Endless Possibilities Podcast

Since I launched episode number 5 on building a drop ship business and finding the wholesalers online, I’ve gotten a lot of questions about just how to pick the right products or the niche to get into. Well, todays podcast addresses two specific needs most of my audience has had since listening to that introduction podcast. As a result, I’ve thought a lot about this and think it’s best that I create a podcast centered around how to narrow down your products to sell with drop shipping and also give a few tips on how to measure the demand. Step One: Measure Market Demand Let’s be realistic, without measuring market demand, you won’t really be selling much. While these days, anything and everything on the Internet sells like hot cakes, there are probably way too many people selling the same widget you’re and only a certain number of searches are being done for that product per month. Therefore, in order to sell and become profitable, we need to measure market demand and figure out the supply and demand equation. For now, lets start off with eBay and Amazon: Ebay and Amazon Categories: eBay is a great place to get inspiration from and also check out what people are selling. They have hundreds of categories but if you look closely, the most viewed categories are at the very top which includes Fashion & Electronics as the most prominently displayed categories. Compete.com: Although a bit pricey, compete.com can provide you with a plethora of information about any web site that is on the web. You will find such information such as how they get their traffic, regardless if it is being paid or organic. You can also search by demographics which is very necessary when you want to find out who best to target. Google trends: Google trends is a great little tool you can use to find out a lot of information about a product or a thing. For example, with trends, you can measure demographics, search volume, seasonality of the product and if the product has seen an increase in searches over a period of time. Watchcount.com: Alongside eBay, watchcount.com is a great web site to find out how many watchers a particular product is getting. The best thing about this free online app is that you will be able to find out exactly what products are selling the most. From there, things get a lot easier in building a list of niches to get into. Step Two: Analyze Your Niche Selling price: The selling price is very important. For this reason, you want to pick a product that is somewhere around $100-200 in price. While I have sold sunglasses in the past that were a lot less expensive, my profit margins were astronomical. The only place you will find a lot of profit on inexpensive items is in the fashion and accessories niches which we will talk about later. However, to be on the same side since you’re just starting out, it’s best you stay around $100-200 so there is a lot of room for profit. Also, the less expensive the item, the less calls you will get but the more expensive an item is, the more customer service calls and inquiries you will have. Market Size: if your market is big, then great. However, if your market size is small, you may have a problem getting visitors to convert as there is a lot of competition and higher PPC fees.  Market Age:  Is your  product geared towards seniors or kids under 18? I bring up these two inverse situations because although most people are web savvy, there are seniors out there that still lack great experience shopping online or let alone trust anyone with their credit cards. As for kids younger than 18, they might not have a credit card. Product rarity: Is your niche something that is easily available in local malls or department stores? If so, it may be hard to sell online because who wants to pay shipping and wait for an order to arrive when they can buy it at the local store? Product Obsolescence: Ideally, you want to sell a product that won’t go out of fashion or become obsolete. As an example, if you sold an iPhone case and a newly designed iPhone replaces the old one, the case will become obsolete in a short period of time. Ideally, you want to get into a niche where  you can build a web site with products that are here to stay and then build a lot of great wonderful content around. Product Seasonality: I love sessional products because when the time is ripe, the customers just want a whole lot of it. For example, I sold sunglasses for a long time and during the months of Feb-Aug, that’s when I was rock-n-rolling. However, not everyone is comfortable with that. Product Size & Weight: Ideally, you want to pick a product that doesn’t cost a lot of money to ship. One of two things will happen – either you will over inflate your prices to make up the loss in shipping or you will charge a lot for shipping which will then turn off most customers. This is one of the biggest reasons for shopping cart abandonment. Profit: This is the reason why you’re in business in the first place. In an ideal world, you want to shoot for 75-100% profit for your products. This can easily be done with selling accessories and fashion products. However, most products are not this way. Therefore, you want to pick a niche that you can make at least 20-30% profit. With this much profit, you will at least have wiggle room to advertise if you needed to and still make some money. Is this Your Passion? – this will get you in trouble – why? Following your passion is great but it also makes you ignore everything I just talked to you about. If you’re passionate about candles and you have a dozen of them laying around your home and want to start selling them online, you can and thats great but have you done your due diligence about everything we’ve talked about? When I started selling sunglasses back in 2001, I became passionate about sunglasses when it started making money for me, not the other way around. I have my niche and my products picked out – now what? Woo-hoo, you made it! Congratulations, this is the toughest part! My advice for you now is to go find the manufacturers. Sure, there is a list of drop ship companies out there but most of them are a waste of time and I wouldn’t bother. A lot of them are middle men to begin with anyway. Settle with calling the manufacturers directly and ask them if they drop ship. You may refer to podcast episode #5 where I talk about this in more detail. Good Markets To Get Into: Cosmetics Greeting cards Mattresses and furniture Clothing Jewelry (diamonds, watches, etc) Sunglasses or eyeglasses 5-Star Reviews This week on iTunes Nicholas Graham Jessie Rav3ns Fan Ewaldsreef Did You Enjoy This Podcast? Never miss an episode by subscribing, using one of the options below and If you can spare 30-seconds to leave a review, rate and subscribe on iTunes, it would really help the show’s ranking. Thank you, in advance! Read more at WilliamShaker.com - A Personal Development Blog For Smart People

In the last part of 2013, I attended Unleash The Power Within and learned a great deal. While there, I signed up for Date With Destiny as well — needless to say, you should have seen the smile on my face! After, I felt a bit nervous and didn’t know what to expect. When I got back home after having attended all 4-days and reflected on my life, I released episode number 31, “9 Cardinal Rules For Life” and in it, I shared my experience but I also mentioned that on a future episode I will be discussing what I have learned. Well, It’s been a few weeks now and I’ve been away for some time. First I went to Date With Destiny in California, then came back and had to deal with Bronchitis for a week and a half. Once I recovered, it was tackling on the holidays which included Christmas and then, New Years. The days, months and weeks have gone by VERY quickly and now we’re in 2014 – the start of the new year, new beginnings and new goals. I’m really excited for my life and for yours this year. I’ve made some lofty goals for myself with one of them being that I will be getting back into eCommerce. This year, aside from making a lot of money, I am really excited about what this money will do for my family and everyone around me. As you will learn from listening to this podcast, my mission in life is that “I will put on this earth to be successful in life, love and business so that I can contribute to those around me.” I’ve always realized that contribution is important and since the beginning of last year, I’ve made it so with my podcast and this web site. As a result, I get thank you emails almost every day and to date, my podcast is being listened to in 124 countries worldwide! However, I’ve gotten wiser and more intelligent since last year and I’m learning that a balanced life is just as important as contribution. Therefore, I have made a few changes to the format of this podcast that will allow me to grow and help you grow at the same time. More on the podcast so please listen to it if you haven’t already. Here is a summery of what I will be covering in “4 Steps To Creating An Extraordinary Life Of Fulfillment.” Step 1: Making money is easy, fulfillment is hard Statistics based on New Years resolutions: The difference between goal setters and visionaries is that goal setters usually forget their goals very quickly. Can I give you my opinion? Here is what I think — amateurs call it “new years resolutions”, veterans call it “goals” and successful people call it “a vision” and a vision is something that is far more powerful than a to-do list most people call goals. I’ll explain further in a little bit but now lets look at what most peoples “new years resolutions” are Lost weight, get organized, sped less, save more, enjoy life to the fullest, lear something new, stay fit and healthy, help others, quit smoking, more daily time or find the love of your life — these are the top 10. Now, did you know that only 45% of Americans make New Years resolutions? of the 45% who do, only 64% of that keep it till the end of the month and only 46% maintain till the 6th month. Success without fulfillment is failure. Create a compelling vision for the future. How would my life be (dream it, using incantations) How can I help those around me? When you become wealthy, others will become wealthy as a result of being around you. Oftentimes, wealth is a result. Wealth is not just money but all of the abundance you can share with your family as well. “Dream lofty dreams, and as you dream, so shall you become. Your vision is the promise of what you shall one day be; your ideal is the prophecy of what you shall unveil.” – James Allen Step 2: Managing Your State Tony Robbins says that time is emotion. When you’re having a good time, time flies and when you’re not, one hour can feel like five. Your state is what you feel in the moment. A good life constitutes good emotions The key to success is managing how you feel in the moment. Be certain, have clarity and the courage that success is inevitable and that it is not a matter of if but a matter of when. Reading affirmations does nothing and it is a complete waste of time. Incantations once or twice a day is really effective compared to people who write goals and read them silently, sitting down with their head down and their chest compressed. Strategies for managing your state: stretching, breathing, a long walk, jumping up and down, visualizing and gratitude just to name a few. Step 3:  Crush your limiting beliefs Limiting beliefs are like governors on super car. The super car’s speedometer can read 225 MPH but the car will max out at 190 MPH. Once you remove the limiter or governor, the car is the capability to reach its full maximum speed of 225 MPH with enough road/tarmac. You must be unreasonable — every extraordinary person who exists today is unreasonable. “The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; The unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.” -George Bernard Shaw Unreasonable people don’t have limiting beliefs – they defy odds, they go against what most think is not possible. The moment one commits, providence moves too. Your capability may be 225 MPH but if your governor is limited to only 30 MPH, you will always live life in the slow lane and don’t you dare go into the highway that slow because everyone will be honking at you from behind and giving you the middle finger. People in the fast lane eat well, live well, have money saved up, don’t live in poverty or constantly worry about the future. People in the fast lane who don’t have any limiting beliefs are successful because they know that it’s not a matter of IF, but a matter of WHEN they will realize their vision for the future. Downward cycle: You believe you have limited potential so you take a little bit of action, get limited results and reinforce your belief. “See! I knew I couldn’t do it!” Upward cycle: You believe beyond the shadow of the doubt that you can get the result you want. You may not know how but you believe the potential is there, so you tape into it with massive action and potential. You tend to get pretty outstanding results, reinforcing your belief. “See! I knew I could do it!” Now you’re even more inspired, you believe even more in your potential, you take even more action and you get even greater results! The cycle continues. Step 4: Create a strategy for success Become focused and crystal clear about what your vision and your purpose in life should be about. Create rules about what you love, what excites you, what you’re committed to and what you hate or won’t tolerate. Take a notebook and write down EVERYTHING and ANYTHING you want to do in life. The types of things could be traveling, buying a home, finding the love of your life or even as far as moving to another country – regardless of what it is, just keep writing. Once you finish writing, next to each item, put a 1, 3 and 5. Each number stands for how long you feel these goals would take to achieve. Follow your goals by taking “massive” action! Episode #4 is about goal setting in case you need direction and the “how-to” Visualize with incantations. Reviews This Week Mjayaz: Thank you for your information. It is delivered in understandable terms. Learning about your personal trials and experiences should give everyone hope that they can achieve anything they desire. THANK YOU Did You Enjoy This Podcast? Never miss an episode by subscribing, using one of the options below and If you can spare 30-seconds to leave a review, rate and subscribe on iTunes, it would really help the show’s ranking. Thank you, in advance! Read more at WilliamShaker.com - A Personal Development Blog For Smart People

The idea behind coming up with the 8 cardinal rules for life came from an info graphic I found and posted on my Facebook fan page wall. Till this day, the info graphic had over 109 shares and 54 likes likes which blew my mind! In coming up with today’s podcast, I thought that I can expand on the quote and talk about it through my own lens with a few compelling examples and reasons why these rules do make sense and should be applied. However, the original info graphic was only 7 cardinal rules but the last two rules are my own because I learned something very important while attending the Tony Robbins seminar a few weeks ago and it is worth talking about. I hope you like the “9 Cardinal Rules For Life” podcast. I would love your feedback below! 1. Make peace with your past so it won’t disturb your present. I can resonate with this one myself — I often talk about the past in my podcasts but it’s time to let all of that go. Emotional baggage is real — fill your closet full of old cloth and you won’t have room for new cloth. Our hearts are our closets and the emotions are the cloth we put into them. For a lot of us, our hearts are full of negative emotions and baggage that we carry everywhere. This is why we’re not as happy or as successful as we want to become. Emotional blocks can be found in all areas of our lives – relationships, careers, family and everything in between. Don’t cling to negative feelings — anger is nothing more than an outward sign of hurt, fear, guilt or frustration. Making peace with your past is never easy or simple but it is possible but only if you’re intentional about removing baggage from your heart that no longer belongs there. 2. What other people think of you is none of your business. How people perceive you reveals more about them than it does about you. Everyone grows up through a different lens and perspective of how life is and how it should be. People will judge you, talk about you and project their stuff on you. It is what it is. Seeking validation is one way for others to judge you because a confident, self-assured person doesn’t need validation. Sometimes we invite others to judge us based on how we act around them because there is an old saying “tell me who you spend your time with and I’ll tell you who you’re” While most of the time, like I said before — everyone lives life through their own unique lens. Regardless, “This too shall pass.” 3. Time heals almost everything. Give it time. There is a great quote by Regina Brett — regina says “If we all threw our problems in a pile and saw everyone else’s, we’d grab ours back.” — This is why I believe that it’s very important to feel grateful —  you have problems because you’re living life. I feel sorry for the man or woman who doesn’t have problems. We need to make peace with the present so that it won’t screw up the past. It takes time to heal It takes time to recover It takes time to reconnect and recharge Give yourself time and don’t beat yourself up — its all a process. I’ve been through it many times and every struggle I had in life was for a reason. What’s that old saying? “f it doesn’t kills you, it will make you stronger?” 4. No one is in charge of your happiness. Except you. This one is huge — it really is. Trust me! No person or material possession will ever make us happy. Your partner in life is not responsible for your happiness or for your boredom. I believe that success in all walks of all comes from the inside out — if this statement is true, then how come we always blame others for our downfalls and unhappiness? I guess it is a lot easier to blame and point fingers but a lot harder to sit quietly and point the finger at our own selves. I always say that business is simple but people are complicated. Now, I may also add that life is simple but we’re complicated. We really are — humans have evolved a whole lot but we have not reached our full human potential. The next time you’re around animals or if you have a dog – notice how he shakes himself off after a conflict or a situation that is tense — animals are the only creatures that shake off negativity. Humans on the other hand carry negative emotions and the thoughts in our mind the entire day and sometimes for our entire lives. Is it necessary? In some way, our dogs are more superior than we’re. I guess I am trying to make the point that no one is in charge of our happiness, except for our own selves. 5. Don’t compare your life to others and don’t judge them, you have no idea what their journey is all about. Once again, everyone views life through a different lens. No one grew up the exact same way as you did. In fact, I will go so far as saying that we’re all born unique, our brains are wired completely different from one another and everyone has a unique personality with separate likes, dislikes and life ambitions. So knowing this – how can you compare your life to someone else or judge yourself against them? Some people are passive spectators of life, while others are active and fully in charge of their destiny. Instead of comparing yourself to others – look really inward and self reflect on why you’re where you’re right now — is it because of neglect or because of things completely out of your control? The man who we call a bum on the street has a story – he has a soul just like you do and a story just like you do as well. You have no idea how he got there or what his circumstances were prior to that event. He may be begging for food but his journey is something you will never know about. 6. Stop thinking too much, It’s alright not to know the answers; they will come to you when you least expect it. I get most of my answers when I plan for the answers to come to me. I actually make time to gain clarity. Every week, I plan my week. Once a month I think about the prior month and every quarter, I think about the last quarter that just ended. From time-to-time, I sit to think with a set of questions I already know I will ask myself. When I am done, this provides me with all the clarity I need. All of the sudden, I feel better and I stop thinking too much. 7. Smile. You don’t own all the problems in the world. You really don’t — every day you’re awake, that is another chance to be happy and smile out of bed. Seriously — what is there not to like about sleeping at night and waking up every morning for another chance at greatness? One great way to sleep happy and wake up happy is to read something positive 1 hour before bed and then sleep right away. To start the morning off right — read something positive again and then start your day. You don’t have to constantly smile all day – that would be weird but you’re alive and you have your health – isn’t that enough reason to smile and be happy? You don’t own all the problems in the world — control what you can in your own life and leave everything else deal with itself. 8. A good life constitutes good emotions. After reviewing all of my notes from the Tony Robbins seminar, I remembered him talking about emotions and how our quality of life determines what kind of emotions we’re having. As an example — when you buy a Porsche, the Porsche is not what you’re buying – instead, you’re buying the Porsche because of the emotions it gives you. Coincidentally — I actually had a Porsche – it was a 2007 GT3 – for those familiar – it was 415 horse power, rear wheel drive with an 8500 RPM deadline — boy did that thing scream! I often took it to the racetrack and to this day, I miss it very much. When my business fell apart many years ago, I had to sell it but I miss the emotions I felt when driving that car. While a car is one thing that brings good emotions — other things that bring good emotions in our life are progress, contribution and growth — at least this does for me. When I am seeing progress in my business, not only do I become excited but the excitement leads to feeling fulfilled. The feelings of fulfillment allows me to contribute because inside, I feel fuller and when I feel fuller, I can give more. Why do we go to amusement parks? To feel good emotions. When we come back home – its back to where we were once again — feeling dreary and bored. However, in order to keep up the good emotions, I am constantly seeking progress in my life, contributing to society and growing as much as I can. These are long-term solutions — short term solutions are expensive cars, toys and vacations. Those don’t last too long. 9. Never neglect yourself for others. I know I mentioned contribution in #8 but in explaining this one, I don’t want to seem like I am contradicting myself. As  you may, I mentioned that when I give myself enough, I become filled up and then I contribute which makes me feel even better and happier, therefore, smiling becomes easier and more natural –you can’t fake a smile, no matter how hard. As you may know — I was sick all last week — I couldn’t give anymore because it was time for me to heal and repair. Last week was all mine and I wanted to make sure I was health – this is the reason why I missed last weeks episode. In trying to help others, we often neglect our own selves and this is never a good solution — the better solution is win-win and not lose-win as Stephen Covey said in his book “the 7 habits of highly successful people” In the last 6 months, I’ve gone really overboard with podcasts — don’t get me wrong, I don’t regret doing these, in fact, because I missed last week, I really missed doing it and couldn’t wait to get behind the mic again. I guess the point I am trying to make is, make sure the cup is full before you let others drink out of it and never let others drink the whole cup. Once it is depleted, unlike water, emotional and physical energy does not come as easily as water does from a faucet. Did You Enjoy This Podcast? Never miss an episode by subscribing, using one of the options below and If you can spare 30-seconds to leave a review, rate and subscribe on iTunes, it would really help the show’s ranking. Thank you, in advance! Read more at WilliamShaker.com - A Personal Development Blog For Smart People

Why Discomfort Is Good For You: “when it looks impossible and you are ready to quit, victory is near!” – Tony Robbins Tony Robbins hit it out of the ball park when he said this. If I look back at all the years, all I had were a series of challenges and these challenges made me who I am today. This quote is so powerful because there is always a point in our lives when all we want to do is quit and that’s the defining moment in which we change our lives either for the better or for worse and once we get too used to comfort, laziness sets in. To make practical sense out of this quote and to put it into perspective — There will come a time when your mind will prefer comfort and this usually happens when something is really difficult or nearly impossible. Should I quit my awful job or find another one? Should I keep the high paying job or open up that business I always wanted so that I could improve my life and my families regardless of how much work or effort is involved? The most ironic thing is that the limitation of what’s possible is in your own mind but across the world, someone will do what you’re afraid of doing without much thought or effort. For some it’s self-sabotage and for other’s its plain laziness. The solution to choose discomfort and put the fear and the anxieties away is to keep reminding yourself that “this too, shall pass” — every moment in your life that was an emergency, a catastrophe or a severe challenge has passed and this too, shall pass. Let’s face it, no one likes a lazy person but lazy people are often the ones who seek comfort over achievements. Always putting to the side important matters leads to mediocrity and mediocrity is the stepping stone to unhappiness and discontent. Discomfort is good for you because it makes you yearn for something more. It forces you to make changes in your life or career and to adapt to your circumstances instead of giving up. In a previous podcast episode, I talked about Mr. Pain and Ms. Experience as my #1 teachers. Mr. Pain has been my discomfort and Ms. Experience is the result of having Mr. Pain in my life. This is why discomfort is good for you because without pain & discomfort, your personal and professional life will never improve. 5 Things mentally strong people don’t do: Mentally strong people don’t shy away from change: Mentally strong people understand that change is inevitable and believe in their abilities to adapt. They also realize that change is constant and nothing lasts forever. No career or business lasts forever. Humans and everything humans create has an expiration date associated with them. Therefore, mentally strong people   welcome positive change and are willing to be flexible and adapt to their environments. They don’t fear taking calculated risk: Mentally strong people are resilient because they realize the importance of taking continued calculated risk. Why do you ride the roller coaster or go on daring adventures? You do it to feel alive. Much like roller coasters, white rapids and doing other dangerous activities such as sky diving gives us a feeling of being alive, taking calculated, measured risks are just as important in our daily lives. All risk can be downsized by making calculated decisions. If you’ve done enough research and have a plan, there is no reason why you should fail. They don’t dwell in the past: One thing to admire about mentally strong people is that they don’t constantly relive bad experiences or fantasize about the glory days. Instead, they live in the present and plan for the future. Dwelling in the past is probably the number one contributor towards comfort and mediocrity. Dwelling in the past is why some people don’t take risks — calculated or not. The problem with some people is that they never get passed the moments of discomfort early on in their lives and as a result, this becomes a habit of always reliving the past so that they can avoid future pain and struggle. This is not a good way to live. They don’t make the same mistakes over-and-over again:  Another reason why people force themselves into a pampered and comfortable lifestyle is because they don’t learn from their mistakes. Mentally strong people accept responsibility for their behavior and learnt rom their past mistakes. As a result, they don’t keep repeating these mistakes over and over. Instead, they move on and make better decisions in the future. They don’t give up after the first failure: Mentally strong people realize that failure is a huge part of success. They don’t see failure as a reason to give up but as a reason to dissect the situation and figure out what went wrong so that the same mistakes are not repeated. Instead, they use the failure as an opportunity to grow and improve. They are willing to keep trying until they get it right. So now you have some really compelling reasons why why discomfort is good for you and a bunch of reasons why mentally strong people succeed. As I had previously mentioned — mentally strong people are not only happier but also more successful in life because they don’t give in comfort very easily. Instead, they always push themselves to be and do better in life and in their careers. Mentally strong people are people we usually admire and want to be like but the good news is, you too can be mentally strong starting today. Question for you:  In what area of your life as you most comfortable in that is holding you back? Write your answers in the comment section. Thank you! Did You Enjoy This Podcast? Never miss an episode by subscribing, using one of the options below and If you can spare 30-seconds to leave a review, rate and subscribe on iTunes, it would really help the show’s ranking. Thank you, in advance! Read more at WilliamShaker.com - A Personal Development Blog For Smart People

Last weekend, my girlfriend and I went to Unleash The Power Within and saw Tony Robbins live and wow, what an experience! The last time I went to UPW was in Orlando sometime in 2009 I believe — since then, the program has changed a whole lot and I got so much out of it. My experience at UPW was profound and completely life changing. In this podcast, I will talk to you about my experience as well as the video below which Tony has you going through what he calls “The Dickens Process”. Enjoy! The Six basic Human Needs Explained: Certainty: avoid pain and gain pleasure or comfort. Some strive to control all aspects of their lives while others get it by giving up all control and adopting a philosophy of faith & religion. Variety: This is why we love roller coasters. Variety in our lives provide a need for the unknown, change and new stimuli. Significance: is usually a belief that ones life has meaning or importance. Some people with this human need will go to great lengths and compete with others or by destroying or tearing those around them. If you want to take a closer look at people who put significance at the top of the list, check out some of hollywoods most colorful lifestyle, looks, language and behavior and you’ll see what I mean. Connection: A strong feeling of closeness or union with someone or something Growth: The need to continuously grow and an expansion of capacity, capability or understanding Contribution: A sense of service and focus on helping others through giving and support. Why growth is important: I know I’ve beaten this subject over the head many times but the reason why my business failed is because I stopped growing If you stop growing, you start dying — everything in the universe is either expanding or contracting, there is no alternative. Growth is about mastering and understanding yourself. When we continuously grow, we don’t grow just for our own selves, we grow for others Learning just for ourselves is foolish and immature but learning for others is the first step to contribution. How to grow as an individual: Attend seminars on a regular basis Find meetups and eventbrite conferences and networking opportunities Meet as many like-minded people as you can, preferably 5-10 years ahead of where you want to be both personally and professionally. Read as much as you can, take a speed reading class if you have to. Listen to audio books and podcasts as often as you can. Create structure, routine and order – not to the point of rigidity but to a level where you have control over your life so that when 10 years go by you’re not regretting what you didn’t do -vs- what you could have done. Why contribution is important: Just as you can’t survive without others contributing in some way to your welfare, you will live an unfulfilled life not contributing to others. As an example, no baby can grow up on its own, you can’t be spiritually fulfilled unless you’re contributing to others as well. As an example — when I got my Mom’s house, she always insists I take food home and she is still till this day, tries to baby me — why? #1 because she is a Mother but more importantly, she wants to contribute. The older you become, the more you will realize that contribution to others is very important. In fact, out of the 6-basic human needs, I believe this one is probably the most important. How to Contribute To Something Bigger Than Yourself: There are two types of growth: “personal and spiritual” – when you put contribution at the top of your 6 basic human needs, you have grown spiritually. Create a business centered around giving and contribution. So many are doing it such as non-profits, web sites around accumulating niche sites with vast amounts of knowledge delivered via podcasts, written articles, videos, etc. Mentor someone in need – you may not be giving yourself enough credit for what you know but you know a lot. Give to charity — things like clothing and food work really well. Your biggest asset is your time, if you offer it to someone else, that may be your biggest contribution. Take better care of your family, call friends you haven’t seen in weeks or months and invite them to dinner and show them the absolute best time. To tie all of this together, i strongly believe that personal growth and contribution is a great combination to have. All human beings are consistently seeking to meet the 6 basic human needs but we all tend to value two more than the rest as I learned from this weekend. For example: Someone who values certainty will live a radically different life than someone who values uncertainty/variety. Similarly, someone who focuses on significance will interact with others very differently than someone who’s number one need is for connection/love. When you know which needs you value the most, you can better understand the choices you make, as well as your emotional patters. Which two human needs are your most dominant need and why? I would love to carry this conversation over below — please write what your 2 most primal needs are and lets chat. Shall we? 5-Star Reviews This week Marcus Brooks: I love this podcast show by Mr. Shaker, the show has helped me to think about the life I want. My dream is to use my gifts to enrich peoples lives and have a freedom business. I’m going to keep listening to the Endless Possibilities show and one day I will get there! Did You Enjoy This Podcast? Never miss an episode by subscribing, using one of the options below and If you can spare 30-seconds to leave a review, rate and subscribe on iTunes, it would really help the show’s ranking. Thank you, in advance! Read more at WilliamShaker.com - A Personal Development Blog For Smart People

After last weeks episode, I thought to myself in frustration – why aren’t people taking massive action? In all fairness, I am not there to see you and I don’t want to judge what you do with your time after listening to an instructional video, a course you may have taken or a podcast you have listened to. However, from what I’ve learned about business psychology and more importantly, human psychology, over 95% of us will not take action with the knowledge we have learned. Why? For all sorts of reasons but the reasons are more internal than anything else. You see — business is like a computer program — all there are is 1s and 0s. In other words, business is a completely rational and logical process. However, some people are irrational and illogical and this is why business is simple but people are complicated. Let me elaborate some more by giving you a few examples: You don’t validate your business idea All new business ideas that have not been invented yet must be validated first. There are a ton of ways to validate your business idea. You can validate your business on Reddit, on forums, by using a survey or using survey monkey You Jump from one idea to the next As a result of not validating your business idea, you jump from one idea to the next and as a result, your self esteem and your confidence begin to take a hit. As Entrepreneurs, we’re problem solvers by nature. By validating your idea, you’re simply solving a problem that exists but has not been solved yet. Take any business that is viable and profitable and you will notice that in some way, it solves a problem someone or a group of people are having. The reason why you’re jumping from one idea to the next is not because your idea sucks but because not enough people are ready and willing to pay for your product or service before you release it. You don’t believe in yourself and you have low self-esteem What is one way to increase your confidence in something? Its to do something you’re terrified of doing and surviving it. When you constantly challenge and push yourself to do things you’re afraid of, you not only realize your potential but you also gain a few points of confidence and if it continues, your self esteem will rise with it. The trick is to start something — whatever it may be that you’re afraid of doing, then do it again and again. There is not a strong enough why If you put money first, you will ultimately fail. Your why must be very strong — is it to solve a problem or help out as many people as possible? Or is it to make a lot of money? As long as your reason is more than just yourself, then your why is strong enough. Finally — how thirsty and hungry are you for success? Its all about the drive, the madness that we have when starting a venture. If  you don’t wake up every day feeling excited about that new business idea or the business you’re currently in, it may not last too long. Chances are, you’ve been in business for 4-5 years — in that case, you may be bored but one way of alleviating boredom is to continuously innovate and make things better. Never become comfortable — always stay thirsty for more. Did You Enjoy This Podcast? Never miss an episode by subscribing, using one of the options below and If you can spare 30-seconds to leave a review, rate and subscribe on iTunes, it would really help the show’s ranking. Thank you, in advance! Read more at WilliamShaker.com - A Personal Development Blog For Smart People

This week, instead of yet another content rich episode of Endless Possibilities, I thought you and I had a one-on-one chit-chat about what is keeping you stuck where you’re and what challenges you might be facing? You see – over the last 6-months, I have put a lot of effort and energy into creating these podcasts for you and by now, I expect that any serious Entrepreneur listening and applying my wisdom and knowledge would be on their way to becoming pretty successful if not making tons of money online or elsewhere. Here is all that I’ve taught you — be specific with me and let me know what is holding you back? I want to help you and I want you to succeed. You may have your own business or you’re just starting out. Regardless, why are you not doing better in your business or why have you not started being your own boss? Podcast #2 : how to become successful at anything yo attempt: . psychology of success . how to define success for yourself . Lessons from some really powerful influential people . traits of successful people . Questions to ask yourself Podcast #4: How to create smart goals . types of smart goals — short, medium and long term types of goals . developing urgency . specific . measurable . attainable . realistic . time bound . resources and an article write-up so you can create your own Podcast #5: build a drop-ship business, find a niche and the wholesalers . showed you how the drop ship business model works . showed you where to find wholesalers . negotiate with wholesalers to drop ship . negotiate with vendors for payment terms . taught you how to use singlefeed to get your products to many web sites. Podcast #6. How to outsource on elance and odesk . Gave you compelling reasons to outsource . showed you how to post jobs one step at a time. . Taught you how to cooperate with contractors Podcast #11 Find your life purpose, become motivated and build mental toughness . taught you about finding your unique personality type . taught you how to find your passions by identifying what you naturally love to do best. . taught you that doing things you don’t like leads to mediocrity and failure. Podcast #16: how to avoid failure & succeed as an online entrepreneur . finding the best types of businesses to get involved in. . taught you types of businesses that are likely to fail. . Gave you a 10-step process for avoiding failure as an online entrepreneur podcast #17: 10 ridiculously obvious signs you should be an online entrepreneur . gave you 10 compelling reasons and a great video of a kid entrepreneur who did what he loved and made tons of money and got lots of fame — by mistake! Podcast #18: how to make millions and market yourself as an expert . If eCommerce isn’t for you — I’ve demonstrated how you can leverage from your knowledge and enter the online expert business . I showed you how to demonstrate your expertise . how to monetize it Podcast #23: 8 ways to bust procrastination and become more productive . showed you how to eliminate distractions . how to optimize your study environment . how to have better time management . how to break projects down into chunks . How to visualize and treat your goals like pets Podcast #26: how to reinvent yourself in one year . Showed you why you live in such an amazing time in history to become filthy rich . how to create your own brand and find your own niche . Find mentors, the easy way . Meet the connectors — the people who will help you make millions . and most of all, how to do it in 1 year or less. What Is Holding You Back & What Are Your Excuses? I want you to answer the following questions for me so that I can address your problems and provide you with clarity. I can easily create 27 more podcasts over the next 6-months and you will be where you’re today — just another Entrepreneur Wannabe. Instead, I want you to make take the big leap forward and become an actual Entrepreneur. Here are some questions you can ask me directly by writing below in the comments section. If you want to be private about it, you can send me an email through my contact form and I will be happy to respond to you right away. The choice is yours, however, please make sure to either write your question below or shoot me an email through my contact form. You don’t have any money to begin? You have a hard time picking your niche? You can’t decide on information/Internet marketing or eCommerce? Do you feel you’re too old/too young? Do you need someone to guide you every step of the way? Do you lack direction in life? Do you believe your family/spouse is holding you back? Have you tried everything and failed and are now sitting on the sidelines because you’re sad/depressed/angry? You don’t believe in yourself/your potential/your abilities? Please ask your questions below and I will answer them for you personally. Or like I said, send me an email through my contact form. Did You Enjoy This Podcast? Never miss an episode by subscribing, using one of the options below and If you can spare 30-seconds to leave a review, rate and subscribe on iTunes, it would really help the show’s ranking. Thank you, in advance! Read more at WilliamShaker.com - A Personal Development Blog For Smart People

I recently read an article by James Altucher called “The Ultimate Cheat Sheet For Reinventing Yourself” on Techcrunch. In all fairness, I have read a few of his blog posts and listened to a few podcasts he’s been on and I have to admit, they were all very inspiring and most of all, very amusing to read. n However, his latest article in Techcrunch made me a little concerned that the thousands of people reading his article will now be completely disillusioned  into thinking that reinventing yourself is a long arduous 5-year endeavor as James quite humbly put it. The problem with James Altucher as he puts it is that early in his career he has made tens of millions of dollars and has lost it all, MULTIPLE times and has done it over and over again. Along the way, he has pissed off many big names and many big industries completely burning all bridges to the ground and this is doing it over and over again. What’s that quote by Albert Einstein? — “Insanity is repeating the same mistakes and expecting different results.” I understand that failures are a big part of success – for 10 years, I’ve had my own businesses on the web making millions along the way and BAM, I got smashed to pieces by Google and lost it all. However, being a critical and accurate thinker, I can analyze and figure out what went wrong, put the pieces together and try again more intelligently. This is where I show you – the functional logical thinker who is at a point where he/she needs to reinvent himself to do it in much less time. “Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail Better.” -Richard Branson Make a decision to reinvent and ask why? Over the years, you will always reinvent yourself until you find your true best self. Are you out of college, out of work (got laid off, fired) or are you sick and tired of what you’re currently doing? Are you ready for the long road ahead? Learn your new endeavor Reinventing will require you to learn many new skills. The books you read and the people you meet will be the foundation for who you end up becoming You will be required to learn as many as 5-10 new habits and 5-10 new skills Several of your basic skills such as communication, will be tested. Skills required: strong communication skills, being a connector and connecting with others, ability to plan and execute, creating a timeline / goal and having determination to plow through. Creating your brand, Finding your niche / passion Your passion / niche is only a validation step away. Whoever you choose to reinvent yourself as, start telling people today. Everyone has a story – perhaps you had a long career in sunglasses like I did and failed or you had a great job and got fired and now look at you. Your story may be similar to everyone else but your experiences and wisdom are unique to you. Your mentors Without mentors, you’re dead in the water. Luckily, you’re in luck because every book that you read is your mentor. If you read 20 books a year, you now have 20 mentors Listen to podcasts through iTunes – podcasting is exploding and there are new podcasts on iTunes every day. Meet the connectors and make the connections The best way to build authority for your brand is to get interviewed on podcasts and well known web sites. Gone are the days of TV interviews as they are no longer effective. Go to meet ups and conferences and meet the people in your niche A timeline: 1-2 months to figure out your new niche 3-6 months to learn and implement your brand (Your platform which consists of a web site, podcast, blog, email lists, etc) 1-5 months to create your first product, service or establish your niche. 6-12 months to become profitable. In total about 1-2 years to reinvent yourself and build wealth. Links talked on the podcast: The Ultimate Cheat Sheet For Reinventing Yourself Kevin Wilke Talks About How He Made Over 30 Million in Sales in Less Than 5 Years! How To Make Millions and Market Yourself as an Expert Find your Life Purpose, Become Motivated and Build Mental Toughness 5-Star Reviews This week JulienASA: I am listening to your podcast while running. Very inspirational. I haven’t found or built my own business yet but continuing to listen to your podcast will help me find the right one to do. Did You Enjoy This Podcast? Never miss an episode by subscribing, using one of the options below and If you can spare 30-seconds to leave a review, rate and subscribe on iTunes, it would really help the show’s ranking. Thank you, in advance! Read more at WilliamShaker.com - A Personal Development Blog For Smart People

When it comes to success, there is a never-ending cycle of learning and growth. I truly believe that when you stop learning, you start dying. Human beings are capable of learning from mistakes, adapting and evolving a lot faster than any other creature on earth. However, just because we have the capacity to learn, doesn’t mean we always do. In this podcast, I want to teach you 10 Critical Lessons For Life & Business To Live By. Depending on where you’re in your personal development and how much work you have put in, some of these might be pretty obvious to you and while to others, it may be completely new. Regardless, I hope you learn something today. Please respond by commenting below and let me know what you think. 1. To double your income, triple your rate of learning. Always make learning a priority – get out of bed early if you have to. If you’re not learning, you’re obsolete. Success is inward out — The level of success you want to achieve is commensurate with the level of your education. Food & water is to the body as education & personal development is to the mind. 2. Small daily improvements over time create stunning results. Make improving your life and your business never ending. Always up your standards of living — your health, your diet, your body should improve as you get older, not deteriorate Your body will naturally deteriorate as you get older but counter balance it by eating health and exercising. For business — continue to make improvements — regardless if its your web site, your communication with your clients or your customer service. 3. Be a master of your craft and practice, practice and practice. You already know too much — you’ve read every read and every article – now its time to practice, practice and practice what you learned. Practice doesn’t perfect – perfect practice makes perfect. Deliberate practice is X amount per day, every day. 4. Read magazines you don’t usually read. Talk to people who you don’t usually speak to. Go to places you don’t commonly visit. Disrupt your thinking so that it stays fresh + hungry + brilliant. My friend Kevin Wilke left his small-town home from rural Iowa more than a decade ago only to find himself. Today, he grosses over 5 million dollars per year. When we hang out with people who’re much different than us, we usually open the floodgates to new ideas and facts about business and the world. Everyone has a unique opinion and if we continue to only spend time with those around us, we will never get an outside perspective. This is one of the reasons why I love going to live seminars and networking events where I get to meet new people all the time. 5. The bigger the dream, the more important the team. This one is kind of obvious because the team that built the 100,000 business may not be the right fit to build the 1 million dollar business. Money is a mindset and the team you surround yourself with can either make you or break – as cliché’ as it may sound! 6. Critics are dreamers gone scared. This is one of the reasons why I like to keep hush about new projects I am working on. There is always someone out there that will want to bring you and your idea down. People are often the average of the people they spend their time with. If you’re on the same level as them today and tomorrow you go off to do something better, they may not be comfortable with that and thus, criticize you and tell you its a bad idea or risky or just plain dumb. Instead, keep quiet. Success is rarely something you should tell people – if you’re successful, they would see it. 7. Those who talk to you about them will talk to them about you. If someone treated you wrongly, it is usually because you taught it to him or her. What do I mean by that? You either let them get away with things that go over your level of comfort and there are times where you spend your time with the wrong types of people – it is in their character and this is the way they’ve come to realize that friendships and relationships are formed. These types of people should be avoided at all costs. Be careful about spending time with the unlucky ones – luck is not something that is made of fairy dust – it is something that we create for ourselves. The second thing I want to mention is to be careful about the types of people who speak negatively about someone you may or  may not know. Its OK to talk to a friend and ask for a listening ear but when its wrong of them when every time you see them and they are spilling the beans to you about someone they know — that is not a friend — that is someone who has a lot of negativity surrounding them – stay away at all costs. What usually happens in this type of situation is that this person usually ends up talking trash about you too — you may or may not have done anything wrong to this person. This is the kind of character this person has. It is habitual to them. 8. What gets scheduled is what gets done. If you don’t have a calendar, you should consider getting one. If you’re in business for yourself, it is probably one of the best investments you can make. Having a calendar is great because when you schedule in your calendar, you can be sure it will get done. There is usually this type of connection with our brain and our calendars — it’s almost like holding ourselves accountable. It always works. Try it. 5-Star Reviews This week Kseneff: If you lead people or are running a company, this is a must-listen-to podcast. William is a great host and is very contentious of your time. You won’t find a bunch of filler and wasted time in this podcast. Did You Enjoy This Podcast? Never miss an episode by subscribing, using one of the options below and If you can spare 30-seconds to leave a review, rate and subscribe on iTunes, it would really help the show’s ranking. Thank you, in advance! Read more at WilliamShaker.com - A Personal Development Blog For Smart People

As Entrepreneurs, we sometimes forget what our purpose is and distractions often take us away from the big picture. In 10 things to remember on your Entrepreneurial journey, I will talk to you about a few key principles to help you stay on track and get a lot done. 1. Surround yourself with like-minded people Masterminds Conferences Seminars Birds of a feather, flock together You’re the average of the 5 people you spend your time with. 2. Be honest with yourself – if theres a problem or somethings not working, admit it to yourself and take responsibility so you can move past it. The worse thing to do is to do something that doesn’t work over and over again. Take notes with a pen and paper – ask yourself questions. Bring more self-awareness by diagnosing yourself and your situation. 3. Don’t let old patterns dictate how things are done. You have the power to change. Form new habits that will put you on the right path. You have to become adaptable. Change is often difficult because we love consistency. Change often spells out danger or risk and this is why we don’t like it. Whats hard today will be easy tomorrow. Whats easy today will be hard. 4. Believe that what you want to achieve is a done deal. Regardless of what it is — “cars, money, a house, losing weight, etc” you have to believe that you have already achieved it. Visualize yourself having it in your possession. 5. Evaluate your daily routine – are you happy? If not, do something about it. As Entrepreneurs, we are usually unhappy when things are not working organized or there is disorder. Evaluate your daily routines and get better organized. 6. Get a timer and use it to make sure you get the most out of your day. Find a timer that has a lot of bells and whistles. Use a timer that has a vibrating feature and one that will scare you if you don’t finish your work in time. Work in time blocks and make sure you time all tasks or it will eventually take too much time to finish. 7. Think about what you could delegate and systematize so that you can spend more time with family and friends. Evaluate how much time you’re worth and you will see that some things are just not worth your time. Your time as an Entrepreneur is worth more, therefore, you need to spend it on doing things to take advantage of your talents and skills. Things that are mundane and that wi ll stress you out should be delegated to a virtual assistant. 8. Identify a few businesses you love and admire and investigate how you can model their success. Finding other businesses in your niche or any business that is great and modeling them is a speedy way of advancing in your own business. Leverage the success of other businesses so that it takes the learning curve away from your daily duties and gives you a fast track to success. 9. Value yourself – learn to say no if it doesn’t work for you. In the beginning of your business, you will most likely say yes to a lot of things. Later in your business, you must become picky and choosy about what you accept and say yes to. Its all a matter of wisdom and experience. 10. Remember that you are the CEO of YOU – so take control of your destiny and make amazing things happen! Everything is a choice. 5-Star Reviews This week Wsarver: Thank you for the great advice. I like your helpful hints each week. It really helps me stay on track. Hajigomez: This is my new go to podcast while commuting to work. The quality and content are both excellent. There are many projects, ideas and pursuits that I want to do and keep making excuses. William is genuine and motivating and the podcasts are loaded with great ideas, resources and concepts. Keep up the good work. Thank you for the valuable podcast… I know it takes a lot of time and effort to produce the shows. Did You Enjoy This Podcast? Never miss an episode by subscribing, using one of the options below and If you can spare 30-seconds to leave a review, rate and subscribe on iTunes, it would really help the show’s ranking. Thank you, in advance! Read more at WilliamShaker.com - A Personal Development Blog For Smart People

1. How to Eliminate Distractions While on The internet While removing the Internet is a great idea, if you don’t need the Internet, the best thing to do is to just disable your Wi-Fi completely. The other suggestion I have is to use a neat little program called “Self Control” which can be found on Google. The program is completely free and is made for the Mac. With your Mobile Phone If you work at a desk job or have your own business – the worse thing you can do is place your phone next to your computer or keyboard. The chances of you checking out your phone are a lot higher than simply keeping it in your pocket. I think I read somewhere that the average person reads text messages in less than 4 minutes – now what does that say about productivity and procrastination? While watching TV First of all, I hope in this day and age, you’re watching a lot less TV. TV is one of those things were hours can pass by and you will never get anything done. If you’re really interested in watching a TV show or a movie, then set up time blocks while you plan your week. As an example, if you need three hours to watch TV in a week because of all of your recorded shows, then your time block can be setup for those times and days and once it is done. You can shut your TV off. 2. How to Optimize Your Study Environment Becoming Clutter free How you do anything is how you do everything – look around in your house, do you have clutter in your home? If you do, then chances are your closets are cluttered and so is your desk. When we have clutter in our desktop, regardless of our computer desktop or work environment, and, as a result, our mind becomes cluttered as well. When we have a cluttered mind, that’s when we procrastinate more often. Creating Project Folders For assignments Assuming that you’re working on big projects – if that is the case, then you want to go to an office supply store and get yourself project assignment folders so you don’t have papers everywhere. 3. How to have better Time Management Using a daily diary All very successful people have a diary. By a diary, I am not talking about writing your confessions for the day or talking about how your most intimate moments – instead, I am talking about tracking your progress from day-to-day. In your diary, you should be tracking your goals, your progress and everything that you have accomplished. Setting up a Wall Calendar If you don’t have a wall calendar, maybe its time you get one so that all-important due dates are written down on it. I personally have a dry erase board behind me and every week, I note all of my deadlines. What gets put on the calendar is what gets done. 4. How to Watch your thoughts Avoid thoughts that move you away from your goals: I’m a loser! I can’t do it! Its too hard! Instead, think positive, constructive thoughts I am a champion! I’m focused and making progress! I can do this! 5. How to Break projects down into chunks Take one bite (step) at a time: One of the biggest reasons why I used to procrastinate is because I was always doing more than one project or task at a time. While its great at first to take on all of these projects at once – later, we feel inundated and overwhelmed. Instead, the best way to work on projects is one at a time. Setup Time Blocks Time blocks are great. Since you should be planning your day the night before, when you start working, you should have your todo list in front of you. Anytime you start working on a task, you should time yourself and finish before the timer runs out. This way, you don’t get tossed in different directions and procrastinate. My suggestion for you is to buy a timer and keep it on your desktop. It should have a flashing and vibrating function so that it scares the hell out of you if you don’t finish in time. 6. How to Visualize Your Goals Practice visualization Between written words and visuals, I operate best when my goals are done both ways. As an example, every big goal or project I have is first planned out on paper – yes, I am still using the old fashioned pen and paper method – after that is done, then I go to Google and do a search for the image that best represents my goal. After I print all of the images, I then make a collage out of it. The collage is then called my vision board. Vision boards are great because it keeps the mental image of our goals fresh in our minds so that we don’t forget it. Often, when we forget our goals that is the time when we procrastinate a lot. However, if it is always fresh in our minds, we realize the importance and tend not to get distracted. In fact, athletes visualize their goals all the time – if you ever notice an Olympian, they will first visualize the goal or the trick they are performing in their mind, then attempting to do it. Everything that happens first happens in the mind. 7. How Goals are like pets Feed and nurture them Goals need constant attention. As a suggestion, you need to nurture your goals at least 2-3 times per day. The best method I found is to read them at least 3x a day but at a bare minimum twice a day. When you wake up in the morning, you should be reading your goals as part of your morning rituals. If you don’t have a morning ritual, then I suggest you check out podcast #15 on “how to become happier so that every day feels like Christmas” In this podcast, I give you exact details on how you can have a great morning and evening ritual so that you can get things done. However, if you don’t have time or you’re busy, the short version is: give yourself at least 15 minutes in the morning to not only read but to also visualize your goals and give yourself another 15 minutes in the event. The morning ritual sets the tone for the day and the evening ritual sets the tone for the next day keeping it fresh in your subconscious mind when you sleep. Now if you want to make it really effective, I would suggest not watching TV for the last 2-3 hours before you sleep. TV has so many different negative elements these days that really mess with our overall moods – although its just made up stuff on TV – when you combine it with the news and everything else, this usually ends up robbing you of your feel good emotions. If you’re going to watch something on TV, instead, be intentional about it – something positive like a comedy. TV is good but only if you’re being intentional about what you’re watching. 8. How to Deal with setbacks Be gentle on yourself We’re often our own worse critics – we live in a world that doesn’t appreciate the good the world offers as much as the bad… we often see so much negativity on TV and on the internet that we somehow mirror our own lives in the same way. Ever since I began going to Strategic Coach earlier in the year, I’ve learned that I need to start recording my wins, no matter how small. You need to do the same because as I mentioned, we somehow live our lives like only remembering the negative but we must first remember the positive and what has worked. I use this great little app for my iPhone called “Winstreak” which is pretty cool and best of all, it is FREE! If you have an iPhone and are interested, you can find the link to the app in the show notes. I would highly recommend you try it out for yourself. Its OK to fall over We all face adversity but it is how you handle adversity that matters most. Are you willing to get back up and brush yourself off or are you the type to continue to beat yourself up? In every part of life, we fail but its best to fail forward. By failing forward, we learn the important lesson and avoid making the same mistakes over again. Yes, you will fail again but that is part of the learning process. You can take failing using two different approaches – one is to be afraid of failure so you end up never trying anything new. The second method is always trying something new, knowing that you will make mistakes early on, learning from it and moving on. The choice is yours. Links Discussed On The Podcast Self Control App (mac) Self Restraint App (windows) How to create a vision board How to become happier so that every day feels like Christmas! Winstreak App (iPhone/iPad) Did You Enjoy This Podcast? Never miss an episode by subscribing, using one of the options below and If you can spare 30-seconds to leave a review, rate and subscribe on iTunes, it would really help the show’s ranking. Thank you, in advance!   Read more at WilliamShaker.com - A Personal Development Blog For Smart People

 1. “You become what you believe. You are where you are today in your life based on everything you have believed.” —Oprah Winfrey, net worth of $2.9 billion You must believe that success is inevitable and that you will succeed. Greatness is possible in every walk of life. Like Steve Jobs, billionaires have shifted the way our world works, because they believe in the impossible and are willing to discover the undiscovered. Change is possible – greatness is possible but you must first believe in yourself. 2. “What we say here every day is that our success is really based on our members’ success, our community’s success.” —Pierre Omidyar, net worth of $8.5 billion Your success is directly tied to how much you do for others. It’s not what you know. It’s not who you know. It’s what you do for who you know. Success follows generosity. 3. “The typical human life seems to be quite unplanned, undirected, unlived, and unsavored. Only those who consciously think about the adventure of living as a matter of making choices among options, which they have found for themselves, ever establish real self-control and live their lives fully.” —Karl Albrecht, net worth of $26.9 billion Everything is a choice of what to do (or not to do) Most people are living life passively and think it is something that happens to them. Life is something we must intentionally life by pursuing our options and creating our own circumstances. 4. “If I’m going to do something, I do it spectacularly or I don’t do it at all.” —Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Alsaud, net worth of $20 billion While perfection is a myth – as humans, we’re meant to be efficient to a certain degree but not perfect. However, intentional focus and determination are the very necessary ingredients to do things spectacularly. Regardless of what your goal is, greatness doesn’t come from just “putting in your time” as that time can be wasted by doing things that are non-related to the task at hand. The time you put means it has to be done with effort, energy and lots of resolve. 5. “It’s through curiosity and looking at opportunities in new ways that we’ve always mapped our path at Dell. There’s always an opportunity to make a difference.” —Michael Dell, net worth of $15.9 billion A downturn or failure in an individual life or a company’s organization is an opportunity disruption, change and growth. Every company or individual needs to evolve and come up with new solutions to existing problems Every company or individual also needs to come up with new solutions for problems that have not risen yet by being future oriented. 6. “No person will make a great business who wants to do it all himself or get all the credit.” —Andrew Carnegie, net worth of $310 billion (in todays dollars) Success unshared is often failure – Andrew Carnegie who founded the steel industry would not have been able to do it by himself if it weren’t for the thousands who helped him. By working and giving credit for those who help us, we find meaning in our work – its all about appreciation. Success in any walk of life is to be shared with others, billionaires are often motivated by factors other than just money or fame. 7. “The ultimate definition of success is: you could lose everything that you have and truly be okay with it. Your happiness isn’t based on external factors.” —Tony Hsieh, net worth of $840 million We often say to ourselves: Once I get this job, I’ll be happy Once I get that house, I’ll be happy If I only had more money If I only had ______ fill in the blank Life rarely works this way – being in Strategic Coach for the last few months, I’ve been realizing to record my small wins. In life, we forget to record our wins, to take into account or current accomplishments. Your external factors mean anything – they live in your mind only and you’re the one to give it power. Happiness comes before success – in order for success to be a realized, you must first be happy. 8. “Don’t worry about what everyone else is doing.” –Warren Buffett net worth 60 billion Too often pay too much attention to what our siblings, parents and friends are doing. There is often this competitive drive or a need to be at the same degree as them. Regardless if it is an academic pursuit or the level of success someone important to us has achieved, we often undermine our own likes and dislikes and instead, find a way to compete with others while completely disregarding our own fulfillment and happiness. Isn’t “keeping up with the Jones’ similar to this paradigm? Instead: Figure out the principles and values that matter most to you. Let go of the need to check on what everyone else is doing. It is not necessary to compare what you’re doing with everyone else. We each have a story in this world – your story must be unique to you. 5-Star Reviews this week: Hg_al_dude: I’ve been listening for about a month now. This is one of my podcasts. Great content, keep it up William. TracyDJB: This podcast is very inspiring for business owners. I enjoy listening to a host and guests who have experience that can help me and my business with concrete ideas and advice. Justglenn1: William does a great job of inspiring and motivating in a humble and regular guy way. He’s not a rah, ray hyper guy. If you tune in every week to listen to me speak, I really appreciate it. I have one quick 30-second favor to ask you – please go to willimshaker.com/iTunes and leave an honest review… If you have a web site you would like me to promote, put that in your review as well and I’ll read it on the next podcast. I think this is a win-win strategy. Did You Enjoy This Podcast? Never miss an episode by subscribing, using one of the options below and If you can spare 30-seconds to leave a rate, review and subscribe on iTunes, it would really help the show’s ranking. Thank you, in advance! What is one lesson from this episode that you will take home and start applying right away?   Read more at WilliamShaker.com - A Personal Development Blog For Smart People

When Hal was twenty years old, he bought a brand new Ford Mustang. Being only 20 years old, he was on top of the world. Three weeks later, after giving a motivational speech to fellow coworkers at his company after driving home, this guy was going the wrong way hit his car head on. Needless to say, Hal broke 11 bones and was dead for 6 minutes without a heartbeat. The doctors thought he would never walk again. This is “Yo Pal” Hal Elrod’ journey into some might call “the impossible” where he quickly recovers and achieves greatness in his life with a miraculous recovery. Lessons learned in this podcast: How he quickly got over his accident and what his motivation was. How he smiled, joked and laughed his way to recovery. Was he sad, angry and depressed after the accident? How Hal lives by the 5-minute rule. How Hal got over his adversity and his challenges. How you can’t change something in your life and accept and focus on what you can’t change. How Hal Elrod got freedom from emotional pain. How everything happens for a reason and how you don’t need to be a victim for the rest of your life. How 8 years after the accident, he lost his business, got into $50,000 in credit card debt and had thoughts of suicide. The lesson — how we grow when we fall and the perfect opportunity to write a book. How your level of success will seldom surpass your level of personal development. –Jim Rohn (had epiphany) How Hal got over his depression and within two months, multiplied his income. How to program your mind to adapt to less sleep and be more productive. (mind/body connection) How a great morning starts the night before. How he got discouraged with his first book for 6 entire years. Then, how he overcame that and finished it in 4 months through accountability. How habits are a skill and how to identify which ones are the bad habits. How to start the day on your own terms, even if you feel like crap. How Hal built his personal brand and got instant credibility. How he reached out to the “Chicken Soup For The Soul” series and got featured in it. How Hal Elrod become a speaker and how it all started. How to become an expert using your woe-to-win story. How to have a great morning routine. Links Discussed in this podcast: Cantchangeit.com Take your life head on – Book Speaker training (resource) James Malinchak college speaking bootcamp Josh Ship – youthspeakeru.com (free training videos) Money Talks – book on how to speak. Speak and grow rich – book. VIPmastermindcoaching.com Miraclemorning.com  book (two free chapters) 5-Star Reviews this week: Andrew Zyga: Listening to episodes #2 and 3 are very valuable. The quality of the content is something that would be provided at some fancy speaking engagement or Standard Business University startup. Great Job William! If you tune in every week to listen to me speak, I really appreciate it. I have one quick 30-second favor to ask you – please go to willimshaker.com/iTunes and leave an honest review… If you have a web site you would like me to promote, put that in your review as well and I’ll read it on the next podcast. I think this is a win-win strategy. Did You Enjoy This Podcast? Never miss an episode by subscribing, using one of the options below and If you can spare 30-seconds to leave a rate, review and subscribe on iTunes, it would really help the show’s ranking. Thank you, in advance! What is one lesson from this episode that you will take home and start applying right away? Read more at WilliamShaker.com - A Personal Development Blog For Smart People

—[click here to listen to part one of this interview]— Join Mari Smith and myself for this content rich interview where she gets to spill the beans about Facebook, Twitter and Online Marketing and how she built her business empire. In this podcast, you get to learn lots of neat tips & tricks that Mari applies in her own business, not just some information found on the internet. This is the beauty of this podcast – Mari is uncensored, raw and uncut. I hope you enjoy! Facebook Marketing Tips: How she launches programs on her free webinars. How to use Facebook hashtags and the future of hashtags on Facebook. Her three-part formula for creating content to engage. How having a terrific community manager for content creation and then engagement is very important. Every post has a date/time stamp – how to take that URL and shorten it with bit.ly and drive people from twitter to the conversation on Facebook. Twitter Marketing Tips: How to get more Twitter followers. How to pre-choose people that have the propensity to follow you back. Manageflitter.com – search for geographical locations. How to only follow people who follow you. What the minimum time is necessary to work on Twitter. What Mari’ favorite twitter app is and why. (tweetbot) How responding to a random twitter comment with your site link may or may not be a good idea. How it’s nice to just follow people back if they have followed you. How you can tweet 6-8 tweets per day. How you can use other people’ comments and with hashtags. General Social Media / Marketing: How to create tips & quotes and create content for the next week or two. How to get your content out to as many people as possible. How to plan well in advance for a product or a piece of content. How to build social equity and the law of reciprocity. How its best to work with two or three social media profiles and for the rest have some content and engagement. Links discussed on the show: Here me speak on the Entrepreneur On Fire podcast edgerankchecker.com Tweet Bot Ohsopinteresting.com Pages manager app (app) Hootsuite Yammer good for teams (in house communications) Manage Flitter https://www.facebook.com/lists/10150585382860868 https://twitter.com/MariSmith/lists/facebook-social-marketing Simply zesty Socialbakers Socialfresh Business & Beyond coaching club (Mari’ coaching club) Masteringyourlife.com (program to take) Marismith.com Facebook.com/marismith Facebook.com/maris Instagram/mari_smith Social Media Examinar podcast Did You Enjoy This Podcast? Never miss an episode by subscribing, using one of the options below and If you can spare 30-seconds to leave a rate, review and subscribe on iTunes, it would really help the show’s ranking. Thank you, in advance! Are you on Social media? What tip did you learn and will apply in your own social media efforts today? Read more at WilliamShaker.com - A Personal Development Blog For Smart People

Today, I am interviewing Mari Smith. In this Mari Smith Interview, you will learn: Mari Smith is one of the world’s leading social media strategists and widely recognized as THE top Facebook marketing expert in the world! Fast company describes Mari as, “A veritable engine of personal branding, a relationship marketing wiz and the pied piper of the online world.” Forbes recently named Mari as one of the top ten social media influencers and Dun & Bradstreet named Mari one of the top ten most influential business people on Twitter. Well, if all this wasn’t enough, Mari frequently shares the stage with notable leaders and celebrities such as: Sir Richard Branson, The Dalai Lama, Tony Robbins, Guy Kawasaki and Paula Abdul. Born in Canada to Scottish parents and spent most of her childhood in a tiny little Quaker community in British Columbia. Later on in life, she lived in Scotland. After twenty years, she wanted to come to the United States where she wanted to live the American dream and sought the help of a sponsor, now long time friend who she is still in contact with. Over the years, she got into coaching and also became a top online marketing consultant where she created her own information products and in 2007, Facebook landed on her lap. After being on a beta team for an App company, she fell in love with Facebook and within a few weeks she kept talking about Facebook to everyone she know. Learn from Mari Smith’ Personal Story: Maris woe-to-win story and how she started from humble beginnings Mari joined Toastmasters and learning Annex to socialize and network. How Mari bartered her way first job. How your network equals to your net worth. How she grew her following from the back of an RV back when she first started. How she shares personal information on the Internet but very strategically. How she got coaching from a billionaire but the vision never resonated with her. Whats covered in Facebook Marketing: How delegating content management saved her two hours per day. What types of posts to create for your status updates. How Mari likes up and coming blogs and references them. How Mari chooses her topics for Facebook / Twitter. Why she puts out an inspirational / motivational quote at 5am. How Mari has moderators to respond to her posts. The difference between followers and fans. How to have three unique opportunities to be found on the news feed. How she loves organic / relationship marketing (book) Next week on the podcast, we a LOT more about Facebook and Twitter as well as online marketing where Mari Smith really goes in depth and talks about the ins and outs of marketing through Facebook and Twitter. This is something you can’t afford to miss! Be sure to tune into next week’ Mari Smith interview to check out what she has to say! 5-Star Reviews this week: Acslatery7: The information, encouragement and insight found on this podcast is incredible! I have yet to find another podcast that is more motivating. Thank you, thank you for your generosity and knowledge, William! It is MUCH appreciated and extremely valuable! Subscribe to this podcast, friends. You won’t be sorry! Gronesy: Will’s got the format down: state the problem and show you how the solution without wasting your time! Like EOFire, he’s now in my regular routine. Kiledotmarshall: I’ve got to say that Williams put together a great podcast. Nice host that you can truly relate to. Mercury2269: Found this podcast through Entrepreneur On Fire and it is awesome. I’ve listened to the 2nd podcast and it was very motivational. I’ve let my wife listen to it as well and she got very motivated also. Thanks William! If you tune in every week to listen to me speak, I really appreciate it. I have one quick 30-second favor to ask you – please go to willimshaker.com/iTunes and leave an honest review… If you have a web site you would like me to promote, put that in your review as well and I’ll read it on the next podcast. I think this is a win-win strategy. Did You Enjoy This Podcast? Never miss an episode by subscribing, using one of the options below and If you can spare 30-seconds to leave a rate, review and subscribe on iTunes, it would really help the show’s ranking. Thank you, in advance! Are you on Social media? What tip did you learn and will apply in your own social media efforts today? Read more at WilliamShaker.com - A Personal Development Blog For Smart People

The world needs more experts and authority figures. Today, marketing is more word of mouth than anything else. Gone are the fast days of SEO and link building. Today, it is all about trust and value. If you’re not an expert in your field, you may not become as successful as you want to become. Regardless if you’re a dentist or a computer technician, becoming an expert in your field and demonstrating your strengths through transparency by entertaining and educating your followers is the only real way to success. In podcast #18, I will teach you how to make millions and market yourself as an expert in your field. Part 1: Being an expert as a business model Why the world needs more experts: No one cares what you think if you aren’t an expert. Search engines are now about quality content and higher quality content always wins. The new business model is value. Why being an expert is important: People trust experts and your legacy will be set in stone as you will be proud of what you do. The benefits of being an expert: People will buy from you and the media will want to interview you. Other experts will want to collaborate with you. Growing a social media following will become easier as well. Examples of Experts in their fields: Brendon Burchard Part 2: How to demonstrate your expertise Bleed, Entertain and Educate – in that order. (James Altucher example) Bleed: What is your story? What pains and struggles have you gone through? Entertain: Your stories must be interesting enough to engage your tribe. You must speak from the heart and to individuals not to a group or community. You must be raw and uncut. Educate: Your woe-to-win story must inspire. What solutions to your own problems can you share to inspire and teach others? How can you help others avoid pain & struggles you went through? Part 3: How to monetize on your expertise Create a success mindset with deliberate practice: Listen to podcast #2 — how to become successful at anything you attempt. Pain & experience is a great teacher. You must learn in order to teach. Create your home-base:  Get a hosting plan and build a WordPress web site. Create a Facebook and twitter account as the basics Market like crazy:  Fast forward your marketing efforts using the 200 outreach program (below). Every piece of content you create should be marketed. Sign up for hootsuite or buffer. Divide your time equally:  ⅓ of your time should be delegating tasks to your VA. ⅓ of your time should be spent on creating content. ⅓ of your time should be spent on marketing. Prepare for a difficult road ahead:  It may take 6-24 months before you make dime. Building your tribe takes time. “When it looks impossible and you are ready to quit, victory is near!” Tony Robbins Links: James Altucher Tribes Podcast #2: How to become successful at anything you attempt Bluehost Affiliate Link (create a web site with WordPress just like this web site!) Hootsuite Buffer Odesk Elance Brendon Burchard How to use the 200 Outreach Program: Acquire 200 bloggers in the area of your niche with their name and email and web site address. Acquire 200 websites in the area of your niche with their name and email and web site address. Acquire 200 Facebook fan pages in the area of your niche with a way of contacting them. Acquire 200 twitter users that tweet about your niche with a way of contacting them. All bloggers, web sites, fan pages and twitter users should have a minimum of 2000 people following them. 5-Star Reviews this week: MatthewD2013: Thanks for the great content Will, very generous! Runner6565: Great content and very motivational! William is knowledgeable and articulate and I’m motivated to take action. Plus his show notes and links are super helpful. Keep up the great work! Rez_29: I’m definitely in for episode 15! I’m committing 1 full month and then will evaluate. Thanks for the great content! If you tune in every week to listen to me speak, I really appreciate it. I have one quick 30-second favor to ask you – please go to willimshaker.com/iTunes and leave an honest review… If you have a web site you would like me to promote, put that in your review as well and I’ll read it on the next podcast. I think this is a win-win strategy. Did You Enjoy This Podcast? Never miss an episode by subscribing, using one of the options below and If you can spare 30-seconds to leave a rate, review and subscribe on iTunes, it would really help the show’s ranking. Thank you, in advance! What do you think about the expert business? Are you an expert in your field today? Read more at WilliamShaker.com - A Personal Development Blog For Smart People

To be an Entrepreneur, you must rely on your personality traits, your habits and most importantly, your mindset. While anyone can set out to be a “successful” millionaire Entrepreneur, it is few who rise to the top and make it this big. In podcast #17 titled “10 Ridiculously Obvious Signs You Should Be An Entrepreneur”, I will discuss with you some personality traits that you may or may not associate with. However, please don’t think that if you don’t associate with any of these personality traits, then you’re forever doomed into becoming an Entrepreneur. A lot of these are skills and can be learned. 1. You hate the status quo: You’re a natural leader, you do not like following the pack. You believe that there is more to life than trading time for money. Most of the time, you always question why people do the things they do – this is good because this means that your dominant personality trait is logic. You take calculated risk and are not afraid of failure. This is the time when others will put you or your ideas down… this is the defining moment if you cave in or go against the grain. 2. You dropped out of college – Examples: Bill Gates – estimated net worth to be 56 billion. Michael Dell – estimated net worth to be 14.6 billion. Mark Zuckerberg – estimated net worth to be 13.5 billion. Steve Jobs – estimated net worth to be 8.3 billion. These were innovators who noticed that there was a market for products and services that were not available at the time. They were visionaries for starting the companies they did. They realized that education is important but more importantly, it is a system that creates good employees, not rich individuals. Jim Rohn said it best “It is best to work for profits, not for wages” The richer you become, the more opportunity you have to help people with your resources. A poor man only has time to give but a rich man can create time with money. He can buy the time of other people. 3. You were always fired from jobs: You challenged management all the time with your opinions when they weren’t appreciated. You always felt underpaid and under-appreciated even when you gave your best. You always felt you could have done a better job if they gave you your own projects but you hated not being the project lead. This is why you always got fired because you: You were opinionated You thought you did a great job but were unappreciated / underpaid. You never felt right about not having your own projects – being the 2nd hand man always made you felt inadequate. 4. You always resisted authority: You have an Alpha personality with a gregarious attitude- You were/are popular in school, work and in social circles. You’re a natural leader influencing people all the time with your opinions and suggestions towards your ideals. You possess charm and charisma about you You’re confident in your abilities You’re dominant in social circles You’re ambitious with everything you attempt Rules don’t apply to you (not breaking the law) You believe in efficiency and you’re going to break the rules if you notice you can get things done faster. As an example, the job you work at, the company policy does not apply to you. 5. You see opportunities everywhere: When I interviewed Robert Greene, I learned a lot about 50 cent. The reason why 50 is as successful as he is, is because he sees opportunity everywhere. He is always thinking about business and money. As an example, you walk into a building and wonder: How much is this building worth? You walk into a store and wonder, how much does this store make daily, monthly or annually? You research other businesses and think you can do the same. 6. You’re a problem solver: You’re the Mr. or Ms. Fix-it type. You love to solve problems and figure out complex problems and situations. You love solving problems and coming up with ideas and therefore you’re a logical thinker. As an example If you have problems in your life and you’re able to pinpoint why you have this problem. Then you set out to ask yourself why and how you can resolve it. This means that you’re a logical thinker because as an entrepreneur, you will have similar problems. A business is a living thing just like the human body and the mind. If you’re able to solve your own problems, you’re able to solve the problems of your business. The pure definition of an Entrepreneur is to be a problem solver. 7. You’re a people person: Not just with any person but with quality people. You easily stay away negative energy vampires or realize that they exist in your life. You feel better when you’re around lots of people and the opposite when you’re mostly alone. You get most of your energy when you work with groups of 4/5 or more. You’re the leader in your group, always the one with the ideas and someone others can just lay back and relax knowing that things will be decided for them, as a group. 8. You may have sold stuff as a kid: Did you have your own lemonade stand? Did you sell cookies? Most importantly, did you sell the most out of your entire class OR at least come in the top 10 of your class? Watch “Canes Arcade” above 9. You always think in terms of ROI: Everything that you do, you think of it as a return on investment. You believe that your time is worth more than money so you work effectively to make sure its not wasted. If you buy a piece of furniture or an electronic device such as a TV or a computer, you’re always thinking ahead and asking yourself “how long will this be useful to me or how long will this remain current?” 10. You’re unrealistic and determined: The right brothers would never have been able to invent the plane if they were realistic Thomas Edison would not have been able to create the lightbulb if he were realistic Entrepreneurs are not realistic, they are innovators and inventors. They bring the impossible to life and more importantly, they make real, tangible, profitable things with their imagination. Don’t worry if you don’t have all of these traits – while they are all ingredients that make up a solid entrepreneur who he or she is, not all of it is required – a lot of it is developed over time. And finally, I’ll leave you with one thought: “As entrepreneurs “we take nothing and we make it something, something tangible, profitable. We serve, we employ and we take the most risks. Our laboratories consist of dreams, ambition, drive, motivation, clear thought, hope, optimism and a PLAN. We’re entrepreneurs and alchemists and we rule the free world.” -William Shaker Never forget that. Good luck to you on your journey! Did You Enjoy This Podcast? Never miss an episode by subscribing, using one of the options below and If you can spare 30-seconds to leave a rate, review and subscribe on iTunes, it would really help the show’s ranking. Thank you, in advance! What did you learn from this podcast and how do you feel it will improve your business?   Read more at WilliamShaker.com - A Personal Development Blog For Smart People

I’d like to start off by saying that every entrepreneur has a unique path but the successful ones quit stability and do something they may eventually fail at – now that’s a special human ability and drive. The ones doing it, they are not doing it for the delusion of money, they do it because they know the money will come later. The entrepreneurs that make it are the ones with genuine solutions to real problems. When Entrepreneurs are driven by a vision of the future, that’s when problem solving becomes interesting. This is the time when teams get together to fix problems – this is also the time when they expect problems to arise because to be an Entrepreneur, it is expected that you will need to put fires out. As an entrepreneur, your #1 job is to solve problems. No company or startup can ever get from A-Z without putting out fires or solving problems. In fact, it may take months or even a year before any money is made – however, it’s the discipline and the clarity of your vision that keeps you moving ahead. This vision will also give you enough disciple and charge to do what you need to do and do as you say you say. With this beautiful combination, that’s when magic happens. The moment you have a vision for your business, a passion and the willingness to succeed – nothing can come stop you from ever becoming successful. This is what dreams are made of! Failure rate of businesses in the United States: 90% of all businesses fail within their first 3 years 50% of businesses survive after 5th year Less than 5% of businesses survive after their 10th year. Types of businesses most likely to fail: you guessed it – “brick & mortar” Independent restaurants & retail stores (60% rate of failure over the first 5 years) Direct sales & consulting business services (50% rate of failure over the first 5 years) Best industries for starting a business: you guessed it – “online!” E-commerce: 52% projected revenue increase from 2012-2017 with 334.3 billion will be spent by the United States in e-commerce by the end of 2017 Internet Publishing: 110% projected growth between 2012 and 2017 with 72 billion projected revenue by 2017 Mobile Games: 173% projected revenue increase from 2012 to 2017 with 12.3 billion projected revenue for mobile gaming in 2017 IT Consulting: 15% expected growth by 2017 with 379 billion projected industry revenue by 2017 How To Avoid Failure & Succeed As An Online Entrepreneur: Do not make emotional decisions: Choose your niche based on an emotional response –vs- being data driven can be a cause for concern. Instead, make decisions based on real data and statistics. To create your company vision, you need to be a visionary: learn more about social science. What motivates people to buy form you? Learn about the dynamics of how people make their buying decisions. Check out a book called BuyOlogy by Martin Lindstrom Do research on your industry: How much history do you know about your industry/niche? How was it doing 5 years ago? How is it performing now and how will it perform 5 years into the future? Read statistical data: Find out about long term growth of your niche/industry. How much demand is there for your product/service? Connect with other business owners: Tim Ferris when he came out with the 4-hour work week reached out to a-list bloggers and influential people on the internet to promote his book. Similar to Tim Ferris, you should be reaching out to industry leaders / bloggers in your niche as well. Check out the Neil Patel podcast and look more into the 200 outreach program to get the word out about your business / service / product. Attend conferences to maximize your relationships with bloggers and influential people. Notice your competition and the climate of your market: Learn as much about your competitors as you can. Competitors are good to have, that means that your products / services are in high demand, especially if you have a lot of competitors. Don’t invent a new wheel, use what already exists and make the business better than your competitors (service, products, web site, delivery, etc) Be a good money manager: Reinvest what you have in yourself and in your business. Its not how much money you make, its how much you save at the end of the day that counts. Be transparent & provide tremendous value: Share your successes and failures with your audience. Transparency is important because people will trust you. The age of hard selling is long gone – now people only buy from those they trust and like. If people don’t trust you, they won’t like you either. Next, provide as much value as you can. Transparency + trust = sales! Follow your passion: Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do “Steve Jobs” Continue personal development and your education: Read at least 5-7 books about your industry. Always learn as much as you can and make learning, life long. Find a mentor who is 5-10 years ahead of where you want to be and learn from them. Coaching is highly recommended! Links discussed in the podcast: Buyology book Neil Patel Interview Podcast Source for statistics My Executive Coaching program My brand new Facebook Group 5-Star Reviews this week: Jet07_07: I found this podcast truly inspiring. William Shaker is very genuine and it is easy to relate to him. He turned a podcast on “how to become happier” into a complete game changer in my life. Thanks for all your good hard work! If you tune in every week to listen to me speak, I really appreciate it. I have one quick 30-second favor to ask you – please go to willimshaker.com/iTunes and leave an honest review… If you have a web site you would like me to promote, put that in your review as well and I’ll read it on the next podcast. I think this is a win-win strategy. Did You Enjoy This Podcast? Never miss an episode by subscribing, using one of the options below and If you can spare 30-seconds to leave a rate, review and subscribe on iTunes, it would really help the show’s ranking. Thank you, in advance! What did you learn from this podcast and how do you feel it will improve your business? Read more at WilliamShaker.com - A Personal Development Blog For Smart People

So you want to become more productive, energized, motivated and successful? What if I told you that all of that was related to becoming happier first? Without happiness, nothing is possible! I can tell you first hand that I’ve experienced this myself in the last few weeks. There were a few things that I was just not happy with and this lead to a downward spiral that ended up making me miserable. As a result of feeling miserable, I lost my productivity, energy, motivation and my drive to succeed – its like I gave up because I was feeling so icky about myself and my situation. However, I turned things around and began doing my morning rituals as I normally would and started implementing a few new principles that I learned from some very successful people who have been in the same situation as I was. We’re all human – regardless if you make thirty million or thirty thousand per year, you will have a time when you’re down in the dumps and a pick-me-up will be necessary. Well – regardless if you’re down in the dumps or not, I GUARANTEE that if you follow the outline listed in this podcast, you will become happier, more productive, energized and more successful! Reference: Some parts of this podcast / show notes were inspired by “The Miracle Morning Book By Hal Elrod” Why you’re not happy: You “may” be living a mediocre life! Rearview mirror syndrome: like old, worn baggage, we carry with us stress, worry and fear with us into today. Your past does not equal your future Lack of purpose: Your purpose can be as simple as “to become the best version of you starting today” Isolating incidents: We forget that the things that we put off or the bad habits we let into our lives only affect us for the moment when in fact, it not only hurts us today but it ripples into the future as well. Discipline creates lifestyle. The truth is, “how you do anything, is how you do everything” T. Harv Eckerd Lack of accountability: We get lazy when we do it just for ourselves. Find an accountability partner or you can just check in with me from time-to-time. Mediocre circle of influence: You become the average of the 5-6 people you spend your time with. Lack of personal development: When we forget to make time for personal development, we instead, make time for pain and struggle. Lack of urgency: Now is the most important part of today. You lost yesterday and you will never get it back. Tomorrow has not arrived but you can certainly prepare for it. Without urgency, you will always delay your dreams. Be intentional; create goals with a time limit. “Life is too short” is repeated often enough to be a cliché, but this times its true. You don’t have enough time to be both unhappy and mediocre. It’s not just pointless; its painful. – Seth Godin 7 Habits / Principles to adopt into your daily routine: One – Morning & Evening Ritual: Silence for 10 minutes Read for 10 minutes Affirmations for 5 minutes Visualization for 10 minutes Journaling for 10 minutes Exercise for 15 minutes Two – Stability of the mind: Meditate Get out more often in the sun to consume Vitamin D Remove unhealthy habits such as worry Spend time with friends outside of your every day social circle. Three – Gratitude:  Relax first Make a list of 5-10 things that you’re grateful for and read them daily. Be grateful for everything, including the failures in life, business and your relationships Live in the moment when you;’re being grateful instead of dwelling in the past or thinking about the future. Keep a gratitude journal Four – Progress keeps us happy:  When there is no progress, our self esteem and our confidence goes down the tubes. We feel lethargic and depressed – no medicine can help that. This is why the big pharmaceutical companies are so rich! Five – Unhappiness brings more unhappiness: Whatever you’re feeling at the time, you will get more of. Six – Exercise: Have a first wind exercise early in your morning ritual for 10-15 minutes. Have a second wind workout after work or in the evening. There are many mental benefits to working out before you start your day. Desperation is the raw material of drastic change. Only those who can leave behind everything they have ever believed in can hope to escape – William S. Burroughs Links discussed in the podcast: Hacking Your Mental State Hacking Your Emotional State Hacking Your Physical State The things I am grateful for How to create a vision wall My signature Coaching Program Successful early risers Download two free chapters of the Miracle Morning book. 5-Star Reviews this week: Hannah Copeland Discovery Map Of Lancaster, PA If you tune in every week to listen to me speak, I really appreciate it. I have one quick 30-second favor to ask you – please go to willimshaker.com/iTunes and leave an honest review… If you have a web site you would like me to promote, put that in your review as well and I’ll read it on the next podcast. I think this is a win-win strategy. Did You Enjoy This Podcast? Never miss an episode by subscribing, using one of the options below and If you can spare 30-seconds to leave a review, rate and subscribe on iTunes, it would really help the show’s ranking. Thank you, in advance! My challenge to you: Now that you’ve listened to this podcast, you realize that I’ve set a challenge — are you up for it? Who doesn’t want to become happier, more fulfilled, and successful? Is it a lot of work? You bet! All I want you to do is write “I’m In” — if you are just reading this for the first time and don’t know what this is about. I advise you listen to the podcast and then come back here. However, if you don’t have time right now, by responding “I’m in”, you’re taking on my challenge of following at least a few or perhaps ALL of these suggestions and working towards becoming a better version of YOU! To your success! Read more at WilliamShaker.com - A Personal Development Blog For Smart People

Originally a medical doctor who completed his degree in 2000, since that time, Rob has left medicine and is now focused on Internet based businesses. Today, Rob Rawson from Staff.com and TimeDoctor.com will give us an overview of how to create a successful business using outsourcing and everything else. What made you start this type of business? Rob was working in the philipines and at the time, he had a staff of 35 people and he wanted them to transition from working from the office to working from home. He developed software to work from home and eventually started helping other businesses with that same software. Since that time, the opportunity has been big and there is a slice of business for everyone. This is how he founded both Time Doctor as well as Staff.com Where do you see your business future? Rob’ goal is to create 1 million jobs. Rob has a plan for creating 1 million jobs home based jobs and set the actual financial situation for 100 million dollars as a goal. In his new business, which is staff.com, he wants to provide as much value as possible with money being secondary. In the past, Rob had a goal of achieving a million dollars and when he made that much money, he felt disillusioned and was not 100% passionate about the business. Therefore, with Staff.com, his goal is to provide jobs first, money second. How did you get into the medical field and why did you stop? He studied medicine for 6 years and worked for only 2 years. In the beginning, he started an online marketing business during his medical degree. He always had an Entrepreneurial spirit but he drifted away from the medical field because his passion has always been in Entrepreneurship. Instead, he prefers to be in the forefront of technology. In the future, he would like to do a medical venture as well but for now, he is happy where he is. How much did you make from your parents bedroom and how long did it take you? He created a satellite TV network and he hired a university student and got it listed on DMOZ and got AdSense on it and in a short month, he was making $8000 a month. That was the beginning. How do you feel about failure and is it a necessary ingredient for success? Rob had a lot of failures from side job businesses that completely flopped. For example, he created a project that was a lie detector that would record a video of you if you were lying and dozens of other ideas after that. Most of his failures were very low cost. His most recent blunder is in investing. He has made some major mistakes such as investing with someone in the U.S. that ran away with 300K of his money. He also invested in the Japanese market where he lost over 300K as well. As for failure being necessary for success – for most people, they will continue to fail and failure will result in success in the end but it is not absolutely necessary to everyones initial success. When you failed, what did you learn and what did you do more intelleigently afterwards? He became more knowledgeable and created a vision of how to make things happen. The more failures he had, the more he realized how much time it took to achieve. The second thing he realized is the difference between poor quality business ideas –vs- good quality thoroughly researched business ideas. What are the struggles most entrepreneurs face when outsourcing? There are a bunch of things you need to do right. The most important thing is selecting the right staff members; most people are a little casual about that. Developers go through many tests and then they go through an interview. Each test should test their real life business abilities. What are some of the most efficient ways of testing candidates? For a virtual assistant, he would test them in a way that they would think on the job and he would question them based on that. If it was calling someone, he would do a mock call with them. If they were doing some customer services job, he would give them a customer service test. If someone would be completely new to outsourcing, what would they be doing? If you want someone who is short term, get someone who has great reviews and hours on the job. If you want someone long term, reviews really don’t matter because they may not have had time to get all the reviews but they may still be a superstar candidate. If long term work is your goal, it does vary a lot for each job. For each job, you want to look for specifics or a procedure in place once the person has started. If you were starting from scratch on the internet to make money right away, what would you recommend they do? You can get into niches such as parenting and follow it up with a podcast, a web site and a list. Then, you can develop some good revenue with that as an example. The danger with that is that you have to have your revenue in place before you begin. So it can be your own project or sponsorships as your source of revenue. If you’re pushing out content without the revenue you may not be making money right away. What are the basic fundamentals of business that any business owner must get right to succeed? Where do most business owners go wrong? You must have a level of persistence and a level of scaling your activities. As an example, some people send out an email to ten people asking if they would like to an article they wrote and then quit because it didn’t work. Instead, you should take massive action and send it to 500 people and keep doing it as much as possible. This is an example of persistence and scaling. Go big or go home! Most listeners are online business owners, so can you tell us a little bit about the best methods of getting traffic to your site these days? posting questions on Quora.com infographics and approaching other sites asking to link to them. Approach people on Twitter by answering questions that are related to your niche. Google plus community to share articles LinkedIn groups to share articles All of this adds up if you’re doing it with the VA’s. Slideshare to repurpose content into slides. Neil Patel (resource) What are some efficient apps you use on a regular basis? Jing Project – great for training staff Asana project management – free up to 15 users Rob Rawson’ Web Sites Staff.com TimeDoctor.com Did You Enjoy This Podcast? Never miss an episode by subscribing, using one of the options below and If you can spare 30-seconds to leave a review, rate and subscribe on iTunes, it would really help the show’s ranking. Thank you, in advance! 5-Star Reviews this week: Nick B Baseball (pseudo name) Eugene Hennie from the Anti-Wantrapreneur Podcast Jim Miller If you tune in every week to listen to me speak, I really appreciate it. I have one quick 30-second favor to ask you – please go to willimshaker.com/iTunes and leave an honest review… If you have a web site you would like me to promote, put that in your review as well and I’ll read it on the next podcast. I think this is a win-win strategy. What did you learn from this podcast and/or what was your take-away? Read more at WilliamShaker.com - A Personal Development Blog For Smart People

John Lee Dumas has been podcasting on his Entrepreneur On Fire podcast since July, 2012. For the past year, he has made a 6-figure income from podcasting and he is just getting started. In this podcast, we get to know John and what his background was like and how he got into Entrepreneurship. Originally, I wanted to do a podcast about “podcasting”, however, I thought I’d like you hear from my friend, John Lee Dumas of Entrepreneur On Fire on how he has done it. In the future, I will make sure to give you a glimpse into my journey as a podcaster as well. For now, lets hear it from John! How do you develop this entrepreneur spirit? How did you develop it? Back in 2006 he left the army and it took him a full 6-years to find his niche or passion. He thought he was going to be a lawyer, or a partner in a commercial real estate company. When he finally had his eyes open to the opportunities out there on the Internet, in 2012, he founded his business and now his podcast is being listened to in over 145 countries and is downloaded over 250K per month. Tell us a little bit about your success habits to keep your mind focused? John believes that it’s a condition that affects many Entrepreneurs. Johns main core believe is focus, rising early to get that power focus. Then he dives right in with his coffee in hand no later than 7am and from that point he has a very strict schedule and he does not go to web sites or wastes his time on things not on his list. For his podcast schedule, every single Monday he does between 8-10 interviews and his friends, family know not to call or contact him. By the end of the day, he is done and drained and the rest of the week he has his rigorous schedule. He believes in batching and scheduling. Tell me about some of the biggest mistakes early on? Some of the mistakes he made was not sticking to his believe and his goals. He knew that it was so obvious that there was a need for a daily podcast and he had that inspiration. He later reached out to mentors and coaches and a lot of people and the vast majority did not see or understand that he could do it. As a result, that affected him which he later recovered from. He let their doubts question himself. Once he reached out to certain podcasters and bloggers that he respected, Entrepreneur On Fire became a huge success. What is the future of EntrepreneurOnFire and what is your exit strategy? John realizes that exit strategies are important but at this point, he does not have it. He is pouring his entire heart into it such as books, podcasts, and masterminds, consulting. He loves giving away free content to create this dream and for now, it is him and his team to work on that vision. What is your full monetization strategy? John currently makes through his sponsorship  which consists of Audible, Legalzoom, Squarespace and 99 Designs to name a few. Each sponsor gets 15 seconds in the pre-role and 60 seconds somewhere in the middle. He has a maximum of 2 sponsors per episode and he makes somewhere around $350 per episode. He also has a podcasting book called Podcast Launch and also makes money through his web site using affiliate links. Do you invest your money or buy a lot of toys? John currently saves the money and grows it in the bank and he wants to invest in his own business and in the future he may do stocks or other things like that. How did you get interviews with Seth Godin and Tim Ferris? It wasn’t really easy. It was about building the foundation. When he decided he wanted to podcast, he reached out and invested in himself and he got the Jaime Tardy  of Eventual Millionaire to coach him for $1000 a month. Sure enough, just a few days after, he went down to Blog World where she was speaking and low and behold all the people he was interested in were speaking too. Now – because he went with Jamie Tardy, he got into all the after parties as well which opened many doors for him to mingle with successful Entrepreneurs he was interested in interviewing. The story then got even more interesting when he got Pat Flynn, Corbet barr and Derek Halpern just to name a few, on board. Once he had these names, he went back to his office and decided to reach out to other people and told them about his exciting line up. This not only built social proof for him but also paved the way for his career. six months into attending blog world, John was asked to speak at the same event he went to meet these Entrepreneurs while being a mentee for Jaime Tardy of Eventual Millionaire. How come some people get very little downloads and other podcasters thousands when they launch on iTunes? John says that there are tons of books written on the subject but why he gets over 10,000 downloads per day which has snowballed and grew is the reason for his business model. He is doing 7-day business podcasts. His first action is to email whoever went live on his podcast every morning and he says in an email “your interview on EOF went live. Here are your links. You shared an amazing interview and I would be honored if you share it with your tribe.” Every single day, 7-days a week EOF is exposed to a new massive audience and a major portion never have heard a podcast and that builds an audience. He is also on ITunes top 10 and this brings in new organic listeners every day. There is a combination of people sharing his podcast with their listeners and also the organic audience that comes from iTunes and this is why he sees this continual increase. For people who’re starting a podcast for the first time. How do they begin and what is the best way to begin? Where podcasting is going into the future is that Stitcher radio has locked down deals with car companies. Prior to Stitcher Radio, companies like Sirius XM radio were already on board but now with Stitcher Radio, anyone can download a podcast and listen for the first time in their vehicle.. When cars start to include it, it will be a new game changer along with smartphones. For someone who wants to start. Learn how to learnhowtopodcast.com by Cliff Ravenscraft is a great resource. For a little more investment you can buy johns podcast book podcast book. Cliff also has a $2000 course that walks you through how to podcast. John also came out with a 6-figure podcast program that also breaks down everything hes done with EOF with great guests and amazing content on a daily basis. There is a lot of stuff out there and Google is your best friend. To reach John Le Dumas of Entrepreneur On Fire and find out everything he does, be sure to visit his site and also check out his podcast by clicking here. Links discussed in the podcast: Pat Flynn Corbet Bar of ThinkTraffic.net‘ Podcast Launch Book Jaime Tardy of Eventual Millionaire Blog World Derek Halpern learnhowtopodcast.com from Cliff Ravenscraft Entrepreneur On Fire Podcast Firenationelite.com Did You Enjoy This Podcast? Never miss an episode by subscribing, using one of the options below and If you can spare 30-seconds to leave a review, rate and subscribe on iTunes, it would really help the show’s ranking. Thank you, in advance! 5-Star Reviews this week: Gavin Cross – Thank you!!! If you tune in every week to listen to me speak, I really appreciate it. I have one quick 30-second favor to ask you – please go to willimshaker.com/iTunes and leave an honest review… If you have a web site you would like me to promote, put that in your review as well and I’ll read it on the next podcast. I think this is a win-win strategy. What did you learn from this podcast and/or what was your take-away? Read more at WilliamShaker.com - A Personal Development Blog For Smart People

My friend Kevin Wilke is on the show today and what a treat it’s going to be for you! First, Let me tell you a little story about how I met Kevin. Sometime around 2005-2007, I went to a Peak Potentials course called Warrior Camp. It was somewhere around upstate New York and I had the time of my life and learned a lot about life and myself. Since the event was so huge, we were put into 4 teams or tribes and in my tribe, I had Kevin. Today, I’ve known Kevin for a long time and Kevin has come a long way. Since the time that I’ve met him,he has generated well over 30 million dollars from his Nitro Marketing business. Kevin became so successful — not just financially but mentally, spiritually and physically that I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to interview him so that you can learn something from someone who has been through it all and has come out on top. Below is the transcript from the podcast. Enjoy! Kevin Wilke’ Nitro Marketing Bio: Kevin’s online background began while in college in 1996. He saw the potential of this “fad” called the Internet and started his first online business… and failed not once but 3 times. After a series of small successes, Kevin made over $100,000 in as little as 6 weeks. Today, Kevin has made over $30 million in online sales and has pioneered numerous breakthrough online marketing techniques for himself and for his clients. As an example – his success enabled him to help others avoid the pitfalls and years of trial and error he went through. Today, Kevin Wilke is known as the #1 trainer in his space making him a captain of his industry. As a result, his company, Nitro Marketing brings in somewhere around 4-5 million annually. Besides that, Kevin works closely with others in developing online marketing for local business owners. How do you feel about failure? The biggest and most life transformational failure he’s ever had was when he maxed out his last credit card. After maxing out his credit cards, Kevin took a drive and thought to himself how terrible his life is because he felt like a failure. At that very moment, he got into a car accident, which made things even worse. Later on, he turned things around by going from a couple a hundred dollars per month on his business to a thousand month, then ten thousand per month and in a short 6-month period, one hundred thousand dollars per month! Talk about a recovery! What is your #1 contributor to success? Kevin is a very methodical person. He is constantly getting feedback. He doesn’t really have an explosive start or believes one exists, except that everything is gradual despite the twists and turns it sends him. He was always persistent. Do you believe that your network is your net worth? A while back ago, Kevin learned from Randy Gage that talks about prosperity. If you sit down and make a list of all the people you spend time with, next to each one, write down if they support you, if they are neutral or if they are a negative influence in your life (such as holding you back or show up in a negative way). What he found is that there are a shocking amount of negative people. If these people are not positive or successful in life, they will hold you back. He then sought out to spend time with more positive people and as a result, his success catapulted. How do you find your friends? Do you actively go out there looking for them or do they find you? For Kevin, it was a two-part thing. First, he had to become the person he needed to become through personal development and growth. Up until 2006, he was a quiet, shy, low-self esteem person but he had to do the work and remove all that baggage in his life and live life in an authentic way. When he was in his early phase, he had to go out there and look for it. Now, he attracts people into his life as a result of the kind of person he as grown to be. Have you worked with mentors and has that contributed to your success? Kevin believes that a mentor is absolutely necessary if you want to get to the next level. Kevin has had mentors early on and if it was not for them, he would not be where he is today. There are two ways to finding mentors. One is to bring extreme value into that person’s life. When Kevin ws doing marketing in 99’, every month he would help his mentor but his mentor would say he has no time. Finally, after 3 months, his mentor told him that he wants him to take over his marketing and he will give him a percentage of the sale. This lead to a great relationship which was great for his pockets as well. His next mentor was David. Kevin thinks there are two ways to get your foot in the door with your mentor and the first is to provide extreme value and the second is to buy your way into it. With David, Kevin paid to be mentored and as a result, his life dramatically changed and he found a lifelong friend. Kevin mentions that once you start working with your mentor, respect their time. Because they are willing to give back to you and their time is infinitely valuable. If you start wasting their time and if you get there unfocused and unprepared, this wastes their time and it does not last very long. Second, when they give you advice, begin implementing it and and report back to your mentor. Their reward is seeing you grow and that’s worth more than the money. Apply what they tell you to do and report back with your progress and that is how you will reward them. Don’t apply their advice and you’re disrespecting them and their time. The two most important things Kevin has done is getting mentors and coaches on a weekly basis and consciously surrounding himself with the right people who lift him up and not down. The problem he sees is that there are a lot of people surrounded by negative people and not enough people who lift them up. Advice from a billionaire: Divide your time into three different chunks. 1/3 of your time should be spent with people that are at least 5-10 years ahead of me right now. 1/3 of your time should be spent with people with similar to where you’re currently and where you want to go in life. 1/3 should be spent with people on a lower level who are lower than you and you want to give back such as your friends and family. The scary thing is, most people are not spending time with people 5-10 times above their own level. Links: Get a grip by Gino Wickman Running Lean by Ash Maura Nitromarketing.com – watch the video for the whole story. Randy Gage 30 Ways to become a winner and succeed in life Did You Enjoy This Podcast? Never miss an episode by subscribing, using one of the options below and If you can spare 30-seconds to leave a review, rate and subscribe on iTunes, it would really help the show’s ranking. Thank you, in advance! 5-Star Reviews this week: Phil Pagoria Pinkbooger2001 Walter Nick Ofner Suresh Peters Keelan If you tune in every week to listen to me speak, I really appreciate it. I have one quick 30-second favor to ask you – please go to willimshaker.com/iTunes and leave an honest review… If you have a web site you would like me to promote, put that in your review as well and I’ll read it on the next podcast. I think this is a win-win strategy. What did you learn from this podcast and/or what was your take-away? Read more at WilliamShaker.com - A Personal Development Blog For Smart People

Thank you so much for joining me for another episode of Endless Possibilities. Today marks my 11th episode and I’m really excited to speak to you about how to find your life purpose, become motivated and how to build mental toughness. I only have about 3-4 weeks left on the N&N worthy section of iTunes so I’m really not sure how I will be placed on iTunes so the more reviews I get, the better the placement for now and in the future. When you leave your review, please be sure to leave your name on your review as well, otherwise, pen names are a little difficult to pronounce and say on podcasts. How to find your life purpose: Jim Collins’ book “Good to Great” Hedgehog concept “where the fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing.” What can you be the best in the world at? What are you deeply passionate about? What drives you on a day-to-day basis? These can be your underlying principles. Make a list of things you do naturally without thinking about them. I believe you have a genius inside you and I’m not saying that because it sounds good. It’s actually true. This genius inside of you is something we’re born with – a natural talent. In Episode #9 Robert Greene talked about going back to when we were children and finding out what we naturally enjoyed the best Often, genius comes naturally, oftentimes not needing a lot of effort. Some people are geniuses at math or music; but there are lots of other types of genius as well. There are genius mothers, genius teachers, genius listeners, and genius independent thinkers. We are meant to use our genius in service of our Life Purpose. These are your genius! Briggs Myers Personality Test – Carl Jung personality test (16 personality types) Introvert and extravert My personality type is the ENTJ – Field Marshall (extraversion, intuition, thinking, judgment) Corporate Executive Officer; Organization Builder Entrepreneur Computer Consultant Lawyer Judge Business Administrators and Managers University Professors and Administrators Disclaimer: This is just a guide – I am not psychologist – just suggesting what helped me find my calling in life – maybe this will help you as well. I am not suggesting that if the occupation you’re after is not on your list, then to cross it off forever. http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/jtypes2.asp (free personality test) Listener question: How do you stay motivated throughout the week and how do you apply your principles and beliefs on a consistent day-to-day basis, even when you’re feeling lazy? Great question Perry, thank you so much! I have struggled with this in my own life and till this day, it’s an ongoing battle but there are a few things you can do to move past this. Being a solopreneur working from home – there are thousands of distractions and sometimes, this can lead us in many directions, which ends up wasting precious time, but luckily I have some great tips for you. Part 1: Why you’re not motivated: You don’t have a strong enough reason: Keep reminding yourself why you’re doing what you’re doing. Urgency has helped me accomplish a lot of difficult, time-consuming tasks I would have never to get done if I didn’t remind myself what was the reason for doing it in the first place. Develop a reason for doing what you’re doing – Clarify the consequences of inaction: Are you getting older? Do you have children or have one on the way? Or are you planning on having kids in the future? Do you believe you will lose your job soon? Now – do you have a road map such as goals? If not, goals will help you take massive action because it’s a roadmap with a set of deadlines. You’re too comfortable: Do you have family supporting you? Do you still live at home? Do you have urgency in your life? Part 2: How to become motivated: Acknowledge Your Accomplishments Give yourself a quick reward when you complete an assignment or task. Take a walk, send an email, and get a snack — whatever works for you. Then move on to the next project. Commitment – commit to your goals and dreams Don’t spend the rest of your life wondering if you can do it – start now! “Bodies at rest, tend to stay at rest – sir Isaac newton” (the power of momentum) It’s a scientific fact – something in motion tends to stay in motion because momentum builds quickly and this can lead to great results. Setting time for work: Set time blocks for your projects. For example, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday you will work on writing your book and Thursday and Friday will be dedicated to marketing the book. Get a timer (my timer story) Wake up early: Many people just can’t seem to get underway, so therefore, they never take action Remove distractions. Self control app (mac) Self Restraint app (windows) Buy a Self-timer Quotes: You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take. –Wayne Gretzky The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now. –Chinese Proverb Either you run the day, or the day runs you. –Jim Rohn I have been impressed with the urgency of doing. Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Being willing is not enough; we must do. –Leonardo da Vinci “One of the most important keys to Success is having the discipline to do what you know you should do, even when you don’t feel like doing it.” – Unknown Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do, so throw off the bowlines, sail away from safe harbor, catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore, Dream, Discover. –Mark Twain Did You Enjoy This Podcast? Never miss an episode by subscribing, using one of the options below and If you can spare 30-seconds to leave a review and rating on iTunes, it would really help the show’s ranking. Thank you, in advance! Reviews this week: Jessica Rhodes said: William Shaker is a great host and asks the right questions to produce an interesting podcast. Louis Linhz said: This guy is a rock star – I really like it. Useful tips! If you tune in every week to listen to me speak, I really appreciate it. I have one quick 30-second favor to ask you – please go to willimshaker.com/iTunes and leave an honest review… If you have a web site you would like me to promote, put that in your review as well and I’ll read it on the next podcast. I think this is a win-win strategy. Please comment below and tell me your favorite part of the show and what your take-away moment was like? How is it going to help you in life or in business? One last question: Dig deep, deep, deep down – who do you want to be? Ask yourself what makes you happy = no matter how crazy it may sound to other people. Read more at WilliamShaker.com - A Personal Development Blog For Smart People

Neil Patel is a Seattle based entrepreneur, angel investor, and analytics expert. He is best known for his work in digital marketing and as the cofounder of the analytics companies KISSmetrics and Crazy Egg. Neil has been featured in outlets such as Inc. Magazine, Forbes, and Business Insider. Besides that, he’s is also a contributor to many publications including Entrepreneur Magazine, TechCrunch, Mashable, Business Insider, SEOmoz, and Geekwire Neil has helped companies like JC Penny, TechCrunch and GM to name just to name a few, increase revenue by millions of dollars and also increase their traffic by over 300% After all, he is the undisputed SEO guy in the online industry and this is what he is known for best. Today, I’m proud to have him as a guest on my show and you guys have no idea how much value this will add to your bottom line once you’re done listening to this entire interview. What prompted Neil Patel to become an Entrepreneur? When he was a kid, he wanted to be rich and wanted materialistic objects. Instead of being a doctor, he wanted to be an entrepreneur when he was 16 just to buy expensive items. He wanted to be an entrepreneur ever since he was a kid but little did he know that shiny object wouldn’t make him happy as he got older. What are some of Neil Patel’ failures? When he started kissmetrics.com on building the product, he did not focus too much on sales. Now sales are a lot better. If he started selling earlier, he could have made a lot more money but he started selling years after the business started. The lesson: even before your company starts becoming successful, it’s important to start selling. Another example was that if he had applied the Lean Startup methodology, he would have made a lot more money instead of spending a lot of money. What are some ways Neil gets a lot done without getting distracted? First off, Neil get’s a lot work done because of the sheer amount of hours he works. Neil works about 70-80 hours per week! He also blocks Facebook and Twitter. He has an assistant that manages the calendar and he streamlines everything for work –vs- packing his bags (as an example) – he gets help from someone from his assistant. He also uses a program called “rescuetime.com.” Besides that, he does one thing at a time, instead of multi-tasking. How do you avoid becoming burned out? The way to prevent it is the way to rage. He and his buddies go to Las Vegas and party. However, he also mentions that if you really love what you do, you won’t be burned out! How do you get companies like NY times, Entrepreneur Magazine and Forbes to feature stories on you? Hiring a PR Agency likes PRserve.com is one way. However, he tries to educate people when he’s blogging and by answering questions on twitter. That’s the best way because journalists will find you and interview you since you’ve been so helpful. Sooner or later, you will become recognized. Neil also suggests not trying to push it. Eventually by helping others, they will help you and you will be found. How do you help people on Twitter? You can do a search for things like “analytics” (which is one of Neil’s niches) and respond to them one by one. This is a great way to get traffic and it works out well. The same thing works out on Quora. Twitter and linkedIn as well works out the best. Some advice for new entrepreneurs just getting started: Learn how to execute and start your own company. Don’t ask for help. If you can’t figure out the basics, you probably won’t succeed because that is the easiest part about being an Entrepreneur. What are the latest search engine developments? Google is updating the Panda and Penguin updates constantly. This is because a lot of people have crappy sites linking to them and they do link building or have poor quality sites. If you’re just scrapping content or have regular user generated content, you will get dinged badly. How do you get your rankings back if you were hit with the panda and penguin updates? What I would do is if I was a user-generated site like goodreads.com, I would find all the crappy content and either noindex it or completely remove it. If its very short and doesn’t have any real meat, I would just noindex it. If its bad content, I would remove all that kind of stuff. From there, within 3-6 months, you should get back into the rankings with panda. Now, If I had been hit with penguin, I would contact all the Web Masters and ask them to remove it. If they don’t then I would use the Disavow Tool via the Google Web Master Portal. Again, within 3-6 months you should be back. I would suggest making sure content is unique, make sure you’re not using rich anchor text. Ask others to take passes it at. Once you figure it out, you should be better. Can you tell us a little bit about your 200 outreach program? What I’ll do is go to Odesk.com and pay someone like $100 to find 200 twitter users, 200 bloggers and 200 web site owners to write and talk about my related niche. I’ll have the Odesker get all of the relevant information for the web master as well as their email address. So when the day comes when we create a really great blog posts or when I have an eBook that I want to give away, I will ask my Odesker to get those bloggers to reciprocate or more so to link to my content. I will do the same thing with the Twitter users, I’ll direct message them with a unique message every time and the same with web site owners. Like “hey dude, you link out to other web site owners in my space, why not link out to mine as well and here is what we provide that’s different.” Whats the success rate? If your success rate is 5%, you’re doing pretty well. It would be a week at the latest. Links discussed: The advanced guide to link building The advanced guide to content marketing The advanced guide to SEO My most listened to business podcasts 200 Outreach Program Quicksprout.com Kissmetrics.com Rescuetime.com Goodreads.com @neilpatel Scrapebox.com Seomoz.com Seobook.com Prserve.com Audiencebloom.com Did You Enjoy This Podcast? Never miss an episode by subscribing, using one of the options below and If you can spare 30-seconds to leave a review and rating on iTunes, it would really help the show’s ranking. Thank you, in advance! Please comment below and tell me your favorite part of the show and what your take-away moment was like? How is it going to help you in life or in business? Read more at WilliamShaker.com - A Personal Development Blog For Smart People

Thanks for tuning into episode #9 of my Robert Greene guest interview. The level of content and value delivered in this podcast is mind numbing. For anyone who is struggling with life or their purpose, this podcast will definitely provide them with how to achieve mastery in life. I think I will stop here and let you read and/or listen to the podcast from here.   Is Being Fearless innate or Cultivated Over Time? It’s not innate at all, what is innate is to be afraid. We’re products of evolution. Human beings, in our earliest years (millions of years ago) were very powerless, weak creatures; Mans survival depended on groups and hunting for survival. Fear is deeply embedded in our limbic system and fear helped us in a positive way where it allowed us to recognize certain situations releasing a rush of adrenaline to help us escape for the intensity of the moment. But the problem is that we no longer live in an age where we have these primal fears. Instead, we have these vague fears that our systems are not adjusted to even today. Today, our biological system is primed for the same fear and it’s not suited for working in places like a Manhattan office. Therefore, we are not able to adjust very well and we have these anxieties that are no longer needed. The point is, everyone feels fear. As an example: General Patton who during World War One ducked and covered too much for bullets flying his way and he felt panicked and shamed by his people. However, later on, he learned to force himself into danger. After that, he was known as the most fearless general. That’s the model – fear is natural when you go into a meeting with powerful people, or if you’re performing. At first, you’re going to feel fear and the people who deny that, they are not being realistic and something bad will happen to them. You have to confront your fears and slowly work to overcome what Patton did and be conscious and aware and slowly work to overcome the fear. Awareness of weakness is the first step to becoming fearless. Do Men and Woman Seek Different Kinds of Power in Relationships? My books are gender free – but in my books, I try to avoid generalizations. In the power game, women have a disadvantage; because they are judged in a different standard. It’s harder for them to have a tough persona that is necessary to project to be a leader and it’s a harder to not be seen as a bitch, which is a highly complex game. They have to be tough but not seem tough. On the other hand, Woman are better in power dynamics because they are more social and more sensitive than men. The women who rise to the top of power positions have to be extremely aware of this. Another advantage Woman have in that they are socialized earlier and they are attentive and it can be very powerful in business and everything else. Because they are more attentive and socially superior, this can translate into business and politics for them. Is Everyone Made To Do Something Exceptional? How Do You Know What You’re Meant To Be doing In Life? There is s couple of ways to attack that. This is the first subject of Mastery because it is the most important. You’re not going to master anything unless you discover what you’re meant to do. This is the key step to everything. The first thing we have to remove is the notation that we’re superior to others. For example, “there is an Einstein type of person that I know and I can’t be as good as him.” There is scientific evidence that we’re born with the same brain and it’s just a remarkable thing that this fact never gets published. There are differences between how the brain is configured and subtle differences. Yet, there is no brain that is larger than someone else’s. We’re remarkably alike as humans. There is no genetic thing that makes someone more superior than others. However, your DNA is unique than others and your DNA determines what you’re most interested in such as sports, math, music, literature and its all there. As you get older, you lose contact with that inclination about the interests written in your DNA because you start hearing what teacher’s tell you what you should do and what your parents tell you and that is your problem. This interest written in your DNA is clear at the age of 3 or 4 and at 17 or 19. You may lose that interest and someday, however, it may come back and that may also be a path you get to follow under. When you’re 20-21 you will have a lot of time to do this. When you’re 30-40, that will be a little bit more difficult and if you’re 50 its still not difficult but challenging. Everyone has something unique and a special ability and putting it all together is necessary. We’re entering a world that is very competitive and it’s increasingly necessary to follow your interests but if you’re not doing this and you’re not becoming creative and excited at what you do, you will be in such a disadvantage in the future. What Inspired You To Write Mastery And How Do You Apply The Principles In Your Own Life? I wrote Mastery because I’ve been researching great historical figures. I found out that these historical figures clearly had intelligence on another level which allowed them in the heat of the battle to make the right power moves. Having this kind of intuition into what these people have is what inspired me to describe it in Mastery – I wanted to write a book for the reader on how to find the path and how they can reach that intelligence as well. I also wanted to make it clear and write particularly to young people that we get caught up in technology and the power around us. Because I am worried about young people, I wanted to write a book that if they wanted to have success, power and fulfillment, they would have to overcome a lot of the distractions that the world throws at them and master themselves to not become someone that needs instant gratification who cannot focus. I wanted to write a book that Inspires people to follow the process and wake them up to the dangers if they don’t As for myself, a lot of the ideas in the book are things that I have discovered myself such as when I found my calling as a writer and I served my apprenticeship. What are 3 pieces of advice based on your book Mastery on how someone can become a master at any trade? The key is in choosing the right trade. Knowing more deeply what your skills are intended for will really help and based on that knowledge you will have to go through an apprenticeship and that means choosing a place with a high learning curve. For example, if you’re 22 or 23 and you’re choosing your first career, you’re not going to generally start off as an entrepreneur. However, you have a choice for a place that pays really well or a place that pays little but you will be given a lot of responsibility where you will learn hands on. You want to avoid the big corporation, that big paycheck, the pressure that comes with that. The fact that you don’t have that much responsibility, you want to learn as much as possible, as quickly as possible. You’re more creative when you’re younger; you have more energy as well. You want to have a really solid, really intense apprenticeship in your 20s and not drag it out and the way to do that is to choose a place where you will learn the most. You should also get a mentor. It’s the thing that will really help and streamline the process. Sometimes we don’t have a mentor but we can usually find one by reading a book on someone we admire. Generally find someone who does what you want to do and fits your kind of behavior patterns and have the same character traits that you have. The point is to have someone show you the mistakes you should avoid, provide really solid feedback and criticism and basically give you attention that you’re not going to get when working on your own and with people that don’t undertrained you. Filter out what suites you and find that opening position that you want to be in and finding that person in the open world that can serve as your mentor are the top elements for success. Do you believe that passion can turn into expertise? I always tell my audience to find what they love and the money will come – what is your take on that? Its 100% true and although it sounds like a cliché and something someone would say to sound really good, the bottom line is that the statement is very true. There are situations you have to modify that because there are those born in situations that can’t do something they love. If that is the case, be honest and realistic with yourself. I’m a realistic and a realist in life about telling people to drop your day job and do something you love is not realistic. However if you work at a job you hate and you’re depressed – what you need to do is think and plan ahead 2-3 years into the future and say to yourself “this is what I will do in the future. You might say to yourself that you will go to college, you will read these books, you will meet these people, and knowing that, you will immediately shift your power and you will feel powerful knowing that in the next 2-3 years you will go towards that direction. Today, we are living in a hyper competitive environment. No longer are we competing just with our community but instead, globally. For everyone who has the same dreams and desires as you do, there are 25 others in the same position. It’s rough and brutal out there. If you look at all the entrepreneurs such as Steve Jobs, these are originals. Somehow, they are not replaceable and that is the same position you want to be in by the time you’re 35. By this time, you will have the skills that no one else can do which will make you irreplaceable. If you don’t do what you love, you won’t be paying attention and you wont be focusing or become emotionally engaged in your work. This is the most realistic advice someone can give to you especially if you’re someone in your early 20’s. Is there a particular reason you did not write about Steve jobs in your books? The problem was that when I wrote the book, he was very ill and I could not dream of interviewing him. He was a very closed person, if you look for the records of who he was, you can’t find him. That is why Walter Isacson’ book was so special because it revealed who this man was and it didn’t come out until I had finished writing Mastery. Since then, I’ve read the Walter Isaacson book and found out that he is a living embodiment of what I have written in my books such as discovering your passion early on, his insane passion with electronics, and as he got older he loved designs. It was interesting how he combined both interests. These were not interests that many people could pull off, they were creativity, art and electronics and there were very few people who would have those particular interests in life and he was able to continually apply both Steve Jobs went through rigorous apprenticeship with Apple and later did the same with Next. Steve had incredible mentors. I would not say he was brilliant at the social intelligence game because that was a weakness of his but after he joined apple again, he found a way to solve that. I wish I had gotten to interview him and talk about him and how appropriate he would have been for the book. Listener question: For people who don’t know what their life purpose is, what is a great way to find out? This is a great question and to the heart of the problem! First off, don’t be impatient – give yourself 6 months to figure this out and calm down. Start keeping a journal of some sort. You will go through a process during this moment where you will get in touch with yourself. You need to get in touch with yourself because you have been listening to so many people and you don’t know who you’re anymore. You should look at your childhood and throughout your youth and find out what you were naturally drawn to and enjoyed the most You should keep your journal on what you were good at but instead you listened to your parents. If you were working at a job you hated, you should be writing it down. Also, if you loved something at a particular job like socializing with people as an example, you should be journaling on that too. You want to write about emotional things as well such as what pushes you emotionally one way or another? Let’s say you open a newspaper and see an article you like and you say to yourself, “wow, that is a subject I have to read more about because that really intrigues me” — It can be about anything but I want you to take note about the excitement because it’s an indication of something really deep within you that draws you into the subject. Like I said before, I want you to get in touch with your mistakes and your failures such as “I took a wrong path here so let’s analyze it and why do I hate it or what went wrong?” By being aware of yourself and what you hate or love, and when the moment comes for a new career path, it will be easier for you to make a decision about what you’re good at or love and also about the wrong choice you made in the past. You got to look at yourself and ask yourself these questions. Listener Question: how do I apply the laws of power in the workplace? The problem is that this is so general. There are 48 laws and there are so many circumstances. The main thing is that you have to know who you’re and who is above and below you. Some of the laws are very applicable such as how to handle your bosses and your colleagues and if they are scheming. The main thing about the laws is that you become more aware of the laws – as a result, your eyes are open, you’re very conscious and not naive, you’re not thinking of yourself and you’re not buried inside your own thoughts and emotions. The people above you have egos and insecurities and you have to be aware of that. They may not be as confident as you think they are. It’s more about the awareness of the game around you. The 48 laws are more about having awareness and being strategic than anything else. Its important not to become emotional because that is the worse thing that can happen. If you do become emotional, you won’t be able to know what is happening. Keeping your control, managing your emotions and trying to see it like a game with what people are doing to you as best as you can is what the 48 laws of power refers to. Robert’ Books 48 Laws Of Power Art Of Seduction 33 Strategies of War 50th Law (with 50 cent) Mastery Never miss an episode by subscribing and If you can spare 30-seconds to leave a review and rating on iTunes, it would really help the show’s ranking. Thank you, in advance! Thanks for listening to the Robert Greene Guest interview #2! You can find Robert Greene’ guest interview #1 by clicking here. What was your favorite question and how is it going to help you in your life?   Read more at WilliamShaker.com - A Personal Development Blog For Smart People

I feel privileged and honored to have interviewed Robert Greene on my Podcast. As you can read below, I have learned not only so much about him but more about his books and his philosophies. Robert in my opinion is the 21st Century Napoleon Hill – in 1927, after 20 years of research and countless interviews with Benjamin Franklin and Henry Ford to name a few, Napoleon Hill came out with a 1200 page manuscript called “The 17 Laws Of Success.” In similar fashion, I believe Robert is just as great as him because Robert has studied some very famous and influential people as well – perhaps not in person but at least in spirit. I hope you enjoy the first part of this interview process. The real meat and potatoes of the interview will come in part 2 which should make things really interesting and valuable to learn from. Stay tuned for part 2 next Wednesday! Robert Greene on the 48 Laws Of Power: Although Robert knows all of the laws, he does not practice every single law for it would drain him of all energy. However, he is very aware of the laws and knows people who use them. He realizes that the laws reflect an overall way of looking at the world but during the course of the day, he doesn’t map things out to get ahead in this world. Robert believes envy is a dangerous thing. Fidel Castro: The story was that the former President of Guatemala had a stack of books in his Presidential office and visited his dignitaries and he gave a copy to Fidel Castro. Fidel read it and enjoyed it very much. Since the book was released, there have been many leaders who have a copy of the book. However, the book is not designed for people who already have power, it is designed for the every day Man or Woman. Robert’ books are some of the most sought after books between prison inmates in the United States. Robert believes that the prison systems are barbaric and since the inmates are terrified and about navigating and protecting themselves, they read his books. He has met someone who has been in the prison system for 20 years and he told him clearly that a lot of it is for defensive purposes. However, he has a lot of empathy for the United States prison systems. The idea of reform is completely wrong. He does not feel bad or that they found it helpful. Robert Greene on Robert Greene: Robert was the hippy type, was into philosophy. His majors were Greek and Latin. He was into foreign languages. After graduating college, he wondered around Europe for 5-6 years. He lived in Paris, he worked in a hotel, he taught English and he washed dishes. He tried journalism; he got into Hollywood, which was not a great fit either for various reasons. By this time, he is 35-36 and it was not looking good for him. Robert feels lucky and he is aware of the fact that if he hadn’t met Yost (his partner), he doesn’t know what would have happened to him. Yost helped Robert create the 48 Laws Of Power. He is aware of the luck and opportunity that plays in his life and other people’s lives.  Robert closely resembles the classic rake but he is a reformed rake right now as he has a girlfriend of 16 years. Rakes aren’t reformed but he believes he is. A rake is someone who is usually obsessed with woman and can’t find satisfaction with only one. Rakes can be very romantic and engaged and in the moment, then it passes and they move onto someone else and this desire is very seductive to woman. Even though Woman know that this man may be a a rake, they often feel they will make him calm down but that is usually there down fall. He also feels he is the natural archetype as well. From the 48 Laws Of Power book, Robert admits to violating the outshining the master law – Inadvertently he triggered the insecurity of his superior as if he was after his job. Since violating it, he is aware of it. This is something he did prior to writing the book. Robert doesn’t think about the laws but it just seeped into his attitude and has become him after all of these years. Robert Greene on Philosophy: Everyone has untapped energy to get things done, you have it in you. When your push comes to shove, you have the resources to rise to come up to the occasion. This is a lesson he will keep with him for the rest of his life. Robert was a late bloomer, he didn’t write until 36. He never gave up on himself. He would get depressed but he never gave up. He kept trying something different, whatever it was. When there was an opportunity for a book, he went for it. He was so desperate to make it at that point that he put an incredible amount of energy into the book. He discusses it in Mastery – the sense of knowing who you’re and knowing what you want. If you’re clear about what you want to accomplish, it can see you through these dark moments. In writing Mastery, he was very late in delivering it – it was a monster to put together. As a result, he was very late in delivering and the publishers were getting antsy and he was going to get into a lot of problems if he did not deliver the book on time but he did through the power of meditation. In the end, he found a way to delivery the book with 30-seconds to spare on a March deadline right before midnight. The worse kind of seducer in the world is one that pretends he is not. Seduction is about bringing what you’re natural at and improving it. Knowing when to give up, to not try to do something you are not going to succeed in. Do not put too much energy on something you’re not reluctant to walk away from. Power and strategy is about knowing when to give in, how to accommodate and how to adapt yourself to circumstances. Robert Greene on 50-Cent: 50 cent was a very open person and gave him complete access of himself for 6-8 months. Robert saw him on the streets of queens where he hung out with his friends and where he did business in Las Vegas. 50 cent is the Napoleon Bonaparte of hip-hop. He is not a thug or aggressive when you meet him. They approached Robert; he flew to NY and met him in the back of a steakhouse in NY. He was intimidated but he realized he was a really nice person. He is really down the earth, has a great sense of humor and there was no glaring sense of ego issues and he liked him and they got along really well. He is not afraid of most of the things most people are afraid of – like being alone, being criticized, and death. Because he is not afraid of these things, he has an incredible of advantage and that would be the book. The first time he met 50, it was like a scene out of the godfather, where someone in the mafia could execute someone and not know about it. Robert was not the only white guy there, there was one other. 50 had his entire entourage there but Robert was by himself. 50 and his crew put him at ease, they didn’t put him through any tension. To continue on with the series, here is part two of the Robert Greene Guest Interview. Please do not forget to subscribe, rate and review! thanks! Links to Robert Greene’ Books: 48 Laws Of Power Art Of Seduction From this 4-part interview, what was your favorite part or what did you learn the most that you will use in your own life? Read more at WilliamShaker.com - A Personal Development Blog For Smart People

Today, I have Pat Flynn, from the Smart Passive Income Podcast and Blog talking to us about life, business, Podcasting and his latest book called “Let Go.” Pat’s Journey is like everyone else these days – you get laid off (just like I was in 2001) and what do you do? You either start another job or you start a business and try to make a name for yourself. Pat decided to do just that – which is to make a name for himself. Today, he is known all around the web as one of the most transparent Entrepreneurs to date revealing his monthly income as well as his income streams on a monthly basis. Join us for this interview that will not only leave you feeling excited to start the journey for yourself but you will also learn a lot about my friend, Pat Flynn. When you reach a certain level of success, what drives you forward? The unknown is what makes him excited and experimenting with things. The World Wide Web is changing a lot and I like to experiment and showcase everything I have. I also like to lead by example. What get’s me going the most is my kids – my kids are my biggest motivation. I am also helping other people out there and showing them the opportunities. If I were not laid of, I would have never been in this position to do what I love to do. What do you want out of your legacy? What is your plan for the next 5-10 years? “Right now, the focus is on the kids and it’s making sure that all the decisions that my kids have the best opportunities and where they want to go to school… This is the motivation for my business so that I give them opportunities.” Pat wants them to know that dad did it the right way and that I led by example. He doesn’t want them to say that dad made bad decisions and when he makes a decision, he always thinks about what the kids will think when they grow up. Besides that, he also wants the relationship with his audience to be remembered as well by him doing the best and providing the most value. He also wants a physical published book so that he can go to the bookstore and say “dude, there goes my book.” So far, traditional publishers have contacted him and the big thing is that he wants to be known or remembered as the guy who started the whole trend of online business the “honest and right way.” People who can be honest, transparent and focus on the relationship before selling. His motto is to give away as much value as he can. I know you’re making a lot of money, but do you invest any of your earned money? It’s all being invested. Some are short-term goals like buying a house and later, real estate. He is also invested in education funds for his children. He believes that you learn a lot from time management, people skills and there is a lot of value and personal growth by going to college. So he believes this is important for his kids. Besides that, he is also playing with individual stocks, real estate. Pat wants to makes sure he lives within his means even though he loves that Audi R8. All the toys can come later but most importantly; the kids and making sure that the family is financially secure. As a side note, Pat loves the DeLorean. Tell us a little bit about how you keep focus? “Right now, the schedule is focused around kids. Most of the work done is between 9pm and 2am in the morning.” Pat is a nigh towel and that’s when he can focus the most and write the most. Pat suggests finding out for yourself when you’re the most focused. Do one thing at a time and also focus on small milestones. He always takes one project at a time and one milestone at a time and when that is done, he then moves onto something else. There are so many things fighting for our attention right now but if you want to divide all of the things you want to focus on, you’re not going to make headway and its just better to complete it and move on before doing something else. There are also a lot of other things he does because he has such a wild imagination – he has an alarm go off, every hour that says “are you doing what you’re supposed to be doing right now?” “Is what I am doing is helping me reach my next goal or milestone?” Every once in a while, when he is doing something he is not supposed to, be doing the alarm keeps him staying focused. What do you fear? For a long time he feared public speaking – but once he did the podcast, it trickled down especially when he did his YouTube videos. Public speaking is world’s worst fear, its like death, Pat says. He started in October 2011 (speaking), 1 or 2 every couple of months and he still gets scared. He works with a coach and as a result, he’s become a better communicator. He always asks himself “what’s the worse that can happen?” The first thing he thinks about is the worse case scenario that could happen but its just his brain giving him “mind frick.” Pat created a scenario in his head where he would be thrown at by rotten tomatoes; then he would have to run away and he would fall and break his nose on stage” as he is running away. He also mentioned that this would never happen but the fear of public speaking made him feel this way. However, realistically, what is the worse that can happen? The worse would be that people will say, “that wasn’t so good or they didn’t enjoy it” so in the end, he always ask himself “how can I make it better”? He also watches dozens of TED talks to learn how to speak better. Another thing he fears is losing control – especially when he was working before he was let go and he worked so hard. He wants his results to be more about what he has done or what he has not done enough of and he wants to make sure he is in control of his own destiny. He can’t imagine himself not being his own boss and not making decisions in his own life. Tell us about your biggest recent failure? “There was quite a bit actually and it depends on which company you’re referring to that I started and failed at, Pat says” The biggest was an iPhone company where we spent a little over $6000 on an iPhone app and then we got back the beta version and we didn’t get it to where we envisioned it and then spent another $6000 and didn’t even release it because we were rushing to get the whole thing out before Christmas. The problem was that we didn’t sit and plan out if the developers we hired can do the job or if they had the capabilities. There were a lot of lessons learned there but my success with software was not very successful because we also tried to create a word press app but I had a hard time with it as well, Pat says… “There was also another web site I created where I wanted to help people use Photoshop and how to create banner ads, buttons for email lists, blog posts, etc.. We created the whole platform and for some reason I was creating to the tutorials and I didn’t want to do it anymore. I wasn’t sure if something else was taking my attention away from it. I actually started creating the actual meat & content of the site but I wasn’t having fun, Pat reveals.” “This actually takes me back to High School where we all wanted to become entrepreneurs and we created business cards and we were like we created C++ and this and that but it was just a business card and no business.” What are some of the lessons you have learned about podcasting? “Podcasting has exploded and most of my audience has come to me as a result of people listening to me, Pat reveals” He then tells a story of a woman he talks to on a social media conference and he asked her what she remembers about his show and she said “I remember when you were a big baby, in one of your episodes you said that you were eleven ounces.” Pat says “but this was crazy, out of all the episodes, this was the one thing she pulled out. That is something you know about a friend or a family member but there she was telling me this. Then she says, “I feel like I know you.” That’s the cool thing about podcasting; the podcast has a way to connect you and the listener, using the power of your voice. People don’t need to be online or with you but they can connect withy you while they walk, drive to work or go to the gym. What are some of the best ways to promote a podcast? One of the coolest strategies for your podcast.. Sort of how I am on yours and I will add it to the blog and on social networks is to give value as a host and ask them to post a link and share it the interview with their listeners. The guest will look good and because they have someone else interviewing them, that’s one way to put you in front of their audience you would not have been otherwise. Pat also mentions – you have to focus on iTunes because there are SEO capabilities and if you have relevant terms on your podcast, you better make sure to have it in in the title of your show. Also, you cant keyword stuff but just remember that iTunes runs on an algorithm. Another interesting thing is to mention other podcasts you like on your show and your listeners might subscribe and as a result, your podcast will show up on the related area of the other podcasts as a bonus. I want to talk about your book let go. Can you tell us more? My book is about the abilities of letting go of what I had been conditioned for my whole life of working for a 9-5 position. My dad wanted this for me. He retired and he thought it was good and I thought it was going to be the same for me. If you look at the book cover, there is an elephant with a strong analogy. When baby elephants are trained, they tie one of the legs to a stake on the ground. Because they are not powerful enough to break free, and as they grow up, this conditioning they had as a baby enables them to believe that they can’t break free For me it was this whole idea that I want to walk away from everything I learned as I was younger and break away from the status quo. I am just a regular guy, there are amazing opportunities and my book is about discovering it. Links discussed in the show: Letgoday.com – Live streaming between Noon and 2pm with guests on the show talking about when they were Let Go from there job as well. Smartpassiveincome.com Smart Passive Income Podcast hosted by Pat Flynn Let Go book by Pat Flynn. Did you guys enjoy the interview with Pat Flynn? What was your #1 takeaway from this whole interview? Read more at WilliamShaker.com - A Personal Development Blog For Smart People

Regardless if you have an online business or not, using Elance or Odesk to outsource your graphic design, coding, iPhone app development or even your virtual assistant work is absolutely crucial to your bottom line. In this episode, I discuss how I’ve used Elance and Odesk effectively for many years. Why Outsource on Elance / Odesk? Lets face it – if you own an online business, there is no way for you to do everything yourself. Napolean Hill in “the 17 laws of success” wrote about the law of cooperation” Just what is it to cooperate? Cooperation is two or more people working together towards a goal or a task in perfect harmony using the mastermind principle, which is an entire topic on of its own. Today, I will show you how to leverage the power of the Internet and cooperate with millions of other people who are there to serve your needs. — That’s pretty awesome right? What’s great about Odesk and Elance is that you can hire someone or a few people and while you’re asleep, your virtual assistant or coder can work on your goals or tasks. I first learned about outsourcing on the Internet sometime around 2004 and life simply got much easier. Today, I still outsource a whole lot. I hire proofreaders for my books and work with my virtual assistants for almost everything. There are endless possibilities with what you can do… Get it? Endless possibilities? Hahah… I’m surprised I haven’t used that joke yet… well, it was about time. But seriously… the limit is whatever you set, because the people are there to help you. Part 1: Posting jobs: When posting a job, give as much detailed information as possible. Who is involved What is involved Where is it being posted, created, uploaded to, etc. When you want it finished by How you want it completed stay away from Contractors who send you a cookie-cutter bid. Some contractors see a job and respond to it blindly just to place a bid. The way to sort these out is to read all of the bids and see which ones are writing you a custom quote based on the objectives you laid out on your job summary. Again, I want to emphasis that your job description must be very detailed with the who, what, where, when and how – of course depends if its relevant or not. All right, so you’ve posted your job and you have a hundred people to sift through, here is the hiring process and what to do and what not to do based on my experience. Part 2: The Hiring Process Only hire those with 4.5+ level English Skills (odesk only) When deciding on whom to hire, be cautious about hiring new inexperienced contractors. Instead, hire those with an abundant positive feedback. On Odesk, look at contractor profiles to find out the last time a contractor has worked. If the contractor is applying for your job and the last time they worked was more than 3 months ago, you may want to find someone more active. If you want something done – give it to someone who is always busy! On Odesk, I hire my VA’s only if they have worked at least 500+ hours on previous jobs with at least 4.5 stars on their past performance reviews. About agencies on Odesk: They will cost less as well. The upside is that that the contractors are better managed because someone is over their shoulder. If you’re not good at managing your employee, then hire someone from an agency. My suggestion is to always work with a private contractor – it’s cheaper and you learn how to manage them. To me, that is valuable. Part 3: Interviewing Potential Candidates: Review all potential candidates on Skype prior to hiring. Don’t be afraid to ask pressing questions you would normally ask someone face-to-face. Not all of my Skype interviews are verbal, most are chat sessions. When talking to them, I look for grammar, punctuation, politeness and responsiveness. I mostly hire from India and the Philippines – these people have amazing work ethics and show up when you ask them to. However, not all of them speak and/or write as well as we do and that is not my requirement. However, it’s my requirement to hire someone who understands me and I can understand him or her. Correct grammar is necessary but perfect English is not. You posted your job, interviewed them on SKYPE and now they are working for you. Great – here is how to work with your contactor. Part 4: Working and Cooperating with Contractors : First off — as a leader, you must know what part of your project comes first, middle and last. Superb communication is a must – especially when dealing with contractors outside the United States. It is very important to provide as much detail in your reply after each revision so that nothing is left out. If you found a coder to create your next iPhone app, you must tell the developer what every single icon is going to do and provide them with a complete outline. Contractors will not come to you and say “here are 10 additional items you forgot to tell me about, what would you like for me to do with these?” Their job is to get the job done, your job is to provide leadership on every level and draw out complete plans for every single detail. You don’t pay them for initiative or leadership; instead, you pay them for their expertise. As the employer, it is your responsibility to get them 100% attention to detail. You hired an expert and their job is to get the job done – your job as an employer is leadership, project management and overall vision of the project. Now, there is a caveat – if you didn’t hire someone for their technical expertise and just want a virtual assistant – then its best to find someone who has values initiative, has enthusiasm to get to work, has a pleasing personality and they cooperate with you harmoniously. The last thing you want to do is to baby sit your assistant. You want them to get the job done without asking twice. As for developers, artists and all other technical people, you need to provide them leadership on every level. Before working with contractors, use a free service called Team Box to communicate with your contractor. You can share files, create tasks and projects and communicate a lot better than you can on Elance or Odesk. Always tell your contractor that you’re giving them 5-10 hours of work as a test to see how they do and if you like them, you will hire them long-term even if you’re 100% confident about them and their abilities. Give all contractors deadlines and if possible, give them incentives. For example, if the contractor finishes in two weeks, they will get $50 bonus. This is only if you can provide the leadership necessary to get the job done in this time frame. You must be just as prepared to get this job done as much as they should be. Part 5: Some safety Tips: Elance has Escrow – you must fund the escrow for the agreed amount before the job can begin. This is to protect you and the contractor. Odesk is more like hiring an employee – they get paid weekly and there is no escrow. This is why it’s important to screen your contractors on Odesk rigidly at first. Build a relationship with them and see if you like them or not. Elance and Odesk provide workflow screenshots so that you can see how contractors work – for the first few days / weeks, I would use this to find out what they are doing. Screenshots display everything they do onscreen. Ask all of your contractors to use this feature. If they don’t use it, ask why not. Next weeks guest is the esteemed Robert Greene! I can’t wait for this interview!! Please tweet all of your followers, friends and family members to listen in (they WILL thank you for it!) because next week, Robert Greene gets to answer some amazing questions that I present him and some of this information CAN and WILL change your life if you apply some of the knowledge. Besides that, please sign up for my email list because my book will be launching soon and I would like to send you a FREE copy! And now.. a special THANK YOU to these lovely folks for leaving me a 5-star review on iTunes Spons Made Me Fa Mikegunz BrettAD Sister Mary Claude Gauthier PS: Link discussed on the podcast was teambox.com where you can collaborate with your team member or VA. Thank you very much, without you, I would not be where I am today on iTunes! Tomorrow, I am off to get my root canal – wish me luck!!   Read more at WilliamShaker.com - A Personal Development Blog For Smart People

I have to admit, the drop-ship business model is very lucrative, profitable and hassle free! Whats not to love? I mean you get customers to your web site, sell them products and never touch a single piece of merchandise. Then the company who owns the merchandise does the shipping and you collect the money! Seriously? Yep! When I started my drop-shipping online business back in 2001, I followed the exact same method I describe on my podcast. I really don’t think anything has changed since then but as a matter of fact, things have gotten a lot simpler and cookie cutter (which is NOT a bad thing at all!). Links Discussed on The Podcast Rich Dad, Poor Dad book WholesaleCentral.com Business is an Intellectual Sport (article referenced on podcast) Keywords to use on Google: Distributor, reseller, bulk, warehouse, supplier, wholesale, drop-shippers (use google keyword tool to find more like these) X-Cart shopping Cart Shopify Shopping Cart Singlefeed.com (RSS feed for your products) Quicksprout.com (Neil Patel’ site) And finally – a few weeks ago,  I wrote a long article about drop shipping which is pretty comprehensive and would surely compliment this blog post so be sure to check it out. Thank You! This is my fifth episode and I just wanted to express gratitude – I’ve come a long way and although this is not a huge milestone, being only my 5th episode, I do want to tell you that you have contributed GREATLY to my success. For starters, as my listeners and subscriber, you have helped download my podcast over 1000 times since last week – for a new podcast without any promotions, this is amazing! Second, I want to mention that everyone who listened and was generous enough to give me a 5-star review has also helped me tremendously on iTunes and now when anyone who is new to my podcast listens for the first time, they will at least see the social proof and hopefully they will become a subscriber as well. The other benefit of the reviews and subscribes is that it helps me achieve a great rank amongst others in iTunes. So please, when you can and if you have not yet, please subscribe and leave a review. Thanks! This has been a long road and I’ve come a long way and its great to be able to write about it and tell you how happy I am with the results! Anyway, I’ll stop here and let you listen to the rest on the podcast. Enjoy! Please comment below and tell me if you have a drop-ship business and if what I taught you helped you out. If you’re new to drop-ship businesses and have questions, ask by commenting below and I’ll respond asap. Read more at WilliamShaker.com - A Personal Development Blog For Smart People

First of all, goals give clarity on your end vision and a peace of mind. If you don’t have goals in life, you’re spending your life running around and not achieving anything for yourself. You have this illusion that you’re getting things done but you really aren’t accomplishing anything significant. Everything in this world is created twice, first in your mind, then in the final manifestation. If your mind and your goals are not aligned, the chances of wasting time and effort are greatly increased. Goals stop you from becoming stagnant by moving you forward. Sometimes, when I lose focus in life, I meditate on my vision board and this quickly brings me back into alignment with my goals and this drives me forward. Goals also get you to become laser focused so you don’t go off-track. Unless you create goals for yourself, your energy is usually dispersed in activities that bring you little to no results and value. You then start labeling “nice to-do activities as important even though they are not. Aside from that, goals make you accountable, to you and not anyone else. Types of SMART goals: Long term – over 5 years Buy a new car College education Move to another state or country Intermediate-term goals. -1-5 years. Purchasing or replacing a car Getting an education or certificate Paying off debt Short-Term goals (within one year) Starting a new career or a business Getting in shape Learn a new language Along with your short, medium and long term goals, also create some long term goals for yourself such as: What type of person do you want to become? What type of neighborhood you want to live in? What type of lifestyle you want for yourself and your family? Maybe this is also a good time to think about starting a family? What type of places you want to visit? Develop a Sense Of Urgency Lets face it, if you don’t have a sense of urgency, then whatever you listen to on my podcasts or read on my blogs, you won’t put into use. Why? Because you’re not stuck, desperate or in need – simply stated – you’re “comfortable” with life and yourself and you’ve just settled. In order to make sense out of any of this and put it to use, you need a sense of urgency. What does a sense of urgency mean? Well – there is a lack of certainty and you’re very uncomfortable about your situation and you need big changes. As an example, if you lost your job today, it would skyrocket your sense of urgency. You may have so much in the bank that it may only cover a few weeks of expenses. Finally – urgent behavior is not driven by a belief that all is well, or that everything is a mess but instead, that the world contains great opportunities and hazards at the same time. “Without a sense of urgency, desire loses its value.” –Jim Rohn S.M.A.R.T. Goals Specific: A general goal would be, “Get in shape.” But a specific goal would say, “Join a health club and workout 3 days a week.” Who: Who is involved? What: What do I want to accomplish? Where: Identify a location. When: Establish a time frame. Which: Identify requirements and constraints Why: Specific reasons, purpose or benefits of accomplishing the goal. Measurable: This is when you measure concrete criteria about your goals. For example – How much? How many? How will I know when it is accomplished? Attainable: When you identify goals that are most important to you, you begin to figure out ways you can make them come true. Example one: You develop the attitudes, abilities, skills, and financial capacity to reach them. You begin seeing previously overlooked opportunities to bring yourself closer to the achievement of your goals. Example Two: When you list the goals to build your self-image, and you see yourself as worthy of these goals, you then develop the traits and personality that allow you to possess them. Realistic: A goal can be both high and realistic. You are the only one who can decide just how high your goal should be. Some of the hardest jobs you ever accomplished actually seem easy because you enjoyed doing it. Time Bound: this is why someday is just a wish. A goal should be grounded with a time frame or there is no sense of urgency. Podcast Links and Materials Goals on track (affiliate link) Things Franklin covey planner Complete three-part goal setting series write-up. Thanks for listening AND reading the show notes. Now – let the comments begin – what are some of your questions? Do you need some clarity or do you want to comment on this episode? I would love to hear from you. Read more at WilliamShaker.com - A Personal Development Blog For Smart People

Well – here it is, episode 3 of my podcast. This episodes chronicles the last 13 years of my professional career as an Entrepreneur and I tell you a bit about what I learned about business through the many mistakes that I made. My goal is to inspire you to become your best and avoid some of the mistakes I’ve made. Unfortunately, I never had a rich dad or relative to look over my shoulder to see if I am doing it right or wrong – therefore, I paid a big price for some of my misfortunes but that does not mean you have to follow on my footsteps. In my “ten business mistakes to avoid making” podcast, you will learn from me what to avoid and some of my best business practices. As you already know, I’m starting with a clean slate and now its time to do things more intelligently. It is my pleasure to be transparent with you and publicly share my experiences. Along with the release of episode three, I will also be submitting to iTunes for the first time! Now this is where it gets interesting because my goal is to reach the “New & Noteworthy” section of iTunes and I’m going to need your help. According to my research and from the dozen or so books I’ve read about Podcasting, I can reach the new & noteworthy section IF I get enough reviews and downloads on my very first week — think you can send some love my way? I would absolutely appreciate a nice review on iTunes! As soon as the my Podcast is live on iTunes, I will update this post with the link and then you guys can help out. Just remember, all of this hard work is for YOU! My aim is to inspire YOU! Thank you in advance!!   #1: Don’t get comfortable in business – always strive to become the best. • Business is similar to a plant. Its alive and with thousands of moving parts. • Never become satisfied with success – become the best. • becoming the best should not be confused with perfection o Anything worth doing is worth doing poorly, in the beginning. #2: Live within your means • I spent 36000 in cash on a Mustang GT • I spent another 15K in aftermarket parts • Every man needs a toy but I spent unwisely. o Instead put money back into the business. o Invest in yourself and in your education. #3: Invest first, spend whatever else is remaining • Between 2002-2006 I saved a lot of money. • I did not have the mindset to invest • I missed the stock market boom • I missed the housing boom #4: Be careful whom you take advice from • Everyone has an opinion and its always free. • Its better to tell the world what you will accomplish but its better to show it first. • QUOTE: “People who lack the clarity, courage, or determination to follow their own dreams will often find ways to discourage yours. When you change for the better, the people around you will be inspired to change also…. but only after doing their best to make you stop. Live your truth and don’t EVER stop.” -Steve Maraboli • Ask yourself – is this person 10x more successful than I am? #5: Stay informed and current about your industry. • Learn everything about your industry and stay informed. • Use Feedly and subscribe to all of the important blogs and podcasts. • Study your competitors and who they network with. • Make a habit of always learning about new developments in your industry and also ones that are now obsolete. #6: Market your business like crazy • Do not put all of your eggs in one basket • Depended on Google for all of my visitors • Find paid sources as well as free sources • Make marketing your long-term plan. #7: Plan your entire year and track progress • Follow through on your plans and your goals • Plan entire year in advance • Comfort leads to mediocrity – you start accepting and believing you’ve reached the top when there is no top. • However, there is a bottom and it usually surprises you when it surprises you. #8: Review goals every month and go on quarterly retreats. • New ideas enter the mind • You get a chance to evaluate the last 3 months • You get a chance to evaluate the next 3 months • You also get a chance to adjust your course • Quarterly retreats allow your mind to reboot and also allow new ideas to enter your mind. #9: Meet people in your industry (more of a suggestion) • Visit conferences • Meet as many people in your industry as possible • Go to 2-3 conferences about your local niche. If niche is popular, there are lots of conferences all year long. o ASD – retail merchandise show Vegas and NYC (when I was in the retail industry) o Affiliate summit marketing conference o Blog world expo • Good to connect with others in your industry o you become the average number of the people you spend your time with. What if all you met were rich successful entrepreneurs all day? • You get to learn from the best and network with the best. #10: Have an exit strategy • Create an exit strategy in your first year of business • If you buy/sell businesses, this is critical to success. • Talk about flippa • If you’re your own brand, this will be more difficult – but you can set it up for future successors. • You should still have an exit strategy – what will happen to you if you die or get sick – how will your business still go on? “Failure is only the opportunity to begin again more intelligently” -Henry Ford Read more at WilliamShaker.com - A Personal Development Blog For Smart People

Alright, here you go, episode number two! I’m very excited to introduce a new podcast and I hope you learn a lot from it. I’ve put a tremendous amount of time and energy to make sure I provide you with as much valuable information as possible so that you can become successful at anything you attempt! Part 1: This is what success is to me. (If you’re curious to know) Well, success is a combination of many important parts of my life, not just business – most people believe that in order to be successful, you must become rich or famous or both but not for me. There is nothing worse than a rich man without anyone to share it with. And there is nothing worse than a rich man who is not happy with himself, his family or his situation. Family Business & Finance Health Relationships Why do we want to become successful? First of all, success is a part of life – this brings us positive feelings and emotions. Success is fulfilling and there is a sense of accomplishment – there is also an element of feeling significance. Finally – we love the taste of winning because it boosts our ego. While an egocentric personality is not desirable, continued success does provide the benefit of confidence within us and I believe each one of us needs this in our lives. Part 2: Ten lessons from some powerful and influential people throughout history. Think Big: The greater danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short; but in setting our aim too low, and achieving our mark – Michael Angelo Most don’t set goals Most live in mediocrity just to get by Most don’t believe they are capable of doing better. Most people don’t have anyone to look up to except for celebrities, football stars or musicians. We all need to go big or go home! Find what you love to do and do it. You know you are on the road to success if you would do your job, and not be paid for it. –Oprah Winfrey I love this one – this is my personal favorite because I believe that if you do what you love, the money will come. Learn how to Balance Life. There is an immutable conflict at work in life and in business, a constant battle between peace and chaos. Neither can be mastered, but both can be influenced. How you go about that is the key to success. – Phil Knight All work and no play makes for a dull boy Beginning of the business – talk about it. Time with friends, time with family, time for leisure Quarterly retreats four times per year. Do not be afraid of failure. Failure is simple the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently. – Henry Ford Heck, I’ve failed multiple times – I am here because I’ve failed and do you see my crying? “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” ― Thomas A. Edison Have an unwavering resolution to succeed. I made a resolve then that I was going to amount to something if I could. And no hours, nor amount of labor, nor amount of money would deter me from giving the best that there was in me. And I have done that ever since and I win by it. I know – Colonel Sanders Sometimes you must give up everything to succeed. Your mindset counts, the psychology and the self talk Be a man of action. It had long since come to my attention that people of accomplishment rarely sat back and let things happen to them. They went out and happened to things – Leonardo Da Vinci I believe that if you want to get something done, give it to a busy person – why? Because a busy person will get it done over someone who is sitting idle When you are inactive, this creates a lot of doubt in your mind – However, action breed’s confidence and courage. Avoid Conflicts. The most important single ingredient in the formula of success is knowing how to get along with people. – Theodore Roosevelt I have some friends on public forums and on Facebook who thrive on this stuff – their days are spent being keyboard jockeys sparing with words and sarcastic banter, which often times as a result of creating a lot of friction, causes conflict. Avoid it at all times; successful people need only to spend time with positive people. After all, we become the average of the 5 or 6 people we spend our time with. Don’t be afraid of introducing new ideas. The person with a new idea is a crank until the idea succeeds. – Mark Twain Some people have tunnel vision; it stops them from accepting a new perspective. We’re all human and we all need to refresh our brains so I do a weekly review, then a quarterly review and finally a yearly review. I also try to go to at least 3-4 seminars per year to meet new people in my field who I can learn from. This process not only brings me more clarity but also, new ideas. Believe in your capacity to succeed. If you can dream it, you can do it – Walt Disney Most people don’t succeed because they don’t have the confidence. A great way to build confidence is by doing something you’re afraid of and surviving it – give it a try, I guarantee it will work for you. Be brave enough to follow your intuition Your time limited, don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma, which is living the result of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinion drown your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition, they somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary. – Steve Jobs Part 3: Here are some of my own personal secrets: Get comfortable at being uncomfortable Pain is a great teacher Constantly avoiding discomfort means you will never grow. Don’t become your parents, your boss, your best friend or anyone – find your place in this world. Be like water. Powerful. Gentle. Adaptable. Ever-changing. If you can’t adapt, you cant succeed Traits of successful people: They easily adapt to their environments They are goal oriented They are avid learners They eat healthy & exercise regularly They are mentally positive They are consistent They are persistent and don’t believe in failure. Part 4: Do some inner work: Do some inner work (self-healing) Therapy Yoga Calming the mind down Reading a mind provoking book Eckhart Tolle – A new earth Gawain – Creative visualization Dr. Wayne Dyer – The Power of intention Robert D. Smith – 20,000 days and counting Self-examination (Link to 20 questions to ask yourself below) Self-awareness – how well do we know ourselves? What am I really passionate about? Do I have goals in life and why not? What are my strengths and weaknesses? Where do I see myself in 5-10 years from now? How do I want to be remembered Education & Constant reeducation Commit to success by setting goals & priorities Find out what your strengths & weaknesses are – leverage them. Part 5: define success for yourself. What kind of quality of life you want for yourself? How much do you want you want to earn? What types of relationships do you want in your life or want to remove from your life? Are you healthy or do you need a reboot? Wow, there is enough in this blog post / podcast to write an entire book about if someone wanted to. Surely there are a lot of lessons to be learned and so much to apply. What was your most favorite take-away or ah-ha moment and how do you think it will improve your life and/or business? Read more at WilliamShaker.com - A Personal Development Blog For Smart People

Well, here it is, my first Podcast! Lets say I had an easy way and a hard way and I definitely chose the hard way. The easy way was to plug a standard microphone into my computer and start recording on Garageband. But NOOO! I had to bring out the big guns and buy an entire sound studio to make all of this work and sound totally legit. After much trial and error, figuring things out and learning how to properly use all the equipment and software, I finally recorded and uploaded my Podcast to libsyn.com (the place where my files will be hosted). I’m ready to ROCK – woohoo! In this Podcast episode, I introduce myself and tell you more about who I am. Then I go into the show formalities a bit and finally describe what you can expect from me. This Podcast will be airing once per week and I already have three episodes lined up for you guys. The next episode is going to be released on Monday. My goal for this Podcast is to share my knowledge and wisdom for all of my years in business. This show is dedicated to anyone who wants to make it big in business and in life! Over the years, I’ve become more purpose driven and these days, it’s all about contribution. I am here to make a contribution so that others can see that it’s easy and it’s possible to achieve greatness in any area of your life and in my case business. Business is not only something that puts food on my plate but it is also one of my favorite hobbies. The show will be launched on iTunes in the middle of May but for now, I am want to post at least three episodes of my Podcast directly on my web site so that I have something to show to iTunes when I do submit it – seems like the logical choice right? However, when it is live on iTunes, I would love some feedback (a tasty little review if possible?) – my goal is to reach the “New & Noteworthy” section of iTunes. That’s where my Podcast will be seen the most and I can reach as many people as possible. For now, please leave comments below – love to get some reactions here in the meantime!   Till next time, Will Read more at WilliamShaker.com - A Personal Development Blog For Smart People