I started this blog post with the question ‘closer to my dream than I think?’, but quickly realised that this is, in fact, a statement, not a question at all.

Two incredible things have happened this week that prompted this post topic, things that I did not anticipate would happen this early on in my internet marketing career.  After all, I only started this blog and this journey in February 2009, just a few short months ago.

The first thing that happened took me by surprise and I was quite overwhelmed with the generosity of spirit that emanated from the  what I was reading.  As I browsed through another marketer’s blog post – you can read it here – I discovered that the last paragraph was about me!  I was absolutely humbled by the comments made and it reminded me that we can sometimes simply have no idea of the impact that we are making on others unless they tell us.  So, thank you, Jay and Lynne Mueller, for telling me and enabling me to recognise the good that I can do.  Kind words go a long way.

The second amazing thing that has just happened is I have been asked to be a guest writer on Steve King’s blog.  I hope to able to provide Steve with a unique post every month or so that will complement his blog and his already excellent content.  The first post has already been added to Steve’s site and you can read it here.  We also hope to embark on a joint venture and have been working on a few ideas over the weekend.  I hold Steve in great esteem and am honoured to have been offered this incredible opportunity.

It is amazing how quickly I have progressed and it reminded me of a post I read recently by Simon Egan Smith, you can read it here.  All of this has proven to me that success really is just around the corner for all of us, we simply have to be brave enough to take that step.

Everything has developed way beyond my original thoughts and aspirations and I have quickly come to realise how much good can come out of being part of a community like Masterclass.

Enjoy the journey.

One of the things I may not have mentioned yet on my blog is that I am a big Star Trek fan.  I can totally absorb myself in the ‘alien’ theory.  There is so much we do not know about what else is out there.  If you haven’t visited my good friend John McNally’s blog then check out this post on the Hubble Telescope as the pictures are fantastic.

I spent an enjoyable afternoon recently theorising with a friend about aliens and he recounted the story of a programme he had seen on a digital channel (sadly I don’t get digital anything as I live in such a remote place!).  In the programme some Candian air force pilots had been interviewed about something they had seen and they felt it absolutely proved the existence of aliens.  They were sworn to secrecy while they were in the air force and it is only recently that they have been able to talk about their experience.

My friend and I came to the conclusion, (after much discussion and debate and lots of coffee and biscuits), that we, the human race, may well be an alien experiment, and that these random sightings of alien craft are the aliens returning to check on our progress and see how their experiment is faring.

As the title says, it’s just a theory.

Enjoy the journey.

Three things happened this week that prompted me to write this post about the importance of friends.  The first was an email comment made to me by an inspired writer, Susan Owen-Thursfield (you can see what I mean about her being ‘inspired’ by reading her blog here).  In the email she said ‘every day you don’t make a new friend is a day wasted’, the point being that we need to cultivate friendships, work at them and make them happen, as it is these friendships that add variety and interest to our lives.

The second thing that happened had a real impact on my perception of the relationships we build in our lives.  I went to a dear friend’s funeral last week and two things in particular struck me.  The first was the amount of people I knew there, and the second was the amount of people I didn’t know!  We spend our lives cultivating relationships around us but often all are separate from each other.  We have our family and they are separate often from our friends, then we have our work colleagues who are also friends, we have friends in different places (often different parts of the world even), we have our friends here on the internet.  All of these people are important in our lives, and yet all sit in separate compartments within our lives.  Not deliberately, but by virtue of the role they play within our lives.   We all came together for this person’s funeral and all felt we knew him so very well, but all knew him in a different way.

The third thing that happened is that I read back through my previous posts on here, and in particluar ‘Hobbies and Interests‘.  It wasn’t so much the post that struck a chord but the comment left by another fellow blogger, Steve Deerfield.  Steve said ‘I liked all your posts and especially your attitude about keeping in touch with people that we actually CAN touch.  If there’s any huge sucking sound going on anymore I think it’s the sound of our attentions being drawn to the internet and the promises and experiences that it may hold.’

Although I agree with Steve about that comment I also feel that the relationships we are building with each other through the internet are as valuable in real terms as our ‘tangible’ friendships.  I place great value on my relationships with others, whether they are family, friends I’ve known all my life, relatively new friends, and people I can now call friends who I have met through the internet.  Each of you are equally important in my life and I thank you all for the opportunity to know some part of you.  Who am I without the other people in my life?

Enjoy the journey.

Interestingly I am not talking about your personal image.  If you would like to read a really good post about personal image and style go to Susan Young’s blog and in particluar to the post ‘Image & Style – what’s the difference?‘.

What I am talking about is your professional image, the image you portray on your blog.  In the weeks before I opened Art-next-the-Sea last July I invited artists to visit the gallery while we decorated with a view to exhibiting their work.  All were very complimentary and said they would love to exhibit, apart from one artist who said ‘what image are you trying to portray?’  I, of course, had not considered this at all.  I imagined I would invite 20 or so artists to supply me with some of their work, hang it in the bays and hopefully sell it.  We had a bright, modern space, well lit, a good graphic artist had designed a great logo, and we had lots of enthusiasm for the project – but I didn’t consider what image the gallery was portraying.

I pondered on what he said as the weeks went by.  Had I got it right?  Had I got it dreadfully wrong?  We sold well, artists liked exhibiting at the gallery – isn’t that what it’s all about?  I asked lots of people their opinion about an image.  Were we heading down the wrong path?

The response was a resounding ‘NO’!  Everyone loved our eclectic mix, customers and artists alike.  Our gallery provides something for everyone.  We have a real mix of genres, a good selection of crafts, a great variety of single artist exhibitions throughout the year.  I decided an eclectic mix is good.

And so to my blog.  When I started blogging John Thornhill said ‘write about anything’.  So I did.  After a while I wondered if I should have an ‘image’ for my blog.  Should I stick to one topic?  Should I try to research an area of interest more and focus on that?

I bet you know what I’m going to say.  I’ve decided I like having an eclectic mix.  I like writing about anything that takes my fancy.  If I had to tell someone what my blog is about I would say ‘it’s about life’.

Enjoy the journey.

Okay, so maybe I won’t make my fortune directly from my blog but you never know!

When I started down this road with John Thornhill’s Masterclass I was clear that it was to learn how to market a product via the internet.  Along the way I have learnt a lot more about internet marketing than I bargained for!

For a start, there’s this blog.  I never imagined I would be learning how to set up such a thing.  Even when I realised what it was John wanted us to do I was absolutely adamant that I had nothing to write about!  But here I am, 23 posts down the line and thoroughly enjoying this ‘blogging’ thing!

You can check out some of my fellow students comments about their blogs and where they are going.  Mostafa Alid tells a story of how difficult he found it to blog first off.  Take a look here.  And Andy Cockayne tells his story about having to restart his blog from scratch here.  That must be a complete nightmare!  I can’t imagine how I would feel having to start this all over again.  But all credit to him, he has ‘put in the hard yards‘ and got it back on track, and I suppose in one sense there must be a certain feeling of beginning with a clean slate.  I might have done some things differently if I started again.

So, blogging for fun or fortune?  Well, there is always a chance that some income might result from running a blog without making too much effort, but it is clearly those who make an effort and put the time into their blog that see a pay off at the end of the day.  You see, it’s all about getting traffic to your blog and if you let the whole thing slip and people revist and it all looks the same they may not come back again.

Cathy Perkins states that there are 5 common mistakes people make with their blogs.

1.  Posting infrequently,  2.  Regurgitating content,  3.  Insulting your readers (talking down to them),  4.  No call to action (not telling them exactly what you want them to do),  5.  Posts that go on and on.

So, if you blog, avoid these 5 common mistakes and it will mean more repeat visits from your loyal followers and hopefully you will see an increase in traffic over time.

Two fellow masterclass students have written on the subject of gratitude recently.  Kelly Bradley writes about how having an attitude of gratitude can help people to feel much happier in their lives.  You can read her post here.  Nicolas Baron also recently wrote a great post covering a multitude of attitudes, including gratitude.  You can read the whole post here.

My life seems to have become so complicated in recent years, I know that sometimes I can forget to be grateful for what I have.  It is easy to focus on the things that don’t go right instead of the things that do.  It is easy to focus on what I haven’t got, rather than what I have.

When I consider where I am in my life right now I realise how very rich and full it is, and how very lucky I am to have had my life and all its complexities.  There are so many things I might not have experienced.  So despite me feeling that my life has become ‘complicated’ it has also become full and rich and I would miss out on so much if any part of it was lost to me.

So I have plenty to be grateful for, and the ability to feel gratitude makes me a happier, more rounded person who can and does consider the feelings of others.

Yesterday I had to take my 93 year old great aunt to hospital.  She has been diabetic for some years, has asthma and is in kidney failure.  Three years ago, when she was 90, she had a prolonged hospital stay caused by a virilant chest infection.  We all thought she was coming to the end of her long and interesting life.  After spending 3 months in the hospital, 2 of them hovering between  life and death, she rallied round and was able to go home to her cottage.

It was during that hospital stay that it was discovered her kidneys were not working properly and she was, in fact, in kidney failure.  Her doctor broke the news to her on her return home with the words ‘your kidneys are failing, your heart is failing and basically we can’t really do anything for you’.  My aunt was devastated.  She has hated her doctor ever since.  He will never be able to make amends with her for the cruel way he delivered that diagnosis.

Earlier this year she was back in hospital for another prolonged stay.  Again it was a chest infection.  It cleared up, it came back, it cleared up, it came back – this time she was only in for one month.  She was sent home breathless and frightened and unable to remain in her home alone.  We arranged private care for her and she now has someone in her home with her 24 hours a day.  She has blossomed again and is the sharp, witty aunt I have always known, if a little more frail bodily than she was.

And so to yesterday.  Her doctor decided she must have dialysis now.  I knew nothing about dialysis, depsite having a brother in law who had a kidney transplant.  Apparantly it requires attendance 3 times a week with a 3 hour session on a machine each time.

When I collected my aunt yesterday morning she was very frightened.  She had been worrying about this since the doctor told her she needed it 2 weeks ago.  She hadn’t slept properly since being told as she was fretting all day and all night.

The consultant she saw was absolutley amazing.  She was really encouraging about my aunt and her ability to have reached the grand age of 93.  She didn’t judge or give an opinion.  She answered every question my aunt had (even the ones that were not related to dialysis!).  She examined my aunt, taking blood pressure and listening to her heart.  And at that point she said ‘Very good, that’s absolutely spot on’.  My aunt left that room feeling like someone had given her a million pounds.

The upshot is they decided between them that my aunt should not have dialysis.  Her kidneys are failing but she in still in fairly good health with the medication she is on.  Being on dialysis would significantly change her quality of life and at 93 she simply does not want to go through it all.  The consultant supported the decision fully.  My aunt feels great and can’t stop talking about her wonderful consultant.  At the end of the day whether she does or does not need dialysis is irrelevant.  It is the way she feels, the way she has been treated and the effect that has had on her that matters.

It is really important to be aware of how we respond to people.  Positive responses are so very powerful and can have such a magnificent affect on a person.  Equally negative responses can be extremely detrimental to a person.  Susan Owen-Thursfield has written a very revealing post about this very subject.  You can read her post here.

If we all take a moment to think before we speak we might be able to change the way we respond to others and have a much more positive effect on the world.

Those of us on John Thornhill’s Masterclass are now at the product development stage.

Having been interested in marketing information products via the internet for some time I have bought a large number of ebooks in the past.  One of the things I have found most disappointing about these documents is the amount of repetition, ‘packing out’, fluff and mumbo jumbo some people put into their product to make the document appear bigger than it actually is.  If you take all of that out you would still have a 20 page document of good quality information but the whole ‘packing out’ process detracts from the quality material contained within it.

I have just put out a first draft of my product to a few fellow students to comment on and have been encouraged by the feedback about the lack of ‘mumbo jumbo’ and ‘packing out’.  I simply don’t see the point of it.  Surely we are better to produce a quality document of a smaller size than to overwhelm our audience with an elephantine narrative that is simply repetitive and confusing.

So, quality or quantity?  For me, definately quality.  I’d rather have 20 pages of absolute gold content than 60 pages of fluff.  For James Garvin, definately quality, see his latest post here. For an example of a great post that is quality not quantity check this out here.

What do you want?

In my ‘other job’ as a youth worker I try to encourage the young people to be the best that they can be.  I was pleased to hear Michelle Obama telling a group of school girls to ‘be the best that you can be’.  It is something we should work hard to instill in young people.  Too many times I hear adults in their lives putting them down, criticising, throwing negative comments their way.

One of the tools I use with these young people to encourage recognition of their greatness is positive statements.  At the end of every piece of work I do the young people are asked to feedback to each other what they feel another group member did really well during the session. It helps them to feel great about their important contributions.  We then talk about how they implement that in their lives outside of the group.

I then ask each young person to consider one thing they feel they might like to improve or change in their lives and we use those requests as a basis for personal affirmations for each young person.  We take the issue and turn it into a postive statement they can repeat each day to help them to condition their mind to recognise the change.

It is really important to help them to understand how to identify those things that they can change and those things that they can’t.

Your mind is the most powerful tool you have access to.  Positive affirmations can help you to overcome blocks that you put in place in your life, they can help you to condition your mind to accept positive changes and they can bring about the happiness you so deserve in life.

I would like you to read these other posts that I feel are so closely related to this theme that I had to include them here.

Happy as you want to be, Just ordinary people, and Control those thoughts.

I hope you enjoy them as much as I did!

Enjoy the journey.

Easter is a time of new beginnings.  I like to think of it as a time to let go of what has gone before and start with a fresh, spring like approach.

I run a local spiritualist group and we start our new season at Easter.  We shut for the winter months, mainly because the hall we hire is so cold in the winter!  Easter always seems like a good time to start the new season, the weather has usually brightened up a bit and the hall is significantly warmer.  There’s nothing worse than not feeling like you can get up and walk out of somewhere and you are cold!

I remember long hours in cold churches as a child, not really understanding what was being said or why I was there.  When I was older I joined the choir and then I had a purpose, but I still didn’t understand the long sermons that were always full of quotes from the bible that didn’t seem to mean anything significant.

Now the church has a different approach.  They try to relate their bible quotations to something we recognise in our lives today.  There is often humour injected into the sermons and it helps us to realise how related these experiences are to our everyday lives.

I am looking forward to our new season at church.  I would like to leave you with a link to something I found very powerful and I hope you enjoy watching.  How much difference will your life make?

You can read my previous posts on spiritualism here and here.