Over the last 5 years of writing this blog there have been exactly 18,925 comments on 695 posts, an average of 27 comments per post. Whilst this is great and we get to see some readers who comment regularly, it occurred to me that I don’t really know the people who comment, except for a few of you.

So I wanted to get to know you better as a reader, a commenter, a friend, and as a product buyer.

In this post I would love it if you could leave a comment below telling me all about yourself. You can promote your products (as long as you’re not a spammer ), promote your blog, or just tell us more about you and what your hopes and aspirations are.

Why am I doing this?

You have been part of the CYT community either for a few days or a few years and I would love it if everybody who stops by here on a regular basis could just promote themselves for a change.  I have been talking through my posts, interacting through comments, and talking via email, but I’ve not had a real chance to listen to you talk about you.

• Introduce Yourself below (even if you are a regular here)
• Tell us about you, your work, your blog or product
• Tell us a little about your hopes and aspirations for yourself
• Promote the hell out of you

For a long time it had seemed to me that life was about to begin — real life. But there was always some obstacle in the way. Something to be got through first, some unfinished business, time still to be served, a debt to be paid. Then life would begin. At last it dawned on me that these obstacles were my life.

Father Alfred D’Souza

Norman Vincent Peale, author of The Power of Positive Thinking once offered to show a young man in despair a place where thousands of people had no problems at-all.

The young man, eager to hear about such a place, was not so pleased when he found out where it was.

It was Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx.

Peale argued that if you’re alive you’re going to have problems. Using a reframe that might be a stretch for some he further said: “If today you have no problems, I urge you, go home as fast as you can. Go into your room, lock the door, fall to your knees and cry out to the Lord, “What’s the matter Lord? Don’t you trust me any more? Give me some problems!”’

Yes, I can hear you making some barely printable comment or more charitably muttering saying ‘”Sheesh!” Give me a break. Who’d want more problems?’

And you’d be right – most people don’t want more problems.

But I’m betting you are not most people. You are interested in taking your development to the next level (or you wouldn’t be reading this blog!) and while I hate to say it – problems are one of the routes to get there.

But I still don’t want problems!

Am I channeling Larry Winget (author of Shut up, stop Whining and Get a Life) when I say wishing they were gone won’t get rid of them? We will never be without problems* so the sooner you face up to that fact the sooner you’ll be focusing beyond them to solutions.

Therefore it’s in our best interests to develop a good robust mindset for dealing with problems. As the quote says ‘these obstacles ARE your life” and the quality of your life can improve in proportion to your attitude to problem solving.

We have framed problems as terrible, awful, something to moan about etc.  And so we “as we think so we are” and problems and inconveniences produce uncomfortable and so-called negative feelings – and accordingly are experienced as awful events that just get in the way of us having what we want.

I tell you – when you visit a third-world economy country – and then come back to seeing people having a fit in the superstore because they had to wait five minutes to pay for their piled high trolley of food – it puts things in perspective.

Many things we think of as problems are merely reflections of our lack of patience and our spoilt brat expectations of getting our own way. A life with so few problems is a luxury of the West and not reality for most of mankind.

But the fact remains – We will always have problems. If we’re going to succeed we need to learn to love them.

Love my problems? Yeah, right?

I will be the first to admit this process can seem HARD and it seemingly goes against the grain. But that only exemplifies the power of the case we’ve built up against them.

If….if you can learn to approach problems with excitement and verve, IF you can LOVE them – you can gain a tactical advantage over 90% of people in the world**.

More on how to do this further down.

Problems can make you rich.

It has been said “Don’t become a millionaire for the money, make a million for the person you will become in the process.”

Now, hopefully you’re planning to be an ethical, philanthropic contributor to society rather than paranoid billionaire locked in a room with talons for fingernails (sorry Howard) but either way – to get there – you’ll need to overcome lots and lots of problems to get there.

Millionaires (unless they inherit) get paid for solving problems. You can get paid for solving problems. In fact, you DO get paid for solving problems – think about it.

The more problems you can solve (and the bigger those problems) the more value you can add – and the more you can get paid. Imagine if you were the person who invented the wheel – think of the royalties from that…!

Adding value to other peoples’ lives increases the impact you can have in this world. And since ‘making a difference’ is so often on peoples’ list of values when you are known as an avid problem solver you will win people to you.

You can lead in your field. You can be a servant leader, providing for mankind in some area. And you can feel a whole darn lot better about your life.

So how do we change our attitude to solving problems?

Change our reaction to problems

Paul Stoltz in The Adversity Quotient suggests we retrain our brain’s reactions to hearing about problems. Instead of groaning he advises we sound klaxons like this one:

Likewise, we can also force ourselves to rejoice when we have a problem:

When I was training to be a coach the trainers would have the class raise their hands in the air and shout “How fantastic!” when they had an insight.

Doing this when you realize you have a problem to solve helps break the neuro-linguistic-semantic state that used to get you down.

Yes, it’ll feel weird at first like laughing when something isn’t funny but you’ll get used to it.

If you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always got. If you don’t feel the love, fake it until you do!

Increase your ability to bear pain

Peter Daniels is a 78 year-old Christian billionaire who is one of the four-hundred richest men in the world.

When asked on a talk show what one of the secrets to his success was, he said “my willingness to bear pain”. Daniels said that to be a success you need to be willing to bear pain, suffering, humiliation and ridicule.

Although he didn’t specifically mention problems it is obvious he had overcome numerous odds to get where he was. Did I mention he had gone bankrupt 4 times and was illiterate until age 27?

He once asked an audience member on his show if he thought he could make a million pounds in two years. The guy said ‘no’. He then asked the participant if he could make the money if his wife and three kids would be killed if he didn’t. The guy said ‘of course’.

And there you have it. With a powerful enough motivational source you could overcome most any problems in your life or give it such a good go you wouldn’t feel bad if you failed!

But what would drive you to endure, to pursue solutions with the same intensity you would have if you’re loved ones would be killed?

What would be so important not to loose, what would be a loss so grievous you would do almost anything to avoid it?

Conversely, what do you value so much you would live for?

“Let someone else get killed!” “Suppose everyone on our side felt that way?” “Well then I’d certainly be a damned fool to feel any other way, wouldn’t I?” “Englishmen are dying for England, American’s are dying for America, Germans are dying for Germany, Russians are dying for Russia. There are now fifty or sixty countries fighting in this war. Surely so many countries can all be worth dying for?” “Anything worth living for,” said Nately, “is worth dying for.” “And anything worth dying for,” answered the old man, “is certainly worth living for.”

Joseph Heller, Catch 22

What are you willing to endure for your goal?

Identify yourself as a problem solver

This one comes from Switch by Chip & Dan Heath. People who identify themselves with an idea become more likely to behave in a way congruent with that idea.

Remember a time when you really loved solving a problem. Perhaps you didn’t identify it as a problem but it was a situation in need of a solution so it could be defined as a problem.

When you see what you saw, hear what you heard and feel what you felt, adjusting your body to allow the maximum experience of this you can stand, imagine what it would be like having this feeling as you approach other problems?

For example, if you enjoyed planning a holiday, what if solving that knarly work issue felt like the joyful anticipation of a week on the beach?

If you choose to accept the definition, you acted as a problem solver that time.

Now, think of all the problems you have solved throughout your life. Everything you have had to work out how to do is a problem you have solved. From walking, to baking a cake to figuring out how to fund that holiday in three months rather than six, these are all examples of how you have used your problem solving abilities. Don’t dismiss it, you did those things and what seems effortless to you may be hard for someone else.

In the field of NLP we call using a strategy that was successful in one area in another ‘mapping across’. If you want a real in depth discussion of how you can develop new strategies try NLP Volume 1.

Redefine your meanings of problems and pain

As I alluded to earlier, a good frame to have is: “I love problems because they make me rich!”

Additionally, here are some frames you could use:

• Problems are solutions waiting to be found
• I’m bigger than any problem
• Don’t tell me a storm is coming, tell the storm my God is coming
• What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger
• Problems are opportunities: in the middle of every adversity is the seed of its own solution (Napoleon Hill).

If you have a particular problem (ha!) with your concept of problems and pain, get the Change your Concepts Change your Life which will help you map out and redefine your conceptual states of mind – leading to a change in your behavior.

Redefine your expectations of ‘settling’

At what point do you want to stop solving problems?

I ask because, truly, perhaps you’re satisfied with where you’re at in life?  Perhaps you really don’t need to solve some of the problems that others insist are part of everyday life.

You could be happy to rent not buy, normal in some parts of Europe.

You might be happy being single when everyone tells you that marriage is wonderful (it is!)

But you get my point.

Or perhaps you’re conflicted inside because you don’t want to venture outside your comfort zone but know you need to in order to grow.

You need to give yourself permission to redefine your expectations of where you stop.

This can be as simple as putting your attention inside your head and telling yourself in an authoritative voice: “I give myself permission to press on, even though I feel uncomfortable.”

I mean, imagine what would open up to you if you didn’t value listening to your problems any more…!

So here you have some thoughts on problems. We will always have them, so let’s step up and learn to love solving them, if not the issues themselves.

Our entire futures can be changed by the issues we solve for ourselves and those we love. So problems? Bring it on!

*(Yes, if you like you can reframe this to “I don’t have problems I have solutions waiting to be found” – fine, if that works for you. )

Today I want to write about a successful product launch ‘How to Become an Advanced Early Riser‘ which was launched last month on October 14th.

Some numbers first

To date there have been 143 copies of ‘How to Become an Advanced Early Riser’ sold.

The gross sales of this have been $2,625 to date

Partner payments have been $460 to date

Money spent on design, website, and advertising – $450

7 Returns – $105

Net profit to date – $1,610

That’s a net profit of $1,610 in 21 days.  This is my best month to date with regards to selling my own products.  Quite a difference from the loss I made in the Alter Your Jacket program.

I learned a lot about writing, collaborating and launching a product and wanted to share it with you today.

5 Lessons Learned from a Successful product Launch

1. It’s all about the readers

Before I even launched this I sent an email to the subscribers of CYT asking them what product they would be interested in the most, and gave them a choice of 8 guide titles and an option to add their own title.  By far ‘How to Become an Advanced Early Riser’ came out on top, with 25% of subscribers voting for it.

Had it not been for the CYT subscribers I wouldn’t have written the guide.  The lesson i learned from the last launch was; what I think is a great idea is not necessarily what the market or my subscribers will think is a great idea.  Sometimes we can get wrapped up in our own ideas that it’s sometimes easy to forget who may or may not buy the product in the first place.

2. Be part of a great team

Had it not been for my designer, my subscribers, my partners and other bloggers and authors who were willing to help me, there is no way this would have been a success.

Talking with everyone involved in the process of making the guide and promoting the guide was essential in it becoming a relative success.  Answering questions, getting ideas, getting feedback, partners pointing out errors in the sales page etc was crucial for this to work.  Everybody involved was a great help throughout the whole process, and they didn’t do it because of any monetary gain, they did it to help out a friend who they thought had a good idea and the guide might benefit the readers of their own blogs.

3. Keep focused

The self talk in writing a guide like this can be overwhelming sometimes; ‘Is it going to work’, ‘the last product failed’, ‘do readers really buy products like this’ ‘is it over-priced’, ‘is it underpriced’.  The main thing to do is to listen to the negative self talk and let the thoughts just drift through your mind, acknowledge and let go.

Keeping focused on the outcome of what the product can do for someone is crucial.  I had an avatar in my head of my ideal buyer.  Someone who was always sleeping in, disorganized, thoughts all over the place, stressed etc and I kept of thinking of them as I was writing the guide and getting it out there.

It’s hard to keep focused when you’re outside your comfort zone, but forcing yourself has the benefit of helping yourself become stronger minded, more focused, and more confident.

4. Take constructive criticism the way it is meant

After the guide was released and sales were strong, you start to get a few returns for whatever reason.  Some readers said, there were too many spelling errors, some thought it just wasn’t for them.  With the returns I learned why they had returned it and rectified anything I could fix.

I always replied to an email asking for a refund as soon as possible, refunded the money immediately and asked if there was anything I could have done differently, if they hadn’t already told me.  Customer service is important, but more important is to not get attached to the product and believe it doesn’t have flaws.  My perception of the guide is different from a readers perception who has paid good money, so listen to feedback, fix it and then let it go.

5. Detach yourself from your product

It’s easy to get attached to a product you have produced, it’s almost like a piece of art ; you spend weeks creating it, and want everyone to admire it.  As soon as you send it out into the world, let it go and move on to your next piece of work.  Don’t forget about it, don’t stop promoting it, just detach yourself and think ahead to your next product.  This is a business, and it’s not long before you and your product is forgotten.  Keep re-inventing yourself.

After you launch it’s great to take a break for a few days and come back with eyes anew.  that way you can make your product better, whilst working on a new product.  there’s always something you can do to make it better.

What’s next?

Well it’s something a little different for me as I am currently asking the question:

Would anybody be interested in a guide which shows how I accidentally discovered a way to lose at least 8 pounds in a week, without changing your diet, or exercising?

I am asking you as a reader, subscriber, and a friend.  Until I get some feedback, I will hang fire and look to see if there is a market for this.

It wasn’t on my list of products to write, but about six weeks ago I really did accidentally discover a way to lose at least eight pounds in weight, to date I have lost 12 pounds in as many days, and it’s so amazingly simple.

Thank you

As ever I want to thank all the readers, subscribers of CYT, friends, partners, interviewees for supporting me along the journey and I am glad that you are part of my life.

I received a copy a few weeks ago and savoured every single word of it.  I thought rather than write a review I would do a video review.  So here is my video review of Robins new book:

Here is the book trailer for Naked in Eden with Robins Voice.

You can visit Robins blog at Naked in Eden and buy the new book at Amazon from here (no affiliate link)

Here is the link to Jonathan Well’s site where he interviews Robin Easton

I hope you enjoy the book as much as I did and if you have already read it, it would be good to hear your thoughts about it.

This kind of surprised me, but I asked the list what they really wanted to know about this topic and in true ‘let the readers decide’ I have produced a first draft of an ebook entitled: How to Reach 10,000 Blog Subscribers.

I am giving this away for free to all CYT readers.

DOWNLOAD THE EBOOK HERE

Who is it for?

Anybody who has a blog and is looking to increase their exposure in the blogging field.  You can be in any niche and benefit from this ebook.

What you will learn

• Why your subscriber count is important.
• The four aspects of your blog you must focus on to capture readers attention
• 7 ways to dramatically increase your subscriber count

Do you like it? was it helpful? If so, I have two simple requests

1) Let me know. Share your feedback in the comments section or write to me directly.

2) Help spread the word. Pass this along to the everyone you know, maybe no everyone, I don’t think your Gran would like a copy, but you know what I mean.  Would be great to Tweet this as well.

I hope you enjoy ‘How to reach 10,000 Blog Subscribers’  it and look forward to hearing your thoughts about it.

I have scoured the net for more recent bloggers and businesses who have released ebooks and manifestos to help others drive their businesses forward.

It’s an approach I am now taking and will be releasing 2 free ebooks before the end of the year which will be packed full of great info.  For now I will share some of the best ebooks I have read which you can grab for free (you might have to sign up for some of them but believe me they are worth your email address), Also I have not set the links to open a new tab (not got my faithful Dreamweaver here in Turkey)  so right click each link and click on ‘open in new tab’:

50 Fantastic Free eBooks to Enhance Your Online Business

1. Rich Schefren – The attention Age Doctrine Part 2
2. Dave Navarro – 7 Steps to Networking Your Way to A-Listers Fast
3. Jonathan Fields – The Firefly Manifesto
4. Chris Guillebeau – A Brief Guide to World Domination
5. Jonathan Mead – The Zero Hour Workweek
6. Seth Godin – 7 Ways to Reinvent Yourself
7. Michael Martine – How to Start a Business Blog
8. Daniel Scocco – Make Money Blogging
9. John Chow – Make Money Online
10. Rich Schefren – Internet Business Manifesto
11. Ben Tiggelaar – Dream, Dare, Do
12. David Risley – 6 Figure Blogging Blueprint
13. Jens P Berget – Successful Traffic Generation Strategies
14. Diva Marketing – Social Media Marketing GPS
15. Dave Navarro – 7 Simple Income Streams (That You Can Actually Create)
16. Chris Guillebeau – 279 Days to Overnight Success
17. David Shay – Podcasting Secrets unleashed
18. Rich Schefren – The Missing Chapter
19. Seth Godin – Insubordinate
20. Mark Levy – The Fascination factor (and How You Can Use it to Write Books)
21. Strategic Generation – Online Professional Branding
22. Alex Makarski – Internet Marketing A – Z
23. Zac Johnson – How You Can Be the next $100,000 blogger
24. Mike Smith – Guide to Guerrilla Freelancing
25. Skellie – Rockstar Personal Branding
26. Rich Schefren – The final Chapter
27. ConversationAgent – Twittertales
28. Valerie Maltoni – Why Blog + 25 Tips to Make it Work
29. Colin Wright – Personal Branding
30. David Parrish – T-Shirts and Suits A Guide to the Business of Creativity
31. WebWorkerDaily (Various) – How to Escape The Cubicle
32. Chitika – Deep Secrets of Successful Blogging
33. Seth Godin – The Tribes Casebook
34. John Jantsch – Lets talk Social Media for the Small Business
35. Rich Schefren – The Maven Matrix Manifesto
36. Scott Ginsberg – 203 Things I’ve Learned about, Writing, Marketing and Selling eBooks
37. David Meerman Scott – The New rules of PR
38. Michaeal Cheney – Top 20 Traffic Disasters to Avoid
39. Kathrien Ahn – How to be Positive When Things Suck
40. Jay Conrad Levinson – A Guide to Guerrilla marketing for Consultants (oldie but goodie)
41. Laura Vanderkam – 168 Hours: The Blank Slate of Time
42. Chris Garrett – Killer Flagship Content
43. Peter Antonio – Endless Micro Niche Markets
44. Willie Crawford – How to Make a Fortune Offering Freelance Consulting
45. Kok Choon -  The ultimate Six Figures Strategy Guide
46. Ewan Chia – Secrets of Internet Business
47. John Chow – The Ultimate Blog Profit Model
48. Rob Brooks – How to Be Aamzing on Youtube
49. Mike Enlow – Masters of Marketing
50. GeekPreneur – A Geeks Guide to Promoting Yourself  in 140 Characters or Less

]]> http://www.stevenaitchison.co.uk/blog/50-fantastic-free-ebooks-to-enhance-your-online-business/feed/ 44 http://www.stevenaitchison.co.uk/blog/the-biggest-mistake-that-self-employed-people-make/ http://www.stevenaitchison.co.uk/blog/the-biggest-mistake-that-self-employed-people-make/#comments Tue, 23 Mar 2010 15:00:36 +0000 Hulbert Lee http://www.stevenaitchison.co.uk/blog/?p=2306 Often times, I spend my time in forums where many self-employed people interact with each other. One thing that always strikes my curiosity is the self-defeating threads that people start –

“I’m broke, in debt, and depressed,” “I hate my life,” “I have no girlfriend, no job, starting to feel very depressed,” “Starting to lose hope,” “I still haven’t made a dime,” “Fastest way to make $2000 – $3000 in one month?”

Surprisingly, these are the threads that usually get the most replies. There’s usually a lot of hype in them, even a little bit of excitement, but one can definitely feel the energy of the atmosphere as everyone is telling their own personal story to get it on the action. After many responses, the original poster receives wonderful tips to help improve their life. The scary thing is days later, weeks later, and even months later, you will find the original poster there, in the same thread, asking people for the same advice. This has made me realize that there are really two types of self-employed people in the world.

The Ones Who Take Value for Themselves

Some people need to have the perfect plan before they start taking any action. They think they have to read all the books, watch all the videos, listen to all the audio tapes, attend all the seminars, or get all the best advice from people on the forums before they start doing anything. The biggest mistake is that self-employed people make is thinking that by reading a book, watching a video, listening to an audiotape, or attending a seminar, it is the same as producing value to other people. It’s not. Rather, they’re taking value from other people who are giving it to them.

Even if the book they are reading has the answers to every single problem imagined to achieve success, if they have done nothing, they still end up just taking value. If this person doesn’t take action, nothing really changed besides them becoming more knowledgeable. They may feel more powerful or energized, but soon even this feeling will fade away into the distance when they realized that they haven’t given any value back.

So in order to regain that power, energy, inspiration, motivation, or feeling again, they will find it in another book, another video, another audio tape, seminar, or thread reply, until one day they’ve realized how much time has passed by and how much they are in debt. The credits are maxed out and the ink from crossing out all the days of the calendar run dry. Like how a powerful king who falls from the throne when he becomes too greedy, a self-employed person will fall out of greed to know everything, eventually putting them in a helpless, powerless state to do anything.

The Ones Who Give Value to Others

There is hope though. Although in today’s highly competitive world, a normal person – with or without all the rich knowledge of the information age – can still succeed and see themselves rise up to being a king, but not only a king that serves himself (or herself for women reading this – Queen), but a leader who serves the people. And this is done through giving value to others.

There’s a catch to this however. The word “value” is often times misused or misunderstood. The reason for this is because when a word is used too much, the meaning of it becomes inflated. Other examples are words like “best,” “top,” and “most.” But when you look at the word “value,” what does it really mean to you?

Most people might replace the word “value” with the word “something”. So the phrase of this paragraph’s title would read, “The Ones Who Give Something to Others”. This “something” usually comes out to be a form of rehashed or regurgitated material from a common source. What is value then?

In chess, value is not the pawn, knight, or bishop. It’s the queen. Value is something of quality. Value is something important. Value is something unique. It is not something.

So I guess the biggest question is how can you give value to other people? Although human beings may seem different in a hundred billion ways, we have an innate characteristic that enables us to detect on a deep, personal level whether or not the value we are receiving is actually making a genuine positive different in our lives.

This could be something that makes us laugh, makes us think, makes us wonder, or even better, all of the above. But it’s not something that makes us disappointed, frustrated, or even just walk away as if nothing had happened except for time passing by.

You can stand out from the rest; you can rise to the top; you can be the king. But the one thing you must always ask yourself is this question. Are you truly making someone else’s life better?

First of all I would like to thank every single one of you for being great readers and great members of the CYT community. I really do appreciate your feedback, your support, your comments, your suggestions and mostly for being you and being honest.

Highlights

The highlight has to be the change of design and cutting out of adwords and annoying adverts.  The new design has made a huge difference and there are more reders, more authors, more comments, more interactivity, more all round.  My determination and productivity levels rose dramatically in August as well after attending Leo Babauta’s A-list Bootcamp Course.  I met some fantastic people on that course and some great new writers in the personal development field.

Statistics for 2009

2009 has been a great year for CYT in terms of change and growth.  Here are some figures:

Subscribers grew from 2500, at the start of the year to 6300 (most of this growth occured from August when I made my mind up to get 10,000 subscribers by the end of this year, it jumped from 3,200 in August to 6,300 to date, I didn’t reach my target but I tried my best )

Page Views: 663,978 up from 590,000 last year (12% growth)
Unique Visits: 442,496 up from 397,000 last year (11% growth)
Clicks out: 109,184 up from 78,000 last year (40% growth)

Online Earnings For 2009

Advertising on the site:
TextLinkAds – $826.15
Linkworth – $1,913

Affiliate marketing:
My own product at www.binaural-mind.com – $5,326
Promoting affiliate products from clickbank – $8,283

Freelance writing:
from August – date: $2,350
EBooks – $650

Total online earnings = $19,348
Total direct costs (adwords etc) – $8,800

Earnings – cost = $10,548

Average extra monthly income – $879

The online earnings model I have been using is to promote affiliate products using adwords, and I am getting a good rate of return however it’s not enough to realise my goal of being a pro blogger.  A better business model looks to be from writing, not necessarily for others but from creating my own products such as ebooks, books etc.  So that is the way I am going to go next year and see where that leads me.

New authors on CYT

2009 saw a lot of new authors and I would like to thank all of them here:

Armen Shirvanian – See All Armen’s CYT Posts Here

Ayo Olaniyan – See All Ayo’s CYT Posts Here

Brian Walsh – See All Brian’s CYT Posts Here

Celetine Chua – See All Celestine’s CYT Posts Here

Douglas Cartwright – See all Douglas’ CYT Posts Here

Dragos Roua – See All Dragos’ CYT Posts Here

Francesca Kotomski – Read All Francesca’s posts Here

John Anyasor – Read All John’s Posts Here

Jonathan Beebe – Read All Jonathan’s Posts Here

Jonathan Wells – Read All Jonathan’s Posts Here

Mary Jaksch – Read All Mary’s Posts Here

Mr Self Development – Read All Mr Self Development’s Posts Here

Nik Karlil – Read All Nik’s Posts Here

Noah St john – Read All Noah’s Posts Here

Patrick Stoeckmann – Read All Patrick’s Posts Here

Tara Miller – Read All Tara’s Posts Here

Zeenat Syal – Read All Zeenat’s Posts Here

I loved having the guest authors on CYT as it broadens the readership and the message I am trying to create here.  There are so many fantastic writers out there and I am glad some of them spent time to write for CYT.

Top 10 Articles according to Pageviews:

1. 5 Eye Exercises To Improve Your Vision -   45,776
2. 6 Ways To Dramatically Improve Your Eye Contact Skills – 35,332
3. 22 Of The Best Motivational Videos Online – 34,241
4. 8 Destructive Thinking Patterns And How To Change Them – 27,370
5. Top 5 Gym Free Exercises – 23,318
6. 7 Irrational Thoughts That Disrupt Your Life – 18,743
7. 100 Ways To Develop Your Mind – 16,018
8. How To Change Your Life In 60 Seconds – 13,688
9. 50 Of The Best Personal Development Blogs – 10,139
10. Life is Shit – 9,720

Looking Ahead To 2010

Two Books

I have just finished one book and am working on another one, in fact I am working on a few.

The first one is called 100 Ways to Develop Your Mind and is an extension of the post 100 Ways To Develop Your mind I wrote a few months ago.  Instead of this being available in eBook format I have put it into print using a service called Createspace and it will be available on Amazon in a few weeks time.  I will be sending copies out via pdf to a few people in the next week for review.

The second book will be ready by the end of February 2010 and it’s an ebook, with videos, audios and PDF files, it’s going to be a major one for me, more about that next year.

Services

I am offering more services such as:

Freelance writing
Life coaching
Blog coaching

As a direct result of the success of CYT I have managed to land 3 regular freelance jobs writing for Lifesnips.com, Dumblittleman.com and Eclecticmagazine.com and have written for another 3 people on an ad-hoc basis.  I am loving the writing just now and my productivity levels have risen so much this year, it’s hard to believe.

More Writing

I belive the quality of writing has gobe up since last year and I want to keep all the readers interested in coming back so I will be writing the same type of content for 2010 and adding more exciting bloggers to CYT.

I am still toying with the idea of video which I tired briefly, but I need it a little more professional before I attempt it again.

Thank You

There are a few people I would like to thank personally for their support and encouragement and belief in me:

Robin Easton - Has always been supportive of my work and she really is an inspiration to a lot of people including myself.  thank you Robin, you’re the ‘Angel of the internet’

Jonathan Wells – Another good friend and someone who has listened to my half cocked ideas and still had my back, thank you Jonathan.

Dragos Roua - Dragos has been great this year with his writing and is some I admire and someone who has been behind me in everything I have done.

Ayo Olaniyan – He took on the role of coach in the ‘Ask The Coach series and is a great professional

Leo Babauta – Without his course A-List Blogging Club course I wouldn’t have rediscovered my passion for writing.

David Peralty – For hiring me and beliving in my writing enough to give me a writers spot at LifeSnips.com

Jay White – For giving me a little leeway with my writing subjects on DumbLittleMan

The readers of CYT have all been great this year and they have made all the authors feel welcome and encouraged them to speak their minds.  Thank you, thanks you, thank you everyone I hope next year will be just as good.

Your Thoughts

I am always interested in your thoughts for 2010 and would ask what you would like to see on the blog or what would you take away.  Anything at all would be helpful to keep driving the blog forward.

]]> http://www.stevenaitchison.co.uk/blog/statistics-for-2009-and-looking-forward-to-2010/feed/ 45 http://www.stevenaitchison.co.uk/blog/the-passion-paradox-a-response/ http://www.stevenaitchison.co.uk/blog/the-passion-paradox-a-response/#comments Sat, 05 Dec 2009 10:11:26 +0000 Steven Aitchison http://www.stevenaitchison.co.uk/blog/?p=1911 I am writing this article, in response to great article written by Lisis over at Quest For Balance

To give my summary of the article by Lisis:  she was saying that too many people are advocating that we should follow our passion and the money will follow.  Lisis’ analogy of the people who write about giving up the day job to pursue our passion is: ‘Snake oil salesmen.’

She made some great points about how making money from our passion is hard work and that we still need business acumen to make it a business and make money from it.  Lisis goes on to explain that being deeply passionate about something doesn’t equate to it being a viable income source and that these ‘snake oil salesmen’ can be dangerous leading us to believe that it’s not okay to have a traditional job and we should go out and leave our jobs and work the 4 hour week.

This is a great article and I can totally see Lisis’ point of view.  I have my own thoughts on what the ‘snake oil salesman’ is really saying:

‘If you’re unhappy with your job there is another way to make money’.

They are speaking to one type of person.

Two types of people

(S)He is speaking to a few people, not everyone, just a comparative few who think ‘I don’t like following the rest of the crowd.  I want to make it on my own, I want to set my own hours, I want to make my work contribution count, I want to say ‘I made a difference in the world.’  Yes you can make a difference in the world working a 9-5 job, but the people who don’t want the 9-5 job feel they are not making a difference which is part of the reason they want to follow their passion and their dream of going it alone.

Now, there are very few people in the world like this, most people are happy with their jobs and that’s great.  The world needs the two types of people: the person who likes making a difference in the world and getting paid by an employer at the end of each month, and also the person who says ‘No! I don’t want to be part of the machine, I want to build my own machine.’ The likes of: Bill Gates, Seth Godin, Richard Branson, Eben Pagan, Michael Dell, Leo Babauta, Darren Rowse etc

It’s not being unrealistic to have a goal like this, however, what is being unrealistic is to think that it can happen overnight and that it’s easy.  The ones who give up their day jobs in pursuit of the dream without having tested their theories are the ones who will fail miserably and they are also the ones who were laughed at when they bought the snake oil to cure their baldness or make them more attractive to women.

The ones who have a day job and transition over to making their passion their main income are the ones who know there is a market for their work, they have a bit of money to fall back onto should it not work out, they have more income from their passion than they do their day job, they have a business plan, they have the business sense to make it work.  They will also, more than likely, have someone behind them, their partner, who is bringing in money to support the transition.

The School Funneling System

Quitting the rat race is a phrase I hear a lot and it’s about empowering oneself, saying to everybody I don’t have to have a traditional job to make a contribution to the world, and I don’t want to be a sheep.

The reason traditional jobs, in the western society,  are so popular is because we are funneled into them and slotted into jobs like a jigsaw piece, according to our grades at school and how much money our parents had.    The schooling system breeds little cogs that will fit nicely into society and that can do jobs according to abilities and grades at school.

The problem with this is that the school system teaches us to be cogs, they don’t teach us to be free thinkers and think about the alternatives in life, it’s all about ‘Get good grades, you’ll get a good job’.  They don’t teach us entrepreneurship, business skills, writing a business plan and all the other skills we need to make a business of our own.  They also emphasis left brain thinking and leave right brain thinking to a few token classes like art, philosophy, drama studies, and even these classes are left brain structured.

Now I can hear you say that a lot of schools are teaching business skills and how to run a business and all the skills needed, yes you are right but how many of these schools are privately funded?

Conclusion

To end this little rant, I would like to say that making money from your passion, and the people who advocate this way of living, is an alternative.  It’s an attractive alternative to a lot of people but you definitely need more than having a passion to make it, you need marketing skills, business skills, accounting skills, networking skills etc. Is it a viable alternative? without a doubt yes.  Is it okay to have a traditional job and be happy? without a doubt yes.

When you are in the mindset that you want to work for yourself and follow your dream I don’t think it is feasible to say ‘Love what you do’, there needs to come a point when you have everything you need behind you, all the skills, the money pot etc and just go for it, if it fails, at least you can say I went for it.

I would like to thank Lisis and Alison for the inspiration for this rant   check out their blog Quest For Balance for more thought provoking articles.

There have been quite a few of these moments in my life but none more profound than than the one I’m about to share with you now.

The Key To Success Is Making

Others A Success

Now, you’d think that would be well known and everybody would say ‘Duh, I knew that already!’ but so few people know of this key or really grasp it’s importance.

In any field you happen to be in, if you go out of your way to help people better themselves you will become known as the person to go to.

Be the person to go to

At work I am known as the ‘Computer Man’, no matter what the problem is; Word documents, excel spreadsheets, trying to find a lost image file, undoing things etc. That’s because I love the computers and even though I don’t know most of the things on the computer I use the little tab that says ‘help’ and figure it out within a few minutes. Why do most people ignore this little ‘help’ button; probably because in every workplace there is always someone like me.

If you make yourself the person to go to at work you can make yourself the person to go to outside work and start a business or a part time venture whereby you become the person to go to in a small niche. You do this by giving away free information, give great advice and generally being a nice person. When you become quite well known for the person to go to, then that’s when your business really starts.

My friend, Dragos Roua, has become the guy to go to about blogging, within his circle of friends. And due to this he is now starting to do blogging seminars, why? because he’s helped people for free in the past, built up his knowledge while showing others what to do and generally being a nice guy. Now he has another income stream, all because he become the person to go to.

Helping others

When you help others become a success you undoubtedly will become a success yourself, however, you still need the business savvy and the business guts to put yourself out there.

Never call yourself an expert, let others call you the expert, but put it out there that you know what you’re talking about and help others achieve what they want to achieve.

I realised this a while ago but am only now beginning to put into motion the second stage of this and that is having the business guts to get out there.

What’s your story?

Have you realised this key already, if so what’s your story and how did it help yourself and others?