Well, another year is upon us and it’s time to decide how we are going to prosper in the New Year. Have you thought about the following year yet and what you want to accomplish…where you want to be?

So many of us approach the New Year with a whole bunch of resolutions, most of which are things we don’t want to do in the following year or bad habits we want to eliminate.

For example:

• “I’m going to quit smoking.”
• “I’m going to stop drinking.”
• “I’m not going to eat so many sweets.”
• “I’m going to stop watching so much TV.”
• “I’m not going to eat so much fast food.”

…I could go on

So, what’s my point?

Well, my point is that in order to prosper in the future, we must focus on what we want to accomplish and the good habits we want to form.

Remember, what we focus on, we attract into our lives. If we only focus on eliminating bad habits, we are still focusing on those bad habits (even if we are trying to remove them from our lives).

Instead, why not focus on what we want in our lives. Why not focus on the habits we want to form, rather than habits we want to break?

Why not put some goals down on paper that we can hold ourselves accountable to, rather than saying we are going to “stop doing this or that.”

I personally don’t make New Year’s resolutions, at least not in the traditional sense. Chad and I sit down before the end of the year and first reflect on the previous year. Then we decide where we want to be one year from now, both personally and professionally.

We write down our business goals and our personal goals. We write them down because just saying them isn’t enough. We need to physically put them on paper so we can look at them and as we progress over the coming months, hold ourselves accountable.

We are very specific as well. We write down specific numbers for our business, not just “We want to make more money in our business next year.” If we aren’t specific, then how will we know where we are going and how will we know when we get there?

How will we know what steps to take in order to ensure that we will accomplish those goals?

So what’s the difference between this type of planning and a New Year’s Resolution? A “traditional” resolution is an arbitrary change in your life effective on January 1st, nothing more.

By comparison, a solid plan based on recent history and future goals is something you can continuously work towards and hold yourself accountable to.

It’s the same personally as well. Here are a couple of examples of the New Year’s Resolutions from above and alternate goals you could set instead.

Resolution: “I’m going to stop watching so much TV.”

Goal: “I’m going to read one book a week.”

Resolution: “I’m going to stop eating so much fast food.”

Goal: “I’m going to learn to cook at least 5 new dishes a month.”

Resolution: “I’m not going to eat so many sweets.”

Goal: “I’m going to learn to make fruit smoothies and have one at least 3 times a week.”

You get the idea

Changing our mindset from what we will stop doing in our lives and focusing on our bad habits to specific things we can start doing in our lives and focusing on forming good habits can change the entire direction of our lives.

Let’s stop making “New Year’s Resolutions” and start making some solid plans and setting some goals so that we can accomplish anything and everything that we want and deserve both in our professional and personal lives!!

“The only difference between a rich person and poor person is how they use their time”
~ Robert Kiyosaki

What do we all hear over and over again?

“I just don’t have enough time.”

or…

“If only I had more time.”

People using “a lack of time” as an excuse to why they can’t get things done. We’ve all done it or said it at one point or another in our lives.

It’s when we realize that we can control how we spend our time that we begin to prosper in life.

Chad and I always joke around and call our TV a Time Vacuum because if you let it, it will suck you in and you will end up wasting so much time watching so much unnecessary garbage.

Now, we are not saying that it is all bad or that we never watch TV…cough, cough…24...but we don’t allow our time to be monopolized by it. When we first started our own home based business, we made it a rule to watch zero television (luckily 24 wasn’t in season…phew).

We did this because we wanted to make sure we were 100% focused on our business and we knew one show would lead to another, then another and so on.

Also, when we started our business, we were going through such a learning curve that we needed to spend the time acquiring the skills necessary to be successful that nothing else seemed all that important at the time.

We knew the potential for our business so focusing our energy on the things we needed to in order to be successful wasn’t difficult for us.

We were so passionate about achieving our goals and so inspired by what we knew we would accomplish that we found we couldn’t even sit through a show, even if we wanted to.

It’s amazing how much time you have when you decide you want something bad enough. To be honest, once we allowed ourselves to watch TV again, it didn’t seem all that important…well, except for 24 of course!

Every day our lives are filled with choices and the decisions we all make will shape our future.

Instead of watching that “quick” 30 minute sitcom, why not learn a new marketing skill, or listen to a personal development CD, or spend some time writing an article and providing value to the marketplace?

Maybe going out to dinner and “bar hopping” every weekend with friends, week after week won’t be on your agenda, at least not every week…

…but I bet you’ll be amazed at what you can accomplish if you make those types of decisions. If you make the choice to spend your time and energy on the things that you want most out of your life.

How much time do you spend reading? How about learning a new skill set? It’s easy to complain about how our lives are so miserable, but it’s truly up to each one of us to make our circumstances different.

There will be times when you will have to make sacrifices and maybe you will have to miss a TV show from time to time, or a night out on occasion, but it’s these types of decisions that separate the rich from the poor.

Let’s all remember next time we catch ourselves saying…

“…if I only had more time”…

…that we are all in control of our lives and must take control over our actions and the decisions we make every day or else we will spend our lives reacting to things instead of making things happen.

Today we are going to talk about an important resource to help you build your business credit which is something you should start thinking about today, if you haven’t already.

I just got off of a teleseminar with Scott Letourneau and Joseph Facchiano.

Who are they?

Well, Scott Letourneau is an Incorporating and Business Credit Expert. He is the CEO and Founder of both Nevada Corporate Planners, Inc. (NCP) and Fast Business Credit, Inc.

He knows what he is talking about and he is definitely in the business of helping entrepreneurs set up and run a successful business.

Now, when it comes to incorporating, we hands down recommend NCP, but that’s not what we are going to be talking about today. We are going to be talking about business credit.

Now, let’s talk about Joseph Facchiano.

Joseph Facchiano is a certified business performance coach, entrepreneur, speaker, and author. He also worked at Dun & Bradstreet for more than 7 years.

What is Dun & Bradstreet?

Well, Dun & Bradstreet (D&B) is, according to their website “the world’s leading source of commercial information and insight on businesses…”

Basically, for our purposes, we are going to look at them simply as the credit reporting agency for businesses similar to the way Equifax, Experian and TransUnion are for consumers.

The reason why we are telling you about this is so you can understand the value that Scott Letourneau and his business experience can provide you.

Understanding how to separate your personal credit from your business credit is essential to you in the long term and his Business Credit Builder Program will teach you how to do that.

He networks with many respected individuals in the field of business credit and banking and knows how to get the right information, and more importantly, helps you to implement what is necessary to build good business credit.

Sometimes it is easy as internet marketers to get caught up in the “marketing” mode and lose focus on the fact that we are entrepreneurs and we have our businesses to take care of.

That is why it is refreshing to have someone of Scott Letourneau’s character and experience level to help make sure our businesses are on track! He provides a wealth of information and we can’t recommend him enough.

If you feel as though your business credit isn’t where it should be or don’t even know what it is, then you should check out his website at FastBusinessCredit.com where they offer you a free 30 minute consultation.

Trust us on this one, because this topic is too important to be overlooked and not something you want to wait on so get started now and you can thank us later

By the way, we surround ourselves with great business people and experts like Scott Letourneau. He is just one of the many people we have the privilege to know through our network of contacts.

Chad and I have both met him in person and listened to him speak at conferences live and have even had the opportunity to be a part of a Q&A with him in a room of less than 20 people – so we can tell you first hand that he knows what he is talking about!

If you would like to join our team so you can have the opportunity to network with some of the most respected individuals in varying fields of business, then all you have to do is click here to get your special offer from us to join our team of entrepreneurs!

Are you an online marketer who has a blog or website? Well, then you must understand the importance of SEO (Search Engine Optimization). After all, if the search engines don’t display your site at the top of the organic listings, you aren’t going to get very much traffic, right?

Ok, so maybe you aren’t a “pro” at SEO…don’t worry, we have a secret for you.

You can learn…

…And with that knowledge you can start dominating the search engines in ways that will make your competitors envy and look up to you.

We want to share with you some free training from our friends Raymond and Ferny, who happen to be SEO experts. Because, let’s be honest, if you don’t learn the skills necessary to optimize your website and get good rankings, you are going to get lost in the shuffle – and nobody wants that!

Lost in the shuffle = No money for your business       (That makes you sad, right?!)

So, we invite you to click here to be taken the free SEO training video that Ray and Ferny put together so this won’t happen to you. This will be the first step to you becoming an SEO expert!

Don’t hesitate, because there are thousands and thousands of other site owners out there just waiting to take your place at the top of the search results.

Get over to this video right now because remember, educating your self is the key to surviving in this business. We wish you success and hope you enjoy the free training!

I was talking to my dad today – who happens to drink coffee (just like many people do of course;) – and I asked him why he drinks coffee. Now, this may seem like a strange question, but I asked him if he drinks coffee because he enjoyed it or if it was because he has been drinking it for so many years, probably all of his adult life in fact!

Now, let me preface this by saying that I used to be a coffee drinker and I loved it, which is pretty much the main reason why I used to drink it. My dad, on the other hand has always drank his coffee over a period of a couple of hours after he pours it in the morning so by the time he drinks most of it, it is COLD!! To each their own of course…so if he genuinely liked it, then that is his prerogative to drink it that way.

However, his answer to me was that he didn’t really have an answer. He said he probably drinks it because he always has…it’s more of a habit than anything else at this point. Ok, so what’s my point with all of this…

My point is that it is amazing how we form habits in our lives, sometimes without realizing it and because they are so subconscious, we don’t even stop and reflect on why we do certain things. We have an amazing ability to make choices every day and to form new habits, but first we must make the choice to make the change and then take the necessary steps to implement it.

Now, this can apply to any area of your life. So many people say they want their lives to be different, but because they look at the end result and think that getting there will be a daunting task, they change nothing at all because they are overwhelmed. It takes time to make changes and form new habits, so don’t try to do it all at once. Don’t try to make it an overnight transformation, rather a slow changing process because it will be much easier for you to adapt and stick to.

For example, let’s say you are an avid soda drinker and drink 2 Liters a day. Well, don’t just try to stop drinking soda cold turkey, cut down to 1 Liter or so for the first few days while drinking maybe a Liter of something else, say a mixture of water or fresh (not processed fruit juices. After you have adjusted to this a week or so in, cut down on the soda more and drink more of the water/fresh fruit juices. Do this until you have phased soda out of your diet completely. This will be a lot easier than trying to stop drinking it overnight as you are allowing your body to form a new habit over time!

Remember this can apply to ANY area of your life. If you don’t like how your business is going, then make some decisions and make some changes!! What do you do every day to build your business? Stop and really think about that question for a minute? Do you know why you do the things you do or do you do them because you always have? Are you getting the results you want in your business? If not, it’s time to decide why not and figure out what you need to change to get the results you are looking to achieve.

What do you do every day to grow your business? Do you spend your time writing articles, on social networks, making videos, posting on forums, running PPC ads…? Or are you all over the place with no consistent daily routines/habits? Now, if you are, it’s ok and it’s happened to all of us at one time or another. The most important thing is recognizing it and making the decision to change and form new habits.

For example, let’s say you are interested in social media marketing. Do you spend a certain amount of “structured” time on social networks or do you log in to them whenever you feel like it and then get distracted by everything else going on? THIS IS VERY EASY TO DO and a very common trap for many marketers. What you must do is figure out what your marketing “plan” is based on your business goals of course (that you have written down, right? . Then spend each day doing structured tasks that are helping you to implement your plan to reach your business goals. Once you begin to form these new habits, you will be much more focused and begin to see results which is what we as entrepreneurs are after. Remember, we don’t get paid by trading time for money, we get paid by getting results!

Ok, so let’s all remember that to be successful, we must think about the actions we take every day and be mindful about whether or not they are helping us towards our goals, whether personal or professional. If they aren’t, we must make the decision to form new habits that will get us to those goals and stay 100% focused and committed.

“A habit is something you can do without thinking – which is why most of us have so many of them.” ~ Frank A. Clark

Well, for those of you know that know us, you know that we are very passionate about living a holistic lifestyle and we are also very passionate about our “girls” Wynnie and Vega (yes, they are technically dogs). Therefore, it is only natural that we want the very best for them and we want them to have a healthy diet based on whole foods, not processed canned foods. We don’t eat canned or processed foods, so why would we feed them to our “girls”??

We have searched for a place to find products we feel good about for our girls and have found them at OnlyNaturalPet.com. You will find everything from flea and tick control to shampoos to supplements to pet food and more and you can feel good about the products you find there. We have also been very impressed with the customer service and how quick we get our orders.

We know there are so many products out there and it is overwhelming to know what to do to take care of ourselves properly half of the time, never mind our four-legged “kids.” This is why it has been such a great experience for us shopping at this site and we wanted to share our experience with you! We hope that you take a look at OnlyNaturalPet.com and find that you are as pleased as we have been

Please feel free to share your experience with OnlyNaturalPet.com in the comments so we can help others to make better and more informed decisions!

Chad and I are far from perfect when it comes to being environmentally friendly, however we strive to make good decisions whenever possible and think about the impact we are having on our planet. Many people say things like, “oh you are going green” or “oh are you green now?” We think the perception of a lot of people is that living a “greener” life is some type of radical behavior and big change in your life, however that is simply not the case. There are many things we can all do on a regular basis that don’t cost money (in fact, many of them save you money) to do our part in preserving our planet.

Here is our list to get you started!

1. Turn off lights when you are not in a room. We’re not suggesting you go around using candles, but if you are not actively in a room, then turn the light off
2. Don’t take so many napkins!!! You know who you are (we are all guilty of it at one time or another)…you go to your favorite ice cream stand or fast food place (ugh) and take a handful of napkins as if you are expecting your food to explode all over you or something?! Just be more mindful of what you are taking and if you don’t use all of the napkins you took, stash them in your glove box or somewhere where they might come in handy…don’t just throw them away!
3. Adjust your thermostat when leaving your house…why blast the A/C or the heat when you are not even home to reap the benefits. Even better, you could get a programmable thermostat which you could set to raise/lower at the times you predetermine. Heating and cooling requires a lot of energy and is costly so you are helping the planet and saving money too!
4. Try planning errands you have for the day/week so that you are not making multiple trips in your car releasing more harmful emissions into the atmosphere!
5. Don’t take unnecessary plastic bags (or paper for that matter) at your local stores like CVS or Walgreens. If you have multiple items, try keeping a cloth bag in your car and bringing it into the store with you. If you only have one item, it is ok to say “no thank you” if it is something you can carry by hand easily enough!
6. Use reusable water bottles whenever possible and when you do drink bottled water, please recycle the bottles!
7. Your couch doesn’t need to watch TV, so if you are not actively watching a TV, turn it off. There is no need to have 3 TVs on at one time…you know who you are
8. Try to transition at your own pace to greener home products and personal care products. You don’t need to do this all at once as it might feel a bit overwhelming, but if you change say one product a week or a month (whatever you are comfortable with), you probably will hardly notice the difference. At the end of a year, you will look back and realize how much changed, but because you did it gradually, it was an easy and almost seamless transition! This will also be much healthier for you and your loved ones
9. Buy as much local and organic foods as possible!!
10. Recycle…Recycle…Recycle…this one is so easy, but many of us don’t do it and it’s maddening. Many people have the mentality that “it won’t make a difference.” Just think, if you recycle one bottle, or one jar, or one piece of paper a day, then that’s 365 more items recycled a year from just one person! Last count, I think there are well over 300 million people in the US alone and close to 7 billion on the planet…sorry I only minored in math so you are going to have to figure out that number on your own!

Well, I hope these tips get you started in the right direction and make you realize that “going green” isn’t about living some “hippy” lifestyle. It’s about recognizing that we all have the responsibility to take care of this planet that we live on. Try by implementing at least a couple of these things into your life and share them with your friends…because maybe together, we can make a difference

Feel free to leave your thoughts and tips in the comments section as we’d love to hear them!!

We don’t know if you heard or not, but Mike Dillard has done something completely unexpected. By now I’m sure you’ve heard about MLM Traffic Formula 2.0 and how industry changing it’s going to be. Up until last Wednesday, registration for the course was available at a ridiculous $700 discount for a price of $297. Unfortunately, since last week the course returned to it’s full price of $997.

Well, Mike just returned from an Alaskan cruise with some good news!

He’s decided to extend the discounted registration for one day (and one day only) today Wednesday, June 17th until midnight only CST. So if you missed out on the discounted registration, this is your second chance!

You can click here to be taken to be taken to a page where you will learn how you can get a free 36 minute video where Mike outlines what he’s going to teach in MLM Traffic Formula 2.0.

Remember, no regrets…don’t miss out on this because it’s time to take your business to the next level!

Spring is a time that many people love to dread. Most of us (especially those in colder climates) get tired of drab, dirty snow and begin to long for green leaves, blooming flowers, and warmer temperatures. Unfortunately, the improved weather inevitably brings high pollen levels with it, which means a runny nose, watery eyes, sleepless nights and more sneezes than we care to count.

The worst part of hay fever however, isn’t the list of physical symptoms. The worst part is the disconnected, “foggy” feeling that leaves you feeling completely detached from the world around you. Yuck.

I know these symptoms well, because for most of my life I had terrible springtime allergies, to the point where I would hate going outside, always being afraid I’d find a yellow film of pollen that had accumulated on the hood of my car, as if to taunt me. I, like so many others, desperately wanted to be “Claritin Clear.”

It wasn’t until this spring, when everyone around me seemed to be commenting on how awful the pollen was this year, or bumming Zyrtec off of one another that I fully realized that I was much better off than I usually was this time of year. I remember noticing an improvement in my symptoms last year as well and passing it off as good luck… but two blissfully allergy free years in a row was just too much of a coincidence to ignore (not that I’m complaining!). My previously debilitating symptoms are now reduced to some mild sneezing and a slight tickle in my throat for 5 or ten minutes in the morning. No more congestion, feeling like a zombie or having to alternate what side I sleep on every 15 minutes at night just to be able to breathe!

As thrilling as this change was, I couldn’t figure out what had brought it on. We had moved, but we were only a few minutes from our previous address, in the same town and honestly surrounded by more flowers and trees than we had been before, so that wasn’t it. I wasn’t taking a different allergy medication, heck I hadn’t really taken any medications since we…

…and then it hit me. I’d never been a big fan of unnecessary medication, and allergy season was one of the few times I was willing to compromise and pop a pill for relief, but even that had tapered off a couple of years ago, when Lynne and I made a shift to a diet of predominantly organic foods. For the last two and a half years or so, Lynne and I have done our grocery shopping almost exclusively at Whole Foods, and at least 95% of the food we prepare at home is organic.

The more I thought about it, the more sense it made. There really is (to put it as simply as possible) a lot less crap in organic foods, and not processing the extra preservatives and chemical additives in all the food I ate made springtime a lot easier on my entire system.

Think about it this way: if your body is constantly inundated with artificial flavors, dyes, partially hydrogenated oils, and other harmful ingredients, your entire system is going to be drained and out of balance. The definition of an allergy is “an abnormal reaction of the body to a previously encountered allergen introduced by inhalation, ingestion, injection, or skin contact…” which basically means your body encounters something it views as a pathogen or threat (even if it isn’t) and responds accordingly.

This leads me to two conclusions. First off, why would your body react abnormally to a substance such as pollen? It stands to reason (especially after my recent experiences) that the introduction of various substances that don’t belong in your body (artificial ingredients in food for example) could disrupt the balance of your immune system, causing it to inaccurately perceive allergens as a threat. Now, does this mean everyone who doesn’t eat a natural, healthy diet is going to have terrible allergies? No, but for those of use who are susceptible to hay fever, it probably doesn’t help!

The other thing to consider is that when our bodies are weakened due to infection, our immune system is obviously somewhat depeleted, making us more susceptible to infection from other sources. Wearing your body down with foods full of various toxins is going to have an impact on your overall susceptibility to various issues, including allergens. If your system is already worn out by constant exposure to the chemicals in your food, it’s likely to be that much more sensitive to a potential allergen such as pollen, where if you are limiting your exposure to harmful substances you will probably be less sensitive.

Now, not all allergies are the result of food, and eating more healthy, organic foods isn’t garaunteed to eliminate them all together, but it certainly hasn’t made mine any worse. Just some food for thought

Be sure to leave your thoughts and experiences in the comments regarding hay fever and any remedies you’ve have success with.

Please read this disclaimer about the post you just read.

“Sprint Nextel Plans to Cut 8,000 Jobs in Quarter“

“Caterpillar Moves to Cut 20,000 Jobs“

“Starbucks Will Close 300 Stores and Open Fewer New Ones“

“ING Will Cut 7,000 Jobs and Its Chief Will Leave“

“62,000 Jobs Are Cut By U.S. and Foreign Companies”

What (aside from being disheartening and intimidating) do the above have in common? Several things:

• They are all headlines pulled from the New York Times
• They are all headlines from this week
• They are all signs of a growing problem

Take a look again at that last headline. On Monday, January 26, 2009 62,000 jobs were lost.

62,000.

And those weren’t all. Pfizer and Wyeth are in the midst of a huge merger that will cut 19,500 more jobs. On Wednesday (1/28/09) Starbucks announced they were closing 300 stores and cutting up to 6,700 jobs. Home Depot cut 8,000 jobs. Circuit City, with more than 30,000 employees is closing it’s doors.

Now, we are sorry that the picture is so bleak… and we truly hope that no one reading this post has been affected by these events – and if you have, we are sorry and wish you the very best.

The reason we are bringing this up is because while it is unpleasant, the truth is that this isn’t going to go away… things will likely take some time to turn around, and could very well get worse before they get better. A lot of people, literally more and more every single day, are feeling the effects of this situation in a very big way. We personally know someone who was laid off by a company he had been with for years. Eventually, that company bought out his next employer and guess what they did? Laid him off again!

So the big question becomes “What do I do if this happens to me?” or “How do I protect myself and my family?” The answer is to literally take matters into your own hands. There are so many different ways to make money from home, on your own time, on your own terms.

The events of the last week have shown, more strongly than ever, that “job security” is a thing of the past.

We strongly encourage anyone reading this, or other articles on the topic to start looking for alternatives. For ways to take control of your financial future and rely less on a big company and more on yourself.