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Discover your passion and find life itself…

By David Perdew Leave a Comment

discover your passionNAMS student Mark Mason at Mason’s World asked a really good question about how to discover your passion.

In response to a blog post I did yesterday about turning your passion into a business, he asked :

“One of the questions that I hear all the time is ‘how do I discover my passion’ – and you seem to agree that discovery is key. You say ‘Look closely and you’ll find yours too.’ — can you elaborate? Is there a process that you recommend to people?”

That’s an interesting and complicated question Mark. You probably know the basic answer as well, which is:

There’s no recipe that tells you how to discover your passion.

But lucky for you, I’ve got an opinion 🙂 I know you’re surprised.

The reason it’s so vague is that a person’s passion can change on a dime, so the discovery of your passion is an ongoing thing. And that’s fine. We gain more life experience every day and our priorities should change as we become smarter.

But the absolutely essential element is mindful doing. Without sounding too much like a Zen practitioner (nothing wrong with that by the way…), being aware of likes, dislikes, and, more importantly, things I LOVE to do and be – these are the essential elements of sifting through your feelings to identify passion.

Having said that, one of the most difficult things you can do is figure out how to discover your passion.

Imagine you are come home from a particularly troubling day at the office, sitting down to dinner with your mind racing and reliving the activities of the day, cleaning your plate, and walking away wondering what it was you just consumed?

Has that ever happened to you? I’ve sure experienced that.

That’s not very mindful. Too often, I get up from my desk in the basement to trek upstairs only to find myself standing in the living room wondering why I came upstairs. (I don’t write this off completely to getter older as some people would have me believe.)

Around my house, my wife and I remind each other of our two favorite time zones:

Now, and NOT Now!

Now is always comfortable, secure, enjoyable and fulfilling. Not now is…well. Let me explain it this way.

There’s a myth about the maps created before the discovery of the New World that always displayed a big vast unknown area with the legend:

Here Be Dragons!

NOT Now is where the dragons, demons, fears, anger and anxiety live. Whenever I’m anxious (and sometimes I boil over into a full-blown panic), it’s because I’m projecting into the unknown future where I don’t see things going the way I planned, or looking back at the past and wishing I could have done something differently.

When I come back to the moment at look at what’s going on around me, all is well.

It takes a lot of work to be aware of all activities at the moment we’re doing them. Pay attention to what you’re doing and feeling. That’s the key. Otherwise, you can’t possibly know what you love doing if you don’t allow yourself to feel it. Before you can discover your passion, you must allow yourself to feel what you love.

When coaching students, the first thing we do together is to fill in the blanks on a mindmap template about creating a vision for the student. I push them to think way outside the box. The premise is that money, time, nor resources are not an issue – you have all you need. If you could be doing anything you want, what would it be? What does it look like?

The first assignment is to write it down in a one-page document. It has to be infused with painterly imagery so you can see, feel, taste, and smell it in your mind. Post it where you can’t miss it, review it daily, and revise it as things change. This is the first step that helps you discover your passion.

And frankly, this is the hardest thing to do.

Some people freeze up. They just can’t do it. They can’t think beyond the little world they live in. They can’t allow themselves to feel what it would be like to fulfill their dreams. But once we identify the dream, the longing that is inside, it’s smooth sailing from there. Because the rest is just tactics, and doing what other people have done to be successful.

And when you know why you want to do what you want to do, then the doing is a joy that you can’t wait to do.

(You might want to read that sentence again!)

Your activities almost become an obsession because you’re heading toward something wonderful – and you’re passionate about it.

But the it takes a lot of self-investigation to discover your passion. People who don’t do this thoroughly are really disappointed with the results.

Stephen Covey says it best, I think. Here are four quotes from his works.

Quote 1 – Priorities:

Take a long, hard look at what you consider to be the most important things in life. Put these in a hierarchy, make them priorities in order of this hierarchy, and make sure all other concerns are subordinate to these priorities.

Quote 2 – Clocks vs. Compass:

Our struggle to put first things first can be characterized by the contrast between two powerful tools that direct us: the clock and the compass.

The clock represents our commitments, appointments, schedules, goals, activities – what we do with, and how we manage our time.

The compass represents our vision, values, principles, mission, conscience, direction – what we feel is important and how we lead our lives.  In an effort to close the gap between the clock and the compass in our lives, many of us turn to the field of “time management.

Quote 3 – Success:

Management is efficiency in climbing the ladder of success; leadership determines whether the ladder is leaning against the right wall.

Quote 4 – Why:

He who has a why can deal with any what or how.

Numbness, in any form impedes your ability to discover your passion.

With so many distractions such as the internet, video games, movies delivered via download at any time of night, forums, chat rooms, Skype lists, TV, political screaming matches in the media – all of it can become a distraction to the point of numbness.

Active alcoholics and addicts talk about courting one feeling, and it’s the only one that matters to them at the time:

Getting numb to all other feelings.

So many things in society today, like those mentioned above, are addictive because they deliver that numbness. Our minds can take something really good and turn it on us if we let it. How many parents (and I was one) are so busy running kids around that they can’t take 15 minutes for themselves to write in the morning, or take an art class?

That’s avoidance of the most dangerous kind, because it has the stamp of martyrdom on it. “See what I’m sacrificing for my family!”

Like I said in my book about my own relationship with my kids, “too much help is no help at all…” And too much doing prevents you, in fact, the entire family from learning how to discover your passion.

My passions are so real and so clear, that I must constantly find help to check the things off my list to more done that gets me closer. I don’t have time for anything else now. That’s where outsourcing comes in.

I pity the fool who chases money thinking that will fulfill them. Money is important, but I doubt that you’re passionate about money. And if you are, look more closely.

Listen to me:

The only way to combat the numbness of wrong-headed activity is to focus on, identify, court and prioritize your passion. It’s all about paying attention to your inner guidance system. Mark Hendricks, one of my favorite people, once described it like this in his success course, and I’m paraphrasing.

When I stopped trying to steer and just paddled the canoe, it actually goes where it’s supposed to. Any other way is struggling against the flow and pointing me toward the rocks.

Stop steering. Paddle. Your life’s purpose should be focusing on how to discover your passion, and paddling in the direction it takes you.

Category: Business Operations, Motivation

Breaking news! Google is getting Slapped!

By David Perdew 10 Comments

And this ain’t just going to be a love tap either, Google!

Watch as Google takes an uppercut to the chin.

From Bloomberg News Site today:

“U.S. Federal Trade Commission has begun a review of its business practices, kicking off what’s likely to be a broad antitrust investigation.

The company received a subpoena on June 23 “relating to a review by the FTC of Google’s business practices, including search and advertising,” according to a regulatory filing today. Google said it is cooperating with the probe.”

Is it wrong that I was doing the happy dance in my office when I read this?Google

Monopolies, benevolent dictators, religious fanatics, right- or left-wing zealots, bankers in collusion with mortgage companies that crippled our economy…I’m not a fan of any of them.

But Google? Why Google? Aren’t they the tech darlings with the only good ideas left? Or at least don’t they want us all to think so? The only other company with that much hubris these days is Facebook.

And they’ll get their’s as well as they get cockier.

I’m not a fan of anyone who will shut you down without notice and a vague non-explanation: You violated our terms of service.

Okay, how? Let’s fix it. Tell me what to do.

Heeeelllloooooo! Anybody in there?

Talking to Google is like putting a message in a bottle and pushing it out to sea in hopes that someone who can do something about your situation picks it off the beach on the other side of the world.

I absolutely believe in the every business’s right to do business with whom they want unless it violates our basic equal protection laws.

But, there’s basic decency laws too. (More like laws of nature.) And pompous, all powerful companies who become moral arbiters are way out of line.

Google, Facebook, PayPal, others: Listen UP!

My dad used to call it getting to big for your britches. Monopolies, by definition, are the only game in town. Yes, there’s Yahoo and Bing and 1000s of smaller search engine and advertising providers.

And they’re hungry. Read that as more customer friendly. But they’re also inconsequential – relatively. Google is the big dog. If you want to maximize your profit, you have to play with Google.

Until they take their ball and go home.

Yesterday, I saw an open letter from my friend Jeff Herring to Google because they shut down his Youtube.com account. They did that to Kevin Riley as well last year. Both are outstanding business educators and trainers.

In Jeff’s case, he lost about 125 videos over night, and tons of traffic from those to his sites. Google lost tons of traffic to Youtube and their advertisers. Jeff had 550 subscribers; that’s a really respectable number of subscribers who want his videos and want to be notified when he delivers another. Maybe it ain’t Britney Spears, but with that audience, it still seems to indicate a real following.

Gone.

No explanation.

Okay, I’m getting a little guilty pleasure out of this rant because Google banned my Adsense account 5 years ago. And I still don’t know why. The form letter was just that, and there’s no way to talk to anyone who can help you. I did notice that it was two days after I received my first check.

Part of me feels like I’m driving through my ex-wife’s neighborhood. I really hope and pray I don’t run into her, but I sure wonder what she’s doing sometimes. After all, I loved her once.

And I still love Google. They are incredibly innovative. They make tools like Google Analytics, Adwords and the External Keyword Tool. And they keep getting better and better.

They’re incredibly smart. I know a lot of people who are incredibly smart – many of them come to the NAMS workshop as students and instructors. No one, no matter how smart, is authorized to run my life. To me, that is abhorrent in the extreme.

So, what’s next for Google? At this point, it’s pretty predictable and costly.

The answer is lots of lawyers.

This paragraph from the Mashable.com article predicts the future pretty well based on the Microsoft experience many years ago.

“It’s inevitable that people will compare this investigation to the famous Microsoft antitrust investigation of the late 1990s. That case, United States vs. Microsoft, ended with a settlement that stopped Microsoft from using Windows to push its other products and lock out its competitors. Microsoft’s growth came to a halt after the case, and the company has never fully recovered.”

The Wall Street Journal also reported that the FTC fought the Justice Department for the right to handle this case. Yikes! This can’t be a good sign: Two mega government watchdogs with teeth wanting to take the first bite out of the fresh meat…

Google, it’s now time to eat a little humble pie. Take it like the mega giant you are Google.

Category: Business Operations, General

Utility Poster Eliminates Blogger’s Block

By David Perdew Leave a Comment

Did you know that Utility Poster stops writer’s block – or I guess, more appropriately, blogger’s block dead in it’s tracks?

Do you occasionally stare at that blank screen wondering what to feed the content monster today? It just sits there staring at you demanding to be fed, but you have nothing profound to say.

What if you could just provide a very fast roundup of keyword-targeted news that helped you delivered lots of content to your readers in a very short time?

And what if that news roundup helped you rank for hundreds of keywords and get you a ton of trackbacks?

Jack Humphrey, one of the foremost experts in blogging and blog marketing for high search rankings, has released a new app he uses to rank for over 6400 keywords in Google!

(That’s not a typo!  He ranks for more keywords than that, but he gets targeted traffic from just over 6400 keywords a month!)utility-poster-eliminates-bloggers-block

Utility Poster
The simple Utility Poster software interface – all in one screen

The reason he created the application was to give you a way to keep your blog active with high-quality, search friendly content and to get you trackback links.

Thank God he did because it’s one of my favorite tools for creating weekly round ups on some of my blogs. And it’s so simple, even I can do it in about 5 minutes. I know. I’ve been using it for a few months to check it out.

Those links help you get higher rankings for your blog posts by simply using a nearly-automated tool to create posts.

Its called “Utility Poster” and it is simply incredible software.

If you visit there now, fine, but be sure to read all of this to learn how to get an additional $20 discount.

  • It works on PC and MAC – or anything else you can throw at it because it’s an Adobe AIR application
  • It combines Utility Poster and his other two very popular programs: Video Utility Poster and Trackboost

So, here’s the key

You choose the topic by inputting your favorite keyword, choose the type of content by choosing the search category, and click Search. Voila – you’ve got a ton of possibilities for your news roundup.

Post relevant, keyword-rich, high-quality content in the form of snippets  from other blogs, videos from YouTube, Twitter tweets, and Flickr images – all based on whatever keyword you  search with.

You choose from the best conversations going on around the web in your target market and efficiently hand-pick what you include in your posts.

The results:

  1. You own an active, engaging, relevant, and search friendly blog as if you were writing 100% original content.
  2. You build links back to your site through trackbacks.
  3. You build content readers WANT to experience rather than bland, spammy SEO articles that only satisfy the search engines but build no loyal following among readers.

Big tip on how to use Utility Poster for joint venture listbuilding

One of the favorite list building leverage techniques covered in our affiliate training here is to create “Top Lists” of category items such as “Top 20 SEO Techniques“.

But how do you find those techniques? And how do you find people to participate in the promotion?

Do a blog search using Utility Poster, put together the piece by dragging the 20 blog post snippets with links into your new post window (just as Jack shows in the demo video), contact the 20 bloggers and encourage them to promote the roundup article naming THEM as a top 20 technique.

Who wouldn’t want to promote your blog post if they were recognized as an expert in the post? And you’ve just put this together in about 10 minutes…choosing only the most targeted and effective posts to reference.

Other bloggers will willingly and happily link to you as if you wrote the whole thing from scratch.

And you can do in minutes what would normally take you hours to do for such quality posts!

The best way to experience the power of Utility Poster 3.0 is to watch Jack’s complete walk-through video here.

Utility Poster is going to take your blog to new heights in the search engines while cutting your blogging time to a fraction of what you spend now.

Never be afraid of the blank screen again. Now, you can post great content whether it’s video or blog posts or pictures with Utility Poster.

A secondary benefit of using this tool is one that Jack never addresses: Research!

This little tool allows you to quickly research a topic to gather some of the best info on the web already. You can use that information (and some images from Flickr) to create your own original material.

Don’t overlook this – because nothing triggers original writing like reading through and rewriting other people’s material and adding your own twist.

Utility Poster dominates in this department.

So, what’s wrong with Utility Poster:

If Jack Humphrey was sitting in front of me and ask me what I didn’t like about the program, I’d mention two things:

  1. The sort order of the blog posts can be a little random sometimes, especially in the date field. While I want my posts to be the latest, I’d like to be able to choose whether they should be in chronological order or relevance order as it already is with the Youtube search options.
  2. I’d like to see a Google search or even a Google News search option in addition to the Google Blog Search.

But that’s it.

Now, to purchase this cool tool, Jack has it priced it to sell at $67 on the sales page, but here’s a tip:

Leave the page, and you’ll get a second chance to buy it at just $47.

It will be one of the best $47 you’ll ever spend. (Don’t tell him I told you about this tip. I paid full-freight for Utility Poster!)

Category: Business Operations, Tools I love

Facebook's Open Graph Protocol – How to Facebook For Business With Powerful Leverage

By David Perdew Leave a Comment

As a blogger, the question is how to Facebook for business and pleasure effectively

Here’s a stat that will blow your mind…

According to AllFacebook.com, 1 of every 8 minutes users spend online is on Facebook.

Want another staggering stat from From Tech Journal South?how to facebook for business

More than 25% of all page views on the web are now on Facebook. (Facebook) accounted for 24.27 percent of all U.S. pageviews, while runner-up YouTube.com had 6.93 percent.

Wow!

That is domination. Wouldn’t it be great to tap into that traffic with your blog automatically?

Welcome to Facebook’s Open Graph protocol technology – the ultimate vehicle in changing how to Facebook for business and personal use.

I’d never hear of the protocol until today. And now, I’m really excited about harnessing the power of Facebook from my own blog.

So, what is Open Graph?

Well, it gets very technical. And frankly, I just passed over the techie part. I don’t really care. What I do care about are the benefits. But before we get into that, let’s review what the “Like” button does and why it’s cropping up all over the web on different sites. (You’ll notice I’ve added it to this blog as well as the member forums and member blogs.)

This concise description comes from Facebook’s own Core Concepts / Social Plugins / Like Button page:

“The Like button lets a user share your content with friends on Facebook. When the user clicks the Like button on your site, a story appears in the user’s friends’ News Feed with a link back to your website.”

Okay – that’s pretty cool. Clicking a like button puts that content right into Facebook’s content flow. We knew that…

But…

“When your Web page represents a real-world entity, things like movies, sports teams, celebrities, and restaurants, use the Open Graph protocol to specify information about the entity. If you include Open Graph tags on your Web page, your page becomes equivalent to a Facebook page. This means when a user clicks a Like button on your page, a connection is made between your page and the user. Your page will appear in the “Likes and Interests” section of the user’s profile, and you have the ability to publish updates to the user. Your page will show up in same places that Facebook pages show up around the site (e.g. search), and you can target ads to people who like your content.”

Did you catch that?

“…you have the ability to publish updates to the user…and you can target ads to people who like your content.”

If you use Open Graph and turbo-charge your “Like” button on your posts, you can connect automatically with anyone who “Likes” your content – whether it’s the page or the post – as if they were liking your Facebook Fan Page because  Facebook now treats your pages with the Open Graph Protocol installed as if they were Facebook objects.

The downside is that, like everything else Facebook does, it’s pretty tech heavy and not all that user friendly. Until now, understanding the Open Graph protocol was a little daunting.

No more mystery determining how to Facebook for business – let your readers do it for you…

A new friend of mine on the Warrior Forum (Peter Maxwell)  created a plugin that makes the whole process simple and automatic. There’s no question now how to Facebook for business more effectively – or for more exposure if you’re promoting your personal writing.

This is exponential leverage, and it finally solves the puzzle of how to Facebook for business easily

And not a lot of people know about this yet. Peter just released his plugin yesterday.

He’s combined the Open Graph protocol with the “Like” button and a Facebook comments on WordPress in one plugin.

I installed it in a few minutes, tested it, and just can’t live without it now.

The hardest part is setting up a Facebook app to connect directly to your blog, but Peter’s installation guide walks you through that.

So, how much is this magical little baby. It may be the best deal on the web right now. A single license for all your personal blogs – just $17.

And if you’re building blogs for clients, get a developers license for $47.

I’m not kidding. Peter says this may be the most important plugin he’s created and I agree. This changes the way I do everything on my blog.

Be sure to check out this plugin today before the price goes up and discover how to Facebook for business or pleasure and get more access from your readers.

Category: Social Marketing, Tools I love, Traffic Generation

Are you ready to have your own radio show with Blog Talk Radio?

By David Perdew 1 Comment

Mastering Blog Talk Radio is so much easier than I thought it would be

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZb7n2590BQ

Joe Marsh and Cindi Dawson revealed their Blog Talk Radio secrets in a special webinar.

In a another life long, long ago, I ran from a radio station recording booth where I had been trying to tape a commercial for the newspaper I owned then.

When I heard my voice on the playback, I freaked out.

The thought of hearing myself hawking my papers on car or home radios was too much for me at the time. My self-confidence was so low, that I afraid of embarrassing myself in front of thousands of listeners in my hometown, many of them that I knew personally.

So I decided never to try radio again.

That was 30 years ago. Since then, I have been a talk show guest on major metro television programs as a local expert on some aspects of the news business. In the past year and a half I’ve hosted nearly 100 webinars. And I regularly speak in front of large crowds. But until today, I still was nervous about using radio. And the idea of my own radio show still freaked me out a bit.

blog talk radio

Like many others, I had established a Blog Talk Radio station a couple of years ago and had actually produced a few programs, but BTR was too complicated and too inefficient for my taste. (And it still felt too much like radio.)

When Blog Talk Radio changed their business model to a paid model with a nearly-invisible free option, I wasn’t willing to spend the money if I didn’t know how to use the program effectively.

Boy, was I wrong about Blog Talk Radio!

Joe and Cindi spent an hour demonstrating how BTR – the free version – can be an important part of your marketing arsenal generating great traffic to you products and services.

Blog Talk Radio, they said, can be used for content creation to create articles, reports and even blog content material. They also emphasized how BTR can help you get more exposure for your current or new businesses by taking advantage of one of the key benefits: Getting ranked in the search engines quickly.

Of course, free organic search engine traffic puts more dollars in your pocket as well as your clients if you service clients.

But isn’t producing a live radio show a pain? Not if you do it the way Joe and Cindi show you.

In fact, it doesn’t have to be live at all. You can upload pre-recorded shows to take advantage of BTR’s exposure. Of course, you can host your shows live too to interact with your audience.

Speaking of free, Joe and Cindi smashed my concern about having to spend money at Blog Talk Radio to get the most benefits from the service.

You don’t need a paid blog talk radio account to get started.

With BTR you can create radio programs, series, audios magazines, e-books, reports, articles, CDs and DVDs, as well as physical books and Kindle books.

Be sure to watch the replay of the BTR webinar. It’s great stuff.

But be sure to sign up for their four-part webinar series before June 6 to discover how to really master Blog Talk Radio. Joe and Cindy will reveal in depth how to use blog talk radio most effectively to drive massive traffic to your business and while creating massive products on the fly.

Because you’re a friend of mine, I was able to secure this special deal on the 4-part Mastering Blog Talk Webinar series for you.

The low price is guaranteed until June 6, then all bets are off. The price will go up substantially..

Check out Mastering Blog Talk Radio now.

Category: Tools I love, Traffic Generation

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