Issue #2656
- WEALTHY: Build your own personal “insurance” policy against recession in one hour a day (Suzanne Richardson)
- HEALTHY: The most dangerous fat of all (Craig Ballantyne)
- WISE: Guy Kawasaki on the entrepreneurial gene
ALSO IN THIS ISSUE:
- What the IRS will never do (Jason Holland)
- The music that only you can hear (Dr. Rachel Remen)
- It’s Fun to Know… about the origin of the cubicle
- Add “sedition” to your vocabulary
“I have come to believe that almost everyone has the entrepreneurial gene – it’s been necessary for survival for thousands of years.”
Guy Kawasaki
Vancouver Newlywed and Indianapolis Photographer Share Secret to Smashing the Recession Blues
In 2008, Julie and Richard – willingly, unhesitatingly, and with open hearts – quit their jobs.
Julie and Richard aren’t married. They’re not related. I don’t think they even know each other.
Julie hails from Vancouver, Canada. She’s got a background in real estate. And she’s a newlywed.
Richard lives just outside Indianapolis, Indiana. His background is in finance. And he’s a part-time photographer.
On the surface, they have nothing in common. But what they do share has allowed them to thrive during one of the worst recessions our country has ever seen. It has allowed them to give up their 9-to-5 jobs. And it has given them tremendous freedom to live their lives the way they want to.
Best of all, the “secret” Richard and Julie share can help YOU say goodbye to recession worries forever.
The economy, the tumultuous markets, and the rampant job loss don’t have to affect you. You can create your own personal “recession insurance policy” that can help you survive – and even prosper – in any kind of market. Best of all, you can do it in one hour a day, starting today.
I’m talking about becoming a chicken entrepreneur.
You’ve heard Michael Masterson use this term before. Chicken entrepreneurs are people who start a side business… while keeping their day job. It’s the safest way to start a new business, because it removes most of the risk. For instance, if the business folds, you still have a steady income to rely on.
And if you go one step further and start an Internet business, you’re reducing your risk even more. That’s because the Internet is the most cost-effective venue for entrepreneurs. You don’t need to pay for office space or overhead. You can communicate quickly and easily and cheaply with people all over the world. And if you deal in information, you won’t even have inventory costs.
Julie and Richard both started out as chicken entrepreneurs. They worked full-time jobs while building their own businesses on the side. Now, life for both of them is full of fun, freedom, and financial security.
Designer Dogs to $10,000 a Month: Richard’s Story
A father with a demanding job in the finance sector, Richard felt like his creative side was getting squashed. He saw the Internet as the perfect outlet. But he didn’t have the know-how to build a website. So when he heard about ETR’s first-ever Internet business-building seminar (which took place in 2006), he decided it was high time to turn his idea into reality.
He headed to the ETR conference with an idea about starting a pet-related website. He came away with a fully functioning online business, MyDesigner-Dog.com.
The site sells everything from books to aromatherapy supplies to dog beds and crates – all aimed at improving the life of the “designer dog.” Richard and his wife are moving the business more and more toward information products – instructional videos and e-books – to further reduce their operating costs.
Meanwhile, Richard has used the lessons he learned at that ETR conference to start another online business – SpittingImagesPhotos.com.
Says Richard, “I finally made the leap, left my job, and opened Spitting Images. I build websites for small to medium-sized businesses, e-commerce sites for people who want to try Internet marketing without spending a ton of money, and I do website audits and search engine optimization for poorly performing existing sites. The ETR conference gave me everything I needed to get going in my new venture. All I had to provide was the nerve and the desire to make the leap.”
When he first started as a chicken entrepreneur, Richard was making about $1,500 to $2,000 a month, working about 10 to 20 hours a week on top of his full-time job. (That’s a solid $100-$200 an hour, if you’re counting.)
He knew he could live off of that income, so he made the decision to leave his job and started working on his Internet businesses full-time.
Now, he’s actively networking and aggressively building his e-mail list. It’s grown from around 1,000 names – where it remained for the first two years – to around 10,000 names.
And he’s making about $5,000 to $10,000 a month.
“The business really exploded once I started doing it full-time,” Richard says.
He now has plans to fulfill a longtime dream and move to Las Vegas. “I have a successful business, doing what I love to do,” says Richard. “The Web business is totally portable, so I can either work from my office or lounging by the pool in Las Vegas.”
What’s the best part of running his own business? “You’re in control of your own destiny,” Richard told me. “If I need to make more money, I can get in there and work it. I have all the tools I need to make money. Spend more time and more energy, and you can quickly see your income go up.”
From Starbucks Dreams to 10,000 Subscribers: Julie’s Story
Julie and her husband have been investing in real estate for years. As a hobby a few years back, they started RevNYou.com, which offers advice and information for people interested in building their wealth with real estate.
A year ago, Julie’s e-mail subscriber list had about 200 people. She was making a few hundred dollars a month with Google ads, but that was about it. Meanwhile, she still had her full-time job.
Then, in October of 2008, Julie decided it was time to take the leap. She quit her job and started working on her Internet business full-time. She made $500 in January of this year. In March, she made $5,000. And with the launch of her first product – a real estate investing program – she is on track to make $10,000+ for April.
“Pretty much everything I am doing today with RevNYou is a result of something I read, heard, or saw during ETR bootcamps or as a member of the Internet Money Club,” says Julie.
“Without ETR,” she says, “my husband and I would still be holding our monthly meetings at Starbucks to talk about our newsletter… making plans to turn it into a business but never really knowing what to do. Thanks to ETR, we knew EXACTLY what to do to take our little list of 100 and turn it into a profit center. Specifically, with the help of ETR and its programs:
• “I designed, built, and now maintain our very own website – and I’ve never had to hire anyone with programming expertise to help me. (X-Site pro is great!)
• “Our list of 100 names has ballooned to 3,000 and is on track to become 10,000 names in a few more months. (And most of those names were from FREE sources!)
• “Once we got serious about our business, we started to earn real money by promoting other people’s programs and selling our own products. We earned $500 our first month, $2,000 our second month, $5,000 our third month, and this month I’m confident we will earn $10,000 or more!
• “I’m quickly becoming a recognized expert on real estate investing thanks to having my articles published in ETR. We’ve begun to receive media attention (we just had our first magazine feature – in Canadian Real Estate Magazine!) and we’ve been contacted by people all over North America interested in partnering with us on different ventures, citing my articles in ETR as to how they found me.”
What’s Julie’s favorite aspect of running her own business?
” Freedom. I am free to make my own decisions, make my own mistakes, and make as much money as I want to.”
“If I could change anything, I wouldn’t have waited so long to attend one of ETR’s business-building events!” says Julie. “That conference really started me down this path, and it took me two years to convince myself to go. If I could do it over again, I would attend the very first one I had the chance to go to – and I’d be that much further ahead in my dream job.”
A Chicken That Has Not Yet Left the Coop
Julie and Richard may already be living the dream of running their own Internet businesses. But remember – this is the perfect venture to start on the side.
That’s what Pete Genot is doing. “After about six months of reading ETR each day, and implementing many of the things I had read in various aspects of my personal and professional life, I started to become more interested in creating my own Internet-based business.
“I already owned a business and made a decent living, but the manufacturing climate was starting to change. I could ‘feel’ things were going to get tough in automotive, the sector my business relied on, and I wanted to have another alternative if things really got bad.”
After attending ETR’s 5 Days in July conference and 2008 Info-Marketing Bootcamp, Pete was ready to take the leap. In January of this year, he started TheHealthyMinute.com, which offers health advice. Currently, he runs it part-time. Already, he’s seeing incredible progress. His e-mail list is a whopping 63 times what it was four months ago.
“I have found ETR to be the best resource available to help me learn the skills to create, develop, and run my own Internet business,” says Pete. “It has taught me to be a better marketer and copywriter, how to design an effective website, how to attract the search engines to my site, where to find good content, how to find joint ventures, and so much more.”
How You Can Get Started
Like most people, I bet you’re interested in doing work that you truly enjoy… having the freedom to do what you want, how you want… and taking control of your own financial future. Good news. Starting an Internet business is the best way to get all of those things and more.
And it’s not hard to get started. In fact, you can do it today.
Step 1: Spend one hour today coming up with an idea for a business you’d like to start or a product you’d like to sell. Paul Smithson’s articles “The Secret to Finding the Hottest Products to Sell on the Web“,”How to Find High-Demand Products That Sell Like Hotcakes,” and “Are Internet Users Looking to BUY… or Just Doing Research?” can help you.
Step 2: Tomorrow, spend an hour learning how to set up a website. (ETR offers easy-to-use website-building software that you can get right here. [LINK TO XSITEPRO - JK will have an affiliate link, or if not, change sentence to read "ETR offers easy-to-use website-building software as part of the Internet Money Club Independent Learner Edition." [link]] Or – if you are fairly Internet savvy – you can set up a free account via WordPress or Blogger.)
Step 3: The next day, spend an hour putting together content for your website. This is easier than it sounds. Here are four ways to do it:
1. Write your own content. You are, after all, an expert in your field! So you should be able to sit down and dash off a few useful articles that you can post on your website.
2. Pull free content from article databases. ArticleCity, EzineArticles, and other websites are full of free content that you can use.
3. Republish content from relevant websites in your industry. (With permission, of course!) Many websites are happy to give you their content, as long as you give them proper attribution.
4. Hire someone to write for you. Check out sites like CraigsList and eLance to find freelance writers.
Step 4: The next day, spend an hour building your e-mail subscriber list. Here are three articles that will help you do it:
• “Making Money With a Small, Responsive List” by Brian Edmondson
• “A Non-Obvious Way to Build Your E-List” by Bob Bly
• “Build Your List Using Free, Paid, and Leveraged Traffic” by Brian Edmondson
Step 5: The next day, spend an hour driving traffic to your website. Here are four articles that will help you do it:
• “How to Bring the Right Customers to Your Website” by Paul Smithson
• “11 Ways to Get More Traffic to Your Website” by Craig Ballantyne
• “Skyrocket Your Traffic With Satellite Sites” by Edwin Huertas
• “Fast and Cheap Banner Testing With Google AdWords” by Alexis Siemon
Rinse and repeat.
An hour a day sounds simple. And it is. The only problem is that – even at that rate – you simply may not feel like you know enough to get started. Or you’ll use the steps above to get going… but then get distracted. Or you’ll get a little mixed up and get frustrated and quit – just when you could have been on the verge of success.
Roadblocks like these are exactly why we offer our 5 Days in July conference. We set you up in a room with a dozen ETR business-building experts, and you don’t leave until you have a fully functioning Internet business. It’s five whole days where you don’t have to pick up the kids, do the laundry, answer the phone, walk the dog, or do any of the necessary-but-distracting tasks that keep you from really taking action. For five days, you’ll do nothing but work on starting your own business. And you’ll get hands-on help from our experts every step of the way.
If five days of hands-on advice and personal interaction with Internet experts – and then heading home with your own Internet business – sounds appealing to you, you can sign up here. And if you’re even moderately interested in starting a business in a field you love, you owe it to yourself to at the very least learn more about this power-packed event right here.
A future of freedom from financial concerns is at your fingertips. All you have to do is reach for it.
[Ed. Note: Attend ETR's 5 Days in July seminar in Denver, and you WILL go home with a fully functioning Internet business in 5 days. Get all the details here.]
Beware Tax Scams
Hopefully, you didn’t have any trouble getting your taxes filed by the April 15 deadline – and now the IRS’s multibillion-dollar computer system is working on processing your documents.
Nervous? Even if you know you have nothing to worry about, there’s something about the IRS that makes everyone a little anxious. And scammers take advantage of that anxiety to prey on taxpayers. So watch out for e-mails or phone calls from “IRS agents” asking you to correct your return or promising rebates, faster refunds, and tax relief.
How do you know they’re not legit? The IRS will never ask for personal tax information over the phone or by e-mail. And they certainly won’t ask for your credit card number, PIN, or bank account info.
If you are contacted by someone claiming to work for the IRS, contact the agency directly (irs.gov) to find out if there is a problem or question about your tax return.
Worth Quoting: Dr. Rachel Remen on Integrity
“Integrity is an ongoing process, a dynamic happening over time that requires our ongoing attention. A medical colleague describing his own experience of staying true to himself told me that he thinks of his life as an orchestra. Reclaiming his integrity reminds him of that moment before the concert when the concertmaster asks the oboist to sound an A. ‘At first there is chaos and noise as all the parts of the orchestra try to align themselves with that note. But as each instrument moves closer and closer to it, the noise diminishes and when they all finally sound it together, there is a moment of rest, of homecoming.’
“‘That is how it feels to me,’ he told me. ‘I am always tuning my orchestra. Somewhere deep inside there is a sound that is mine alone, and I struggle daily to hear it and tune my life to it. Sometimes there are people and situations that help me to hear my note more clearly; other times, people and situations make it harder for me to hear. A lot depends on my commitment to listening and my intention to stay coherent with this note. It is only when my life is tuned to my note that I can play life’s mysterious and holy music without tainting it with my own discordance, my own bitterness, resentment, agendas, and fears.’
“Deep inside, our integrity sings to us whether we are listening or not. It is a note that only we can hear. Eventually, when life makes us ready to listen, it will help us find our way home.”
(Source: My Grandfather’s Blessings; Stories of Strength, Refuge, and Belonging)
3 Simple Steps to Lose Belly Fat for a Healthy Heart
If you want to have a heart attack, drink a lot of soda, eat French fries, and build up a big old belly of fat. Studies have shown that hard belly fat, known as visceral fat, is the most dangerous fat of all.
Researchers from the University of Michigan Department of Internal Medicine confirmed that your risk of cardiovascular disease is linked to the amount of belly fat you have. That nasty visceral belly fat secretes inflammatory compounds, and inflammation is associated with heart disease.
If you have one of those hard bellies full of fat, you need to change in a hurry. Here’s how to lose that belly fat in three simple steps.
• First, start eating fewer calories than you need by eliminating sugars and foods that come in a bag or a box. Replace them with whole, natural foods, focusing on fruits, vegetables, and raw nuts.
• Second, do short-burst exercises, focusing on total-body resistance training and interval training. Research shows that interval training is just as good as, if not better than, long cardio workouts for losing belly fat.
• Third, get social support. You’ll lose more belly fat if you exercise with a friend who is also losing belly fat, or if you spend time on weight-loss websites getting support from others on the forums.
[Ed. Note: No matter where you are in your weight-loss efforts, you don't need hours of cardio to get into tip-top shape. Learn how you can get fit with three 45-minute workouts a week with fitness expert Craig Ballantyne's Turbulence Training for Fat Loss program right here.
For more easy-to-follow advice on how to stay fit, lose weight, and eat right, sign up for ETR's FREE natural health e-newsletter.]
It’s Fun to Know: The Origin of the Cubicle
Ever wonder who to thank (or curse) for the cubicle office layout?
The Action office, created by Herman Miller company staff designer Robert Propst in 1968, was intended to boost productivity. Initially, desks were divided by low walls. But because the layout didn’t use available space very efficiently, it was modified. Dividers grew taller (to give middle managers more privacy and prestige) and cubes were laid out in long rows. By the 1980s, the cubicle farms we know today were thriving.
Before his death in 2000, Propst is said to have been deeply disappointed by the modification of his original design.
(Source: Wired)
Word to the Wise: Sedition
“Sedition” (sih-DISH-un) – from the Latin for “a going apart” (hence, “revolt”) – is conduct or language inciting resistance to or rebellion against lawful authority.
Example (as used by Geoffrey Robertson in The Guardian): “Most of us now accept as common sense what was once prosecuted as sedition, namely Tom Paine’s proposition that ‘the idea of hereditary legislators is as absurd as a hereditary mathematician – as absurd as a hereditary poet laureate.’”
[Ed. Note: Become a more persuasive writer and speaker ... build your self-confidence and intellect ... increase your attractiveness to others ... just by spending 10 VERY enjoyable minutes a day with ETR's new Words to the Wise CD Library.]
Copyright ETR, LLC, 2009
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very good. encouraging, great ideas.
When he first started as a chicken entrepreneur, Richard was making about $1,500 to $2,000 a month, working about 10 to 20 hours a week on top of his full-time job. (That’s a solid $100-$200 an hour, if you’re counting.)
GREAT MATHS SKILLS
Julie and Richard aren’t married. …… And she’s a newlywed.
CAUSED ME TO REREAD THE FIRST PART!
DO YOU NEED A PROOFREADER. EMAIL ABOVE!