If you buy a great info product, (or any product for that matter) half the learning comes from the product, and the other half from observation.

Look at how it’s delivered, the sales piece that triggered you to buy, the lead up, how customers objected, and how those objections were resolved.

If you watch the best marketers working their craft, you’ll learn as much from how they sell as what they sell. And exercising your observational skills is worthwhile in and of itself.

Simple observations of where things were going launched itunes, the kindle, amazon and the Grameen Bank. Observation is where you can separate how you think things are from how they really are.

And it’s people who see clearly to the heart of things who can change their world.

3 weeks is a long time to spend on something you find uninteresting and meaningless.

3 years is a short time to spend on a project that’s  rewarding, meaningful and fun.

And that’s the long and short of it. Time is always relative to your attention and interest. If you feel like you’re wasting it, then it’s time to make a change, fast. Because time is the one thing you can only ever spend. You can’t save it for another day, and once it’s gone it’s gone.

Trading time for money with no regard for your spirit as you do your work is one of the most dangerous wastes of time. Innovation and enthusiasm are like muscles that need to be exercised or else they decay.

So nurture your spirit, guard your autonomy fiercely, and spend your time wisely.  You are the only one who can do this most important task, and the one to whom it matters most.

Thinking like an entrepreneur is not very popular.

Usually, it gets trained out of people from the ages of  5-17. This means a lot of conditioning to undo once you decide you want to once again think like an entrepreneur.

Following instructions at school, studying for the same test as everyone else, multichoice answers, school hours between 9 and 3, all these teach us to conform. We’re primed to get on the payroll straight after school, and work for the next 40 years bewteen the hours of  9-5.

What a waste.

Exercises to train your entrepreneurial brain.

Think: how this be done better?

Observe: what times of day am I most productive?

Discover: what do I most enjoy doing, that benefits others?

Ask: for what you want. Directly, with no apologies.

Go: and meet with people who are entreprenuers

Listen: to their stories, carefully.

Do: something different, new, unusual (and don’t get anyone’s permission to do it!)

Start: a project that mattters to you, that you love doing, believe in and that will change the lives of others for the better.

Start today.

Hope is not a course of action.

Hope is good, it keeps you spirits high. You can be hopeful that things will turn out the way you want them to.

But better to make sure they will….through action.

‘Hit your customers with 2 messages every day, then drive the traffic to some audio content’

I’ve heard this kind of expression from quite a few marketing ‘gurus.’ It’s slyly entered into the vocabulary of many (talented) marketers.

Since when did ‘hitting’ and ‘driving’ your customers become a good idea?

I’d prefer ’surprise’ ‘delight’ ‘awe’ ‘entice’ or ‘amaze.’

It’s very important to mind what words you use to describe relationships. After all, your customers are the only reason you’re still in business.

I like this story a lot. It reminds me how important it is to stand guard over your mind and be careful which thoughts you entertain.

One evening an old Cherokee told his grandson about a battle that goes on inside people.

He said, “My son, the battle is between two wolves inside us all. “One is Evil – It is anger, envy, jealousy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.

“The other is Good – It is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith.” The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather: “Which wolf wins?”

The old Cherokee simply replied, “The one you feed.”

Otherwise known as Catch 22. (thanks Joseph Heller)

Do you A) quit what you’re doing to pay the bills and do what you love and suck at it for a long time till it takes off? (A bit like sewing up your parachute as you plummet earthwards)

Or do you B) Moonlight part time and struggle to set aside enough time and burn enough midnight oil until your thing takes off.

Or can you C) get enough success early on so you can do ‘that thing’ you dream of full time and get paid to learn how to make it work.

The secret is, it doesn’t really matter which path you take, as long you get there. Sometimes you’ll need a mix of all three. Just remember, when you’re faced with a Catch 22, always look for the 3rd path, the middle way, the option C.

You can break the rules to succeed. In fact, you probably should.

But breaking principles will come back to haunt you in the long run.

Example – Google broke a lot of ‘rules’ when they made their search engine. Unlike the other engines at the time they didn’t have hundreds of links on their homepage.

But they kept a very important principle – delivering quality unique content. And they still keep it.

So, break as many rules as you can. Try new things. Experiment. But think very carefully before you ignore a principle. Principles (like gravity) always win in the end.

Great Content

Inbound Links

That’s it in a nutshell. Of course, there’s a million and one other things the experts do to optimise their sites. But if you stick with those four words and don’t get distracted, you’ll do just fine.

This was The Quote from Spiderman (movie 1)

“with great power comes great responsibility”

Turns out Spiderman (and Peter Parker) took that pretty seriously, and I think you should too.

If you don’t feel like you have great power, here’s the secret sauce – the flip side is true too. The more responsibility you have, the more power you have.

Every day it’s tempting to shirk responsibility. To leave things up to your boss, (if you have one) the government, the big corporations, your neighbour’s cat, whatever.

I’m not saying you have to be responsible for Every Thing in your live. You can’t. But when it really counts, taking responsibility for something empowers you.

Not happy to leave your responsibility for your income up to your boss? Start your own business on the side. Not happy to give responsibility for your education up to mass media? Crack a book, read some blogs by intelligent people, educate yourself. Not ok with leaving responsibility for your power supply up to a big corporation? Stick some solar panels on your roof and install a wind turbine.

Just remember – with great responsibility comes great power.

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