Calm After The Storm
Forever & AlwaysWe often think of the 'calm before the storm', but rarely do we recognize or even witness the 'calm after the storm'. This sunset occurred less than an hour after a severe storm, near Otter Falls, MB, that brought down a hundred trees near a cabin we had rented. The clouds became soft like cotton balls (mammatus clouds) and the sky was at peace.
With the sand sliding between our toes, and walking hand in hand, there was no thoughts of #tweets, #likes or #snapchats.
Is Food Stressing You Out?
If you had to rate your level of stress by describing yourself as food what would you be? Are you a healthy well prepared five course meal or are you the proverbial Big Mac, Fries & Super Sized Milkshake?
Awhile back I wrote a post about the 5 most stressful events in life; death, job change, marriage, divorce & personal injury. The problem with stress is that for the most part it is invisible, and in the case of major life events it is often out of your direct control or absolutely necessary. However, the food we eat, for most people in developed nations, is absolutely controllable and whether we want to admit it or not is directly related to our daily level of stress. An unhealthy body is a stressed out body!
Challenge Yourself to Remove Food Stress From Your Life
What if changing your eating habits for one month out of your life reduced your stress? A mere 28 days for many people is all it takes; my self included. You see, I never ask or recommend my readers to do anything that I haven’t already done myself or researched thoroughly.
My 28 Day Challenge
As one of the biggest meat eaters, BBQ lover and general foodie in my circle of family and friends, I went completely out of my comfort zone this past month and committed to eat as a VEGAN for 28 days. Yes you heard that right! I have never in the past, ever denied myself a quality rib eye steak before in my life. As a temporary VEGAN, that means absolutely no meat, no dairy, no saturated fats and solely surviving on greens, nuts, beans, soy products and vitamins.
So what happened?
After just 20 days, more than stress has melted away from my life. I am 8 pounds lighter, have way more energy, spent WAY less money on food, and every area of my life seems just a little bit better. I will definitely be going back to eating meat, but have a new found respect for food and how it affects me both physically & mentally.
If you are interested in challenging yourself, here are a few food challenge(s) and other resources for you to consider: (the first being a link to the exact 28 day challenge I took part in)
If you end up taking a challenge or find another challenge to dig into, please let me know how you are doing, how it has affected your stress levels and or anything else on your mind. Thanks for reading, and please sign up to receive blog posts right to your email so we can stay in touch. (I respond to every email and love to hear your ideas and comments)
It is such a simple but powerful statement, “Love what you create…”
It truly applies to everything; your work, your family, your business and ultimately to YOU.
If you connect with this mantra you may like the three desktop backgrounds I created. Just right click any of the images below and click Set As Desktop Background. This way you can easily be reminded every day to indeed love what you create.
Is failure holding you back? Is failure an option?
I was asked a question this week that has dominated my thoughts ever since…
The question was, “What is failure to you?”
As a person who sometimes procrastinates on dealing with confrontation, I started asking other people what their definition was. This was my 1st attempt at avoiding the inner conflict of answering the question honestly! Sad…but true!
Here are a few of the responses from various people before I publicly tackle my inner demons:
* it’s like failing a test
* failure is not trying
* truly screwing up
* letting someone down
Now before I go insane, I am going to try and honestly reveal to you, and at the same time answer what my personal definition of failure is! In doing so I hope you can relate, or at least begin to identify if your own personal definition of failure is in any way holding you back. I’m sure we all are affected differently…
What is failure to me?
* failure is not an option (hear me out)
Unfortunately, over the past decade I have CONVINCED MYSELF that I’m conditioned to NOT allow failure as an option. I think ultimately this has been my greatest downfall. On one hand I teach my children they need to fail repeatedly to learn and ultimately succeed! On the other hand, I practice the complete opposite and have never allowed myself to truly fail!
Sure, I have had minor failures and I dismiss them as such. But, have I ever placed it all on the line and RISKED major failure? NO!
Ok, so if I did allow failure as an option, what would it look and feel like?
* it would mean having to watch my wife and children go with out because I failed
* it would mean I would have to admit failure is an option and indeed possible
* it would mean having to say “I Failed” to myself, to my family and to the world and actually try and fix any mess I would have created.
At the end of the day I have to go back to a definition given by the most important person in my life, next to my children, my wife! Her definition to me was the most profound…
Tanya said, “Failure is not even trying!”
I have so much to learn 🙂
This video below says it all!!!
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dT4Fu-XDygw[/youtube]
I was recently out for drinks with a friend and the conversation led to ‘Googling’ your own name. So I pulled out my trusty iPhone and Googled his name…
First result was his LinkedIn profile… good start!
The rest of the first page results were related to his name appearing in various charity and foundation Web documents. What can I say, “He is a quality guy!”
Then I asked a simple question, “Do you own your name.com?”
His answer didn’t surprise me, “NO, how do you go about getting that?”
The conversation that led from there was me assuring him that it’s not hard, it’s not expensive and if your name is available you would be crazy not to make the annual investment of around $10 a year! So as we finished our drinks, I promised to send him an e-mail that night with a link where he could check to see if his name was available and purchase it at discount.
This is the link I sent him on how to search and purchase your own name online using a service called GoDaddy : GoDaddy (See & click on image below on what do when you get there)
Now, he is one of the lucky ones and will be picking up his name.com right away! If you have a very common name, like Mike Smith, then it is a totally different conversation. (If you are in that situation should mean an e-mail as I have a few friends in the domain brokerage business you may want to talk to!)
I love music and you probably do to. Thanks to Michael Arrington at TechCrunch for bringing this to every one’s attention.
Is Google sending users who search for music to iLike & LaLa a game changer?
In my humble opinion NO. (Great for iLike & Lala though)
It’s certainly different that you may now actually be able to find songs your looking for and listen to them via Google Search, but apparently to start ONLY if you are in the US of A. In speaking to my US based friends and business partners today, they are anxiously waiting to start seeing song results… but we are expecting, as usual, nodda up here in Canada! My hope is that Google doesn’t go off strategy of providing the most relevant results versus pushing people to partners.
If you are outside of the USA and want to see what it looks like check it out here: http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/10/21/google-music-service-the-screenshots/
Is it a game changer in the online music distribution industry? Nope.
Is Apple’s iTunes having late night board room strategy sessions as a result? Maybe.
Will people buy music after searching for it for FREE on Google! Wait and see…
The one thing I will say, is it’s going to be an interesting year in the online music distribution world 🙂
What do you think?
Wow!!! As a parent, I’m not sure how I feel about either of these crazy almost lethal experiences! Either way, these stories are turning heads and I’m sure a few stomachs on YouTube, CNN and TV’s around the world!!!
Balloon Boy
Turns out he wasn’t in the balloon after all (might it be a publicity stunt!)
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wI6UONWCq7A&feature=popt00ca00[/youtube]
Baby Survives Being Run Over By Tram (Train)
It is my understanding this baby survived unharmed… unbelievable!
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_tlrMwWU5ZQ&feature=popt00ca15[/youtube]
Crazy title I know…
Unfortunately, someone very close to me is dying. My thoughts are constantly with that person, who I’m sure prefers to remain names less.
FACT: One day both you and I will die.
CHOICE: How will we deal with our own demise?
If there indeed is an Art to Dying, and I believe there is, then I think the most we can hope for is to make the right choices each and every LAST day. Some might call this being a gentleman or a lady under extreme circumstances, and others might just call it crazy. After all, would anyone truly blame someone who is dying for losing it in a million different ways?
THE END: All I think we can hope for in the end is that we go out with dignity, pride & hopefully surrounded by people we love.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QgniXgUE6qw[/youtube]
Colton passed away on Oct.31st/2009!
I felt compelled to share this outside of the box video (produced by contestants in a VW viral initiative) where they were able to get 66% more people to take the stairs versus the escalators. So if you are anything like me, up here in Canada, and have ate a ton over Thank Giving long weekend, then we all know we need to take the stairs this week.
Volkswagen has put together something pretty cool and outside of the box with ‘The Fun Theory’ … do check it out : www.TheFunTheory.com
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2lXh2n0aPyw&feature=youtube_gdata[/youtube]
You know there is a full moon near when David Letterman is publicly dealing with extortion over sex scandals, Chicago is in tears over failing to get the 2016 Olympics, and Breast Cancer Awareness month is being over shadowed by Typhoon Pepeng (don’t get me wrong… both deserve attention!)
If you believe Full Moons affect people, then I guess you are NO different than many Police Officers and Emergency Room staff all over the world. http://www.skepdic.com/fullmoon.html
The reality is, that once the statistics of Full Moons are applied to hospital room visits, extortion scandals, typhoons and even breast cancer, it is revealed that a harvest moon or full moon is just any other day of the year. You may have heightened awareness on these days, but statistically it isn’t any more weird than other days of the lunar phase.
No offense if you are Police Officer or Emergency Room doctor.
After 13 years of successfully helping people market, sell & dominate their respective niches on and offline, I thought it would be good to start sharing some of my not so secret tactics with subscribers and visitors. Dominating a niche is a multifaceted approach and today I’m only going to focus on just one part of that process called Search Engine Optimization.
First off, unless you are prepared to spend north of TOO MUCH MONEY a month you are going to have a very difficult time legitimately dominating Search Engines Rankings for a top level niche online. The fact of the matter is that regardless of what any SEO company says for any price, the search engines will discover & punish SEO tactics. Maybe they will not punish you today, tomorrow, or even next month… but if it is purely a SEO Tactic it will eventually have the complete opposite effect that you desire.
So what is the secret to dominating SEO for any niche over the Long Run?
Is it back links? Nope, but over time legitimate back links can help.
Is it massive use of different social media accounts? No, although effective & integrity based use of company or personal social media accounts can be good for connecting with your niche, customers & prospects!
Is it paying for over seas content spinners to push out mass content across the web? Definitely a huge NO WAY!
Is it links from authority sites like Wall Street Journal, Major Universities & CNN? No, but as you can imagine a quality one way link from an authority site (the legitimate way) is great for your search engine rankings.
Here is the big secret folks.
The absolute best approach to dominating any niche online is…
It is all about regularly & consistently putting out the best content in the world for your niche. It must be content that is or could eventually be referenced by world class websites, offline publications & media. It is content that generates discussion. It is content that is relevant, timely & engaging. It is text, audio, video, PDF, documents and any other type of world class material you or your organization spits out.
If you or your organization spent 75% of your time on tactics and 25% of the time on content, then any Search Engine Optimization gains will surely be lost as quickly as they came. I Highly suggest you, your organization and everyone seeking better search engine rankings that the correct formula for long term domination of any niche online is spending 75% of the time on the content, and 25% of the time on legitimate strategies that the major search engines will be happy to reward your web property with higher rankings over the long term.
So whether you do it yourself, or choose to work with a marketing company, please be wary of any company, program or Search Engine Guru who doesn’t focus on the quality of your CONTENT, and is happy to take your money for the promise of 1st Page Rankings on Google, Yahoo or Bing. There are literally 1000’s of legitimate strategies you can employ to effectively distribute & promote your world class content on the web, and they aren’t a secret. In fact, Google, Yahoo & MSN openly blog to webmasters about what’s cool and what gets you or your marketing team in hot water. At bare minimum you or someone on your team should be keeping up with Google’s Webmaster Blog here: http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/
To truly dominate Search Engine Rankings over the long term laser focus your efforts on creating world class content. If your organization does not have the talent to create top notch content, spend the money to get it done properly. Choose to work with only reputable, and experienced marketing firms & or professionals that can help you ensure both your content and online marketing will have the desired long term search engine rankings. Anyone can employ short term tactics and have short term success, but only the legitimate strategies you employ will improve your search engine rankings for years to come.