MargaretCollinsOnline – Thinking Out Loud…

During a recent workshop we really discussed whether it was possible or even desirable to be able to control how you felt…

Have you ever paid attention to the way that you feel at a particular time of the day, maybe right now…?

The way you feel or your state relates to your physical well-being, as well as your thoughts and emotions.
- How does you body feel now (calm, tired, energetic, excited, tense, etc.)?
- What are your thoughts occupied with (people, tasks, future, past, etc.)?
- Do you feel any emotions (happiness, anxiety, anticipation, etc.), and if so, how do you feel them (e.g. warmth in your chest, knot in your stomach, etc.)?

What most people do not realize is that we are constantly in some kind of state. In fact, we cannot not be in a state of some description! So as long as you are alive you are going to be in a state of some kind – and most of us will experience many different states during a typical day, sometimes changing between states in a matter of minutes or even seconds.

States can be resourceful (happy, motivated, creative, etc.) or non-resourceful (angry, resentful, fearful, etc.). People who spend the majority of their time in resourceful states will most likely be leading a successful and rewarding life, even if not necessarily an easy life (does anyone?). If you are in a resourceful state you can make the best of any situation. It is the number one criterion to success in any walk of life. Likewise, if you are in a non-resourceful state you will say and do things that draw problems, difficulties, tension and complications into your life.

So the question is: How do you maintain a resourceful state in the midst of the many challenges you face every day?

One answer is to deliberately create and use “anchors”.

NLP anchoring uses a stimulus – it may be a sound, an image, a touch, smell or a taste – to trigger a consistent response in you or someone else. Two very simple anchors might be to either simply clench your fist gently or to press together the tips of your index finger and your thumb.

The next trick is to learn to associate a particular emotional state with your chosen anchor.

When something is anchored, we react without thinking. This can be beneficial or painful.

Can you think of a piece of music that has special meaning for you or a smell that reminds you of a specific incident in your life? The music or the smell are acting as anchors to your earlier, powerful memory. Many commercial organisations use jingles or slogans to anchor their product firmly in your mind…

When we use NLP anchoring, we make these associations deliberately.

Anchoring is derived from Pavlov’s theory of stimulus-response. Pavlov trained dogs to associate a stimulus or anchor – the ringing of a bell – with the arrival of their food. Very soon, the dogs, which salivated vigorously when their food was presented, learned to associate the stimulus of the bell with the physical response of salivation.

Stimulus-response usually needs further reinforcement, whereas anchoring can be created at the first attempt itself although the strength of the anchor can be increased by repeating the process several times.

So how do we do this?

To be most effective your chosen anchor needs to be a unique stimulus – a special touch or smell for example – that occurs at a specific time to coincide with a very strong emotional feeling.

So get yourself into the right emotional state.

- Remember a time when you really felt the desired emotion, say confidence….
- Really re-live that emotion and do everything you can to make that feeling of emotion real and powerful to you right now….
- Move, jump, jiggle, smile, remember or imagine feeling really great, totally unstoppable, capable of anything, positively glowing with confidence… and just as you think you’re about to burst with energy use your anchor…
- Touch your thumb and index finger together and hold them together for about 5 seconds.
- After 5 seconds, relax, let go of the emotion, let your anchor release and come back to a “normal” state.

Right now, you are beginning to condition your body into knowing that, when you t ouch your thumb and index finger together (use your anchor), you feel really confident in exactly the same way as Pavlov’s dogs knew it was time to salivate when the bell rang!

You’ll probably need to repeat the “anchoring process” several times to make it robust. If you really can create, remember or imagine a strong positive emotional state then it becomes relatively easy to associate this with physical anchor…

Now, maybe as you read through this you’re thinking “Go on, it can’t be this simple” or even “This is silly” – I was very sceptical when I first heard of this technique… But just imagine for one moment that what I’m sharing with you is true…
If it really is this simple, don’t you want to give it a go?!!

The secret is to give it a go and to do this just as if you really, really believed it was true. Secret scepticism really won’t help you with this one!

If it turns out that I’m right, then you can know you can feel confident and composed whenever you choose to touch your thumb and index finger together!

There are four essential components to an internet business:
1)    Identify a hungry niche market that has a burning desire.
2)    Find a product that will satisfy the desire of your chosen niche.
3)    Create a way of getting your market and your product together – this is usually by building a website.
4)    Drive traffic to your website so that your market will find your product!

And that’s it, Internet Marketing in a nutshell! This can be your business.

When they first learn about internet marketing, many people get started by jumping straight in at step 2 by promoting one of the thousands of information products available at http://www.clickbank.com

Now this can work and certainly it is possible to make a lot of money promoting Clickbank products. I’ve been know to make some money myself but for many beginners, this isn’t a fast way to make money.

The reasons for this are very simply explained in this short report: Clickbank For Newbies
This is so simple, it’s scary!!

Making money on the internet is simple – but if you want it to be a significant part of your future income, you need to make it into a business, not just a passing fad.

When you take this Internet Business process two steps further,
5)    Create ways to capture client email addresses
6)    Automate systems to sell to clients again and again

then you have it, an Automated Business System that generates recurring passive income on the internet.

The thing is, there are so many “How to do it” guides out there like Clickbank For Newbies but we just don’t do as we’re told. We have a master plan, refined by experts, we read it – and then do it our own way instead!! But that’s not the best way to build a new business…

So what about you, are you ready to create a business??

Mr Harry Stonebraker has just been voted as Mayor of Winfield, Missouri for the fourth time. Apparently he won a landslide victory with over 90% of all votes cast.

This one fact might mark out the occasion as being a special event.

A slightly more unusal reason to celebrate his achievement might be that, at the time of the vote, Mr Stonebreaker had been dead for several weeks!

I do wish his family and community every blessing in the times that come, but it did make me wonder how a dead man is voted into office?

Apparently this is not without precedent – both Patsy Mink and Mel Carnahan were also on the ballot papaers for election after their death.

The reasons given are varied – that the official deadline for replacing a candidate has passed – but surely such dealdines can be renegotiated in the exceptional event of a candidates death? Maybe the candidate is kept there as a sign of respect to their memory or because the party to which they belong can’t actually nominate a replacement before the election is held…

And what do you do when the dead candidate actually wins?

Well, in Winsfield, they’ve scheduled another election – next year.

What do you think would happen here in the UK?

You’ve probably heard that it is possible to make money on the internet.

The chances are you’ve bought stuff yourself – books from Amazon, shopping delivered from your not-so-local supermarket, maybe presents for friends and family. Yes, you know people have businesses that sell things over the internet!

You might also know that even in the middle of a recession, internet sales are buoyant. People are looking for more for their money and are shopping online.

The question is: How do you get a piece of the action?
Can you use the internet to make money rather than just spend it?

Actually, it’s really very simple to make money on the internet. Assuming that your house has it’s fair share of books, bought, read and weighing down the bookshelves gathering dust, assuming that you have a selection of unwanted presents that you’d be happy to never see again, yes, you could make money by selling your own unwanted items.

But that’s not a sustainable solution is it? It’s one way to make some money, but selling your second-hand gear is not a business.

There’s been some discussion on the Money Gym email discussion group about this recently. Personally I believe you can create an Internet Business System that makes  a regular, profitable income.

Would you like to know how?

You can create a business that generates regular income, that provides stability and security… and you don’t even need to have a product to sell.

The internet has changed the way we think about business.

Yes, we are all buying more things online, from plant pots to baby-grows – but the biggest thing being bought and sold online is… Information!

Information products come in many shapes and sizes, from free reports to $7 ebooks to secret “how to” seminars costing $4,997 or more.

If you’ve had anything to do with “Internet Marketing” you’ll have seen some of these products. If you’ve been trying to learn how to make money on the internet yourself, I wouldn’t mind betting that you’ve already spent hundreds (if not thousands) of dollars on different products.

I can’t confidently predict that you will have made any money online!

The big problem with Internet Marketing is that, as an uneducated beginner, it seems much easier to spend money than to make money!

I’m going to say this upfront and possibly repeat myself many times.

It is very easy to spend lots of money on learning to make money on the internet and not make a single dollar – if you don’t do it right…

Now this isn’t going to be another hard sell either.
I’m not selling you my brand new, patented, 100% guaranteed magic wand to make money – magic wands don’t exist!

When I first started dabbling in internet marketing I read the hyped-up emails and sales pages, I spent my $19, $47 then $97 on the bigger and better package that would guarantee to make me money – and these packages sat on my computer hard drive as I hardly knew what to do with them.

Now don’t get me wrong – I’m not blaming the seller and I’m not saying for one minute that the products didn’t work.

The honest truth is that I hardly gave them a chance, didn’t know how.

And then the next guru offered me a different product, a new way, a proven system – and I bought another product that I never used to make a dime.

Unconsciously I was expecting a magic wand or a genie from a bottle to do the work for me – and they never appeared.

Passive income, that elusive promise of the internet world, isn’t un-earned income. It is more accurately, recurring passive income. This means you do the work once and then reap the benefits again and again.

Are you willing to do the work, even once? I bet you are!!!

To succeed in Internet Marketing you really need to pick something and really use it.

Focus on just one thing until it is profitable.

Now that is the best bit of advice I can offer you – FOCUS!

And if you come back in a few days I’l begin to fill in some of the gaps showing you how to create an internet business.