Now, I don’t know if this new year will truly mark the end of anything, nor the beginning of anything else. But since I am a hardcore optimist at heart, I find myself expecting some kind of 2013 to be revealed a year from now, once 2012 has unspooled itself onto the cutting room floor of history.

So life goes on – or it may do. Because if it doesn’t, then what the hell, none of this mattered anyway, did it?

More About 2011

As you may have noticed, I haven’t been posting for some time. In fact, I’ve been on a bit of a sabbatical since May of this year. After a solid ten years of writing about self-help and motivation, I just got bored with it and took some time off for myself.

This year has been something of an experiment for me. In my last post, back on May 21st (Discipline – The Unpopular Side of Self Help), I showed you a tiny little form I had started to use for keeping track of my “confidence work.” It’s a simple little table with one cell for each day of the year. And at the time of that posting I’d already spent better than four months with it – a third of a year.

Now this year is ending, and I’d like to share with you what I’ve been doing during my time off.

I may not have been writing but I was still trying stuff on myself, which is where it actually counts. In my last report, I was still using brainwave entrainment recordings that combined both alpha-wave (or deeper) sounds with positive suggestions for personality change.

I mainly used three different recording sets. One was the Quantum Confidence set (the so-called Morry Method).

The second was the EmBRACES Belief Entrainment System by Alan Tutt.

And the third was an isochronic recording at five beats per second with a bit of pink noise overlaid. I made this one myself and supplied my own suggestions live during each session. You can download a copy of this recording here if you’d like to give it a try.

Each of these approaches has strong points. In both Morry Zelcovitch’s Quantum Confidence recordings and the EmBRACES recordings from Alan Tutt, there are two separate tracks, with differing suggestions for the left and right ears, plus a third “center track” with still more suggestions.

Listening to these is quite confusing at first. The conscious mind just can’t adequately handle all that relentless input, which leaves the subconscious mind free to listen and absorb without the usual meddling and monitoring of the conscious mind. That’s the theory, anyway, and in my experience it seems to have a good deal of validity.

A word about Alan’s EmBRACES set. It’s massive, and there’s a good reason for that. Alan did extensive testing with something like 150 test subjects, and he found that the more variety there was in the recordings, the more effective the suggestions seemed to be. The only downside to this is that you won’t know what to try first. Honestly – it doesn’t matter. Just dive in. You’ll figure it out as you go.

So, being a compulsive over-deliverer, he set out to give his users all the variety and choice they could ever ask for… and more. I’m talking 360 MP3 recordings in 10 modules – nearly 160 HOURS of material.

You know how, after you’ve used a set of recordings for a while, boredom can begin to set in? Well, that’s much, much less likely to happen here. According to my calculations, boredom won’t be a factor until you’ve been using the set for about 987 years – or longer. You can find out more about Alan’s EmBRACES here.

Now… back to my self-help efforts.

How Persistent Was I?

Instead of telling, let me just show you.

As you can see from the varying colored dots, I experimented with a few different things during the year. Took a few weeks off here and there (more a result of laziness than design.) On the other hand, I spent a 4-week period beginning in mid-September doing four sessions a day. That was a bit much, so after a month I rested a bit then dropped back to the usual two-a-day.

Results

Some objectives, like confidence or leadership, are pretty hard to quantify, especially if you’re self-rating the results. There’ll be days when you’re sure you’ve become a superstar. Other days you’ll wonder if you’re ever going to make any progress.

It’s normal to have ups and downs.

So in the interests of minimizing subjectivity, here are some specific, measurable things that have happened during the past year.

1. I got a call – out of the blue – asking if I’d like to become the M.C. for the Expat Club meetings. The man who had been doing an outstanding job for three years had decided to move on to other activities, and would I be interested? The Expat Club has around 500-600 members overall, but not all are in-country at any one time. Attendance at the meetings varies from around 70 in the low season to upwards of 150 in the high season. I accepted the job and have been having a ball running the monthly meetings.

2. Several writers living here in Thailand have asked me to format their books and get them Amazon-ready. Some were for paperback publishing, and others were for Kindle ebooks. I found that this was not only easy for me, it was actually fun. This led me to start a new service business website MisterEbook.com, where I accept ebook formatting for authors who would rather be writing instead of getting all tied up in the techie stuff. This site is still new, so I don’t have consistent performance data to share yet.

3. In July I had an operation – an angioplasty – to clear some blockage in a coronary artery. Now, was this a negative thing? Or was it a positive step to correct something that I had previously allowed to become negative? Not sure, but I thought I should lay it out and let you decide for yourself. At any rate, I’m still alive and kicking, much to my delight.

4. Because of back injuries when I was young, back pain, cramps and rigid muscles had been a problem for years. This year, I took measures to change that. Twice a week I do go for Thai massage, which if done properly, can free up tight, locked muscles. So morning backache and occasional bouts of my back “going out” have disappeared. Next month I turn sixty-nine, and my back feels better than it has for thirty years. (Now I’m starting to sound like an old geezer, aren’t I?)

5. This one is more subjective and a bit difficult to put into words. However, for what it’s worth, here it is: During the past year I’ve begun noticing that people treat me with more deference and respect than before. This amazes me because, in groups I have usually felt like the wallpaper. Other people sparkled, not me. And when meeting new people, I was just one of the faces. Now when I meet folks, or sit in on a new group, I’m treated like a visiting dignitary. On the one hand, this is flattering, but on the other hand, it’s a bit unsettling. I’ve always tried to avoid being an ego-driven kind of guy, so while it’s pleasant, it puts me on my guard to not let myself get swept away by approval.

Anyway, these are some of the results I’ve noticed after working on my confidence fairly consistently for one year.

Try This at Home, Boys and Girls

I fully intend to continue these efforts in the new year, and if you’d also like to track your own efforts, here’s a chart ready for you to use.

To download your copy, right click on the image, or right click here and save as “2012 Meditation Record” on your computer.

Once you’ve downloaded it, trim it down and tape it somewhere that you’ll see it every day, or keep it on a clipboard, ready to use at any time.

The only thing to avoid is – don’t lay it down on a flat surface. If you do that, it’ll soon be covered up and forgotten. Once a tracking instrument like this goes onto a horizontal surface, it’s useless. Just put it where nothing else can get piled on top of it, and it’ll keep reminding you of your intentions.

Then, next year, I hope you’ll report back and let me know what you’ve been working on and the results you’ve seen.

Cheers from the end of 2011,
Charles

P.S. If you’ve been using the 2011 form that I posted back in May, tell me what results you’ve been getting. No results? Then tell me that too.

Twice a week I go and pay a lady to hurt me for two hours. It’s called Thai massage, and I do it because it helps stretch and limber up muscles that have grown tight from sitting at the computer too many hours a day for too many years.

Now, when I first moved to Thailand in 2008, I began hearing all about the relaxing, restorative powers of massage and so I tried it. And I hated it. Getting my tightest muscles poked, twisted, gouged, elbowed and kneed was not pleasant in the slightest. And it certainly was not relaxing.

I should explain, however, that massage shops are one of the major industries here in Chiang Mai. You’ll find five to a block. And as in any business that’s relatively easy to enter, there are tremendous variations in the skill and talent of practitioners. Some are good, some are extremely good, and some are… well… they’re not very aware of the body they’re working on.

So here I was, new to the area, and I just wandered into the nearest little neighborhood massage shop. Didn’t ask anybody for a recommendation. Didn’t pay any attention to the shop’s appearance and “class.” Just walked in and asked for a massage.

And it was excruciating. Three or four times I tried it, then decided it was just not for me, and quit that nonsense.

That’s how things remained for three years.

But late last year I began having back spasms and something that felt like a pinched nerve down my left leg. For a month or two I debated – should I give it another try? Finally I decided to take one more run at it. But this time I wouldn’t dive in headfirst. Instead, I worked up a simple little testing strategy.

I went to first one shop and then another, asking only for a foot massage. Although it was a bit painful at times, it wasn’t a total wipeout. And I found that some shops were better than others, some practitioners far more aware of what they were doing.

After a month of twice-a-week test visits, I picked the shop that seemed the most effective and tried the whole-body, two-hour package.

Yes, it still hurt (but not as badly), and yes I was sure I’d walk funny for the next few days (but I didn’t). On the plus side, my chronic pains began ebbing. Back spasms were fading away. Pinched nerve quieting down. And as you may have suspected…

There’s a Lesson Here

Stepping out into “discomfort territory” brought something I wanted, in this case, relief from pain.

It seems that the old term, “comfort zone,” is a seriously stupid misnomer. My comfort zone may have been familiar, but it was causing me some major discomfort: back pains, leg twinges, cramps. And when the discomfort of my “comfort zone” was greater than the discomfort of stepping out into unfamiliar territory, then – finally – I moved.

But isn’t that how most of us approach personal change? Don’t we wait until we’re hurting like crazy before we’ll alter anything?

Many companies are like that. In a recent post (Stuck with ‘Ordinary’ Talents? Turn them into Huge Successes) I mentioned turnaround specialists who come in and save failing corporations that are circling the drain.

It’s a common trait – waiting until our situation is nearly hopeless before we’ll try something new. But it doesn’t have to be that way. We could be a lot more proactive in tackling new activities, new solutions, new ideas. If we don’t wait till the last possible moment, the remedies won’t have to be as drastic.

We’ve all heard the old phrase, “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it.” But does that apply to lives? And what if it’s only half broke, but we’re managing to limp along, more or less making do? Is that really how we want to live our life? Making do? Limping? Dragging ourselves onward rather than leaping excitedly forward into every new experience?

Of course, all of this is easier said than done. And making ourselves initiate change before we get to the “I’m hurting like hell” stage can take more resolve than we have. But maybe that’s partly because we don’t bother to work out a strategy for gradual changes. Just as I walked blindly into the nearest massage shop, without considering either quality or qualifications, so also we may be resolving to make new changes in our life, but giving no thought to whether those changes are a good fit for us.

Some mistakes in life are due to carelessness. But most of our blunders are a result of inexperience. We try something new, discover we don’t know what the particular heck we’re doing, then back off and resolve never to go there again.

When I was in third grade, our teacher brought a tape recorder to class. This was in the early fifties, and it was a big, reel-to-reel box. She recorded each of us singing, and then played it back. Everybody had great fun with it, laughing at how different their voice sounded on tape. Everybody but Billy, that is. He was so shocked at his “real” voice that he resolved never to sing again. And the last time I saw him, twenty years later, he was still refusing to sing. Ever.

Another friend, Sam, started a home building company during one of the big housing booms, and he was making money hand over fist. Then the market slumped, demand evaporated, and his business hit harder times.

Money had been coming in so fast and easy that he’d never bothered to learn anything about selling, promoting or marketing. He’d also never built up a cash reserve. So when things got tight and people were no longer beating down his door with business, he lost it all.

And right there, he decided he’d never again try to have his own business.

Both Billy and Sam learned lessons from their experiences. But were they the right lessons? Could Billy have learned to train his voice and become a skilled singer? Yes, of course he could have… but he didn’t.

And Sam could have learned that running a business in a different market requires different skills. But he also just backed away and said “never again.”

When I first tried massage and found it to be a difficult experience, I could have learned that some practitioners are better than others, but I didn’t. I just swore off it completely.

So if you’ve tried something that stretched your abilities… maybe even defeated you… was that only a temporary defeat? Or did you back down, say “never again,” and give up?

Think about it. Some companies don’t wait till they’re almost insolvent before they clean up their act. And some people don’t have to hit bottom to begin moving toward a better life.

If you find yourself giving up at the first little bump, here’s a story you may find interesting.

Four or five years ago, I wrote a recommendation for some CD sets by Mike Brescia and sent it out in my weekly newsletter. Several readers clicked on the link and bought CDs from Mike.

Then one of those readers wrote and told me that she had requested a refund. It seems that she couldn’t bear listening because she personally found the narrator’s voice irritating.

Totally unsympathetic, I sent a one-line answer: “My, aren’t you a delicate little flower.”

Here was a product that many MANY people give rave testimonials, and if she would only listen to it, there was a good chance that she also would experience major changes. But the voice on the CD was just too irritating for her.

See how easily we talk ourselves into giving up?

So the next time you find yourself tempted to abandon your efforts and just give up, I suggest you say the same thing: my, aren’t you a delicate little flower.

Cheers from warm and smiling Thailand,
Charles

Most of them fade to black, forgotten, abandoned, ignored. Their end isn’t dramatic enough to qualify as a stillbirth. In fact, they don’t even have the energy to end in spontaneous abortion. Instead they simply dissolve away to nothing, leaving behind only a dusty little residue of guilt in the back of the mouth.

So I’m announcing – more than a month overdue – that I’ve joined the hoards of folks swearing off New Year’s resolutions.

Instead, I’m replacing them with….

New Month’s Resolutions

The advantages are obvious:
……….• Short incubation period to match my short attention span
……….• Not too massive to believe in
……….• A one-month deadline fosters more urgency than 12 months

While it’s true that the way to eat an elephant is one bite at a time, I’ve found that I don’t like eating elephants. You see, when it comes to elephantine goals, most of the meat usually goes bad before I’ve chewed up a single foot.

So this year, I’m electing to work on tiny little bite-sized elephants instead.

Way I look at it is, 12 small projects completed could possibly amount to more than one huge project left to wither away and never make it into the light of day.

What do you think?

Doing the same things over and over again, but yet expecting different results is insanity.
- Albert Einstein

So keeping Einstein’s definition in mind, let me ask that question again. Are you sure you can recognize insanity on sight – especially in yourself? Or are you feeling just a touch less sure now? For example, are you consistently getting the results you say you’re aiming for? This starts with the goals you pick.

Here’s what I mean. If your idea of progress is “I’m experiencing amazing new breakthroughs in my inner landscape”), then you’re deep into kidding yourself, and you’d better read every word of this post carefully, because that statement doesn’t mean jackshif.

Other ways to know if you’re kidding yourself…

If you’ve started a business or money-making enterprise of any kind, but for the longest time you’ve continued not making money, you’re kidding yourself.

Or if you’re seeking peace, love and happiness, but are still writhing around in despair, malaise and depression, then for sure something is seriously wrong with your approach.

Or if you have a specific goal (like a promotion at work, a newer home, a happier relationship, more savings, etc.), and you’re either standing still or moving backwards, then you’ve got some serious self-kidding going on.

What you’re doing is not producing the results you say you want. So what to do? Let’s confine ourselves to facts here and work backwards.

Results… What Results Are You Trying to Get?

Do they involve money? Love and companionship? Fame and recognition? Peace of mind?

Or are your results – your goals – a little fuzzy around the edges, a bit hard to put into specific words? If that’s the case, there’s no mystery why results may be eluding you, but let’s assume that, if you sat down right now and wrote out what you desire, you could do it in a hundred words or less.

So have you done that? Have you written out (on a real sheet of paper) your desires, aims, targets, goals, outcomes or wants? If not, why not?

If you’ve been studying self help material for more than 15 minutes, you already know it’s important to have written goals. And of course you’ve got yours listed out on paper in exquisite detail. Of course.

And as a practical, results-oriented person, you recognize the importance of taking consistent, focused action toward your goals (or your outcomes, if you prefer that term).

You’re also well aware of the importance of refreshing your mental and emotional connection with your goals, and that it must be done again and again, every single day.

You Already Know All of This, Right?

• Knowing and holding a vision of what you want
• Committing your goals to paper, in specific detail
• Regularly reviewing your goals
• Having an action plan, including backup contingencies
• Implementing that plan
• Adjusting the details of your plan when needed
• A plan also for controlling your own attitudes
• Persistence

Yep, you already know all of this, and you know that anything on earth you want to achieve can be done by following this list. But how are you doing with it? Please notice that the list features four primary factors.

1. Vision
2. Commitment
3. Implementation
4. Persistence

This is all well and good, but the point I want to make here is that there’s nothing glamorous or sexy or dazzling about that list. It’s plain, pedestrian stuff. All just commonsense and work.

There’s no magic pill, no mention of the famous Law of Attraction, no requirement for genius, nor extra-powerful mental faculties. Just doing the basics. And keeping on doing the basics. Every day, every day, every day.

Unfortunately, in the self help field, there’s a huge emphasis on the glitter of “the Universe will do it all for you” but there’s less mention of just how much you can (and should) do for yourself.

So for what it’s worth, and I truly do hope you’re paying attention here, because this is a biggie:

The Universe never wastes synchronicity on people who are not already in motion.

If you’ve been doing visualization, programming, chanting, meditation, or any other technique in the hopes that you won’t have to go out into the real world and get your hands dirty doing “real stuff,” then you need to wake up. The clean-hands approach is out of favor with the Universe, folks. In fact, the Universe appears to prefer people with a little grime under their fingernails. Folks who aren’t too good to pitch in and work, who don’t get discouraged if something doesn’t succeed the first time, who will scramble back up after repeated falls and try and try again.

The Universe rewards vision and positive thinking, yes, absolutely. But… only in the presence of a catalyst. Without that catalyst, there’s no power to a vision or a wish. They’re a dime a dozen.

That catalyst is grit. Scramble. Moxie. Spunk. Spirit. The ability to pick your ass up off the ground again, dust yourself off again, and go at it again, even harder than before.

Vision alone is worthless. Hopes and desires and wishes unaccompanied by drive will buy you exactly… nothing.

Of course in some circles this kind of drive is considered low and coarse. Maybe even abrasive and distasteful. The only problem is, it’s this kind of drive that gets results. It’s what receives the smile of the Universe in the form of synchronicity, and so-called “good luck.”

So the things you’re doing to try and reach your goals, are they working? Or are you still right where you were one or five or ten years ago?

Are you still doing the same things today that didn’t work last year? If so, I’ve got some bad news for you. You’re insane.

The good news is, that kind of insanity can be cured. And quickly, too. All it takes is making some changes to what you’re doing. But not just any old random changes. After all, such moves might or might not lead in a useful direction. No, random change alone is not the answer.

Want to know the secret of effective, success-causing change? Here it is. Pay attention.

No, Really, That’s it… Pay Attention.

When you try something, pay attention to the results you get. If they’re not what you want, try something else. If the results you get are better, then do more of that. If the results are worse, go in the opposite direction. This will gradually lead you to where you want to be. Simple, huh?

Also pay very, very careful attention to what other people are doing. Especially note those who are successfully doing what you want to do. Notice their behavior, their methods and their techniques. If they’re getting good results, it means that they’ve already done a lot of the trial and error for you. Model what they’re doing. (By the way, “model” is a nice, scientific sounding word that simply means you should shamelessly copy and imitate successful behavior.)

Note also that it’s impossible to copy and imitate without action, motion, doing things. Here we are back to the need for action again.

Let me reinforce this idea: The Universe loves focused, directed action. It saves its richest rewards for creativity – for people who make things happen – while it utterly ignores passivity and stasis.

So get your butt in gear, because just sitting there visualizing or wishing, with no supporting action and no change in results – that’s just insanity.

Cheers from warm and smiling Thailand,
Charles

If you’d like to change that and up your accomplishment score, watch this video. Then spend some quality time thinking about what it means for you.

“Gramps,” I said, “What’s the fourth dimension like?” It was a hot August afternoon, the kind where you only want to lie around and pant or drowse on the shady front porch.

I looked down the street. The heat ripples dancing silently above the pavement were the only thing moving. There wasn’t even a breeze to stir the leaves of the big oak standing above us.

Gramps gave a long blink, turned his head slowly toward me, and smacked his lips lightly. “Sonny,” he said, “Why would a coon dog be interested in the fourth dimension?”

I stretched my hind legs further out on the porch behind me and lowered my head to rest on my front paws to show my respect for his viewpoint, but I had no intention of backing down.

“I’m just curious,” I told him. He continued looking at me with that heavy gaze. Finally he gave a slow blink again, and I went on. “Sometimes in the evenin’s when you go over and sit on the front porch with Professor Cooley, doesn’t he talk to you about those kind of things?”

Gramps watched the heat waves do their street dance for a while.

“Sonny, humans just don’t think the same way we dogs do.” Gramps paused to see if I understood him. I raised my head a bit to show I was paying attention. “And lots of times when they seem to be talkin’ to somebody, they’re not really.”

“You mean,” I asked, “You mean like when a dog scratches, but he might not really be chasing a flea?”

“Exactly,” he said. “Sometimes it’s just somethin’ to do… to help a feller feel better. But with humans, it’s somethin’ they do to help them think better.”

I turned that over for a while, then asked, “Doesn’t Professor Cooley teach mathematics over at the college?”

Gramps’ eyes showed his amusement. “Lil’ Famous,” he said to me, “In a lot of ways you’re just like your Daddy. You’re young and strong, and every bit as good as your Daddy at treein’ a coon. But Big Famous didn’t get that name by layin’ around thinkin’. Nossir, he was the most famous huntin’ dog in this end of the state. He loved it. You’re like that, too. So don’t waste your time on understandin’ humans until you’re old and can’t do anything else. Be like your Daddy.”

“Daddy got his head clawed off by a bob-cat when he was just four,” I reminded him. Gramps’ eyes changed from amused to cloudy. I hadn’t meant to be so blunt.

After a while I asked again, “Gramps, what’s the fourth dimension like?” I wasn’t sure he was going to answer me, he waited so long.

“Do you know what the first three dimensions are?” he finally asked.

“I think so,” I told him. “I’ve thought about it some, and it would be like measurin’ this porch. It’s about twenty-five steps long, about eight steps wide, and maybe an easy jump high.”

Gramps’ eyes showed amusement again. “Looks like you have thought about this some, Lil’ Famous.” He paused a bit, then went on. “Since the first three dimensions are just measurements, then the fourth dimension is just a measurement, too.”

I know I must’ve looked blank. Measurement? I regarded the porch first in one direction, then the other. I tried cocking my head sideways. Even that didn’t help.

Measurement?

Walking over to the edge of the porch, I looked down. Still just an easy jump from the ground.

Gramps was looking the other way, panting lightly, paying me no attention.

Measurement? Puzzled, I ambled back to my spot and flopped down. “I can see how long the porch is, how wide it is, and how high it is, but what else is there to measure?

“Lil’ Famous,” he said, “How old do you reckon this porch is?”

This time I went even blanker than before. Why was he changing the subject? I decided to humor him.

“Well, Gramps, I heard you say once that they built this porch when you were a pup, so I guess it’s about fourteen huntin’ seasons old.”

Gramps nodded and blinked his eyes slowly. “And how old do you figure that porch across the street at Widow Hastings’ house is?”

Widow Hastings’ house was in sorry shape. I looked at it doubtfully. The porch was so bad that Sam, the collie pup from down the block, fell through it just last spring. If there’s one thing I hate, it’s a porch that’s unsafe for dog or human to lie down on.

“Well, it must be a lot older than this porch.”

“How do you know that, Lil’ Famous?”

“It looks older.”

“Well, it’s not,” mused Gramps. “That porch was built the same season as this one; the Widow just hasn’t had anybody paint it or keep it up.”

“But Gramps, what’s that got to do with the fourth dimension?”

“Sonny, how long something exists IS its fourth measurement.”

“Oh, you mean,” I asked, “You mean these two porches have the same age, so they have the same fourth dimension?”

“No, Sonny. The porch we’re on probably has a longer time measurement. It’s painted and fixed up every couple of huntin’ seasons, so it’ll be standin’ when that one over there has been torn down and hauled away.”

“But we don’t know that for sure, do we Gramps? I mean, this one could burn down tonight, and that one over there might go on for two or three more seasons.”

“That’s right, Sonny. But by thinkin’ ahead and using good judgment, we can try to make things last longer.”

“Like staying home and learning about humans, instead of goin’ out and tanglin’ with bob-cats,” I said.

“Somethin’ like that,” Gramps conceded.

“Well, if that’s the fourth dimension, then what’s the fifth dimension like?”

“Lil’ Famous,” sighed Gramps, “We’ve talked enough about dimensions today. Ask about somethin’ else.”

“Sure, Gramps. How come humans talk to us dogs all the time but they never listen?”

“Maybe,” Gramps said dryly, “maybe we’d better talk about dimensions, after all.”

“You told us,” one audience member said, “that you’re selling an audio product, and that you sell it for $44. That seems high to me. How do you justify that? How do determine what price is fair and proper?”

So I told the audience a little story. Several years ago, a friend of mine, John Harricharan, wrote a little ebook – maybe 18,000 words – and put up a sales page on the Internet. John told me that he was thinking, ‘Okay, this is a pretty short book, so I can’t charge much for it.’

He priced it at something like $17, and almost nobody bought. John was about to take the whole thing down when one of his marketing friends asked if he had tried selling it for a higher price. Well, no he hadn’t, so just for the heck of it, he raised the price to $24.

And this little, short, 18,000 word ebook sold better.

‘Hmmm… that’s peculiar,’ John thought. So he tried it at $27. And his sales conversions rose further. So now he became curious. He raised the price again. And again. And each time, the sales conversions improved.

Sales didn’t level off till he reached $97, so he left it there for the next several years. And for several years he’s been selling that little ebook – The Power Pause - for what looks like a ridiculous price. Why? Because customers say that’s how much it’s worth.

The point of this little story is that the value of your ebook – the value of any product is not what you think it should be. It’s what customers are willing to pay for your product. It has nothing to do with “fairness” or what other ebooks are selling for.

Sales Environments – Good or Bad

Now, the worst place in the world to sell your book may be bookstores. Those folks know very little about building the value of the books they’re trying to sell. They only know how to line your book up on the shelf along with all the others. The customer can take your book or leave it. That’s cold. True, they may do aisle displays, or turn some books face forward, and they may even have an author in for a book signing, but as value-building goes, that’s all pretty insipid.

The best way to sell your book is letting the world know about it, letting everyone know just how special your book is, telling them exactly what your book can do for them. A sales website is good for that. You’re only representing one book, so you can do a good job of telling the visitor about the benefits.

But there are other ways to do this job. Take the book Chicken Soup for the Soul as an excellent example.

Rocket-Boosting Your Book Sales

Have you ever read all the activities that Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen do every day, every week, every month? They were determined from the beginning that they would never leave the fate of their book in the hands of the publisher, nor in the hands of – God forbid – bookshops.

So Canfield and Hansen went out and interviewed a bunch of successful authors – writers who had books on the bestseller lists. They asked a simple question: “What would you do today to sell a million books as fast as possible?” They wrote down all the answers they received, and ended up with 1,094 different activities for promoting a book. It’s exhausting just to read it all. They were overwhelmed by that list, so they broke it down and decided to do things in rotation. Just five or six or seven things a day.

But every day.

They ended up taking a nice little book that dozens of publishers had refused to touch, a general-interest little book that had no niche market, and through massive, massive action and incredible persistence, built it into a worldwide bestseller. They turned it into a major brand. Once it was known by just about every person on earth, THEN they started niching it down into a wide variety of market segments.

They now have so many niches that it seems like a caricature of a book campaign:

• Chicken Soup for the Teenager’s Soul
• Chicken Soup for the Dog Lover’s Soul
• Chicken Soup for the Grieving Soul
• Chicken Soup for the Kid’s Soul
• Chicken Soup for the New Mom’s Soul
• Chicken Soup for the Girl’s Soul
• Chicken Soup for the Prisoner’s Soul
• Chicken Soup for the Girlfriend’s Soul
• Chicken Soup for the Grandma’s Soul
• And on and on…

But first came the simple, generic “Chicken Soup for the Soul.”

So how long can it be before we see Chicken Soup for the Alien Invader’s Soul in the stores.

Frankly, by conventional standards, their book should never have succeeded. No reputable publisher wanted anything to do with it. And yet, succeed it did. It succeeded because Canfield and Hanson made it their personal mission to build towering perception of value. And instead of raising their price to $97, they got (seemingly) half the people on earth to buy one of their books at regular bookstore prices.

They did it through enormous dedication. Through persistence so dogged that they make the word “fanatic” seem lukewarm.

They believed in their book. If you’ve written a book, do you believe in it that much?

Or if you’re a coach, how convinced are you that people will benefit from hiring you? If you’re an accountant, or a school teacher, or a truck driver, how much do you believe in the services you’re providing?

Or is it just “something you do”?

Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day in and day out.
– Robert Collier, author of The Secret of the Ages.

When Hansen and Canfield started, they sought all kinds of advice on making their book a success, so they went to an expert, Ron Scolastico. He told them that “if you go to a large tree every day and take five swings at it with a very sharp axe, eventually, no matter how huge that tree is, it’ll fall.”

Simple, huh?

So these two men set themselves the task of doing at least five promotional activities every day. Interviews, radio talk shows, trade shows, TV appearances, book signings, press releases, book fairs, seminars… you name it, they went out and did it. Day after day, year after year. They didn’t get tired of what they were doing, either. Nor bored.

Because they continued to believe in their book(s).

And think about this – what if you were that consistent? What if you sat down and wrote just five 300-word pages every day. In one year you’d have 1,825 pages written.

In ten years that’d be over 18,000 pages… almost 5.5 million words… nearly 110 books of 50,000 words each.

Ten years of simply writing 5 pages a day.

Remember the old rule… writers write. That’s the only thing that opens the door to being a writer. Good writer, bad writer, it doesn’t matter. They write.

Isaac Asimov was famous for turning out something like 500 books in his lifetime. That’s what consistent effort accomplishes.

Back in the sixties, I read nothing but science fiction. I was quite obsessive about it. And in 1968 or so, a new writer showed up. I read his first book, and it was truly bad. I didn’t read any of his next several books, but I remembered his name (because the quality had been memorably low).

Then in the seventies, the market shifted and, thanks partly to Stephen King, horror fiction became a huge fad.

This new writer obviously noticed the market changing, and he changed with it. He began turning out horror books. I read one of those, and it wasn’t a lot better, but he had improved a bit. Nevertheless, he kept on writing. And writing. Under his own name, plus several pen names, he churned out up to eight books a year.

And he continued improving.

These days he’s quite a good writer with a nicely lyrical style that occasionally sings beautifully. Over the years, Dean Koontz has had ten hardcovers and 13 paperbacks on the New York Times bestseller list.

When he began, he wasn’t a very good writer, but he WAS a good businessman. He knew the power of keeping doggedly at it. AND he appreciated the wisdom of finding a market – a group of buyers who want to spend money on something specific – and putting a product in front of them that they want to buy.

I hope you paid attention to that last paragraph because there’s tremendous value in it.

So whether you write, or you coach, or you do anything else, here are four questions for you:

1. Do you really believe what you’re doing gives value?
2. Are you persistent? Or do you get restless and want to wander off and do something else?
3. Do you have a long-range vision of how you want to impact your world in 10, 20, 40 years?
4. Do you know specifically, exactly who your target market is?

Answer these four questions (with anything other than “no”) and you’ll probably have a very good business.

Cheers from warm and smiling Thailand,
Charles

By the way, one of the very best resources for authors is Dan Poynter’s Para Publishing website. Here’s a page where you can access an entire library online about writing, publishing, selling, promoting and fulfilling.

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Oh, and John Harricharan’s Power Pause ebook? He once tried to retire it. Just took it off the market. But people kept writing to him – they wanted it back – so he put it online again.

And now John has converted it into a video (actually a series of 12 videos). You can view the entire Power Pause online for free.

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And if you’re wondering what it takes to be a successful writer, here’s an article by Dee Power (very well known and respected on Warrior Forum) which tells you the nine characteristics you must have (or cultivate) to be a successful writer.

True, in their present form, some of your habits may be royally screwing up your life, but here’s an interesting little question for you… who says a habit has to stay in its present form? This little question uncovers the edge of a huge, huge secret. Here it is: you can actually keep your present “bad” habits, but simply adjust them slightly, build on them a bit, and as you retune them, they could become some of your strongest “good” habits.

What Habits Really Are

But first a word about habits in general. You’ve probably already realized that habits and skills are basically the same animal. Each one is an action (or a thought) which you’ve repeated so many times that you’ve gotten very good at it. In fact it’s become automatic.

So….

Let’s say you don’t believe you can become a fast-starter or a high-achiever because you have a conflicting habit standing in your way. You truly would like to be a get-it-done kind of person, but you’ve been a procrastinator all your life. Okay, relax. That’s no problem.

Remember, every habit is a skill, something you’ve practiced for so long that you’re really, really good at it.

Now, once you have that procrastinating habit (that skill), you are never going to erase it from your brain – no way that’s ever going to happen. If you’re a carpenter, are you likely to forget what to do with a hammer and a saw?

Skills and Habits Never Die

Many decades ago, I had a small painting contracting business. And even after all these years, I still know how to paint a house or wallpaper a room. I can still walk in and immediately see exactly how to set up a job and do it.

Of course, my hands would not be as skillful at cutting in around windows or painting trim, but I can guarantee I’d be better at it, right now, than I was when I first started. I still have the embedded know-how and muscle memories, and barring amnesia, they’ll stay with me till I depart this world.

So let’s say you have a bit of a procrastination habit. You’re not going to delete that skill, no matter what. However, what you CAN do is alter it, add onto it, modify it, repurpose it, and re-shape it to better support your current goals.

Erase it? No way. But you can recruit that habit to your side, and then expand it by adding on a few new refinements.

My painting skills don’t include bicycle frames, space shuttles, cars nor stage sets. But with my existing background, it’d be fairly simple to retrain me.

Unrecognized Assets

And if you’ve got a seemingly “bad” habit, then don’t fret because that’s actually no barrier at all. In fact, it could be a huge head start for you.

Any lifelong procrastinator is already highly skilled in self motivation. And persistence. And unswerving aim. You doubt this? Consider… if you’re in an elevator and you accidentally step on someone’s toes, they ask you to kindly get the **** off their foot, and you do. Furthermore, from that time on, you probably become more aware of where you’re stepping. You’re able to change this behavior because it’s accidental. But habits are different.

As a procrastinator, when you’re late keeping a promise or handing in an assignment, you’re literally stepping on the toes of someone’s schedule… or at the very least you’re walking on their feelings. And as a procrastinator, you already know, from long experience, how others are going to react.

But you keep on stepping on their toes. And their schedules. And their feelings.

Now, please understand, I’m not guilt-tripping you here. Instead, I want you to realize just how highly motivated you have to be to face others’ anger, resentment and disappointment. And yet you persist. Year after year, again and again you put things off. Nobody around you likes it. YOU don’t even like it.

You are highly trained in motivation, persistence and singleness of purpose. Those are powerful skills – when used in a slightly different way.

So then, the sixty-four dollar question is, “How do I do that? How do I change the way I’m using my motivation, persistence and singleness of purpose?”

What if it Were Easy?

If there’s a new skill you want, here’s a novel suggestion – simply start doing it – and add it in on top of some other, more-or-less related habit. Or even a habit that’s seemingly the opposite of what you want.

Let’s take procrastination for example. How the heck do we add anything on to a habit of not doing anything? Well, it’s basically impossible… as long as we insist on looking at it from that angle.

But what if we shifted our view just a bit? What if we looked at another side of procrastination? We could choose to see it as the powerful persistence we maintain in the face of opposition from friends, family, employer – basically everybody – and yet we persist in this behavior.

So let’s say you have a project you’ve agreed to do. A lawn to mow, a car to wash and wax, a big party to plan for, whatever. But after a bit you realize you’re procrastinating. Putting things off.

First, we already know that you’ve tried to “motivate” yourself in the past and it hasn’t worked very well. So it won’t hurt if we try something different for a change, will it?

Let’s try this: deliberately and consciously congratulate yourself for your determination and persistence. Praise yourself lavishly. (Isn’t this the exact opposite of what you usually do to yourself?) Pour on the self approval. What we want to do is create a new emotional meaning for our behavior. This de-couples the old emotional meaning, and immediately begins turning this habit into something slightly different and new. This opens the door for still more small changes. Right away, we’re breaking the old pattern and making way to reshape it.

Next, let’s say something like, “And to help make my persistence even stronger, I’m going to do (some tiny little beginning piece of the task you’ve been avoiding).” You might even add additional explanation to yourself, such as, “And with this act, I’m making my persistence and determination even tougher and more unconquerable.”

One Small Step Forward – That’s All

And then do that one tiny little piece. Nothing more – at least not for a few minutes. Stand and bask in the fact that you have the power to shape and strengthen your power of persistence and achievement. Now you’re treating this habit as a positive, desirable part of yourself.

Now, is this going to transform you overnight into a whirling dynamo of activity? Maybe not. Not overnight, anyway. But it’s the first step of a journey in the right direction.

Fact is, it doesn’t even matter how well you do this at first. Building up to a high level of skill and control – that comes later. The first days are for building the habit of starting and doing.

So start. Do. No matter how clumsily, just begin doing it.

Or maybe you’d sort of like to be that fast-starting high achiever, but something inside you drags its feet at the mere thought. Instead of grappling and struggling against that feeling, let’s do something else.

One of the markers of a fast-starting high-achieving personality is to know in advance exactly what you’re going to do first thing in the morning, then upon arising, to do it.

Paper Adds Power

The thing to do then, is to start doing your own list every evening. Not as a high-achiever would do it (not at first), but in your usual, easygoing manner. You don’t have to shoot out of bed in the morning and leap into feverish, hyper-activity. Drag your feet if you’d like – even make a bit of a game out of it – but just do the things on your list. Do them as nearly first in your day as possible. Yes, I know you need to caffeine up and go tinkle first, but then…

And don’t make the items on your list too heavy. Maybe only one or two things. Maybe not even big things. What we’re doing here is forming a pattern to build on – we’re not making you a high achiever overnight. First comes the slightest little shift in self image and confidence. Later comes the bigger stuff. Doing things step by step is the realistic, real-world way.

I want you to become acutely aware of this one thing – the early days of skill-building are not for high skill, they’re for building the basic foundation, the pattern of behavior. Later you’ll polish that basic skill till you become as good as you’re dreaming of. You can’t polish anything that’s not yet in existence, so start at the beginning. What a concept, huh?

If your goal is to hit bullseyes – to aim at objectives and achieve them consistently – then start aiming and trying.

Will your aiming ability be lousy when you first start? Well yeah, probably. But keep on and it WILL get better.

The only way your aim won’t get better is not to start, not to try. Only after you’ve built the basic skill will you be able to start refining it. The world is chock full of bullseyes, just waiting for your aim and your achievement.

Considering how small this tiny little shift is, would there be ANYTHING keeping you from starting today, right now?

Cheers from warm and smiling Thailand,
Charles

P.S. If you agree, or if you disagree, I’d love to hear your comments on this.

But before you start reminding yourself of all the times you’ve fallen short in the discipline department, and how you may never have what it takes… just stop.

I have some good news for you. The past is not the future, and the way you did things in the past is not an accurate indicator of what you can do today. In fact, if you’ve had disappointments – even failures – in the past, you should be glad. Those let-downs can give you more motivation (not less) to try harder in changing things for the better.

So with the understanding that self-discipline CAN be built into a strong personal habit, let’s begin, shall we?

This is the first segment of guest writer Faye Hollands’ three-part series on how to create greater natural discipline in all that we do. Now let’s look at…

How to Build Self-Discipline Fast – The Key to Success
By Faye Hollands

Napoleon Hill once also said that “all things are possible” with self-discipline and after spending a lifetime studying successful people he knew what he was talking about. So if you’re struggling to achieve your goals here’s how to increase your level of self-discipline and start achieving the things you want in life…

Moods, Appetites and Passions

Self-discipline is the ability to get yourself to take action regardless of your emotional state. As Stephen R. Covey once wrote, “the undisciplined are slaves to moods, appetites and passions”, and without self-discipline the knowledge, skill or opportunity you have is likely to be of little or no use. Put it this way, if you’re trying to lose weight there’s no point in knowing all the right and wrong things to eat and the most effective exercise regimes if you have no self-discipline to put them into action!

So how can you increase your level of self-discipline? In this 3-part series I’m going to take you through the key steps to increasing your level of self-discipline so that you can start taking action regardless of how you feel.

Step 1: Self-Knowledge

Discipline is about doing what is best for yourself regardless of how you feel in the moment, so it’s important to have a clear sense of self-knowledge and awareness in order to practice self-discipline effectively.

To do this you need to decide what behaviour is required to achieve your goals and values. The first step for most people in doing this is to spend some quality time analysing what your goals and values actually are.

Regarding values, these are the emotional states you would like to experience on a consistent basis and your list of values reflects the one’s you WANT in your life rather than the ones you think you SHOULD have. As most of my clients will tell you, values are far more complex than a short list of words that roll off the end of your tongue, so if you’d like to know more about how to determine your values simply send me an email.

I highly recommend taking the time to get clear on what your goals, dreams and ambitions are, and the values that are important to you – this crucial information provides the backbone to determining what needs to be done in order to achieve your goals and therefore where you need to apply self-discipline.

Step 2: Commitment

I’m sure it comes as no surprise that it’s not enough to simply write out your goals and values, you need to be committed to achieving them. If you’re NOT committed you won’t see any problem with “having another drink”, “hitting the snooze button one more time” or “popping out for that last cigarette” …. you get the drift!

Planning helps increase commitment because it allows you to focus on what’s really important and ensure that relevant tasks become part of your day allowing you to move closer to achieving your goals. Put bluntly, people don’t generally get what they want by ambling through life, hoping, wishing and waiting – it takes commitment and organisation to get there.

If you struggle with commitment, start by making a conscious decision to do what you say you’re going to do, and plan a specific time in your schedule to get it done. Give that time the same respect you would a client meeting, and keep track of how often you follow through with your commitments. Remember – what gets measured gets improved!

Next week I’ll continue to dive more deeply into the keys to self-discipline, and if you’d like my updates sent direct to your email simply follow the links below and subscribe to my Outshine Consulting newsletter – a blast of inspiration to keep you on track to success!

Written by Faye Hollands, Director at Outshine Consulting and The Success Rules.com. Faye specialises in working with entrepreneurs, business owners and ambitious professionals who want to achieve significant success in the fastest, easiest and most economical way possible.

At this moment you are just one click away from discovering Faye’s time-tested secrets to accelerating your personal and professional success. Simply click the following link to receive FREE INSTANT ACCESS to a recording of Faye’s recent teleseminar and discover her proven strategies on “How To Actually Achieve Your Goals in 2009″. Click here: http://www.outshineconsulting.com.au/Download.html

Alternatively please visit http://www.outshineconsulting.com.au where you can enjoy a wealth of free coaching resources to help you accelerate your success.

Back to Charles:
Simple, huh?

First step: know who you are. Figure out what’s really, really important to you – your core values – and then base all your decisions on those essential values. This lets you know instantly if a decision or a goal doesn’t fit you well. Result – fewer and fewer poor decisions. More and more goals that really, actually, honestly turn you on, get you excited and kick you into action.

Second step: make sure you’re commited to your goals. Let’s face it, without commitment, none of us is going to work on a goal anyway, so this knack of commitment is a crucial part of the skill we’re building in self-discipline.

Ready for the second article in this series? Read on.

Cheers from warm and smiling Thailand,
Charles

They are different, though – quite different – and each has its own strengths and weaknesses. Each is good for some situations and not for others. Once we learn these distinctions, it becomes easier to master the circumstances of our life.

Just as a carpenter understands the differences between a drawknife and a plane, or between a keyhole saw and a coping saw, in just the same way we’re learning the various situations that require will power on one hand, or self-discipline on the other.

In the second article of this series, coach Faye Hollands shows us how to use our will power most effectively, and why misapplying it can take us down a disappointing path.

Don’t Rely on Will Power to Get Results – Here’s How to Use a Burst of Motivation Smartly!
By Faye Hollands

Al Tomsik, the great sales trainer, said ‘Success is tons of discipline’ and if you study those that have achieved true success it becomes apparent that discipline is no longer a dirty-word – it’s ‘the master key to riches’ (Napoleon Hill). So today I’m continuing my series on how to increase self-discipline by focusing on willpower…

Start Forming Positive Habits

There’s no substitute for willpower, despite what the commercials say! We all know that ‘fast and easy’ diet pills aren’t the solution to a healthy lifestyle, but it’s a lack of buyer’s willpower that helps those products become successful!

The problem with willpower is that it provides a quick boost of motivation, which can burn out quickly, and if you don’t know how to use that burst intelligently then your level of self-discipline can fall by the wayside.

Given that willpower is typically a thrust forward, rather than a steady pace, it’s important not to tackle your challenges in a way that requires a high level of willpower every day – frankly, it’s unsustainable. Success breeds success so you need a strategy that you can keep up and maintain momentum.

Willpower is great for setting the scene on how to move forward to achieve your goals, and then using that initial thrust of motivation to get moving. So for example, lets say you want to change careers. The first step is to identify all the various targets you’ll need in order to achieve success. You need to determine what career you want to move into and then what skills you need to develop in order to make that move.

Secondly, you might feel that you’d be tempted to stay in the ‘same old job’ if you didn’t improve your financial situation so you put together a budget or see a financial planner. You set aside time each weekend to study and you join relevant associations and groups to expand your network in the industry you’re interested in. You get a coach or mentor so that you can learn more about career transition, and you meet with several recruiters to get their expert advice on how to break into that industry. And so on … all of this information goes into a written plan on how to change your career.

The Right Way to Use Willpower

Then it’s time for action – and fast! With focus, you could put a lot of these tasks into action in one day, and by the end of the day you will have used your willpower not to change jobs, but to put into place the conditions you need to make a career change easier.

The key point here is not to use willpower to make the actual change, but to attack your environment in order to set yourself up for success. The same goes for setting up a business, working towards promotion, losing weight, stopping smoking … basically anything you want to achieve.

By using willpower in this way you will create momentum, and as you regularly take action, habits will start forming. Once a habit is formed you need very little willpower to keep moving forward, which means you’ll find it easier and easier to achieve your goals. The knock-on effect is huge!

Written by Faye Hollands, Director at Outshine Consulting and The Success Rules. Faye specialises in working with entrepreneurs, business owners and ambitious professionals who want to achieve significant success in the fastest, easiest and most economical way possible.

At this moment you are just one click away from discovering Faye’s time-tested strategies to accelerate your personal and professional success. Click the following link to receive FREE INSTANT ACCESS to a LIVE recording of Faye’s recent teleseminar on “How To Actually Achieve Your Goals”. Click here now for immediate access: http://www.outshineconsulting.com.au/Download.html

Back to Charles:
Will power is similar to short-term enthusiasm. It’ll carry us forward in a flurry of energy, but it’s not meant to be sustained forever. It’s good for short, intense, tightly focused tasks such as planning and setup, but if we’re trying to do the entire job on will power alone, we’ll run out of steam and wonder where all our determination disappeared to.

We must know our selves and our tools. Know their strong points as well as their limits. Once we understand that, then we’re better prepared to run our lives more successfully.

In the next part, we’ll look at the trait of action.

Cheers from warm and smiling Thailand,
Charles