, how did you rekindle the fire in your gut?"
It really got me thinking. Here's an excerpt of the email I sent him.
================================================== Hey Big Man! Wow, great question!
I took a year off, moved, and restructured my life according to what I wanted instead of what others expected. You could read The 4 Hour Work Week by Tim Ferriss for inspiration.
My wife and I started ballroom dancing, martial arts, golfing and having more fun. As I started to do cool new things and have adventures, I wanted to work far less. By working far less, the work I did do was fun, challenging, and on a clock. It's amazing what you can achieve if you only allow yourself 90 minutes a day in the office.
The challenge I was having was it was too easy to sit in front of a computer 6-8 hours a day and pretend I was being productive. Now I get up, eat breakfast, grab a cup of coffee and am in my home office at 9 am. I am OUT by 11 am everyday. I might sneak back in at 4 pm to do 15 minutes of email. And that's it. It forces me to be hyper-productive and outsource more than ever.
The tough part was filling the remaining hours in the day. That's where the fun part came in. It's like being a kid today, "What can I do to entertain myself?"
We're going to start traveling a whole lot more, instead of 2-3 week trips, starting this winter we'll be doing 1-2 month trips. That's where this concept of "lifestyle architecture" is so important.
Once the house was paid for, the cars were paid for, there was enough in the bank to not worry, and enough coming in residually to not worry, then the game completely changed. I didn't want a Ferrari or a bigger mansion anymore. I wanted total freedom and more fun in my life. Coming to that realization was absolutely, incredibly liberating.
I appreciate you!
David Ledoux
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Have you ever struggled with inner motivation? Leave me your comments below.
At last count readers from 32 countries visited this site in the past week. I just wanted to tip my hat to all my global friends and share a wonderful concept with them.
This weekend is the Victoria Day Long Weekend in Canada!
Isn't it great! On Monday millions of Canadians will be at the cottage drinking beer thanks to our dear friend Vicky!
Oh yes, the marketing lesson. How can you run a special offer or promotion this weekend to your prospects, drawing their attention to the special day for the former British monarch? She was appointed after all to a superior station in life. Can you dream up a "Queen For A Day!" contest, bundle some big fat bonuses together (no pun intended), load extra value onto the normal offers, and really jazz things up this weekend?
Holidays are excellent reasons to do something a little out of the ordinary, aren't they? Leave me your best Victoria Day promotion idea below by clicking on the comments field. Share it with the world (or at least 32 countries)!
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1) Do you try to make money on the internet? YES or NO
2) Does internet marketing frustrate you? YES or NO
3) Have you ever bought an online marketing course or tool that was a waste of money? YES or NO
If you answered YES to 2 or more questions, then I think I may have something for you!
It will teach you how to make money online.
It will eliminate a lot of your internet marketing frustration.
It won't cost you a penny.
Originally I had created an automated coaching system to teach some of my virtual assistants in India how to promote my various websites online. I did a few slight modifications and PRESTO! I have a free, fully automated internet marketing coaching program for you.
About a year ago, I met with a friend of mine at a local coffee shop to catch up. He had brought along an ambitious young couple, Denis and Angie, in their early twenties that he wanted me to meet. They were married a few years, and had a 1 year old and 2 year old kids. Denis worked 50 hours a week and Angie took care of the children.
We sat making small talk, visiting and getting to know each other and the subject of being self-employed came up. I'm a pretty direct guy, and I looked at Denis and asked him point blank one of my famous million-dollar questions.
"What do you want more of in your life, time or money?"
They both answered, unhesitatingly, forcefully, simultaneously in a split second.
Angie said, "Time!"
Denis said, "Money!"
It was profound. We all stared at each other for a moment or two then began to laugh.
Let me ask you the same question.
"What do you want more of in your life, time or money?"
Share your thoughts below about the pressing need in your life and leave a comment.
I'll do my best to share some strategies with you for more time and more money. It is possible when you know how!
