Self-Improvement
I hope everyone has had a very happy Christmas and New Year.
The start of any new year is always a time for looking forward, and perhaps making plans for the coming 12 months. Most of you will be returning to work after the holiday, to the traffic jams, the crowded buses or trains, and the daily grind. You might even find that the bus or train fares have risen, eating further into your salary.
The past two years have seen severe economic turmoil and 2012 promises to be just as turbulent. Many more people are waking up to the realities about the global money system, and much of what is unfolding now has been foreseen by many of the experts that I am currently studying under. At a conference I attended in Las Vegas, my eyes were opened by what I heard from some very eminent speakers, some of whom came from an investment banking background.
If you are working for a monthly paycheck and finding it is having to stretch further and further, if you are burdened by debt, taxes, if you are finding that planning for your retirement is getting tougher and tougher, or if you have been looking at a franchise business and found that the start-up costs are prohibitive, the business of financial education could be for you. One thing is clear, a storm is brewing and when it comes there will be two groups of people: those who are financially educated and those who are not.
The company I am with (Wealth Masters) offers several levels of financial education; from a multimedia course encompassing audio, video and the Internet, to conferences held in locations worldwide.
I would like to invite you to watch the video presentation which I have linked here and if you have any questions, please contact me.
For further details please see the site linked at the bottom of this post and I look forward to seeing you on the inside!
We've all been to networking meetings I'm sure, where the person you are talking to is eager to get straight into whatever it is he or she is pitching. They talk at length about the product and what it can do, without ever thinking first what it is the person that they are talking to actually does.
If you've ever been to a corporate presentation, or perhaps if you are working and your company has outsourced the department off to a contractor, you will have seen all the slides about the new company's history and their achievements. Whether you are being sold something, or are being sold off yourself, the chances are you did not care two hoots about the company's history!
In both scenarios the selling is pushed on you, and you are naturally put straight onto the defensive. Who is this man/woman, what do they want from me and why are they pitching their product so hard? When people come to networking meetings, or even network online, it is because they are looking for something, most likely a solution to their problem. They don't care about the history of the vendor, they only care whether or not you can help them in the way they are looking for.
In short, they are looking for a leader. Someone who can show them how they can achieve their goals, not someone who wants to sell them yet another product. They want to be pointed in the right direction, not simply parted from their cash. The best marketers understand that before people will buy from them, they have to sell themselves as a leader, as an expert, first.
When you are able to show yourself as a leader, then people will come to you instead of you chasing after them. This is the basic principle behind Attraction Marketing.
In attraction marketing, you first of all need to have your own presence on the World Wide Web. This usually means a blog, and you can either use a free online platform like Blogger or Posterous, or you could self-host using Wordpress. The latter involves a little more setting up, but you have greater flexibility. Your home page should be branded to announce yourself to the world, that means a picture of yourself and a short tagline. Say who you are, and what you are about (an 'About Me' page is usually the way to achieve this). Alternatively, if you are on Facebook, why not link to your profile or page? (Your profile would need to be professionally-oriented, which is a subject for another blog).
Make sure your site is clean, well-laid out and easy to read. Templates are readily available for Wordpress which fulfil all these requirements, or you can choose a similarly-clean template for Blogger or Posterous from their selection. If you are feeling adventurous, you could design one yourself or have it made for you professionally. Remember – keep it simple!
Avoid pushing your product onto people – this can't be stressed enough! Attraction marketing works by providing value, leadership, to your visitors and this can be anything from regular tips given from your blog, perhaps a downloadable PDF file with some helpful information on it, or a short video clip with useful content. The essential thing is content – provide good, helpful content and you will be seen as a leader who provides value.
Anyone who comes across your site is likely to be a new internet marketer themselves. They're almost certainly confused, and are looking for someone who can help them understand the way the industry works. You should become that someone! Even if you yourself are a newbie, if you have something of value to share, then share it! All people want is a way to make their life easier, a way to work smarter and perhaps to save some money. Rather than pitch your latest whizzo product at them, you will get their attention more easily by offering them something of value.
In short, you are selling yourself first, not your product. Once you are established as a leader, it won't matter what you are selling – provided you are continuing to offer value people will naturally be interested in what you have to offer. Attraction marketing is a skill-set that not too many understand, but those who do, are the ones who are the highest earners.
Now that you understand the principle of attraction marketing, you can learn more about how to take advantage of this strategy with a free webinar. Yes, I said 'Free' (remember – offer value!) 
If you would like to know more about Attraction Marketing from some of the industry's top producers please follow the link by clicking the image below.
I've recently become aware of a powerful new platform called TribePRO, which uses social networks to gain rapid exposure for your website, through something they call 'The Tribe'.
What do they mean by the Tribe? Essentially, it is a grouping of like-minded internet entrepreneurs, which helps you to spread around your website, blog posts, videos, or other content to their social networks which are already built. The upshot is that your brand becomes expanded, you generate more of a 'buzz' online and therefore increase traffic to your website.
The whole point is to leverage the use of social networking (which we all know is essential to market online these days) and save you time. Instead of trying to syndicate your content yourself, let the Tribe do the work! In the words of the people from TribePRO themselves, Socialise, Share, and Succeed!
There are three pricing platforms which offer more features the higher you go, but you can sign up as a free member right now and see for yourself what TribePRO can offer you.
See how you can share your message across social networks with minimal effort! Just follow the linked image and join the Tribe:
One of the most frequently asked questions of internet marketers: 'Is It A Pyramid Scheme?' Pyramid schemes are of course illegal, but the question still gets asked. However, for those working a 9 to 5 job, they may be surprised to find that they themselves are in a 'pyramid' and that they are likely to be at the bottom!
I've prepared a downloadable presentation regarding this question – it's quite short, so you won't have to sit through a ton of slides!
Are You Always Being Asked 'Is It A Pyramid Scheme?'
The downloadable version has a macro and includes a short video – you can see the slides themselves (with a link to the same page within the last slide) here however:
News reports are suggesting that the Bank of England is set to print more money in an attempt to boost the weak British economy. The process, known as quantitative easing, means that the central bank (in this case the Bank of England) buys up bonds from other banks in order to help finance those banks and improve their lending. Where does the Bank of England actually get this money from? They create it out of thin air!
Yes, they actually print money and put that into the banking system, and anyone with even a basic grasp of finances knows that the more money that is out there, the less it is worth.
In Douglas Adams's 'Hitch Hiker's Guide To The Galaxy', a prehistoric Earth is colonised by settlers from another planet; those deemed the least useful to their home planet's society. Once on Earth, they hold meetings and one policy decision is to adopt the leaf as their currency. Of course this policy is shown to be flawed somewhat, when one settler points out that the ready availability of leaves means it would now take "three major deciduous forests to purchase one ship's peanut".
We're told that this policy is essential in order to stave off economic collapse, but at what cost? Will we all need a forest to buy a peanut? At this rate, quite possibly.
The following cartoon which I found on youtube explains quantitative easing (from a US viewpoint; it mentions the Fed, but the basic principle applies regardless of the nation) and illustrates what a flawed idea it is (some strong language!)
When you consider that this money, created out of thin air remember, is loaned out and interest is charged on it, you see what a swindle the whole thing is. More about the Conspiracy Against Your Money is explained on the DVD which you can get from my site; click the link to find out more.
I've been involved with a company that specialises in financial education for some time now and they've been saying exactly what this trader has said, only they did not say so on BBC television.
Consequently the remarks made by trader Alessio Rastani have come as a shock to those who are unaware of exactly what's going on in the financial world; even the BBC interviewer told Rastani that 'jaws were dropping' as he spoke. Essentially he warned of the imminent financial collapse, he actually said he was looking forward to it as he knew how to earn from it. He also told the watching audience that they can also use it to their advantage – provided they know WHAT action to take.
If you're wondering about the action you can take – you can find out more by watching The Conspiracy Against Your Money. The one thing you should NOT do, is not act.
Here's Alessio Rastani's BBC interview; it has taken a while for the mainstream media to wake up but now that they have, the time to take action is now.
Alternatively fill in the details on the right (at ronniesoo.com) and I'll see you in the inside!
I’m not a particularly religious person, but in my opinion this excerpt from a sermon given by the American pastor Dr. Jamal Bryant is worth listening to. In it, he urges people to break free from the conditioning that they should ‘have a job’ in order to be fulfilled. He challenges us all to change our mindset, to use our own talents to liberate ourselves from what he calls the ‘aircraft hangar’ of the regular day job. I am reproducing the transcript of his speech in full here, with acknowledgements to Larry Beacham for transcribing it, and to Seb Brantigan for sharing it with me so that I may do the same with you. There is a link to a video of Dr Bryant’s speech below the transcript. (Ronnie)
“I Don’t Need A Job” – Jamal Bryant
Every day, billions of people around the world go to a job that they can’t stand. And because they are going to a job that they cannot stand, they are wasting their gifts, their talents, their abilities, their bodies, their time, their brains, their skills, and their anointing.
It is an aeronautical fact that if you build a plane and put it in a hangar, but you do not fly it and just let it rest in the hangar, after several years of sitting in the hangar, idle, the motor will be of no good.
Consequently, conversely, if you build a plane and let that plane fly with frequency around the nation, around the world, that motor would in fact need service and maintenance but it will be in better condition than the one that stood still.
Ladies and gentlemen – I want you to understand that the reason why the plane flying is in better shape than the one that is standing still is because the one that is flying is operating out of its purpose. But the one that is sitting still is starting to erode because it is not functioning in the purpose in which it was designed.
Many of you within the sound of my voice are falling apart, and the reason why it is that you’re falling apart is because your job is a hangar. It is not allowing your ability, your skill set, your gift, your talent to fly. It is just keeping you in a cornered office and you have in fact placated yourself into convincing because of a paycheck you’re happy, when your mind is not working.
Ladies and gentlemen, we spend a third of our lifespan on a job. One-third of our lifespan is spent on a job. On average, you will spend this year, 2080 hours on a job. Most of us will have a 40-year career span. If you have a 40-year career span, mathematically that then equates to you spending 83,200 hours on a job you don’t like.
That is, ladies and gentlemen, when you look at your day, you spend 10 hours a day at your job; 8 hours a day on average sleeping, and you only have 6 hours a day free. So you spend more time in your day doing something you don’t like than you do in your day doing something that will in fact help discipline and cultivate you.
You have to make up in your mind, ladies and gentlemen, that you spend too much of your time doing a job that you don’t like. God did not put you on this planet to be miserable; he put you on this planet to prosper, to have dominion and to have authority.
As a consequence, you’re going to have to change your thinking as you approach your job, so that your job is very clear, that you don’t need the job – the job needs you.
We are in fact designed in the mind of God to live abundantly, not sufficiently, and most of our jobs are just making it sufficient for our existence.
So if you are in a job that is giving you an adequate pay, it is out of the will of God. You ought to be operating at a level where you are producing something that affords you a lifestyle to be in abundance.
Let’s see if these statistics will allow me to get a little close to my argument.
- 87% of you do not like your job
- 50% of you do not feel satisfied or fulfilled
- 25% of you say that your job is the #1 stress factor in your life
- 41% of you are living from paycheck to paycheck
- 70% of you are not motivated by what it is that you do
- 50% of you are woefully underpaid
- 67% of you are in the wrong field
- 72% of you are in a place where you are being undermined so you will not succeed
You were not born to be in a permanent job situation. If I stood up in front of you and held up a coke bottle, the coke bottle would represent your life. But if I then brought clay and told you to cover the coke bottle, you would in fact cover that coke bottle as best as you could, but no matter how many coats of clay you put on the coke bottle, the clay would now take the shape of the bottle.
The problem is this: the coke bottle is your job, and you have shaped your life around your job. So as a consequence your job dictates when you take vacation. Your job tells you what time of day that you eat. Your job suggests to you how many hours you need to put in order to be motivated. Your job then tells you how much time is put in before you can retire.
There is no scriptural reference from Genesis to Revelation that tells anybody, “get a job.” Nowhere in the entire bible is there an edict that suggests from Heaven, “go get a job.” God does not tell us to get a job, he tells us, “go to work.”
Now it’s interesting that everything that is created understands that… Cars work; chairs work; your watch works; planes work; money works; computers work; TV’s work; dryers work; lamps work; but you want to get a job!
I’m going to suggest to you… jobs are designed to take you off of your purpose and away from your assignment. Jobs have in fact been constructed so you would lose sight of what it is that you were born and created to do.
God gives you work to do…
So there are some people in this room; you are frustrated because your job has taken the wind, that energy, and the strength away from you, and you’ve been thinking, “God I’ve been created to do something different from this,” and God is saying, “I’ve been waiting on you to wake up and shake it off and remember that there is a greater call on your life. I never said to you “punch in”; I never said to you “sign in”; I never said to you that you’ve got to be answerable to somebody else. I said work the works of Him that sent me, but you’re too tired from your job to do your ministry!”
Work is the activity that exerts strength in order to perform a function. I am not telling you to quit your job. What I am saying to you is your job is not your life. I’m getting ready to save somebody from a life of stress, a life of misery, a life of heartache, and a life of pain.
So tomorrow when you go to work you have a different attitude.
When you struggle to make a difference, you will not have to struggle to make a dollar.
I have recently been exposed to a real eye-opening presentation which shows how the majority of us are being lied to – by a large proportion of the financial services industry itself – about money.
It is a strong claim to make, that you are being lied to about money. According to former investment banker Andrew Cass, a man who spent the best part of the decade in the industry, there are two sets of laws where money is concerned: one set for those who are financially educated, and another set for those who are financially UNeducated. He reveals further that the majority of the financial services industry has been actively exploiting those who are in the latter group (that is most of us) and is currently doing so on an even bigger scale than ever.
Andrew Cass has put together a page where you can access a FREE Video presentation, which will provide a deeper look into this conspiracy, one which is being kept very quiet, but will ultimately affect each and every one of us.
Even if you consider yourself to be in a reasonable position today, and you are perhaps thinking this has nothing to do with you, you should watch this presentation. It affects everyone who earns a living today. There is a lot of change happening right now, under the noses of the majority who are looking the other way; perhaps distracted by the latest Reality TV series or are so wrapped up in their own busy working lives that they do not see the bigger picture.
In this presentation, you will be shown how to become part of the educated group and be in a better position to make the most of what Cass describes as the greatest transfer of wealth ever. The scenario is similar to that shown in the movie ‘The Matrix’: make your choice whether to take the red or blue pill; choose whether to look the other way or see what lies beneath the veneer.
Watch the video, see the presentation, and decide for yourself. Click here to go to the web page or alternatively click here to open my Facebook page where you can also access this presentation.
See you there!
Ever wondered why some people could not even achieve an inch of what they dream of becoming? It’s easy to explain: they failed to set their goals clearly and just dreamed of achievement.
Setting goals is a very significant part of success and positive accomplishments. You can liken it to scaling a building or a mountain, and at the outset setting the goal to reach a certain point by a certain time.
People who set goals literally create a map of their target achievements in life, marking where they should begin, where to pause, where to delve a bit, and where and when to stop. Once this map is created, it allows the map drawer to check where he is in the scheme of things and whether or not he is making some achievements that will take him closer to his goals.
If you set a goal, you always know how you’re getting along and whether or not you’re doing all you can to reach your goal. They will know if they can relax or if they have to double their efforts when they are falling short of what is expected of them.
A proactive person sets goals in order to deal with the inevitable challenges which may disrupt his or her plan. Being proactive means one is able to outline possible difficulties that may occur as well as the solutions to these difficulties. By doing this, a person is not easily scared or defeated when challenges occur because he has already prepared for them. By making contingency plans, you are ready with a strategy should a problem arise.
The person who has set a goal from the outset can track their progress, whatever it is they set out to do. In addition, that person becomes more confident, more motivated in order to reach that goal.
For all that, it is insufficient merely to set a goal; you should couple it with self-discipline and a positive attitude. You can devise the best plan in the world, but you will not get far unless you possess the required discipline in order to act on that plan.
To be successful in goal setting, the goals that one has set for himself should be realistic and based on his capabilities, as well as selected and important external factors. Being too ambitious in setting up goals can make the goals unrealistic and difficult to achieve. However, do not also set goals that are too low because this might discourage one’s vision instead of achieving it.
The other requirement for the person setting the goal, is that he or she include a timescale to achieve that goal. By doing so, it enables the person to see whether he or she should ease off, or go harder in pursuing the strategy. Goal setting will also help a person check if he is performing within his plans or if he is doing things towards the achievement of his plans.
When you do achieve part of your goal, even if only a small part, allow yourself a small reward to keep yourself focused. But do not be too complacent with any little achievement, as this may cause you to backslide.
Setting goals can be used in any aspect of one’s life – from one’s personal or family life, to his career and finances. Goal setting can be as simple as setting a target weight when you wish to lose pounds or something big, like earning your first million.
When setting goals, it is always important to set standards that would suit your present situation, your capabilities, and other factors that may influence the achievement of your goal.
There are many ways, and many methods, in which people communicate with one another. And one of these reasons is when you need something from someone. For people in business, this can either be in the form of products or services. You may want to sell a product while the other party must find your product useful for his or her intention. You might be offering a product or service, whereas somebody looking for that needs to be happy that the product or service meets his or her requirements. In short, the way to get somebody or anybody to do what you want is to make them want to do it.
The best way to bring trouble upon yourself is by using violent means or intimidation to get your way. Yes, it’s possible but not advisable to use forceful methods because the results are undesirable and at times disastrous. Imagine if you force an employee to take a leave of absence for having apparently violated a company rule. The most likely result is that the relationship of trust between the employee (and possibly his or her trade union if they belong to one) and the management will be strained or completely broken.
To get what you want, give people what they want. What is it that others want? Probably similar to you. Physical health, family ties, financial security, spiritual growth, peace of mind, a successful career, and fame are the basic needs of people. What everyone really craves, which is not tangible yet is vital, is appreciation. If you’re appreciated, you feel much more important, you feel valued. Once you feel that you are valued and needed, it boosts your self-confidence, and gives you reason for your existence.
Just how do you give somebody the feeling of importance? Say it, act it; just give it freely, honestly, and wholeheartedly. It may be literal to say you appreciate what the other person has done for you, but it will nonetheless make him or her feel more valued. As the recipient it is sometimes tricky to put into words that feeling of being valued; however it is still a genuine feeling beyond price.
Try pre-empting importance; indicate to another person that whatever it is you want from him or her will provide them with that sense of importance. Let’s take charity for example. A recipient wants or needs contributions from the giver. It can either be material or service contribution, or both. Even before the act itself, the giver somehow expects appreciation from the recipient and this will give him a boost of importance.Appreciation may not necessarily be in words. A smile and/or a pat would suffice and they can come from both giver and recipient. The giver shows his feeling of being appreciated. The recipient shows his feeling of appreciation for the gift. Somehow magic or chemistry takes place. It’s a feeling both parties would enjoy happening many times over.
Are you aware that the feeling of importance, brought about by compliments and appreciation, is good for your health, mentally and physically? Whether you are the giver or recipient, it is good for both. Medical findings exist which substantiate the health benefits that come from such positive appreciation. The brain cells are stimulated by regular and frequent feelings of importance and this all promotes the feeling of good health. In short, feeling important is important to your quality of life.
What better way is there to boost the feelings of others than by demonstrating your appreciation for their work? In fact the only thing that’s better than appreciation is… More appreciation!
Our course is therefore clear: we should be going out and showing how much we appreciate the efforts of all those in our circle of friends, in our work environment, in fact to whoever we are in contact with. Let’s do it!
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+Ronnie Soo
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Former IT technician turned internet marketer and blogger, with an interest in the ever-changing world of search engine optimisation and the use of Social Media for business.
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Former IT technician turned internet marketer and blogger, with an interest in the ever-changing world of search engine optimisation and the use of Social Media for business.
Copyright © 2011 Ronnie Soo. All Rights Reserved.
