I'm reading Dr DeMartini's Breakthrough Experience book and it's quite an eye-opener.  DeMartini says that when you accept the good AND the bad in your life as serving you, you enter a state of love.  He talks about being self-righteous and being self-wrongeous and how, when you bring them together, you act from something greater and open yourself up to performing miracles in your life.

What this means, in my life, is that when I'm perceiving the world to be against me, I'm simply being self-wrongeous and need to bring the two halves of my perception together to the point where I can recognise in what way the things I'm experiencing now are serving me and actually bringing me closer to my dreams and goals.

That's pretty profound and, if I use it in my daily life, has the potential to change things for good.  As DeMartini says, you need to know what you would love to have in your life (to the very last detail) and ALSO love what you already have in your life.  Acknowledge how it's helping you come closer to what you would love to have in the future.

A sort of self-acceptance of your current circumstances but not accepting that they'll always be the same but that they're serving you in achieving even greater things.

That's powerful stuff and helped me come out of a state of depression so maybe you should pick up his book and give it a read too if you've been in an imbalanced state of emotion.
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Tags: DeMartini

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Oh hai. In teh beginnin Ceiling Cat maded teh skiez An da Urfs, but he did not eated dem

Genesis 1 - LOLCat Bible Translation Project

They're 61% of the way through the whole Bible :D  I finally have a good reason to read it now *ducks*<!-- technorati tags begin -->

Tags: lolcats, lol cats, teh bible

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I love Perry Marshall and everything he teaches.  I always open his emails and read every last word.  He's just that kind of internet marketer.  Check out www.PerryMarshall.com.  And now, the formula...

The real process of success is actually straightforward and it looks like this:



1. Define your USP - your Unique Selling Proposition. Why should I buy this, from you, today, instead of anything and everything else on the Internet? What do you uniquely guarantee? I find that if you have a good USP, not only will a good bit of your statement fit in a Google ad, the ad will almost write itself.


It may be VERY helpful to do some keyword-based market research (i.e. Livingston method) - this makes defining your USP color-by-numbers.



2. Find a steady and reliable source of traffic, people who are looking for a solution to the problem you solve. This by no means has to be Google AdWords.  Still... 2 weeks ago I was in a meeting with Chris Cardell who is one of the best-known marketing consultants in the UK and he said, "Most of the online successes I have seen built their business on Google AdWords - not SEO, not social media, not YouTube videos, not blogging, not affiliate ventures. Google ads bring steady, reliable traffic day in and day out. It allows you to perfect your sales process, scientifically."


To which I would add, the ability to go into a competitive market and buy clicks and get interested customers to your site - who then spend money - that's what separates the men from the boys. If you can't do that, you're playing on the sidelines. If you can... No one can stop you.



3.  Build a sales funnel. Where the sales process matches the buying process.  If it's a quick, impulse buy then it's a quick, impulse sale. If it's a process of decisions and relationships, then it's got a lot of steps. Break it down.



4.  Test and track. Once the funnel is built, test the pieces of the funnel. Break it into pieces and make the pieces work. Split test landing pages and sales pages A/B, the same way you test Google ads.



5.  Define your product so as to accommodate a range of buying appetites. Have something not only for the curious guy who wants to stick his toe in the water, but also something for the serious

aficionado.



6.  Once your sales funnel is performing admirably, incorporate my "Expanding Universe Theory" -



  1. Google AdWords

  2. Search Engine Optimization

  3. Other PPC's like Yahoo and MSN etc etc.

  4. Email promotions

  5. Affiliates

  6. Press Releases

  7. Direct Mail

  8. Print Advertising



....as you go from one item on the list to the next and the next, your traffic expands exponentially. And so do your sales. You go from being merely a player to being a market dominator.


This process is linear. It's straightforward. It's color-by-numbers. It's predictable. If you've got a USP that your market loves, you go through the steps and you get the results.

Hope you enjoyed that :)  If you did, you might like these links too.

• Perry's 5 days to success with Google AdWords
• Why some succeed & others don't
• Testimonials from Perry's AdWords coaching program
  
  

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Tags: adwords, perry marshall

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It's only available for Windows (right now) but it looks absolutely AMAZING.  I've been reading through their presentation and they've literally taken the core bits and pieces that make your browser slow and re-written them. 

• Each tab has it's own process, so one crashing doesn't mean your browser crashing. 
• Javascript gets executed in it's own safe-box.
• It also gets compiled to machine-code and then executed, speeding concurrent runs of the same code a LOT.
• The interface has been slimmed down a LOT.  So now GMail will look like it's own app, if you want it to, instead of a browser window.
• Pop-ups are restricted to each tab's space.  But if you want to promote one to it's own window, you can.
• Open a new tab and you see all your most-visited web sites and most searched-on sites too.
• New versions get tested across millions of web sites (using their own datacentre) long before you get a hold of it.
  

Frankly, I'd get tired just writing about all of its great features.  We're basically watching the internet's next phase and Google started it (again?)

I'm sad that it's not ready for Linux yet but it will be soon and, in the meantime, you can test it out (if you're on Windows) and give us some feedback here!
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Tags: google, google chrome, google browser

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I was mucking about with some ideas this weekend when I decided to finally create the lottery number generator I've been thinking about doing for ages. Originally, my idea was to take all the numbers that have ever been drawn before, along with the number of times they've been drawn, and then use a bit of a random algorithm to pick 2 common numbers, 2 not-so-common numbers and 2 in-the-middle numbers.  And then test until I'm getting 2-3 numbers per draw.  Perhaps I'll still code that one but it'll take a bit more database work than I was prepared to do this weekend!

So today I sat down and coded a numerology-based lotto number generator (<- try it out here!).

How numerology works (when calculating your secondary number) is you take the numbers in your birth date (eg: 1983-10-19) and you add them all together (eg: 1+9+8+3+1+0+1+9) to simplify them into a smaller number (eg: 32) and you keep doing that (eg: 3+2) until you get a single-digit number between 1 and 9 (eg: 5).  THAT is then your number.  It's kind of like astrology in that you should, with numerology, be able to tell what kind of person you are, what your purpose in life is and a whole bunch more using some basic math to get your number and how it applies to certain areas of your life.

What interests me about numerology is that you can add your numbers in any way and still get the same number (1983+10+19 = 2012, and 2+0+1+2 = 5!).  That's not freaky, it's basic math but, for someone like me who failed math on standard grade, it kinda feels all X-Files like :D

So, anyway, numerology can also be used with letters from the alphabet but there's a bit of confusion (and disagreement) on which letters represent what numbers.  I've basically gone with what's been touted as "the most powerful set" according to the author of this numerology / lottery article.

With that in mind, my lotto number generator takes your first name, last name and birthdate and finds your 3 lucky numbers.  Then it expands those numbers into their lotto-suitable counterparts.  For example, if one of your lucky numbers is 3, then your lotto lucky numbers include 3, 12, 21, 30, 39 and 48.  Basically any numbers that, when simplified to single-digit, give you the number 3.

I take all of those numbers and then pick a random 6 for you to play for the next draw.  I hardly consider this rock-solid science or anything but it would be interesting to see if this "strategy" works for a few people.  If not, at least I had some fun coding this weekend :D

Enjoy and please leave comments!
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Tags: numerology, lottery number generator, lotto, lottery

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So you need some content for one of your sites, right?  Maybe you're using Blogger, or Squidoo or WordPress and you just need a handy RSS feed to plug in somewhere so your readers can have a little extra content to read, content that's already related to what you blog about.

Well I've Got the Solution to All Your Content Woes :)

FreeArticles.co.za now allows you to search through its index of over 70,000 articles and EXPORT the search results into an RSS feed.

Just replace the bold keywords in the following URL (spaces turn into plus (+) signs) to whatever you need and load it into your browser.  You'll get an RSS feed with all articles that matched your query.

http://www.freearticles.co.za/keywordfeed?filter0=photography+tips

Examples:

http://www.freearticles.co.za/keywordfeed?filter0=guitar+lessons
http://www.freearticles.co.za/keywordfeed?filter0=adsense+tips
http://www.freearticles.co.za/keywordfeed?filter0=internet+marketing

All of these will work and, best of all, they'll be a bit intelligent about the search and provide you RELATED articles as well.  So if you're into photography, it'll also show you a little bit about painting, in case you like that too :D

Then all you need to do is stick that URL into your blogging software and you're set!

Just remember to replace spaces with plus (+) signs.  So guitar tips becomes guitar+tips.

Enjoy!
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Tags: rss, rss feed, free articles, free content

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NB: Don't let the cute kitty fool you!  This is an advanced tutorial.  Don't bother reading it if you're not familiar with Linux / web development.

So, I'm a webdeveloper, right?  And I often find myself in a position where I've worked on an existing site and need to upload my changes to that site, right?  And, being a coder-type-person, I want to do it the easiest way possible right?

Well, I've got just the solution if you're like me.  First off, set up passwordless ssh into the remote server.

Next, use this command to automatically copy everything across...

find . -mtime -30 -exec scp -r '{}' user@example.com:www/ ';'

Let's break this up...

That's it!  Provided you have everything set up right with your passwordless ssh, this will be a pretty damn easy way to update any site you work on.  Of course, you can tweak the find command to your heart's content.  It's really one of the most powerful commands you have in your arsenal.  Use it wisely.

NB! NB!  Before screwing up a live server, test this out on some mickey-mouse account of yours that it's OK to mess up a little.  ANY time you automate something, you face the risk of screwing EVERYTHING up en-masse.  Been there, done that, didn't have too much fun!  Backups are a good thing.  Use them!
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Tags: linux, ssh, scp, automated file copying

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Ed Dale, in The 30 Day Challenge, has recommended that we use Flock for this year's challenge and WordPressDirect to host our actual blogs.  Both are great tools but the real beauty is how well these can be married to make blogging easier than ever before.

Having to log into your web site each time you want to blog something can be a real pain in the butt!  But, using Flock, you can avoid all that hassle and blog DIRECTLY from your browser!  Oftentimes, I will just select some text on a page, right-click it and then select "Blog This!".  When Flock's blog-editor window opens, it's already quoted the text I want to blog and it's already linked back to the main site for me!

Imagine how easy that could make adding content to your 30DC blogs?  You just need to add a few comments (2-5 paragraphs) under the quoted text and you're done!  Also, Flock's blog editor has much better image-editing capabilities than WordPressDirect.  Instead of doing weird things like typing in %IMAGE% where you want one to appear, you can simply upload your images to your Facebook/Flickr/Picasa account using Flock's built-in image-uploader and then link to them inside the blog-editor in the same way you might do in a Microsoft Word document.

WAY better than using WordPressDirect's upload form ;)  (PS:  I love WPD, I just don't like their blog editor!)

NB: Probably the best reason to blog with Flock is that you don't have to bother with HTML code, you can just select text, and choose to link it, bold it and so on.  It's much easier and faster than doing the HTML yourself which, of course, means you can make more blogs and make more money using the 30DC methods :)

So, without further ado, here's how you do it...

Step 1: Click

Step 2: Click

Step 3: Click

Step 4: Tell Flock Where Your Blog is Hosted

In this step, you want to select "I host my blog, or the service I use is not listed".  Then just type in your WordPressDirect.com address.  This might be your own domain or a subdomain provided by WordPressDirect.com themselves.  Example:



Then click

Now just wait a bit...

...while Flock figures out what kind of blog you have.  It does this automatically for all WordPress blogs.  For other blogs, you may have to do a bit more work but you won't have to worry about that if you're following Ed's lessons.

Step 5: Type in Your Login Details

In most cases, your username will be "admin" and your password will be the same one you used when you created your WordPressDirect.com account.  But, if you can't remember what that was, fear not!  Simply login to your WordPressDirect.com account and...

Click:


On the screen that comes up next, you'll see your login details.  Take them from there and just copy and paste those details into Flock!

Your username and password here:



Should end up here:


Click and you're done!

All in all, this should take you about ONE MINUTE!  If you don't know your WordPressDirect login details, it might take you TWO ;)

Once you've done this, you can simply click each time you want to blog something and start typing! No waiting for your blog to load, no logging in first, nothing :)

And, remember, you can select any text on any web page and then right-click and choose "Blog This" to blog it!  Sweet! :D

Enjoy!  Blogging with Flock is MUCH easier than any other blogging software I've ever used before!<!-- technorati tags begin -->

Tags: blogging, 30 day challenge, thirty day challenge, wordpressdirect.com, easy blogging

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We all have the same 24 hours in a day, yet some people achieve so much more than others. What are their secrets?

Marketing Bullets
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Tags: pareto, time management, creativity, productivity

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I practically worship Frank Kern.  One day I'll go to the US and buy him something real nice for all the great stuff I've learned from him!

He says he learned this from John Carlton -- a legend copywriter.  It's basically 3 steps to selling more of anything.  3 steps to making a lot more money than you're making now.

The 3 Steps Are:

1.  Here's what I got
2.  Here's what it'll do for you
3.  And here's what I want you to do next

If you do those 3 things WELL enough, you'll make money, provided "what you got" is quality, not crap.

Watch the video here.
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Tags: copywriting, frank kern, make more money

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