The Bloggers Desktop

What causes failure?

About a week ago I asked my followers on twitter a simple question.

What is it?  Why do some people seem destined for failure?  Certainly environment has something to do with it.  Most of the people who responded are successful in their fields.  The answer was overwhelmingly that attitude makes all the difference.  You can see some of them here.

I can buy that, but I still think some people have a losing attitude because all their life they have been taught to be losers.   I want to develop this idea here.  And maybe you can help me.  How can we help develop a winning attitude and what are some of the factors that might lead to a losers attitude?

What do you do when you have a nagging suspicion that you really can’t do (fill in the blank).

Do you have a story of overcoming a major obstacle?  I would love to hear it!  You might be a perfect candidate for a guest post!

Some Great blogs to watch

It is rare for a blogger to simply say “you know what, these other bloggers have great content!”

That is what I am saying with this post. There are a few blogs I want to recommend to you if you are trying to build your own business.

The first is problogger. Darren Rowse is a fantastic blogger and has really revolutionized the industry. There are far too many copycats out there, but that isn’t his fault. He has a neat story. He started a blog as a hobbyist photographer and discovered the mass appeal of blogs at a time when the mass appeal was just starting to take off! He has even written a book, which I can’t wait to get my hands on. Make sure you check out Problogger the Book.

The Second Blog I want to recommend is think simple now. This blog absolutely took off almost overnight and it’s no wonder why! The content is fantastic. The author, Tina Su, just recently returned from an extended vacation overseas. I am glad she is back because I was missing her helpful tips which make my life better every time I implement one. My favorite post of hers helped me to overcome my problem of remembering people’s names. The main tip that helped me? Stop telling myself that I am bad at names! Wow! Thanks Tina!

Third, I would truly be amiss not to mention here is Lynn Terry’s Clicknewz. Lynn is a fantastic affiliate marketer, a helpful web consultant, and from all accounts is running her home as a single mom all at the same time! How does she manage? Anyway, Lynn is a favorite of mine for her honesty and her integrity. I never fail to miss a post! Thanks Lynn!

So just to recap, I will point you to these blogs one more time.

Problogger for helpful blogging tips.

Think Simple Now for cleaning out your life.

and Clicknewz for excellent internet marketing ideas.

ENJOY!

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If you aren’t using feedburner you could be making a Huge Mistake

I haven’t spent much time here talking about feedburner for your blog feeds. Maybe I will go into more detail soon about all the great stuff you can use it for and why you really really are doing something terrible if you aren’t taking advantage of this incredible free service!

Feed burner will let you manage your feeds better, learn to reach your subscribers more effectively, and even place ads in your feeds!

Just take my advice, if you are spinning out feeds try it out! It is free after all.

Any thoughts? Are you using it? have you chosen not to use it? Let us know!

AutoBlogging from the woods

This week I will be away. If you have followed me for awhile, you know I am a student. This semester has been especially difficult, and it’s time for a break.

I am taking the family and a pop up camper into the woods for a week.

I have already written a few posts so that you will have plenty to read while I am gone. All your comments should be approved correctly, and thanks to a little wordpress plugin called comment relish, if you are a first time visitor you should get a thank you email in your box.

I have some big plans for this summer (with all the free time I will have not being in school) and I would love to have you take part in it.

Feel free to sign up for my newsletter, so you can get in on the ground floor. Just a little hint, I will be releasing a product which will earn affiliates somewhere in the neighborhood of $100.00 per sale!

If that intrigues you, you might want to go sign up so you can see what the fuss is all about. I look forward to reading your comments and responding appropriately when I return. If you aren’t already, make sure you follow me on twitter. I might find a tower I can update from once or twice!

Market Research and a Bit of Irony

I want to show you an excellent trick for researching your market.

Google trends is a fun little tool you can use to see what is hot right now. All the up to the minute searches will show up right up to the hour.

I’ve actually used this toll to get to the front page of Google in under four minutes. That happened when I posted about Santa trackers on Christmas eve.

But they also have a search tool you might want to check out. The screen shot you see here is a search demonstrating the volume of searches for the keyword “fitness” over the last four years. You will notice right away that New Years is the peak season for volume on that word. And then it peters off through the year until it finally dips to its lowest during the holiday season.

I know immediately that I don’t want to bother trying to get traffic for “fitness” during the holidays, but right after that I better be targeting those words hard!

Google also provides you with news items from some of the highs and lows of the chart to let you know what happened around those important times.

What are your keywords? When are the peak seasons during the year when your traffic spikes? How can you use this tool to improve your search traffic?

Secrets to Success #3 - Never Give Up

You know who that is in the picture? That is Winston Churchill. I know a few people who border on Churchill Worship. He was a great man who was in fact the perfect leader at a point in history that needed him most.

But that’s not really what I want to talk about today.

The reason I mentioned him is an anecdote I heard several years ago. I am not sure if it’s true or not, in fact I don’t need to know.

True or false, this story demonstrates an important truth that is significant for every person who hopes to be successful in life.

According to legend, Churchill was invited to address a graduating class one year. He stood at the podium for nearly fifteen minutes in silence looking at them. Making eye contact with each one of them in total silence, while the crowd waited to hear what this esteemed guest would say.

After a long and certainly uncomfortable silence, Churchill opened his mouth to speak.

He said the following.

“Never. Never. Never, ever GIVE UP.” With that he returned to his seat.

This man had led the world in an effort to erase the brutal military force of Nazi Germany. At the end of the day he believed this was the most important thing he could tell these young graduates preparing to embark on their careers.

I will say the same to you.

I have seen numerous people throw in the towel on the verge of success. You cannot. You must not ever do that. My mom used to tell me that quitters never win, and that is one of the deepest truths you will find in life.

When it isn’t easy, when life seems to press in upon you, when you are under so much stress you think you will die, NEVER GIVE UP.

If you can follow this you certainly be successful in your business!

- Thanks for reading, please feel free to subscribe. And if you are new here you may also like these other Secrets to Success

New Site Design

As a designer I thought I better have a more attractive look. I have been wanting something cleaner for awhile. I noticed my site took a bit long to load sometimes, and I wanted to fix that.

Let me know what you think.

UPDATE: Whoops I forgot about IE! I hate MSFT. I can’t believe I did that! New site coming soon!

UPDATE #2:  I think I have the Bugs fixed if you view this and it looks funny, how about let me know.  Thanks!