Michal Stawicki's Blog, page 27

The First Method to Building and Keeping Consistency

“Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life’s coming attractions.” – Albert Einstein

In following weeks I’ll give you a few methods to employ motivation to build up your endurance.

The first method is a personal mission statement. Author Stephen R. Covey defined it as your personal constitution, which

“focuses on what you want to be (character) and to do (contributions and achievements) and on the values or principles upon which being and doing are based.”

In other words it is your True North compass.

Your mission (your North) is out there, but you have to be willing to search for it. A personal mission statement is your tool which shows you where this North is. Each time you stray from it, your mission statement will correct your course and get you back on track.

The power of your vision you discover via creating your mission statement will compel you to refer to it regularly. It works for me just fine. I repeat my ample mission statement at least once a day and think of it countless times during a single 24 hour period. Since I discovered my purpose I just can’t stop thinking about it.

However, there may be some initial resistance to overcome.

Your subconscious will attempt to subvert your vision in two ways. First is to discourage you from referring to your personal mission statement. That way it can avoid all the hard work involved with fulfilling it. It has many tricks to pull off: it’s almost as if it whispers that you are a crazy megalomaniac because you dare to aim so high. Or it flashbacks your failures to conform to your personal mission statement high standards and discourages you from any further attempts.

If this subversion fails your brain must fulfill your mission statement. If you repeat it every day to yourself, then your subconscious can’t ignore it. Read it once a day to prevent your subconscious from subverting your motivation, otherwise your subconscious will take form of a nagging, annoying whisper that will attempt to ruin your plan and make you seem like you’re crazy.

However, you can’t consistently repeat to yourself every day that you are one thing and contradict your belief by committing actions of the opposite effect. It’s unbearable for your brain: it needs coherence and integrity. It will yield to your will having no other choice.

So don’t give it a choice. Just resolve to review your personal mission statement every day. Develop an immovable habit of referring to it and you will eventually win. It’s just the question of time.

Don’t let impatience discourage you, because you have your whole life to win.

When asked about my consistency I initially wrote a blog post. My friend kept asking me questions about my grit, so I wrote a whole book about developing consistency, the working title is “Staying Consistent”. It will be published in a few weeks.

If you are interested in growing your willpower, persisting when the things get tough and pursuing the mundane, but fireproof path to success sign up to the dedicated mailing list below:

You will get sneak peaks into the book and I’ll send you a notification at the moment of “Staying Consistent” (FREE!) launch.

The post The First Method to Building and Keeping Consistency appeared first on ExpandBeyondYourself.

Book review: Blood Brothers

First of all, I confirm that Zionist’s propaganda is very effective. I believed everything they said, including that bloodthirsty Arabs wanted to finish off all Jews in Palestine and that Zionists were simply defending themselves. However, I simultaneously imagined an inhabited land where just nomadic Bedouins were living and I felt the Jews had a full right to settle this empty land. If I had any hesitations about that, there was another layer of propaganda- well, they were just dirty, primitive Arabs. Jews, the nation of people chosen by God, had many more rights to this land than these barbarians. Does it even matter who inhabited this land before?

The propaganda’s answer, of course, is no, it doesn’t matter. However, it does matter. Even if the previous inhabitants would have been dirty, primitive, and barbarian, this wouldn’t have been justification for invading their land by force. It would have been similar to the history of America’s conquest when natives were decimated and exiled in the name of progress. Well, murder is not a sign of progress.

I didn’t even realize there were Christians, from the 1st century, still living in Palestine. I imagined a desolated land, depopulated by centuries of bloodshed among different nations and religions.

Elias concludes that the real enemy of peace is not Jews or Arabs, but militarism. I don’t exactly agree. There certainly is a place, on this earth, for armies. Now tell the Ukrainians that they didn’t need an army.

I think that this kind of sick militarism, which support regimes, despite any moral consideration, is just the facet of materialism. The words of Elias’ friend describe the modern world very aptly:

“People in the West seem so taken with material things. It’s as if they have nothing in their spirits, so they need to surround themselves with nice comforts.”

If you take materialistic perspective, there are no humans, there are only heaps of proteins walking and breathing. There is no higher purpose, higher good, or higher order. There are just randomly assembled atoms which pretend to be something more.

This is the danger of the modern world. We are not above mayhem. Less than a century ago, the whole world was bathing in blood. The most “enlightened” and “sophisticated” cultures and nations were involved in bloodshed. And the story repeats itself with terrifying regularity: supposedly Christian Rwanda; Bosnia and Serbia in the most “civilized” part of the world – Europe…

Modern countries and societies are just using different tools of mayhem and control like exploitation. Everyone benefits from the labor of 2nd and 3rd world citizens. The armies and guns are not necessary to create unjust and suffering.

Enough rambling. I shall go back to the Blood Brothers. I’m a Christian, I study the Bible everyday, and I enjoyed Elias’ insights into scriptures. They were so authentic and personal. I wish more Christians would read the scriptures and relate them to their lives in a way he did.

He truly is an amazing person. The story of when he closed the whole village in the church and told them the harsh truth about themselves? Surreal. Amazing. I think it was the best illustration of his attitude and his way of dealing with enmity.

Great book, I recommend it wholeheartedly.

Tenth Income Report – January 2014

Are you curious about a one-year delay? I explained it in my first income report.

January 2014 was a month of hassle.

I am incredibly lucky. My editor, Chris, not only offered me his superb editing services for free; he was just starting his indie-supporting business and he wanted to learn the craft on my book. He offered to make a full-out marketing campaign for me, free of charge.

Do you know that words? They are the beginning of my popular post from February 2014, describing the launch of my time management book. The preparations took me a good chunk of my time in January. I don’t won’t to spoil the surprise, so I don’t redirect you to that post, but I copy a good chunk of it describing my activities that month:

“I jumped at that chance.

4th of January we had our first Skype call when we basically got to know each other better. Chris asked me several questions about my up to date marketing strategy (almost non-existent).

He went back to me 2 days later with the marketing plan for the book launch. It was detailed, 4-page long document with many tactics, including the creation of a pre-launch mailing list, social media, networking with other bloggers, the usage of my blog and more.

8th of January Chris established the Trello board, a crucial project management tool for our launch.

The whole launch was broken down to the specific tasks. The tasks were divided into time sequence and assigned between two of us.

OK, on 10th of January I contacted my mentor S.J. Scott and 3 bloggers with whom I had some previous relationships and I thought my book was relevant to their audience. My mentor and Timo Kiander, the owner of Productive Superdad, were aware of my book and had read it in advance, but I didn’t discuss any help from them before.

Anyway S.J. and Timo agreed to help me, both of them wanted to arrange my guest post on their blogs. The one for S.J. had even been already written.

Lidiya from Let’s Reach Success also agreed to help me out. The last blogger was willing to help, but our schedules didn’t fit very well. All of them gave me some helpful advice about my upcoming launch.

There was a few days confusing period when I waited for the info from Chris on Trello, which already has been posted. It was then when we decided to [przyporządkować] specific tasks to one of us.

Till 15th of January I managed to set up a new list, a SignUp form and a page to put it there. I sent a broadcast to my list (48 names, 13% open rate).

16th I tackled Trello and communication process between me and Chris. I started to reach out to the bloggers he found.

I also published the first teaser post on my blog.

In the meantime, I formatted the book, got four versions of the cover and posted them on a few FB groups for crowd voting. Judging by the results of my promo and the sales afterwards it’s a very effective tactic.

Then the shit hit the fan at my work. On Friday 17th I worked from 12:30 p.m. till 12:30 a.m. I worked throughout the weekend.

I was discouraged like hell. Chris was very supportive. From that moment on he took the initiative. I was just reacting for his instructions.

19th I uploaded “Master Your Time in 10 Minutes a Day” to Amazon and got the ASIN number. From that day on Chris was posting the info to the freebie sites.

I managed to send a couple of emails to bloggers on Monday 20th of January. I also finished my guest post which was scheduled for Wednesday. Chris did some emergency editing of it.

I was also busy making several instances of the landing page for the bloggers who agreed to help me.

21st I was visiting blogs and preparing my pitch in advance till 2a.m. At 22nd I took a day off at work, sat down and sent 14 personalized emails within 2.5 hours.

The pre-launch period

All our efforts were starting to bear fruits. 22nd of January my guest posts on ProductiveSuperdad and on EarningFreeMoney went live (the second one was composed by Chris and edited by me). Several people subscribed to the launch list.

At 23rd Emily from FreelanceLady.com published an enthusiastic review on her blog. The list grew further.

On the 24th I’ve published a blog post sharing my sand-grain method from the book’s and I sent the broadcast to my list. Both items were prepared by Chris, I need just to format and edit them a bit.

The broadcast was sent to 67 subscribers and had 15% open rate.

25th Lidiya’s published post on her blog sharing with her audience the news about my book. Very generous of her!

On 27th of January I sent an email to David Allen, who invented and perfected the Getting Things Done productivity system. I was super stoked to get his answer the very same day, some excerpts:

“Thanks for your lovely e-mail. I’m always delighted to hear when someone takes GTD to heart and actually implements it–it always works! (…)

And thanks for the link to your book. I’m rather stretched in my own time resources to do anything but work on my own next book project (updating GTD); so no promises that I will get to it anytime soon.”

Well, not much in terms of help, but a gigantic amount of encouragement. Just in time, as I was approaching the point of total exhaustion.

I published the last post on my blog in the pre-launch sequence.

THE LAUNCH

Compared to the crazy amount of work we put into preparations, the launch itself was a piece of cake.

On the day of the launch my guest post on my mentor’s blog went live and it was the first guest post ever on Develop Good Habits. I swelled with pride

What is more S.J. sent a broadcast to his list, which is considerably larger than mine. At the end of the day he informed me that over 220 people had clicked over to my book.

I also sent the broadcast to my list (72 people). It had 27% ctr.

I posted daily on freebie FB groups using my list. I tried to keep my announcements always present in the current feed. Almost 48 hours after the launch I’ve sent follow up to those from launching list who didn’t open the first message. 39% ctr.

Chris did everything what was in his power to sustain the momentum. He sent a broadcast to his list. He also secured a guest post on FreeBookDude in my name. It went live 30th and I think it has something to do with the great results in the last day of the promo.

Chris is a very resourceful guy, this post had been rejected by another blogger and he managed to utilize it!

To boost up the downloads in the last day Chris came up with the idea of the review contest, but my list’s response was very weak, only 3% ctr. I think they were tired of this email bombardment

I posted last time on FB groups urging readers to download before the promo expires and went to bed anticipating the results.”

And the results of the promo were quite impressive. On the 28th of January “Master Your Time in 10 Minutes a Day” was downloaded 580 times. Not too shabby, especially for a new release, but I had similar results in the past and I wasn’t impressed by them. The next day the book was snatched about 670 times. Again, not a big space for excitement.

On 30th I got 690 more downloads. Combined together, it was a nice result exceeding twice any prior promo of mine. Almost 2k books downloaded. I felt a small pang of anticipation. My book was hovering at about #200 place in the whole free Kindle store where none of my books have never been before.

I went to sleep at the last day of January not knowing the full results, but expecting at least some sales the next day, when the promo would be over.

I felt comfortable about my progress.

Not only time management

The launch of Master Your Time consumed a big chunk of my time in January, but it wasn’t the only thing I was doing then. The world didn’t froze because of my genius

I was lost in my writing. In the first half of the month I wrote some guest posts and posts for my blog. The other half I used to re-work my concept of internet marketing book I intended to write. I was scheduled to publish a guest post on Firepole Marketing next month and I wanted to use it as a leverage for getting some feedback about my ideas.

The sales

January 2014 was another good month for my business. The overall sales grew to another record level- 197 books sold! Almost 18% growth, very nice.

My daily average “jumped” to 6.35 sales a day. About 15% of that came from Japan and another 15% from various other markets. That was some diversity.

In autumn 2013 Amazon started to pay royalties for even the tiniest sales, so those numbers meant real (but small) money on my bank account after two months.

The Income Report Breakdown

Income: 25.07 euro, so about $32.84. The money for my November’s breakthrough came. Not a big bounty, but it was nice to receive it and brag about it in front of my wife

197 sales of $1 books for the guy from Europe whose tax withholding is 30% summed up to $47.28. I would receive them at the end of March.

Cost:

$19, Aweber services (aff. link).

$62.31, 2nd month of 6FKC program

Once again I didn’t spend a dime on my book’s release. Chris very generously didn’t charge me at all, the same did Hynek who made me a cover for the time management book.

My prenting book launch based on 6KFC teachings was a fiasco. I decided to discontinue it (I mean program, not the book). I got some value from them, so I didn’t demanded a refund.

Net result: -$48.47

If not ‘get-rich quickly’ temptation it would have been a second month in a row above the red line! The whole venture started to look like a business at last.

Previous Income Report: December 2013

Book Review: The Lie That Settles

I enjoyed this book a lot. It’s not about some famous or highly successful person. It’s not about some unusual mystery or great tragedy. Historic struggles are just the background here. The main book’s issue—living without a father or single motherhood isn’t of a big interest of me too. I was raised in the full family, like the most of my friends and cousins and when I was a kid the lack of a father in a family was always the matter of puzzle to me, not a matter of concern.

And still I found The Lie That Settles: A Memoir captivating and interesting. It’s a vivid example that each life is interesting and important.

This is the book mostly about two people- the author and his mother. Both are quite interesting individuals, but they are far from the grand figures of 20th century who shook countries and cultures. They were average common folks.

But I was not bored by their story even for a minute. The author has a real narrative talent. Believe me, I read about a hundred biographies (if not more) and thousand books in my life. His style has this “something” which draws you into the book.

This book is also an interesting portrait of post war England and New Zealand. I’m from behind the Iron Curtain, so admittedly I had not much idea how the life in Western countries looked like for common folks.

Enough about the story and characters. This is a journal. It’s about one’s life. About a human being.

And I liked the man who revealed his past for me. I don’t share cultural heritage or religious beliefs with him; so what? My theory is that every person is likeable if is authentic. Transparency and honesty win the hearts of people. They definitely won my heart. And Mr. Farrel did his journaling duty very well. He presented not just the story, but himself too. I enjoyed his tart humor when he was describing his not-so-admirable adolescent years. He definitely showed some distance to himself

This book tells just the story of a couple of people; there are billions of such stories unraveling themselves this very moment. I’m convinced that if we would have closely examine each of them, we would have discovered some life wisdom in each.

What I learned/ observed thanks to the lecture of this book:

Success at school is not a guarantee of success in life. The author got more than his share of troubles with education; nonetheless he was able to turn his life around later.
Blood ties are more than we think they are. The Bible pays special attention to the bloodline and relatives. The chemistry between Peter and his siblings after decades of not knowing each other was just amazing. Blood ties are important.
The big lesson I got from the death of the author’s mother. He wasn’t prepared at all. Her last words summed it up all too well. We should, I should, live fuller and showing more emotions to everyone in my life. Once they’re gone I cannot give them more attention, support or love.


I grabbed The Lie That Settles: A Memoir for a buck thanks to Buck Books service for readers. I recommend it for every frugal reader.

The post Book Review: The Lie That Settles appeared first on ExpandBeyondYourself.

Goal Setting 2015

Goals, yikes!

A year ago, I posted on this blog my goals for 2014 and as usual, I miserably failed to accomplish them. But I am stubborn. I’ll keep trying to reach them in 2015.

My set of goals basically haven’t changed.

The unity of my marriage.

This is first and foremost. My business goals eluded me in 2014. I don’t mind this very much because, in December, my wife told me: “It doesn’t matter. Don’t stress yourself. It will come. I support you.”

Quit my 9 to 5 job.

My job still slaves me for 12 hours a day, 5 days a week. I still want my life back; I want to see my kids grow up!

And I want to get more meaning from my life. I know, I experienced in 2014 that my writing made a difference in people’s lives. My job provides food and shelter. But my life means more than that.

To replace my salary, I need to sell about 72 books a day (for three dollars, or six times more for $1). The calculation in 2014 was based solely on $1 books. Now, when I’m back in power over my whole catalogue, I’ll lower the price of most of my old books back to $1.

So to help reach that goal, I have a sub-goal:

2a. Publish a dozen books this year.

I have one almost ready, one in edition, three raw drafts done, and a fourth in progress. So I need to write less than 7 books in 2015 and publish them all. In 2014, I wrote 6. I’ll somehow squeeze writing the seventh into my schedule. One will be permafree. The rest will be priced at $3.

Growing my mailing list.

I had 342 subscribers on the 31st of December 2014. This year, the goal is not “let’s say,” but is simply 1000 people. If I can get 300 subscribers publishing just a couple of books in 2014, I surely can get 700 more publishing 12 new titles.

Which each passing (my mind prompts the word “wasted”) year, my determination grows stronger. I learned something in the last year. I hope I can implement those lessons with better results.

And in the beginning of 2016, you can check what I’ve managed to accomplish.

The post Goal Setting 2015 appeared first on ExpandBeyondYourself.

2014 Goals Revisited

A year ago, I mentioned my love-hate relationship with goals. I had set three for 2014. Let’s see how it went.

Unity of my marriage.

When you have been married for 13 years, you can be deluded into thinking that you know everything about the other person and you are the “master” of marriage. Luckily, I wasn’t so blind to think that a year ago and the past year proved me right.

I still don’t think I put enough energy and attention into our relationship. However, there were a few events that transformed our marriage a bit.

-I started to earn money from my books. When I admitted to my wife, on March 1, 2014, that I earned half of my salary in royalties, she was shocked. She treated my writing not just as a hobby, but a “stupid” hobby. She thought I “wasted” my time instead of doing household chores.

-We bought a house. It was a dream of hers for years. It ruined us financially, but she is more happy and a bit less stressed. BTW, if not for my royalties, we couldn’t have afforded this purchase.

-We appreciate each other more. My wife started a new job this year. I see how demanding it is and I recognize how much juggling she has to do to simultaneously perform the tasks of a wife, mommy, and employee. Also, she sees how hard it is for me to take care of the family, work full time, and drag my publishing business forward.

-She started to support me. She helped me with organizing a promo of Master Your Time in April, which was my best free promo so far. When I organized my first Buck Book event, she left a note for me (she went to work) saying how proud she is of me. That note was much better than the event itself. When I experienced a short period of discouragement and helplessness in December, she listened to my concerns and put me back on the right course.

Quit my 9 to 5 job.

I still work. I still can’t even imagine a time I can afford going full time with my writing.

However, I’m definitely closer to that goal than a year ago. In the “goal post,” I said I needed 130, 000 sales to quit my job. I based this calculation on $1 price point because, at that time, all my books were priced at that level. But in 2014, I published a couple of books priced higher and received 70% of royalties instead of 35%. Nominally, I sold about 7600 copies in 2014, but in $1 units, it is closer to 26k. Remember, in December 2013, I sold just 145 copies. The progress is slower than desired, nonetheless it’s obvious.

I realized 20% of my “goal.” I didn’t believe I would even realize 5%.

A year ago, I mentioned I needed 7123% growth. I experienced 1631% growth. Not too shabby.

And I found additional sources of income. I earned $14.11 as an Amazon affiliate and $69.5 as a Buck Books affiliate. I published Master Your Time in German and I got about 5.5% of overall royalties from that source.

This expands my horizons a bit and gives me hope to achieve my goal faster. I’m going to organize several Buck Books events this year. I published a second book, From Shy to Hi, in German and I’ll soon publish Master Your Time in Spanish.

Growing my mailing list.

I set the goal of having 1000 subscribers. I had 342 on December 31, 2014. Only 34.2% of the plan was realized. But at the beginning of 2014, I had just 47 subscribers. This is a 727% increase.

There are a couple of bright points about getting my subscribers:

-My publisher made me a dedicated landing page for collecting email addresses, which is much better than the raw Aweber form I use on this blog.

-I started to really care about this aspect of my business. IT is my business. The sales are just a function of the mailing list size. So I started to actively pursue ways to capture more subscribers. I played with a the HelloBar on this blog and I can proudly say that I got a couple of subscribers because of it. I set myself responsible for inventing new ways to attract more subscribers and increase their engagement.

Agile goals

As you can see, my skepticism for setting goals was justified. I am only really satisfied with the results of my intangible first goal. The other two goals are clearly failures. But there are failures forward. 20% and 34.2% of the plans realized is better than nothing.

And the agile way I approach goal setting materialized a few things I couldn’t have envision.

We bought a house! I’m a homeowner. I’m writing these words in my home office. It’s just mind blowing.

I got a publisher! This is surreal. I just can’t wrap my mind around this. I wrote the first words with the intention of publishing on Amazon in April 2013. English is not my mother tongue. I had no writing experience. I had just a vague idea about online marketing (I watched my first webinar in November or December 2012).

My books are published in German.

I earn an affiliate income.

I launched (and failed to keep alive) an online group. That was a learning experience.

I wrote a few Lift plans and a couple hundred people joined them.

 

I didn’t consciously set my mind to achieve those things. It just happened because I was persistent in realizing the vision I have for my life.

But still, Jim Rohn quite explicitly insisted on setting goals. So I think I’ll repeat the goal setting exercise for 2015.

And you? How your goals went in the past year? Please share in comments.

The post 2014 Goals Revisited appeared first on ExpandBeyondYourself.

Ninth Income Report – December 2013

Are you curious about a one-year delay? I explained it in my first income report.

December was a strange month. I started writing a book about internet marketing. It was going slowly and painfully.

I went through a couple more iterations of the time management book edition.

 

At the beginning of the month I discovered that my story was featured in the latest edition of The Slight Edge! I sent them my story at the end of June, but I received no feedback so I assumed they rejected it. The new edition was launched in November. I bought the hardcopy and paid a hefty fee for the shipment to Poland, almost the price of the book itself. And then I discovered this! It was a happy moment.

 

I also joined the “get-rich-quick with Kindle” program called 6-Figure Kindle Club. I was curious about their methods and I figured out I had nothing to lose, because there was a money back guarantee. It sounded a bit too exciting for me to believe. I was in this business the last 6 months and they alluded to some big promises. And I wanted more results. I got a nice feeling when my speed reading book caused my sales to jump and I wanted to jump higher.

It took me more than a week to go through all the course’s videos. I found a few interesting tips. Participants of the program created a lively community together, they were giving each other reviews and advice. I quickly realized it wasn’t for me, but I decided to stay there to the end of the guarantee period. I also tried a few tips they were learning on the course.

 

I was polishing the final version of the parenting book with my wonderful proofreader, Diane Arms. I launched it just before Christmas using techniques learned in 6kfc: short free promo and getting reviews as soon as possible. It didn’t work out very well. In fact it didn’t work at all. This book has been my worst performing book so far. It sells just several copies each month. No promotional activity seems to add any vigor to its life.

 

Lesson:

Test, test, test and use what works for you. Gurus’ advice is good for gurus. You should seek solutions applicable to your situation.

 

Aside from the less-than-moderate success of the parenting book everything else was going smoothly. The sales of the personal mission statement skyrocketed (as my books went). I sold 72 copies of it in December, more than any two months before combined. I sold also 18 copies of my fitness book, so in December I sold more of them than I had from July to the middle of October. The content was the same in both cases. I changed only the covers (I published a new cover for A Personal Mission Statement… on 10th) and my catalogue was exposed a bit more thanks to the November promos.

The speed reading book was still selling in Japan (23 copies).

 

In December 2014 I decided to try other venues for my books. I studied a bit about Smashwords. I learned how to compile the manuscript according to their requirements. It took me a few days to do this, the process was a nightmare compared to Amazon’s, but I published the personal mission statement book there on the 5th of December.

I wanted to test how this platform performs without a marketing effort. The answer was: not very well. I sold just two copies of the book there. On Amazon I sold 57 in the same period. A disappointment.

The Income Report Breakdown

Income: 18.77€ which translates to $24.58.

It was another good month for me. I beat another sales record (167 copies overall). I felt the momentum building up; however the amount of money I received didn’t reflect that. It was the cumulated royalties for August to October period.

Cost:

$19, Aweber services (aff. link).

$1, first month of 6KFC program

Quite a lot was going on that month, but my costs were not growing because I got all my services for free. Diane Arms didn’t charge me for proofreading; Hynek Palatin didn’t charge me for the decent cover for the personal mission statement book; Chris Bell didn’t charge me for his editing services for Master Your Time.



Lesson:

Often gurus preach that you must invest in your business first (usually when they want you to ‘invest’ in their infoproduct) before expecting revenues and profits. And it’s true in general.

My mentor, Steve Scott, invested a few thousand bucks in his Kindle business before he saw profits. But there are two main differences between us:

#1 he was already an entrepreneur and I wasn’t.

#2 he had cash to invest in it, I didn’t

I think those two points make all the difference. I was a lifelong employee. I had no experience in starting and investing in a business, I needed to learn that skill. This schooling didn’t go wrong. In November I invested the first ‘big’ amount, $35 in promoting services for the speed reading book and within a couple of months I reclaimed that money.

I started to become confident with my investing decisions, but I needed my experiences to build that confidence. Steve already had the experience and confidence to invest large sums and wait for profits for several months.

If you start with no business background, don’t spend money like crazy. You must first learn the ropes; recognize what is worth spending money on; feel that the investment will bring you a return, or the price is worth the learning experience if it won’t.

At the beginning keep your expenses at bay. It will limit your options somehow, but they are more limited by your lack of experience anyway. Newbies all too often expect an overnight success, they invest in all the wrong assets, like an expansive cover designer instead of at least a decent editor, and when the return of investment doesn’t come after a couple of weeks they are discouraged and quit.

Net result: $4.58

My first ever month above the red line. Wow me!

Previous Income Report: November 2013

The post Ninth Income Report – December 2013 appeared first on ExpandBeyondYourself.

Elusive Success

A few days ago I’ve received another message from my publisher, that the launch of my latest book will be further postponed; maybe even as long as 4 more weeks.

I know that some of you are waiting for it, so today I reveal the first chapter of the “Trickle Down Mindset”:

“There are no stereotypes for success.” ― Jim Rohn

The philosopher’s stone is a legendary alchemical substance said to be capable of turning base metals such as lead into gold, and to be an elixir of life, useful for rejuvenation and achievement of immortality. For centuries, it was the most sought after goal in alchemy, symbolizing perfection, enlightenment, and heavenly bliss.

And I found it.

Well, not literally. It’s not the piece of rock I carry around in my pocket.

It’s my personal philosophy. The “trickle down” mindset. You have yours, too, and it may become your personal philosopher’s stone. You can turn the ordinary into gold. You can live longer. The effects of your magic factor may last well after your death.

You will achieve the best results if you mingle philosophy with personal development. However, you can see just by looking around, that personal development doesn’t seem to be the answer for most folks. Every year there are millions of new personal development books sold and podcasts downloaded. Hundreds and thousands of people attend personal development seminars, and the circulation of Success magazine is half a million. But the success stories that we hear of are numbered in the hundreds or thousands at most.

There is a missing element in this puzzle. The method that has brought fame and fortune to some seems to be completely useless or of limited functionality to others. I grasped this dissonance almost as soon as I returned to personal development study following a sixteen-year hiatus.

My personal observations have been that about five percent of personal development students achieve any real success. Jeff Olson, author of The Slight Edge, comes to the same conclusion. By “success,” I don’t mean millions in your bank account, but rather, realizing your personal goals, whatever they are. Saint Mother Teresa of Calcutta wasn’t a millionaire. In fact, she lived in conditions regarded as pitiful by the majority of Americans. But I think most of us would agree she was a smashing success.

I carefully studied income disclosures of several multi-level marketing (MLM) companies and the numbers confirm my observations. Those numbers are relevant because the MLM industry relies heavily on personal development. The idea is that with proper training, every “average Joe” can became a millionaire.

So there is a dissonance. Crowds are unsuccessfully trying to tame the elusive art of personal development.

But is this different in other spheres? Do people studying medicine, finance, or entrepreneurship have better results, more success? No. Olson’s numbers apply to society in general.

The success stories highlighted as a result of personal development are impressive. However, many people say personal development is a scam. That gurus are preying on the naïveté of crowds. It’s the modern equivalent of the “opium of the masses,” that positive thinking and affirmations are simply a substitute for hard work.

These are arguments from people that have never tried to practice personal development or who belong to the 95 percent group, people that never saw significant effects as a result of personal development.

And sadly, in most cases, these arguments are valid. If the overall efficiency is the same as in, let’s say, the retail industry, the personal development claims sound hollow. All those “magic ingredients” and “secrets to success” supposedly “available to anyone” work against the personal development industry.

The best remedy, then, is to show massive and measurable results, which will quiet the critics. But in order to achieve them, something needs to change in the way students approach personal development. As the reality shows, the past approach has not been optimal. It lacked the stress on student’s efforts necessary to make the whole thing work.

To make it work you need a solid personal philosophy.

That philosophy is not restricted to the realm of personal development. Your attitude is important in everything you do, be it in your job, business, education, or relationships. You may disregard personal development as one big scam, but you can still make your life better by fixing your attitude. And by linking your philosophy with a personal development program, you will boost your results.

Look around you and examine the people you meet every day. How many of them are enjoying good health? How many have lasting, strong relationships? How many have unwavering belief and trust in their Creator? How many have financial security? How many are living purposeful lives and are eager to start every day with its various challenges? And most important, how many of them have these simultaneously?

Five percent, more or less. No matter if they consciously practice personal development or not. No matter if they are housewives, CEOs, nurses, programmers, retired soldiers, plumbers, grandfathers, or teachers. And it’s because they have a good personal philosophy. It’s not something special reserved for special people. Everyone has some worldview and life attitude. You do too.

It’s not relevant where are you in your life right now, whether you have a lot of money, are fit or obese, young or old. You have your internal compass that guides you through your existence. In addition, you are equipped with a free will and a conscious mind. You can form and mold your personal philosophy. You can change. It’s in your power.

I will go back to this mantra time and again in this book: you define success for yourself, nobody else does. Don’t be intimidated by the examples I will share in this book. Most of them are what you could call “stereotypes of success.”

You don’t need to have a Rolls Royce, a fat bank account, fame, or a lot of friends to consider yourself successful. You define your purpose and you are fulfilled by achieving that purpose. The right personal philosophy allows you to reach it no matter what you will come up with as your life’s core.

You will fail miserably without the proper attitude. A successful life is possible only for those who are backed up by a successful personal philosophy. Every single man and woman who has ever been satisfied with his or her life accomplishments had a set of beliefs and convictions, and a guiding internal mechanism that allowed them to do what they’ve done. Just a handful out of thousands examples:

“I do not think there is any other quality so essential to success of any kind as the quality of perseverance. It overcomes almost everything, even nature.” — John D. Rockefeller

“The major difference isn’t circumstance; it’s the set of the sail, or the way we think.” — Jim Rohn

“To love until it hurts.” — Mother Teresa of Calcutta

“I shall conquer untruth by truth. And in resisting untruth, I shall put up with all suffering.” — Mahatma Gandhi

“The secret of success is learning how to use pain and pleasure instead of having pain and pleasure use you. If you do that, you’re in control of your life. If you don’t, life controls you.” — Tony Robbins

“No pessimist ever discovered the secret of the stars, or sailed to an uncharted land, or opened a new doorway for the human spirit.” — Helen Keller

If you don’t believe me, then pick a successful person you know. Approach him or her and ask the question: “Where does your success come from?” I bet they won’t reply, “Oh, I don’t know, it just happened. It’s luck, I suppose.” Even if they think their success comes from luck, another question will reveal what they consider luck: “Where did your luck come from?” They will tell you about God, internal drive, courage to take chances, or people who supported them.

If you look closely at the examples I mentioned above or if you do a few of these interviews and compare the answers, you will realize there is an irregularity to their answers. Personal philosophies of different people may include a lot of common elements, but they all are unique. Thus, you can borrow the pieces of someone else’s philosophies, but only you can shape your successful personal philosophy for yourself.

That’s the first characteristic of personal philosophy: it’s unique.

The second one is that it’s intangible. It’s not something you can weigh or measure. It’s hidden in your mind and heart. It is shaped by your experiences and interpretation of those experiences.

And that’s the problem.

Unfortunately, we as a society went a bit too far in the direction of materialism. We don’t trust the intangible. We are afraid that it will elude us, that we will look stupid giving our attention and appreciation to something that cannot be measured, seen, or pinpointed, that we will waste time and effort on something that doesn’t really exist.

It’s an idiotic attitude, but our society is crammed with it.

Take your mind for an instance. Is it something you can measure? By what? The weight of your brain? Its volume? The number of neural connections? The electrical activity in your brain? All of these metrics are just an approximation of your mind and they are not even close to the description of your ego, your essence.

Read the confused comments on the TED Talk by Angela Lee Duckworth about grit. She and her team researched a vast number of individuals from many different industries and discovered the only common successful trait of all these successful people was grit: an ability to focus on the long-term approach and do the job it takes. And a lot of people have a problem with this because it’s intangible and cannot be measured.

In a way, personal philosophy resembles a philosopher’s stone—a medium to turn everything into gold (success) and, as a byproduct, giving eternal life.

Like the effect of a mystical philosopher’s stone, the way it works is invisible and hard to explain. However, the effects it provides are so spectacular that it’s not possible to ignore them. But unlike the philosopher’s stone, personal philosophy is within your reach. You don’t need to seek magical alchemical formulas to own it. All you need is already inside you.

And what do you think? Are you curious about the rest of the book? Share in comments.

The post Elusive Success appeared first on ExpandBeyondYourself.

Beginnings Are Hard—Make Them Easier

What is more, they are also threatened to fizzle out.

In the beginning, you are at your lowest point of capabilities, which is determined by your experience and when you begin, it is equal to zero.

You can substitute experience with the knowledge that you have attained and the strength of your character or other personal qualities like willpower or creativity. However, usually, in order to get anything mentioned previously, you needed personal experiences to get them. Besides, they are only substitutes. Anyone without willpower, intelligence, character, and theoretical knowledge, who has the right experience can perform better than you in this new venture.

Beginnings are hard

You need to gain experience, but you can only gain it by doing and you are just not able to perform optimally without the advantage of experience.

Oh, failure, yes; that is why starting is difficult. Failure is unavoidable. Therefore, we found another factor, other than experience, which can support you in starting out: dealing with failures.

If you are morbidly afraid of failure, you can’t succeed. First, you have an enormous inertia to overcome. The great resistance of fear must be dealt with before you can do the first step, and when you at last do the first feeble step, you will fail; it’s unavoidable. When this happens, you then stop right in your own track.

Fear of failure restricts your ability to gain experience. You cannot progress without failing from time to time and learning from your mistakes. You can’t make mistakes if you don’t do anything.

On the other hand, if you deal with failure well and learn from it, you are bound to boost the process of accumulating experience. You will not only learn more but you will be better at internalization of those lessons.

Consistency

What else helps in gathering the crumbs of life’s wisdom? Consistency. Keep going and you will gain new experiences. If you are indifferent to small successes and failures on your way forward, and focus solely on doing your job every day, you will learn that your capabilities will grow.

I find that the biggest enemy of consistency is impatience. You are the product of the culture of instant gratification. You want everything yesterday. The reality doesn’t work according to this culture paradigm. You don’t do the first pushup and suddenly become the fittest guy on the planet. You don’t replace a chocolate with a carrot and suddenly lose 100 pounds.

You don’t read the first page of textbook and become a proficient mathematician.

You. Just. Don’t.

Two pushups, carrots, or book’s pages also don’t cut the mustard. Nor does 10 or 100 of them. Maybe a thousand? It all depends on what you want to achieve.

However, doing 1000 repetition of anything takes a lot of time. You need patience to “actively wait” during this time.

Accountability

Another hack on making it past the initial period on moving from “beginning” into “process,” is getting the support of people who actually have experience in this area. Lift has recently discovered that having an accountability coach quadruples the chances of success in habit creation. You have four times more likelihood of establishing a new habit and performing it up to your expectations, if someone who has more experience than you are helping you. Moreover, Lift’s accountability coaching is far from being fancy. Your accountability coach is obligated to check on you once a day.. In case of personal coach or mentor, the chances of success must be orbital.

I think that’s the reason behind a big rate of failure among writers. It’s a lonely job. Only two kinds of people succeed in it:

Those with an inhuman internal drive who will do the job by working alone no matter what, such as George Bernard Shaw who wrote for decades solely for the drawer, or Cormac McCarthy who avoids media and readers alike and create outside of the world’s turmoil.
Those who are clever enough to realize that they need others and who are reaching out to other authors.

Ha! Writing this post I decrypted my writing success: I persevered through my first lonely months of writing: I connected to a few writing communities and to my mentor.

Well in fact, I wasn’t completely alone when starting. I did have no support from anyone who has been there and done that, but I did have my own small circle of cheerleaders and supporters. We interacted only online but it was enough to keep me going when the going got tough.

Design the end in your mind

My last tip for going beyond the beginning is to start with the end in mind. Ponder the “why” behind your start. Whims and pipe dreams won’t do you much good. Caprice is not a good motivator; the reason is. Find your own reason. Do some soul searching upfront or right after the first surge of enthusiasm. Find something more powerful than just a wish that pulls you to the finish line.

I ingrained a habit of doing short and excruciating exercises every morning. Doing them is no fun at all. I don’t like the feeling that my heart is gonna explode the very next second, or the lack of breath, or the pain in my muscles.

However, I have an agenda for my life. I need a strong body to keep going. I have the end in mind while forcing myself to do another pushup or pull up.

Never give up

My life is now objectively judging a big mess full of pain and struggle. It has been this state since my transformation. I read less captivating fiction books. I play less strategic games on the computer. I eat less yummy sweets. I work 12+ hours, five days a week, and often during the weekends. In addition, the results are meager.

In some areas, like fitness, quite significant, but heck, fitness is not a significant part of my life. I torment my body just to sustain my performance, not to become a model, personal trainer, or sportsman. In case of the areas of my prime focus: spirituality, time, and money they are just laughable. I organized last month my first Buck Books event and earned about $3 per hour.

Nevertheless, I won’t give up. I’ll keep going forward. I have the end in mind: a better life for my family; a better world left behind influenced by my existence. I have my personal mission statement to remind me everyday why I hassle. And if I stop, if I don’t go beyond the beginning, I won’t achieve it.

Nor do you.

Keep going.

The post Beginnings Are Hard—Make Them Easier appeared first on ExpandBeyondYourself.

Eighth Income Report – November 2013

Are you curious about a one-year delay? I explained it in my first income report.

November 2013 was a roller coaster! No, it was a rocket ship!



The promo of Learn to Read with Great Speed finished on 3rd. The next day I sold 2 books. The day after, 3 books; on the 6th of November I sold 2 again. Never ever before had I such a streak.

On the 5th of November my speed reading book received a brilliant, honest review from a speed reading expert.

Do you remember my remark from August’s report about the sales record? On the 7th of November this record was beaten. I sold 7 books in one day!!! Six of them were the copies of the speed reading book. It took off. It definitely did.

I was a bit overwhelmed by success. I didn’t expect it. Well, I paid $35 to promote the book, but I really didn’t set my expectations too high.

For 19 days straight I was selling at least one book every day. In the whole of November I had only 2 days with no sales. I was superstoked.

Lesson:

The reviews break or make the books. I received a favorable review from an expert quite fast and I see this as a main factor of this book’s success. Even now, a year after publishing the first version of the book, this review stands at the top of all my reviews and is indicated as the most helpful.

I sent the reviewer a thank you email and he replied. We exchanged a couple messages and it resulted in the whole blog post.

Japan

Browsing through the sales reports, I discovered that I had access to reports from other markets. I was shocked to discover that my book was selling quite well in Japan! One of the sites which posted info about the free promo must have a big Japanese audience. The book was downloaded 144 times during the promo. I sold 39 copies of it in Japan in November; more than I have ever sold in one month on one market in the past.

I checked my Japanese book’s page and discovered (after employing Google translate) that my book was #1 in Study Guides, Reading Skills & Education, and 15 in the whole English Kindle store in Japan:

Lesson:

Brace yourself for surprises when publishing digitally. You never know what will happen.

Another very fateful event was connected with the book’s ugly cover. As I mentioned in the previous report, this time the cover was made exactly in accordance with my guidelines—for the first time, mind you.

And it was a disaster. I have almost no aesthetic sense. I posted the info about the free promo in Pat’s First Kindle Book group on Facebook and one of moderators, Hynek Palatin, took pity on me. On his own initiative, he made covers for all three of my books. I was able to switch the ugly cover just before transition from free to paid. It was another big factor in this release success. And I think it was a life-saving, turn-around point for my publishing venture.

After receiving these covers I committed myself deeply to interaction in that Facebook group and it bore fruits with time.

New promo

Encouraged by the results, and with the new, shiny cover, I organized another free promo of my fitness book. I advertised it almost exclusively on Facebook and didn’t spend a dime on it. Later on I published on my blog, a detailed post about those promos, and described my results.

Considering the humble means, the promo of the fitness book was a success—939 downloads, the most I have ever got during a free promo. The sales didn’t skyrocket afterwards, but they at least moved forward. I sold 5 copies in the last 6 days of November. Up until the free promo I sold just 17 copies within about four months.

Lesson:

Your books are judged by their covers. I didn’t change the content of the book even a bit. The sole difference lay in the new cover Hynek so generously presented to me.

Editing

Another thing happened at the beginning of November. On the 7th of November, a guy in 1st Pat’s Kindle Book group announced he was starting his editing business and offered free editing services to the first 5 willing authors. As my proofreader’s progress was very slow due to her family and health situations I jumped at this occasion. I sent him my rough draft of the time management book. On the 24th of November the first version of Master your Time in 10 Minutes a Day was procured. I sent the sample to my previous proofreader and she was impressed. It was the first time that my book really sounded American.

JOY

Wow, wow, WOW!!! My heart leaped with joy. November was a breakthrough for me. I beat my daily sales record a few times. On the 8th of November I sold 18 copies including 12 in Japan. On 28th I broke 100 sales a month on Amazon.com for the first time ever. My average sales jumped from 1 a day to over 5 a day.

What a nice feeling to see reviews not just from my friends and observe that my books actually sell. All three of them!

Lessons:

#1. Enjoy your small victories. Because it was a SMALL victory. The royalties summed up to about 1.5% of my day job salary, they barely exceeded the cost of the advertisement of my promo. What happened in November sustained me for the next couple of months of hard work.
#2. Track the right metrics. I track my sales daily. That’s how you get such detailed reports with a one year delay. If you track, for example, only the number of reviews then it is really hard to experience any joy. Before August 2014 I sold a few thousand copies of my books, I gave away about 20k—and the feedback? I think less than 80 reviews and a quarter of those were from my friends.
Writing

The whole of November I wrote content for my blog, articles, reviews a monster guest post for Firepole Marketing … and not a word about a new book. I had two manuscripts ready in the queue and I let that dim my senses. I was working on the parenting book with my proofreader.

It was a big mistake. It took me almost two months to finish another book and it resulted in a five month long break between the releases of books #5 and #6. It was a frustrating period when I could only observe how my sales dwindled to almost nothing.

The Income Report Breakdown

Income: zero.

No money transfer equals to no profits in my eyes. I would receive November’s royalties in January 2014.

A virtual income: $36.96

Moral: It takes time and even more time than you think. More than half a year passed and my income was still deep in the red.

Cost: $19, Aweber services.

Net result: -$19

Previous Income Report: October 2013

The post Eighth Income Report – November 2013 appeared first on ExpandBeyondYourself.