The help Carlos brainstorm to success thread...

[KathleenGageSpeaker]

Knowing one's most productive time of the day is very important. For example, mid afternoon is one of my most unproductive times. I can sit at my desk thinking I am getting things done when in reality I may be "shuffling papers". Knowing this has allowed me to organize my day in a way that I do the work that requires the most concentration during my peak hours.

Another thing that can help is to set a limit on the amount of time in forums if in fact this is taking away from monetizing your business.

[Lynn Terry]

Carlos,

What's with the "guru or no guru" talk and the general mindset regarding "gurus". I assume you're referring to anyone who has succeeded at Internet Marketing and/or is willing to teach what they know with others?

I find it incongruent with your obvious core values & beliefs. I also think it may be a very unproductive mindset & thought process. I'd be interested to hear the source of this negative vibe.

[carlos123]

Carlos,

What's with the "guru or no guru" talk and the general mindset regarding "gurus". I assume you're referring to anyone who has succeeded at Internet Marketing and/or is willing to teach what they know with others?

Hmm...I guess I need to maybe develop a better mindset toward gurus. Because the guru I refer to is not just anybody who has succeeded in internet marketing and is willing to teach others.

The kind of guru I have in mind is someone who is in the business of selling hope. Trying to get others to think they have the key that will unlock the mysteries of internet marketing in a way that no one else will. Someone who doesn't much care for the real success or not of others other than themselves and who is in just for the money. Whose God is their money.

Not all gurus are like that Lynn. You obviously are not. I can think of some others who also are not.

Most gurus of the type I respect don't see themselves as neccessarily gurus but as regular persons who did extraordinary things.

I find it incongruent with your obvious core values & beliefs. I also think it may be a very unproductive mindset & thought process. I'd be interested to hear the source of this negative vibe.

I can see where that mindset is not a good one to have Lynn and incongruent with my core values and beliefs which dictate that I think the best of others whenever I can. I stand corrected and will try and change my attitude about gurus.

Thanks for pointing that out. If you see a bad attitude toward gurus cropping up again in what I say please feel free to call me on it.

As for where that came from...I am not entirely sure. I mean I've bought my fair share of guru material and it's all been relatively good. I guess I have been reacting more to the notion that one person can have a key that everyone else must pay for if they are going to be successful in their own right.

I think it would be helpful if I just stop referring to people as gurus. I don't think anyone is a guru. More knowledgeable perhaps. More capable perhaps. But everyone still puts their pants on like the rest of us do.

Carlos

[Lynn Terry]

Look up the real definition of guru - that might help.

I don't actually like the term or the reference, and don't call myself that.

We all have a choice of who we follow, what we read & listen to, and what we purchase. My advice is to avoid negativity - it's a major energy drain. And focus on yourself and your business - always moving forward.

[KathleenGageSpeaker]

From the other side of the fence ... a great frustration for many mentors is the fact that people will buy products, study a small portion and then move on to the next "information solution."

This is extremely common due to people looking for the magic bullet answer.

I think on both sides of the fence there are good and bad.

[carlos123]

Okay...here's my time log for most of today.

From noon to 7:00 pm. Not looking very good I must admit.

12:00 pm - 1:00 pm
Meeting with landlord client to show him how to use FTP.
1:00 pm - 2:00 pm
Attempt to fix a computer problem using up system resources and slowing my computer down to a crawl.
2:00 pm - 4:00 pm
Worked with my client partner to teach him how to look for valuable keyword phrases so that he can better help me pick them.
4:00 pm - 5:00 pm
Spent time on forums discussing various aspects of keyword phrase selection.
5:00 pm - 6:00 pm
Took a walk around the neighborhood with landlord to get exercise and to walk the dog.
6:00 pm - 7:00 pm
Answering forum posts.

The meeting between 1 and 2pm was paid time that could not be helped and not part of my Adsense deal to build 15 web sites.

Hmm...I mean all worthwhile but not entirely focused on what I want to accomplish. I think about the only place where I could have saved some time is not getting involved in various discussions on forums today. I was absolutely flooded with forum responses today. Partly because no one was responding to any yesterday so I posted all over the place on various forums and then got bombarded today.

I still have to set up some way of capturing traffic that is coming to my site. More work ahead of me tonight. And I have not even gotten to my client work that has to be done by October 9th but way before that if possible. I think I will have to postpone the capturing traffic bit and focus on my client work for a few hours instead.

Carlos

[KathleenGageSpeaker]

It's amazing what we learn about ourselves when we write things down. A turning point in my business was when I gave up face to face networking meetings in my local area. As I calculated the time it took to drive to a meeting, attend the meeting, network after and then drive back to my home based office, half my day was shot. And..... this is a biggie.... I wasn't getting any business in my local market.

So... I chose to let go of those things that did not serve to grow my online business.

Here's the thing for me. I am the primary bread winner in my family, I have lots of pets to feed, I enjoy a comfortable life, and that means there are some things I have to be willing to do and those that I have to be willing to give up.

It's really quite simple and yet, we can really complicate things.

Here is something I would highly recommend. Write down two things you can do tomorrow that are "must do's" to get closer to monetizing your business.

First thing in the morning DO NOT check email, check messages in forums, or do anything that will distract you from getting those two things done.

It is a discipline. We can find all the reasons why things are not working. Bottom line is no one is responsible for our success but us. However, others do contribute to our success.

It is essential to know who are positive influences and who are not.

[carlos123]

First thing in the morning DO NOT check email, check messages in forums, or do anything that will distract you from getting those two things done.

Thanks for the suggestions. I think the biggest benefit to this thread is that it holds me accountable before others for what I am doing. That's a good thing!

Tomorrow is another day. I will try again tomorrow to see if I can be more productive. Less forum involvement is definitely good. There is no need to do much more training of my client partner.

Training was not part of the Adsense deal I made with him and is not required of me. I just thought he could do some of the grunt work to helping me find 15 niche areas to target but it turned out that it was a bit more difficult for him to use the Adwords Keyword Tool and work effectively with it than I had thought so I think I will go back to doing it entirely on my own.

Carlos