HBSA

Yeah...laser focus!

Many home-based entrepreneurs talk about multiple streams of income. It’s a concept that dazzles – having streams of a word picture that shows money flowing in from all over the place.

There’s merit to it – and I recommend it eventually.  If you’re just starting out trying to be successful, let me introduce you to your most powerful ally:

Focus.

Focus makes all the difference in success.  It’s one of the key determinants between those who succeed and those who fail.

Distraction is your enemy.  Avoid it.  Run from it.  Have no tolerance for it.

Focus is what makes the difference between a candle and a laser.  One cuts through steel – the other gets snuffed out.

For you – your business – you want to be a laser.  A highly-magnified, powerful, light with a singular focus.

As you go about your day, set your objectives, set your focus, and hold yourself ruthlessly accountable.  And you will succeed.

When life is hard, it’s a challenge to be grateful for anything.

I’m not sure why this is so, but I do know that it is in fact true.  When people face challenges, they tend to forget the many blessings they have in their life that they can (and should) be grateful for.

No doubt, 2010 has been a challenging year for a great many people.  Overall, I think it’s been a year of reflection and analysis.  People are starting to ask questions about some of their previously-unquestioned assumptions, and many have had to rethink their ideas about fiscal management, priorities, security, health, and other personal concerns.

I have no idea what kind of year you have had.  If you have had a particularly challenging year, I’d humbly offer you this quick video about the power and purpose of challenges.

Next, I would like to give you some ideas of what you can be truly thankful for.  The truth is, you ARE blessed and fortunate in ways that many others are not.  Here are some things for which I am personally quite grateful – I hope it inspires you and gives you the ability to discern those things in life for which you can be truly grateful.

You can be thankful for:

• Your spouse
• Your children
• Your parents
• Your home or apartment (it’s prolly a lot better than THESE PLACES)
• Freedom to worship and follow religion as you wish
• Craigslist
• Cell phones
• Facebook
• Chick fil-A
• Crossfit (Oh yeah!)
• A brain to think what you wish
• Ten fingers
• Ten toes
• Two eyes that allow you to see the world
• The ability to communicate (albeit less than perfectly)
• Relative safety from tyranny
• Ability to start a business whenever you want
• Ability to grow hair
• The fact that you don’t suffer from these terrible diseases
• Ability to invest in other people any time you want
• The sun (people where scared to death of a Nuclear winter in recent decades
• Ability to choose how you want to live your life
• Printers (you used to have to do a LOT to get something printed)
• Ability to read (literacy is a huge blessing – many people still cannot read)
• Ability to discern truth
• Opportunity to enjoy fresh fruits and vegetables even though you didn’t personally grow them
• Opportunity to rely on a machine to wake you up in the morning (what did people do before alarm clocks?…)
• Opportunity to buy someone else coffee
• Choose when you want to go to bed
• Ability to enjoy coffee, tea, milk, beer, and other delicious beverages
• Ability to walk (many cannot)
• The opportunity to vote for your elected officials
• Ability to cut and style your hair how you want
• Opportunity to have a pet
• To see the sunrise
• To see the sunset
• To watch video at Youtube.com for FREE
• To live in a country in which others are willing to die to protect your freedom
• Indoor plumbing
• Electricity
• You can drive wherever you want
• You live in a country that has law
• Ability to choose where you want to live (yes, it is a choice)
• Ability to dance (even if it’s poorly)
• Opportunity to drive in just about any direction and find a place to eat relatively quickly
• Ability to learn a musical instrument
• Teeth.  If you have them, you should be grateful for them
• Sobriety.  Many people fight their whole life to remain sober
• Ability to choose your own entertainment
• Humour.  You can laugh at whatever you want
• Shoes.  Many don’t have ‘em
• The opportunity to be a feminist
• The opportunity to make fun of feminists
• Refrigeration.  It wasn’t that long ago that ice was a novelty
• The opportunity to forgive other people.  Yes – it’s an opportunity
• The opportunity to watch children learn.  If you don’t have kids, there is no shortage of children that need people to invest into them
• Ability to speak your mind, regardless of how educated or not-so-educated your opinion may be
• A way to earn money income for yourself
• Taste.  Many people can’t taste their food -  can you?
• Ability to write. You can fire up your own blog at Blogger or WordPress if you were so inclined.
• Ability to learn how to ride a motorcycle (and crash it)
• Opportunity to get books for free on Paperback Swap
• You don’t depend on a currency with 98% daily rate inflation (like Zimbabwe did)
• You didn’t have the misfortune of being memorized by Jim Jones
• You have the opportunity to open a Google Adwords account
• You have the opportunity to get Google slapped
• You can sleep (many cannot)
• You have bones that don’t break when you walk
• You don’t lose control of the “waste removal” organs of the body at inopportune times
• You can enjoy Skype
• You can improve the relationships you have with your existing friends whenever you want
• You have relatively clean water to drink
• You can learn from the experiences of others without having to make their mistakes
• You have clothes to wear
• You can twitter about whatever you want
• You can find a lost family member
• You can discover how to make your body perform better
• You can be hopeful (yes – it’s an opportunity)
• You can give an unexpected gift whenever you want
• You can learn something new every day
• You can choose to marry whoever you want
• You can go climb a mountain if you want
• You can choose to invest yourself into the lives of people who feel they aren’t worth it – and show them that they are
• You can inspire others to action
• You can choose to do things – ALL things – in an excellent way
• You can remember good memories
• You can make good choices for the future
• You can set goals – and achieve them
• You can help old people feel like they lived a valuable life
• You can help young people learn how to live a valuable life
• You can choose to live a valuable life
• You can learn from challenges
• You can inspire others by overcoming challenges
• You can choose to not make the same mistake twice
• You can choose to be honest
• You can choose to be vulnerable (and yes, you will be hurt, but it’s worth it)
• You can choose to share your knowledge (others would pay you for it)
• You can choose to live for something bigger than your own vainglory and comfort
• You can choose to love others well
• You can choose to DO something that helps others in a way in which they cannot help themselves
• You can make a choice.  And yes – making a choice is an opportunity.

Enjoy your day.  Live it like it’s on purpose

Network marketing is, at it’s core, just affiliate marketing with a residual income compensation and re-seller option.  That’s all.

So what’s affiliate marketing?

Affiliate marketing is just selling something that you don’t personally own for money.  Let’s say you’re a real Mac fanboy.  Let’s say you want to make money promoting Mac.  An affiliate program allows you do to be paid when you give them exposure, and that exposure results in business.

Easy concept, right?

You like something.  You promote it.  People buy it.  You get paid.

This type of model is win-win.  The company gets to leverage other entrepreneur’s marketing efforts.  The entrepreneur gets to make money by simply marketing – little-to-no fulfillment cost, headache, customer support, etc.

Affiliate programs have been around since the dawn of man.  They are not new, novel, or remarkable in their structure.  The difference in a good program and a bad one is:

Terms

Payout

Product

For terms, we are talking about how the parent company treats their affiliates.  What do they provide for support?  How committed are they to helping their affiliates succeed?  What tools and training do they provide?

For payout, we’re talking monies.  How much?  What percentage?  For how long?  Some programs pay out for an initial sale, and that’s it.  Some pay out for the life of the customer.  Some pay out low percentages (we consider anything below 15% to be low).  Some pay out high percentages (we consider anything above 50% to be high).

For product, we are talking about what they actually provide you to sale.  Do they have multiple products?  One single product?  How good is it?  Doesn’t do any good to sling a crappy product that gets refunds/chargebacks.

We don’t like the word “expert”, but we do have a fair amount of experience in affiliate marketing, and we earn a good chunk of change every month in affiliate commissions.  We categorize two types of affiliates that exist:

Network Affiliates

Direct Affiliates

Here’s the breakdown:

Network Affiliates

These are people that take offers that are compiled in a network, and promote them.  This is pretty basic – you sign up for a network, pick some offers, and start sending traffic to them.  If people take the required action, you make money.

Some networks require that you have a sale generated.  Some networks just want a lead.  Some networks want a zip code.  Whatever it is, you target the traffic, and make money when the traffic takes the desired actions.

Some decent networks are:

Neverblue Ads

Copeac

Max Bounty

Clickbooth

The big thing with a network is finding an Affiliate Manager that will help you out.  Many are completely useless.  Some are worth their weight in gold.   They will tell you what’s converting, what’s not.  They may well lie to you.  It’s a fact – affiliate marketing is dirty.  Finding people you can trust in business is key, so if you want to succeed in this environment, build good relationships.

So the way this works is that you sign up – they ask you what traffic you have.  If you have no traffic, then you really don’t bring anything interesting to them.  If you’re brand new to affiliate marketing, work on building traffic first (diet traffic, business opportunity traffic, travel, anti-aging, whatever).

The key is choosing an offer (or group of offers) and a traffic channel (PPC, SEO, Facebook, whatever) and make it work.  Many, many affiliates throw some traffic at an offer, don’t make money immediately, then try something else.  They burn their budgets, and go home broke.  The thing is, nearly any offer will work on any traffic channel, and nearly every offer WILL NOT WORK AT FIRST.  We have never had an out-of-the-box winner.  You have to work with it – test your landing pages, bids, presells, etc.

Direct Affiliates

These are affiliates that partner directly with a company or product/service provider.  They don’t use a network as a go-between.  They find a specific product or service, promote it directly with the company, and work with the company to do so.

With network affiliates, they typically specialize in a type of traffic, and throw offers in front of it.  With direct affiliates, they choose an offer, then build traffic around it.   There’s always more than one way to get it done, but that’s the path that we’ve used and it’s worked well.

Personally, we prefer the direct-affiliate approach. It’s where we’ve had more success, and we like the model better.

Now what does any of this have to do with network marketing?

Network marketing is just affiliate marketing with two twists – a resellers option, and a residual income compensation plan.

With a residual income comp plan, it means that you get paid tomorrow on the work you do today.  It should be viewed as a long-term investment.  Most affiliate programs are set up to pay out a commission on a sale. Network companies take those commissions, cut them down and distribute them over longer timelines.  That’s the first twist.

The second is the reseller option. You can recruit resellers, which means you can build a people-based sales channel and be paid on their work.  Compensation varies depending on company, but they typically reward the acquisition of both product users and resellers (business builders as they are called).

So what kind of business do you want?

There’s no wrong answer to this question.  The challenge is that some people get involved with a specific type of program or company, and never evaluate their needs.  Do you need money like yesterday?  Well, a residual income compensation plan probably isn’t the best choice for you, as it’s set up to be a longer-term investment.  If you need money starting yesterday, I suggest you read this post on how to make legitimate money online {fast, free, and fun}.

Do you want a business where you get to interact with others?  Don’t choose an affiliate program, where all you do is hide behind your computer and type all day.  Do you hate interacting and communicating with other people?  Don’t choose network marketing, as you MUST communicate with people on a regular basis verbally and in written form to succeed in that line of work.

The Game Plan

After you decide which type of business you want to promote, the next step is to make it happen.  The steps look slightly different depending on which approach you take.

Affiliate Marketing (Network)

Find a network, choose an offer, and start giving it traffic.  Test, optimize creatives.  Make money.   Pester your affiliate manager (they love it, really).  Ask questions all the time.

Affiliate Marketing (Direct)

This begins with finding a program to promote.  This is easy.  If you already have something that you use and love, call ‘em up and ask about their affiliate program (many companies have them in place).  If they don’t, tell them to get one.  Strike up a deal.  We do this – if they are a newer company, they may not have an affiliate option, and you’ll get to set your own terms.  Not a bid situation

Still having trouble?  Find a niche you have an interest in (diet, business opportunity, software, exercise equipment, whatever).  Do a google search for:

“keyword related to niche” “affiliate login”

So let’s say you wanted to promote some exercise equipment.  Here’s how it would look:

Now let’s say you wanted to promote organic milk.  Here it is:

Did you eat some fungus that finally helped with that Crohn’s disease?  Great – promote some fungus:

You can modify the search so that it just looks up “affiliate” in lieu of “affiliate login”, but you get the idea.  There are plenty of ways to find products for any niche (no matter how bizarre or unusual).

Network Marketing

If you want to roll with network marketing, it’s easy to find a company.  Check out NPROS.com, as they have a huge master list of network marketing companies and their descriptions.

Still not sure?  Check out this teleseminar we did on choosing the right networking gig.

We get a lot of questions from people asking why we don’t talk more about network marketing specifically.  The reason is that to become a great network marketer, you must be a great marketer.  Companies come and go.  Opportunities come and go.  But being a great marketer means you have a skill-set that will serve you in up and down economies, and regardless of what individual business opportunities and their leadership teams choose to do.  A skill-set is what is important – and it’s the only security in a very insecure world.  It pays you regardless of what company, opportunity, or service you are promoting. It serves you in up and down economies.  And NOBODY can take it away from you

It’s not everyday that you get to speak with the World’s Greatest Salesperson.  I happen to have the privelage of knowing him personally, and not only is he phenomenally gifted at what he does, but he’s a very down-to-earth, funny guy as well.

Check out the interview now (split it into two parts):

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You want to accomplish something big in life?

You want to help lots of people – make a real difference in their lives?

You want to create a great life?  Great relationships?  Great success?

Good Lord…what’s wrong with you? Why would you want to do something like THAT?… I mean…that sounds like a lot of WORK.

It sounds HARD.

Sounds like a royal pain in the ARSE.

Why put yourself through all that? There are so many other things you could be doing that are way more enjoyable.

Why not just kill time doing funner stuff?  For example:

- Checking out demotivational posters.

- Making fun of Google.

- Watching Frank Kern parodies.

- Googling your name.

- Looking at pictures of people you don’t know anymore on Facebook.

- Playing games like Filler.

- Searching all the usual stuff on Uneven Google.

- Catching up on your TV. There’s ALWAYS something great on TV.  You can kill tons of time just searching around looking for that one good show that’s playing (don’t get discouraged if you can’t find it…just keep lookin’).

- Grab a nap. You can never have enough sleep!

- Eat something tasty. For maximum time-wasting, cook it yourself, cook something new, and don’t prepare.  That way, you have to go find a recipe…then go get the stuff to make the food…and then cook it.  You can blow an easy 3-4 hours on a single meal!

- Go cruise some adult websites.

- Start writing your memoir.

- Drink some beer!

…

The Pain Of Failure

The thing is, trying to do something difficult means you might fail.  And failing stinks.  It’s like the worst feeling in the world.  In fact, you’ll probably fail many times at anything that eventually becomes successful.  And that’s IF it’s eventually successful (no guarantee that it will).  Do you really want to deal with that?

Instead, you could just AVOID doing anything difficult, risky, great, or potentially lucrative.  And if you MUST do something difficult, make sure you half-ass it: don’t try too hard; that way you can tell yourself that you COULD have done it if you really wanted to…you just didn’t try, because you didn’t really want to.  And that’s why it didn’t work out.

The Importance Of Alibis

If you’re going to procrastinate your way to sub-mediocrity, you’re going to need some good alibi’s.  If you don’t have any good alibi’s handy, you’ll need to eventually get some (no need to do it today though – wait until you can’t postpone it).

Here are some good categories for alibi’s:

Relationships

Do  you have any crappy relationship in your life?  Blame it on the other person.  List out all their bad characteristics, the stuff that annoys you and gets under your skin.  Let them know they need to change.  Make sure you react to any little thing they do, and expect them to modify their behavior to meet your needs when they are around  you.  It’s also good to not explain what your needs are…just let them guess.

If they reciprocate and let you know what you should do for them, accuse them of being too demanding.  Tell them to ask nicer.  Tell them to expect less.  Tell them to conform to YOUR standards FIRST…then, and only then, will you be willing to examine yourself.

Avoid investing any effort into relationships if at all possible. Don’t call your prospects.  Don’t call your vendors.  Don’t call anyone.  Indulge other hobbies or interests.  Don’t talk about real things at the dinner table. In fact, don’t even have dinner – eat out before you get home.  If you MUST share a meal, make sure it’s in the living room with the TV blaring.  When your relationships sink, make sure to let the world know how nobody in your life really took the time to understand you and your special needs.  They were all too busy doing their thing to really pursue you…and make no mistake about it, you SHOULD be pursued at all times, regardless of what’s going on.  They failed you – it’s their fault.

Physical

Are you out of shape? It’s probably because that piece of exercise equipment doesn’t work as advertised.  It’s also probably all that fast food – so really, it’s McDonald’s fault.  Your spouse doesn’t encourage you to work out?  They could – meaning, it’s kinda their fault too.  Oh, your spouse encourages you TOO MUCH to work out?  Well, don’t.  You’ll show them who’s boss.  If they really loved you, they’d just accept you the way you are, and applaud your efforts to eat yourself into the grave.

Or maybe your out of shape because of your job.  Do you sit in front of the computer all day?  Well, that’s probably the reason.  You can’t HELP but lose your health frying yourself in front of a computer monitor all day.  And then when you get home, you have to play (i.e., read a book) to your kids.  That’s exercise enough for me!

If all else fails, blame your parents.  They have crappy fat genes, and they passed them all onto you.  You have big bones that magnetically attract fat cells, and refuse to let go of them.

Financial

This is a biggie.  It’s also the easiest – it’s no sweat to blame financial woes on others.

First, there’s your line of work.  Your boss isn’t promoting you fast enough.  They aren’t paying to begin with…and they expect WAY too much for the embarrassingly-low wages they do pay.  Make sure you do the minimum – that gal in HR said to just do what you’re responsible for, and nothing else.  NEVER go the extra mile.  Be the last to click in and the first to click out.  Overtime?  Only if it’s triple-pay, and only if it doesn’t interfere with beer-o-clock.

Have a great boss?  Well, let’s look at spending habits.  Who trained you on how to get rich?  NOBODY.  You parents didn’t equip you with good financial planning.  Your teachers were broker than you are.  Did you venture out and try to learn from others on how to get ahead?  Well, if it didn’t work, then they FAILED YOU.  Their advice sucked. They didn’t know what they were talking about.  It didn’t matter if you didn’t even use it – it probably wouldn’t have worked anyway.

Then there’s your spouse.  They probably don’t earn enough.  Don’t try to save enough.  Always wasting money on junk that you don’t need.  And they’re not vocal enough about helping you avoid spending money on junk you don’t need.

Got kids?  HUGE MONEY-SUCK.  They require regular feeding.  Clothing.  Stuff to ENTERTAIN them.  Not to mention TIME – you could be making money, but instead you have to go rock them to sleep or teach them something about life.  LAME.  Only 18 years…

Great boss – no spouse – no kids?  Blame politics.  Politicians aren’t doing enough.  Or they’re doing too much, but it’s wrong.  They need to get their act together.  Shape up or ship out, ya know?…

Or the economy.  NOBODY makes money in a down economy.  Some of last centuries RICHEST PEOPLE didn’t get that way from the last depression.

Can’t get funding?  Blame the banks.

Don’t have enough money?  Blame your customers.

Losing market-share?  Blame your competitors.

Google slap you?  Blame Google.

Blame your personal trainer.  Blame your wife.  Blame your husband.  Blame your upline.  Blame your accountant.  Blame employees.  Blame your clients.  Blame your kids.  Blame your car.  Blame the person who sold you the car.  Blame the company that made the car.  Blame your pets.  Blame God.  Blame the devil.  Blame Mercury when it’s in retrograde.  Blame your hormones.  Blame your metabolism.  Blame the tooth fairy.  Blame Bill Gates.  Blame your dinner.  Blame football.

Here’s the big picture: YOU CAN ALWAYS BLAME SOMEONE OR SOMETHING ELSE.  Accept responsibility?  Pfffft.  Overrated.  Much easier to blame others…and it’s probably their fault anyway.  Anyone who would even SUGGEST you take any responsibility for your life is really just trying to BLAME YOU anyway, right?  Might as well give ‘em their own medicine.

If you wait until the last minute to come up with your alibi’s (I don’t blame you for waiting, btw – there’s tons of good stuff on TV right now) then you can use these handy mad libs:

“My relationship didn’t work out because ____________ (insert name) wouldn’t change ___________”(list all their annoying habits).

“My career isn’t working because __________________ (name of employer or boss) is too _________________ (list negative character trait) and doesn’t ________________ enough (make reference to their stinginess)”.

“My health is poor because my parents taught me to __________________ (list bad habit) and never gave me enough ________________________ (support, love, education, whatever)”.

And if you need any extra help, get the procrastination flow chart.  Sheer genius.

Now let me ask you a question:

DO YOU DISAGREE WITH EVERYTHING IN THIS POST?

I do.

Yet day in and day out, I see the above listed mindset displayed a million different ways.  The truth is, It IS easier to blame the other person.  It IS easier to not try.  It IS easier to procrastinate.  We are all tempted to indulge these activities, for a million different reasons.   In my more honest moments, I can review my day and see times where I have displayed this same mindset.  It’s a very typical response.

Here’s the bad news: if you want to be anything more than “typical” in this world, you’re going to have to get used the idea that EXCUSES DON’T CUT IT.  I recommend you NOT ACCEPT EXCUSES – EVER.  Not from yourself.  Not from others.  NEVER.

When you’re tempted to blame someone else – STOP.  Focus on what YOUR ROLE is, and what you could have done differently – or what you can do differently going forward.

If you’re tempted to put off until tomorrow what should be done today – STOP.  Focus and force yourself to just GET IT DONE.

If you’re tempted to complain – STOP.  Complaining is the most unflattering, unproductive, unattractive activity you could possibly indulge in (except for maybe this).

Let me assure you:

There is REAL OPPORTUNITY out there to make SERIOUS MONEY during this economy.

There is REAL OPPORTUNITY out there to build FANTASTIC RELATIONSHIPS with wonderful people that will RECIPROCATE.

There is REAL OPPORTUNITY to take responsibility for your health, and develop a realistic plan to LOOK AND FEEL GREAT.

But it starts with a long, hard look in the mirror.  You spend all day looking around online for the “quick fix” that will make you some fast money?  That surefire opportunity that will give you success on a silver platter?  That secret system that’s going to turn you into an overnight millionaire?  That Spanish fly that will trick the opposite sex into being attracted to you?  That secret medicine that will just make your kids finally behave?  That magic bullet that will help you build the body of your dreams after the second dose?

GET A CLUE. IT’S NOT GOING TO HAPPEN.  The more you try to put the responsibility on others, the less chance you have of developing anything remarkable in this life.

That leaves only one alternative:  hard work.  You may have heard of this?…It includes:

- Delayed gratification – doing hard things with no guarantee or sign of immediate reward

- Sacrifice - You stay at home working on that business idea on Saturday night instead of  drinking yourself into oblivion with your homies.

- Creativity - that means you can’t just copycat what everyone else does.  You must sum the courage to step out and fail.  You must have the courage to look the hecklers and “you can’t do it” peeps in the eye and tell ‘em to go rot.

- Risk - yes, real risk of failure.  Hard work does not guarantee success, because you can be doing the wrong thing.  Thieves work hard to steal – even if they succeed, they can get caught and go to prison.  With no risk, there is no reward.  Instead of focusing on making it less risky, it may work better to simply focusing on bringing the reward into fruition.

I leave you with words from men wiser and greater than I.  Heed them and profit.

“Waiting is a trap. There will always be reasons to wait. The truth is, there are only two things in life, reasons and results, and reasons simply don’t count.” – Dr. Robert Anthony

“Don’t wait for someone to take you under their wing. Find a good wing and climb up underneath it.” – Frank C. Bucaro

“Do you know what happens when you give a procrastinator a good idea? Nothing!” – Donald Gardner

“Tear thyself from delay.” – Horace

“Men acquire a particular quality by constantly acting a particular way. We become just by performing just actions, temperate by performing temperate actions, brave by performing brave actions.” – Aristotle

“Would you like me to give you a formula for… success? It’s quite simple, really. Double your rate of failure. You’re thinking of failure as the enemy of success. But it isn’t at all… you can be discouraged by failure — or you can learn from it. So go ahead and make mistakes. Make all you can. Because, remember that’s where you’ll find success. On the far side.” – Thomas J. Watson

Entrepreneurs make mistakes.  It’s our job.  We are pretty much professional mistake-makers.  So long as we learn from our mistakes (and don’t repeat them) it’s all good.  Everyone successful entrepreneur has built their success on big piles of fail.

However, there is one mistake in particular that I’m seeing more and more that is concerning, simply because of ramifications of this mistake.  I’ve watched a lot of business owners crash during this recession, many of which fell prey to this one mistake.

And that one big mistake is simply this:

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Ever had the dream of starting and running your very own business?

If so, you’re in the majority.  Most people have entertained the idea of becoming a business owner.  At first glance, it’s a notion that has appeal on several levels.

First you get to fire your boss (that IDIOT!).

Then, you get to set your own schedule (I’ll work when I WANT to!).

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I love getting emails that go something like this:

“Do I have to be ________ (talented, smart, brilliant, good looking, a technical genius, a great speaker, etc) to be rich / successful?”

The answer is no.

Most wealthy people are not that smart – and they are happy to admit it.

Many wealth people are not particularly talented – and they will admit that too.

The vast majority of wealthy people are not blessed with uncommonly good looks, a privileged background, or any other type of advantageous predisposition that would guarantee success, or even make it easier to acquire.

In fact, in my examination of the wealthy / rich / successful from the rest of population, there is really only two character traits I can observe that stand out:

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As an entrepreneur, you are going to encounter setbacks. They are a part of the game.

Bad news: Setbacks are practically guaranteed. Factor them into your business plan.

Good news: Setbacks will cause many of your competitors to quit (yeah!), and create new opportunities for personal growth.

As Napoleon Hill said:

“Every setback has within it a seed of equivalent or greater benefit.”

And that’s true.  Let’s take Pat as an example…

Pat is an HBSA student that has been advertising online for over a year now.  A couple weeks ago, he was slapped by the big G.

He had every reason to feel sorry for  himself.  After all, he’d been an advertiser in good standing with Google for a long time.  How dare they slap him!

But he didn’t go that route.  Instead…he slapped back.

And a scant 17 days later, he’s back to generating leads online.

That’s an HBSA record – going from slap to mac in 17 days.  I called him up and forced him to tell me what he did to make it happen.  He cordially agreed.  Here it is:

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Amazing.  Simply amazing.