Wednesday Mar 21st, 2007: Issue #783
On Monday I included an inspirational piece called ‘Anyway’ in Kickstart that I attributed as ‘Author Unknown’. Not surprisingly, the author was not unknown to a lot of Kickstart readers. And I mean a lot!
Two different authors appeared to be generally acknowledged - a 19-year-old student called Kent M. Keith who wrote it in 1968 while at Harvard, and none other than Mother Teresa!
After a bit of research it seems that Kent Keith’s version is the original, but that the good Mother liked it enough to pin her own, more spiritual version, on her wall.
I’m very pleased to be able to acknowledge the author of this powerful writing and have amended the online version of Kickstart - at http://www.kickstartarchive.com/ - accordingly.
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After my recommendation of HostGator on Monday I had several emails asking me why I consider them to be so good.
I could answer that by listing the array of features that they offer, but you can just as easily read those on their details page.
Instead, I’ll simply point out a simple comparison between HostGator and the other reseller account hosting company that I use (ResellerEdge):
Cheapest plan:
ResellerEdge:
Price: $29.99 per month
Disk space - 2 Gigabytes
Bandwidth - 20 Gigabytes
HostGator:
Price - $24.95 per month
Disk space - 12 Gigabytes
Bandwidth - 125 Gigabytes
By my reckoning that makes HostGator 6 times better for $5 less. Need I say more?
http://www.urlnex.us/hostgator/
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Today is the first day of Spring and it is lovely and sunny outside my office window.
Yesterday was something else entirely! Winter was having a last hoorah! We had gale force winds, rain, hail, and sleet. At one point it was blizzard conditions outside. Which was why I was more than happy to stay inside and get on with my decorating!
The dining room is now done and the kitchen is due to be started as soon as I’ve finished writing Kickstart today. And my aches and pains are even starting to ease off.
I love this feeling of boundless energy - I know it won’t last, so I’m making the most of it!
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Over the last few days I’ve been checking out a new product that is about to be launched. It is called Simple Money Machines and its aim is to help anyone (primarily complete Internet marketing beginners and intermediates) to set up money-making affiliate websites virtually at the click of a button.
From what I’ve seen so far it looks to be pretty good - but as I haven’t yet sat down and built any sites with it I can’t honestly tell you that it is the absolute answer to all your needs. It may be, but I need to test it myself to be sure.
The reason I’m mentioning this now - even though Simple Money Machines isn’t even available to buy for another week - is that there is a short video that you can watch by the guy who wrote Affiliate Marketing X, and Day Job Killer that you may like to view.
Affiliate Marketing X was a good book that I recommended a few months ago. It introduced some interesting concepts and was very useful to a lot of people. Day Job Killer was a book that I didn’t like - and said so quite forcefully!
The other reason to mention Simple Money Machines now is that there is a prize draw for 5 people to win it for free. You may as well enter - it could easily be you who wins!
http://www.urlnex.us/simplemoneymachines/
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An Inspirational Thought
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Who you are, right at this very instant, is the sum total of every decision that you have ever made in your life.
Some decisions you made were great choices and some were terrible, but each and every one, no matter the result, has contributed to the YOU that exists right now.
Whatever you decide will indelibly change your life’s pattern. And even if you change your mind later, that decision will still have been made and its effects will never be erased.
Put that way it makes your next decision harder to make, don’t you think?
I don’t think so.
William James said, ‘There is no more miserable human being than one in whom nothing is habitual but indecision.’
The habit that should be encouraged is not the ‘wait and see’, ‘I’ll think about it’, or the ‘ask me later’ stock response, but the ‘Yes! I’ll do it now!’ action.
You see, even deciding to not decide is a decision that will be imprinted on you forever.
And isn’t it better, when you look back on the book of your life to read about the actions you decided to take rather than the lack of action that indecision foisted upon you?
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Who do you know who would love Kickstart Today?
Don’t keep it to yourself - send them to
http://www.kickstartdaily.com today!
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The Quote of the Day
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Vince Lombardi said,
“Winners never quit and quitters never win!”
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Today’s Power Thought
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Most people in the world understand the meaning of the letters BC. To Christians it specifically means ‘before Christ’ but to everyone it implies ancient times. Times and attitudes that are buried in the past.
You wouldn’t want to live your life or run your business in a ‘BC’ way. You know that your competitors would eat you alive.
But there is another, modern-day interpretation of those two letters that many people and companies embrace with a passion even though it is just as dAMAging to them in the long run.
BC stands for Blame Culture.
It is the sense that says that when something goes wrong, the main priority is to apportion blame for it. Actually sorting it out is secondary at best.
Governments are perfect examples of this. When bad things happen they love to commission reports, have inquiries, run so-called ‘independent’ investigations - all to get to the root of WHO messed up. And if the ‘report’ eventually makes sensible recommendations to stop it from happening again, they quietly ignore them and feed the ‘blame’ part to the baying hyenas in the media.
Of course, when our elected betters do this as naturally as breathing, the blame culture spreads like wildfire.
Almost every company I’ve ever worked for has been a blame culture to some extent or another. Good people were frequently held back, demoted or even fired because they became the scapegoat for problems.
Incidentally, the very word ’scapegoat’ comes down to us from ancient times when traditionally the Jewish High Priest would symbolically lay all the sins of the people onto a goat, which was then allowed to escape into the wilderness.
Mistakes, errors and even sins are inevitable. We all make them - either with the best intentions or because of a momentary lapse. And it is usually necessary to know who’s feet the fault lies at.
But acknowledgement of an error is not the same as blame culture.
When you acknowledge a problem you can then take the next step towards rectifying it. You can increase education, improve motivation, finds ways to augment concentration and generally look to the future.
When businesses and individuals (let alone governments) learn to do this their potential growth is unlimited and they quickly pull away from their blame-entrenched rivals.
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Fascinating Facts
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How words change their meaning!
The word sycophant, in modern parlance, means ‘a flattering parasite, an informer’. In less dictionary-esque speech, ‘one who suck up’.
But the root of the work literally means ‘fig indicator’ coming as it does from the Greek sukon, meaning fig, and phantes, meaning ‘one who shows’. A sycophant was a person who covertly uncovered dealers in stolen figs and reported them to the police.