May 21, 2008
“I’m sick and tired of hearing about stress,” he said. “I read about it in magazines and the newspaper, they talk about it on the radio and air it on T.V. That’s all they talk about at work. Stress, stress, stress. So what’s the big deal? “
He had come for hypnotherapy because he suffered from IBS (Irritable Bowel Syndrome). and had been told that hypnotherapy might help him. He was also seriously overweight. After the introductions, I asked him to describe the stress in his life. He responded by telling me he had no stress. A summary of his description? His job was perfect. His marriage was perfect. His schedule was perfect. His children were perfect. Even the dog was perfect. (I didn’t ask him about his daily commute to and from work. I just couldn’t believe that driving the freeway in rush hour could be continuously perfect).
As we discussed various areas of his life in more depth I learned that he was in a fast paced job and had an undercurrent of fear that if he didn’t keep up he would be terminated and replaced with someone younger. He buried himself in T.V., reading or sports to avoid the nagging, negative comments of his spouse and waved off his children’s questions and demand for attention with “Can’t you see I’m busy now?” (The kids made him nervous with their loud music, strange language and outlandish clothes, so he kept them at a distance). I asked him about exercise and he told me he had stopped his daily jogging routine last year because of the pollution in the air that caused his asthma to flare up. When I asked him what he worried about the most I got a long laundry list of worries that ranged from not enough money, to what if I get cancer to what happens to me when I get too old to work. I asked what he thought about the most, and he replied that since developing IBS he continuously thought about what would happen if he had instant, explosive diarrhea with no bathroom in site.
Some of the major events in his life over the past year included a move to a bigger house, the accidental death of a brother, and a child who required rehab because of a drug problem. These events, combined with the internal and external stresses of daily life put him “over the top” on the stress charts. (If you haven’t seen one of these simply Google “stress chart” and you can measure your own stress levels.)
After completing the initial pre-hypnosis interview, I summarized what he had told me. He looked at me in disbelief. He hadn’t taken the time to look at his own life and had been in denial or in ignorance of the stressors. His life wasn’t as perfect as he believed and stress was literally kicking him in the gut.
The initial session of giving him some tools to deal with the stress in his life and teaching him what it feels like to be relaxed helped him sleep at night – you see, sleeping at night had not been “perfect” either. We explored relationship issues in hypnosis and he worked on communicating with his wife who turned out to seem much more positive when he began listening. He relaxed around his children and, after he got reacquainted, he decided they weren’t so bad after all and, if truth be told, he enjoyed their exuberant energy. He listened to the relaxation CD I give every new client and to his session CDs. He eliminated gas producing foods and began taking probiotics, He began to exercise and that not only reduced his stress levels but also increased his energy level. And his gut began to relax and respond to the new regime. Now he can go anywhere, even to places where no bathrooms are in sight, and feel at ease. He’s even losing some of those extra pounds.
He was sick and tired all right. And it was the stress, stress, stress that got him there. Using hypnotherapy helped him recognize his stress level and give him tools to deal with in a way that let him win his battle with IBS.
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Aligning your training to learning and matching your business goals is the ideal way to increase your business wealth. In 2004, 50 billion dollars were invested in training in the United States. It’s clear that smart companies invest in their people in an effective way to broaden an individual’s human capacity, thus enabling the successful support of overall company goals.
This year’s ASTD BEST Award winners represent organizations that demonstrate enterprise-wide achievement as a result of employee learning and development (ASTD.org).
Last year’s winners outperformed the S&P 2005 index by 2 to 1! That’s an impressive indication that training and offering more skills to support your team has an excellent ROI (return on investment).
What kind of training is most effective? The kind that is matched to your business culture and supports your goals. Simply said, not so easy to accomplish. With the many different perceptions, interpretations and beliefs people have or may formulate, an organization needs to be very clear in their objectives in order to have all employees motivated to company goals.
The BEST award winners understand how to apply learning as a strategic goal and champion learning culture. Every company has different objectives but by being innovative, designing the learning to fit the culture through blended utilization of all applicable training methods. For example, specific programs enhance customer service with a simulator web application allowing learners to practice a particular task without risks involved in helping live customers, or the discipline to follow up on sales calls with a win/lose review and lesson, allowing employees to learn safely from mistakes utilizing a globally accessible database. These are examples of learning innovations which can lead to greater company performance (outperform the S&P). The key is committing to a learning process that matches your business culture and goals, delivering the appropriate blend of training tools, giving your people an edge over your competitors, outperforming in your industry.
By Dan Collins, Author & Speaker
Where people go to grow. CollinsEducational.com
Check your Sales IQ (Free) at: http://www.collinseducational.com
Copyright © 2005 by Collins Educational, LLC.
All Rights Reserved.
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Free traffic? The other day I saw that someone had been putting post-it stickers with the name of their website on bus stop benches and telephone poles. How many ways can you get free web site traffic? Who knows, but here are seven ways to get you started.
1. Online classified advertisements. Search “free advertising” or “free ads”, and you’ll find there are many places that you can advertise for free. Few of them seem to be of any value, but I have been using two that work well. Place a few ads, then check your reports to see if they are bringing in traffic. Start regularly using the ones that deliver.
2. Link exchanges. Link exchanges with other web sites help you get free traffic in two ways: traffic directly from the other site, and traffic from the search engines, because the link helps your ranking with them. Find sites that have a theme similar or related to yours, and send out nice e-mails suggesting an exchange.
3. Post in discussion forums. This can be a great source of traffic for some sites. You just talk about things of interest to you, and get free traffic to your web site (always sign off with a link to your site). If you link to subscription pages for newsletters or e-courses you offer, you’ll get repeat visits from the traffic. Don’t spam, or you’ll be kicked out but true participation makes a relevant link okay in many forums.
4. Search engine submissions. Don’t wait for search engines to find you. Automatically submit to 15 of them at www.freewebsubmission.com. You can also submit manually to Google (www.google.com/addurl.html). Ultimately, search engines will be some of your primary sources of free traffic.
5. Submit to directories. First do a search for niche directories for the topic of your website. Type in “directory + online games,” or whatever your site is about. Many general directories also accept submissions for free. The value of directories is not direct traffic, however (you won’t get much). The value is in the links, which help your ranking (and therefore traffic) with the search engines.
6. Write and submit testimonials. If you love an e-book or other online product, tell the author, and let her know she can use your testimonial. Of course, mention that you’d appreciate it if she left the link to your site (under your name) active. Good testimonials are valuable, and you’ve probably seen them with a name and link attached.
7. Submit articles. This is one of the best ways to generate free web site traffic. In fact, it’s why I wrote this. An article is valuable because of the “resource box,” or “about the author box” at the bottom, where there is always a link. If I leave you intrigued, and wanting more, you might click through. This is a great way to generate free traffic.
Steve Gillman didn’t even know what HTML was when he registered his first domain name. Soon afterwards, he was making a good living online. To learn how you can do the same, visit http://www.TenMoney.com.
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The Internet and online business especially are becoming more
and more popular by the day in todays world simply because
people are starting to see the true benefits of the web,
consumers are starting to trust the web more, and more
importantly, the start up costs for a online business are next
to nothing compared to the offline world of business start ups.
The only set back most people run into when wanting to start one
of their own online business is How and Where to get started.
I did a search under the keyword term “home based business” and
the search results returned 575,000,000 results for that keyword
alone.
That’s a pretty intimidating number for someone wanting to start
their own home based business on the web wouldn’t you say?
These were the same obstacles I was up against when I first
ventured into the online world of business.
But I didn’t let that stop me and I hope that won’t stop you
either from wanting to start your own online business.
So, I saved you the hassle and put together 3 of the quickest
ways for ANYONE(that’s You) to start their own online business
with next to no investment required and can get started in less
than 24 hours.
Are you ready? I hope so.
Business Model #1. Affiliate Programs.
Affiliate Programs are simply programs set up by the business
owner for others to sign up for and promote for the business
owner for a agreed upon commission (usually between 10 – 75%).
The great thing about Affiliate marketing is it doesn’t cost you
a single penny to get started, you don’t have to worry about
refunds or customer service that come with owning your own
product.
All you have to worry about is generating the traffic to your
affiliate link and collecting your commission cheques.
This is the quickest way to get started online… Period!
Here’s a few Affiliate Directories to give you a start:
Associate Programs – http://www.associateprograms.com
Refer It – http://www.refer-it.com
Business Model #2. Resell Rights.
Resell Rights are simply products that have already been created
and are available to anybody who is willing to pay for the
Resell Rights to market them.
The upside to this is you get Ready-To-Go websites with PROVEN
sales letters that convert. The best part of all is… you get
to keep 100% of the $Profits$.
The draw back is you can’t claim those products as your own. The
original creator of the product maintains full rights. You just
get to keep all the profits.
Not such a bad trade off wouldn’t you say?
Business Model #3. Private Label Resell Rights.
Private Label Resell Rights are simply products that are ready
to be branded with your name to it.
What I mean by that is you get full rights to the product or
products and are able to claim them as your own even though you
didn’t create them yourself.
This is the fastest way for anyone to start a online business
who really doesn’t have any experience or knowledge on how to
create their own products.
The other really cool thing about Private Label Resell Rights
products is they come with Ready-To-Go websites which then again
saves you time and money in having to create them yourself.
Well there you have it, 3 Quick Ways To Start Your Own Online
Business In Less Than 24 Hours.
The easiest way to locate any of the above via the search
engines is by entering something like this into there search
engine web form:
affiliate programs + “what your niche is”
(Note: make sure you use the quotations around what niche you
want to target. Very Important!)
This will save you time and target your search much better,
where as if you were to just enter ‘affiliate programs’ into the
search engine web form you would get a gazillion results,
leaving you frustrated.
Now, the only thing left for you to do Right NOW is make a
decision on what you would really enjoy doing as a business
online.
Once you’ve figured that out the only thing left for you to do
is put together a… Plan For $Profit$.
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I will be honest. I am addicted to music recording. I love moving faders, adjusting levels, panning, reverberating, sequencing, you name it. I especially love all that software, and the colorful ways that they show the music as a waveform. It is just cool.
And I’m not the only one. My cousin has just become hooked as well, and all around the globe many many songwriters are falling prey to the “Call of the Cubase.” After all, what once upon a time could break the bank, is now easily accessible on our desktops. Every songwriter can record his/her songs for a pittance. So is this a good thing? And should we all be doing it?
On the surface, it’s a no-brainer. Well, why not record? It stimulates creativity. It liberates more music from the brains of its creators. It puts more pleasure into the world. And yet, there is a downside or two to consider when you plan to record your stuff, at least at home.
Natural selection was Darwin’s theory, and it applies equally to music as well. I’ll be honest, I’m not the greatest songwriter. I tend to write stuff that is too long, overly cliched, and requiring the vocal range of Luciano Pavarotti mixed with Paul Robeson. Every so often, though, almost despite my best efforts, I’ll crank out a beaut. When that happens, it deserves immediate posteritizing (recording for posterity), but, alas, there is a long line of “I-really-shouldn’t-record-this-but-why-not-it’s-cheap-to-do-it” material in front of it. Each of those will take a good week of work to arrange, record, overdub, mix, master, remix, remaster and burn. Add to that two days of regret after I’ve listened to the atrocious thing, you have 9 days. If I had to pay for a studio, I’d only have gone with the winner, and thos eother songs would have thankfully remained mere twinkles in my eye.
That’s the first thing to consider. It’s not for the betterment of the world to record everything just because you can. With the advent of the home studio, the natural selection process disappeared, and people don’t have the same pressure to let their material grow, become refined, and be sure that they are going for the gold before they start laying down tracks. Always ask yourself if you can do better before you start. Don’t let the technology cripple creativity with its instant allure.
Now let’s say you really have an ace song on your hands. No reason not to record this, you’re saying, and you’re right. But. Is doing it at home the way to go? The answer is a resounding … depends. Depends on what gear you have, sure. But even more, it depends on what you are capable of doing with that gear. If the ease with which one can record at home has limited creative quality, it may do the same to sonic quality when the creativity has been truly remarkable. I love those gadgets, but I will admit that I can never seem to get the sound I hear in my head when I write those songs. If I were properly trained, I’m sure I’d have a different take, but I’m not, and how many of us are?
So my compromise has been to have all the fun in the world with the songs I’m not staking my future on, while the keepers get a professional to make sure that I’ll get that record deal. I would highly recommend, however, to record your songs at home as a prequel, if you will, to the studio. The benefits are knowing how your song will take to tape on a basic level, as well as seeing any weaknesses in your arrangements. It is a great scratch pad, and then, when you get into the studio, you’ll have a great head start.
I hope everyone thrills to this wonderful world of songwriting, and whether your goal is simply to give CDs to your friends and family or to be a megastar (hope we make it), you’ll use home studio technology to stimulate creativity, improve your craft and career and have a blast. Happy tunes!
Seth Lutnick is a singer, songwriter and arranger. Visit his website, http://www.getitdone.biz, for more on creating and using a home recording studio, and personal action planning.
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