EGO|sync

Some economists will tell you that small business is the backbone of America. But, a true historian can tell you that American freedom began with the independent entrepreneur. The first colonies in “the new world” may have been settled by people looking for an escape from religious persecution, however, they never would have survived if they did not have a concept of trade and markets.

If you have the chance to visit Boston, take the time to stroll along “the Freedom Trail”. The trail is a red line through the history of the city where you can explore some of the famous sites such as The Old State House, Boston Common and Faneuil Hall Marketplace. It is an inspirational walk through a time when merchants trade freely across a vast ocean and local trades men and women created quality products for consumption along the eastern seaboard and export throughout Europe. It was a time of unbridled opportunity where many found the right market niche and became some of the wealthiest people in North America. This wealth afforded them the ability to speak out against British Royal authority and fund a war of separation that would eventually produce the wealthiest nation on the planet.

Today we may be faced with economic adjustments and disappointing leadership, but remember that it is in times of trouble when people rise to the challenge to set things straight through innovation and opportunity. Take a trip to Boston and get your inspiration from the original concept of Micro-Business and contribute to the reconstruction instead of worrying about temporary setbacks. There is wealth and prosperity to be found in any marketplace if you focus on the right niche and can fulfill a need.

Here is a Geovative Geo Tour of Boston that you can download on your GPS device for a unique perspective of Boston history.

Using PC4 and MindMeister to develop your expert business ideas

You may have read my recent post that introduced you to MindMeister.com. Mind Mapping is a great way to take all of your thoughts and ideas and lay them out visually so you can begin to make decisions that work together as a whole. In order to be successful in your business you have to get your thoughts out in front of you if you are ever to organize them into a successful venture.

I developed a process for developing the business funnel that will attract people to your content and convince them to buy. Here is how PC4 works:

• Permission - Activities that show that the visitor wants to contribute or recieve more information. By taking these actions, they are giving you permission to interact with them.
• Content - Free information that you offer to excite and involve your readers. It should be rich content that encourages your readers to learn more by purchasing your product. You can monetize your content through affiliate links and test your product ideas by tracking affiliate purchases to determine interest before you release a product.
• Products - Once the reader purchases your product, they become a customer. This is your first sign that they are willing to exchange money for your product or information. Your next task is to retain them and move them to purchase again.
• Community - Build a community of loyal followers who provide feedback and ideas for development and pay you regularly for more pertinent content.
• Premium - Enhanced products from your primary offerings that are available to members only or to customers who have purchased from you already. This is a more expensive product that is richer in content or function.
• Custom - Arrange your product for the specific needs of your customer. This usually requires more of your physical time and therefore commands a higher price than your primary or premium proiducts.
• Partnership - Involves your distribution and promotion efforts. They are not a direct area of monetization but can provide many opportunities for getting your product promoted through association with others.
• Communication - Efforts to attract visitors to your website or place of business.

Partnership and Communication exist outside of the funnel, but they are vital parts of the process to ensure you have a continuous flow of visitors that turn into loyal customers and loyal customers that continue to support your efforts.

Now take this PC4 approach and develop a mind map that reflects your expert micro business. I have created a sample mind map on MindMeister to get you started. Click here to access the exploded mindmap on MindMeister.com

Google Docs is an amazing application from Google. It allows you to store your documents online securely so you can access them from any browser or share and collaborate on documents with others. Here are a couple of tutorials on Google that I found on Google’s Youtube page.

I’ll be sharing some of my own tips and tricks with Google in the coming weeks. Go ahead and get signed in, get familiar with Google Docsand play around on your own a bit so my future posts on the topic will click with you faster.

If you work offline sometimes then here is a new feature that Google Docs offers that is awesome and allows you to take your work out of the house and get some fresh air.

Remember Google Docs offers Word Processing, Spread Sheets and Presentation applications. All of your Microsoft docs can be uploaded easily and accessed from anywhere. This is the future of office software.

Enjoy!!

Introducing Mind Meister: A free mind mapping tool to help you get your expert micro business ideas flowing.

One of the things I have always found difficult is sitting down in front of a blank page to write a blog post, article, story or even a business plan. Some call it writer’s block. I call it perfectionist block.

All of us want to take what is in our brain and have it come out as perfect as we see it in our heads. Since the human brain does not think in a linear fashion, you will always find yourself struggling to write line by line.

The human brain works by linking pieces of information and images and then finds associations with other information and images. The more things that connect, the clearer the picture. Sort of like SEO marketing. The more connections your web page has with other web pages on your site or others, the better the ranking is on search engines.

So how do you put your ideas on paper in a way that your brain will function to assist instead of freezing up. The answer is mind mapping. The concept of mindmapping has been around for a while. But the ability to work with mind maps electronically is fairly new. There are several good mind mapping products out there but the one I like the most is Mind Meister. It is free, simple, sharableand since it lives on the internet, then it is accessible from anywhere you can log online.

Check out the video tutorial below and then sign up to give it a free try. I’ll be posting more ideas for using Mind Meister in the near future. Enjoy!!

MindMeister.com Intro Tutorial

The term Micro Business(a.k.a. Micro Enterprises) is generally referring to in the US as a business effort employing 5 or less people and generating less than $35,000. These businesses are largely sole proprietors, families or partnerships that do not have a need for more employees or have not grown beyond that need. Surprisingly this Micro Business category makes up a substantial percentage of businesses throughout the USA and around the world.

AEOestimates there are more than 24 million micro-enterprises in the U.S., representing 18% of all private employment and 87% of all businesses. One out of six U.S. private sector employees works for a micro-enterprise. Historically, micro-enterprises have been considered the  backbone of the U.S. economy.

 

 

Micro Business can include professional services like Accountants and Attorneys. It can represent Business Consultants and Construction Contractors. It can refer to Hair Dressers and Massage Therapists, Freelance Writers or Photographers who market themselves with a simple business card. The Micro Business category also defines a growing group of Independent Business Owners who sell goods and information online as well as offline. These business owners are sometimes called Multi-Level Marketers, Internet Gurus, eBayers, ProBloggers and more. The fact is that weather you are a one person show or an office of 5, you are a business and if you want to truly succeed, you need to learn the big business secrets and scale them down to benefit your success.

One of my favorite books was one called The New Professionals.
Writen in 2000 for the Network Marketing crowd, it was a clear account of what we are seeing in abundance today. Big businesses can’t respond quick enough to the changing demands of the consumer. And big business can’t control the levels of quality and service when it deals with the masses consuming an extensive product line. The businesses that can and do respond are the Independent Entrepreneurs and they do so by providing personalized service and quality products geared toward a specific market niche of consumers. And now these Micro Business owners can find that unique market anywhere in the world.

If Micro Business is the backbone of the U.S. economy, then we had better get to work and rebuild what the big businesses have failed to manage simply because of their size. There is no better time to focus on building a business of your own. Don’t quit your day job right away, but start developing something to take advantage of the new opportunities that exist in the new economy. Make sure you are taking your Micro Business seriously and some serious success will be waiting for you.

The first component of Sigmund Freud’s structural theory of psychodynamics is the Id. As I mentioned in a previous post, the Id is our base instinct. I like to think of the it as our “Instinctive Destination”. That little voice inside that tells you where you should be going and what you should be doing. I always think of my grandfather when I talk about the topics of life strategy and ultimate goal setting. He used to tell me all kinds of motivating phrases and stories. Many of them became the blueprint for how I have managed my life. I now know that his motivating phrases were not completely original but I remember them as his unique insights.

Some of my favorite phrases were….

“Life is a journey, not a destination, but without a destination in mind you will have an endless, wandering journey.”

“If you don’t know where you are going, you are certain not to get there.”

“You can have anything you want but not everything you want, so choose wisely.”

And my favorite story….

Once upon a time there were three young men snowmobiling through the countryside. The fresh fallen snow had created a smooth blanket of white across one of the fields. The guys decided to see who could make the straightest tracks across the field. “We’ll meet over by that fence on the other side,” the first one said as he drove off across the newly fallen snow. He was excited and kept looking back at his friends to see how close they were to beating him. When he reached the fence on the other side, he got off his snowmobile, turned to look at his tracks and found that they were zigzagged across the field.

They second young man got a late start, but decided he could make up for it by keeping his focus on the fence on the other side of the field and driving straight toward it as fast as he could. When he reached the other side, he looked to find that he had left an arch of track marks through the snow.

The third young man decided he would take time to plan his strategy. He cheered the others on while taking note of how each one failed to make a straight line in the snow. He knew the best way to make the straightest tracks, was to find a sight line to keep him on target. He had always wanted to go to the red barn he saw off in the distance, beyond a small gate in the fence, at the other side of the field. He saw his chance and started off across the snow. He listened to the hum of his engine while keeping the distant red barn in line with the small gate in the fence. He kept his focus and when he reached his friends on the other side, he did not stop to look back because he knew he had just made the straightest tracks in the snow and he was on his way to explore the red barn. The other guys hopped back on their snowmobiles and raced to keep up with him the rest of the day.

So the Moral of the story is….

• It is not always best to go first.
• Never look back to see who is keeping up if it makes you loose focus on what you need to accomplish.
• You must have more than one goal to accomplish great things.
• Baby you can do it, take your time, do it right.
• Observe the success and failure of others while you develop your own strategy.
• Keep your focus and align your sights on the path that will lead you to your Instinctive Destination.
• Listen to your inner voice and don’t sabotage your own efforts.
• Be confident that the path you choose to take was the right one, never look back and have no regrets.
• Take the lead at the first opportunity that it presents itself, let the others race to keep up.

SERIES: EGOmaps - Introduction

EGOmaps is an acronym of the steps required to set your expert life goals in motion. I developed this program over the last 15 years and over the next several weeks, Ill be exploring each of these component steps.

The program is designed for you to get an overall picture of your ultimate life as an expert in your field and break it down to achieveable steps. Deciding to be an expert requires you to align your life with that vision so that everything you do gets you closer to your dream.

For this blog post, lets start by breaking down the letters of the EGOmaps program to better understand the process you need to consider as you get your expert life in order.

E: Endeavor - This is your ultimate mission in life. The final destination on your journey. It is an idealistic statement that you will need to define. It is not something that can ever be fully realized because it needs to be the carrot your are always reaching to acquire. As time moves on you may fine tune this statement to push your carrot out if you get too close to it. You’ve heard the phrase “Life is a journey, not a destination.” Your ENDEAVOR statement is the destination that you head toward. But your LIFE is the journey, experience and fun that gets you closer to the final destination.

G: Guideposts - This is the journey plan. Guideposts are the points you intend to encounter along the way. This is more of the classic goal setting process, but it has to be laid out after you know where you are going. “If you don’t know where you are going, then it is certain that you will not get there.” Guideposts help you determine all the points along the way  that will get you to your final destination.

O: Objectives - Think of Objectives as your overnight stays along the journey. They are the major achievement points that you need to identify. This gets a bit more involved as you will see when I start covering this in the blog later this year.

M: Motivations - This is your “Why”. Why do you want to go on this journey? What is calling you down this path? How can you keep your self motivated and supported along the journey.

A: Achievements - When you go on a trip, you need to know where you are going, but you also need to know where you have been and where you stand now. The Achievement section will help you correctly identify your past achievements and help you track you progress on your journey.

P: Positioning - This is your marketing material. Positioning helps you communicate to others what your destination is and why you are traveling toward it. Positioning helps others understand you so they will be more inclined to assist you along the way. If they know what you need then they are more likely to help connect you to the people and resources to help you get there faster.

S: Strengths - This is a personal affirmation statement of your skill, talent and ability to accomplish your goals. This is where the classic affirmation and visualization processes come in to play.

So keep up as I go along and work toward creating your EGOmaps.

Goal Setting is nothing new, but it is something that one must incorporate daily and constantly renew and adjust to fit the changing needs of life and living. About 15 years ago I created a training program for a small business in Alabama that helped the companies employees identify professional development goals within the company.

It was a unique idea at the time to train employees to set goals for professional contribution to the company. It worked wonders. mostly because it focused on a long term growth strategy for the employee in the company.

After deploying the training program, I decided to develop my own personal version for my life strategy that incorporated career, spiritual, financial and other life goals.

I’ve been using the system on my own for my long term life strategy and annual goal setting. I’ve always wanted to publish the process, but never sat down to write the book. Now with Blogging, I have a place where I can share my system, EGOmaps, and hopefully make it a crowd generated effort to customize it for a large audience.

So keep up with my blog and be sure to comment on the posts and let me know how EGOmaps can be improved. Also let me know what more you want me to write about by making an entry on my Skribit widget on the right sidebar.

My EGOsync blog is a labor of love for sharing the process of finding your path in life as an expert and following it. I am always online looking for new ideas for goal setting and lifestyle design. I’ll post my favorite products for you to check out as I come across them. Ill also point out other websites and blogs that can help add value to your search for designing your perfect life. This is the way to discover the secret to achievement.

So where did EGOsync come from?

My approach to life strategy is based on the idea of synchronizing one’s ego and aligning to one’s instinctive direction. Ego sometimes has a negative connotation, so let me begin by defining the underlying psychology of the word and how it relates to my approach for choosing your path in life and making plans for accomplishing your goals.

First let’s get an understanding of EGO. Ego is one of three components in Sigmund Freud’s structural theory of psychodynamics. Without getting too textbook on you, Freud’s theory basically states that the Id, the Ego and the Super Ego work together to make up who we are. The Id is basically our primal instinct that continually attempts to fulfill our basic needs. The Ego works to help the Id achieve those needs by interpreting reality and defining the correct approach to obtaining them. The Super Ego is the moral compass that is developed over time as our perspective is altered by the reality of social rules and accepted behavior.

With that said, EGOSYNC is about helping the Ego “synchronize” the path to fulfillment by consciously choosing the best direction and making a plan to get there. This is not another “goal setting” lecture. Goals are things that are required in the process but a goal is terminal. The EGOSYNC blog is about helping you choose an expert life path and understand various business concepts that are scaled down to provide you insight on building a better micro business or delivering a better product or service.

Definitions

ID: The part of the psyche, residing in the unconscious, that is the source of instinctive impulses that seek satisfaction in accordance with the pleasure principle and are modified by the ego and the superego before they are given overt expression.

EGO: The “I” or self of any person; a person as thinking, feeling, and willing, and distinguishing itself from the selves of others and from objects of its thought.

SUPER EGO: The part of the personality representing the conscience, formed in early life by internalization of the standards of parents and other models of behavior.

From dictionary.com

Many readers have been asking me various questions on affirmations and my thoughts on them in general so I wanted to write an article that would encompass everything about the concept of affirmations.

Affirmations are one of those things that many people get frustrated by. At first glance, from an outside observer, the whole thing looks silly and even laughable - a person speaking to himself, thinking that just by doing so, his every wish will come true. But we all know that’s not how it works.

Some people, after hearing miracle type stories attributed to affirmations, get curious and give it a shot, but they don’t experience the same results as some other people have gotten and as a result, get frustrated, thinking that they’re doing something wrong, trying to pinpoint it and getting lost in the minutia of it all.

What are affirmations exactly? What exactly do they do? How exactly do they work? What’s the exact correct way of doing them?

Let’s dive right in and start answering these questions.

Affirmations are simply positive statements that you repeat to yourself on a consistent basis.

What do they do?

They’re there to drill positive beliefs into your mind through sheer repetition because when you hear something often enough, you’ll soon start to believe it.

Does it magically happen? Does the utterance of affirmations themselves magically cause the changes you seek?

Of course not.

Then how exactly does it work?

Affirmations give you something to focus on and the sheer repetition of it drives that affirmation into your subconscious mind where your subconscious mind then “filters” reality to match the affirmation you’re telling yourself or shows you the opportunities that you can take in order to match the affirmations with your reality.

But that’s the extent of it. It’s up to you to take it from there.

But how exactly do you do it?

Do you use the word “You” or “I”? What happens if you don’t really believe your affirmation? Doesn’t it just backfire on you and make the whole situation worse? Do you use future tense or present tense? How often do you have to do it before you see results?

When deciding whether to use the word “I” or “You”, use “I”. “I” makes it that much more personal and is much more effective because when you use the word “you”, it doesn’t pack as much of a stronger punch than “I”.

Some people recite an affirmation that they don’t truly believe in deep down inside, hoping that eventually they will believe in it due to the sheer repetition of it. That kind of thinking sounds logical at first glance, but look deeper and you’ll see it’s ultimately fails. You will be “fighting” yourself in the beginning stages so the affirmations never really take root and since you don’t see any progress in your reality after time passes by because of your conscious disbelief (if you don’t consciously believe, how do you expect your subconscious to believe?), your disbelief grows that much stronger until you never even bother to do the affirmations in the first place.

To counter all this, simply use a believable affirmation, but something that’s just on the edge of believability for you that you can almost taste it. Set an affirmation too easy and there’s no “kick” to it.

With regard to using future or present tense, the answer is simple. Use affirmations in the present tense. It gives it an “urgency” factor. If you drill into your mind that you are currently “x” and your mind sees that isn’t so, it will help you so that your reality will match what that “x” is because harmony must be achieved between mind and reality. There is a link between the two, albeit a lag in time in between the fulfillment of the two, but a link indeed. If you use the future tense in affirmations, your mind will literally “procrastinate” as it sees that the current reality is fine with what’s in your mind because someday, you will be x,y, or z.

One final point to make is that many people get caught up in the minutia of getting the “form” of affirmations right that they miss out on backing those affirmations with “force”.

It’s not enough to blandly recite your affirmations.

You must inject them with emotion.

Napoleon Hill stated that emotions are what drives beliefs into your subconscious mind (speaking of which, those who’ve read Think and Grow Rich as well as The Hidden Secret in Think and Grow Rich will be fully able to understand the place that affirmations have in the natural success process).

If you don’t have any emotion coupled with your affirmations, nothing gets drilled into your subconscious mind so there’s no value to be gained from reciting them.

So let’s take all of this and use an example to illustrate everything we’ve covered in the article.

Take for example, someone using affirmations to lose weight. Let’s say John Smith currently weighs 190 pounds and want to drop to 170 because for him, 170 is just on the edge of believability for him so it has that kick to it.

So he tells himself on a consistent basis:

“I weigh 170 pounds.”
“I weigh 170 pounds.”
“I weigh 170 pounds.”

Now, while that affirmation is “textbook” (uses the word “I”, is in the present tense, and is believable) that affirmation can get a bit boring really quick and John might lose all that emotion that goes along with it so in order to counter that, he can craft a more creative affirmation to give it more “kick.”

“I weigh 170 pounds and look GREAT in my new slimmer clothes!”

The same basic affirmation, but with a much greater kick.

This affirmation will drive John to hit the gym. It will penetrate his subconscious and instill the firm belief in there that it can be done, thereby filtering reality in order to show him the opportunities he can take to shed those twenty pounds by guiding him toward the right books (weight loss books, tapes, DVDs) and the right people (trainers, nutritionists, mentors) to help him with his cause, and all those things will come together to help match what is in his mind with actual reality in due time.

How long will it take until John Smith sees results with these affirmations? There’s no “textbook” answer. It depends on the individual but it’s safe to say that the results won’t be immediate. It will take time and consistency to drive the affirmations into the subconscious but once the belief takes root in there and progress is seen as a result, we know that the end result is not that far off.

Ultimately, in the end, affirmations are a proactive approach in determining what to plant in your mind because if you don’t take the time to plant something, then weeds in the form of negative thoughts will be planted automatically.

Affirmations are by no means the answer to everything in goal achievement. It’s merely a tool used to focus and drive new beliefs into the subconscious mind in order for the subconscious mind to filter reality in order to show opportunities that can be taken in order to achieve those affirmations.

Once those are shown, it’s up to you to take them and see which ones work for you.