Brilliantly Better – The Ebook

Last Friday I launched – in soft mode – my latest ebook, Brilliantly Better. During the last 48 hours anyone interested in getting it had the chance to buy it at a discounted price, 9.99 USD. As of now, the price of the ebook is at the normal level, meaning 16.99 USD.

Also, a few other things have been completed, adding the final touches to the launch. First, I finished a promo movie. I’m really proud about how it came out, more about that in the next paragraphs. Second, a brand new website has been put in place, and that would be, obviously, Brilliantly Better.

The Brilliantly Better Movie

This is my first attempt ever at making a movie. I don’t know anything abut this so I asked a very good friend to help me out. He’s one of the best guys I know at this thing, with thousands of hours of work on the field, and dozens of commercials already aired. His name is Sega and you can find more about what he does by clicking on that link.

We spent the last Saturday shooting in my living room, experimenting with various lenses and gear and settings and props. I never thought that getting a few minutes of valuable filmed material can be that hard. But it was also incredibly fun. We both enjoyed our time and we did that not because we had to, but because we liked it. Huge difference. Meaning we had a blast

I should also mention that the music and the sound on the movie were also supervised by Sega (I’m the one talking, though, obviously). I should also note that we shoot it with my Canon 450D, with two types of lenses, and the music was made on my iPad, using Garage Band. The editing was completed on Sega’s laptop, on Adobe Premiere. The total number of hours spent on this was around 20.

One of the things that really helped us out was the fact that we have a lot of common beliefs. During the last 3 years Sega has been on his own quest too, traveling through India and Asia. Also, he started to write a novel about his spiritual adventures, the book (in Romanian) should be published soon. Also, we’re both fussy and expensive. But, as you can see, we deliver.

As for the movie, you can see it at the end of this post. If you like it, share it. Also, leave a comment and let us know what you think.

What Should You Expect From The Ebook

I’m sure you already clicked on the first link and you read everything on the Brilliantly Better website. I’m writing this for the 1.34% of you who didn’t.

You will get more 70 articles, 500 pages, each and every one of them carefully selected out of more than 700.000 words I’ve written on my blog since I started it, 3 years ago. It’s just the best of what I wrote so far.

And I won’t say a word more than that, because you should really be at the ebook site now. And because I deeply hate those ridiculously long and shallow sales pages, that way of promoting stuff I did just doesn’t click with me.

Enjoy Brilliantly Better – The Ebook!

July Freebies And Promotions

Some days are like chocolate boxes. After you open them, there is something incredibly sweet and tasty inside. I decided that today will be one of those days for my readers.

July Promotions

I don’t know about you, but I’m experiencing an incredibly hot summer. I’m in Romania at this time and it’s summer around here. A hot, slow and lazy summer. All I want to do is to hang out, cool out with a refreshing drink and read something nice under a dark tree shadow. And a hammock, please.

I may not be the only one, I said to myself this morning, so I decided to make things easier for those in the same situation. So, I’m giving away a few (consistent) bucks from the price of some of my most popular products.

9.99 Off Of Brilliantly Better Bundle

Usually, the bundles sells with $19.99. If you don’t know that, the products in this bundle are already discounted. It contains not one, not two, not three, but exactly 4 ebooks by yours truly, as follows:

• 100 Ways To Live A Better Life +
• 100 Ways To Screw Up Your Life +
• The 7 Ages Of An Online Business +
• 30 Sentences For A Millionaire Mindset

The total retail value of this package is 30.96 USD. By buying all together, you get a special price of $19.99. And by applying this summer promo code, you get everything at the price of $10!

How you can do this? Just click on the link below, and when the shopping cart opens, add the following promo code:

julyishot

and click “Update Cart”. And then just follow the normal PayPal checkout, you should have a grand total of $10. Click To Get This!

9 Off Of Natural Productivity – Assess, Decide, Do

Natural Productivity is so far my top selling product. Since its launch I experienced a steady flow of sales each month, on a variety of channels, including this blog, Kindle and iBooks. But the most important thing about this ebook, is that it led to one of my most spectacular projects, namely iAdd, an iPhone / iPad (and soon to be launched, Mac) app, which implements all the productivity concepts described there.

I’m actually throwing away half of the price of Natural Productivity, making it available at the same price as the bundle above, namely $10. I also made sure it will be as easy for you to get it as it would be to say

julyishot

You got it, just click on the link below, add the above promo code in the designated field and then click “Proceed To Checkout With PayPal”. Your shopping cart should show you a $10 final price for this ebook. Click To Get This!

Personal Development For Free

Yes, I heard you loud an clear: you’re asking why is there a “freebies” in this blog post title? When do I get to that freebie part? Well, right now.

So, my friends, I just want to let you know about something incredibly helpful happening in the personal development area. It’s a new website, called PersonalDevelopmentFree.com. This site features free (as in free beer) content from some of the most popular personal development authors of the moment. I’m honored to be included in this website, with one of my ebooks. So, all you have to do if you want to get access to a nice library of top notch self improvement content is to go on PersonalDevelopmentFree.com, and make your pick.

I also want to let you know that all the content is tied up to each provider’s list. In other words, although all the content is 100% free, you will have access to it after you sign up for the corresponding mailing list. This is a total opt-in process, so you can opt-out at any moment, and still have your goodies with you. I’m not encouraging you to sign off, on the contrary, I totally recommend all the newsletters on that website. Including mine.

That’s all, folks! Enjoy your summer

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!

The Utterly Incomplete Guide On Monetizing Your Blog

Half of my life I lived under a communist regime. Among other funny things under a communist regime, money, or, to be more precise, the lack of it, was something pretty common. So, I started to learn the value of money very early, mainly by the absence of it. Why am I telling you that? Well, because this particular context of my life created a very interesting situation. Namely, the ability to create money out of any imaginable situation. When you live under pressure, you learn how to breathe differently.

Years later, this very ability, which is more on the survival side, to be honest, than on the corporate, “let’s conquer the world” side, served me really well. Not only was I able to create and sustain for more than 10 years my own online publishing company and successfully sell it once I decided to start something new, but also helped me when I started this very blog. Which finally brings us to the point of today’s article.

Which is part of a brilliant series, ignited by my fellow blogger (and upcoming A-lister) Mars Dorian. The idea was to bring together a pack of internet rock-stars and squeeze the hell out of their knowledge and expertise. As you may see, we have even a visual identity for this series (which I think it’s a very cool idea).

The articles were sequential, meaning at the end of one article the author had to introduce the next blogger and topic. Well, since I’m the last one in this series, I can only have the honor of mentioning the previous articles, as follows.

The Guerrilla’s Guide To Attracting Your “Right” Audience – by Mars Dorian

“Less Followers” Is The New “More Followers” – by Francisco Rosales

The Art of (Online) Seduction (And Why You Need It To Make Money) – by Ashley Ambirge

How to Join Forces with Other Bloggers and Grow Your Audience Together – by Corbett Barr

Networking Awesomely, Kissing Digital Babies and The Lifeblood of the Blogosphere – by Srinivas Rao

Now, let’s get back to the topic. Which is, as you already know, monetization. I will skip the parts related to writing and traffic building, as I expect you to have a lot of know-how, after the first articles. I will also suppose that you have enough traffic to start monetizing. That specific threshold varies a lot depending on your niche, writing style and overall goals with the blog, but as a rule of thumb, I think that from the magical “1000 unique visitors / day” milestone you can start to apply some of the following strategies.

So let’s see what exactly can you sell from your blog in order to make some money.

Selling Real Estate – Advertising

The most affordable way to monetize your blog is advertising. It’s also the most inefficient one. You need huge traffic in order to make some decent money and you also need a LOT of real estate (or, in other terms, a pretty big, in terms of space) blog. Because you will have to have enough space to accommodate your advertiser’s exposure, without alienating your audience.

I used advertising extensively on my network of websites and tried a lot of approaches: automating it with very affordable, ready to buy online packages, selling it with my own sales force or delegating it to an agency. While I did have some positive results over the years, I have to say that this activity is both time and resources consuming.

It’s good if you want to get your feet wet in the monetization world, and learn some stuff, but in the long run it won’t pay for your jet. Unless you’re Mashable and you don’t know that yet, of course.

Selling Interactions – Affiliate Marketing

The next thing you can do after advertising is affiliate marketing. This is a very different technique and it’s also enormously diverse. You can start doing affiliate marketing on your blog with only one client, or you can sign up to dozens of affiliate programs. There are tons of affiliate marketing strategies and many of them are really working well. If you’re new to this world, I highly recommend this course Affiliate Marketing For Beginners (by Corbett Barr). And yes, that link is an affiliate link.

In my experience, no matter what strategy you choose, there are a few things which are always standing up. Those things are the cornerstone of any affiliate activity.

1. Be Honest

Clearly state the fact that you’re doing affiliate marketing. Let people know that by buying the products you’re recommending you will get some money. Many readers will choose to reward you this way, if they find the products appealing.

Also, try as much as possible to recommend only what you’re using. In fact, do recommend only what you’re using, otherwise your credibility will decline in time.

2. Be Consistent

If you started to do something in this area, continue. Affiliate marketing is not an instant business. Sure, you can have spikes and wake up one day to realize that you’ve done over 1000 USD in sales, but that won’t happen in the first day.

Also, be consistent in your niche and product choices. If you’re trying to associate yourself with too many products, or try to cover a way too broader niche, your own brand will weaken.

3. Be Useful

Think at your readers. Think at their needs. Just because you’re excited about some product or service which has an affiliate program, it doesn’t mean your readers will be too.

Selling Your Own Information Products

After you did some advertising and affiliate, it’s time to go to the real stuff: creating and selling your own information products. I consider this to be by far the most profitable and resource effective way of monetizing your blog. No matter your topic, your biggest slice of money may come from the thing you’re already doing on your blog: creating useful information.

There are many ways to create information products and I think a course on this will cover at least several hours. But let’s assume for the moment that you’re just creating ebooks. Ebooks are very appealing to your users, because they’re already consuming your content in the form of articles. They may find the whole buying process very natural. They’re already reading you for free, so if you create some premium content, they’ll be most likely willing to pay for it.

There are also a few things you may want to know about information products:

• their lifespan is relatively short. Unless you’re creating a huge hit, they’re last only a few months. After that, you can bet that all your audience already knows what the ebook is about. If they really want it, they buy it in the first few weeks.
• they must bring in something completely different from what your blog brings, but at the same time carry your own personal mark. So, packaging your blog in the form of an ebook may not create as much buzz as you think. People want something different.
• there are a few psychological levels related to pricing (and the way people are perceiving products, generally). A small but useful ebook will be priced between 10-20 USD. A relatively premium ebook will be priced between 20-40 USD. And from that mark up, you can start thinking at creating series or even more complex products, like webinars or online courses. These as well can go anywhere between 50 and 250 USD, depending on the value you put in and your niche.

Other Media Declinations

This is very similar to the one above, only it happens on other channels. It’s still selling your own products, only you take a lateral step and go into a somehow different way of packaging the information. The closest example is a podcast. It’s very similar with what you do in your blog, but it’s really different. There are a few significant examples of successful commercial podcasts on the internet, galadarling.com being one of them, for instance.

But you can also do something different than a podcast. Package your blog posts as audiobooks. This is what I did with one of my post (after this was suggested by a fellow blogger) and, believe it or not, I do sell that 2.99 USD audio file.

Imagination is the only limit here. I remember that a few years ago, when I had my car portal (the biggest in Romania at that time) I started a small radio show (3-5 minutes daily) and tried to sell advertising on that radio show. Go figure…

Real Life Interactions

This is a very interesting way to make money. In fact, many people who are already making money in the offline world are turning to the online world in order to support their offline business (that sounded a lot more complicated than I wanted to). To keep it simple, it’s about coaching, consulting, workshops or even webinars.

In this case, your blog will be a vehicle for your offline business. Although I think there is a scalability problem here (namely, how high can you go, how many workshops can you deliver, etc) there is something that attracts me a lot to this. I think it’s about the real energy exchange that takes place in these workshops. I went to Steve Pavlina workshop last year and I felt incredibly. Not because the concepts Steve taught us (many of them being around the common sense threshold) but because of the energy that emerged out of the group.

After I started to do my own workshops (on business and blogging) I got the same feedback from my attendees. “It was wonderful, but the most important thing was that we felt good together”.

So, if you reach a certain level of popularity, don’t be afraid to go out in the wild, and try some public speaking and some workshops. It may not work from the first time, it may not bring as much money as your ebook going viral may do, but boy, you’ll feel good.

iPhone / iPad / Android apps

This is a relatively new way to monetize your blog. Because this media is quite new. When I started blogging, iPhone wasn’t invented yet (I’m having a hard time to realize this, to be honest). Anyway, the fact that our content has become available and it’s consumed on an increasing number of devices creates a little bit of opportunity.

One thing you can do is to package your blog into a “hidden column” type of iPhone/iPad app. The “hidden column” is another name I give to the freemium model. You package your blog in that app along with something unique, that is meant to be available (and consumed) only through that app. That unique thing is your “hidden column”, something that people would be happy to pay for.

Or you can try to implement some of the concepts you have into an iPhone app. This is exactly what I did a few months ago. I created an ebook about my productivity framework “Assess – Decide – Do”, and I also created an iPhone app, iAdd, which implements this framework. The app is available in the AppStore and it does sell pretty well. And so does the ebook.

***

Well, that was it for now. I don’t know why, but I have a very distinct feeling that I only scratched the surface with it. Honestly, this is why I changed the title of the post too. There’s so much to be said on this topic, but I already have more than 1800 words written on this.

So, if you want to know more, just kick me up in the comments, I’d be happy to talk more.

How To Build Reputation With A Blog – Clearly State Your Expertise

That’s the first article from the series on how to build reputation with a blog and will deal with openly stating your expertise.

Back To Basics

Openly stating your expertise on your blog it’s fundamental for building online reputation, yet too often overlooked. Many bloggers, especially in the beginning, are focusing on building traffic, creating blog posts, interacting, and they forget the main reason they’re blogging for: they’re really good at something. There is something that they do better than anyone else. In this rush for creating more and more content, their very own expertise is left behind.

Well, make it obvious. Put it out there. Otherwise nobody will know what’s the difference you can make. Suppose you will build a sizable audience. You will attract a fairly large number of subscribers. Your readers may like your posts, they may feel entertained, educated or motivated by reading your blog, but they won’t create a mental link between a certain niche and your online persona. Unless you make it obvious.

How obvious? Well, it starts with your blog header and goes up to your about page. Will talk in a minute about the hot zones of your blog where you can imprint your expertise. For now, let me give you an explanation of my own blog header: brilliantly better. Apart from sounding really good (I love alliterations) it really mirrors what I am good at.

My work here aims to create a state of brilliancy while getting better. That is what I do. And this is my intended reputation. I know from experience that I can make you become not only better, but also feel brilliant in the process. That’s my main area of expertise. I have of course other, much more focused areas of interest, like blogging or online business. I’m not writing very often about them, but every few posts I publish something on these topics too. And while I’m not a top expert in these areas, I can help you to get better results by using general tools like self-discipline, personal productivity and so on. What I’m trying to say is that I don’t have a specific topic in which I can improve your activity, otherwise I would have openly state it in my blog header. It would have been something like Brilliantly Better Blogging, for instance. You can chose your own goal, your own improvement area, and then use my blog as a motivator and trigger of inspiration. This is what I do.

Now think at what YOU are doing. What exactly are you good at? What is your most important value that you are ready to expose it out there? That should be your reputation cornerstone. You should start building on that one.

Master Your Blog Header

I already talked about this briefly in the last paragraph. I will only add that this is the pivotal place for your online image. It’s the first thing the reader will see. It’s often the “title” tag that search engine are taking into account when indexing your blog. This is how you will be remembered. Don’t miss this spot by trying to throw in some fancy things, but with no relevance whatsoever in regard with your desired reputation. Be short, clear and honest. Save the fanciness for the blog posts.

Use Your Blog Posts With Caution

People are reading blog posts because they’re based on direct, human interaction. They’re not part of an elaborated publishing process, like in traditional media. Behind a blog is (usually) only one person. And people are reading that blog because of that person.

At this level, stating your expertise too often in your blog posts will be a little too much. Too obvious. Your blog posts are the place in which you are capturing your readers and make them feel good. You’re not selling anything on your blog posts. On the contrary, you’re giving away for free. And that keeps people coming again and again, because they have a repeated return for their attention investment.

So, use your blog posts with caution. What you can do, however, is to interlink some of your expertise pages from within your most visited posts. I think one of the masters in interlinking (this is how it’s called) is Darren Rowse from ProBlogger. If you don’t read his blog, you should start now. Seriously.

About Your About Page

Blogs have an “about” page for a very important reason. It’s usually the place your readers reach after you got their attention. It’s your second opportunity to get a seat in their heads (the first one is your blog header, remember?). If you don’t have an about page, your blog is worth half of what it could worth. If you have a “shy” about page, you’d better not having it at all.

The about page should be the place where you should list all your credentials, testimonials and all the other references about you on the interwebs: interviews, collective projects, media appearances and so on. Afraid that you have only a few? Well, go out and mingle, contribute and generate more. Afraid that you have too many? I don’t think there is such a thing like “too many” when it comes to your own credentials or testimonials.

One of the most interesting “about” pages I know (although one of the simplest out there) is Brian Clark’s from Copyblogger.com. Go read it and you’ll understand why he’s a very successful online entrepreneur (not only a famous blogger).

Sidebars And Sales Pages

Blog gods gave you sidebars for a reason. There aren’t just placeholder for your widgets, you know? They are valuable blog real estate that should be used. They offer a parallel visual experience for your readers. As such, they’re much more available and ready to be clicked than the about page.

Usually, sidebars are very good for incentives. You can offer some assets in exchange to some loyalty: the classical free ebook in exchange of a newsletter subscription. But you can also use your sidebars to promote events, products or services you own or you are part of.

Another special case is what I call the “sales” pages. They are not products or services sales pages, but mostly “hire me” places. If you really are selling your presence, as a consultant or handy man, you should definitely use the hire pages as a way to clearly state your expertise. It’s also pretty common to put there your services and your rates.

How This Works And Benefits

Openly stating your expertise makes it easier for the reader to remember you. It will create a strong image in their heads. I name this process: “buying some brain real estate”, identifying a niche with your name. It may seem like you’re very “in your face” with this approach, but believe me, you’re not.

Your readers are floating on a huge information ocean and in order to grab their attention you gotta be determined. I’m not advocating more than 50% of a regular blog page content (including sidebars) to be filled with your expertise, because this will transform your blog into a huge selling page. But it should be there and it should be visible. Many bloggers believe they will be “picked up” because they’re good at what they do. While this may be true, until they don’t make their skills obvious, nobody will even know what they do.

Openly stating your expertise is fundamental for building reputation but is not even remotely the only thing you need for that. On the contrary, if you’re resuming only to openly stating your expertise you will most likely generate the opposite effect of reputation: people will start to avoid you.

This is why we still have 6 more articles to go.

How To Build Reputation With A Blog – The Series

Apparently, one of the most visited posts of my blog during this summer was Want To Make Money With A Blog? Build Reputation!. There were a lot of comments, social media interactions and emails going on after I published it. One of my friends, Steven Aitchison suggested that I should write a more detailed post on how to build reputation. I followed the advice, and, to my surprise, I realized I can’t do it. I can’t write a blog post on how to build reputation with a blog. What I can do, though, is to write a whole series on this topic. And, to be honest, after I drafted the series, I feel like I still have a lot more to say about this. But, who knows, after the series, maybe an ebook will follow. Just let me know in the comments if this topic interests you enough for pushing me to write an entire ebook on it.

What Is Reputation And Why Do You Need It

Reputation is a combination of Authority and Authenticity. But if you’ve read the article which ignited this series, (the one linked in the first paragraph) you already know this. You also know that those are 2 of the 7 traits of the highly successful bloggers. Reputation is what makes you believed and respected.

But reputation is also the thing that drives potential customers to your blog over and over again. It’s the fundamental ingredient of personal branding. It’s the main reason behind any kind of value transfer between you and your readers, being it a click on a banner in your sidebar, or an ebook purchase.

As such, reputation is the fundamental ingredient in building a business based on your blog. It’s hard for me to imagine a successful (read it: profitable) blog, without a lot of reputation behind its writer(s). Yes, you can make some money without it, and the previous article tells a little bit about display and contextual advertising, but these are weakly linked monetization strategies, and they are working in a weak way. It won’t be a lot of money from that pipe. If you want serious money, you have to back it up with reputation.

One final word about online reputation: keep in mind that you need it only if you want to create sustainable value through your blog. If you want your blog to form a solid foundation for your business, then reputation should be a serious concern for you. But truth is you can blog for various reasons. It’s perfectly ok to  blog for pleasure, or like a hobby, or every once in a while, as long as you don’t expect a steady financial income from this activity. Just because you blog every once in a while, it doesn’t necessarily means you’re going to make some money out of it. But the vast majority of bloggers do enter this field in order to generate some revenue. This series is for them.

The How To Build Reputation With A Blog Series Structure

The series will have 7 chapters. I will update the links on this page as I will publish the corresponding articles, so feel free to bookmark this page as a reference.

1. Openly State Your Expertise On Your Blog

What you are good at and what you can make others become good at by reading your blog. This is a fundamental part in building reputation, yet so often overlooked. We will go through the basic steps of making obvious what you are obviously good at it.

Read the article…

2. Write On Your Blog Constantly

Reputation is about what you know to do best, but is also about your reachability. It doesn’t really matter if you know how to do things, if you’re at the North Pole and nobody can reach to you. By writing constantly you will prove at least you’re there and available.

Read the article…

3. Interact With Your Audience

Respond to comments, tweet your moods and mingle on Facebook. Interaction is all about creating sustainable communication channels with your audience. If you don’t interact with them, chances are they won’t interact with you either, and that will lead to a stale communication process.

Read the article…

4. Interact With Your Peers

Chances are that other bloggers are acting on the same niche as yours. The biggest mistake is to treat them as competition. Befriend them instead. Try to build a strong and genuine bond with them. Help them and ask for their help. Participate in collaborative projects as often as you can.

Read the article…

5. Differentiate

You clearly stated your expertise, you write constantly on your blog from some time now, you interact with your readers and with your peers. But that’s not enough. It’s time to differentiate. It’s time to let out the most different (and sometimes awkward) part of yourself. People usually identifies other people by difference.

Read the article…

6. Create And Promote Value

As soon as you have your blogging routine going on more or less on auto-pilot, you should escape it. You should start to create new products outside your blog. If you really are an expert, people will soon need a proof of that. A proof outside your blog. The blog is your distribution channel.

Read the article…

7. Be Patient

I left this part at the end for two reasons. First, if you had the patience to read through the first six articles, then you’ll understand the seventh. And second, because it took me years to understand this for myself. It’s probably the most important part of all.

Read the article…

So, stay tuned, and while we’re all waiting for the first article, let me know in the comments what do you think about this series. There is something missing from it? There is something you think I should add, based on your own experience? Is reputation valuable for you, not only as a blogger, but as a regular person? If yes, those principles can be applied in other areas too?

Affiliate Marketing For Beginnners – The Basics

When I published my post on how to make money with a blog by building reputation, many comments were pointing the fact that affiliate marketing wasn’t very obvious on my blog, although it accounts for more than 70% of my blog revenue. Well, it doesn’t need to be obvious in order to work. On the contrary, the less obvious your affiliate marketing activity is, the higher the chances are to succeed.

I know it sounds a little bit confusing. I bet all you know about affiliate marketing starts with: “make your offer as visible as you can”. Put it in the header of your blog. Stick it to you reader’s retina. Well, I don’t agree with that. And to be honest, I wanted to sound confusing on purpose. Because I really feel the need to puzzle your brain a little on this topic. If you landed here from some search engine, looking for a quick ‘n easy way to grab some cash from the “Internets“, you’ll be rather disappointed. Because there isn’t such an easy way to make money with affiliate marketing. Or, if it is, it’s most likely a scam.

Affiliate marketing means a lot of work, a lo of discipline, vision and persistence. It also needs a lot of honesty. For instance, I only recommend on this blog products I own and use. If there are ebooks that I recommend, you can be sure I read them and I have great respect for those ebooks or they authors. If there are some software apps, like Mac Journal, be sure I know and use that piece of software for years.

But now let’s get back to the point of this article. Like in any other moments of my life, every time I shift my focus towards a certain area, other related things are starting to pop out from nowhere. For instance, just when I started to mention affiliate marketing more on my blog, one of my friends, Corbett Barr, sent me an email telling me that he’ll restart his affiliate marketing beginner course. Well, well, what do you know!  Now that’s a coincidence!

What Is Affiliate Marketing For Beginners About

You should know by now that every time I hit this kind of coincidence, I follow. There must be something to be done following this coincidence, so here I am, trying to tell you a little bit more about affiliate marketing for beginners. When Corbett told me he’s going to relaunch it, I signed up like in 2 minutes. I was curious. And in the next 2 hours I browsed through the course. Some modules brought back some nice memories, while others made me have some really, surprising ”a-ha“ moments. Without spoiling it, here are a few things about this course.

”Affiliate Market For Beginners“ has 5 modules and 21 lessons. The 5 modules are covering pretty much everything you should know if you have no previous knowledge about affiliate marketing:  finding opportunities, site building, getting traffic (and sales) and some advanced topics. The 21 lessons are focusing on keyword research, topic selection, site building with WordPress, search marketing, content development and sales optimization. And if you’re curious about the advanced part (I know I was) this is about how to scale an affiliate marketing business.

After 2 hours I knew I was set: I had to write about this. But there was also something missing. Something didn’t yet clicked. Too little information. So I wrote 3 questions to Corbett, 3 questions that I knew any one of my readers would ask.

A Blitz Interview With The Man Behind This

1. What are the 3 main benefits of your program? I’m a busy person, but I have the drive and the money to spend on your program. Give me fast 3 reasons why should I spend money on this one

Cobrett Barr: If you want to earn a living online, affiliate marketing is one of the top revenue streams. My course has three major advantages.

1. It’s meant for complete beginners (to slightly intermediate), so if you don’t have experience with affiliate marketing, it will walk you step-by-step through the process.
   It’s an ethical course on affiliate marketing that will, as I like to say, leave you feeling good in the morning. We don’t teach any pushy sales tactics and only encourage people to promote products they love in a way they can be proud of.
   I guarantee you’ll make your first affiliate marketing sale after going through the course, and if you don’t make $1000 in the following months, I haven’t done my job.

2. How affiliate marketing helped you as a business man? Give me a personal story. I know you have one. We all have one.

Corbett Barr: My favorite story is the $1,000 on the beach day. I was in Hawaii with my wife visiting her sister for college graduation. We were busy visiting family and exploring the island, so I didn’t plan to work much that week.

At the last minute, I decided to send out an email to a handful of people about Chris Guillebeau’s awesome Empire Builder Kit. Then we headed out for a long day at the beach. We returned to the hotel after 10+ hours of fun in the sun to the pleasant surprise of having made $1000 in affiliate commissions from that single simple email. That’s when the real power of affiliate marketing really hit me.

3 On a scale of 1 to 5 give me a level of complexity for this program? How much it will ask from my time and my focus?

Corbett Barr: The course is meant to be easy to follow, but it will definitely take some time to go through. This is no silver bullet (they don’t exist), so if you were hoping for a get-rich-quick approach, this isn’t for you. You have to be willing to focus, go through the course material, and build your own affiliate program and experiment with what works for you. That process will take some dedication and time. How much time really depends on your level of experience, but some class members have made their first sale within a month. I’d say 2 to 3 months might be a good goal, doing a little each week.

How Much Does It Costs?

The cost for the whole thing is 47 USD. I won’t make any assumptions about this, now that you read the interview. I guess it’s obvious for everybody that this is a VERY good deal. So, if you really wanna know what’s this thing with affiliate marketing for beginners, go ahead and sign up here.

This price will only be valid for 48 hours starting August 10th, 8 AM, Pacific time. It’s 48 hours, folks, not one minute more.

One More Thing…

Just before hitting publish I got another email from Corbett, telling me that he was able to put up an enhanced version of this product. He called it the ”Deluxe Package“. And he did this for a reason: this deluxe package contains 3 interviews with some of the most prominent rockstars in the blogging world nowadays. Namely: Karol Gajda, from Ridiculously Extraordinairy, Adam Baker from ManvsDebt.com and Everett Bogue from Far Beyond The Starts . Oh, and the names links are direct links to those guys twitter profiles, so I’d suggest to follow them regardless of your decision about the affiliate marketing course.

Well, that’s that. I followed my synchronicity and wrote this article. I’m feeling rather good about it, to be honest.

And let me tell you something: you reading this… well, this isn’t by hazard, don’t you think?

Are you going to follow?

How I Wrote And Published 4 Books on Amazon in One Month

I don’t really believe in advertising as a valid, long-term monetizing strategy for a blog. There are more cons than pros, if you take the time to really look at it. Yet, many bloggers are rushing towards advertising and fill up their blog real estate with tons of banners and then dumbly wait for money to pour in.

Advertising has a very low entry point, all you need is some traffic and traffic building is relatively cheap, that’s true. But advertising also have a very, very low output: you need incredibly high amounts of traffic to make a decent amount of money. I won’t talk about the pros and cons of advertising as a blog monetizing strategy in this post. What I am going to talk about is my blog monetizing strategy for 2010.

The Strategy

First of all, let me tell you that I intend to make a huge change in my blog revenue in 2010. And by huge I mean huge, period. Second, I intend to make this happen by increasing my throughput. Delivering more value. This extra value may be contained in the form and the structure of this blog or it may be just an extension of the blog. Precisely, I’m going to build my own line of information products.

In the first 3 months of the year (including January, which is gone) I will create a series of ebooks. After that I may try a line of podcasts and/or video. If talking to a microphone is not at all unusual for me (I worked as a radio host for more than 7 years) doing some vlogging is certainly something intriguing. Which for me translates into “I have to do this”.

The very first items of my information products line are already out and they have been out for at least 2 weeks now. If you’re reading my blog on the web (as opposed to being an RSS subscriber) you noticed some changes. To make a long story short: during January, I already wrote 4 new books and also published them on Amazon. I won’t describe them now, I will let you download the free previews, if you want. Word of caution: there is one book which doesn’t have an associated ebook version and that would be The Productivity Trap (Amazon affiliate link).

Now let’s move on the “why” part of this decision.

Why Selling My Own Information Products

Because it’s more suited to my own lifestyle, to be honest. And because I find it much more appropriate to the whole concept of blogging as a business. A highly successful blogger should focus on increasing his throughput and deliver more of his personal experience, rather than relying on external, adjacent businesses, like advertising or affiliate marketing. I have nothing against that, and as a matter of fact I’m doing pretty well on affiliate marketing, I just came to a point where I want to do more. And here’s why:

1. Bigger Input

If I will build my own series of information products I will have greater control over the audience response. I can see what products are performing well and what products are not. I will see exactly what parts of my efforts are making the biggest impact. And adjust. We will grow together.

2. Better Connectivity

I will get in touch faster and deeper with my readers. Each of their responses will help me provide more value. Or, if I’m on the wrong path, I could be warned earlier. Anyway, creating more value on top of an already existing layer will streamline the existing communication.

3. Better Return

Let’s face it: in advertising, you’re the last layer from a huge pile. Each layer on this pile is retaining something of the value you deserve. At some level, this is understandable and I have nothing against it, as I already said it. I just choose to minimize this pile and keep fewer layers of interaction.

How I Did It

I started to write. Ok, it was a little bit more than that. Before sitting at a table and write, I tried to find the answers to 3 simple questions:

1. What Are You Going To Write About?

Not that I don’t have a gazillion topics ready to be extracted from my brain in the form of a readable ebook. It wasn’t the lack of topics, on the contrary, it was the prioritizing and selling strategy. What exactly would be the most fit and useful range of topics for my audience? And then it hit me: since I already have a lot of topics covered in this very blog, why not just run a content analysis and see which type of content performed better than the other?

I think the technical term for this is “crowd-tested”. Selecting topics which were already doing great in terms of traffic, comments and social media exposure. That’s one of the biggest advantages of a blog. You get all the interaction with your readers and deliver your message to a live audience, ready to validate or invalidate it. Oh, and in the process you do have a lot of fun too. Well, to keep a long story short, I chose to write ebooks based on the most popular posts I had in the last year.

2. How Much Do You Want To Write On Top Of These Posts?

I was fortunate enough to have a previous experience on this: my first ebook. It took me about 2 months of on and off writing to get that done. But it was like 90% new content. And, to be honest, it really felt like huge.

So I decided this time I will only go for 60% new content on top of the blog posts. That would lower the pages number, but this is not necessarily something bad. On the contrary. My aim is to provide easy to use and to re-use information. I’m not writing a philosophy manual. If I would write something like this, I would make revenue plans not for a year but maybe for 50. Or even 150 .

Now, one would argue that you can’t write tons of good, easy to read, appealing books just by using crowd-tested blog posts, and I would very much agree with that. I have more than 350 personal development articles on this blog now but I won’t go for more than 10-15 good books using only the best of the best.

I intend to freeze this strategy somewhere around book number 15. By that time I hope to gather enough experience and ability to be able to start writing books from the scratch, without the skeleton of a blog post. To be honest, I have 3 book projects (on personal development) that are waiting in my Someday/Maybe folder. Maybe that Someday is sooner than I thought

3. In What Form Are You Going To Sell Those Ebooks?

That was tricky, but in the end I come up with something really neat. I decided to have both electronic and printed formats. If there’s nothing to be explained about electronic formats (I already did it for my first ebook and I explained a little bit the process in the launch post) I think the printed part of this decision deserves a little bit of an explanation.

I was studying self-publishing platforms for a few months and sometimes during November last year I decided to give a try to CreateSpace.  The whole process looked clean and also easy to manage. All you have to do is to upload a PDF containing your book and a cover. You get an ISBN number and your own eStore, handling the whole selling process. The book is printed on demand, of course.

After I played a little bit with the site I abandoned the idea. And then, just a few weeks after, I saw that one of my fellow bloggers, Steven Aitchison, started to do exactly that. He published his first book on CreateSpace and… Amazon! Wow. It was like a thunder for me. I knew all the time that CreateSpace was an Amazon company, but for some reason my mind refused to make the connection. Of course! If you self-publish via CreateSpace you can make your book available on Amazon.com too.

And why is that important? you may ask. Why that thunder? Because Amazon gives exactly what you don’t have as a blogger: marketing and a HUGE captive audience (you may have a big community as a blogger, but not a HUGE captive audience).  It was really enlightening. So, I re-started the whole self-publishing process. The first one was 30 Sentences For A Millionaire Mindset (Amazon affiliate link), just to have a printed peer and then moved on the new ones. Everything was going on smoothly, but something was missing.

And I didn’t know exactly what, until I decided to start a challenge with Steven. We decide to race: whoever will be the first to have 5 books published on Amazon during January, will win. Strangely enough, I won that one. But the February challenge is already on, and we’re targeting 4 new books with that. So it’s complicated.

I started a challenge not because I wanted to win, in the first place (although the desire to win was there too) but because I wanted to be held accountable. To have somebody who can tell me: I will do it regardless of what you choose to do and I may win this. These types of challenges are a fantastic motivator. At least for me.

The Routine

If you’re going to follow this monetization strategy, you have to be aware of some of the pitfalls.

First of all: you will write more. Much more. So be sure to put aside some extra time for that, if you’re not a full time blogger. Writing blog posts is one thing, but committing to a book, even if you already have a scaffold for it, will take more energy and focus. Prepare to spend more on this side. The good thing is that books have a bigger inertia than blog posts: they tend to remain alive much more time than a blog post. So the passive income revenue potential is bigger.

Second: It will take some time. It’s not only the approval process for the printed books, this one is relatively manageable, somewhere between 24 and 48 hours. It’s about the extra work you should do AFTER everything is done. You will have some new activities or you’ll have to put more time in activities you already perform, like writing landing pages, communicating with your affiliates (if you already have a network of affiliates) and analyzing market inputs (sales, evolution, etc).

Third: balance it. It will be a huge effort. Be aware! Balance your extra work with some rest or other activities. I did feel a few times the gentle touch of a potential burn out during this month, but hopefully I made it without it.

The Goodies

Now, I know you’re curious about what’s in those ebooks anyway. I can feel it. Since you made it till here I can tell you have a genuine interest in them and you could really, really find a use for one or all of my ebooks. So, without further ado, here’s my proposal.

Are you ready?

Really?

Ok, let’s do it:

I’m going to give free copies of any of my ebooks in exchange for a review. How does it sounds? Yeah, I heard that Oh, and the best part is that you DON’T need to have a blog to get a free copy! Because you can write a review at Amazon.com too. How cool is that? You get a free ebook and all you have to do is to write a review on your blog OR on Amazon.com. Kinda neat, if you ask me .

Now let’s get practical. Here’s what you have to do: leave a comment and let me know which ebooks are of interest to you. You can have any of the ebooks, including the flagship of my fleet, 30 Sentences For A millionaire Mindset! If you want, you can have all 4 ebooks (The Productivity Trap [Amazon affiliate link] is available only in printed form, I’m afraid, so that one should be bought directly).

Also, please let me know if you want or not to become an affiliate. Ups, I almost forgot: you can promote and resell my ebooks and you’ll get 50% off of each sale. I could have pick a smaller amount and then try to lure you in with some ”extra“ discounts up to this number, but I choose to do it upfront: 50% no questions asked. And since the printed versions are on sale on Amazon, you can promote them just as you promote other Amazon books on your site, if you’re an Amazon affiliate.

Ok, after you let me know which ebooks are you interested in, I will email them to you for free. The only thing I ask is to let me know when you’re going to publish the review, where (your blog and/or Amazon) and if you found some value in what I wrote. If you think somebody else would be interested in this giveaway, feel free to spread the word.

I don’t know for how long I’m going to do this, so be sure to act now, because, based on the response I get, this offer may end really soon.

That’s all.

Go!

What You Don’t Want To Know About Prostitution

This is going to be tough. I can tell you by now this is not going to like you. If you landed here by some search engine algorithm while looking for porn, you’re going to leave… just about now, because this is not even remotely about porn. Sorry. If you’re having a strong headed approach towards everything in life, you will be gone by the 2nd paragraph. It will be a little too much for you, I can feel it. But if you’re ready to take a step back and accept that a topic like prostitution could have the tiniest connection with personal development, then I bet you’re going to leave only after you’ve left a comment. And it’s still going to dislike you.

The Sex Taboo

I have to confess I thought a lot about this post. Meaning I already had it sketched in my head (and then in my blogging setup), but I pondered if I should publish it or not. I finally took the bullet and decided to publish it.

The biggest concern was not about the main topic in this post, but about the thing which is shaping the modern western society for a good 2 millenniums: the sex taboo. Without doubt, the modern conception about sex is one of the most powerful weapons used to discipline and manipulate our modern society. I think the way we perceive sex has made more victims than the world wars and is still doing.

Our culture pushed sex in the forbidden realm. It took it from the playful and ecstatic pedestal ancient cultures had it, and exiled it outside the rules of morality. Once just a private matter (and close to spirituality), now sex has become a dirty matter. Confined by the socially accepted norms of morality, sex has been convicted inside the walls of  the institution of marriage.

This constant interdiction made sex a fantasy, created industries (like porn industry) and damaged generations from the inside. I’m not going to talk about sex here, or about what created this social distortion, because it will take too long, and it’s out of the scope of this blog post. In which, I remind you, I’m talking about something completely different, and that’s prostitution.

The reason I mentioned sex is because the modern definition of prostitution have been built on the sex taboo. Prostitution has been disguised behind sex. There is this obsession for everything sex related which made prostitution one of the most incriminated activities on earth. Not because you’re actually faking something in the process of prostitution, but because it’s related to sex. If sex wasn’t so important, selling it for money wouldn’t be such a big issue. People are selling things for money all the time.

And this is the core of the problem, this is what made me think if it would be acceptable or not to publish this article: prostitution is not so much about sex, as it is about faking.

More precisely: faking it for money.

Money As A Shortcut

If you take out the sex taboo form prostitution, what’s left? Money and a service. Well, people are doing this every day, it’s called business. Except in prostitution the service is a fake. There is no drive to offer real sex, the actors usually don’t even know each others, there’s only a transaction of fantasies for money. Nobody gives something real and nobody gets something genuine. The whole thing is a prank. A simple fake for money.

Seeing prostitution as an act of faking for money, and not specifically related to sex, makes a big difference. Because it changes the meaning of this activity completely. It makes it spread into areas you wouldn’t think it can reach: in your daily relationships, in your job, in your thinking patterns.

When was the last time you faked something for money? When was the last time you wanted to tell  your boss he’s wrong, but you didn’t because of the money you get from him? How many times you said “yes” to your friend, just because he pays the rent? How many times you’ve been doing things you don’t want, even faking some joy in doing them, just because you were paid?

Each time you did this you were a whore. By the way, that’s the paragraph where the strong headed are going to leave, because, well, because… they were never a whore! And this is a stupid, delusional post. No, sireee, not me!

Sad. And true. We’ve all been whores. We’ve all faked things for money. We all thought at some points in our life that money will solve our problems. We all sacrificed our authenticity and joy for a shortcut. We all wanted a miracle to save us from something. And we sold our souls for this shortcut called money.

Too bad money doesn’t solve anything. Only people solve things out. Even if they don’t have the courage, the discipline or the inspiration to change the circumstances of their life. They eventually reach out and get courage, inspiration or discipline. Eventually they find a way to change their lives. They take risks, get out of their comfort zone and create something. They, the people, not the money.

Money can’t buy courage. Nor discipline, nor inspiration. What it can buy is a short term delay. A pause. An illusion of security, until the real problem hits again. And then, when facing the same challenge, instead of looking inside, people are looking outside, reaching for a new client, faking another session and getting another payment. The circle repeats endlessly and down goes all your self-esteem, your authenticity and joy.

Faking Your Life For Money

The real problem with faking something is that you’re losing it. The more you fake it, the far you go from its authentic substance. If it’s sex you’re faking – in the generally accepted term for prostitution – you’re going to completely ruin your authentic joy in having sex with somebody you love. You may become a fantastic technician – out of a prolonged physical exercise – but you won’t reach to the true nature of sex. You will have probably some pleasure, but not joy or ecstasy. In the long run, you’ll be completely disconnected. Faking will break you down.

That’s the same with every other part of your life. If you’re going to fake your job for money you’re going to eventually lose it. You won’t be able to create genuine value, because you will only do what money tells you to do. And faking for money will have long term effects on you: if at some point you’ll want to do something exceptional, something that will change the lives of the ones you love, something that will enhance your life, but that will initially affect your income, you’re not going to be able to do it. You won’t know how anymore. Instead, you’ll stick with the money. And you’ll eventually forget how it is to create genuine value in the first place. All you’ll remember is how to get paid. By faking your daily routine at the job.

If it’s friendship you’re faking, you’re going to lose it eventually. If it’s money that keeps you tied up into a friendship, you’ll compromise it at some point. You’re going to fake something, do something you don’t like. For the money. And the real friendship will get burned. You’re going to have just a regular client for your friendship faking session, a client who’s going to pay you for your performance.

Forcing Others To Fake

Faking your service is only one part of the transaction. Because there’s also the other side of it, the one who asks for it. The one who’s forcing others to fake for his own money benefit.

If you’re working with money directly for a very long time, you tend to substitute everything in your life with money (for more info about the difference between working directly with and putting a purpose between you and money, read here). More precisely, you tend to think you can do everything with money. Be happy, for instance. Be praised. Force other to do stuff for you. And even if they don’t genuinely want to do that thing, your money will eventually force them out. You start paying people to do something they don’t want. You make whores out of them. You’re becoming a pimp.

You don’t have to force others to specifically sell sex in order to be a pimp.

If you force your employees to do something they don’t want, only because you’re paying them, you’re a pimp. You force them to fake something for money. Of course, even if they will obey, the result won’t be genuine. It will be a fake.  If you think you can force your friends to stick with you for your money, even when you disappoint them, you won’t get back true friendship. You’re getting back a fake, a performance. You’re paying somebody to act as your friend.

As in every whore – pimp relationship, you’re going to be hated and eventually destroyed by your “employees”. No friendship can be bought with money, no truthful relationship can be built by force or coercion. Even if you make somebody follow you for your money, you won’t get back real value: you’re only perpetuating a life of compromise and lie.

The Real Prostitution

The real problem behind prostitution is not sex, but faking it for money.  Making such a big taboo out of sex just makes it easier to isolate this specific type of prostitution, make it stand out and ‘fight’ it. Meanwhile, there are hundreds of millions of whores who are faking their jobs, their relationships, and maybe their whole lives for money.

In an ideal world we won’t fake nothing for money. Everybody will be well connected with his inner self, will know their powers and lessons to learn and will act in all honesty and transparency. There won’t be disasters, drama or misery. Well, we don’t live in an ideal world, we live an imperfect one. We are faking things for money. Every day.

But instead of accepting this and do our best to change it, we deny it. All prostitution is about and only about sex, so we’re cool. And we go on and on with our fakes. Once again, I’m not trying to touch any morality rules here, this is out of the scope of this post, all I’m saying is that faking is destroying. You’re losing it.

The key in changing this and stop losing your life one fake at a time is to accept it. And forgive it. Yes, we’ve all been there. Many times. Accept it. Forgive it. And then move and and try to do better next time.

We can’t make this world perfect, but we can make our lives better . Of course we can, we just have to do it.

Where Are You?

The following question will hurt, as I already told you in the beginning: are you a whore? In what area of your life? Maybe your husband is paying you to stay with him? Maybe at the job? Maybe you stay with your friends because they’re paying your movie tickets? Are you really faking your life for money?

Or are you pimp? Are your forcing others to fake their lives for money?

I can feel your tension and muscle contractions. You’re going to fight me back and do whatever you can to make me understand I’m wrong. But before doing this, take a moment and breathe. Relax. Try to accept. Maybe you were a whore. Or a pimp.

So? Fighting back against it, denying it, will do nothing but perpetuating the status quo. Rejecting those situations in your life won’t make them disappear. It will only bury them deep down in your subconscious mind. The real answer to those question can’t be rejection, this will only make them more powerful.

Accept yourself and forgive. That’s the only way to escape the endless circle. And then move on, be meaningful and honest. Maybe you’ll upset your boss, but you’ll be authentic. Maybe your husband will divorce you, but you’ll live an honest life. Maybe your friends will reject you but at least you’ll see the movies you really like. Instead of faking your life and losing it, you’ll live a real life. With real joy. With real sadness, maybe. But with no more plastic happiness, just the real thing.

So sad that our modern society didn’t put at least an equal emphasis on forgiveness as it puts on sex. Forgiveness needs to be at least as popular as sex. Forgiving ourselves  should be an orgasmic act. And should create the same addiction like sex.

Unfortunately, this is not the case. So, instead of forgiving ourselves for being whores at some points in our life, we prefer to blindly accept to fake our lives for money, get on with it day by day, and consider that only those who are selling sex are whores. Not us. Only them, with their dirty sex…

Toldya you ain’t gonna like this.

By the way, if you really didn’t like this, there are plenty of articles in the archives which you’ll most likely dislike as well.

Getting Something For Free

Do you like getting freebies? Gratuitous stuff? Free lunch, maybe? Well, I don’t.

I’ve always been like this, I have quite a repulsion towards free stuff. I become reluctant, I start to question myself, I back up. Although one may think that avoiding free stuff made for quite a difficult path for me so far (with the overwhelming stream of opportunities around), I will have to tell you the exact opposite. Avoiding free stuff made me far more wealthy and self confident than the average.

You know that old saying “there is no such thing as a free lunch”? Well, it’s still quite accurate.

The Exchange

Everything you do requires energy. Everything you receive was made with energy. Everything around you, including yourself, is a form of energy. And every time you start an interaction, you are initiating in fact an energetic exchange. Every form of communication is an energetic exchange.

Have you ever had a relaxing conversations with somebody else? Have you ever had a deep bonding with close, dear friends? Ever had a sense of exhilaration after closing a big business deal, a sale or just getting a promotion? All of these are successful energetic exchanges.

In each successful interaction our energy exchange is balanced, instant and beneficial. Balanced, instant and beneficial. Let’s take a closer look at this.

If we give more or less energy than it’s required, our energetic exchange is imbalanced. If we’re talking, for instance, and we give more energy than required, the other part may step back, ending the process. Or we find ourselves fighting instead of talking, opening our energy valves beyond control. Or we can find ourselves not responding in kind to other’s verbal flow, putting a lot less energy than required in the process. Whatever the cause, putting more or less energy than necessary, will make the interaction fail. This is an unbalanced energetic exchange.

If the response of our energetic exchange is delayed, we feel insecure. If we’re having an intimate relationship and the response to our interaction – making a gift to someone, for instance – is coming several hours later, we start asking why this is happening. Even if the response is positive, we start asking why we’re getting our response so late? Is something wrong with us? With the other one? With both? We feel insecure, and that’s because the energetic exchange was not instant, it was delayed. Most successful energetic exchanges are in the moment.

And if the energetic exchange was not mutually beneficial, we feel frustrated. If you close a deal under pressure, giving away some of your benefits, you feel frustrated. If you laugh and the other one cries, you feel frustrated. If you didn’t receive as much as you want from a conversation, you feel frustrated. That’s because the exchange wasn’t mutually beneficial, only one part of the exchange was favored. Most of our energy exchanges are not mutually beneficial, it’s always some part that will take a little more than we expect.

But despite these conditions, balanced, instant and beneficial energy exchanges are always possible. (more…)