Fly on the E-Commerce Cyberwall

The Key to Getting Finished
Here's a favorite quote from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe:

"What is not started today is never finished tomorrow."

This quote falls into the category of Captain Obvious. Yet as obvious as it is, it reminds us of something many of us too often overlook. If you want to finish something, you first have to start it.

Too often we prefer to daydream about how nice things will be once we're able to see some big project in our rear view mirror. We hesitate, though, to start it.

When we daydream about it, we envision it as having turned out absolutely perfect. The results that come from it are perfect. Our whole world is perfect because of it.

When we actually start, that dream of perfection gives way to reality. Things don't go exactly as planned. The results become not so much a final destination as another step along the journey toward the life we want. It can be more attractive to hang onto the dream of perfect results than it is to actually achieve the positive results that doing the project will bring.

So how can you break out of this rut and get a much-needed (and much-procrastinated) project done? Treat yourself like a little kid.

Have you ever had to guide a small child through picking up a floor full of toys? What's the best way to get results?

Saying, "Pick them all up, right now," will likely get you either refusal or tears. That child, looking at the mess, will feel overwhelmed. That child will likely feel much the same way that you feel as you look at a massive project.

What if you say to that child, "Let's pick up all the dolls/action figures," though? By isolating one piece of the bigger project, it seems more doable. The child will do it willingly.

Once those are put away, you can say, "Now let's pick up the blocks," or "Now let's pick up the..." one group at a time until the whole job is done and you can say, "Great job! I'm proud of you for making the room look so nice!"

You can do the same thing with yourself. Break down the larger task into individual parts. Commit yourself to doing just one part. Then, when you finish that, pick out one other part. Again, tell yourself that you need to do only that one part.

It's easier to commit to one small task at a time than to commit to the whole thing. It's easier, too, to move from one completed task to the next one when you have momentum working with you instead of against you.

What Goethe says may be obvious, but true. You can't finish something you haven't started.

Get started. If you need to play mind games with yourself to get started, play whatever ones you need to play. Whatever it takes, though, get started.
Jeff

Labels: inspirational quotes

The Only Way You Can Ever Be "Whipped"
Here's a favorite quote from Napoleon Hill:

"No man is ever whipped until he quits in his own mind."

What's the difference between a setback and a complete failure? With a setback, you pick yourself up and start moving forward again. With a complete failure, you stay right where you were knocked down.

When you pick yourself up, you haven't been stopped. When you try again, you haven't been whipped.

As Napoleon Hill points out, what stops us isn't the setback. It's how we respond to it.
Jeff

Labels: inspirational quotes

Are You Giving Up Too Soon?
Here's a favorite quote from H. Ross Perot:

"Most people give up just when they're about to achieve success. They quit on the one yard line. They give up at the last minute of the game one foot from a winning touchdown."

How true this is! We've grown up with instant this and instant that. We've come to expect instant success.

If we don't achieve business success on the first try, we give up. We complain about our "bad luck." We complain that the "system" is holding us back.

Or we assume that the fault lies with us. Something is lacking in us that "successful people" have.

In reality, most of our "failures" are simply a case of giving up too soon. We try something to promote our business and don't get instant results. So we abandon that and try something else.

Or we wait until our backs are against the wall and we need that success RIGHT NOW just to survive. We look for the easy switch to turn on success. Then when we find that there's no switch for us to turn on, we find ourselves with no resources left to keep us going what we get our business going.

The key is to choose a direction and then follow it through to success. Build momentum. Give it time to grow.

You don't plant an acorn in the ground and expect a 40 foot oak tree to be there the next morning. You watch it grow at its own rate.

The same thing goes with businesses. You don't cut them off because they're only shoot and haven't grown into a tree yet.

Hang in there! Keep moving forward. Learn from your mistakes when momentum slows. But DON'T GIVE UP!
Jeff

Labels: inspirational quotes

From Opposite Points of View
Here's a favorite quote from Winston Churchill:

"A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty."

I'm not sure what I can add to this one. Its blessed simplicity says it all. Two people looking at the exact same situation can see two different things based on their point of view.

In reality, I'm not sure there even is a difference between difficult and opportunity. They are two sides of the same coin. They always come joined as one.

The key is to look at the side of the coin that serves you best. And by that, I mean to see the opportunity. I am firmly convinced that all difficulties are just a kind of school bell ringing to tell you it's time to learn something.

Train yourself to look for that lesson when you experience difficulty. Train yourself to look for the opportunity. It's all there. You just have to look for it.
Jeff

Labels: inspirational quotes

Time to Set Sail
Here's a favorite quote from Mark Twain:

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore, dream, discover."

This one has a lot more meaning for me as I grow older. Some things have already passed me by. I always wanted to rock climb. I always wanted to explore caves. I never did either, and the chances of doing that now are pretty much gone.

With my wife now being limited by a bad knee, athletic activities like those are not likely, unless I choose to do them on my own. Frankly, starting hobbies that would exclude her don't interest me. But I sometimes wish I would have done them when I had a chance -- and when I could have shared them with my children.

Even if some of the things you once wanted to do have passed you by, there are still things that haven't. You have things right now that are ripe for you to do. But the time may come when those things pass out of possibility for you. Don't make the mistake of letting that pass by, too!

Throw off the bowlines! Sail away from the safe harbor! Catch the trade winds in your sails! Explore, dream, discover!

There's still time. And that time is now!
Jeff

Labels: inspirational quotes

The Fastest Way to Succeed
Here's a favorite quote from Brian Tracy:

"The fastest way for you to succeed is by piggy-backing on the good advice and counsel of men and women who have already spent years learning how to succeed. When you do this on a regular and systematic basis, you will open up doors of opportunity and possibilities for you that today you cannot even imagine."

Starting your own business can be a intimidating task. There's so much to learn!

Most people slow up their progress by going at it the wrong way. They scramble all over the Internet, trying to piece together little bits of unrelated strategies. Then they pat themselves on the back for having "learned" Internet marketing.

Brian Tracy points out, however, that the fastest way to success is far different. Instead of learning the strategies successful marketers have learned, you can succeed more quickly by studying the Internet marketers themselves.

As I've said many times. The secret is not in the tools; it's in the way you use them. And the only way to learn to use the tools successfully is to see how those who succeed at using them use them.

Personally, I learn from several mentors. I have to say I've learned much more in this way (and had much greater success) than I ever had just trying to plug in one random strategy after another.

I'll mention just one of my mentors, Jim Edwards. My biggest breakthrough in marketing has come from what I've learned from observing him up close for the past several years.

I highly recommend Jim's "The Net Reporter" training site to anyone who wants to learn from a master. Jim freely shares all the details of his successes -- and his failures. And if you want proof that you can move from where you're at with your business to where you want to be, all you have to do is look at how he moved from bankruptcy and living as, as he calls it, "trailer trash" a few short years ago to running a multi-million dollar business.

Jim's mentoring has meant a lot to me and I continue to look to him primarily as my role-model and my teacher. I invite you to do the same. You won't regret it.
Jeff

Labels: inspirational quotes

What the World Needs from You
Here's a favorite quote from Gil Bailie:

"Don't ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and go do that, because what the world needs is people who have come alive."

I talk a lot when it comes to finding a niche about finding a problem to solve. That's very true, but one thing should never be lost in that. The problem you want to solve for people needs to be something you have a passion for.

You can find a problem to solve that you have no interest in. For example, a lot of women love expensive, designer handbags. I could look for ways to get them the best designer handbags at the best prices. I have absolutely no interest in designer handbags, though.

Will I be more effective finding solutions for people in a market in which I have no interest? Or will I be more effective finding solutions for something I'm passionate about, like helping people start their own business online?

I'll be more effective where my passion lies. I'll be more effective at something I think about in my free time. I'll be more effective at something I naturally choose to learn more about. Following my passion leads me to be a better business owner. And that makes me a more profitable business owner, too.

Most people, when they start a business, feel they have to start it in an area that is totally divorced from what they know and love. They feel that success will come from something totally outside them.

It will come, though, from what's inside you. It will come from what you have available to share with the world.

Follow your passion. Come alive. That's where you'll find what the world really needs from you.
Jeff

Labels: inspirational quotes, niche marketing