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Where Did You Hang Your Thinking Cap

This will probably show my age but I remember back in the day when somebody said “put on your thinking cap” they really meant “use your mind or your brain”. Think and be creative was the general consensus.

Thinking about what you’re doing before you do it can be tough for some of us because we can’t remember where we last hung our thinking cap. In other words, it’s difficult sometimes to get the creative juices flowing.

I struggle with this problem more than I care to talk about. The thing you have to do when you’ve lost your thinking cap is find something to relax your mind enough to remember where it’s at.

For me it’s cooking. I like to cook. I mean the physical act of standing over the stove and making a meal for me or my family is something that I enjoy. It relaxes my mind and allows me to think. There have been numerous times when I have been cooking a meal and have thought of ideas for song versus, articles, ideas for the website and much more. I know it’s weird but it works for me. It helps the creative side of my mind to show itself.

When I cook I am able to remember where my thinking cap is and use it. There are other things that work for me also but none as well.

The human mind is a wonderful tool not to be underestimated. The problem for most of us is that it only works extremely well some of the time. It’s difficult to harness the power.

Try to find your thinking cap. Put it on and remember where you hang it when you’re finished so you can easily go back and wear it again the next time you need it.

Best Wishes!

Why Can’t I Just Blog For A Living?

Nobody says you can’t just blog for living. There are bloggers who make a fortune with their blogs. The thing to remember is those who are making the fortune have been established for quite some time and they really understand their customers as well as the ways of the Internet. Most of them have been established for 4 to 5 years minimum.

It’s just not as simple as getting a domain name, a blogging platform and writing a post everyday. You have to monetize your blog. You have to treat it like a business. You must work hard and stay focused. You need to be constantly working on ways to get new visitors. After some time your business will begin to show profit and steadily increase but don’t expect to get rich overnight. As with any other business it’s going to take a little love and a lot of dedication to make it successful.

Obviously, earning a living could mean different things to different people. Some folks may only need to make $1,500.00 a month where others may need to make $20,000.00 a month. It’s all relevant.

If your blog is relatively new you can expect things to be quite slow for the first year or maybe even a little more. I’m not saying a new blogger couldn’t possibly get a huge long term spike in traffic from a guest blog post or something of that nature because it’s entirely possible. This can certainly happen if you put a new spin on an old favorite subject and a well known high traffic blogger picks it up and decides to publish the article on his blog.

Whether it be your hard work, your creativity, your unwillingness to quit or a combination of all three, sooner or later your traffic will rise steadily. You could also pay for some of your traffic. Spend some money and get a few press releases and watch your traffic spike tremendously.

With a steady high flow of traffic you can do pretty well just by displaying Google AdSense ads and maybe some in content text ads like Kontera.

Just try to always keep the future in mind and know that the real money will be in marketing products whether it be your own product or somebody else’s. This is why it’s so important to have your own opt in form and email provider set up. Your list will ultimately be where your money is made.

If you plan on using your blog for a business you simply have to treat it as such. Sooner or later it could become your living!

Best Wishes

Daring You To Grow

Do you know the difference between successful and unsuccessful people?

Successful people aren’t scared to grow. They set goals in their lives and then they start on the road to obtain them. Once they have obtained those goals they set new ones and start the procedure all over again. They don’t worry if they fail along the way because they knew from the beginning there could be some challenges to get the end result. People like this are certain of their outcome and they remain sure.

Successful people have fears like any other human being except they dare themselves to grow on a daily basis. They encourage personal growth to everyone they come in contact with.

Unsuccessful people have goals too. The only difference is that they’re scared to grow. They allow the fear of failure and rejection to hold them back. Unsuccessful people make excuses to themselves and others as to why they haven’t achieved their goals.

An unsuccessful person will typically start on the path to personal growth and positive goals but become easily distracted by hurdles and challenges. They lose their sense of focus and become lazy and eventually give up.

Personal growth is a necessary component of success. Anybody can succeed at any life goal with determination, focus and a little elbow grease. Try to anticipate your obstacles and challenges in advance. If a few more pop up unexpectedly don’t give up. Get stronger and overcome them.

Grow!

Best Wishes

Inject a Bit of You Into Your Online Business

Things not going well? Business a little slower than you would like it to be? It could be that you just need to inject a little bit of you into your online business.

I know this is tough to do. I used to be kind of a private person myself. For many people it can be very difficult to put yourself out there and be subjected to scrutiny. Maybe we would do well to remember that our morals and ethics belong to us.  So let’s stand on them.

Consider letting your audience know the real you. Sure you may occasionally come across a few that disagree with you but that’s ok too. Every man or woman has the right to their own opinion. At least the majority will respect you for clearly stating who you are and what you’re all about.

I don’t believe the Internet is much different than the real world in that people still want to get to know other people they are associating themselves with. Most tend to do business and associate with others who share the same moral and ethical background.

Does your audience know who you are?

Best Wishes

Let Us Chat a Little About Google PageRank

by: Dan Waggoner

I’m sure lots of you have read a ton of information about Google PageRank. Of course then again I could be wrong. There could be a sizable portion of you who don’t even know what the term PageRank means. I can see that as being a possibility. I had never even heard the term until about 2 years ago.

If you’d like you can visit Wilkepedia at this link but before you click prepare yourself to get dizzy! I can simplify the term for you a bit and say that PageRank is a formula that Google (The world’s Largest Search Engine) uses to determine the authority or importance of a particular web page.

The bottom line about PageRank is that it’s important for your online business. I’ve tried to talk much about different ways to build backlinks on your own. When people trust your site to deliver good information they will link to it. People must link to your site. You have to give them a reason to. It will take time and you will get higher PageRank as you earn it. If you can produce exceptional content all the time your links will build quicker because more sites and more people will start linking to yours. It’s super tough for me because my site’s involved in multiple niches.

If you’re just one human being trying to show your support to your family as well as your business it’s going to take you a while. If you’re in more than one niche or a highly competitive niche it’s going to take quite a while. The only other option is to hire a company to do it for you.

The good thing about it is that you don’t have to stop doing business while you’re working to achieve higher PageRank. As a matter of fact I would strongly recommend against that. Run your business with everything you’ve got. Know that higher PageRank will help you out and strive to get it!

Best Wishes

Set Your Goals and Shut Up!

It is my personal belief that if you want to truly become successful in life you must learn to set your goals and shut up. If you share your goals with the world you are only opening them up for criticism. People will begin to tell you it’s not possible. You can’t do it. You’re crazy! After you hear enough of this kind of talk you may begin to believe it yourself. This will eventually cause you to give up.

Many are never taught the importance of goal setting. It could be that the act of setting goals simply wasn’t important in their family structure.

I personally came from humble beginnings. The only goal worthy of talking about was to get a job and keep it. It was more important for my father to have a regular job which enabled him to keep food on the table and a roof over our heads. That was the goal!

It wasn’t until I began my professional career in the automotive industry that I really learned the value of goal setting. Luckily, I had a great mentor who taught me the importance of setting a goal, keeping it to myself, achieving it and then moving on to bigger and better new goals.

You can accomplish darn near anything if you really want it bad enough. If you’ve already figured out what makes you happy in life, there’s not much more to do than set some reasonable goals and go after it. Write them down and possibly even frame them if it helps and then keep them to yourself unless the person you are telling shares the same goals with you.

Keep failure in it’s place. Know that failure is a part of the process. You may fail quite a few times before you actually succeed at your goals. If you never fail at anything how will you ever learn? A fear of failure will only serve as an excuse.

It has been said that Thomas Edison had over 10,000 failed experiments before he ever turned on his first light bulb. Sam Walton, the founder of Walmart, had quite a few stores fail before he finally introduced his mega discount store chain to the rest of the world.

Think of all the great actors and musicians that we see and hear on the radio and television. How many of them do you believe aced their first auditions? Not too many I bet. The difference is that they got back up on the horse and tried again. They knew what their goals were and nothing was going to stop them.

Set your goals. Keep them to yourself and then make it happen!

Best Wishes

Boost The Awareness of Your Business

by: Dan Waggoner

Looking for a way to boost the awareness of your business? Consider getting yourself a free Press Release. Make your business or your brand known to the world for free. The big timers do it all the time. Why shouldn’t you? It doesn’t matter what type of business you’re in. Musicians, actors, ecommerce, brick and mortar store fronts, websites or any other kind of businesses can and should do a press release just to help boost the awareness of what they do.

1888PressRelease will do exactly that for you. You can also pay them a fee if you want to get additional exposure. The company has been around for quite some time and has different plans available based on your PR needs. They want to earn your business one press release at a time. Just visit their website at the link above and sign up for free. When you get there, check out their user-friendly submission process which takes only minutes to perform. You can attach files, images and logos to your press release making it easier for their journalists and others who need the information to prepare your release for publication. In fact, the company is so intense about the quality of the releases that they keep a dedicated group of editors on hand who do nothing but review and approve each press release to ensure it meets formatting, grammatical and content standards.

If you’re truly searching for a way to put what you do into overdrive then you may want to check these guys out. You can boost the awareness of your own business in minutes.

Best Wishes!

New Free Twitter Tool For Your WordPress Blog

by: Dan Waggoner

I recently found a new free Twitter tool for your WordPress blogs. Some of you may already know about it but others may not so I wanted to post it here for everybody to check out. It’s called Tweet My Blog. Essentially it post a tweet whenever you update your blog with a new post and that tweet will link back to your blog driving a ton of interested readers your way. What’s more it will highlight your latest tweets on your blog’s sidebar and increase your Twitter following.

If you aren’t already using Twitter you should consider it. It’s a remarkable outlet for you to get more people interested in your website or blog.  Tons of people also use it to send short “tweet” messages to their friends, family and acquaintances.

Best Wishes!