I read with excitement an article by Steve Pavlina on how he feels after he stops using Facebook for 30 days.

He was spot on and I have to agree with some of his points. The most apparent one is nothing beats face-to-face communication. Also using Facebook can be very addictive and detrimental to your productivity.

I have reproduced the whole article here. Enjoy and more importantly learn why you should not let Facebook take over your life.

It’s been about 30 days since I quit Facebook, so I wanted to share an update on what that’s been like. Many others also quit the service last month, and many more are on the fence as to whether they should do the same.

Here are some realizations I’ve had as a result of leaving Facebook after 2+ years as an active user. I’m sure some of these realizations can be generalized to social networking as a whole, but I’m going to focus mainly on my personal experience with Facebook. I can’t guarantee you’ll find much overlap between my realizations and your experiences, but I’m sure some people will see similar patterns.

Facebook communication is mostly low-priority noise.

When I dropped Facebook, I noticed that the communication volume in my life dropped significantly. However, I felt no drop in the level of significant and meaningful communication. What I seemed to lose was mostly a lot of noise.

Generally speaking, communicating via Facebook is a shallow experience. You read streams of brief messages from a variety of people, but the messages don’t contain much depth. Most are trivial and mundane. Some are clever or witty. Very little of the information you’ll digest on Facebook is memorable and life-changing. Using Facebook can still give you a feeling of connectedness, but the long-term benefits are negligible.

Facebook essentially gives you the emotional sense that you’re doing something worthwhile (i.e. connecting with people), but when you step back and look at your actions and results from a more objective perspective, it becomes clear that you’re really just spinning your wheels.

Consequently, when I dropped Facebook, I let go of a lot of trivial communication, but I don’t have the sense that anything truly valuable has been lost.

Impulse sharing comes with a price.

In the weeks after quitting Facebook, I still felt the urge to share certain things with my online “friends”. I’d have a clever thought and feel, I should post this. Or I’d take a really cool photo and think, I ought to share this.

In the past I’d have shared those tidbits out of habit. Then I’d check back in later and read through a few dozen comments people left. And there would be a little emotional reward in having that sense of connection.

But without the option to impulse-share during the past 30 days, I allowed those feelings to come and go without acting on them. I noticed that there was a consequence to sharing in real-time. I wasn’t being very present in the moment. While things were happening around me, I was off thinking about my online posse and what I might wish to share with them.

When I stopped acting on the desire to impulse-share, I become more present to what I was doing in the moment. Instead of being distracted by thoughts of connecting with people at a distance, I did a better job of connecting with the people right in front of me. I felt more immersed in my experiences. That was a subtle change at first, but it feels good.

During the past two years, I’d often feel obligated to share frequent updates with my online “friends”, most of whom I’d never met in person. If I didn’t post an update for a while, some would complain. If I shared something cool, people would thank me for it.

Now that I’ve been rolling back this conditioning, I can see what a dead end it’s been. I allowed social media to condition me to behave a certain way, but it’s not a conscious choice I would have made otherwise. So it’s nice to regain conscious control over this part of my life.

Even after 30 days, the desire to impulse-share is still there, but it’s growing fainter, replaced by a growing desire to “be here now,” fully present in what’s going on in front of me. I still like sharing, but it’s better to do so thoughtfully instead of impulsively.

Friends lose their individuality and become part of a collective.

Facebook compacts so much communication into a single stream, and this can have a depersonalizing effect. As I continued to use the service to interact with people en masse, I gradually began thinking of my online friends as a network, stream, or blob, as opposed to valuing each person as a unique individual.

When I’d post a status update, who was the intended recipient? Which friend was I updating? In truth I wasn’t sharing with anyone in particular. I was simply sharing with the collective.

If I posted something on a friend’s wall, I wasn’t just communicating with that friend. I was communicating with their posse too. If I used the private messaging feature, it was just one message among dozens. Friends were becoming like interchangeable drones.

One thing that surprised me was just how few of my Facebook friends I actually missed when I left the service. It was difficult to think of my old Facebook friends as individuals. They were all just part of the collective whole. When I unplugged from the collective, it wasn’t like I’d lost any individual friends. I can barely remember the names of all the people I used to connect with there. I’d already lost the ability to distinguish Third of Five from Seven of Nine.

Dropping Facebook wasn’t at all like disconnecting from hundreds of individual friends. I didn’t miss anyone in particular because my Facebook experience was like connecting with a collective. I noticed the absence of the collective when I left, but I didn’t miss it per se.

The exception is that if I knew specific Facebook friends from real life, meaning that we’d met in person and had at least one good conversation together, then I could still see them as individuals. But I don’t need Facebook to stay in touch with those people anyway, so I didn’t feel like I was losing any of these connections by dropping Facebook.

I realize this might sound rather strange, but it’s the best I can explain it. My Facebook page was maxed out at 5K friends and was very active. If I’d only had 50-100 friends, then it might not have felt like I was interacting with a collective.

The feeling that I was interacting with a collective began to feel rather creepy, as you might imagine. I’m glad to be off of Facebook, since I really don’t wish to be assimilated. It’s nice not to feel like there’s an endless stream of other people’s thoughts flowing through my mind all the time. I can hear my own thoughts once again, and they’re a lot more relaxed and coherent.

Facebook creates a false and unsatisfying sense of socializing.

I’m somewhere between an introvert and an extrovert. As a child I was very introverted. In kindergarten I was the kid who played in the sandbox all by himself. I don’t think I was lonely. I just found sand toys more interesting than people.

As I aged, however, I gradually became more extroverted. Partly this was by choice. I pushed myself to develop my social skills and to embrace what I once avoided.

It’s said that you’re an introvert if you recharge your batteries while being alone, and you’re an extrovert if you recharge in the company of others. That metaphor doesn’t seem to work for me though. I prefer balance, usually by taking turns. If I spend a lot of time alone, I feel a strong desire to go out and be social. But after a very social week, I feel the desire to retreat back to my cave and enjoy more solitary time.

Being active on Facebook had the effect of filling my social bucket. But it was essentially a false fill, like drinking salt water instead of fresh water. Instead of providing a real sense of connection that satisfies, it made me think I was out there being social, but I’d still be “hungry” afterwards. Facebook activity could never recharge my batteries in the way that face to face interaction could.

When I dropped Facebook, I began feeling genuinely more social when I’d go out. Even when running errands, I’d notice myself chatting and joking around with people more often. When I was active on Facebook, I wouldn’t do that as much because I had the false sense that I was being social by interacting with my online posse.

Facebook is computer interaction, not human interaction.

The reality of using Facebook is that you’re just typing and viewing insignificant bits of information on a digital device (computer, cell phone, iStuff, etc).

The next time you use such a service, pause for a moment and do a reality check. What are you actually doing? Who’s with you? How is this advancing your life? What if you do this for 20 more years? What do you expect to gain from it?

You can call it social networking, but it’s not really a social experience if you’re actually alone sitting at a computer. Real socialization is face to face.

There’s a tremendous richness to in-person socialization that just doesn’t translate over the Internet, at least not yet.

A ***hug*** isn’t a real hug. A smiley isn’t a real smile. All you’re doing is pushing buttons.

I’ll go so far as to say that Facebook isn’t social networking. It’s anti-social retreating.

If you want to disagree with me about this, you’ll have say it to my face. If you try to tell me off by typing something on a digital device, you’re only proving me right. Evil, I know.

A friend isn’t necessarily a “friend”.

I can be friendly with people from all walks of life, but when it comes to which people are most compatible as my long-term friends, the Facebook pool isn’t a good fit for the kinds of lasting friendships I really wish to cultivate.

The main issue is the age difference. Most of my Facebook friends were in their 20s. I’m sure that’s a big part of the service’s demographic. It’s also a big part of my blog’s readership, and many of my articles are targeted to the needs of that age group. I already have many friends in their 20s, but if I draw too many of my friends from this pool, it comes with a price.

I can relate to what it’s like to be a 20-something these days, so I’m able to be a friend to someone in that age group, but it’s rare that such people are able to be a good friend to me. They simply don’t have the life experience to give the kind of value I gain from a good friendship.

In your 20s it’s common to do a lot of soul-searching and experimenting to figure out what to do with your life. To get the career part of your life going well, you basically have to figure out 4 things: (1) what you can do to earn a good income, (2) what skills and talents you can develop to a high degree, (3) what you enjoy doing, (4) what you can contribute. It takes some effort to figure these out. Then it takes more effort to massage yourself into the area of intersection, such that you can earn a good income doing what you love and what you’re good at, and thereby make a meaningful contribution too. Most of the 20-somethings I know are still struggling to figure this out, so they can’t be of much help to me in working on what lies beyond this.

I like having younger friends. They help me stay young at heart, and they help me keep my thinking from becoming stale. Their needs and concerns provide me with an endless supply of ideas. But I also need older, more experienced friends, especially people in their 40s, 50s, and beyond. I gain so much from their wisdom and knowledge. Having the right balance is key. Otherwise you become socially stagnant, and the sparkle drains from your social life. Instead of appreciating your friends, you start taking them for granted. I noticed I was beginning to fall into this trap last year, so I knew it was time to shuffle the deck and rebalance this part of my life.

The problem with Facebook is that it greatly unbalanced the social part of my life, skewing it in the direction of spending lots of time with people nearly half my age. This dragged my thinking backwards in terms of maturity. When I dropped Facebook, my social life began to rebalance itself automatically. This is causing other positive ripples as well. Many problems are easier to solve when you approach them with a 40-something’s discipline or a 50-something’s patience as opposed to a 20-something’s youthful energy.

Ask yourself what your life would be like if 80-90% of your social interactions were with people roughly half your age. Can you see how that might unbalance your social life?

For many years this has been a challenging part of my life to balance. It took a while to recognize and accept that my online “friends” and my best in-person friends come from different pools and move in different circles.

Most of my Facebook “friends” wouldn’t have been very compatible as in-person friends. We wouldn’t have had enough in common to develop a particularly deep friendship, and the interactions would have been too unbalanced. So it seems odd to refer to them as friends in the same way I’d refer to my in-person friends.

I’ve learned the hard way that I can’t just fill up my social bucket with an endless supply of 20-something friends and expect good results, even if they’re very intelligent, growth-oriented, open-hearted 20-somethings. This kind of imbalance happens by default when I leave too many doors and windows open since the bulk of my online readership is in their 20s. If I allow too many of my typical readers to become my friends, my social life becomes unbalanced and stagnant, even as it maintains the illusion of freshness. It took a long time to recognize that this was happening.

In order to rebalance this part of my life, I’ve had to deliberately close some of those accessible avenues, such that I can spend more time connecting with people who can add serious value to my life and help me keep growing (peers, mentors, etc). I like having some 20-something friends, but I can’t have hundreds of them. So that’s one reason Facebook really had to go — using Facebook was a lame attempt on my part to expect that my peers would come from the same pool as my readers.

Facebook is ruled by addicts.

This is probably obvious, but the Facebook “friends” that you’ll interact with most frequently will tend to be those who are the most addicted. They post more status updates and comments because they spend a lot of time on the service. So you end up giving the most attention to those who are the greatest addicts.

In short, you end up spending the most time interacting with the people who are the worst influences — highly unproductive people who don’t value their time. This can have many adverse effects, such as causing you to become more addicted to the service and to feel the urge to post more often just for the sake of posting.

If your strongest connections on Facebook are the most addicted, how is that going to influence you over time? The closer you become with those people, the more you’ll get sucked into spending more time on the service.

After I left Facebook, I asked myself, Should I really be giving so much attention to the greatest social networking addicts?

While even the biggest addicts can be very intelligent, helpful, and growth-oriented, their addiction tends to sap their ambition, causing them to make little forward progress in life. It should come as no surprise that many of these people are financially stagnant. It’s hard to improve your finances when you devote so much time to non-income generating activities each day.

When I dropped Facebook, I also dropped off the radar of some of the biggest social networking addicts. I’m no longer subject to their influence, which was probably stronger than I’d care to admit. Breaking free of this cycle was a wise choice. I should have done it sooner.

Facebook is lazy socialization.

Social networking makes it easy to become socially lazy. With a few clicks, you can delude yourself into thinking you have an active social life.

But is that the real story? Are you enjoying some intelligent face time with these friends? Or are you merely exchanging witty banter? Do you deeply value these friendships? Are you having the social experiences you desire? Or are you just wasting time clicking and typing and telling yourself you’re being social?

What else could you be doing instead of social networking?

You could go dancing or see a show with your boyfriend or girlfriend. No one special in your life? Wonder why… A person with halfway decent social skills can change that in a day. Has the Internet become your social hiding place? Does the thought of going outside and socializing with strangers make you anxious? If so, you can overcome that weakness with practice.

You could have a nice chat with a wealthy mentor about how to improve your finances. No wealthy friends? Think you’re going to meet them on Facebook?

It’s a good idea to pause and take a look at your social results. Has social networking transformed your life for the better? Has it helped bring empowering relationships, valuable contacts, and intelligent mentors into your life? Or does it leave you drifting in a sea of social drifters?

I found that spending more time on Facebook didn’t produce much value for me socially. I did make some interesting contacts now and then, but it wasn’t worth the time spent.

It’s true that in-person networking is more challenging. If your social skills are weak, you can pretend to be a social butterfly online just by throwing a lot of time at it. But you’re still going to be limited in the long run by your ability to connect with people face to face. Make sure you don’t let your social skills atrophy to the point where you end up spending more and more time alone, vainly trying to feed the illusion that you have a real social life.

Be sure to keep challenging yourself socially. If you only do what’s easy, you’ll grow weaker with each passing year.

Facebook is an expensive way to increase visibility.

I know there’s a great deal of hype about the business value of social networking. Much of that hype is circulated by those who are trying to make money from it. Be wary of taking advice about gold from those who make a living selling picks and shovels.

From a business standpoint, one supposed benefit of social networking is that it can raise your visibility. Raising your visibility is great. If you’re more visible (among the right people), you can attract more business. That part is all good.

But not all visibility-raising methods are the same. If you use Facebook to raise your visibility, it comes with a hefty price. As you raise your visibility, you also increase your accessibility.

For example, if you have a Facebook page, then you also have an inbox. At this time Facebook makes it impossible to disable the inbox. People can email you there. People I’d never met would email me on Facebook each day. Why? Because they could. Facebook made it easy for them to do so. They didn’t need my permission. Facebook would even let non-friends email me whenever they felt like it. Maybe that’s a bug, but that’s how it worked from my perspective.

If you have a Facebook page with a wall on it, then people can post comments on your wall. If you have a fan page, someone can “like” your fan page, spam your wall, and then “unlike” your fan page, and it’s impossible to ban them from repeated abuse. You just have to deal with it.

At low numbers, more accessibility isn’t so bad. Maybe you’d like the chance to communicate with more people. That’s all fine.

At higher numbers, the visibility-accessibility linkage becomes untenable. The more visible you are on Facebook, the more people have access to interact with you in some way, whether it’s by sending you private messages, posting messages on your wall, or inviting you to events and groups. Beyond a certain point, this kind of contact becomes impractical to deal with in any meaningful way.

I like that Facebook may have helped to increase my visibility by introducing people to my work who might otherwise never have learned about it. However, the price tag for that gain in visibility is a corresponding increase in accessibility. That price turned out to be way too high for me. I like helping people, but I can’t serve as a personal friend and therapist to thousands of individuals. That isn’t a sustainable way for me to contribute.

When I dropped Facebook, I breathed a major sigh of relief. In a way I’m still sighing 30 days later. It really is a great relief not to be so accessible anymore. I finally feel like I have the space to think about what I desire to contribute of my own accord instead of feeling overwhelmed with an endless flood of requests from others. The visibility gains that Facebook provides just aren’t worth the price. There are much easier and more effective ways to build visibility that don’t yield an accessibility penalty, such as doing interviews.

What About Twitter?

As for my Twitter account, the jury’s still out, but for now I’m still using it.

Twitter doesn’t create the same accessibility problem because by following zero people there, I’m not forced to have an inbox on the service. Even if I did have an inbox, it wouldn’t be bad because people could only send 140-character messages. But I find it best not to have an inbox there at all, so I never need to worry about people expecting me to reply to their direct messages. A few people apparently consider it poor Twitter etiquette to have thousands of followers and not follow anyone back. I don’t lose any sleep over it.

Occasionally I’ll skim through the public messages that people address to me, especially if I posted a question for feedback purposes, but I normally don’t pay much attention to the @stevepavlina replies since they’re mostly re-tweets of my own stuff. So if you tried to get my attention by publicly posting a message to me on Twitter, there’s a good chance I never saw it.

For now I’m okay using Twitter for posting broadcast-style messages because Twitter doesn’t force upon me the scaling headaches that Facebook does. If I double my Twitter followers, the service doesn’t require me to spend any more time there to keep my account tidy.

I nuked my Linkedin account at the same time I left Facebook. Linkedin is supposed to be a business networking service, and I had about 350 contacts there, but I always found that service utterly useless, so it was a no-brainer to dump it.

Try a 30-Day Facebook Fast

If you have any doubts about your own Facebook usage, I highly recommend you to try a 30-day Facebook fast.

It’s easy to do this because Facebook lets you (temporarily or permanently) deactivate your account without deleting your data. So if you decide you want to go back to using it later, you can always log back in again, and everything can be restored with a few clicks, including your wall, photos, etc.

As for the how-to, all you do is login to your Facebook account, and click Account -> Account Settings. Then at the bottom of that page, click “deactivate.” Follow the instructions from there. This won’t delete your data, but it will take your profile offline. You’ll become invisible on the service. To restore it later, just login again and click a similar link to bring it back.

If you really want to stay in touch with certain people from Facebook who don’t already have an alternate means of contacting you, you can send them a private message before you deactivate your account to let them know how to reach you during your hiatus.

I’m a big advocate of testing. If you’re an active Facebook user, and you go 30 days without it, you’ll gain a much clearer understanding of its role in your life. In my case it was obvious within a few days that the benefits I got from using it weren’t worth the effort, but there were other subtleties I didn’t notice until weeks later.

This is your life. It’s up to you to ensure that you’re getting good value from your online activities. Don’t just go through the motions because you’ve been conditioned by some service to behave a certain way.

As for myself, I’m sure it’s obvious that I have no plans to return to Facebook. Resistance is NOT futile.

*** hugs *** 

On the last day of my recent trip to Thailand last week, we were looking for a place to have breakfast. It was not easy to find something light to fill the stomach as the only things they serve are very complete. Such as noodles, pasta, or rice.

Finally we settled at one of the cafes. While waiting for the food, I looked around the café. One poster struck me. And the title was 22 Suggestions for Success. The word “success” was too big to miss.

I thought to myself: “This is weird. What has a success poster got to do with a restaurant?”

I made a quick scan at the poster and the content struck a chord in me. I felt that what it said in the poster was so true. And I believe everybody must have it as a manual for happy and meaningful life.

(While you read to the end of it, you will find the answer to my question above.)

Though you may find it humorous, the poster carries an extremely important message and reminder to all of us.

It sums up pretty well what really matters in our lives during our stay here on this planet… of course, except the last point.

Take a look at the poster.

One of the best investments you can make is knowledge. By picking up some books you can change your life like never before. Therefore making reading as part of your habit is very important.

I’d like to share with you here some of the books that have played a role in shaping my thinking and ultimately have changed my life forever.

1. How to win friends and influence people. (or direct link) By Dale Carnegie. In fact, get your hand on as many books as possible by Dale, they are gems.
2. The 4-hour work week. (or direct link) By Timothy Ferriss.
3. Rich dad poor dad. (or direct link) By Robert Kiyosaki. The best from Robert. However I notice subsequent books by the same author have deteriorated in quality over the years.
4. The secret of selling anything. By Harry Browne. Despite the low price, it’s the best book I have ever read about selling.
5. The power of focus. (or direct link) By Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen, and Les Hewitt.
6. Now, discover your strengths. (or direct link) By Marcus Buckingham and Donald O. Clifton.
7. A technique for producing ideas. (or direct link) By James Webb Young.
8. Secrets of power persuasion for salespeople. (or direct link) By Roger Dawson. Not only for salespeople but for everyone who needs to get something for something. Powerful techniques are found in this book.

The list by no means ends here. Feel free to explore other books while you read the titles above. Who knows you might discover other powerful books as well.

Happy reading!

I don’t claim to be a resume expert. But from my personal experience, I am able to tell what a good resume is from the bad. I have been on both sides of employment: employer and employee. I had been an IT consultant before and resume was critical then to sell to your clients.

In my experience, a good resume is pleasing to look at, easy to read, and contains all the information necessary to know whether or not the person represented by said resume can do the job in an effective and efficient manner.  A good resume should look professional and reflect the abilities of the person it is meant to represent without a lot of fluff in between the lines.

Before getting down to writing your resume, bear this in mind: your prospective employer makes the hiring decisions and they are entirely invested in ensuring that you are the right one for the job.  This person will care about whether or not you can do a good job for that company and so this is the one you are writing your resume for. You want to be sure that you are the right candidate for the job. You want to be sure you know everything there is to know about this company.  You want to understand exactly, which qualities are needed to be the right candidate for this job.

A good resume will include only pertinent information about you – the job applicant.  It is written in a professional and positive manner focusing on education, abilities, skills, and talents that can benefit your future employer.  Of course, that can be a little difficult to do on paper, but not when you know what words to use.  A thesaurus can be a life saver here when you are looking for the right words. Your resume is a one or two page story of your abilities and experience that will speak for you on a potential employer’s desk.  You want him or her to call YOU, so it should stand out and look unique while still being professional.

Never, ever, make any job sound like it is a mundane, boring position. It doesn’t matter if you are standing behind the counter at your local Starbucks, you can still focus on the positive aspects of that job.  For example, when you make the coffee, you are responsible for quality control.  When you give it to the customer, you are insuring good customer service.  When you ring it up on the cash register, you are responsible for cash flow.  Any job can sound much better when you “flower it up” and be creative in doing so!

Use a font that is easy to read but unique. If you are learning how to make a resume in Microsoft Word, you will have a variety of fonts to choose from.  Do not just stick with the default font (Times New Roman).  You want to stand out, so pick another font, but make sure it is easy to read and not too “fancy”.

You will write a resume that does much more than just inform; you will write a resume that compels to action! Your resume will become as a good bargaining tool. Your prospective employer will be interested and will stand up and take notice! This is exactly what you want.

If you want to know how to make a resume that is professional yet makes you look wonderful, there are a lot of great tools on the Internet that can help you along the way.  Microsoft Word even includes some resume templates that you can just fill in with your personal information and be on your way.  I can’t personally show you how to make a resume, but you sure can do it if you use the resources at your fingertips and be well on your way to a new and wonderful career!

I just came back from a 10-day trip to Melbourne.

And it was my first time there. Boy it was a love-at-first-sight affair with Melbourne.

In that trip, I completed more than 1000km of road trip by going around in Melbourne city itself, and its surrounding areas like Dandenong Ranges, Mornington Peninsular, Philip Island, and the Great Ocean Road.

The biggest challenge is I didn’t know the roads in Melbourne and I did not have GPS with me (For some reason I don’t like it as I find GPS too rigid). What I had was only a few maps. I love the challenge of getting to an unfamiliar destination on my own. We went through the whole trip successfully and we reached our final destination Melbourne Airport safely on the last day.

Getting around in Melbourne has taught me some useful lessons in life and business.

Here are some of them:

1.    Know clearly where you want to go.

This is very important. Without destination, you have no way to move ahead. Every day, we knew clearly where we wanted to go and where we wanted to go first. And we roughly planned out the trip using a map. It’s the same with your life, your goals are your guide. If you don’t know where you want to go, chances are you end up nowhere.

2.    Ask from reliable sources.

Almost every time when we reached a town, we went straight to the Visitor Information Center.

Why? Because that’s the best place to get advice on what to do and see. These people know about the town. Plus that’s the place to get detailed local maps which you hardly find elsewhere. In life and business, if you want to achieve something fast, ask from someone who has been there. Ask from someone who is reliable. It can be in any form: coaching, ebooks, membership sites, audio tapes, seminars, etc. But make sure you learn from those who walk the talk.

3.    Get some tools and resources.

When you travel in a foreign country, the most important tool is your map and language. Of course, not to mention you need money and transport to move around. These are the basics and must-have. For online business, you need capital to start one. You need a computer, a website, an autoresponder, webhosting, and some tools that help you kickstart your business. Some technical knowledge is essential too.

4.    Look for checkpoints.

When I wanted to go to Warrnambool – the capital of Great Ocean Road near  Melbourne – I look for milestones along the way to help me stay on the right track. I passed by Torquay, Lorne, Apollo Bay and the 12 Apostles before I reached Warrnambool. How do I know which towns I should pass? The map. If you want to make $10000 a month, what are the milestones you need to go through? To begin with you have to make you first sale. And you can multiply from there. Milestones are like lighthouses to ships. They are there to help us to head into the right direction.

5.    Have enough rest.

Don’t stress out. While we traveled, we made sure we had enough sleep to prepare for the trip the following day. Otherwise, we wouldn’t be able to enjoy our trip. Likewise, you don’t put too much pressure on yourself while building your business. Aim for achievable targets. Have enough rest. Learn to relax. This will definitely make sure you travel longer and healthier in life.

6.    Enjoy the journey as well as the destination.

Long drive can be tiring at times. But I have learned to relax while driving by appreciating the spectacular scenery outside: the sea, trees, the sky, the birds, and even people. And the destination has become the goal and driving force for me to keep pressing. The reward when we reach our destination is we can rest and enjoy the food at a nice restaurant. Likewise in life, you have to enjoy every moment of your life, not just the destination.

I totally enjoyed my trip to Melbourne and as you can see it’s more than just a trip

It’s very obvious. There’s a common trend emerging.

From my experience in coaching and talking to others, I can see very clearly why people fail online. To sum it up, there are not more than three core reasons.

You take charge of everything within your control and make sure that you are on track to achieving your goals. You know that you have to give yourself enough time to try out something and you don’t give up prematurely. If you have found something that works for you, duplicate what you have done and double your success.

2) Action. Many people dream of being their own boss and just that… they dream. They don’t take concrete action to make their dream come true. They fail to follow through a plan that brings them from where they are now to where they want to be. They give themselves excuses that are longer than shopping list – for not doing anything. They wait for the “best” time to create a website, develop a product, or write a marketing campaign. However, it seems that the day never comes. They say they don’t have time for their business because they have a job to do, a wife to take care of, children to play with, and a dog to feed.

They fail to realize that achieving a dream requires action. Only actions bring results. Find and allocate a time slot everyday to work on your online business. Move toward to your goal of being your own boss by taking action, right now right here. This is a phrase I like: When something gets done, even if it’s not successful, is more valuable than something that is not done.

3) Focus. This is very common in Internet business. One day you follow this fail-proof strategy by Guru A. The next day, you dump what guru A teaches and listen to Guru B with his latest discovery. One good thing about the Internet is its flexibility. It’s not as rigid as brick and mortar business. With online business, you can switch business model as often as you like. You can start a new website in just a few minutes. But there’s a flip side to it. Flexibility is a double-edged sword. If you don’t use it to your advantage, you’ll find yourself end up with too many websites that don’t generate income.

If you want to succeed online, pick one model or better still choose one profitable market and reach out to them in many different ways. Stick to it until you succeed. Create add-on products to sell to the same market until you dominate the market. Don’t swing from one model to another without really trying. If you do this, be prepared to face more failure. Focus on one thing until you make it. Stop blindly following the latest product launches because they do more harm than good to you. They distract you from your original plan.

As you read this, did you realize that I do not include “how-to” as one of the reasons of failure? Because technical knowledge is aplenty and it has nothing to do with why people can’t make it. If you need help in choosing a market or any other topic, just do a search in Google and you are good to go. Or go to an Internet marketing forum and post your question. I believe many are willing to help you there. Better still, in order to save time, you can grab a copy of the book from Clickbank Marketplace if your budget allows and that’s all you need.

But all the information you have will not do you any good if you don’t put it to use. Why? See Reason #2 above. Everything that prevents you from succeeding online can be boiled down to three main core reasons. If you can overcome these hurdles, the odds are in your favor.

The message here is so important. We try to be everyone to everything and lose focus. Doing this leads us nowhere but frustration and mediocrity. Stay true to what you do best.

By Jack Canfield, America’s Success Coach

I believe you have inside you a core genius… some one thing that you love to do, and do so well, that you hardly feel like doing anything else. It’s effortless for you and a whole lot of fun. And if you could make money doing it, you’d make it your lifetime’s work.

For me, my core genius lies in the area of teaching, training, coaching and motivating. I love to do it, I do it well, and people report that they get great value from it. Another core genius is writing and compiling books. Along with my co-author Mark Victor Hansen and others, I have written, co-authored, compiled and edited more than 100 books.

Compare that to the other people in the world who go through life doing everything, even those tasks they’re bad at or that could be done more cheaply, better, and faster by someone else. They can’t find the time to focus on their core genius because they fail to delegate even the most menial of tasks.

When you delegate the grunt work—the things you hate doing or those tasks that are so painful, you end up putting them off—you get to concentrate on what you love to do. You free up your time so that you can be more productive. And you get to enjoy life more.

So why is delegating routine tasks and unwanted projects so difficult for most people?

Surprisingly, most people are afraid of looking wasteful or being judged as being above everyone else. They are afraid to give up control or reluctant to spend the money to pay for help. Deep down, most people simply don’t want to let go.

Others (potentially you) have simply fallen into the habit of doing everything themselves. “It’s too time-consuming to explain it to someone,” you say. “I can do it more quickly and better myself anyway.” But can you?

Delegate Completely

One of the strategies I use and teach is complete delegation. It simply means that you delegate a task once and completely – rather than delegating it each time it needs to be done.

When my niece came to stay with us one year while she attended the local community college, we made a complete delegation – the grocery shopping. We told her she could have unlimited use of our van if she would buy the groceries every week. We provided her with a list of staples that we always want in the house (eggs, butter, milk, ketchup, and so on), and her job was to check every week and replace anything that was running low.

In addition, my wife planned meals and let her know which items she wanted for the main courses (fish, chicken, broccoli, avocadoes, and so on). The task was delegated once and saved us hundreds of hours that year that could be devoted to writing, exercise, family time, and recreation.

Most entrepreneurs spend less than 30% of their time focusing on their core genius and unique abilities. In fact, by the time they’ve launched a business, it often seems entrepreneurs are doing everything but the one thing they went into business for in the first place.

Many salespeople, for example, spend more time on account administration than they do on the phone or in the field making sales, when they could hire a part-time administrator (or share the cost with another salesperson) to do this time-consuming detail work. In most cases, in a fraction of the time it would take them and at a fraction of the cost.

Most female executives spend too much time running their household, when they could easily and inexpensively delegate this task to a cleaning service or part-time mother’s helper, freeing them to focus on their career or spend more quality time with their family.

Don’t let this be your fate.

Identify your core genius, then delegate completely to free up more time to focus on what you love to do.

I believe that you can trade, barter, pay for and find volunteer help to do almost everything you don’t want to do, leaving you to do what you are best at – and which will ultimately make you the most money and bring you the most happiness.

(c) 2006 Jack Canfield

Jack Canfield, America’s Success Coach, is the founder and co-creator of the billion-dollar book brand Chicken Soup for the Soul and the nation’s leading authority on Peak Performance. If you’re ready to jump-start your life, make more money, and have more fun and joy in all that you do, get your FREE success tips from Jack Canfield now at www.JackCanfield.com

No doubt, The Secret – book and DVD – has recently created a big buzz online and off.

(If you don’t know what I am talking about, you’d probably live in the cave for too long. Just kidding.)

I call it piggyback marketing. Rhonda is smart. Product aside, it’s a true marketing genius in action. The result speaks for itself.

But whether or not what the author says works, is another story. I personally don’t think that it is as simple as putting your thoughts to the universe to get what you want.

Here are the 6 reasons why The Secret doesn’t work:

1) If what you put out to the universe is not aligned with your higher purpose/destiny, no matter how hard you try, it won’t manifest in your life.

2) It works only for people who are willing to take action — persistently. It’s not for dreamers.

3) If what you focus on is not part of your talent or strength, it’s not going to work for you well. The result: It’s a mismatch of goal and talent.

4) If timing is not right for what you want to attract into your life. It will never come, regardless of how hard you work. Trust me!

5) It will not work if you work with the wrong people. No man is an island and if your partners, workers, suppliers and customers are not the right ones, you’ll doom to fail.

6) If you’re in the wrong vocation/industry, it will not work.

I don’t know why but there are NOT many people talking why Law of Attraction will not work for every situation and everybody – including those who practice it!

It sounds pessimistic but it’s true.

Let me give you one example. A real example that is enough to illustrate my point. It’s about our home grown squash queen, Nicol David. Here’s the snapshot:

Her Australian coach, Liz Irving, believes that it is Nicol’s destiny to dominate world squash (See my Points #1 and #6 above).

This is what I like about what she said about Nicol:

• “Nicol does not rely on her speed for her strength. It’s just a back-up. A lot of people are trying to improve their speed because of Nicol,” Irving said.

• But you can’t because it’s natural for her (See my Point #3 above). It’s not natural for many of the other girls. Natalie and Rachael have always been quick, that is really not going to change either. They are not going to get any quicker.

• It’s natural, it’s either you have speed or you don’t. If you have speed, you can work on it and be strong at it.

• There are a lot of big strong girls on the circuit. But they are not going to be as quick as Nicol because they are not in that build.

Now, let me ask you one question. Do you think ANYONE (I mean just anyone) can use Law of Attraction to beat Nicol David and become world champion?

You bet. Not even her closest opponents (Natalie and Rachael) could achieve this! Let alone “normal” people like you and me.

It’s the same scenario for Tiger Woods. If you’re not cut out to be a golf pro, no amount of visualization can help you achieve this.

You see my point? Good.

Law of Attraction does not work – if you fail my 6-point test.

But what can you do NOW? Know yourself well and do what makes you tick. Focus on your talents and strengths. You’ll become unbeatable. In short, know your path and do your best to follow the path.

One last thing. Here’s an interesting story about Emily Yoffe. She followed the secret in The Secret for two months to see how it worked for her.

Yesterday while on my way out, I saw a car stalled in the middle of the road with emergency lights on. It was one of the main roads in the neighborhood.

As I overtook the car, I thought to myself, “Maybe the driver needs help and I should be offering my help.” Furthermore, I was not in a rush.

I made a U-turn and stopped in front of the car. I was trying to communicate with the driver to wind down the window. After a few attempts, I failed. It was a lady driver and she was being careful not to trust any stranger who acted very helpful – just like what I was doing.

She scanned me from head to toe looking for signs that I might be someone who wanted to take advantage of her situation. I tried to offer to push her car to the road side by yelling hoping that she could hear me.

Again, the lady refused to wind down the window and she didn’t respond to any of my offer to help.

What should I do now? I got no choice but to drive away.

I don’t blame the lady as she was trying to be cautious as there are cases like robbery and rape happened to victims like her.

But what got me thinking is when you refuse to receive help, nobody can ever help you. You only get help as much as the level you are willing to receive. No more, no less.

Being successful in life and business is the same. If you’re pre-occupied with misconceptions and refuse to open up to new ideas, no amount of books and workshops will ever help you.

Is you glass full or empty? For you to learn something, you must make sure that you throw away your old beliefs that are holding you back.

I am not saying you go out and try out every idea even the stupid ones, but at least, open up to new ideas. Especially ideas that have helped others to succeed.

Ask yourself this, “Are you limiting yourself by refusing to receive help from others?”

More often than not, we are our biggest enemy but sometimes we just don’t realize it.

Abel Cheng

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Abel Cheng offers insider tips on home entrepreneurship, success and happiness. To receive latest updates, please go to http://www.abelcheng.com/diary.html