Christy Ticks Lynch

The Virtual Assistant industry is on the rise as more and more businesses use this service to outsource some of their tasks. The internet has enabled professional Administrative Assistants to leave the corporate world and set up their own businesses, providing skilled support to busy entrepreneurs and business managers.

If you have come to the conclusion that you can no longer keep up to the increasing demands of your growing business and you need someone to assist with your daily duties, you may find the following list helpful.

In determining whether contracting a Virtual Assistant is the best option for your particular circumstances, begin by reviewing these ideas and then formulating your own plan, taking into consideration what you would like to start delegating. Then, as you establish an ongoing relationship with a Virtual Assistant, you can change, add or delete duties and projects, customizing what works best for you. One thing you can always count on is that your Virtual Assistant will always be ready and flexible to change and grow with you as they come to learn your business and your unique needs.

1. A VA can organize, write and send newsletters allowing you valuable time to service your customers.

2. A VA can manage and organize your database ensuring information is always up to date and readily accessible when contacting customers or sending out sales and marketing information.

3. VA?s have great organization skills when it comes to keeping communication going. As a single contact source, a VA can act as liaison between management and staff keeping information flowing.

4. Your web site is your portal to the world. A VA will perform regular updates and upload edits it in a timely manner freeing up your valuable time for other priorities.

5. Let a VA assume your Bookkeeping requirements. By delegating this important task, you can rest assured that all your accounting will be properly managed and bills paid on time.

6. Research can become very time consuming. Rather than bogging down busy in-house staff on a project, hire a specialized VA in the field of research who will provide you with the content you are looking for.

7. A VA can manage your emails and calendar, schedule appointments or make travel arrangements. It?s like having your own personal Secretary on hand. Don?t miss another appointment or double-book a meeting by having your VA taking care of the details.

8. As part of your team and familiar with all aspects of your business, a VA can easily create effective PowerPoint or web-based presentations for your company.

9. A VA can assist you with preparing reports, article submissions and press release submissions. Materials will be professionally packaged for each specific media or business type. Printed and electronic materials will be edited and proofread to ensure you are making the right impression.

10. Partnering with a VA in another country half-way around the world will allow you to have your work completed while you sleep. Everything will be ready and waiting for you as you arrive in your office the next day.

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Virtual Assistant Networking Association (VANA) (www.vanetworking.com)
The ever popular, friendly, informative, educational & resourceful network for successful and aspiring “IN THE KNOW” Virtual Assistants and Achievers globally that everyone online is talking about.

That title sounds paradoxical, but it really is a paradigm that will benefit anyone who is willing to pay close attention and take action to make it happen.

The idea expressed in the title is not a pie-in-the-sky idea, and is not akin to a get rich quick scheme.

I have noticed an extreme difference in my daily productivity between times when I have organized simply by keeping a list to guide me through my day. When compared with the times I have not, I found that keeping a list greatly increased my productivity. There have been times when a simple list has empowered me to do unbelievable amounts of work in a given day, and finish early. Often I have been able to do more before breakfast with a simple list than I would often do in a whole day, without my beloved list.

Here are my top ten ways to spend less time working and accomplish more:

1. Be sure you understand and are able to verbalize to yourself why you want produce more results while working less. This may seem simple, but it is highly important, as a way to motivate you to meaningful action. To do something successfully, it must be done on purpose and with a purpose. Knowing your purpose gives you an important reason to make any task or project important enough and a high enough priority to motivate you to get with the program, and get the job done.

Maybe you want to spend less time working so you can spend more time with your family, or to finish your week early and have a long weekend. Maybe your reason is to practice a sport more often, so you can compete with greater excellence. So long as your purpose is one that gives you a reason to get more serious & take serious action and get things done, you will purposely do what is necessary to reclaim time for your personal pursuits.

2. Use a Day Timer or other Organizer: This may also sound simplistic, but it is really important. The organizer can free your mind, as it becomes your memory bank. When you diligently use it every day, for everything, you will record your thoughts, assignments, tasks, appointments, shopping lists, and other important information. in their proper places and you will be free to forget it until it’s time to refer to that information. For example your shopping list and the unusual item that you may be concerned about forgetting is of no concern now, because you will rely on your shopping list when you get to the store, and not worry about it until the proper time. The organizer may be paper or electronic. I have tried both ways and both have their advantages, but I prefer the old fashioned paper variety because it is usable everywhere, anytime.I also appreciate the pop-up reminders of the electronic kind.

3. Keep a short To Do List: The To Do list can be very intimidating, mostly because so many folks put too much on it. An effective daily list should be possible and usually have only one or two mission essential tasks for any given day. This is your assignment to yourself. Be kind and don’t be like congress and make unfunded or impossible requirements. You work hard and, if you are effective, you should have some time for yourself. Work and play are cyclical; You need breaks, personal time and fun time to be more productive. Too much hard work will wear you out, your effort will become counter-productive and you may even go crazy. I keep a separate “Long term” to do list that keeps me on track for weeks and months. These items don’t become vitally important until I schedule them on the daily list.

4. Be punctual and arrive at work on time and get busy right away: Compartmentalize your activities. There is a time to work, and a time for recreation and down time. At work,get to work in an organized, effective and energetic manner. When it is time to play, or take a break, separate your mind from work and be rejuvenated and refreshed through relaxing endeavors. It is wise to do your coffee drinking and socializing before and after work. At work you need to be about your business so you can get business done, whether your office is next to the boss’s or in your home. Adopting this personal policy alone will significantly shorten the time it takes you to accomplish the requirements of your work day. Once you have met the requirements of the day, don’t dilly-dally; straighten up, set tomorrow’s schedule and go use the time you saved for your personal purposes. This will also be an investment in tomorrow’s productivity.

5. It is important and effective to Accomplish a major task before lunch: however don’t rush it, but do it right. Finishing a significant task before early will give you the momentum of success for the rest of the day.

6. Don’t be a socialite in the office: Socialize all you want in the break room or lunch room, at the appointed times, but when the time is not right, get back into the business mode and back into the office and get busy following your schedule. When you are not conducting business, you will find life is more enjoyable if you are sociable and relaxed, then when it is time to work you will be fresher and more effective. Don’t be snobbish, just be professional and businesslike.

7. You can save a lot of time if you just learn how and when to say “No”: It is seldom required for you to do everything that everyone asks of you. Don’t be timid: Say no to unnecessary interruptions such as the inevitable social visits by co-workers. Refuse to chit-chat on the phone. Ask people to email you, so you can take control of the time and choose when to reply. If in person meetings or phone conversations cannot be eliminated, respectfully let the other person know that your you are busy and your time is limited…just let them know that you have a call to make in 5 minutes, then give them six, using the last minute to end the conversation. Question people ahead of time about the purpose of the meeting or call, and then you can take charge and set the parameters for it. Be sure and clarify the problem or reason for the contact beforehand and then ask questions to clearly and directly bring out the answer to the problem. If you are unable to help, courteously state the fact, and refer them to someone who can help and politely end the call or meeting. Your time is very valuable. Time is money…time is also life. Your and your family’s well being and lifestyle depends on you getting your job done effectively. Your next sale or promotion may depend upon your ability to conduct business efficiently.

8. Control E-mail: This may challenge you, but it is vitally important. Don’t let E-mail control you….you must take control of it. If you get important business email during the day, you may want to set up a special webmail account just for business and then direct all your business E-mail to that address, so you’re not distracted by spam and personal email. Spam arrest is also a good program to get spam under control. Check E-mail as seldom as possible. For openers, try reducing to twice a day; just before lunch and just before quitting time. Be vicious with the delete key, then read business mail at work and read personal email after work. This tip alone can cut hours off of many a worker’s time on the job. If you are in control of your own schedule, or a good negotiator with a reasonable boss, applying this tip means getting out of the office earlier; in many cases, much earlier.

9. Stop multi-tasking: With precious few exceptions, “Multi-tasking” means doing a half baked job of many things at the same time. I think It is the road to a nervous breakdown and low self esteem. When you wake up and realize that as hard as you work, you don’t get anything done excellently, it has to be demoralizing. You’ll profit greatly if you use the organizing tips above and take control of your work situation, then do one task at a time, until it is done well, then move on to the next one. A car accident in which someone dies would be a horrifying way to learn that you can’t concentrate fully on two tasks at the same time, like driving and talking on the phone. Multi-tasking could be mostly responsible for the rampant mediocrity in today’s workplace.

10. Outsource mundane tasks: There are people who make a business of helping you with mundane tasks, or tasks that you don’t do well. One such business is Outsourcingsuccess dot com. Give it a try with some personal tasks first to get an idea of how it works for you. Without hiring a full time assistant or secretary, you can get good help and pay by the hour. That will free you up to tend to your more important tasks and the ones that you are strong in. Students at a local college or university who major in areas that would help you may be a good source of help, and you could help them earn a little income, too. If you prefer to go international, do a search on Your Man in India, and Brickwork, or the search on the term Virtual Assistants. Outsourcing Success has already made the connections and is ready to bridge the gap and help you get the help you need.

These tips are for real business people to get real work done effectively. The effectiveness of these tips is limited only by the extent of your willingness to use them diligently.

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Sergeant Carpenter has taught many people how to increase their performance while working less and producing more. Get a free consultation to see if Sergeant Carpenter can help you reduce work and get more done.

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“What is my life’s purpose?”
“How do I know what it is when I find it?”
“How can I create my life’s purpose so it’s ‘right’?”

If you are asking these questions, you’re not alone - I hear it quite a bit from my clients and other seekers.

We are fortunate to live in a day and age where this is not only acceptable, but is possible for us to proactively ponder and then take action accordingly.

In order to have this conversation, there are a couple of things I need to share with you first. Here is a summary of what I know from my experience, teachings and world view:

? We are here because we are spirit embodied in physical form ? we decided to come here and live our life’s purpose tangibly. So our purpose is to be here and breathe.

? We’re supposed to learn and experience ALOT in every way so our spirit can grow and we can contribute to the greater collective consciousness.

? Challenges are what help us to grow beyond our comfort zone, and without them, we are pretty boring humans. We’re only stuck if we decide not to address them.

? In the grand scheme of things, this human life is insignificant and exceedingly important at the same time. We are practicing being creative energy through living our lives.

All that being said, when we’re not moving, we feel stuck. And then we feel like we’re not living our life’s purpose. So we feel vaguely unfulfilled, rather than being present with just being, and which pushes us to experience more, which is good as it is our personal contribution to the whole. We are one ? within ourselves, with each other, and with the universe. And yet, life’s purpose isn’t really what we’re talking about here, is it?

So few words to express such a humongous concept? to bring it back, we are here to breathe, to have experiences that benefit ourselves and the whole, and to practice the art of creation regularly (whether we like or are happy with what we are creating or not is a different issue). That is our life’s purpose.

The real question behind the questions: what is my soul’s unique expression and how can I be in the flow with it so I can make a difference in the world?

3 Things You Can Do Today:
1. Consider your challenges. What are your learning opportunities right now? If you look at previous challenges in your life, you will see that you probably couldn’t figure out at the time what they were about ? you could only see their purpose post-challenge. Therefore, really see and explore what’s in front of you now, and reframe it as your growth opportunity to get through it faster. Embrace it as the way the universe is taking you to what you need to know and the result you asked for? because it is you who asked for it. If you don’t like your results, it’s time to change what you want because all that’s happened is you got what you asked for on some level.

2. Look at unexpected comments. That is, look at what “people” have said about you throughout your life, regardless of the environment or circumstances. It’s likely that your soul has been peeking or leaking out, and other people may have picked up on it for you. For example, one of my clients is wrestling with expressing who she is through her business. I asked her this question, and she couldn’t tell me about any comments. When most of the way through our session, I got a message about her creating her own “success program” to teach others how she’s achieved her dreams, she said “oh yeah, people have been telling me that”. She was missing the messages because she had no reference point for them. What messages from your soul are you missing?

3. Re-examine your core interest areas. When you were a child or young person, it’s likely that you had interests or dreams or goals that have lost their place as a life priority now. Take a look at them to find the seeds of your soul. In my case, I was always drawn to the “mysterious”, to psychic connections, to understanding the invisible. I read books voraciously about explorers (which I am, only in an unconventional way), life oddities, unusual people and mysteries (I later learned that I was an English bobby/detective in a previous life). Anyway, I liked to understand the bigger picture in every way ? I wanted to understand people and their inside selves. I remember being about six years old, eating a peanut butter sandwich, and asking my mom “what are we here?”. She thought I was babbling, but I had a clear picture of pure energy with a wistful certainty that there had to be a reason we are HERE. And now it’s my life’s work ? to help others understand that and to engage fully in being here by channeling cosmic creative energy into personal success.

So, my intention is to help you life your soul’s expression, not just your life’s purpose. It’s a lot bigger than that.

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Lynn Scheurell, Creative Catalyst, helps entrepreneurs remember who they are so they can align everything they do accordingly. This simple premise helps people create success from the inside out and by their own definition. Download a free report to learn “Your 6 Power Points for Personal Success ? and How What You Don?t Know Can Cost You!” at www.mycreativecatalyst.com

It seems harmless and innocent enough, but its crippling effects run rampant in the business world.

Entire days are lost, projects sloppily thrown together, and work pushed aside as entrepreneurs become slaves to its hypnotic pull.

It was designed to make life easier and speed up communications, but instead has become the nemesis of the already overextended business owner.

Have you guessed what it is? If you?re reading this, there?s a good chance you?re also a victim of the cursed ?email.?

How many times a day do you check your email? How much time to spend each time you visit?

During a recent mastermind call, a colleague discussed challenges he was having with productivity and event management. As we broke his day into segments, we discovered he was spending 15 minutes of every hour checking email ? the majority of which is spam.

Another member then shared the fact that he too had fallen into the email trap and had recently started a stat sheet. In one day alone, he checked his email 21 times! He was trying to curb his habit but was still struggling.

Several more of us chimed in confessing we had ?slipped? in our email discipline efforts and were checking it more often than we should be.

Before the call ended we made a pact to check our email no more than twice a day and for a maximum of 10-15 minutes only. We will share our results at our next meeting.

An analogy one of our members shared really helped put things in perspective ?

Would you as a responsible business owner walk to your mailbox 10-15 times a day to collect bulk mail and advertisements?

If not, why would you do it at your computer?

These challenges are not reserved for home business start-ups and amateurs. My mastermind colleagues who were discussing these difficulties are six and seven figure earners. Email infatuation does not discriminate!

My own coach, a multi-millionaire who has built several companies, recently discussed his obsession with email and the impact it was having on his productivity!

It?s an ongoing dilemma and all you, I, or any of us can do is be aware of it, keep our activities in check and do whatever it takes to stay the course.

This time I have taken extra steps to remove email from my mind. I open the application between 11:30 and noon and between 4:00 and 4:30 p.m., take care of business then shut it down.

Tim Ferris, author of The 4-Hour Workweek, defines email as, ?The greatest single interruption in the modern world? and recommends weaning yourself down to one visit a day. He?s actually reached the point where he checks it once a week.

If anyone needs you badly enough they will pick up the phone and call, and if they don?t, how important could it really have been?

Are you ready to get a handle on the silent business killer? If discipline is an issue, find an accountability partner or state your intentions to your mastermind group or peers. If you can?t do it yourself, have others rally around you.

It takes 26 to 30 days to create a habit. Stick this out - create productive, winning habits and once you?ve mastered the monster, you?ll be on the fast track to business success.

2007 ? Laurie Hayes - The HBB Source

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Laurie Hayes, founder of The HBB Source, and creator of The Complete 12-Step Guide To Starting A Home-Based Business and The HBB Survival Guide, helps freedom seekers fast track their journey from employee to home-based entrepreneur. Get her free ezine packed with helpful resources at www.thehbbsource.com

Your business is growing and you have decided it is time to hire an Office Assistant. Hiring in-house staff can become complicated. Questions to answer are ?where to advertise?, ?what skills and experience should the candidate have?, ?what will their work schedule be?, ?what equipment and furniture do I need to purchase? or ?what if they don?t work out?.

Before writing up your recruitment ad, consider the advantages of contracting a Virtual Assistant.

1. With a VA, you save money as you don?t have to provide office space, furnishings or equipment. Every VA works from their own office environment.

2. With a VA, you don?t have to worry about coordinating work schedules. Simply send off the work to be done with a due date.

3. A client only pays for the actual time a VA spends on completing the task. No money spent on bathroom visits, water cooler chats, or coffee breaks.

4. When hiring a VA, there is no need to pay for fringe benefits like health insurance, vacation pay or employer wage deductions. A VA takes care of all their own overhead costs.

5. In-house staff will probably require training. A VA is already proficient with the latest tools and technology to do the job.

6. As an independent business owner themselves, a VA has the ability to see the bigger picture. Unlike an employee, a VA knows and understands the challenges of running a business.

7. A VA invests in their own business and has the software available to complete projects. A client can save money by not having to use their funds to purchase software for every new project.

8. As a worldwide organization, VA?s have a resource pool available to call upon. If there is a time constraint, they have access to numerous connections who can be called upon to complete the job.

9. Commuting is never a problem with a VA. Your work will get completed even during the worst weather. No down time due to traffic accidents, construction or vehicle emergencies.

10. As each client relationship is protected with a Confidentiality Agreement, you can be confident in the integrity of your VA and don?t need to worry about confidential company information being leaked at the water cooler.

When working out the true costs of hiring an employees versus contracting a Virtual Assistant, a client not only benefits by having a more qualified, more experienced professional on hand, but once the math is done, the VA often comes in at the same price or lower!

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Virtual Assistant Networking Association (VANA) (www.vanetworking.com)
The ever popular, friendly, informative, educational & resourceful network for successful and aspiring “IN THE KNOW” Virtual Assistants and Achievers globally that everyone online is talking about.

Whether you are negotiating a deal to launch a 50,000-square-foot “big box” outlet or opening a corner deli, there are several items to consider when selecting your retail space.

That’s the advice from Rick Davidson, president and COO of one of the largest commercial real estate companies in the world and a leading specialist in commercial retail leasing. Davidson says factors including lease rates, value and location affect all retail businesses, regardless of size.

Davidson’s company, Coldwell Banker Commercial, offers the following tips on selecting the right space:

Consider Amenities

Look for key amenities inside the facility and in surrounding areas that offer convenience and enticement to shoppers. Things to consider include plazas, seating areas and rest rooms.

Physical Location

Things to look for-and that affect rental charges-include:

• Bay Depth: the distance from the front of the store to the rear wall.

• Floor Area: total square footage.

• Signage: generally, the more prominent the signage, the more landlords will ask for in rent.

• “Shell” and “Skin”: The shell refers to the foundation, structural support and the roof. The skin is the outer surfacing of the shell. Skin options include brick, glass or synthetic stucco.

Other factors include windows, parking, security/safety features and HVAC.

Leases

Consider which lease type is best for you. In a gross lease, the landlord provides all services and the tenant is responsible for rent only. In a net lease, the tenant pays most of the expenses. In a percentage lease, lease costs are based on a percentage of the sales/success of the site. Finally, in a ground lease, the tenant pays for “bare ground” location and is responsible for its own improvements.

Know Your Market

Learn about an area’s current market conditions for retail, population levels, income and employment levels, anticipated local growth and traffic patterns, among other things. Also, make sure your business is compatible with the needs and desires of the local area-and that there are not too many other stores offering the same goods and services that you do.

Small and large businesses need to consider many of the same factors when selecting retail space.

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I often wonder how people without a plan know where they’re going. Or, how they know when they’ve arrived at their destination.

Think about it.

If you never specify what your goal is, how do you go about achieving it? And how do you know when to celebrate?

Step One

Having a clearly defined, and written goal is the first step in creating a successful business.

How Will You Measure Your Success?

Whether you choose to measure your success in number of clients or revenue per month or year, or in any other terms, is up to you. The point is to establish a measurable goal.

Step Two

The second step to creating a successful business is creating a plan to achieve your goal. This is your marketing plan and it ensures all your time, energy and money are focused on achieving whatever it is YOU want to achieve.

But it doesn’t stop there.

A Goal And A Plan Are NOT Enough

Just having a goal and a plan are not enough. You must track your progress so you can determine if it will require more or different effort to achieve your goal.

So how do you track your progress?

You Need Two More Things … One

First, you track your progress toward your overall goal. I recommend you evaluate this at least every couple of months.

But why not just make a habit of doing it once a month?

Make it a practice to review your marketing plan and how well it is moving you toward your goal, at the end of every month. A good day to do this is the day you take care of your end-of-month administrative tasks (things like paying bills and running sales and financial reports).

If you break your goal down into twelfths, you can easily tell each month if you’re on track. And, if you’re not, you can easily make adjustments, like increasing your level of marketing if necessary, to get back on track.

By keeping close tabs on your progress toward your goals, you greatly increase your odds of achieving them. Partly because you give yourself time to make adjustments and take a different route if necessary.

And, partly because you are constantly reminding yourself of your intentions.

And … Two

The second way to stay on track is to track each of your individual marketing activities. This is how you’ll know if each activity is moving you toward your goal.

For Example … Tracking Your Web Site Stats

If you’re generating your prospects or clients via your web site, do you know how many visitors you need to generate the number of clients you’re shooting for?

It’s pretty easy to determine if you utilize web site tracking reports. Your web host should provide tracking reports to let you know how many visitors your site is getting, and ideally you can track this for each page of your site.

WebStat is a great tool that provides detailed reports on web site traffic. I use it as a supplement to the reports provided by my web host, and I love it. You can try it out at no cost, plus there’s a free version, or you can subscribe for a very low monthly fee. Learn more about WebStat here.

If you have a newsletter or special report that web site visitors can subscribe to you can then determine what your conversion rate is: Total Subscribers divided by Total Visitors equals your Conversion Rate.

Do You Know What Your Conversion Rates Are?

You can then take this one step further by determining what your conversion rate is, from subscribers to clients. Or, to measure what your sales conversion rate is if you are selling products or services on your web site.

Once you know your sales conversion rate, you should be able to calculate how many web site visitors you need to generate to achieve your sales or “number of clients” goal.

This will tell you pretty quickly if you’re on track to achieve your goal, or if you need to generate a lot more web site traffic to do so.

A Little Bit Of Math Upfront Will Guarantee Your Success

While at first it may be disheartening, especially if you’re way off the mark, at least you have a clear picture of what it will take to reach your goal. Then it’s simply a matter of finding ways to generate the traffic. And then it’s only a matter of time until you achieve your goal.

Track Your Speaking Engagements or Teleseminars

You can track other marketing activities in a similar way. For example, with speaking engagements or teleseminars, what percentage of your attendees typically subscribe, and then what percentage of those typically become clients or buy?

You can determine how big of an audience or how many speaking engagements or teleseminars you need to do to reach your goals.

Track Your Public Relations Efforts

For public relations, how many people do you need to reach, or impressions do you need to achieve to generate the return necessary to meet your goals? You can then send your releases out more frequently (just make sure they’re newsworthy) or to media with a larger audience.

Again, if you monitor your results every month, you’ll have a very good idea if you’re on track to meet your goals. And, you’ll have plenty of time to make adjustments to your plan if necessary.

So, What’s Your Goal For This Year?

And do you know if you’re on track to achieve it? If you haven’t committed your goal to writing, I encourage you to do so today.

If you’re not sure what you can achieve, then take your best guess and work towards that.

You Can Track Your Way To The Top!

Put some tracking practices into place and stay on top of them every month. If you do this, I guarantee you’ll achieve a lot more than if you just “wing it!”

If you’d like some help creating your goals and developing a marketing plan to help you achieve them, check out The 10stepmarketing? System. It walks you through the process in a simple, step-by-step manner, making it easy. To learn more, visit www.10stepmarketing.com

(C) Copyright 2005 Debbie LaChusa

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20-year marketing veteran Debbie LaChusa created The 10stepmarketing System to help small business owners and solo-preneurs successfully market their business, themselves without spending a fortune on marketing. To learn more about this simple, step-by-step program and to sign up for her FREE audio class and FREE weekly ezine featuring how-to articles, tips and advice, visit www.10stepmarketing.com

So, what is one of the key ingredients for making money (online or anywhere for that matter), gaining more quality time to enjoy that money, and getting the freedom to do the things you choose? That ingredient would be, “Never stop learning”!

Now, follow my logic here, the one key to growth is being open to opportunities and information that can help you achieve your goals.

Also, being open to information that can help you differentiate between good ideas and plans and the bad ones. Call it intuition, call it common sense, call it luck, whatever you like, it is “Knowledge”, and that is what I am talking about.

Everyday we are deluged with information that we either soak up, or we reject, that is our true power. There is a word for that information, and that is experience. And that experience is gained through constant learning. You can learn from anything, good experiences or bad experiences, good literature or pulp fiction, from quality documentaries or from MTV style pablum. The key is to always be open to learning new things as you never know where the next great idea is coming from. To operate with a closed mind is a sure fire way to lead a closed life.

I can’t remember where I heard it now, but someone once said he never read anything and did not learn something from it, even if all he learned was that he would never read from that author again. I agree with this sentiment. Reading, of any type, expands the mind, and is by far my favorite way to gather new knowledge.

And so, let me recommend a book that anyone starting their new business or self improvement journey “MUST” read. This book covers making money from either your own business or your current job, getting more quality time in your life, and gaining the freedom to lead the life you want.

This book is from the entrepreneur and business maverick, Tim Ferriss . Tim is a unique kind of guy, very successful and unwilling to lead life by any terms but his own. He has become a dance champion in Buenos Aires, a martial arts world champion, a world traveler, and now a Wall Street Journal and New York Times best selling author , all while increasing the income from his business, learning to outsource a lot of the work for the business, and spending virtually all of his time doing what he chooses to do.

This book is The 4 Hour Workweek, and I can’t recommend it enough! The great thing is that Tim not only writes for those trying to make their own way and start their own business online or off, but also for for those that do have, and do not want to leave, their current jobs, but still want to re-structure their lives for the better.

I have been able to bring several of Tim’s strategies to my affiliate marketing business, and yes, they do work. The great thing is, even though Tim talks a lot in his book about online retailing and such, his message is for all people, working all types of business.

So, go get the book. It is available at most online retailers and bookstores. You can even get it from my site, 3Currencies dot com.

Remember, live life on your terms! Tim Ferris can show you how.

Cheers

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Eban Crawford is a professional podcaster and online affiliate marketer. Eban manages the site 3Currencies, where he teaches the balancing of making money online, time management, and freedom of choice to achieve a vibrant and happy life. His podcast, Reaching for Lucidity, started in 2005, was signed to the Podshow Network in early 2006 and is one of the pioneering music shows in the burgeoning podcast world.

Want To Be A Gemstone Tycoon? No Problem!
Hello,
This is the second in the series on how to become involved in the gemstone trade for yourself or loved one or to make a comfortable living with little work.

Popular to contrary belief it does not take years and years to become smart and proficient enough to learn whatever gemstones you may want to work with and to become knowledgeable enough to make what you want. If you want a gemstone for your wife or husband then you will be smart enough to go head to head with the local retail/wholesale store/Internet shop and get a good deal.

The first thing to do is to decide on what gemstone you like and then study it. If you want a red gemstone you have many choices from Ruby(a variety of the Corundum group) to a pinkish red gemstone called a Rubellite (a variety of the species of Tourmaline) and more. You may have any color you want in a variety of gemstones and any price for that matter.

Then you will need to learn what gemstones are best for rings and what ones are better for pendants. The beautiful blue Tanzanite is prone to chipping and fracturing so you would want it for a necklace unless you put it into a ring that has a lot of gold around it to protect it. You should learn the MOH’s Hardness scale so you will have an idea of how soft a gem is and if it is useful for jewelry.

There are many things to learn but none are really hard and if you have a desire to learn then you will and it is fun as well. then when you go to the store to buy you will be able to tell the salesman that he may not be quite right in his info to you and you show him the real facts. You would be surprised at how many jewelers have no clue about the gems they sell as they take the word of the salesman that sells to them what is what and that is not the way to to.

More info later on the how to buy the polished and then we can go into the rough gemstones which is where you can make a good buy and a better sales if that is your choice.

Have a good day and take care
Gregg

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Gregg Lyell
diamond miner, gemstone expert, SCUBA diver and adventurer, Viet Nam Veteren and all around good guy
http;//www.alexandrite4all.wordpress.com

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