How To Redeem A Promo Code In iBookStore

Recently, Apple allowed authors with books published on their iBookStore to use promo codes. A stable and very popular feature for iOS developers who published their apps in AppStore, promo codes were unavailable for iBookStore until now. I confess I was a bit confused on how to use these promo codes, since there is no iBooks app on Mac OS. Usually, I was using my iTunes on the Mac to redeem the promo codes for apps in AppStore, but without a similar thing for ibooks, I just had to scratch my head a bit.

Fortunately, it proved to be a much simpler process than I thought. In fact, it has only 2 simple steps. Here we go:

Step 1: Find The Redeem Button

For that, you should open the iBooks app (on your iPhone or iPad). If you’re on the “Library” mode, browsing the ebooks you already bought, touch the “Store” button and make sure you’re on the Apple store and not on your local device. Once you get there, touch the first tab button in the navigation tab bar on the bottom of the screen. It is the one called “Featured”. Now scroll all the way down to the bottom, and voila: the “Redeem” button magically appears.

Step 2: Enter Your Promo Code

Now, after touching the “Redeem” button, you’ll be taken to a new screen, pretty much similar with the one below:

After you entered your promo code, you will (hopefully) get a message saying that your item is downloading. What iBooks does is that it automatically matches the product with your promo code, looks it up in the store and starts downloading it. In a few seconds, if you have a good internet connection, your book will be available in the Library. Here’s how your iPhone screen should look like after the entire process finished:

That’s it.

A Crash Course In The Long-Lost Art Of Adaptation

One of the biggest lies of my life was this one: if you do your job constantly, if you listen to your folks obediently, nothing bad will happen to you. All you have to do in order to live a happy life is to play by the rules and everyone around you will do the same. If you listen to life, life will listen to you and will reward you back big time.

Well, guess what, it didn’t actually happen like this. I mean, I did my best to be obedient, to follow the rules, to do my job and not to harm anyone else, and yet, out of the blue, I got kicked straight in my ass. And not only once.

I’m sure you’ve been there too. And not only once. You did your job too, minding your own business, fulfilling your roles as a friend, employee or husband and then, kaboom, life hits you right in the groin, not only filling your entire being with unbearable pain, but also leaving you breathless, confused and defeated. It doesn’t matter if we’re talking about business, about relationships or friendships or you name it. Sometimes you just get hit. At some point, if you’re a business man, competition will play dirty. Or employees will let you down. In your personal life, the persons you trust (or care for) the most will lie to you or dump you. In your casual circle, a friend will suddenly betray you. It will happen.

For a long time, I thought I didn’t do the right thing… you know, righteously enough. I thought I didn’t follow all the rules, or that I somehow misunderstood something. I thought it was my fault. This is what they teach you, anyways. If what you do doesn’t solve the problem, just use a bigger hammer. So I strived even harder. But surprise. Nothing changed.

As life unfolded, the tiny little crack I was just glimpsed at, became larger and larger. It looked like no matter what I did, the gap between what I expected and what I actually got grew bigger and bigger. It became obvious there wasn’t a direct link, or any causality whatsoever, between my obedience to the rules and the bad things that were happening to me.

To make a long story short, it took me a ginormous amount of time to realize that life really is random. That you can’t control it. That you can’t influence events. They will always happen somewhere outside you.

Oh, my god, stop it right here! Blasphemy!

How can someone who writes about goals, living a better life and improving your skills can come up with such an enormity? You can’t do anything about events? You just have to sit there and endure whatever comes in your face?

Well, not so fast, Jose, not so fast.

I didn’t say anything about what YOU have to do. I said something about events. About things that are happening to you. Those things, believe it or not, you aren’t able to control.

You can’t control the stock market. But you can see how she moves and take advantage of some opportunities.

You can’t control the weather (not unless you can detonate a huge atomic bomb, or generate a volcano eruption, that is). But you can assess the changes, evaluate them and then act on them. Put on lighter clothes if it’s getting warmer or take an umbrella if it’s going to rain.

You can’t control the behavior of your clients, if you run a business, not to mention competition. But you can observe the competition moves, read your customer feedbacks and then do whatever you have to do advance.

Are you with me now?

Truth is we have a very limited sphere of direct influence in this world. If you really look at it, it’s just a tiny bubble around us. You can control your body, your clothes, your moves. You can control your balance and your visual sensors as you walk outside of a building, for instance, but you can’t control a potential brick that may fall right into your head from the top of that building. You can observe it, of course, and avoid it. But the brick will be outside of your control zone.

The Randomness Of Life

We get a lot of “bricks form the top of the building” in our lives. We can spot some of them and timely avoid the impact. But some of them are invisible and we just get hit.

In the beginning, I was shocked by this discovery. The randomness of life seemed frightening. I thought I was helpless. I suddenly went to the other side and started to believe that no matter what I do, a brick will always fall down from the sky and ruin it. Of course it didn’t. So it took me a while to understand the meaning of the term “randomness” and also to adjust my position towards it.

And that’s how I started to study the “long lost art of adaptation”. Of course I don’t know if there is such an art, I just made it up. It made you click on the title, didn’t it?

Anyway, back to our story: art or science, adaptation is not only key to survival (as any serious biologist will confirm it for you) but it’s also important if you want to make the best of what you get. It’s at least a key skill and, as such, I firmly believe that it can be taught.

Without further ado, here’s a (crash) course on how to enhance your adaptability skills:

1. If Something Feels Like (Or Really Is) Wrong, Accept It First

Don’t fight evidence. If you get hit by a crisis, please admit that you are hit by a crisis and this is exactly what is happening to you. Don’t treat like an injustice. Don’t even think in terms of luck or bad luck. From a tiny point of view, at the exact moment of that event, it may feel like an injustice, but on a larger scale, it’s just another event in your life. So, instead of whining, crying and complaining about how bad life is treating you, just accept it. It’s another part of your life. It may be painful now, but it’s still your life.

2. Always Assess

After accepting it, start looking around and see what can really happen. Evaluate the harm done (or potential). Try to predict. Try to see what might go wrong. Or good. I can’t really remember any event in my life which was entirely good. Or bad. A wedding can be a good event, but if there’s a divorce 5 years later, well, I don’t know… Losing all your money may seem like a terrible thing to happen, but if you look at how this forced you to change your way of life, it may be something to ponder there…

3. Unfold Plausible Scenarios

After assessing, try to understand what you can do in the newly unfolded circumstances. But don’t limit yourself to just one thing. Don’t try to find the perfect solution. Make a few scenarios. Even better, try to develop a way of thinking in scenarios, whether you’re in a crisis or not. It will make miracles for your morale, believe me. Just try to project as many variables as you can. Don’t let anything out. Don’t believe in “this will never happen to me”. Everything you can imagine, can actually become an event.

4. Act, Don’t React

Accepting the catastrophe, assessing the damage, creating a few plausible scenarios, well, it’s not enough. You gotta act. Acceptance in itself will do nothing. Assessing in itself will do nothing as well. Those possible scenarios, as detailed and complete as they may be, won’t mean nothing. It’s action that changes things. So, just go ahead and make your best pick out of those scenarios. Just play your hand.

5. Rinse And Repeat

Once you acted, you’re already in a new context. Enjoy it. Be there, watch the surroundings and be ready for anything. It may be that the scenario wasn’t as good as you thought it may be. Ok, back to square number one. Try plan B. Or it may be that the plan really worked and now you’re out of the dangerous zone. Just be there and be alert. Enjoy what you have and live the best life you can live.

For it may fall apart again in a split of a second.

Best Empowering Tools

Yeap, I know. This is a very generic title. But, if you clicked through it, you’re gonna be in for a treat.

Every once in a while, I get to be involved in specific online events. Sometimes it’s about collective projects, sometimes it’s about some interesting memes and sometimes it’s about specific sales events. This post is about one of these sales events. How are these are working? In short, you put together some top-notch experts in a specific niche, and then try to convince them to lower the price of their products, for a very short amount of time, and to create what I call  a “window sale”. In other words, a very appealing value, concentrated in a short time span.

The Package

The sale event I’m part of it now it’s called “Best Empowering Tools” (obviously) and what makes it stand out is the very high level of the participants (i.e. the people who are putting together their best works in this huge package). The sale is hosted by Barrie Davenport, from the LiveBoldAndBloom fame and Stephanie Wetzel from TradingPounds.com. I was kinda late to the party, so you won’t see my face in their nice web wall there (like you don’t get to see my face enough on this very blog or Twitter/Facebook, doh ). But you will see my products, down there, on the 25th spot.

I’m contributing not one, not two, not three, but exactly four products to this event, namely: Natural Productivity, Brilliantly Better, 100 Ways To Live A Better Life and 100 Ways To Screw Up Your Life. Just click on the links if you’re interested to know more about them.

But enough about me. Let’s talk a bit about the rest of the gang.

With some of the contributors in Best Empowering Tools I’m a close (online) friend. That includes Steven Aitchison (who was kind enough to include me in his top 50 self-improvement blogs of 2011), DirkdeBruin (aka Diggy, from UpgradeReality.com) or Jonathan Wells. Also, I’m happy to see Marelisa Fabrega in there (she was also kind enough to give away for FREE one of her ebook to the readers of my blog, just go to the downloads page and scroll down) as well as Jonathan Mead, from Illuminated Mind, Anastasiya Goers, Evelin Lym (with whom I kick-started my first massive guest posting experiment, two years ago). I won’t go on with all the 25, but I won’t stop before mentioning other very common names in the self-improvement / productivity area, like PicktheBrain.com, Henrik Edberg from PositivityBlog.com or Charlie Gilkey, from ProductiveFlourishing.com. They’re all giving away some of their best products in this window sale.

The reason I’m not mentioning the rest, is not that they are not at least as good as the ones I’ve talked about so far, but because, as they teach you in all the good sales courses: you don’t have to make them drink, you have to make them thirsty.

So, my goal is not to make you click on one of the links to Best Empowering Tools (although I won’t be upset at all if you do) but to reach down into yourself and try to answer to one question: “What am I going to change this year?”. If you find the answer, that will be enough for me. And if you find the answer, just keep in mind that you have now an opportunity to get the best support you can imagine for pursuing these goals, in the form of a huge collection of ebooks, courses, DVDs and videos. There’s one catch, though (it’s always a catch, I know): the sale will last only three days. It starts today, January the 16th and it will close on January the 19th.

Now, the last thing you should worry about (and that’s the reason I’m putting it like at the very end of the post) it’s the price. The combined value of these products is well over $1000. But you get it for a measly $97. Yeap, feel free to re-read that. It’s $97 for $1000. You do the math.

The catch? It will only last for 3 days. So, go ahead and check out this package.

Thank me later.

Cash, Stubborness and Music

I had the first cassette recorder when I was around 4. It was called Jola 2, a Polish make. I know, I know, Poland and cassette recorders. But hey, it was the peak of the communist era in the Eastern Europe, in very early seventies. We were all actually eating our own dog food.

I still have a very clear recollection of both the actual device and the context which lead to its acquisition. It was a black box with the cassette tray on the left side, with the speaker on the right side (it was an ellipse shaped speaker, I remember how I peaked through the small holes of the black plastic mask and realize the form which has letting the sound out). It also had a transparent radio scale with all the frequencies painted on it. A round knob on the right was moving (by the means of some complicated plastic wheels and thin strings) a small red line on top of that scale, so you know which frequency you were listening to. It was mono, of course, in 1974 having a stereo device would have been extremely difficult. The cassette was manipulated with a line of silver buttons, on top of the tray. One of them would open the tray, while the others were helping you play, record and rewind the tape.

We bought it, (actually, my dad bought it) one summer when we were on vacation at the Black Sea. At that time, Black Sea was a popular destination among other countries in the communist block. Many people from Czechoslovakia, Poland and Yugoslavia were coming along. The political police wasn’t so obvious and many small things were still tolerated. Like a nudist beach in each resort, which, usually, was also the place where a little bit of black market could be seen. I don’t know why the black market was always around the nudist beaches, but this is how it was.

The Negotiation

One day we went on a walk, me and my father, to see what was going on at one of these “bissie-nissie“ (a covert term for ”business“ of course) places. I remember that I got chewing gum and I was making bubbles. My father was looking very carefully at all the stuff lined up on black teeshirts on one side of the beach. At some point, he saw a small black box and he asked for the price. He didn’t know any English, and, apparently, the seller didn’t know any English too. But they were waving around hands and fingers and they were also drawing numbers in the sand, erasing them quickly with their feet, once they were sure the other part got it right. My father asked for a short demonstration and the seller put a small thing into the black box, pushed some buttons and, miracle, the black box started to sing. I was amazed.

We went back to our place on the beach and my dad started to talk with my mom. He took a small purse (which was holding the money, I was going to find out soon) and we went back to the bissie-nissie place. This time we went straight to the seller place, which was a small room in one of the hotels lined up on the beach. They started to talk. Again, they didn’t speak any English and the seller native language was very strange (it was Polish). But they were talking like 15 minutes and apparently they were thoroughly enjoying it. They were both smiling and laughing. Twenty years later I learned that what was going on in that room was called negotiation. At some point, my dad took out the money from the purse and put it down. The color of the bills, wrapped up in a moderately big package, was blue. I remember that very clear. The seller wasn’t smiling anymore and he didn’t look quite happy. But as my father was still talking, smiling and waving his hands, the grumpiness on the face of the seller started to fade. The money package was still on the floor. After a few minutes, the seller made a funny face, something that was clearly saying ”well, what the heck“, took the money and gave the black box to my father. We walked out of the room with my very first music device. The silver top of it had a strange word, with red letters: Jola 2.

For the next few years, that music device took a very prominent place in my day to day life. Names like ABBA, Boney M and others became common in my vocabulary. I soon learned how to play a cassette, how to record music from the radio, or even from the device’s microphone, starting my own proto-podcast. I was about 5 years old. The audio cassettes were still fragile at that time and the technology of that Jola 2 wasn’t very advanced, so, every once in a while, the tape was stuck inside. I learned how to take out the tape and use a crayon to rewind the tape again inside the cassette. Of course, once the tape was wrinkled, the sound wasn’t that good anymore.

The Problem

As years went by, the Jola 2 approached its end. At some point, it just stopped working. I had no idea why. But my father took a screwdriver, took out the back side and started to look inside, with just a soldering gun and a lot of patience.

I remember my first encounter with the inside of the cassette recorder. It was so colorful inside, so full of wires and strange shapes that I just couldn’t take my eyes out of it. I stayed near my father and watched how he slowly started to dismantle it, piece by piece, wire by wire. It was obvious he didn’t have any idea about how it’s working. Other than: ”this might be the power wires, they must be the power wires. Now, where do they have to go?“. He really had no idea how the whole device was working, but he had an incredible stubborness and patience. After the first few evenings (he was still working all day and he had time for the ”cassette repairing“ only late in the evening) I just gave up and went away, finding other ways to fill my time. But my father stood there and he even started to look at the electrical scheme (a huge piece of paper filled with strange symbols).

After a few weeks, in one of those long evenings in which my father was completely immersed inside the cassette recorder (sometimes  felt like he was literally inside that box, eaten up by those colored wires and shapes, melting inside the delicate electrical engines) well, one of these nights, I heard music again. I was so surprised that I was looking outside the room. Nope, it wasn’t coming from the inside. My father actually repaired the cassette recorder. It was working again.

I was so shocked that I couldn’t ask my dad how he did it. He just did, and that was all that counted for me. Before he put on the black panel I took a final look at the inside of Jola 2. It was as colorful as I remembered it, but now there were some new things popping up. In some places there were some new wires added, while in others there was something resembling to metal stitches. It was changed, that’s for sure. But it worked again.

After Jola 2 I also had a Kashtan, a Russian magnetophone on which I listened to rock music for the first time, but that’s another story.

The Business Approach

Around the age of 30, after I was rambling around, doing pretty much nothing with my life, I decided to become a business man. I started from scratch an online publishing company, which at its peak was the third player in the market. After 10 years, I sold it for a profit.

Starting it, making it work and then growing it wasn’t easy at all. But as I grew, both in terms of experience and lucidity, I started to realize something. It was related to my first cassette recorder, of course.

First: the negotiation in that room was something extremely important. If you go out and ask every business man which is the most powerful tool in a negotiation, they will always tell you: ”cash“. Cash is king. As a four year old kid I had absolutely no idea about it, of course. But I did recall the strange discussion between my dad and the Polish seller. As I was going to find out soon, in my own business, each negotiation is the same: both parties are just talking in their own language. There is seldom a real communication between them (that’s why my father and that guy were able to understand each other, although they didn’t speak each other language). But the moment my dad put the money package on the floor, everything changed. In a few minutes, the other guy made that funny face, like ”well, what the heck“, took the money and gave us the device. In other terms, we closed the deal.

I used this, unconsciously, in many deals as a business man. To this very moment, for me, cash is the most powerful tool in a negotiation.

Second, it was the ”breaking up“ moment. The moment the cassette recorder stopped to work. As a business man, I experienced a lot of crisis. Sometimes it was a cash crisis, sometimes it was a market crisis, sometimes it was all of that and even more. And each time I had a crisis, I also applied unconsciously the same approach as my father. Took up the back panel, dive into it without any knowledge of the problem, but with an iron like desire to make it work again. Studied the causes, did a lot of trial and error, sometimes drastically modifying the inside of the music box, but, after a certain period of time, the music was on again. I think you may call this discipline and stubborness. Without it, I highly doubt that any business can advance.

The Selective Recollection

We tend to select from our past the supporting memories. I’m sure there were a lot of details to be remembered from both the negotiation part and the breaking up of the device. I’m sure I could’ve remember the hotel room paintings or the color of the carpet (since I did remember the color of money package) or even the face of the Polish seller. I’m also sure that I could remember the shape of the table at which my father sat while he tried to fix the Jola 2.

But nope. I did remember what I needed to. Which is another way of saying that we have all the resources we need. We literally have access to an endless reservoir of inspiring and supporting examples in our own lives.

Each and every situation in our lives carries the seeds of something important. Just be aware and look carefully.

I guarantee that if you do it, the music will never stop.

An Tan Tiri Mogo Dan

Or, to be more precise, “An Tan Tiri Mogo Dan, Cara Cara Si, Princi Pa Ta Morin Go. Tan Go!”

In case you didn”t live in the Romania of the seventies, chances to know the meaning of those words are close to zero. Ok, it’s a “countdown”. You don”t know what a “countdown” is? It”s a sequence of apparently bogus words, spoken in a certain rhythm, almost like a song, each word being assigned to a certain person. Or, to be even more precise, to a certain kid, because this countdown is actually one of my strongest childhood memories.

Let me explain how this countdown thing worked: suppose we were 7 kids, and we wanted to play “hide and seek”. We had of course to pick one of us to be the actual searcher. For that, we gathered in a circle and one of us started the “countdown”: “an” -> the first one in the circle was tagged, “tan” -> the second one was tagged, “tiri” -> the third one was tagged, and so on, until we reached the final “go”. The kid that was tagged with that final “go” was out of the circle, sparred from the tedious job of being the searcher. Now there were only six kids left. So, we started to countdown over the circle again, until only one kid was left. That was the searcher. As simple as that.

Above All Doubt

We used “countdowns” in many ways. Whenever we had to pick someone for something, and all of our rational selection processes were ineffective, we resorted to the “countdown”. It was our universal selection process. We used it when we had to pick soccer teams for our afternoon soccer games in the school yard. We used it when we had to pick the teams for the ping-pong matches on the concrete table in front of the block. We even used it in school, to pick the one that had to be on duty for the week.

I don’t know who invented that specific countdown and I’m pretty sure the words were completely random and meaningless. Maybe they had to be meaningless, otherwise the magical power of the “countdown” was weakened. I think it was more like an incantation, a borderline magical stuff.

Once we finished a “countdown”, its results were above all doubt. Nobody could contest them. It was final. In a subtle and unexplainable way, the “countdown” was the glue that was keeping us together. Eventually, all our conflicts were solved with a countdown. And nobody would ever contest it.

The Collapsing World

But, as we grew up, we noticed that some of the kids were somehow luckier than others. They seemed to be surrounded by this magical chance: never picked to be on duty at school, always in the best soccer team, never the searcher at “hide and seek”. Hmm…

It didn’t take long to find out that, if you were doing a fast mental calculus, you could actually “predict” which kid will be the last one tagged. So, the “luckier” kids were just doing these mental calculations and they were starting the countdown each time from the “appropriate” kid. Like that, they knew how to manipulate the countdown, so they were the first ones out, if the task was tedious, or the first ones in, if the soccer team was the best one. Think of counting cards in a casino, but much simpler than that.

When I first realized that, I was shocked. My entire world collapsed. What once was above any doubt, now was questionable, to say the least. My small and simple universe was literally shaken apart.

The Modern Countdown

But I survived. It wasn’t the first nor the last perfect image of my childhood universe that was trashed away. Time passed by and I soon had more interesting adventures to pursue than the soccer in the school yard, the ping-pong at the concrete table or even the all mighty “hide and seek”. Among these new adventures: girls, getting into college and finding my first job.

But, in some remote corner of my unconscious mind, the mantra of the “countdown” was still very powerful. I think I was well into my thirties when I realized that. Only now the mechanism was a little bit changed.

Now, I realized that every time I was in a situation which was unsolvable by rational processes, I was always resorting to my own personal mantra. For instance, when I was having heavy problems in my own business, like clients not paying, stretching the business beyond my means or employees leaving for better salaries, I was always resorting to some sort of personal mantra. Sometimes it was “everything will be allright, I just know it”. Sometimes it was “you gotta hit the bottom if you want to bounce higher”. And sometimes it was “I’ll go through this, no matter what”.

I was repeating those mantras to myself, the same way we were doing countdowns as kids. I was just expecting it to work, because it had to. Like the countdown, my unconscious mind invested that mantra with universal powers. It was above all doubt.

But I wasn’t a kid anymore. And the realities surrounding me were now far more complexes than a soccer game in the afternoon or a short shot of “hide and seek”. Mantras, as much as I wanted them to work, were useless. They had this power to keep me going for a while, just like the countdowns did until I realized they can be manipulated, but in the end I had to surrender. Just like my childhood universe collapsed when I realized that other kids were playing us because they knew more or they were faster at calculus, each of my mantras were trashed away but the existing realities.

In the end, I was able to overcome pretty much every adverse situation (except the ones which are still unfolding as we speak, which is, of course, another story). But I did this outside the mantras. I did this by facing the facts, accepting the outcome and weighing my odds, in a cold and calculated way. I manipulated the countdown in my favor, starting it again and again, until I found the favorable positions.

There is no magic mantra. There is no lucky shot at your command. There is nothing except your own strength and honesty. There isn’t even this post. Don’t believe it. Don’t make a mantra or countdown out of it.

Because I wrote it only to manipulate you. I counted all the words in such a way that it puts me in a better position. I’m out now .

Information Is Cheap, Action Is Expensive

Remember how understandable it was to be late 20 years ago? It wasn’t like the world will collapse if you’re late 5 minutes. There were no cell phones. If we had to meet you, and you were late, we first assumed that you simply forgot. After more than 15 minutes, we simply decided that you didn’t want to meet us anymore and think of a way to solve this next time we meet. And then went on with our lives.

20 years ago, if you wanted to go from point A to point B, you had to rely much more on action, than on information. Action meant to just start and see how you’re doing later on. Get on that train and figure it out while you’re on it. Get on a bus and negotiate your arrival later. Just be out there somehow. Action was the cheapest merchandise out there. Everybody has it and used it.

Information, on the other side, was very expensive. To know a lot of stuff was a ridiculously difficult task. Most of the time, information was confined within thick walls, like libraries or laboratories. And if it wasn’t that, it was distance. It was very difficult for you to visually experience a tea ceremony, for instance. Because the information had a very slow propagation speed. There was no internet. Only TV, printed papers and books. All very, very slow in spreading information.

Now, things are completely different.We know everything we need to know about point B, but we’re unable to foster the necessary resources to get there. Information is no longer confined within thick walls, we can learn everything we want about everything we can imagine. Yet, we almost never get on a bus, ready to negotiate our arrival later on. In a strange and almost imperceptible way, action became prohibitive to us. Information is everywhere, but the ability to act on it it’s almost a dream. It’s all backwards now. Information is extremely accessible, while action seems to became the most expensive merchandise in the world. We seldom take real action on what we want. We spend our lives processing and consuming incredibly high amounts of information, but we almost never take action on what we know.

For instance, it’s very easy to spot an opportunity business now. You have the internet and most of the time, all you have to do to get some information is to google it. You can verify if somebody else already implemented your ideas in minutes. 20 years ago this was basically impossible. We have lower risk barriers now. Yet, we don’t take the necessary action to actually make it happen.

I experienced this on a few levels, but the most visible is by far the business level. I meet very often with young entrepreneurs, and they’re telling me their brilliant ideas. Some of them even have presentation skills. Some of the even have enthusiasm. But almost none of them has the guts to actually implement that idea. Most of the time, they mask their inability to take action behind the “we need seed money” excuse. But even if they get seed money, they don’t have the necessary internal resources to make the best out of their business idea.

The incessant race towards more and more information drastically affected our ability to act. And if I would be a tabloid journalist, I would write now a very strong sentence about the end of the world. Luckily, I’m not a tabloid journalist, so I would write this: it’s an incredible opportunity, folks! While others are spending their lives watching that twitter stream, you can start a real life conversation with a potential business partner. Just go ahead and do it! It won’t cost you more time or resources than any of those dozens if meaningless – yet incredibly rewarding from a psychological point of view – interactions on Facebook you have anyway. Instead of reading blogs (including this one) just go ahead and DO something with your life. Your action doesn’t need to be perfect. On the contrary, even if you screw things up, you may end up in a much better position than those who are not even screwing their life up.

From an economical point of view, the value of information is constantly degrading. Not only it gets cheaper to be consumed, but it also gets cheaper and cheaper to be produced. On the other side, the value of action is keep getting higher and higher. The less you find a needed product on the market, the higher its price. Action, any action you may be able to create, it’s now more rewarding than information.

There is only one exception to this rule, and that is this very article. The information you got from it it’s very precious. Now go out there and DO something about it!

Got A Good Startup? Here’s 50.000 EUR For It!

I bet you clicked the link to this post because of the 50.000 EUR in it! So, to quench your curiosity, that money is for real. It’s not vouchers, or anything like this.:) But it’s not a present either. It’s an investment. Who, how and when, you asked? Stay with me, and you’ll find out.

Venture Connect – The Event

A few months ago, I wrote on this blog for the first time about Venture Connect, a Romanian initiative meant to bring together investors and entrepreneurs. It’s not a contest, nor an incubator (although there are some strong indications that this could turn into an incubator at some point in the near future). It’s a bi-annual event, in which selected projects are presented by entrepreneurs to a pools of investors. There were already 3 events organized already, and the next one is set to take place on November 23rd. There is no guarantee that you, as an entrepreneur, will get an investment, although a few months after the first event, one of the startups got a capital injection of 500.000 EUR. After the second event a few other startups got involved in further discussions with a few potential investors, and the talks are still going on as I write this.

Venture Connect is ruled by a board of advisers. Part of the members of this board are also members of the foundation Venture Connect. I’m part of the board, but not of the foundation. I function as an adviser and mentor for the selected projects, helping entrepreneurs refining their message and polish their presentation. A part from the seats taken by the founders of Venture Connect (the Biris-Goran law firm), there are 4 more other places taken by advisers (in a very random order): Radu Georgescu, Peter Barta, Marius Ghenea and Orlando Nicoara. All seasoned entrepreneurs, some of them with a strong international presence.

The 50.000 EUR Investment

Starting with the event on 23rd of November, Radu Georgescu, president of Gecad Group and one of the board members, announced that it will invest 50.000 EUR in a startup that he will evaluate at that event. Not only he will put that money on the table, but he’ll also integrate the startup into a mentoring program. In other words, there will be involvement, not only cash.

The startup must play on the tech field, with a good international potential. If you think you have this, just go ahead and sign up for the event. You must submit the project on the official website, not here! Keep in mind that every project or startup you submit will be carefully reviewed by yours truly too, so at least we may have a chance to both meet interesting people.

Why am I doing this? Because I support this event, not only by working on it, but also by spreading the word about it to my wonderful audience. That would be you, in case you had any doubts. My wonderful audience, that is.

So, if you have anything closer to “putting a dent into the Universe” but lack the initial investment, go ahead and check out Venture Connect. If you don’t, but know people who are, I would highly appreciate spreading the word about this one.

WPSumo Promo Code – August 2011 Edition

It’s that time of the month again, namely the time when we’re adding the promo code for WPSumo. If you don’t know what WPSumo is, well, then it’s time to find out that WPSumo is a great WordPress framework, with a ridiculously high amount of features. I’m a partner on this project, so it’s not a surprise that I run my own blog on this framework.

So, without further ado, let’s see the code:

wpsumobest

This promo code will give you an instant 30$ off of the Developer License. The one that lets you use WPSumo on unlimited domains, that is. In order to use it, you just have to click on this link:

WPSumo Developer License

and then scroll down to the field where it says “enter coupon code” (obviously). Enter the promo code and then click “Proceed To Checkoout”. You’ll be taken to PayPal where you can finish the transaction. The total amount should be 99 USD.

Why You Should Do This?

In last month’s promotion (which wind up pretty well too) I gave this URL: 12 Reasons To Switch To WPSumo, for those of you unaware about the possibilities of the product. I also promised that I will give a new reason each and every month. So, here’s the 13th reason to switch to WPSumo: “All the cool kids are using it”. I’m serious

How To Create A Landing Page In Less Than 5 Minutes

But I know that being cool has no meaning whatsoever if it’s not doubled by some serious knowledge, especially in our business. Internet, that is. So, I’m giving you access to another screencase, in which I’m creating a landing page in less than 5 minutes, using WPSumo.

Just remember, the promo code is

wpsumobest

It will shave an instant 30$ from your purchase, thus leaving the Developer License at only $99. All you have to do is to click the link below:

WPSumo Developer License

Enjoy

A Miracle Lasts Only 3 Days

Some things in life happens fast. You have to get up, grab the opportunity and be happy for it, because that kind of opportunity will not be there again soon. Maybe never.

It goes for people you encounter and you really feel like talking to them because otherwise you won’t have any other chance, or it goes for things you really want to do. Like I did a few months ago when I did paragliding for the first time in my life, or get a tattoo, also for the first time in my life. These things are so unexpected, yet so compelling and fulfilling, that you just can’t oppose them.

Well, the thing I’m gonna write about today is one of those things.

The Scoop

Let’s take the top notch, hottest, most popular 22 personal development authors, put together their most interesting products, bundle them at an incredibly low price (and by incredibly low price I mean an insanely low price), but only keep this going on for 72 hours. Basically, that’s the scoop. The place where you can find this is called Only72.com. If you’re the type of person that really knows what he wants from life, just go ahead, grab the bundle and thank me later.

But if you feel like reading more about this, just relax and keep reading. I have a nice story about you.

The Subtle And Almost Invisible Reward Of Doing Things Constantly

If you read my blog on a regular basis, you must have recognized this paragraph title. It’s for a blog post I wrote a few weeks ago. Back then I was writing how driving my car day in and day out made me a much more than average driver (or, in other words, a very good one).

But that goes also for writing, not only for driving. Two and a half years ago, when I started this blog, I made a commitment to keep writing for it no matter what. There were a lot of bad times during those two and a half years. Yet I stayed on course, took the shift on the face and just kept on writing.

And, today, I am incredibly proud about what’s happening. Some of my products are going on this very bundle along with products of people I was looking up to with amazement just a few years back. People like Leo Babauta, the creator of one of the most popular blogs on the planet, Zen Habits. Or people like Charlie Gilkey, a true voice in productivity and life and work balance. Or people like Jonathan Mead, who’s courses are already famous all over the internet. Or… But I’d better stop right here.

And I’m gonna let YOU see what’s in this unbelievable offer. You be the judge of this opportunity. It may be that you are having the exact feelings I had when I first did paragliding, in New Zealand, a couple of months ago: uncertainty, confusion, worry, excitement and even fear. Fear that what you’re going to get won’t meet your expectation. But believe me, once your foot will stop reaching the ground and you’ll be flying, none of those feelings will matter anymore. You will even forget that you had them.

So go ahead, dive in this huge promotion (yes, it’s actually valid for only 72 hours) and use these books and courses to start flying on your own.

A miracle lasts only 3 days. So, get your goodie! $1087 goods for only $97!

Mariner Promo Code – April 2011

No, it’s not an April fool. It’s for real and it’s a very useful thing: I’m going to give you the mariner promo code for April 2011. This promo code, which is exclusive to readers of DragosRoua.com will entitle you to an instant 30% discount to any software you get from Mariner Software. I’m running this promotion for more than 2 years now. And literally, thousands of people already took advantage of it. Let me give you the code first and then you will have a little explanation on how to use it:

uranus

In order to use it, you should go to Mariner eStore first. Start shopping around. Once you’re happy, enter the code above into the designated field of the shopping cart. Click “Apply” and voila, your shopping cart should be discounted now.

Just in case you didn’t get the code from the first time, here it is again:

uranus

Yes, it’s that simple. I know I could have written a much longer post detailing all the benefits, using some smart text anchors and a lot of vivid (if not downright upsetting) imagery with software boxes and so on. But I didn’t. Because I know my readers. If they want something, they will simply know that and will choose accordingly.

Happy shopping!

Forget Products: Let’s Build Ecosystems Instead

You know, Google didn’t invent the internet search. They just made it better. Before Google there was a place called Altavista (many centuries ago, if you know what I mean ). People used to go on Altavista and search for various things. At some point, Google made that process better. And pretty much everybody who was using Altavista migrated to Google.

If you look at Facebook you’ll notice something absolutely obvious: they didn’t invent the social network. There was something called hi5 before them. And I think it’s still is. Somehow. People (or teens, to be more precise) used to hang out on hi5 all the time. Until Facebook came up with something better (some are saying Facebook created a place where you can stalk your wife, your friends, or your ex). I just say Facebook made the social interaction better, somehow .

Now let’s step outside the web for a moment. Let’s look at Apple. A dying company 10 years ago, it now has the largest capitalization in the world. And, surprise, they didn’t invent the laptop, the mp3 player or the tablet. Ok, I hear you Apple fanboys, they “redefined the category“, but let’s move outside the PR area for a moment. By the way, I’m a huge fan of Apple products, but this post is not about that.

Customers versus Citizens

Any economics teacher will explain the processes above in a sentence like this: people simply start to love a product and they start using it. I will have a different opinion, this time. I’ll say: people like that place and are moving over. We all moved to Google, to Facebook and to Apple.

And that “move” challenges our status as a customer. We’re not customers anymore. We’re citizens. We’re part of a new thing. In the absence of a better word, I will call this thing an “ecosystem”. Why is that fundamentally different than being just consumers? Because we have to obey that country rules. We have to play as Google sings, desperately looking at their page ranking algorithm, or we have to hide as much as we can from our privacy in Facebook. They created more than a product, they created a web of interactions. A complex system in which we are both consumers and creators.

Google would have nothing to search if there won’t be any internet content. And Facebook would have nobody to interact with if there won’t be anybody using it. We are at the same time consumers of something that we create. Doesn’t this sounds to you like being part of country? It surely does to me.

This process, this mix of continuous consuming of and building on those places, that makes us citizens of a new type of country. We’re Google citizens as much as we are United States, New Zealand or Romanian citizens.

We’re not part of a business anymore. We’re part of an ecosystem.

Countries versus Companies

Now let’s turn a little to the country rulers. To Mark Zuckerberg, Steve Jobs and Sergey Brin. Who are those people? Or, to be more precise, what’s their role here?

Well, besides building the whole thing, they now have a very important part to play: they can allow other businesses in their ”country“ and live ”off of taxes“. That is a fundamental shift in the way we’re doing business. All we knew about markets and demand is kinda obsolete now. The direct interaction between consumer, market and product has been tampered by a new thing. We don’t pay for Google. But we do help Google make a lot of money just by… being. Same thing with Facebook.

Look at Facebook ads, AdSense or AppStore. Each time we’re using Facebook, we’re exposed to Facebook Ads. Sometimes we’re using those ads and paying for them. Almost any time we’re surfing the web we are exposed to AdSense and we’re helping this business grow on top of Google ecosystem. And, as much as you’d like to think that you’re using an ”improved user experience“ when you’re using your iPhone, you’re not. You’re playing Angry Birds. And that game didn’t even existed before iPhone. It’s something you bought from AppStore.

Facebook Ads, Adsense and the AppStore are businesses inside the countries Facebook, Google and Apple.

If you’re looking carefully at the whole structure of the ecosystem, at some point you’ll realize that the revenue is not generated by the initial business. But by “taxes” on layered businesses on top of each country.

How To Build A Digital Country

Well, maybe not a country. Maybe a small city. Or a village. Or at least a neighborhood

But let’s stop for a while and explain why would you like to build something like this. Well, because you could, potentially, at some point, to become the ruler of that country and, exactly, live off of taxes from the business you are allowing there. Many people are calling this ”passive income“ nowadays. I call it digital country rulership. And it has at least 3 ”must“ and ”need“ in it. Let’s dive.

First of all, be specific. Not unique, but specific. And by that I mean: if your country will be about, let’s say, ”personal development“, don’t try to reinvent it. Just be yourself. Chances are that pretty much everything on that niche has been invented way before you even thought to build that type of country. But, as Google didn’t invent the internet search, you can just make it better. Like adding your own touch, experience and skills. It’s about your vision, not about somebody else’s vision. Because, yes, you guessed, then it will be somebody else’s digital country, not yours.

Second, listen to your citizens (those would be your readers, if you still have difficulties identifying the metaphor). Follow their needs, their discussions, their suggestions. Look at their behavior patterns. Do they spend a lot of time in your country? In which places, exactly? And what are the places they hate? That’s pretty much what a regular country ruler does, if you think a little.

Third, be realistic. And by realistic I mean manageable. Do you really want to be the ruler of a digital China? The thrill of being on top of that mountain could be really appealing, but think for a while at the responsibility that comes with it. Believe me, you don’t want to be the ruler of China. Not today, not ever. But you can be the ruler of your own small tropical paradise. Or just a small town where people can live and have fun.

Welcome To My Digital Country

That would be the blog you’re reading right now, of course. This is the country I built in the last two years. It wasn’t easy, but I kinda managed to do it, if you know what I mean. I feel good around here and this is my place. There is enough content here (the first 500 articles are the most difficult, by the way) to keep my citizens entertained for weeks. And there are also a lot of comments. Over 8000, if you wonder. And that would be the traces of the people who are living here. A lot of traces, exactly.

Oh, yes, I’m forgetting something. Namely, what are the business you can participate in, as citizens of my country. Well, you can become an affiliate for my digital products (5 ebooks on sale from here). The first one was launched more than a year ago and the most recent one just a few months back.

And if you wonder what other businesses I built on top of this cute little blog, well, I also build iPhone apps. If you’re into productivity (and I think you should be, because you just spent 6 minutes reading a blog post, do you realize that? ) you can get iAdd directly from the AppStore. It’s a universal app, which means it works both on your iPhone and iPad.

By the way, what’s your digital country? Don’t be shy, say hello, I like to travel. A lot.

Oh, you don’t have one yet? Well, you must make a choice: you can either be just a citizen of a country and obey all its rules, or start building your own and play the game from a much higher level.

What’s your choice?