“Make money online fast!”, “Make a million dollars this year!”, “Easy money, no outlay!”, “We’ll make you rich!”.

I think you’ve read all of these headlines and probably hundreds more just like them.  However, the reality is MOST people offering internet business opportunities want nothing more than to make themselves rich.  Why is this?  (you know the answer already)…………because people are SELFISH!  NO, not YOU, heaven forbid.  All the OTHERS out there of course.

Okay, a little sarcasm was required there I think.  We are ALL interested in ourselves FAR more than we are in others.  The one time that MAY not be true is when we’re head-over-heels in love with somebody, and that is normally a very fleeting feeling (and is also rationally explained by self-interest…………..it FEELS GOOD!).

So, back to my point.  There are LOTS (thousands) of scams out there on the world wide web, and you need to protect yourself from the predators; those who want something from you by offering you something in return.  Here’s how to protect yourself:

The old adage “If it’s too good to be true, it probably is” applies online as well as off.  If you come upon a website that offers to set up a business for you, find customers for you, sell to them and do all the normal business things like credit-checking, credit-card processing and tax reporting etc. and all you have to do is pay them some money, you KNOW that this is nothing more than a scam.  These scams are often monthly subscriptions (not all are scams, some are EXCELLENT) and all they want is to bill your credit card each month for several months before they go out of business and shut their website down.  These sites come and go all the time because they are run by the same groups of people, over and over again.

If a site has really poor spelling or grammer………..oops, I meant grammAR, then it’s another little clue that you should avoid giving your credit card details.

Regarding credit cards, if the site refuses to accept PayPal or PayDot.com (or similar) and only wants your credit-card details………BEWARE.  This is a bad sign indeed, because most legitimate online companies will gladly accept paypal and the like these days.

Sites that ask for ANY personal details like your social security number must be avoided like Yersinia pestis (look it up!).

Sites that ask for Donations AFTER they have let you download the product are legitimate for the most part, but again, don’t give out your credit-card or any other details!  Sometimes these outfits offer some poor quality or out-of-date product so that you will feel obliged to give them your credit-card info, but don’t. NEVER give out ALL of your social security number……….EVER!  It’s bad enough what your government does with it, without you adding to the list of parasites.

With your social security number (which they’ll say they need for “security purposes”) they can wipe you out! They can access all kinds of accounts with this information alone.

If the site makes you think that they are about to “run out” of a down-loadable product, this is either a call for immediate action (a legitimate but sleazy way of marketing) or a scam.  How can you run-out of a file that can be replicated a BILLION times or more?

A great site to investigate is ScamBusters.  Check it out! There’s also another great site call Hoax Slayer.  Definitely worth checking on before you buy something online.

Be safe out there!!!

Luke.

Just in case you HAVEN’T yet heard of it, a really great book called The Science Of Getting Rich is available for download and it’s totally FREE.

It was written in 1910 by Wallace Wattles and ranks alongside Napoleon Hill’s ‘Think and Grow Rich’.

In it, Wattles discuss topics such as your RIGHT to be rich (something that people don’t always think they have) and how to think in a certain way to gain the things you most desire, be it money, or what money can buy.

He also explains exactly how “riches” come to you, which isn’t at all what you might expect.

If you think something written in 1910 can’t be relevant today, think again.  Technology has changed (which is why you can make money online, selling to a WORLDWIDE audience), but the techniques have not.  What was true then is still true today.

True, you can always put a new spin on an old idea; marketers (both online and off) have been doing this for years (because it works), but the basics remain the same.  Making money starts in your HEAD as desires.  Desires turn to ideas to make money, which in turn become plans.  It’s then a matter of putting these plans into action.  Like Nike commercial used to say; “just do it!”

You all know how much I like free stuff, so why don’t you grab your copy here:

THE SCIENCE OF GETTING RICH………………………oh, and READ IT!!!

The links that I’ve provided here take you to a pdf file of this great little book, however, this version does contain a completely unnecessary introduction, written in 1999.  Ignore it, or read it for a laugh; the lady in question seems to have a bit of a chip on her shoulder about being female, so she’s re-worded some of it to make it less offensive! (I really can’t imagine any women in this day and age being offended, or even far back in history…………….like 1999.  Go figure.

Luke

As you know my wife and I have just finished our trip across country to Arizona.  While we were unpacking our kitchenware, my wife said something to me that struck a chord: “Would you believe it, I’ve opened every box but one and all I’ve found is the stuff that we never use!”.  While this upset her somewhat, I thought about it a while and then realized why this sort of thing happens.

My wife was convinced it was nothing more than “bad luck” (though what’s bad about it I really don’t know….finding you’ve just had your identity stolen MIGHT be thought of as “bad luck” but not opening the box with the dishes we use frequently is hardly life-threatening…………is it!?  But I digress……….

Luck is NOTHING MORE than a wish for the future (”good luck to you!”) or an excuse for the past (”that was bad luck”).  That’s ALL that luck is.

So what had REALLY happened?  Though it certainly wasn’t bad luck it WAS something that Casino owners know a lot about.  ODDS.  You see, most of our crockery is NEVER used; we use the same few plates and pans every night, but most of it (probably 9 pieces out of 10) are either for show, or are family heirlooms which are always stored out of site (mainly because they’re so damned UGLY).

So that leaves about 1 box in 10 that had the items that we frequently use in it.  So, what are the ODDS that the very first box that she opened would be the one with the items in that she wanted that night?  One in ten! Very poor odds indeed by most gamblers standards.

The second box she opened?  The odds would improve of course to one in nine.  Still not good odds.  After that the odds continue to improve, one in eight, one in seven and so on all the way down to 1 in 1 which is “a sure thing”.

She finally opened the box and it WAS the last box.  Unlucky? Nope, it was the FIRST box that was packed, BECAUSE these items were at the FRONT of our cabinets.  Being the first box packed, it was also the first onto the moving van………………and therefore the LAST one off.  When the movers took the first one off, they put it into the kitchen on the floor FIRST and then stacked the other boxes on top of IT, making it, very logically, the last one that we would open.  Ta DAAAAAA!

Whenever you see a sign or ad on TV from a Casino telling you how much they paid out that month, just think about how much they TOOK IN, if they could afford to pay out so much.  If they are telling you that they paid out 4,000,000 then they certainly took in more than that, otherwise they’d go out of business.  Gambling is NOT about luck, it’s about entertainment……………..very EXPENSIVE entertainment I might add.

Okay, what’s my point in all this?  Simple.  STACK THE ODDS IN YOUR FAVOR!!!  Don’t rely on luck because there is NO SUCH THING!  Don’t do the lottery………………..gambling is for LOSERS not winners.  Spend your resources (your time, your money and your thinking) profitably.

How do you do this?  You study, then you take ACTION.  Here’s one of the best places to start I’ve seen:

Affiliate Millions.

Treat yourself to an early Christmas present!  Give yourself the gift of the ability to make money online whenever YOU choose to.

Luke.

“Whoever said money can’t buy happiness simply didn’t know where to go shopping” - Bo Derek

“So you think that money is the root of all evil. Have you ever asked what is the root of all money?”

- Ayn Rand

“Formal education will make you a living; self-education will make you a fortune.” - Jim Rohn

Nikola Tesla, that’s who!  Tesla won the electrical-distribution battle.  He is responsible for AC voltage as opposed to Thomas Edison’s DC voltage, which is great for small local applications like toys and electric cars, but is useless for long-distance applications like lighting up and powering a city or a country.

But guess who died broke???  Same guy, Nikola Tesla.  You see, though he was no doubt a REAL genius, who didn’t have much idea about money.  He gave up many of his royalites that Westinghouse owed him, so that that company wouldn’t go out of business.  He was amazing successful as an inventor and engineer, but had the entirely wrong idea about money.  Money was just a means to an end to him, which is a good thing, but he simply didn’t realize that he had to MANAGE his money.  He couldn’t manage his SUCCESS!

Thomas Edison, on the other hand, was an incredibly good businessman.  He invented and produced products that people wanted the benefits of, and he did this not through genius-insight (like Tesla) but through sheer hard-work and lots of trial-and-error (LOTS of errors, but he NEVER QUIT TRYING).  He then took the products to market using other people’s money, just like any great businessman would do.

So, back to Mr. Napleon Hill.  What did Mr. Hill glean from all of the successful people that he spent 20 years interviewing?  The person who actually gave Napoleon Hill the commission for interviewing these successful people was Andrew Carnegie (not to be confused with Dale Carnegie who was not related to Andrew).  Hill’s payment for doing this 20 year study?

Nothing!  Huh!?  NOTHING???  Yep, no money, BUT he would be given introductions to the interviewees by Andrew Carnegie (one of the most powerful and wealthy men in the world at the time and the man responsible for public libraries).  Hill would also be allowed to use any material he obtained to write his book.  That was payment enough for him, and it still earns Hill’s estate money to this day based on royalties for the book he published in 1937!

So what exactly WERE Napoleon’s rules, his rules for success?  Here are some of them:

1. Definiteness of purpose - knowing WHAT you want

2. Mastermind group - be with like-minded people who want success

3. Attractive personality - people are drawn to strong, confident people

4. Applied faith - believe in what you WILL achieve

5. Going the extra mile - give MORE than what is expected of you

6. Persistence - NEVER quit (just like Thomas Edison)

7. Self discipline - control YOURSELF, don’t let others control you

8. Learning - learn from defeat and failure and keep moving towards your goal

9. Focus - when you’re doing something, do it with all of your attention

10. Habit - get into good daily habits, which will naturally get you out of bad habits

There are others (read the book!) but these are some key ones.  Try to understand that though you have thousands (millions really) of choices in your life, there are only two main choices.  You can either let life happen TO YOU, or you can MAKE A LIFE FOR YOURSELF.

The difference between the two are MASSIVE but to make the difference doesn’t take a lot; just small choices every hour of every day.  Will you write that extra article to promote your site.  Will you work that extra hour. Will you eat that extra piece of cake. Will you run that extra mile. Will you smoke one less cigarette each day and so on.

Nobody has control over your life UNLESS YOU GIVE THEM CONTROL!

Follow Napoleon’s rules and control your own life.  The alternative is unimaginable and certainly not something any sane person would want to live through.

Luke.

No, not Bonaparte, Hill!  Napoleon Hill that is.

Napoleon Hill is most famous for his book ‘Think And Grow Rich’ which is one of the best selling books of all time.

He was really an investigative journalist who died in 1970 at the age of 87.  He is THE father of all personal success literature, and if you haven’t read this book yet, I suggest you get yourself a nice inexpensive used copy off of Amazon (or similar).

What is significant about Mr. Hill (other than being raised dirt-poor) is that he was little more than a newspaper writer for a local Virginia newspaper who hit upon the idea of finding the formula for success…………success in ANYTHING.  How did he do this?  He interviewed as many successful people as he could and took the essence of what they all told him and put his findings into his short book. Who did he interview?  Here are some of them:

Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell, Henry Ford, John D. Rockefeller, Charles Schwab, F.W. Woolworth, William Wrigley and a few Presidents also.

So, do you think, after 20 years of speaking with these kinds of people he knew what he was talking about?  Yep, darn right he did.

Now, I’ve never really been one for all this “positive thinking” stuff, BUT (and this “but” ISN’T negating everything prior to it…………I promise) I DO believe that NEGATIVE thinking ABSOLUTELY will bring you down and keep you down.  So, because of that alone, thinking positively HAS to be better than the alternative.  Personally, I’m more of a realist (yes, I know EVERYBODY thinks that they are realists, but that’s patently not true of most, otherwise there wouldn’t be so many religions in the world!).

A prerequisite for success in business is realism.  Don’t let the hype fool you; running a business takes work and starting a business takes a LOT of work.  However, you’ve chosen the right field in which to start your business, because making money online gives you the opportunity to make mistakes and correct them without much loss of working capital or customers.

Do you need to be a genius to start and run a successful business?  Absolutely not! (see article on Donald Trump).  There have been a few real geniuses in the world (Leonardo DaVinci, Galileo, Isaac Newton, Benjamin Franklin etc.) and many of them never achieved financial success, though some did.  However there are THOUSANDS of normal AVERAGE people who HAVE made financial successes of themselves.

There’s a famous battle between two of my heroes, one of whom was a REAL genius and the other was a great businessman.  You can decide which was which.  Thomas Edison and Nikola Tesla fought for many years over using two different systems for transporting electricity around the world.

Can you guess who won the battle?

Part II tomorrow

Luke

“Success produces success, just as money produces money” - Nicholas Chamfort

Before you start your home-based business there are plenty of misconceptions that you need to be aware of. Don’t fall into the trap of thinking that working from home isn’t work.  Sometimes it will become MORE work than your previous job of selling your time to somebody else.

When I first fired my boss and started working for myself, I found that I spent more hours, not less, and worse, I started to worry about my business.  THIS IS A GOOD THING!  It means that you CARE about your business.

Also, don’t fall into the trap of thinking that you can get up at 8am, laze about until 9am before booting up your computer and then having 2 hour lunch.  Anything worth having REALLY IS worth working for.  A few people on this planet get lucky, but  most of us are about average in the luck-department.  Create your own luck by starting as soon as possible, having short lunch-breaks and don’t finish until what you set-out to do that day is DONE.  If you can’t possibly finish your task that day, start even earlier the next day and make sure you’ve completed the previous days work.

Luck is one thing and one thing only; it’s when opportunity coincides with preparation.  Be prepared for what you want by learning everything you can about a subject.  Affiliate Millions is a great place to start.

To start, you obviously need knowledge, but you also need determination.  Without this, nothing will work for you (unless you happened to be born into wealth, which is a LOT rarer than you might imagine).  You also need a stong belief in yourself and more importantly, a belief in your ability to LEARN new things.  In school we are NEVER taught HOW TO LEARN, which are just shown things that we are told that we should learn.

Perseverance is also paramount.  Without the “never quit” mentality, you may well stumble at the first hurdle (don’t you just HATE cliches????!).  But the single most important thing you can have to ensure your eventual success is MOTIVATION.  Your WHY!  WHY do you want a business you can run from home?  Once you can honestly answer this question (and believe me when I say that it took me YEARS to work out what MY “why” was) then you are well on your way to making ANYTHING you want work-out.

Knowing what your real motivation is (your “WHY AM I DOING THIS?”) will give you ALL the FUEL you’ll ever need to keep-on-keeping-on when you have those irritating and sometimes seemingly insurmountable problems arise.

What is YOUR why?  Well, it could be your daughter’s education, or a good retirement for you and your wife.  Find out what your “why” is over the next few weeks.  Think about it and then every time you have a problem with you business, you can simply think about your “why” and I promise you, this will give you all the fuel you’ll ever need to keep going.

Luke