What if you hate your life? Or maybe you don’t quite hate it, but you’re just not happy with your current situation? Perhaps you’re depressed, bored, or apathetic. Or maybe you just don’t see the point in living at all.

If you don’t see the point in living, then you’re missing the point of life entirely. The point of life is to enjoy it.
Read More . . .

I have too many clothes in my closets and drawers. I think I will use
this method to get rid of them.

I need to get more organized. When I google’d around for ideas, I came across this post:

read the 27 tips to getting and staying organized

So, now that I have knowledge on how to get organized I just need to figure out how to stop procrastinating . . .

One of the easiest ways to get traffic and make money is to give people what they are looking for. How do you find out what people are looking for? Well, here are some resources in no particular order:

http://buzz.yahoo.com/overall/ - top 20 searches at yahoo.com

http://50.lycos.com/ - top 50 searches at lycos.com

http://hotsearches.aol.com/

http://www.foia.cia.gov/Top25PhrasesMonthly.asp

http://sp.ask.com/en/docs/iq/iq.shtml

http://technorati.com/pop/

http://www.google.com/trends/hottrends

http://www.dogpile.com/info.dogpl/searchspy/

http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/

https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

http://pulse.ebay.com/

http://buy.ebay.com/

There are plenty more - I found most of these by googling “top searches”

There are a surprising amount of websites that will pay you to write for them. You don’t have to be an accomplished writer or famous personality to do this.

The first place I became aware of is Associated Content. Billing themselves as “The People’s Media Company” they will pay you for your original written content, video content, and slide shows. I have written several articles for them and they seem to be pretty good. How much will you get paid? They pay from $3-$20 per submission and also give you a performance bonus if your content gets a lot of traffic. This is a site that you can definately make more than minimum wage on.

Another site that I found is ReviewStream.com. They pay for reviews of pretty much anything. To quote their website:

You could review anything around you including: any products, hi-end technics, companies, hotels, politics, cities, stores on your street, or even your neighbors pets! We’ll pay you for all of the reviews. Did you visit a barbershop today? Review it and get paid! What about your shopping today? Review the shops you visited and get some money back in your pocket! Did you return from a vacation? Review the hotel and its staff, the car you rented, cities you visited, restaurants (including McDonald’s), fashion stores and street markets … everything!

They are currently paying $1.50 per review and 10 cents everytime your review gets a vote. I haven’t written for them but they seem worth checking out. (Caveat: They have some bad press online. See This article for example.)

Another way to make money is to focus your articles or reviews on a product that will pay you whenever someone buys through your link. This is often called Article Marketing and the easiest way is to look at Clickbank.com and PayDotCom.com for products to promote. Then write a review or article about that product, and submit it to one of the following locations with your affilite link or hoplink.

Places to submit articles and reviews that seem to get indexed by google quickly:
http://www.usfreeads.com/ - classified ads - have to pay a minimal fee to include a url
http://www.ezinearticles.com/
http://www.goarticles.com/
http://www.searchwarp.com/
http://www.wordpress.com/
http://www.squidoo.com/

If you don’t have a blog yet - get one! It is a very easy way to publish online - in a future post I will tell you how to use your blog to sell your own products - and there are many places like PayPerPost that will pay you to make blog entries in your own blog!

If you have or like to make videos Scott Kirsner has a list of places that you can get paid to submit your video. You can make videos from something as simple as CamStudio(free). CamStudio does have some quirks - the settings it comes with by default do not work. But with a few setting changes (I will address them in a later post) it works as well as software costing $600.00.

JP Maroney thinks that two things determine a person’s success in life:

1) The thoughts that occupy your mind, and

2) The people with whom you associate.

I think he is exactly right with this.

For the first part, your thoughts determine both your actions and your reactions which in turn lead directly to success or the lack thereof.

For the second, the people you associate with will either boost you or hinder you - and they will influence your thoughts.

So to find success, simply control your thoughts, and the people you associate with.

Easy huh?

Message from Mike Litman that I got in my email today:

Dear Steve,

So what some of you’re friends and family don’t
believe in your dreams.

Who cares.

So what some people mock you for spending time
reading success books, going to seminars, starting
your own business.

Who cares.

So what some people think your success needs to happen
instantly because their life is all about instant
gratification.

Who cares.

So what in the past you’ve made mistakes, you’ve quit on
yourself, you looked like a fool to some.

Who cares.

So what you’ve made some bad business moves, followed the
wrong people, got bad advice.

Who cares.

So what you thought you’d be further along towards your
goals by now.

Who cares.

Who cares.

Who cares.

None of that matters one bit.

Not one.

Who cares about yesterday. Who cares about the past.

Nothing matters.

Your failures don’t matter.

Your mistakes don’t matter.

Your past doesn’t matter.

What matters is what you’re going to do with your future.

What will you do with your future? What will you start anew
today?

What is one thing you don’t want to do today, but if you
did it would move your life or business forward?

What will you do with your greatness that demands to be
released?

what will you do with your natural strengths that beg to be
expressed?

What will you do with your inner courage that desires to
stomp on your fears?

Will you let your great inner worth and power stay asleep
or will you ignite the match called the fire within?

What will you do?

Mike Litman
World’s #1 Motivator
http://www.mikelitman.com

P.S. Forward this email now to 3 friends you CARE about.

Well, I care about anyone who may be reading this blog

And I agree with all he has to saw.

I have recently quit my daytime job. It was hurting my health. I was so stressed out because of mutliple responsibilities and bosses that I my blood pressure had skyrocketed, I was getting migraine headaches several times a week, and every time I was called in to talk to the main boss I would get physically ill and go home throwing up.

This is hard for me to admit. I like to think of myself as helpful and a hard worker.

But my wife convinced me to do it.

It also wasn’t making enough money for our family to survive on. It was keeping me from DOING what I KNOW is necessary for success.

I was reading J P Maroney’s Posts about what is necessary for success in business and I realized that I was missing FOCUS.

James Brausch talks a lot about focus too

So does pretty much everyone who is succesfull. So what should I be focusing on?

That is easy - and hard. I have some successes and some failures, and most of my successes have petered out after I lost focus on them. Thinks like my NicheCreator Software, my Banner Creation Software and Web hosting, my Internet Marketing Classes, my Search Engine Marketing Videos, and much more. When I see all the projects I have started but not completed, or that were succeeding, but I stopped focusing on them and they petered out, it is hard not to get discouraged.

So, I will personally be focusing on FOCUS.

“What you know does not matter - what you do matters” - copied from gymjones.com

I am too sick right now to apply that to fitness. (I have had the flu for at least the past three days) but I wanted to apply it to Working for Yourself and/or Internet Marketing.

Last tuesday I was presenting my internet marketing class ( a webinar/telecast that I do every tuesday night) with a special guest. He is a copywriter that has had many successes in the past and is currently making a six figure income from home writing copy for others. After the class as I was complementing him on his presentation I mentioned that most of my internet success has been from luck, not necessarily good marketing. In response he said, “Just Showing Up is half the game” and then went on to explain that I had created products, put up websites, and done presentations (like that class) and that I was way ahead of most simply by doing.

My flaws including putting myself down a little too much - which is good for being humble, but bad for self promotion and self confidence. And one way to feel good about yourself is to accomplish something.

So, I have taken out several uncompleted projects and am finishing them (doing) and putting up websites for them (doing) and then emailing out to my mailing list about them (doing).

Even if I don’t make any sales at all, I will still have DONE something. I will be able to point at the websites and feel accomplishment.

EDITED TO ADD
I look back at this post that I started a month or so ago, and never finished. I think the main reason has been due to lack of focus. It is not easy to focus when you are attempting multiple projects, and have a large family (I have six kids) - but that is no excuse. I will publish this post and then finish another one on FOCUS and then abide by it. It is not enough to KNOW that I need to focus, I also have to DO the focus.