Flick off your negative thoughts

When you have a negative thought, treat it like an ash that has popped out of the fire and landed on your jacket —flick it off right away and it won’t burn you!

 

Thoughts of doubt, worry and fear are not something you want to take over your consciousness. The moment you spot them, flick them off and go back to noticing what you’re grateful for.

The Criteria for Success

Take This Opportunity

Matt Smith is ETR's Publisher. In this role Matt helps direct the business, identifying key opportunities to pursue, and liabilities to avoid. His real-world experience, wisdom, and vision for groundbreaking new ideas are tough to match, even at his relatively young age (he's only a few weeks older than your editor). That's why multimillion dollar a year companies seek his expertise. Most recently he became the CEO of Stansberry & Associates, a financial publishing company. But he still plays a significant role at ETR, and is here today to give you his criteria for success.

Craig Ballantyne

"Is your work attempting to beautify the world, is it striving to greatness in heart or deed, is it inspiring or uplifting, and moreover, is the world a better place because of it?" - Corey Anton

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By Matt Smith

In the late 1990s, while most of my peers were taking the traditional college-route to success, I set out on a cross-country educational journey. From Portland, Oregon, to Buffalo, New York, and all the way down to Florida, too, I crisscrossed the country working for a variety of unique entrepreneurs.

It was from the business owners that I learned more than any college education ever could have provided. It was on this journey that I discovered the true Criteria for Success.

As a serial Entrepreneur, I'm regularly evaluating new business ideas.  Whether these ideas involve launching a new company or adding a new product line to an existing company, I tend to evaluate the opportunity based upon six specific criteria.

Criteria #1: Can I clearly define the market and direct my advertising efforts to target the prospects with laser-like precision?

One of my companies sells a product designed specifically for Certified Public Accountants. It solves a real problem and is, in fact, a very good product at a fair price. That's great. But, I'm far more concerned with and excited by the fact that we know exactly who our customer is. We know exactly how to reach them. We know how to talk to them so that our message will resonate and we know when precisely they'll most welcome our message.

Most business and product ideas are vague and it's a classic mistake of new entrepreneurs to think that their great product should appeal to everyone. Even worse, it's easy to assume that great products sell themselves. I assure you, that doesn't happen.
Great products can languish while mediocre products become blockbusters so long as the mediocre product has a clearly defined audience who is easily reachable through measurable advertising.

Criteria #2: Does the idea solve a real problem?

Back in 2010, venture capitalists dumped $1.67 billion into social media companies.  I don't have any major objection to social media companies, but I have a hard time seeing how most of these companies solve any real problem.

Let's look at one example.  Color, a mobile photo sharing app, raised $41 million in venture money before launching.  Okay. Color might be a cool little app, but it's a big stretch to say it solves a real problem or makes people's lives better, which, by the way, explains why they have no clear strategy to make money.

When you're adding value to the world and solving real problems, it's generally much easier to come up with a worthwhile strategy to make money.

This all reminds me of 1999 and the 'dot com bubble.' I was there in the trenches and made several huge mistakes which ultimately cost me everything I'd accumulated up until that point.  It was a humbling learning experience for me, but a great reminder that as an entrepreneur my primary objective is to create value by solving real problems.

Criteria #3: Is it scalable?

As a child with entrepreneurial inclinations, I looked around for things I could sell or services I could provide.  Not knowing where to start, I went for the low hanging fruit by trading my time for money. My ventures included Kool-Aid stands, paper routes, and selling little crystals from a broken chandelier to my classmates (ten cents each or 3 for a quarter).

I did okay as a kid by being a little creative and working my butt off.  But, everything changed for me at about 19 years old when I came to understand scalability. Trading your time for money is a devil's bargain. It is the easiest way to bring in income, but in the end it is still a job.

The ability to scale means you have obvious leverage. You don't have to do all the work and when you do, you're efforts are multiplied significantly. That's one of the things I like most about the publishing business. It takes about the same amount of energy to communicate with 10 people as it does 1,000,000.

Look for businesses that can be systemized, grown through good marketing and with large enough target markets that the whole exercise proves worth the effort.

Criteria #4:  Is there a special advantage I can leverage?

People are often surprised that I'm not a competitive person. I don't care if you're better at something than I am.  I do, however, care deeply about outcomes and objectives. For whatever reason, there are certain things I want to see happen and the fact is, I prefer to take shortcuts to reach those objectives.

I always look for ways to gain a special advantage in any new opportunity and you should too.  Here's an example of one relating to the CPA product I described earlier:

I would never consider adding this product to the existing business if I didn't have a special advantage up my sleeve.  In this case, we happen to have a very close relationship with a pair of high ranking, well respected university professors who are already in this space.

These folks are at the top of their game with all the credibility in the market we could hope for.  Leveraging their massive credibility and expertise makes this particular opportunity so easy it really does feel like cheating.

When evaluating your opportunity ask yourself these questions:

• How can I leverage my current customer base to support this new opportunity?
• Do I know anyone who has unique expertise that I can leverage to make this a home run?

Criteria #5: Does it fit within my core objectives?

After losing everything in 2000 my primary objective was to rebuild and add to my wealth.  I started a marketing company built around generating leads online.  The business grew quickly from there and branched off into software development where we created and marketed our own products.

The products we made were good and they solved problems, but the only reason I launched them was because I thought they could put lots of money in my pockets. There's nothing wrong with making money. In fact, there's a lot right about making money and, at the time, building and launching these new products helped to support my primary objective: rebuild and add to my wealth.

Today, however, there is no way I could pursue projects like that simply because my core objectives are fundamentally different then they were back then. Making money is important to me, but I have other objectives that override that one all the time.

Before I launch any new business or product I ask myself if this product fits within the vision I have for my life. Is this how I want to spend my time?  Does this get me closer to my medium and long-term objectives?

Criteria #6: Can I build an immediate feedback loop by defining and watching key numbers?

I'll probably never be the guy that comes up with an idea that changes the world or builds a business that revolutionizes anything. That's the downside of Criteria #6.  Fortunately, the upside makes up for it.

Our time is the most valuable asset we have. The worst-case scenario for an entrepreneur is to waste their time and priceless energy on a business that will not succeed.

How do you know if an opportunity will be successful?

Start with the five criteria above to select the businesses you start or opportunities you pursue and you'll dramatically increase your odds of success. Add to this a good feedback loop and you'll know quickly and with relatively low risk whether the business will succeed.

Two years ago, I spoke in Lithuania at an annual Leadership & Entrepreneurship camp designed for university students from all over the world. As part of the sessions, we had the students pick individual business ideas and break into teams to actually work out how they would implement the ideas.

One of their tasks was to define some key numbers in their businesses that would help them understand the relative health of the business at a moment's notice. These key numbers create the feedback loop we need in order to know if we're going in the wrong direction.

In most businesses developing a feedback loop is straightforward. I like to identify some key numbers in the business and watch those numbers every day. As the business grows, the numbers your watching will likely change, but that's not the point.

Most entrepreneurs don't bother establishing key numbers for their business or, if they do, often focus on things that are too far away from the objectives of the business to make much of a difference.

That's one of the things that Craig and I focus on with members of our Elite Virtual Mastermind.  We help entrepreneurs discover the key numbers to drive growth in their business. 

For instance, many businesses will know how many new customers they have or what their revenue was for last month, but they'd be better served to focus on cost per customer acquisition and Customer Lifetime Value.

Using these six criteria, we were able to better evaluate the business ideas put forward by the students at our camp. And more importantly, once the students understood these criteria, they were better able to create an action plan for taking their ideas to market.

No matter if you already have an established business or if you are simply on the verge of creating one, set aside some time to run your idea through these six evaluation steps. Each one will help you refine and improve your plan.

The impossible is not unattainable

They are free of fruit that want an orchard. But I say: Everyone can have their own orchard!

Expanding Your Horizons

Creating Your Life

Here's a simple truth. You can take control and create the story of the rest of your life. It really depends on what you're willing to do, how far you're willing to go. Today, a remarkable story of a young woman that expanded her horizons, created her own world, and let nothing get in her way.

Craig Ballantyne

"Do not think that what is hard for you to master is humanly impossible; and if it is humanly possible, consider it to be within your reach." - Marcus Aurelius

---

By Robert Greene

For the writer Zora Neale Hurston (1891-1960), her childhood represented a kind of Golden Age. A spirited and strong-willed girl, she spent a lot of her time alone, wandering through the town, reading, writing.

Then in 1904 her mother--who had always protected and sheltered Zora from her father--died, and the Golden Age came to an abrupt end. Her father, eager to have Zora out of the house, shipped her off to a school in Jacksonville. A few years later, he stopped paying her tuition and essentially abandoned her to the world. For five years she wandered from one relative's house to another. She took up all kinds of jobs to support herself, mostly housekeeping.
           
Worn down by work and depression, everything was tightening around her until all she could think about was her own tiny world and how sorry it had become. Soon it would be hard to imagine anything besides cleaning houses.

No matter how impossible it seemed, she could not let go of her dream to become a writer. To realize this dream, she would have to educate herself and keep her mental horizons expanding by whatever means necessary. A writer needs knowledge of the world. And so, thinking in this way, Zora Neale Hurston proceeded to create for herself one of the most remarkable self-directed apprenticeships in history.
           
Since the only jobs she could get at that moment were housecleaning, she managed to land work in the homes of the wealthiest white people in town--there she would find plenty of books. Snatching a few moments here and there, she would read portions of these books on the sly, quickly memorizing passages so she could have something to go over in her head in her free time. One day, she discovered a discarded copy of Milton's Paradise Lost in a garbage can. It was as good as gold for her. She took it wherever she went, and read it over and over. In this way, her mind did not stagnate; she had created for herself a strange sort of literary education.
           
In 1915, she landed a job as a lady's maid to the lead singer of an all-white traveling troupe of performers. Many of the members of the troupe were well educated. There were books everywhere to read and interesting conversations to overhear. By observing closely, she could see what passed for sophistication in the white world, and how she could make herself charming to them with her stories of Eatonville and her knowledge of literature.

As part of the job, they had her trained as a manicurist. She would later use this skill to find jobs in the barbershops in Washington D.C., near the Capitol. The clientele included the most powerful politicians of the time, and they would often gossip as if she weren't even there. For her, this was almost as good as reading any book--it taught her more about human nature, power, and the inner workings of the world.
           
Her world was slowly expanding, but still there were severe limitations on where she could work, on the books she could find, on the people she could meet and associate with. She was learning, but her mind was unstructured and her thoughts unorganized. What she needed, she decided, was formal education and the discipline this would bring her. At twenty five she looked young for her age, and so chopping off ten years in her application, she gained admittance to a free public high school in Maryland as a freshman.
           
She made the most of this schooling--her future depended on it. In this way, a few years later, she gained admittance to Howard University, the leading institution of black higher learning, and made the acquaintance of key figures in the black literary world. With the discipline she had gained in school, she began to write short stories. Now, with the help of one of her connections, she got a short story published in a prestigious Harlem literary journal.

In 1932, with the Depression raging in New York and her employment opportunities drying up, she decided to return to Eatonville and proceed to work on her first novel. From somewhere deep inside, all of her past experiences, her lengthy and multifaceted apprenticeship, rose to the surface--the stories from her childhood, the books she had read here and there over the years, the various insights into the dark side of human nature, the anthropological studies, every encounter that she had paid attention to with so much intensity. This novel, Jonah's Gourd Vine, would recount the relationship of her parents, but it was really the distillation of all of her life's work. It spilled out of her in a few intense months.
           
The novel was published the following year and became a great success. Over the next few years she wrote more novels at a furious pace. She soon became the most famous black writer of her time, and the first black female writer ever to make a living from her work.
       
Zora Neale Hurston's story reveals in its barest form the reality of the Apprenticeship Phase--no one is really going to help you or give you direction. In fact, the odds are against you.

If you desire an apprenticeship, if you want to learn and set yourself up for mastery, you have to do it yourself, and with great energy. When you enter this phase, you generally begin at the lowest position. Your access to knowledge and people is limited by your status. If you are not careful, you will accept this status and become defined by it, particularly if you come from a disadvantaged background. Instead, like Hurston, you must struggle against any limitations and continually work to expand your horizons.

Reading books and materials that go beyond what is required is always a good starting point. Being exposed to ideas in the wide world, you will tend to develop a hunger for more and more knowledge; you will find it harder to remain satisfied in any narrow corner, which is precisely the point.
           
The people in your field, in your immediate circle, are like worlds unto themselves--their stories and viewpoints will naturally expand your horizons and build up your social skills. Mingle with as many different types of people as possible. Those circles will slowly widen. Any kind of outside schooling will add to the dynamic.

Be relentless in your pursuit for expansion. Whenever you feel like you are settling into some circle, force yourself to shake things up and look for new challenges, as Hurston did when she left Howard for Harlem. With your mind expanding, you will redefine the limits of your apparent world.

Soon, ideas and opportunities will come to you and your apprenticeship will naturally complete itself. And you will be that much closer to mastering the field you've chosen

How Giving Can Make You Rich

Build a Life of Value

Years ago there was a popular bumper sticker that read, "He who dies with the most toys wins."

Of course, that is not so.

What the bumper stick should have read is, "He who dies after adding the most value wins."

Let me explain in today's essay,

Craig Ballantyne

Be awesome. Take action. Attract others. Remember, other people want to be associated with positive people...people who are doing good things and allowing them to be a part of something bigger than themselves.

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By Craig Ballantyne

Not too long ago, I watched a fascinating presentation by the inimitable Gary Vaynerchuk. Gary was born in the former Soviet Union and his father brought their family to America where nine family members lived in a studio apartment while his father pursued the American Dream.

Gary eventually grew the family business, Wine Library, from $3 million to $80 million per year, and he now runs a social media company helping large corporations optimize the use of Twitter, Facebook, and other Internet marketing channels. Gary's latest book, "The Thank You Economy," argues that the new economy is being shaped by the use of real-time insights from social media.

The presentation I watched was Gary's keynote speech from last year's Inc. 500 conference, and while not for delicate ears (warning: excessive cursing), Vaynerchuk delivered a non-stop tour de force and extreme value in his hour. Usually I can't stand to watch video (I much prefer to read), but Gary's presentation held me spellbound in front of my computer because it was both entertaining and delivered "a-ha" moment after moment.

Gary will be the first to tell you that giving extreme value to your customers is an essential part of building your business or career (just read his book, "Crush It," for the full story on how he used the delivery of tremendous value to build Wine Library).

But where do you, someone who doesn't have a wine store or 900,000 Twitter followers like Gary, start delivering value in your 'just-starting-out' or 'have-not-even-started-yet' business?

Well, it's simple. Begin at the beginning and go on 'til you come to the end.

You start with one person. One reader. One viewer. One customer. You deliver value to them, learn lessons from the interaction, and you improve your system.

You write your first newsletter, asking for reader feedback on how you can make it better.

You create your first product by hand and sell on e-bay or at a local swap meet for a profit, getting constructive criticism from your customer on what you can improve.

You go to your first seminar, meet some people, share what you know to add value to their lives, and you leave them better off than you found them.

The next step is to write a second newsletter for the seven or twenty or thirty-five new subscribers you attracted. Or you sell your 5th, 10th, and 100th product on E-bay or at the next swap meet.

Or you go to another seminar, make more friends and contacts, help more people, and go home to find more ways to help those people.

You ride in, help a bunch of people, and leave them saying, "Who was that helpful person?" And then they talk about you - in a good way. You build a reputation as a giver, a value-adder, a problem solver, and you become the person everyone else wants to connect with. You're invited into deals. You're asked to be a guest expert on websites. You get collaboration requests. You are rewarded for delivering excessive value.

This is the mentality I had when I created myalmost daily free email newsletter from, InternetIndependence.com. Each day I would provide extreme value to readers, so much so that they kept on asking, "When are you going to sell something?" My email list grew almost exclusively by word of mouth, because I had no affiliates (there were no products to promote) and I wasn't buying advertising.

I also created something that I called, "My blog post of a lifetime," and you can do this with a speech, presentation, or report, too. In my "post of a lifetime," I delivered all the content and value my readers would need to get started, and I wrote it from the perspective that "if I could only write one message for the rest of my life, what would it be?" You can read that blog post of a lifetime here.

The surest path to success is to help others. Solve problems. Design your product to provide the greatest value in the marketplace. Add value to someone's life. Follow the golden rule.

As my friend and mentor Yanik Silver is fond of saying, "I firmly believe you cannot out-give the universe. Anything you give out comes back to you in kind multiple times."

Don't you think you could build successful business relationships with others by being the most helpful, giving, and caring person in your industry? It's so easy. Just help as many people as you can, starting today. The more you help others and the more they succeed, the more success you will achieve. Don't hold anything back.

Can you ever give too much help to someone? I doubt it. I've yet to be accused of helping too much, and my three main businesses reach over 450,000 people on almost daily basis with advice that helps people move forward towards their goals.That's why I give my Virtual Mastermind members everything I produce. It's my latest attempt at "out-giving the universe."

Here's what you need to do in order to start helping and giving value today.

First, identify that problem in your industry that you can solve.
Second, become part of the conversation, online through social media, forums, and your own newsletter, or offline through attending seminars, trade shows, or swap meets - wherever your marketplace congregates.

Third, deliver value. Prove your worth. Take action and attract friends, fans, and followers into your life.

Give excessively. Give dangerously. Give so much value that other people think you are crazy to be giving that much value away.

The world needs entrepreneurs and problem solvers today more than ever. It needs you to go out there and give value to people. Make the world a better place. I dare you.

You can do it.

And we'll be right here at Early to Rise to support you every step of the way.

Seven Wonders of The world inside you

 The Great Pyramid of Giza, The Hanging Gardens of Babylon, The Statue of Zeus at Olympia, The Temple of Artemis at Ephesis, The Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, Colossus of Rhodes, and the Pharos Lighthouse of Alexandria.?

OR Is it

The Seven Wonders of the World are to see, to hear, to touch, to taste, to feel, to laugh, to love?

 

There are Seven Wonders of the World right where you are.  You are in the midst of them.  You are a wonder of the world.

 

10 Steps to Manifesting your Dreams!!!

Imagine if you could use the power of your mind to manifest money into your life.

Sound far-fetched?

It's easier than you might be willing to believe.

But your mind-pattern (or belief system) tells you this isn't so... you've probably tried before and failed, and thus convinced yourself that "money does not come out of thin-air!"

It's much easier to manifest money when you're not thinking of money... but instead, all the things you can buy with money. Forget the "middle-man" for a moment, and focus on the object of your desire.

I'm going to reveal a unique method by which anyone can easily and assuredly attain money and be able to sustain it... and watch it grow into even greater amounts of wealth and prosperity over time.

What I'm revealing to you right now, is the Science and Art of causing reality to conform to Will. And while it isn't accepted among the "Scientific Community" as such, your own experiments will prove beyond any shadow of a doubt, that you not only create your own reality... You can control it.

1. Pick one object that you would like to manifest into the physical plane. Start small, and as your powers of focus and concentration increase, move onto larger objects. At first, you will be fighting against your left-brained "ego" which is hard-wired into your mind-pattern that tells you these things are not possible... you don't create your reality and cannot control it. This is a lie.

2. Write down the statement that calls forth the energy into the container... the words "I COMMAND" are very powerful and similar to giving commands to a computer. Anything after the words "I COMMAND" will create the form in the
likeness of its own image. (for example: "I COMMAND my electricity bill PAID in full before July 31st of this year!" etc.)

3. Now that the Universal Energy is contained, it must be held in place. This is accomplished through focus, concentration and detail. Concentrate and solidify this energy by creating a symbol that represents it. For instance, take your electric bill and mark-out the amount due with a pen or pencil, and write "0.00" just above it. Then place it back into its envelope, and in big letters write, "PAID IN FULL BEFORE JULY 31st!" – This is a symbolic "ceremony" that gives the Universal Energy a definite purpose – to have the electric bill paid before July 31st.

4. The more attention to detail you give, the stronger the force becomes. For this reason, place your symbol in a location where you'll see it and be reminded of your intent, every day. With purpose, your symbol now gains in "intelligence" and begins its descent into the physical.

5. On the page with your command statement, write down as many direct and in-direct benefits you can brainstorm, seeing each of these things come to pass in your mind's eye as you write.

6. Create a perfect scenario of how this manifestation will show up in your life and what you will do as a result of its appearance. Tell a story. Write it down. Make it as detailed and vivid as possible... each new effort brings you another step closer to manifesting your object. (But don't be attached to how it manifests... it may be completely different from your story – but you're giving it "life" and intelligence as you write – thereby strengthening the force to be controlled)

7. Next... write a single question: "What are the possibilities in which this can manifest now?" Be still. Remain quiet, and listen. You will soon pick-up on Thoughts, ideas and theories that will tell you several possible ways the object of your desire can manifest into your life... now. (Remember, energy is not limited by space or time, until controlled and contained!)

8. When the ideas cease and the mind is exhausted of all possible avenues for manifestation to take place, stop. Take the paper and fold until small enough to fit in your wallet, or inside your purse. The concentrated energy of these words
bring greater strength to focus and direct the Universal Energy... the conduit is you. Energy is neither created nor destroyed, but transformed through the Mind. Remember – focus, concentration and detail form matter.

9. From this point, allow your symbol to "freeze" the manifestation into existence and remove any remaining or reoccurring negative beliefs to be dissolved by the Light of Reason. This is symbolized by your subconscious as illuminating white-light. You can cast white-light around any negative Thought with the intent to do so, and feel it dissolve back into its pure form. (Here is wisdom: Light Illuminates the Darkness!)

10. Remain completely un-attached to how your manifestation occurs in the physical. Rest assured that through the phenomenon of Synchronicity, your Thought will manifest at the best possible time and place for your greatest benefit... even if you don't understand why in that moment.