 Have you ever been in a bathroom where there is all kinds of graffiti and nonsense written all over the walls? It seems that everyone who ever went in there had an opinion, and most of it is a bad opinion of someone else. It is nasty, dirty and misinformed at best.
The internet is the same. Google is the bathroom wall of the universe. You can search just about any term and find thousands of opinions and that is all that they are. One site will tell you all of the evils of McDonalds and another site will rave how awesome McDonalds is. You can search the term “Google is a scam” and find 500,000 opinions confirming that Google is indeed a scam. They are opinions. Someone had the wherewithal to build their own website so they can say anything that they want to. Blogs are often just people spouting off on a rant. You may find some good tips on how to make a cake, however you need to realize that this where people have the freedom to post whatever they want. It could be biased. It could be wrong. It could be plain stupid! Using The Bathroom Wall People look on the internet. If you are new in business this is good news for you. You can make yourself be found. You can make up pages that talk about you in a good way. Just by having a LinkedIn profile, a Facebook page, a Twitter account, and a Google+ profile you can own 4 out of 10 spots on Google’s first page when someone searches your name. If you add a blog, a YouTube channel or do some guest blogs for someone else’s website you can dominate page 1 on your personal name. This is great! Remember however, that other savvy people can do the same. Don’t believe everything you read on the internet. Even if it comes from a third party source, those can be created by the people promoting their cause, or from a vicious competitor. A few years ago I watched hundreds of people loose investment monies because one person felt slighted and went on an internet rampage. He created blogs, websites, and wrote on hundreds of forums using a variety of aliases and destroyed an entire enterprise due to a vendetta. Later it was found that the CEO of the company had slept with his wife and that is what fueled his passion to tell such lies. It had nothing to do with the quality or the validity of the investments, but hundreds of people lost significant amounts of cash due to his attack. Do A Lot Of Research Beyond The Bathroom Wall Television in the past has been a powerful media and remains so today. When an exposé is done, do you think they always tell the truth? Sensationalism sells. A few years ago we saw Goji Juice taken out by a reporter with a vendetta. They showed up at the founder’s home early in the morning and stuck a microphone in his face and then were delighted to report how crazy the guy behaved. He was set up and that took out thousands of people who had invested time and effort into the healthy alternative of Goji. Today online people use catchy titles to draw you in. So do your own research and think it through before believing everything your read online or otherwise. A search done on Google is not doing diligence about a company or a person. Most reputable universities will not allow their students to use a search engine as a resource because anyone can say anything. Real research looks beyond Google. If you are planning to buy a company or invest your time in one, you will want the real facts. The Dragons on Dragon’s Den are not asking how popular you are online. Why? Because with some reputation management that can be created to say anything. They are asking for real numbers. How many units sold? What is the bottom line? Where will you spend the money? What is the valuation of your company? Those are the things that matter, not the pretty picture you painted on Google. My favourite one yet though has got to be how people will look up a multi-level marketing company online and find all the opinions of people who could not do it, or would not leave their couch to do it and now they have a blog cutting it down. That is ridiculous. It is the equivalent of taking advice from a guy who got fired from your company for writing on the bathroom wall and falling asleep on the toilet! The internet is the bathroom wall of the universe! Anyone can say anything. Again there are questions you should ask but they should be answered by someone who has the information. How long has the company been in business? What was their annual revenue last year? Is it one product, or do they offer a diversified offering in case of a bad economic climate? How many countries are they in? Are people making money locally that I can meet and talk to? And here is a really good question, “What other businesses or famous personalities are in league with this one?” You can be sure that Donald Trump’s lawyers didn’t do their research on Google. You can be just as certain that Canadian Tire, Superstore and Microsoft have a legal department who spent thousands or possibly millions of dollars before they aligned themselves with this company. Corporations don’t care what Aunt Sally has to say, and they are not reading the opinion of Bubba’s Blog who failed in network marketing! They looked at hard numbers and real reputation before those companies formed any kind of partnership with the opportunity in question. Those are a few of the things that matter and you won’t usually find the answers on the bathroom wall of the universe. The bottom line with research is that research needs to be done. Using a platform where anyone can say anything is not research. It is gossip at best. The bathroom wall of the universe is no more likely to bring you enlightenment than the bathroom wall at the gas station! Kerry George is a serial entrepreneur from Calgary Alberta. She is the founder of Loyal2U.ca an online guerilla marketing company, the owner of the Calgary Business Network, and the CEO of the Canadian Imperial Business Network. Kerry is a published author and you can find many of her articles online at cibn.ca, Loyal2U.ca and her personal blog is loyal2u.blogspot.ca.
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This is the now famous Ted Talk with Simon Sinek. I am reading the book which expands on his talk and it is absolutely awesome. I think everyone should have a website whether you are in business or not.
And if you have any kind of business at all, a website is critical. I also know that websites can put a hole in your wallet and what annoys me is the vast divide in prices. Some companies can charge as much as $10,000 and others will charge $5,000 for the same thing. And you can get the same site made for as little as $500 if you use a freelancer from another country though you will sacrifice in design and style if my numerous experiences are any indication. The model that I like is one where you pay nothing up front, pay a small monthly fee and you can walk away at any time. Walking away doesn’t hurt because you didn’t invest a small fortune to start. http://mojitosites.com/go/paygwebsites/ So imagine your business just starting out and you use this service. Two years down the road you are quite successful and now it is time to develop one of those expensive sites. And NOW you can afford it. You simply walk away from the Pay As You Go site you created with no fuss, no muss. Or because your Pay As You Go (PAYG) website was created on Wordpress which is what this platform is, the most popular content management system in the world, you can migrate to a custom-built site on the same, popular platform without losing everything that’s already built. With a proven platform like Wordpress there should be fewer potential glitches and lots of resources. Makes Sense to Me! I have been blessed with many great mentors in my lifetime. One of the greatest was the man that always called me the greatest. In fact he saw greatness in everyone around him. This coming month of April 2014 it will make four years since he said goodbye. His name was Francis X Maguire or Frank Maguire as the masses knew him. He had an illustrious career and life and here are just some of the things from memory that I knew he did.
Now treat yourself. Sit back, relax and let my friend and mentor remind you what you are capable of: After I got married almost 33 years ago, we had to make the decision that one of us would stay home with the kids after some babysitter nightmares. You can imagine what that did to our finances just as we were starting out on our journey together?
It was then that I decided that I would find a way for us to make some extra money and once I found that way, I would share it with others. I became a serial entrepreneur which included a few stints with Network Marketing companies. I discovered that even a few hundred dollars a month helped immensely, especially with all the tax write-offs and not having to pay for daycare and so on. However, the thing that always annoyed me was the people who became so passionate about their products that they often forgot the number one reason they got involved in a home based business and/or network marketing. That number one reason was and should always be to make money for you and your family. I remember how many times I said over the years “if only there were a referral marketing business that focused on groceries and gas” I’d be all over that. Such a company actually existed for over ten years so imagine my excitement when I finally heard of them late last year. And now some of those same product-focused people are so blinded by products they can’t see that when you let people do what they do naturally and you set yourself up in the middle to just earn a little bit every time they bought groceries, gas, clothes, went to see a movie, ate at a restaurant, went to a chiropractor, rented a hotel room and purchased just about anything online or at a brick and mortar store, we get paid. Isn’t that a powerful concept? Except it’s not just a concept. It’s already been proven and tested in Europe and has now spread to over 44 countries. It is the largest shopping community network in the world and in Canada our members get to shop, eat and play at some of our favorite places like Loblaws (Superstore), Shoppers Drug Mart, Petro Canada, Canadian Tire, Home Depot, Earls, Montana’s, Swiss Chalet, Pizza 73, Subway and Cineplex. In the USA there is Albertsons, CVS Pharmacy, Exxon Mobil, Sears, American Airlines, Office Depot, Home Depot, Kmart, Outback Steakhouse, Red Lobster, Olive Garden and Subway. And of course we love the small, independent merchants like restaurants and travel agencies that we help bring our loyal membership to. Finally, through our shopping we get to support the building of orphanages and schools like the one we built with the Nelson Mandela family. For those of you who keep asking what I am doing, this is what I am focused on and what I am so excited about. I am in my element when I am able to help people eradicate poverty in their lives and help others to do the same. In a nutshell we get paid on the shopping volume of the shopping community we create. Anyone from an 18 year-old to a 70+ grandma can develop their own shopping community and they’re doing it right now. 175,000 people on average join a network marketing company in America every week. If that number were ten times that and if all of them did 3 things we would not have a financial crisis.
1- Find something you can get excited about. And remember whatever you end up doing in the Network Marketing industry; the amount of success you will have is highly dependent on how many people you help have a better life. The side effect of getting excited and being passionate about something is that it snaps you out of the doldrums of being unemployed or underemployed. 2- No other industry gives you an opportunity to learn while you earn at your own pace. Study what the company does but more than anything study the art of inviting people to see what it is you do. Learn to be a teacher by first being a great student. The most successful people in this industry are the most teachable. They are also the most accountable. That means they do what they say they are going to do. And make motivation your job. Don’t wait for someone to motivate you. Today with Youtube and the Internet in general you watch videos and read free ebooks from the likes of Anthony Robbins, Robert Kiyosaki, Jim Rohn, Les Brown, Zig Ziglar and many, many others. Study with network marketing trainers like Tom “Big Al” Schreiter, Dani Johnson and Eric Worre to name just a few that I have studied with.. 3- Time: There are two meanings to this. The first is that you have to put in some consistent time. You can’t work your business for a few hours one week and then not work it at all for the next 3 weeks. Imagine what results you would get with that routine at the gym. Going to the gym one day a month is like not going at all. Doing your business part-time means that you schedule 5 to 10 hours a week if you have a job. If you are unemployed then use that time to accelerate your start in your new business. The second part about what I mean by Time is this. You have to give what you are doing at least 18 months. If you are truly focused and doing all that I am mentioning here and after 18 months you are not making enough to live on then you are either in the wrong business or you are lying to yourself about how much of these 3 points you are doing. One of my mentors says that 20% of people work hard in this industry and 80% look like they are working hard. Don’t look like you are working hard. Actually do it! With unemployment still running rampant in the USA and much of Canada I am really hoping that people are not waiting for the government to take care of them. I see the desperation as I read articles about people selling their hair and their eggs. And if that’s not bad enough, how desperate does one have to be to even consider selling one of their kidneys?
Folks there are ways out of the mess you are in but it will mean stepping up and stepping out of your comfort zone. I heard someone say that average people do not force themselves to get uncomfortable. That is why they are average. I want to tell you about an industry that has created more millionaires than any other industry. However, this same industry has also created more failures than any other industry. This same industry has more negative stuff written about it than any other industry and for one simple reason in my humble opinion. It’s because people will never blame themselves. They have to blame someone else to preserve their low self esteem. Yes, I’m talking about Network Marketing. People often ask me “Isn’t that illegal?” And I marvel at their ignorance. Amway has been operating for over 50 years. They have fought the government a few times and still survived. Melaleuca, Usana, ACN, NuSkin and many others have been around for over 20 years. Avon and Mary Kay are big names in the direct marketing industry. So why do some people insist on thinking this stuff is illegal. I think it’s a copout so that they don’t have to join and talk to their friends. And do you know why people don’t want to talk to their friends about joining them in a business? It’s the same reason this industry has so many failures. People quit and people are afraid of one thing; getting their feelings hurt. Poor babies! I wonder if their feelings get hurt when they are standing in line for food stamps. Wake up America! There’s a saying my dad used to use on us kids “God helps those who help themselves”. There are lots of opportunities in this wonderful land of ours. Opportunities to be of service to others and get paid for it. But yes we have to work for it. We have to be accountable for our own actions and not depend on the state and corporations. 175,000 people on average join a network marketing company in America every week. If that number were ten times that and if all of them did 3 things we would not have a financial crisis. I will tell you what those 3 things are in a few days. CALGARY, AB, Aug 17, 2013/ Troy Media/ – I have found that no matter what it is I am doing, whether I am starting a new business, or helping raise money for a company, or joining a direct marketing company; the very first thing that needs to be done is to create your list.
This has to be a physical list, not one that you keep in your head. You can write it or create it in any spreadsheet or text document. Just make sure that if you create it on your computer, you print it out and carry it with you, wherever you go. Make sure your list is really long. If only I had a dollar for every time I heard someone say, “I don’t know that many people”. Then before I was done with that person, they had a list of at least 150 names. You can start with the contacts on your phone and your email contacts. I usually put down their name and their phone numbers. If you don’t have at least... READ MORE CALGARY, AB, Jul 27, 2013/ Troy Media/ – One of the easiest things to get in life is someone else’s opinion – on any subject and whether they know anything about it or not. You know what I mean: you complain to your brother-in-law – the one with the black thumb – that your plants don’t seem to be doing very well and right away he starts telling you all the things you should do that will help your plants grow better.
I have had fat people give me advice on losing weight; poor people tell me how to become rich; and people who have never had a relationship last longer than... READ MORE CALGARY, AB, Jul 20, 2013/ Troy Media/ – The best way to create change and make money is to start your own business. If you are not an idea person, there are a couple of things you can do. Join a meetup group with other entrepreneurs. You may just find someone who is weak in an area in which you are strong. Smart entrepreneurs know that a team is more effective than going it alone. I like the ancient African proverb that states, “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.”
If starting up something new... READ MORE Almost a decade ago as I was building another business, I wrote an email called Weeds In My Garden. It was based on my doubts and fears and my lack of urgency. As a result of those mental weeds my business languished for 6 months. Then I found ways to pull those weeds and within a few months I was earning a high five figure income.
So think about the weeds in your mental garden that are holding you back from... READ MORE CALGARY, AB, Jun 8, 2013/ Troy Media/ – Now that you have a purpose bigger than your desires, such as building and funding schools in third world countries, you need to get down to making money. Unfortunately, this is the stage where people often get lost in the weeds. Because, somehow, we all tend to feel crappy about doing good and making money at the same time. We have to remember that it is okay to drive that Porsche, live in your dream home and take luxurious dream vacation while you are accomplishing your goal. If there is one rule, it is that you will never become financially successful if you think it is bad to live well while doing good.
For many, it is a mindset that would take more time than available to correct. Have you ever called wealthy people: ‘filthy rich’? Have you ever used the term ‘money is the root of all evil’? Or, did your parents ever use those terms? As a young boy growing up in a financially poor Catholic family, I heard those terms and more time and again. Like: ‘money doesn’t grow on trees you know’. Or what about: ‘money can’t buy you happiness’ or ‘you can’t be rich and spiritual’? I suggest reading The Secrets of The Millionaire Mind by T. Harv Eker to help you overcome the deep programming that conditions most people’s attitude about money. You may even want to attend his Millionaire Mind Intensive seminar, although that may not work for everyone. I’ve been both poor and rich, and I can assure you that having money, lots of money, is definitely empowering. But money is simply a tool, although a very powerful one, if you have lots of it. You can use it to do good, or bad. You can use it to create, or destroy. Take a hammer. You can use it to build a house and you can use it as a weapon. Money is no different. Our attitudes and our mindset will determine how we use that tool. While you can change the world without money, it is easier to do it if you have some of your own. Using ‘your’ money as the seed will make it easier to get others to contribute to your vision. It is very difficult to fill the cups of others when yours is empty. Try feeding the hungry when you can’t put enough food on the table for your own family. Try donating money to worthy causes when you have the utilities company threatening to cut your power off for unpaid bills. When your cup is overflowing... READ MORE ON TROY MEDIA  Don't give up on what you know should be yours. Keep going after it and don't settle.
I treat setbacks as a lesson learned on what I should not do the next time. This applies to financial loss or a lost love or a failed deal. I'd rather die than give up on my dreams. I look at every day I get to live as a gift to keep on striving towards what I want to accomplish. I owe it to myself, my family and everyone who ever gave me a chance. So as Norman Cousins said "The tragedy of life is not death, but what we let die inside us while we live." CALGARY, AB, May 25, 2013/ Troy Media/ – What is your reason for pursuing a life of financial abundance? If you haven’t yet found that reason, I would suggest that you make that your first priority. It is a known fact that people who have a big ‘why’ find a way to make the facts irrelevant. There are many coaches and mentors who will tell you to make a list of goals, to be specific and to put a deadline to those goals. I believe that without a huge reason or a huge ‘why’, it doesn’t really matter what you write down. Let me give you an example.
Have you ever known a young man who, as soon as he reached the age when he could drive and wanted to have a car so bad, he would do just about anything for it? Maybe you were that young man. Maybe that young man was your son and you remember when that happened. That young man didn’t need to write down his goal of owning his own car. All that young man thought about, dreamed about and talked about was that car. He saved for it, he looked for it and he eventually got it. I guarantee it! When you want something that much, you will get it. When I work with people to figure out their ‘Why’ or their reason, I ask them to write everything down that they want to Be, Do and Have. And usually they will write about all the places they want to travel, the types of cars they want to own, the size and location of the house they want to live in and so on. And then I ask them: if your doctor suddenly told you that you have just two years to live which of these things must you accomplish? For most people the list changes to wanting to leave a legacy for their kids. That legacy usually involves money but more often than not they want to accomplish something that serves as an example to their kids and leaves their indelible mark on society. They begin... Read More (as published on Troy Media) Many of us have stopped dreaming. Life has a way of beating us up and getting us to settle for what we think we can get, based on what we have received in the past. When we are young we dreamed impossible dreams, but as we get older life’s vicissitudes turned us into “realists.” A girl dreams of being a doctor, but because of the hard work involved, the distractions of everyday life and the lack of money, she settles on being a nurse. A young man dreams of owning a Porsche but then, again, everyday life gets in the way. A baby arrives, expenses mount, and he has to work two jobs just to make ends meet. He starts telling himself that he doesn’t really need a Porsche to get him from Point A to Point B, so he settles for something “realistic”. Slowly but surely, “life” conflicts with our dreams, forcing us to decide how much we wanted them in the first place.
Each time we settle, we lose a tiny little bit of our ourselves until one day, without realizing it, we are living a life quite different from what he had originally hoped, one of quiet desperation. I know, I have been there a few times myself. Fortunately, I have found ways to spend only short periods of time in the valley of despair and I will show you how you can too. If you’re young and have still not faced failure, I guarantee that eventually you will. Failure is life’s way of... Read More I wrote this poem 28 years ago when I was 28 years old after a conversation with an 82 year old man I met at a MacDonald's.
I'm on my way to eighty five And as I sit here starring at the sky I think about the things that could have been I think about the girls I've dated And I think about the people I've hated And I think with both, it was only I, who paid My mind festers with things I should have said To so many people who are all now dead Regrets are a heavy price to pay If I had my life to live again I would live for pleasure and forget the pain I wouldn't say anything, if I had nothing nice to say I would walk when I used to run I would relax when the day was done I would stop and smell the roses like I never did You need not suffer if you contemplate If you immerse yourself in love, not hate and learn from the mistakes that other people make I wish I'd known these things when I was young and brave but wisdom comes on my way to the grave Alas these seeds of wisdom I leave for you. I have been using Gmail for a long, long time and there are some interesting things you can do that few people know about. For example if you have ever clicked ‘Send’ on email and then cringed because you forgot something or realized that you sent it to the wrong person, then you need the first thing on my list of My 5 Favorite Gmail Features:
1- Undo Send: You can stop messages from being sent for a few seconds after you click send. Usually you have about 30 seconds. 2- Quote Selected Text: You can quote a portion of text from a message you are replying to. Just highlight the text in the email you are reading and click reply. 3- Message Sneak Peek: I really like this one too. Just right click on the message and you can see what the message says. 4- SMS Text Messaging: Allows you to send text messages from Chat. Very cool. Important Note for Canadians: Due to Government & Monopolistic Corporate restrictions, Canadians cannot access Google Voice or its features yet. 5- Extra Emoji Emoticons: Compose messages with a richer set of Emoji characters. Now before I show you how to enable these features you should know that these are experimental features from Google. As such they are not ready for prime-time and may break, change or disappear at anytime. Personally, I am fine with that. However, if you are prone to annoyance when something new does not work, then maybe these features are not for you. If you are fine with it then here is how you install them. A- Click on the ‘gears’ box in the top left corner of your Gmail page. B- Click on settings. C- Click on Labs to the far right. D- Choose which features you want by clicking ‘enable’ on each one. E- Don’t forget to click ‘Save Changes’ at the bottom of the page when you are done. I hope you enjoy these features as much as I am. I was thinking about a story I read many years ago about an ancient Arab trader named Ali who became a very rich man and I was thinking about how this story applies to many of us today.
Ali was a classic serial entrepreneur who would get investors to fund his ships that about 2,000 years ago would go to faraway lands and come back with spices, exotic perfumes and woods and so on. His initial ventures didn’t go so well. Ali’s first shipping venture attracted a lot of eager investors and it didn’t take long for him to get that ship out to sea. Within a month news arrived that the ship had been blown off course in a storm, hit some rocks and sunk. Not one to be kept down for too long Ali raised another round of funding and sent another ship to bring back the treasures that would make him and his investors rich. That ship was attacked by pirates, its crew killed and the ship was burned. Once again Ali had to face his investors with the bad news. Even though these investors knew the risks they blamed Ali for their misfortune. A year passed and Ali began raising another round of funding. He told his potential investors that he had learned from his mistakes and this time he would make sure the ship was sturdy, the route was as safe as possible and he would have on board an armed brigade of retired military men from the King’s own forces. Even with all these assurances many of his past investors were reluctant to take another chance with Ali. However, enough of them did and soon the ship set sail for lands beyond. A few months later the ship arrived safely back laden with the riches of faraway lands. Ali and his investors became very wealthy. Still there were some investors that hadn’t invested with him on this last successful venture that were angry and envious of Ali’s success and begged him to do another venture that they could get involved in. Many of us serial entrepreneurs can resonate with Ali’s story. And there are other entrepreneurs who after a shipwreck or two are reluctant to set sail again. I am not one of them. Like Ali, I get better at my due diligence, learn from my mistakes, make better plans, lessen the risks as much as possible and keep launching new ventures even though my supporters and collaborators dwindle. Ali didn’t know for sure which venture would be the one that would make him wealthy though he stacked the odds in his favor for the one that did. Though he never would have been able to do that had he not had the hindsight of failure. I just love technology and I especially love technology when it works and does what it says it will do. Here’s what I am talking about.
A few months ago I bought an app that promised to sync my iPhone with my Gmail contacts. It sounded fabulous so I bought it. I followed all the instructions to the T and to my utter frustration I lost most of my contacts on my iPhone. Luckily I had backed it up on iTunes so after getting all my contacts back on the iPhone I tried again. Same frustrating result. And because I am not a quitter I allowed myself to get frustrated a total of 5 times. The app never worked. And it’s called Sync In a Blink. Bullshit in a Blink is more like it. Now contrast that with one of the best services I have seen in a very long time. WriteThat.name has made my life so much easier by automatically updating my Gmail Contacts. Here’s how it works: You send me an email. Contact details in my incoming emails are automatically recognized, added to my address book, and constantly updated. It can even update ALL my email accounts simultaneously. Isn’t that brilliant? I even like their slogan “Don’t you have better things to do with your time?” Yes I Most Certainly Do WriteThat.name and thank you for letting me do it. Now if only I can find a way to sync my gmail contacts with my iPhone contacts... This is the follow up to my last blog post where I wrote about the dangers of being a visionary without having the means to make those visions reality. I think that people who should be visioneering the future are the ones that have already made gobs and gobs of cash and can hire the brightest minds to work for them, who can then spend gobs of cash on research and development.
Sergei Brin and Larry Page were students at Stanford University when they came up with the idea of solving a problem of how to search through what was at that time tens of thousands of web pages. They didn’t even know how they were going to make money. AdWords didn’t exist then. There was no big massive vision here. Yet they turned it into a big massive company that is now using their billions to vision such things as self-driving cars and Google Glasses. If they make a mistake they have more money and more resources to throw at it until they get it right. You and I don’t! Not yet! Many other companies and billionaires are also innovating on a huge scale. From developing the first private spacecraft to solving world health problems, these wealthy innovating entrepreneurs are attracting the best minds to innovate and change the world. I often get asked to comment on what I think would be the next great technology that will change the world. And it was a recent question from a friend that inspired me to write this Blog post and the next 2..
I could describe myself as a visionary, however, I prefer to leave the visioneering up to others while I try to fix real world problems of today and here’s why. I have spent way too much time and money chasing visions that other people thought were unrealistic. All the things that I tried to get funded came to pass, just not through me. So living on the bleeding edge is great if you want fame and are willing to be broke for a long time. However, if you want to truly change the world then bleeding is not a good idea. In fact I have a quote I came up with many years ago that says “If you want to create Change, then make Change” and that is make ‘change’ as in money change. With money you can truly affect change. You can lead investor rounds. You can fund your own ventures. You can actually innovate because you are not starving and not worried about bills not being paid and the utilities being cut off and being homeless. So what kinds of things did I dream about and try to get funded that eventually happened? In 1979 I envisioned small TV screens in the headrests of airplane seats. I had figured out an actual working model and approached my mentors and investors who all thought I was nuts. It took more than 20 years for us to see that technology come to pass. Admittedly the technology 20 years later was way more appropriate to make something like this happen. In 1999 I wanted to create a way to track my kids with GPS devices and be able to view where they were on the Internet. My business plan called for these same devices to be used to track vehicles and trucking fleets. However, investors were not buying it. Again the technology was not what it was 5 years later. GPS devices were too cumbersome. 5 years in technology and the Internet is a very long time. Today we have GPS tracking technology for kids in cell phones and trucking fleets and warehousing companies use these devices to track their assets. You can even track your friends with the iPhone app Find My Friends. In 2000 I envisioned a way for all of us to find a dentist or a doctor or just about any other professional and book an appointment with them online 24/7/365. This time I raised some money to do this but the medical establishment thought I was nuts. “What about privacy” they cried even though we assured them that no one would ever be able to see who else had booked an appointment with a doctor. 10 years later a company called ZocDoc is doing it fairly successfully and have raised $95 Million dollars with a $700 Million dollar valuation. This is why I now choose to innovate in the present moment. Find a problem people are having right now and then develop the most innovative solution I can. And from that point on innovate continuously. So who should envision the future? That will be the topic of my next blog post. I have been thinking about publishing a book for over 25 years. And I still remember those early years when I sent out Query Letters to publishers big and small. At one point I sent out 147 letters by mail because we didn’t yet have email. I received 28 rejection letters and no replies from the others.
A few years later I contemplated something that was new then – self publishing. The cost was like $5,000 but within a couple of years it had dropped to just $1,000. By this time I just didn’t have a thousand dollars lying around but I marveled at how far we had come in allowing the ordinary author the ability to publish their own work. What I didn’t know was that eventually the price would drop to Zero. That’s right the price today to publish your book is a big fat nothing. I am not just making this up and I am not just promoting something. I literally just became a published author for the first time and it did not cost me a cent. Now let me be clear. I did decide to choose expanded distribution so that my book would appear in more stores. I didn’t have to choose that but I did and the cost – just $25. The online software was extremely easy to use and I honestly believe that if you have a book that is begging to be published, go do it. The price has never been better. Click on the link at the top right and get started right now. It is so exciting! On April 21st I lost my brother who died very suddenly. He was a year younger than me and I never, ever suspected that we did not have many more years to spend time with each other. I live in Calgary, Canada and he lived near San Francisco, California.
I was grief-stricken but I really didn't realize how bad things were until I came for his funeral and saw how devastated his wife and kids were. His wife of 23 years wrote this beautiful poem that was shared at his funeral. She has graciously allowed me to share it with you. As you read it and feel her pain you may pray for her. Most of all, when you are done, go cherish every moment with the ones you love. Life is not just short; it can end very suddenly. My Lost Love by Dolly Tek-Marston I have only just lost you and the pain is so hard to bear Do I have to go through life knowing you're not there? Please someone explain to me why he had to go Are there any reasons, I really need to know I sit here and remember all the wonderful and precious times we shared The talks, the laughter, of everyone you cared for I am told the pain will ease with time And I will think of him without a tear But that will be impossible as I need to have him here He was my very world to me and my ever guiding star My darling just kiss me softly on the cheek and tell me where you are? I am not as strong as I thought I was Since you have been gone I sit and cry all night long from dusk to dawn Another day comes and once again I have to pretend that I am strong As soon as the day is over I sit and cry all night long From dusk to dawn Nevermore Will I see your smiling face? Will I feel your strong, firm embrace? Will I wish upon the starry skies, Will I gaze into your loving eyes. Will I feel your warm lips upon mine, Will my eyes sparkle and shine, The streets your feet will roam, Because Our Lord and Savior decided to take you Home. |
Allan Marston
I have written many blogs over the years so I am going to keep this one as my way of keeping in touch with my friends. The Secret Killer
Find out what it is before it kills you and your loved ones and what you can do about it.
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