Wednesday November 21st, 2007: Issue #861
I should have known! Kickstart readers rock!
So many people have written to me with suggestions and/or support about my diabetes that I don’t know where to start - except to say a huge thank you.
Medical experts and fellow sufferers alike have suggested a whole heap of great websites, books and strategies and I’m diligently trying to check them all out.
One thing that is patently clear is that diabetes is a very personal disease. What works in one person’s body doesn’t necessarily work in someone else’s. In fact, foods that keep blood sugars low in one person can send them sky high in another. As with Internet marketing, the only way to know what works for you for sure is to test and track.
And just like Internet marketing, testing and tracking is boring to start with, but it can pay huge dividends later on.
So that’s what I’m doing now - testing my blood glucose levels before each meal and again an hour or so later to see what makes me spike and what doesn’t.
I’ve never tested my blood sugar very often because my doctor told me that home testing was largely a complete waste of time. Thankfully he has now retired, so perhaps I can get some more modern advice!
I don’t think I’m going to be able to write back to everyone who emailed me on this - there are well over 100 emails - but please know that I deeply appreciate everyone who offered suggestions and support and that I’ve read every single one.
It has taken me a long time to mentally accept that I have diabetes. I’ve known that I HAVE it for years, but as I’ve always been symptom free, it has been all too easy to push it to the back of my mind.
I guess I’ve been in a kind of denial.
But something changed in my mind recently - I really don’t know what or why. Something told me that I really must start taking this seriously.
And having made that decision I feel really good about accepting the challenge.
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Oh how I wish for a government that is honorable enough to take responsibility for its actions.
The latest scandal (in a seemingly endless line of scandals and incompetencies) here in the UK is that a government department created two CDs containing the names and addresses of almost every child under 16 in the UK along with their parents bank account details and social security numbers - and then lost them in the mail.
The security implications are staggering - as is the thought that the people who are supposed to protect us have such scant regard for the data they are entrusted with.
Yes, my family will be on that list, so I’m pretty hacked off about it (pissed, for my American friends).
Instead of seeing this as a complete dereliction of duty and an abject failure of care to the people of Britain, the government seem to prefer to see it as a bit of a PR problem that can be dealt with by looking solemn and firing some junior officials.
No. No. No.
We live in an age (wherever we live) when nobody has any honor left at all. Government ministers hang on to their jobs despite presiding over the most ghastly errors in departments that they are supposed to run - and still, we are told, have the unreserved support of the Prime Minister.
It is the same in America and probably in Europe too. Politicians want the power but don’t accept any of the responsibility that should come with it.
I don’t think that they need to disembowel themselves (well, perhaps I can think of one or two who should), but some metaphorical sword falling would restore a lot of the trust in the political process that is eroding so quickly.
The person in the top job must take responsibility - otherwise there is no point in having someone in that job. Power without responsibility is just another form of anarchy.
I don’t normally comment on political issues, but this is such a huge mess up that it just has to be spoken about. Sadly, I don’t think that the opposition would handle themselves in the face of a disaster like this any better at all.
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If you are on the London Lunch list, please check your inbox for a message from me. I’m, thinking of putting on an extra lunch on December 7th, but need a show of hands to see who might be interested in coming before I negotiate tables in the restaurant.
If you are a potential London Luncher, please let me know yea or nay if you are interested (no commitment yet.)
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Sales of my Kickstart Your Niche Search files passed the halfway mark yesterday. 76 out of the maximum 150 sets are now gone.
If you haven’t got your set yet, the details are in last Friday’s Kickstart: http://kickstartarchive.com
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I’ve been very pleased to see that a lot of Kickstart readers have bought Chris Freville’s excellent ebook ‘Web 2.0 Traffic Stampede’.
Not just because Chris is a really nice guy, but also because his book is packed full of really useful information that every Internet marketer - of whatever level - needs to know.
Traffic is vital to successful Internet marketing and Chris explains how the new wave of what is loosely called Web 2.0 can bring that traffic running towards your sites.
Chris happens to be a very good writer too, so all this stuff that often comes across as mumbo jumbo, is presented in a crystal clear, easy to understand (and action) way.
Forget the Web 2.0 part for a moment and focus on the traffic. This book will help you get all you need.
http://www.urlnex.us/web2trafficstampede/
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An Inspirational Thought
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The news is almost always bad. Bad news gets viewers. Bad news sells newspapers. But bad news does something else too.
It turns us into habitual pessimists.
It makes us dissatisfied with our lives.
It creates an expectation that things are just crap and that they are likely to stay that way.
You have three choices:
1. Accept the bad news and allow ‘the press’ to manipulate how you think and respond to the world.
2. Ignore the news completely. You’ll feel a lot better, but pretty soon get out of touch with important events. (Maybe that’s not such a bad thing!)
3. Redress the balance a bit by actively looking for the good things that happen in the world.
That third choice is a great idea and this website - http://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/ - is a great place to start.
A fix of good news every day is a wonderful tonic and a perfect antidote for the constant negativity of ‘the press’.
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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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Harry Truman said,
“A pessimist is one who makes difficulties of his opportunities and an optimist is one who makes opportunities of his difficulties.”
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Today’s Power Thought
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Have you ever thought about your skills?
We all have a wide variety of skills, and out individual abilities in them are like a highly personal fingerprint.
Try this little exercise - it is very useful to put things into perspective.
Select an aspect of your life - work, home, hobbies, whatever you choose. Then make a list of all the skills that you can think of related to that particular aspect of your life.
It doesn’t matter how long the list is. Don’t just put down things you are personally good at - try to encompass as much about that field of endeavor as you can bring to mind.
Now, score yourself against each skill item. Give yourself points out of ten - and remember to be brutally honest. You are not going to share this information with anyone, so don’t deceive yourself.
When you’ve finished (this is good to do in Microsoft Excel) rank your list in order from best at the top to worst at the bottom.
Now you have a very personal skills map. It is unique to you.
How do you use it?
Easy! Look at the skill that you have ranked at the bottom. That is the one that you have to spend time and effort improving your score on. Not at some fuzzy future time, but right now. That is your urgency point.
How do you improve a skill?
Easy! Here are three ways that work.
1. Find a friend or colleague who is, in your opinion, good at the skill you need to improve and candidly tell them. Most people will be flattered and will willingly help you to grow.
2. Buy a book. Bookstores both online and offline are crammed with books that can help you in almost anything. Read, read and read some more. Actually, you may not even need to buy the book - just visit your local library.
3. Practice. We tend to avoid doing the things we think we are no good at, but that just reinforces the problem. Far better is to keep trying. You may not succeed very well at first, but the effort will always teach you something. I don’t know who said it, but it is good to remember that failure is only the first part of the equation that goes: failure + getting up = success.
All well and good. You can see how important it is to work on improving and to focus on improving where it is necessary. But what about the other end of your list - the things that you are good at?
Teach.
Look around you. There are bound to be people you know who have difficulty with just the things that you excel at. Offer to help them out.
You don’t want to come across as a big-head, but just let it be known that you are willing to share your knowledge.
Knowledge is not like money or time. You can’t spend it. It is infinitely abundant. You can freely give a way all that you own, and never make a dent in your own personal bank. In fact, the more you give away freely, the more is likely to come flowing back to you in all kinds of unexpected ways.
Take a look at your personal skills ladder today.
You may find some surprises.
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Fascinating Facts
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Rats breed so fast that a single pair, left to their own devices, can become the heads of a family numbering over 15,000 in less that a year.