Friday June 29th, 2007: Issue #817
A car bomb was found (thankfully) and defused in Central London this morning. The car was parked about 50 yards from where my daughter Hannah works, and about 20 yards from where Delia and I had lunch on Monday.
Naturally, we’ve been glued to the news all morning - even though there is nothing we can do about it and no real new information is forthcoming yet. These things have a morbid fascination, especially when you know the area and people affected.
It seems that the car, which was packed with over 60 litres (100 pints) of petrol, bottles of propane gas and bags of nails was only discovered by accident when an ambulance was called to a nightclub at about 4 in the morning and the crew thought the car looked suspicious and called the police.
Two very brave bomb disposal experts manually made the car safe and police have now removed it for forensic examinations.
There is much speculation going on as to who was responsible and why. I’m sure that more will be learned in the days to come, but all I know right now is that anyone who would do such a thing for any reason, in any part of the world, is deluded and evil.
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Someone asked a very interesting question on the Warriors Forum: what are the minimum requirement you need to be able to make a go of Internet marketing?
There have been lots of answers, including some pretty big lists of must-have software. Things like domain names, hosting accounts, autoresponders, website building software, graphics programs and so on and so on.
Of course all those things are handy, but you don’t actually need any of them to make your first dollars online. Blogger is free. Squidoo is free and Ebay costs next to nothing. You can get started with any of them today.
Beyond access to the Internet (a public library will often do for that) there are, in MY opinion, only two things that you absolutely need to start out online …
Enthusiasm and Endurance.
Enthusiasm is absolutely required because working online can, if you are not cut out for it, be incredibly boring and lonely. Some people need constant company around them to function. Those people will never be able to muster the necessary enthusiasm for an essentially solitary occupation.
Enthusiasm is needed because very few people manage to make a killing online quickly. Despite some of the wilder hyped up promises, Internet marketers tend to take their time in finding success. Without enthusiasm for the entire process of learning all you can, for testing and trying out new ideas, for constant self-education, for the detective work involved in finding out what works you will never be able to stomach the other E needed for success - endurance.
Endurance is the key to it all. Keeping on keeping on. Knowing that all the hard work you are going to put in, all the long hours, late nights, early mornings that seem to forever lead to yet another unsuccessful venture are worth it.
Endurance is the ability to see failure as another step towards success.
Of course, some people get lucky and find a winning system or strategy very early in their online career. It does happen. But I’d be less than honest if I were to pretend that you will be one of the rare lucky ones. The reality may seem overly pessimistic but it isn’t. Success is out there for you. You will find it if, and only if, you keep your enthusiasm and your endurance at peak levels.
As Winston Churchill once said to a graduating class of Harvard business students, his recipe for success in life was, “Never give up. Never give up. Never, never, never.”
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The next London Lunch is just one week away. At the moment there are about 20 of us who will be meeting up to wine, dine and chat the afternoon away on Friday 6th July. I’m really looking forward to it!
If you’d like to come, we can still accommodate up to 10 more so please drop me an email.
You’d be very welcome.
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A few people have started making affiliate sales of my new ebook ‘Total Time Control in 14 Days’. I’m giving them 70% commissions and an delighted to do so.
If you’d like to make around $23 for each sale of my book that you can generate, please tell all your friends about the best new book on Time Management around!
Once you’ve signed up for a free ClickBank account at https://www.clickbank.com/promote_products.html you’ll get a unique id code. Then all you do to start earning commissions is to send as many people as you can to this link: http://xxxxx.mravis.hop.clickbank.net (replacing the xxxxx with your ClickBank affiliate id) and any sales that are made will credit you with the commission. ClickBank send out the money every two weeks.
The 70% commission rate is only applicable for the 3 week launch period (after that it will drop to 60%) so please promote soon to maximize your earnings.
If you have any questions, I’m always happy to help.
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An Inspirational Thought
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I love bookshops. Old books, new books, any books.
One of the reasons I find them so fascinating is because they inspire me so much. And often without me having to spend a single penny.
I have a single little three-letter thought that I keep in mind when I go into a bookstore: ‘huh?’
It is shorthand for ‘who, what, where, why, what, how?’ and it is the thought I use when looking at book titles.
Look a the title of a book, any book, think ‘huh?’, and you can’t help but have your mind flooded with questions. And once in a while an answer creeps in as well.
And THAT is inspiration.
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Don’t keep it to yourself - send them to
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The Quote of the Day
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Audrey Hepburn said,
“Remember, if you need a helping hand, you’ll find one at the end of your arm. As you grow older you will discover that you have two hands. One for helping yourself, the other for helping others.”
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Today’s Power Thought
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When we set our goals, it is natural to aim for the summit. We look for the highest point that we can imagine.
That’s wonderful - all achievers have a clear vision of their ultimate target - but it is only a part of the goal-setting process.
A true goal, one that has any chance of being realized, comes in two parts:
1. The top of the stairs 2. The next step.
Imagine a person with arthritis looking up at a flight of stairs. The task is immense. The flight of stairs may as well be a mountain.
But the first step isn’t so bad. Grip the handrail and haul - not too difficult, not too painful.
The second step is just as easy as the first one - and so on all the way up.
Pretty soon, the top is reached, but it wasn’t a mountain climbed - it was twelve simple steps.
Every goal that you set should stretch you beyond where you are right now. It should be something that is beyond your current abilities to reach IN ONE STEP.
But right underneath where you’ve written down that huge objective, you must also write down the first step that you will take on that journey.
It is like pulling on a rope. To begin with you can’t clearly see what is tied on to the other end. You know it’s there, because the rope is heavy, but all you can see is a shadowy outline.
With each pull on the rope the outline becomes more and more distinct until it is right there in front of you. All you have to do then is reach out and grab it.
So don’t forget when you write down your goals - they come in pairs: the big leap and the little step. And in many ways, the little step is the more important.
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Fascinating Facts
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In George Washington’s days, there were no cameras. One’s image was either sculpted or painted.
Some paintings of George Washington showed him standing behind a desk with one arm behind his back while others showed both legs and both arms.
Prices charged by painters were not based on how many people were to be painted, but by how many limbs were to be painted. Arms and legs are “limbs,” therefore painting them would cost the buyer more.
Hence the expression, “Okay, but it’ll cost you an arm and a leg.”