10 Tips on Making Your Dream Board

A follow-up from my previous post “Got Your Dream Board?“…

Visualization is powerful. Many of the world’s wonderful inventions, ideas, and dreams that come true were, once upon a time, just sketched on paper!

Here are 10 of my tips in getting started on your very own Dream Board…

1. Spend some time dreaming about what you WANT to be, do and have in the near future. “Some time” can be subjective. It may take hours. It may take days. Heck, maybe longer. But this is YOUR dream so you decide how you want your lifestyle to be in the near future. As I’ve said before, it costs nothing to dream.

2. Going through the process, you might recall some discouraging words. It could be from your parents, your friends, your relatives, etc. telling you “it’s ridiculous” “it’s impossible” or anything else along those lines. That was exactly what everyone said when the Wright brothers attempted to build the first manned aircraft. They said that “humans can never fly”. Remember, no one but yourself can give you permission to encourage or discourage yourself.

3. Make the Dream Board visual. This is going to be the most exciting process. Put your dream on board by printing out and pasting pictures you found online. Alternatively, you can buy today’s newspaper and cut out images to paste on your Dream Board.

4. The more precise you are with details, the better. There is power in clarity. For example: you don’t just want ‘a new car’. Get down to the finer detail – what brand? What model? If you’re not clear yet or haven’t done enough research at this stage, you can always update your Dream Board later on. Don’t worry about being too perfect

5. Since you’re going to dream – and it costs nothing to do that – you might as well dream BIG. It must be something intimidating and challenging. If it’s something too easy or you can actually do it today, then that’s not a dream. The purpose of doing your Dream Board is so you have a grand goal to focus your passion, energies and motives to so you can achieve your desired lifestyle.

6. Don’t be paralyzed by the possibilities of failure or doubting whether you can get there or not; if you feel afraid or intimidated by the magnitude of the goal then it’s natural. This means you’re growing. And it’s a goal worth pursuing!

7. Paste the Dream Board at a place you spend most of your time in the day. If you work from home then it makes sense to paste it near your workstation. If you’re working for someone else and for any reason you cannot put your Dream Board at your workplace, put it up in a place where you go to often at home e.g. near the dressing mirror, on the fridge door, etc.

8. Use colors. Keep the Dream Board interesting – don’t just stick to two colors!

9. If you want some ideas on how to begin, explore the following questions: “Where do I want to go?” “What do I want to be?” “What do I want to have?”

10. Your dreams don’t have to be money-oriented or necessarily materialistic. It can be a skill you want to acquire, someone you want to be, a mission you want to uphold.

You Can Do It… And Remember, Don’t Let Other People Snatch Your Dreams Away!

P.S. Happy New Year in advance btw

Got Your Dream Board?

One more week before the year ends! This is the best time to reflect, count your blessings, recall your bittersweet memories, meditate, and recharge. Because Year 2010 is going to bring new challenges the world is especially looking forward to.

Why I think Year 2010 is going to be *extra special*:

We are exactly 10 years into the 21st century!

It is the year of the Tiger! Those who believe in the Chinese zodiacs know what I’m talking about. And yes, I’m born in the year of the Tiger.

Last but not least, it is also time to update THE DREAM BOARD. If you haven’t got one yet, I highly recommend you start having your own Dream Board. Just having New Year resolutions isn’t enough; we know what happens to them – or rather, what DOESN’T happen.

But when you have your dreams and goals clarified clearly on paper, it becomes a DECLARATION.

It’s visual when it’s something you can SEE.

It’s powerful when it’s something you BELIEVE in.

The best part is dreaming doesn’t cost anything, and you can make do with any available stationary you have at home or your office.

When you spend a little bit of your time and effort into making your Dream Board, your mind starts to work and you will have greater clarity in what you want to set out and achieve.

It’s like having the final picture to constantly refer to while working on the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle. It would be hard to put the pieces together without referring to the complete picture. Can you imagine how hard it would be working on your business or career without having a goal or dream to achieve?

This is my latest Dream Board. The last one I did was about the same time last year. Things have changed since. Some goals were met; some underway. Regardless, to me it’s important to always set new goals and chase bigger dreams after a previous one is met.

Here’s to an exciting 2010 for everyone!

Emergency Time Management For One-Man Entrepreneurs

I think I dug my own grave two months back. And I had to pay the price.

Mega Red Packet support was very time consuming. I just moved into a new place on my own. Everyone around wanted a piece of my time. And I wanted to do everything I wrote in my idea bucket. To boot, I should have known better than to get clients instead of customers.

I got very stressed out, frustrated and haven’t had time for a proper, worry-free vacation since my trip to Sydney back in February. My revisit to Japan was kept postponed.

All in all, I had to say… I really deserved it.

So I had to do an urgent fire control. I’m glad I bailed out of the mess I created for myself, and the bigger mess I almost created in the process. If my situation sounds anything like yours right now, here are some useful tips for emergency time management especially if you are a one-man entrepreneur.

1. Do only 2-3 important things in your to-do list that matter. If you are overloaded with a lot of work and to-do’s, you have to make a decision to accomplish only 2 to 3 most urgent and most important things for the day. These are the things that (a) are urgent (e.g. meeting a deadline for a client) (b) will make a difference to your business tomorrow (e.g. doing an email promotion) An interesting thing I found from doing this is that after a while, of the 10 things I have in my to-do list, only 2-3 are the most important and brings in the biggest impact to my business. Pareto’s Principle applies here whereby you do 20% of the things that bring in 80% of the results. On the other hand, the other 80% of the items in my to-do list would matter only 20%, or can be done away with.

2. Check your Inbox and reply emails only once or twice a day: one in the morning and the second time in the late evening. Like many other people, I have an addiction to check my Inbox regularly. I was afraid I would ‘miss out’ – important helpdesk tickets, latest promotions and so on. But I kept to my discipline to check my Inbox only twice a day for the time being in favor of increased productivity.

3. There are always great opportunities everyday If you are bombarded with a lot of good deals, it’s easy to get over excited. TOO EASY. The problem with trying to take advantage of all the opportunities coming your way is that you have only 24 hours in a day. Whether you work alone or have a team of people working for you, this still holds true. The good news is that great opportunities will always come so if you miss out on some today, there will be another card for you to draw from the deals deck tomorrow. Which leads to…

4. Stay focused and keep the fire on. Reading Donald Trump’s predicaments during the 90′s brought me back to reality. He wasn’t focused and took things too easy, convinced that 20 years of business experience entitled him such luxury. And the results were 900 million dollars… plunged. I would definitely hate to lose everything I’ve worked for up until now and this really got me to set my priorities straight once again. I stayed to walking on the straight path in my business rather than try to be ‘omni present’ in my business. And I remind myself that no matter how successful I become, I will keep the fire and perseverance on because my past success and hard work doesn’t mean I am entitled to slacking off.

5. Don’t make promises you cannot keep. I wanted to work with as many people as I can. And many people wanted to work with me. I had never, and still don’t, like to say ‘no’. But I had to do it this time. I can only promote a few Joint Venture partners in a week. And in order to stay focused, I work with only one partnership at a time. It wasn’t easy but I had to say ‘no’ to new JVs in favor of putting my top JV Partners from my past promotions on the priority list. Then, I also spared them the alternative: disappointing further by not being able to keep my promise.

6. Outsource more. Whether you work alone or in a team, trusting the best people in other areas of your business is a skill you must develop over time. I had always preferred working alone but I cannot be stubborn if I want the greater good of my business and free my time.

7. Respect your own time and be selective with who you meet and hang out with. This is rarely discussed in Productivity and Time Management articles and books but I found that who you hang out with influences the quality of your time. A friend once said to me that “you are the summary of the 5 people you spend most of your time with”. If you hang out with positive thinking people, you will lead a more quality life. If you hang out with negative thinking people, you will be at the mercy of your friends’ approval that will prevent you from being greater in what you do. I make it clear to the people I know that my time is precious and have little tolerance for “Malaysian timing” (e.g. coming in 30 minutes late after a set appointment). Where possible, I get things done by email. Saves time from driving out and I am not a believer in making many appointments and meetings.

Hope my insight helps. Now it’s time for me to take my long awaited vacation!

P.S. Don’t make the same mistake I did two months ago. It can happen to just anyone, successful or not!

Interviewed by Rob Toth: The Future of Info Marketing 2009

1. I don’t often like the idea of getting interviewed, unless the questions posed are challenging. This was why agreed to be interviewed last night by Rob Toth of FutureOfInternetMarketing.com. The questions were thought provoking, and I had been forced to look further in vision.

2. The call was short – about 15 minutes. While the transcript is being made at this time of writing, I can offer you my quick insights when answering the 3 questions many Internet Marketers are looking answers for in accomplishing their 2009 goals and resolutions. I’m publishing my quick answers here in advance.

3. What is YOUR vision and prediction for where the Future of Information Marketing is headed? I think that Information Marketing will only get more profitable, but it will be more challenging than it is was for the past 3 years altogether.

4. The theme of 2008 that many people around the world can associate is recession. The news and the media were echoing the same “sky is falling down” message. Admittedly, I was worried. After all, the US Dollar was getting weaker and primarily, all sales online made are in US Dollars.

5. I broke my mental barrier nonetheless. Because if you would just look back at the recession period that hit most of South East Asia in 1998, which is only slightly more than 10 years ago, while certain sectors were hit there were those that gained to profit from it. Did you know that Amway made an unusually lot of sales revenue during that period?

6. I also think that one of the main reasons why people were put into the wrong frame of mind is because they spent too much time watching the news and reading the papers that are echoing doom and gloom. It’s just not healthy for the mind, and the time is best spent on productive things like building a solid ‘recession-proof’ business and looking for ways to supplement your income.

7. The news were still talking about global financial problems, when I made my $100,000 in sales in 10 days with Stephen Luc, and I did $18,000 in December 2008 alone, without doing a launch or created a new product. What did I say about spending too much time at the TV and paper?

8. The financial problems world wide is still far from over and we’re still living in turbulent times, nonetheless. The best hedge against it, for Internet Marketers, is to be building a business in more than one area this time and preferably in currencies other than the US Dollar.

9. If you already built a substantial business, there is no better time than now to start investing the money elsewhere. Before this, Internet Marketers would typically expand to the Self Improvement area, or speak in offline events. Yet I see a lot of potential in Forex, a 3.42 trillion dollar industry in its own league. This is why I am going to enroll in a Forex class middle of this month.

10. What is your #1 success tip for anyone considering information marketing or already involved? Many experts would echo typical advice like ‘be focused’ ‘create your own products’ and such. While I agree those are good advice, if I have to pick only one success tip, which I think it’s irreplacable and without it everything else will not fall in place, it’s about having a bigger mission and being committed to it.

11. When my parents were divorced in 2003, I was 16 going 17. Long story short, my mother’s highest qualification was only MCE (or SPM) thus the only jobs she could find would fetch a monthly salary of 1300 – 1800 MYR max. My sister and I had to leave high school prematurely and as a result, we led vagabond lives in the UK and later back in Malaysia but in Johor instead. I made it my own mission since then to solve my financial problems caused by my parents. While I also liked the idea of making money for myself, the primary motivation came from being committed to what’s left of us.

12. People who go into business only for themselves very often don’t make it or their success would still yet to realize their full potential. In contrast when I studied some of the more successful figures in business, they had a bigger mission and bigger mind when they started out small and humble.

13. And what is the biggest challenge or pitfall that you feel holds individuals back from success in Information Marketing? I had recently done a survey with my members and subscribers and the results were… shocking. I couldn’t find a better word for it. What’s stopping most people, as given in the survey of almost 400 participants, is that they either lack the money or lack the skill sets.

14. I still find that those problems are only on the surface. At the root, the problem is not being focused. Or putting it another way, their priorities are wrong or jumbled up.

15. I don’t have a discipline problem because it’s the least of my concern. I don’t have to drag my feet to an evening jog. And I make my mind up easily and make my decisions fast. I know I couldn’t afford to dilly-dally because had I done so 5 years ago, everything for me would have just gone to hell, and I will never see this ladder in success today.

16. That being said, be ready to expect Year 2009 to be more challenging than all the years before. It can be more profitable and worthwhile for you and many, if and when you overcome your weakness in procrastination and putting your life priorities in order.

You Just Have To Love GMail

8068 archived mails later, I took a nostalgic look all the way back when I started using GMail. 1st March 2007. And yet, I only wonder why I didn’t use it earlier.

Before this, I would log into the webmail feature under my website’s cPanel to check my emails. And as I started to have more and more domain names, it grew harder for management. I found myself logging into 6 different webmails, all opened in each browser. I had more than 6 domain names and because of the hassle, I tried to reduce my email account count.

That was before Internet Explorer 7 came about. And even with the introduction of IE7 – which made tab browsing a little bit more convenient (I use FireFox now) – it was not effective use of time waiting to load each webmail account that belong to various domain names.

One of my old Webmail accounts back in 2005. I stopped using it and forwarded the current mails to my GMail account in 2007.

Since every time I start a new domain and hosting, there will be a minimum of one email account assigned.

And as you know, spam is always imminent so I had to constantly clear them out from each email account otherwise eventually they take up the hosting space, plus the fact that I’m a neat and organized person.

I was going to pull my hair.

So I asked a friend for a recommendation, if there was any way I could log into all email accounts from one centralized location, and do it from any computer, anywhere, anytime. And not only that, I wanted all mails to forward to that one unified account, and when I would reply an email it could be from any of my corresponding email address (i.e. @domain.com instead of @gmail.com).

“Use GMail.” And that was it.

I signed up for my free account – at that time if I recall correctly, you have to be invited by an existing GMail user to open an account with them. But even though I signed up for a GMail account, I didn’t know how to use it to even its half full potential yet. Another month of wasting too much time to checking multiple email addresses later, I decided to learn up the bit for good. And damn, I didn’t know it was that easy.

GMail makes handling multiple email addresses in one a lot easier and convenient.

I grew to like using GMail ever since, for many reasons:

1. First, it solved one of my main worries. That was the hassles of opening and checking multiple email addresses from different domains. Now checking everything is one username and password away.

2. I had all my mails from main email addresses from other domains forwarded here ever since (including the spams). So with those email accounts void of new emails, it won’t take up hosting space and I don’t have to go back to clear them out every now and then.

3. Speaking of spam mails – GMail has a smart feature that detects spam mails and automatically forwards them to the Spam folder, making it all too easy. Before this, all the important mails and spam were grouped together in the Inbox, so I wasted some more time there just going through the mails carefully, hoping not to delete the genuine ones by mistake. (On a sidenote, GMail’s spam detection feature isn’t 100% perfect, so I had to occasionally check the spam folder once in a while but hey, it’s just one account!)

4. As for the unimportant email accounts, especially the ones that get created by default every time I make a new hosting account with domain name – I set them to be forwarded to :: blackhole :: meaning any emails going there and non-existent addresses (usually spam) will be gone.

5. When replying emails, I can choose which email address to reply from. This wasn’t possible earlier because I didn’t want emails from other domains forwarded to GMail only to be answered by a GMail account (it shows a little less credibility in business).

6. GMail’s smart feature to automatically label, filter and archive certain emails on automation – like online sales, newsletters, emails from JV Partners – all these make a huge time saver in addition to living up to an organized work style.

7. I can check my account from anywhere, including my hand phone, with GMail’s Mobile Phone feature. So even when I’m away from the computer, I could easily check my emails. It also help make bank errands easy whereby I don’t have to print out papers before going to the bank to pay Joint Venture Partners.

8. And just late last year, GMail went through a slight change and now you can even change your own theme for your account. Cool, huh?

I know many people are using GMail, and many have done so long before I discovered it. There are probably other equivalent solutions out there (like POP3) – but I’m not about to change my loyalty, not any time soon. And it definitely beats opening many webmail accounts in several browser tabs.