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Probably one of the most common challenges that we face in our business, or everyday life in general, is getting things done.

I remember many times back in the day when my mornings would start out fresh, and full of energy, ready to tackle that to-do list that I put together.

I’d get about half way through the list, when I’d start to get that feeling like I was walking through a mud bog, each step getting more difficult as I descended deeper into the mire.

With my energy pretty much spent, my drive to get through the rest of the list would fade away, and I would end up wasting the rest of my time unmotivated.

Those unfinished tasks, of course got shoved into the next day, and the cycle continued until the list pretty much became a black hole, and escaping the event horizon was now a bigger priority than taking it on.

When I started getting serious about internet business back in 2005, I knew that I had to find a way to be more efficient with getting things accomplished.

The solution to getting all my tasks finished was really quite simple. I realized that if I simply ordered my list from the most difficult to the easiest, I could finish everything.

Why? Well, because our batteries are freshly charged in the morning. This is our peak energy period. Logically, if you tackle the toughest job first (that frog) while your energy level is at its peak, then the rest of the tasks become progressively easier as you go down the list.

This keeps your energy level proportional to the difficulty level of the tasks at hand which generally makes for a smooth day. Once you get that frog down your throat, burning through the rest of the list is a breeze.

This one simple trick has made all the difference in the world. After five years, this method has become a normal part of my lifestyle, and it has pretty much became an unconscious habit. Something I don’t even think about anymore, because now it’s hard-wired in.

The other day, I was introduced to a video that dealt with this same subject, and it reminded me of how much of a difference this simple technique has made in my life, so I thought I would share it with you.

Here’s a link to that video:

http://www.eatthatfrogmovie.com/walkthetalk?sms_ss=email&at_xt=4cdd42818787a51c,0

If you want to break out of that cycle of running out of gas before you get to the finish line, then give this a try, and see if it doesn’t make a difference in your life.

The bathroom philosopher once said “The closer you get to the end of the roll, the faster it spins.”

I always got a kick out of this line, and it seems that every year, this becomes more & more true. Summer is winding down and the neighborhood kids will be returning to school to start another year on their journey to maturity.

I remember a time when I would count down the final days of school as if it were a summer’s version of Christmas. It was such a euphoric feeling to walk out the door on a nice summer day, knowing that I was free to just be a kid for the next 2 1/2 months.

In the space of a summer vacation, entire lifetimes were lived, empires were conquered, and just to mix it up a little, some long and slow dog day afternoons would ensue, seemingly stretching on forever. Sometimes I’d even moan that there was just nothing to do. Ahhh boredom…

Now that I think of it, I’m not sure that I can even remember the last time that I was bored. Eventually, the back to school commercials would begin to appear reminding us that the summer is coming to a close. At first its disappointing, but quickly, a sense of excitement begins to set in with the thoughts of starting a new grade level with different teachers & a change of classmates.

As the first day of school would would arrive, I often reflected back on the summer, the fun that I had, and how incredibly long it had been since I heard the school bell ring followed by the bustling of activity everywhere as we embarked upon another year of learning.

In contrast, a summer now seems more like a long weekend rather than a lifetime. Why is that? Perhaps its because when you’ve only been on the planet for a total of 9 or 10 years, a few months is a much larger portion of your entire existence. A year would be a full tenth of your lifetime! At 40 or 50 years of age, a year is a mere 40th or 50th of your entire life experience. Now your brain perceives a few summer months as just a short stretch into fall.

If you’re still quite young and want to start an online business, you may feel that you have all the time in the world. Trust me on this one, you don’t. Work at it every day as if time is running out, because as hard as it is to believe now… it will before you know it.

If you’re older, you might feel that you don’t have enough time, and even feel regret that you didn’t start sooner. Well don’t. It doesn’t matter that you didn’t start back in 1995. What matters is that you start now. Looking back will only hold you back in your old life.

Do you want to change your life for the better? Do you think the journey to that better life will take much too long to get there? Let’s say that it would take several years for you to realistically meet your ultimate goal. The thought of that in our ‘instant gratification’ society can be a real buzz-kill.

But realize this… you can get an instant change to your entire life just by the simple act of making the decision to do it. Your body is a vessel of which you are the captain. If you don’t like where you are sailing to in life, then make that commitment right now to change course. That very act will change your life.

Everything that you do from here forward will fuel you onward towards your destination. An exciting journey which can even help slow down the effects of the quickening.

Do you know what fuels the quickening? Allowing too much stress in your life will cause it. Another biggie is watching TV. Did you ever lounge around all day watching TV? Remember how fast it went? You look back wondering where the day went. Playing video games, and other useless doodling on the computer also accelerates the quickening. Think back at how quickly the night flew by as you were wasting time in the forums reading the rantings of the whiners who claim to have been “online” for years but haven’t made a dime. And still others who claim to be raking in tons of cash, yet they have the time to sit around and build up ten thousand posts in the space of a year or so.

Did you know that when you stop to smell the roses, the moment slows down as well? Anytime that you live life, or experience life, time moves at a slower pace, closer to the pace that you enjoyed as a kid. This is because you’re getting back into the moment of creative expression. This is your birthright, don’t squander it. The quickening is the price that you pay every time you do.

If you’re not happy with your life now, and it’s moving way too fast, change course, eliminate all those factors which feed the quickening. Stop watching life through TV and other mediums, and start living it. This is the first and most basic requirement to journey down the road to success.

Ending the quickening will mark your awakening. Upon awaking, you’ll wonder how you ever could have allowed yourself to exist so long in a coma. Don’t settle for living on autopilot any longer. Return to your roots and live once again! Make today your new birthday, and celebrate the wonderful new journey which lies just ahead.

Many people who start out online have pretty limited budgets to work with. It’s kind of a catch 22. At some point, you need to invest some money into building your online business so that you can generate sales, but you need to generate sales to get money so that you can invest in your business.

Most people will jump into marketing online for a couple of reasons.

1. They hate their J.O.B., and / or
2. They need / desire more money.

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The barriers to entry for an internet based business is much lower than starting a traditional ‘brick & mortar’ type business offline.

I remember wayyy back in the day when I started my electronics shop. It was a major deal to get set up. There was finding and renting the retail space, getting a business phone, an occupational license, utilities, FAX machine, Cash Register & the Point of Sale stuff to go with it, signs, inventory, equipment, vendors… I could go on for days!

All of this was not cheap, and on top of all that, you don’t even know if the venture’s going to succeed or not. An online business, on the other hand can be started literally the same day for around 20 bucks! Even zero cash if you’re a little creative.

Also, if you need free traffic, you can put in a little ‘sweat equity’ such as article writing, blog carnival submissions, etc and get free traffic right to your virtual doorstep. Yet even with this incredible opportunity of starting out on a shoestring, so many are still slammed by the challenges of actually succeeding in their business.

How is it that starting an internet business can be so darn cheap, give you exposure to a worldwide audience like never before in the history of mankind, yet be so tough for so many to succeed? It’s kind of mind boggling when you think of it.

As mind boggling as it may seem, the real answer is really pretty simple. Lack of focus. 98% start out online with the wrong mindset. The vast majority are not entrepreneurs, they’re opportunity seekers.

An entrepreneur has a plan. An entrepreneur will focus on one specific objective to generate revenue. He / she will create a business system of proven techniques that can be constantly tweaked and improved. They understand that success is arrived at incrementally through consistency. They know how to scale up their successes and shave off the failures.

An opportunity seeker will buy the latest and greatest method to making a million dollars overnight. They will learn all about it, try it, and when it doesn’t work the first time around, dump it and buy the next shiny object that passes their way. The opportunity seeker doesn’t really have any focused plan.

Like a tumble weed, they just drift from one opportunity to the next looking for that golden egg that surely must be out there somewhere. While the opportunity seeker is waiting for their ship to come in, the entrepreneur is building their own ship to sail.

While the opportunity seeker is spending money all the time (and getting little to nothing in return), the entrepreneur is making money. When something doesn’t produce an instant result, the op-seeker dumps it for another opportunity. The entrepreneur does their homework. They will tweak and test their methods for measurable results over time, knowing that some things need to build momentum before showing a positive result.

Do you have a plan of action? Do you follow through? Do you give yourself deadlines and meet them? Do you love improving the lives of your customers by selling them your products? If you can answer yes to these basic questions, you are very likely in the exclusive 2%.

If you find yourself in a constant spiral of info overload, surfing the forums for that elusive magic trick that’s going to make it all “click” one day, then I’m afraid that you are still in op-seek mode. You still have the J.O.B. mentality. Not to worry, there’s hope. You can turn it all around with a simple desire to act.

Here’s your new mantra to get you pointed in the right direction. FOCUS – BUILD – SELL

If you don’t have a website yet, then start one today! Right Now, and follow the mantra above. This will be your first step to success. Oh, and you don’t have to shell out a fortune to have it built either. You can get my complete course on how to build an awesome website using WordPress which is a FREE open source CMS. This blog is built on WordPress.

Creating a professional looking website will be the perfect start to developing your entrepreneurial mindset (focus & build). In the future, you can have others do it of course, but for now you need to build that mindset, grasshopper… FOCUS – BUILD – SELL.

You can get the complete Red Hot Mini-Sites with WordPress, course by clicking below:

http://www.declareyourday.com/redhotminisites/

If you’re a regular reader of my blog, then the first thing that you might be thinking after seeing the title is “yeah, I know Jack, there is no secret, no magic bullet, I’ve heard it before.”

Well, it seems that there IS a secret. This secret was so well hidden that even I never spotted it right away.

No, it wasn’t stashed in a secret vault deep underneath the Pentagon. It was actually hidden in plain sight.

I’ve taken many journeys through the net over the years trying to reverse engineer why one person would use a certain color in their headlines, and that person would use long copy in their sales letters while others used short copy.

Some have started using “video only” sales letters. Some videos start automatically and have no controls for the users to pause it, or skip ahead. Some videos have the controls left in so people can skip ahead, or pause.

I’ve seen the debates as to why this it the absolute WORST way to do it, while others staunchly defend their positions because their conversions have skyrocketed because of it.

So what’s the deal? Are those people that hate video sales pages in the majority, or simply a vocal minority?

Still, others have found that they get much better conversions with printed copy than they do with video. Man!, why all the conflicting information?

On the surface, none of this really makes a lot of sense. Maybe nothing works… maybe everything works. Okay, I’m not trying to give you a headache, and you might be wondering what this has to do with “the big secret”.

This secret actually gets more profound the more you think about it. Incorporate this simple philosophy into your mindset, and your business will love you for it.

The secret is that your business is as individual as you are. Your business is a reflection of you. When others view your sales pages, read your articles, forum posts, see your products & reviews, your personality is being ingrained into all of it.

You may, by nature be a little introverted, so maybe people relate to your hard copy better than someone who has the “video” personality. As a result, your copy will do much better than your video pages, because your true persona is expressed best via this medium.

As a result, it is a hundred times more powerful than your video pages. By contrast, the other guy’s personality may be oriented in the opposite direction and get a hundred times better results with video in the very same market.

So the key here is this: It’s always good to emulate successful marketers in order to understand the components of a successful website, BUT… and this is the “but” that nearly everyone misses…

It may not work for you because, not only do you not know the history behind that technique (why its being used), but you also have to ask yourself, does it fit in with my persona?

Testing is the bottom line. You may find out that you have a knack for making video presentations. Maybe you think that you sound like a moron, only to find out that others who listen to you love you!

The same may be true for writing. Without testing, you would have never known, because we are almost always perceived differently by others, than how we perceive ourselves.

So in a nutshell – emulate others only to get the foundation of the basics, but be true to yourself as you build. Express your business by expressing yourself, and the results you get will be pure gold.

Running an online business can be challenging, especially in the beginning when you are trying to find your bearings as to where to go and what to do next.

Probably among the biggest mistakes that online marketers make is allowing too many non-productive tasks into their working schedule.

Here are 5 things that you should unload right now so that you can get on track to making that serious bank and growing a healthy online business.

Forums – Forums are a great place to interact with others in your market, form joint ventures, pick up valuable advice (sometimes), and to gain exposure in your market as an authority.

So why are Forums at the top of this list? Because during your working hours, you need to stay the bleep out of the forums and concentrate on the tasks at hand.

Don’t allow yourself into the forums during your working time! Unless there’s a specific purpose, surfing the forums must always be reserved for being outside of your working schedule.

How many times did you decide that today you were going to do a big push on driving traffic, creating a report, etc, only to end up checking in on the forums (“real quick”) to see what’s new?

Let’s be honest with ourselves, because we’ve all done it… before you know it, the day is half shot and now the momentum is losing steam on all those great accomplishments that were going to get done today.

Oh well, tomorrow is another day… or is it?

TV – Television is one of the greatest killers of dreams out there, especially when you are starting your new venture and developing your self-discipline.

This mindless programming does nothing but instill in you a loser mindset. TV exists as an advertising and propaganda medium to keep the sheeple in check and obedient to various agendas across the spectrum.

Don’t allow this electronic vampire to suck your precious life experiences out of you. You’ve been robbed long enough… and you’ll never get that time back again. Don’t watch life, live it!

Skip the TV for a week and see just how creative your mind starts to get. Your business (and bank account) will love you for it.

Email – Huh? But you NEED email to run your business, answer support inquires, etc. Yeah, that’s generally true, but there’s a time and a place.

Many will use “checking the email” every 5 minutes as a desperate attempt to escape the possibility of failure by floundering away their time, which ironically enough guarantees failure!

Maybe there will be a cool new opportunity… “inside info” on how some guy named Frankie made it big in MLM.

By investigating this, you’ll still be “busy” because you’re pursuing something… right?

Telephone – During our working times, we need to eliminate as many distractions as possible. The telephone can totally screw up your game when you’re trying to focus on something important, especially things like making videos, writing articles or sales copy, etc.

During these times, I turn off the ringer until I’m ready to accept calls again. If someone has anything important to say, they’ll leave a message.

Aunt Martha – If you’ve reached the point where you have left your J.O.B., or you are working on your internet business in your spare time, you may find that one of your biggest challenges is how to stave off the time vampires.

It’s great to have friends and family, and by all means, we need to spend time with them and appreciate having them in our lives. However, during our critical working hours, they must respect that you need this time to yourself so that you can realize your dreams of a better life for you and those you care about.

Let people know that during the hours of * and * on x days of the week you are not available for anything because you are working. Even though you are home, it is still your place of business.

There are more things I could rattle on about, but these 5 I especially wanted to touch upon.

The main point of ridding yourself of these distractions during your working time comes down to one thing… managing your time effectively.

Think of it this way, when you run a Pay Per Click campaign, you track what keywords convert and which ones don’t. You then eliminate the dud’s and ramp up on the profitable ones.

It works exactly the same way with your time. Track all the different things that you do during your working hours and see which activities are actually building your business and which activities amounted to nothing, costing you potential revenue.

Now cut out those dead weight activities and ramp up the ones that are really productive and actually build your internet business.

You’ll be absolutely stunned at how quickly your business turns around when you start feeding it a nice healthy diet of productive activities. 🙂

Here is a comprehensive list of all the things that you can’t do or become in the next year:

Have a very happy & prosperous new year!

The Law of Attraction was in full swing a couple months ago when an old friend appeared in my facebook friend requests seemingly out of nowhere.

It was none other than the infamous Geltdrakken! As I learned once from one of the Three Amigos, “infamous” means “more than famous” of course. 😉

I’ve known John since way back into the mid-eighties. Somehow we lost touch over the years & I always wondered in the back of my mind what ever became of John.

John is one of those rare people who has a brilliant mind and a bizarre, but really great sense of humor. In other words, he’s a heck of a lot like me.

If you’ve followed my blog for any amount of time, you’ll know that I tend to go off on tangents about the quantum nature of our perceived universe and how this directly correlates to your ability to create any future that you desire.

Here is an exerpt from one of his posts:

“comprehend a universe, that exists simultaneously as a singularity and an infinite space all in one moment. IT is impossible without a greater set consisting of an inner consciousness and an extant factor to withhold it in apprehension.

Right?”

Of course I had to throw in my two cents – “Consciousness is necessary to facilitate the illusion of infinite space…
And why does the universe appear to be exapnding? Because we are observing it!

-Jack“

His new blog is located at http://geltdrakken.blogspot.com and has nothing to do with internet business. John is an excellent writer and you may find his material interesting, bizzare, or it may simply piss you off depending on your current stage of evolution.

Welcome to the blogosphere John!

Often times I hear people tell me that they are working on building their online business. So many people are “working” on creating their product, but don’t have one. Many are “working” on their business, but don’t yet have one.

Others are in a perpetual planning stage. I know one person (That’s you Rob!) that’s been “working” on building a business for well over a year now, and still has nothing to show for it.

Either you have a business or you don’t. Imagine if you were perpetually “working” on getting a drink of water, but never actually took a drink? Within a few days you would end up as a dehydrated carcass sprawled out on the sidewalk with some stray dog gingerly picking at your good parts.

To get that vital life sustaining fluid into your body, first you get a signal from your body that says “hey, I need water!” Instinctively, we respond by taking an action to get up, walk over to a water source, pour it into a glass, and then put it to our mouth, and drink it.

The result is that our body is now satisfied and can continue to function in a normal fashion. It wasn’t rocket science. We didn’t spend all our time in some forum asking what is the best way to get the best glass of water in the shortest amount of time.

Are you were addicted to the rush of getting in on the latest & greatest money making systems, traffic strategies, internet marketing tools, etc, but never actually do anything with them? Maybe you try one or two of the nuggets that appeal to you, then when you don’t get the desired results, you totally abandon it and move on. Well, you’re not alone. At least 98% of new marketers out there do this time and time again, all the while building an arsenal of valuable, but useless information on their hard drives.

Remember, The value of information is directly proportional to its application. Consuming the info is only half of the equation. Think of it this way… everything you have ever accomplished, no matter how big or small started as a vision or an idea first. Locked away within you, it was pure potential which hadn’t yet manifested itself into the physical world. It was your conscious decision to act that made it reality.

Why did it become reality? Was it because you were focused on making it work? This could have been something as simple as putting together a jigsaw puzzle. When you tried putting the first two pieces together, no doubt you were putting the wrong pieces together many times before you found the one that fit.

Suppose after that first failed attempt to fit that puzzle piece with it’s matching piece, you gave up and tossed the whole jigsaw puzzle. Suppose you were halfway finished but you tossed it because the picture still wasn’t complete. Now you’re off to get a new jigsaw puzzle and start over again hoping for better, quicker results. Rinse & repeat this a few times. Look at all that time & effort that has gone out the window time and time again.

This is exactly what most do in their online ventures. If this is your conundrum, you need to break out of this cycle. Now is the time to start with that first piece and build your momentum. Someday is today!

Don’t have a website yet? Did you know that can build a professional looking website that search engines love in just a few hours without knowing HTML or using an expensive website builder?

My Red Hot Mini-Sites with WordPress course will show you how. WordPress is best known as a blogging software, but I will show you how to use it for making websites. Best of all, WordPress is FREE and its easy to manage.

Now you have the power to stop “working” on building a business. Now you can just build it. Next you’ll need a guiding hand to get your business moving. The Jack Keifer Newsletter will soon be available. In the newsletter, I will be revealing valuable information every month that I don’t share publicly. If you like the free information on this blog, you’re going to love the Jack Keifer Newsletter.

I will also be announcing some very valuable perks that will be included for all my newsletter subscribers. Okay, now you’ve got a plan. Get that website built or upgraded today, then join me on a virtual road trip via my newsletter on an exciting journey to a successful online business !