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Don’t Let Your Fear Hold You Back

April 26, 2012 by Leave a Comment

There are many reasons why you haven’t gone past where you are now; why you haven’t taken that step you know will catapult you to the next level in your business. But from my observations, I would say the chief reason is fear.

Fear has crippled you so that you can’t take that move you know you need to take. Like publishing that eBook or keeping a blog.

If that’s where you are now, you’re not alone. I have let fear hold me back for so long. You can see that by the noticeable absence of audio or video on this blog; I’ve been content to hide behind the words (text) for so long. But this quarter, I decided I was going to step out and face my fear.

So guess what I did? I write romantic fiction as a ghostwriter so I contacted a few published authors and asked to interview them. I contacted three and two said yes! One agreed to audio. In about 30 minutes, I am going to have an audio interview with a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author!

If that isn’t enough to push me out of my comfort zone, I don’t know what is. Then to make it worse, I’ve been asked to teach a class on fiction writing; through webinar. I don’t speak with a drawl and I don’t have a crisp British accent. I have no intention of faking one either. This has been a huge problem for me.

I went ahead and confronted my fear by contacting those authors but that didn’t diminish the fear. Then I read this post by Kerry Russell and I thought; I don’t even have a phobia, just some silly fear about my accent. Kerry has a real phobia but she went on to have an interview despite that phobia. That was such an inspiration for me.

So I’m going ahead to do the interview in a few minutes. I am not going to let my fear hold me back. You shouldn’t let yours hold you back either.

What has stopped you from moving forward in your business or personal life? What are you afraid of?

Filed Under: Inspiration Tagged With: , , ,

Are Your Dreams Big Enough to Scare You?

March 7, 2012 by Leave a Comment

“A rock pile ceases to be a rock pile the moment a single man contemplates it, bearing within him the image of a cathedral.”

A few days ago I had the privilege of listening in on Kelly McCausey’sMonday Morning Breakthrough and one recurring theme there among the participants was scary dreams and being too scared to dream. Although it was a few days ago, it got me thinking. Then I came across the quote above by the French Author, Antoine De Saint-Exupery.

The problem is not with your ability to dream; the problem is how big you are capable of dreaming. If your dreams don’t scare you, then they are not big enough. One quote that Kelly shared with us was from Howard Schultz, the founder of Starbucks that said

“Who wants a near-fetched dream?”

If your dream for your business is not out of this world, you need to re-examine your motivationfor being in business.

Dreaming Big

The Importance of Dreaming Big for Your Business

I have big dreams. They are so big that they sometimes keep me awake at night. But I did not always dream that big. Life had taught me that dreaming big was a waste of time so I tried to tailor my dreams to ‘reality.’ I called it being pragmatic. 

But there is nothing pragmatic about a dream. What actually happened was that I stopped dreaming altogether. My mum noticed. I had no idea she had watched my gradual disillusionment with life and my near-complete disenchantment. One day she called me and sat me down. She did not bother to ask what I’d gone through or what had stolen my dreams from me. She just said to me, Baby, it’s okay to build your castles in the air. After you build them, go ahead and put your foundations on earth.

It took me some more time to fully realize the power of what she said. So I’ve started dreaming again and a really huge dream is behind this blog, Purple & Spice. I dream of a large community of people who started as beginners here and have gone on to earn six, seven figures from their online businesses.

I dream of traveling round the world helping as many people as I can to become financially independent by harnessing the power of the internet. It is a huge dream but I work at it one step at a time

Working at Dreaming

And that is where a lot of people miss it with dreaming big. You need to work at it. It is not enough to just dream and make a habit of star-gazing. You need to take little steps towards fulfilling your dream. A Chinese proverb says that the journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.

The first step towards achieving my dream was setting up this blog and blogging consistently. My main focus is concepts in internet marketing and online business that are new to most beginners. I’ve done that for the last 3 months and it has been a wonderful journey. However, this week I took another step forward. I decided to offer an internet marketing guide in the form of an e-course.

Creating Good Luck

I have heard that the harder you work, the more good luck you create and that is what I set out to do. First of all, I got access to this internet marketing guide as a PLR book. (If you don’t know what PLR is, read this post). Now PLR is good and as I sell some myself, I can tell you that even though there is a lot of trash out there, you can also stumble on pure gold.I got this one here.

I decided to offer it as a free e-Course to my subscribers. But I decided to go through it first. What I ended up with is a fantastic treasure. I ended up with a brand new Internet Marketing Guide, complete with my own personal experiences and lessons I’ve learned in my years on the internet. I kept the name of the Guide though (the graphics were superb!) But almost all the content there is mine. I treated topics like

  • Internet Marketing Guide for BeginnersList building
  • Affiliate Marketing
  • How to choose a niche
  • Setting up Your Blog
  • Search Engine Optimization
  • Social Media Marketing

And lot’s more! It kept me busy and up for several nights. And because I put so much work into it, I decided I wouldn’t offer it for free again. But wait!

Because the underlying dream behind everything I do here is to help you become an online success, I kept the price ridiculously low. Actually, I only fixed a price to it because I really put in a lot of work and I would hate it if you signed up for the course but were not committed enough to follow through. The way I see it, if you have to pay something (no matter how little), you are more likely to take the course seriously and see it to completion.

My dream for this course is that when you’re through, you would know exactly what you want to do as an internet marketer and how to go about it. It is scary because I really want everyone who goes through the course to succeed. I want to clear up the confusion about internet marketing. So what if I fail? That’s a risk I’m willing to take.

I believe in this dream so much that even though I’m scared, I am willing to take that risk. Click this link – Let’s Make Money Online- to find out more about this project.

The Power of Dreaming Big

This is the secret behind the Law of Attraction (and all the other concepts that came before or after it): If you dream something and you want it strongly enough, you will get it. Paulo Coelho, an author I absolutely adore once said that “when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson puts it another way:

“When you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen.”

There is power in dreaming big. Yes, things happen; failure happen that can hurt your ability to dream big. But don’t let it cripple you. Have big dreams for you business and work hard to achieve them, one little step at a time.

What big dreams do you have for your business? If you don’t have any, why did you stop dreaming? Leave a comment and let me know.

Filed Under: Inspiration, Motivation, Passion, Vision Tagged With: , , ,

Use Your Vision Statement to Overcome Internet Marketing Blues

February 13, 2012 by 2 Comments

Does this describe you…?

You have worked hard on your blog and have been blogging for several months now (or more) but you are still nowhere near earning an income from your blog.

Or you set out to create your own info-product; you researched and researched and have finally written your first eBook with only middling sales.

Or you might even be successful in your online business; a regular niche authority but you are slowly losing steam.

Overcoming discouragement in internet marketing

In either scenario, it’s easy to begin to lose enthusiasm and start questioning why you are trying to run an online business. This is healthy. But most people don’t see that.

The problem is people tend to dwell on the negativity and discouragement without exploring what it could mean for them and for their business. If you are currently in this place, stop and think.

Go back to the very beginning. You need to clarify your vision for your business. Long before I started Purple & Spice, I knew that I wanted to help people learn how to earn an income from the internet – as I had done. It was something that saved me and my family at a time when we really needed the income.

I know there are others who are hanging by a thread and they desperately need that income and I really want to help them. This is why even when I am tired and suffering from writer’s block, I still update this blog, offering support and encouragement. It is why when I am dog tired from a cranky 4 month old, I still sit in front of my laptop far into the night answering your emails. Because I truly want to help.

I’m sure you have a reason for starting your online business. And yes, running a blog can be a business if you choose to see it that way. You might not have articulated your vision or you might not really have clarity of purpose where your business is concerned. That’s fine.

Sit down and think about why you are an online entrepreneur and how you want to achieve that goal.

To make money is NOT a vision. It is a desire. So when you are going through discouraging times, it will not keep you going.

To understand how to create a vision for your business, Matt at Tonka Park put it better than I could have:

“Vision is a mental picture of what could be, it is a preferred future or destination. Vision begins as a burden for what could be — we do what we do because of a burden for the way things should be. Great vision will only be successful if there is passion that this preferred future should be.”

Your vision will be tied to what you are passionate about.

Here are a few questions you should ask yourself:

  • What am I passionate about?
  • Why am I in this business?
  • Why did I choose this particular niche?
  • What is the purpose of my business?
Answering these questions will help you in writing a vision statement which you need to print out and pin up where you can easily see it. It will serve as a reminder when things are not so great.
This will not only help you in determining your vision, it will also help you to create a plan (a blueprint) which you can follow to see that vision turn into reality.

Filed Under: Inspiration, Motivation, Passion Tagged With: , , , ,
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