Unlocking Your Creativity
By: Brian Tracy

Creative thinking can be stimulated by two things; intensely desired goals and pressing problems. Your creative capacities need something to hone in on and your job is to provide it.

A Continual Stimulus for Ideas
Intensely desired goals, clearly defined with detailed plans for their accomplishment act as a continual stimulus for ideas to achieve them.

Visualize Your Goals
To trigger your imagination, write out a clear description of your ideal end result or goal. Be clear about the goal, be flexible about the process. Think about it, visualize it as realized over and over. Project your mind forward to the picture of the realized goal and then look back to the present.

Define Your Goals Clearly
Think on paper. Make a plan and then work on the plan, updating it, changing it, adding to it as you think of new ways to work toward the goal. The more clearly defined and keenly desired your goals, the more of your natural creativity will be released for goal attainment.

Brian Recommends: Learn this ancient healing secret

Discover the amazingly simple — yet powerful — Chinese healing practice to alleviate pain, sickness, and disease. The gentle movements and easy meditations of Spring Forest Qigong can help you if you suffer from arthritis… back pain… migraines… heart and circulatory diseases… weight problems… digestive ailments… autoimmune disorders… reproductive issues… depression… and other health problems.

So much can happen when you practice Spring Forest Qigong. Download a free 51-page booklet to learn how the process works — and why it should work for you (included is a sample you can try right away). You’ll also learn why everyday people, medical doctors, and experts such as Deepak Chopra endorse this remarkable program. With a 6-month satisfaction guarantee, you can prove for yourself how much better you will feel.
Natural Cures

The Proper Approach to Problems
The second stimulant to creativity is pressing problems. The key to idea generation when you face a problem is to approach the problem confidently, expectantly, with the attitude that there exists a logical, practical solution just waiting to be found.

The most creative people have a relaxed attitude of confident expectancy that causes their minds to function in original and imaginative ways.

Diagnose Your Problems Accurately
Define your problems clearly in writing. Accurate diagnosis is half the cure. Sometimes you will find that you are dealing with a “cluster problem,” one that is made up of several smaller problems. Your job is to sort them out and then go to work on each one separately.

Break Up the Clusters
In many cluster problems, there is a core issue surrounded by a lot of symptoms. Creative thinking requires that you separate the core issue, and then focus on resolving that before worrying about the smaller problems.

Action Exercises
Here are two things you can do to stimulate your creativity.

First, be absolutely clear about your goal. Write it down and make a plan to achieve it. Think of different ways you could accomplish it.

Second, define your problems clearly and then make a list of all the possible solutions to your problem. Take action on at least one idea immediately.

Swim Against the Tide
by Donald J. Trump

Your electricity might flow better through another socket

An old friend was working on Wall Street and not doing well. He looked worse - unhealthier and unhappier - each time I saw him, and it saddened me. I liked this guy, so I finally decided to tell him that he was beginning to look like a total loser. I hated speaking so harshly, but I really cared about him and wanted to help. When I asked him why he stayed on Wall Street, even though it obviously was not working for him, he explained that his family had always worked there and he felt obligated to continue the family tradition, even though it was killing him.

When I asked him what he liked to do, he told me he loved to tend the greens at his golf club. He knew golf courses, had a feel for them, and cared for them well. He also loved working outdoors and being in contact with people. I suggested that he look into the golf industry instead of continuing to suffer on Wall Street. I also pointed out that his unhappiness was probably taking a heavy toll on his family.

Breaking away was difficult, but he made the move. He had to swim upstream, in hostile waters, and against the stronger tide - his family’s and friend’s traditions and expectations. He went into the golf business, where be became extremely successful. When I see him now, he’s always beaming and looking healthy. He has a new lease on life and has become a different person because he had the guts to go against tradition, take control of his life, and change.

So if your life is not what you want it to be, don’t be afraid to ask yourself whether you’re doing what you want and what is right for you. Measure yourself against your feelings, ambitions and goals, not those of others. That might mean standing up to friends, family and colleagues who think they know what’s best for you. Plug into your own electricity. It might flow better through another socket.

Affordable, Spacious, Stunning
by Gary Eldred, PhD

Affordable - Spacious - Stunning

Mint condition 3BR, 2B, 1840 sq.ft. $6,000 d.p. $830/mo., romantic 3000 sq.ft. Master BR suite with fplc, open living area, flower garden views, light and bright kitchen, unlimited storage. $210,000 - compare at $275,000! 210 Pecan. Open Sat. & Sun. 12-5. Rare find, please call 000-555-1234.

Would you be interested in that property? I know I would. If I were planning to go to some open houses on Sunday, it would be the first one on my list. I would get there at noon to make sure I saw it before anybody else did.

Why does that ad work so well? Why does it pull so much more powerfully than all the others that only list bedrooms and baths? It’s because that ad incorporates four critical factors known as AIDA:

Attention, created by a headline that trumpets benefits

Interest, sparked by a description of condition and affordability

Desire, caused by prized features and benefits

Action, offered by an open house and a number to call right away

To write a great ad, you need to know all you can about your ideal buyers - who they are, what they can afford and what they are looking for in a property. Your next step is to use a little creative flair to present that information in an AIDA structure.

Don’t forget that newspaper ads are still powerful tools to sell properties, even in our age of Internet selling. If you get the power of an AIDA ad working for you, you can get your properties visited - and probably get them sold - next Sunday afternoon.

Editor’s note: To learn more about achieving success in the competitive world of real estate, enrol in The Real Estate Investor Training Program from Trump University. Classes are forming now.

Gary Eldred, PhD is Professor of Real Estate at Trump University, where he teaches The Real Estate Investor Training Program.

Stay Grounded in the Numbers
by Barry Lenson

“Should” is a dangerous word. If you use it in sentences like these, it could be doing you a lot of harm:

“The house I’m renovating should sell for $450,000.”
“My new product should make me $50 million a year after I bring it to market.”
When you start to use “should” that way, you’ve probably fallen victim to false optimism. It’s highly seductive. You want so much for that house to sell for $450,000 that you start to believe it really will. Or you want your new company to generate $50 million in annual sales, so you start to count on that happening.

It’s the kind of thinking that leads you to you overspend. You spend too much money to buy a property, then you spend too much money to fix it up - and you never get your money back. Or you pour too much money into your business start-up and never get off the ground.

What can you do to cure “should” thinking if it has lured you in? The first step is to admit that you have been counting on an unproven outcome. The second step is to get anchored in real numbers. What are houses really selling for in the town where you are investing, for example? Know that figure and work back from it. Or if you are starting a company, what are realistic income estimates for your first year, your second year, and beyond? Ride herd on the numbers and don’t let your heart get ahead of your head.

As our Chairman Donald J. Trump observes, cautious optimism is the key to success. You have to dream big, but verify your expectations against real-world facts and figures.

So work the figures without letting your emotions get in the way. You can get very excited later on when the money starts to pour in. But in the early stages, make sure the numbers work. If you do that, you not only “should” be a success. It’s really going to happen for you.

Editor’s note: To make sure the numbers work on your real estate investments, you might need the skills that our students learn in The Real Estate Investor Training Program. To learn more, click here.

The Five Critical Habits of Real Estate Success
by Michael Sexton

In his book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen R. Covey observed that a lot of our success is built on the small habits that we cultivate daily. That principle applies to real estate investing too. If you observe successful real estate investors and developers, you will see that they have cultivated some highly effective habits too:

Habit #1: Being curious. Successful real estate investors hunger to learn something new every day. One day, they will learn all about a new kind of mortgage. The next day, it will be a new kind of insulation. Their learning never stops.

Habit #2: Staying flexible. Only supple people triumph in real estate, because things change so quickly. One year it makes no sense to invest in a certain city; the next year, it is hot. One year adjustable mortgages seem ideal; the next year, they make no sense. Inflexible, opinionated people cannot adapt quickly enough to survive. To win, you have to stay open-minded and agile.

Habit #3: Looking at properties. You can learn a lot about real estate by reading books or Web surfing. But you cannot learn everything that way. After all, it is called real estate because it is all about real things: land, concrete and wood. That is why top investors never stop looking at properties. Doing so provides information that they can never find in books. Is the ground in one part of town mushy underfoot, for example? Are houses made by a particular builder more solid-feeling than others? Nobody is going to tell you that kind of thing; you need to get out there and see for yourself.

Habit #4: Cultivating the gift of gab. Nearly all successful investors love to chat with everyone they see in the course of their days - with shopkeepers, pedestrians, police officers and virtually anyone else who can offer insights on what is happening in different communities. If you don’t like talking to people, you are not going to make it in the real estate business.

Habit #5: Reading real estate ads - obsessively. Your friends and family members might wonder why you sit there reading all those property listings every day. (Sometimes, you might wonder why you are doing it too.) But just as stock market investors pore over stock listings, successful real estate investors are addicted to property ads. Reading those ads daily, over a period of years, builds a broad knowledge base that no book could ever provide.

10 No-Brainer Rebellious Marketing Tips and Strategies PART #1

To follow on from recent Rebellious Rants that reveal how tiny tweaks to your marketing and promotion can make a world of difference to your results $$$ and that small hinges swing big doors $$$, here’s Part #1 of my No Brainer Rebellious Marketing Tips and Strategies. If you apply just a few of them, you will put your money metabolism on steroids.

1. Spend one hour a day in concentrated thought on all the ways to build your business.

That’s 365 focused hours of nothing but thinking and dreaming creatively and strategically!

One hour a day of doing nothing but focusing on how to build your business will help you dominate your market and destroy your competition!

That’s almost two extremely productive weeks of the year doing nothing but planning - plotting -and scheming on growing your business or prospective business!

2. Direct response marketing takes a day to learn and a lifetime to master – if ever!

There’s so many variables - and few absolutes. The master is continually learning, growing, adapting, and taking his or her skills to a higher level.

It’s better to know some of the questions than all of the answers. Most people are paralysed into thinking they need to have the answer to everything before they do something when in reality you can only measure results based on something you do. So go DO something NOW!

3. Questions lead to better questions - which lead to the most powerful answers. Further, the right questions lead to the right answers.

Reality is most of the population ask none. Most of the rest ask the wrong questions. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I think this is the most important thing that has served me best in my business life… asking the right questions.

Want better answers? Ask more questions! Stay curious.

4. The easiest thing someone can do is stand on the sidelines and argue for the safe and conservative plan. Like most things in life, it’s generally the opposite of what everyone else is doing is the most profitable. So look in your category and do the opposite of everyone else.

I think it was Earl Nightingale that said, “If you can’t find a valid model for success in your category, then look at what everyone else is doing and do the opposite.” So true.

Doing what everyone else does in your category is what I call incestuous marketing, where everybody else looks at each other and does the same. Trouble is, after a while, it begins to look like real incest and everyone just gets dumber and dumber.

It takes a hell of a lot more courage to step out - and try new things. But this is the only way to build your business. You must be bold because the rewards are BIG!

When Donald Trump built a gold course in New York, he spent $7,000,000 alone on the 13th hole. Of course, some people thought he was crazy because that’s more than it cost to build some entire golf courses. However… the excitement of having a hole with a massive waterfall on it was broadcast all over America, not only that, the joining fee was $300,000 and I believe there is a waiting list. It’s also popular for photo shoots for magazines etc. What value can you really place on such a tactic? It’s endless.

Donald Trump knows and applies a strategy of doing the opposite of your competitors and another ENORMOUSLY powerful tactic and strategy of “Don’t worry about what it costs you, only concern yourself with what it will make you.” Nearly everybody thinks the opposite and never gets to the level of success the likes of Trump has achieved.

When Donald built one of his skyscrapers in New York he had a feng shui master consult on what was the best way to utilise the site and construct his building. One of the recommendations was to build a massive stainless steel statue of a world globe, seemingly spinning on it’s axis out the front of his building, at a cost of millions. This was to improve the flow of chi and the likely success of the venture. Again, he was laughed at and again I can report first hand having visited the building that it’s become an icon for tourists and magazines alike on the New York landscape.

5. Test small - but aggressively. You can lose money on 9 out of 10 of your tests - and still make millions by rolling out your 1 winner!

You’ll never find your greatest winners - without aggressive testing.

Part #2 of “10 No-Brainer Rebellious Marketing Tips
and Strategies” to follow next week.

It’s these sort of breakthrough strategies we’ll be dealing with at the Rebellious Millionaire Retreat in Melbourne on the 27th to 29th of April. If you want to know more about how the Rebellious Retreat will show you how to go from where you are now to implementation with speed and accuracy then go to our Rebellious Millionaire Retreat site: www.millionaire-makers-international.com

Committed to Multiplying Your Profits and Guilty of Conspiracy to Committing Capitalism,

How To Make Sure Your Advertising Produces Part 1

As I mentioned in your last Sucess Marketing Strategy, there are fourteen tips to make sure that your advertising copy works. Here are the first seven:

Number one; translate features into benefits. Don’t just give information and assume that the reader will interpret. Example, front-wheel-drive is a product feature on an automobile. In advertising that car it would be a great mistake just to say that and assume that the reader knows why front wheel drive is a desirable feature. The advertising has to go on to explain the benefits of front wheel drive - safety, improved cornering, improved braking, better mileage and so on.

Number two; write from the ‘you’ perspective not the ‘I’ we perspective. Say, “You will benefit greatly from the extraordinary durability.” Don’t say, “We build the most durable.”

Number three; communicate creditability. Creditability can be demonstrated with length of time in business, the size of your company, the number of customers served, testimonials from satisfied customers, your membership and influential associations, guarantees and warranties and all of these things combined.

Number four; you can use dramatic license. You should not deceive or misrepresent anything but you can dramatize it. Here’s an example your familiar with. Remington’s president says in the commercials, “I like this Remington shaver so much that I bought the company.” Well that’s silly. That man is a shrewd, astute, experienced business person and I assure you that his acquisition of Remington was based on careful analysis of many different factors, only including the quality of the product. But his statement is at least partly true and is a dramatic way of talking about product quality. That’s dramatic license.

Number five; remember that stories sell, facts only tell. Whenever you can use first person stories, third party stories about customers and antidotes to make key selling points, do so. Stories sell, facts only tell.

Number six; don’t be afraid of long copy. Ad copy should be long enough to tell your story effectively and persuasively. One of my most successful sales letter is 42-pages long.

Number seven; utilize the writing technique of double readership path. This is really quite simple but extremely important. The idea is to understand and reach both ends of the spectrum of consumer behavior. Analytical behavior versus impulsive behavior. The analytical person will read lengthy copy and is interested in as much information as possible.

The impulsive individual lacks the patience to read lots of copy and wants to get the message quickly. When you organize your copy and format you should communicate the important points of your message in only the headlines, subheads, photo captions and response device so the impulsive person can quickly skim, still get the message and take positive action.

Now you have them. The first seven of fourteen tips to make sure your advertising works. As you probably already guessed, in your next Success Marketing Strategy, I’ll reveal #8-14. Speak to you in just a few days.

Dedicated To Multiplying Your Income,
Dan Kennedy
Get All The Informationat: www.onlineofflineinformationmarketing.com

10 Ways To Generate Highly Read Article Ideas

1. Participate in chat rooms related to your targeted audience. Watch what questions people are asking and ask others what information they’re interested in.

2. Examine what information in being broadcast on tv, news and talk shows. That information is usually hot topics.

3. Hang out in similar message boards. People leave questions for information they’re seeking. That is a strong indicator of subjects to write about.

4. Survey your web site visitors or current customers.
Ask them what type of articles they would like to see published on your web site or in your e-zine.

5. Regularly check your site’s guest books. People sometimes leave questions or comments that would help you generate high readership articles.

6. Check online bookstore’s best sellers list. They’re very good resources for finding winning topics and ideas to write about.

7. Use the time of year to come up with good topics.
You could relate your content to the holiday, season, things that happen years ago during that time, etc.

8. Join some related e-mail discussion lists. Explore the question being asked and the subjects people are discussing.

9. Relate your article to a current fad that’s going on in your specific industry. The topic is usually interesting to your target audience.

10. Make a file of visitor or customer questions you receive via e-mail or phone. Usually, others have the same questions, but never ask.

Quote of the Day:

“Making a million dollars is the simplest thing in the world. Just find a product that sells for $2000 and that you can buy at a cost of $1000, and sell a thousand of them.” — Jerry Gillies

Warm regards,

The Ethos of Infantilism

By Mark Yarnell

——————————————————————————–

According to Benjamin R. Barber, Kekst Professor of Civil Society at the University of Maryland, who consults political and civic leaders throughout the world on citizenship, culture and education,

“Infantilization, the dumbing down of adults in order to induce the impulsive and childish consumption of unnecessary toys, is comprised of three archetypical dualisms:

Easy over Hard
Simple over Complex
Fast over Slow
In other words, the ethos of infantilism generates a set of habits, preferences and attitudes that encourages and legitimates childishness. It also nurtures a culture of impulsive consumption so necessary in a developed world that has few genuine needs.”

After twenty-two years in this marvelous industry, I have been pleased to share my experience and opinions when asked to do so by the Networking University. It’s been fun and the feedback has been appreciated. However, the subject of my next Webinar will be the most important to date and certainly the most controversial.

I’m afraid that many potentially great networkers have been seduced by what Barber calls “infantilization.” I receive calls all the time from intelligent, well-meaning adults who have joined excellent companies and cannot figure out why the big checks are so elusive. In many cases those individuals joined a company because someone convinced them that big checks in our industry are “easy, simple and fast.” Or, some consultant had sold them a system that suggests those things.

I believe network marketing is definitely a faster way to create radical wealth, but it is not simple or easy. Success in our industry requires sacrifice and knowledge and in my next Webinar I’ll explain the best strategies for both.

It isn’t a simple business and it’s certainly not easy, especially because of confusion created by the plethora of duplicable systems being taught by so many “self-styled experts.” New distributors are tempted to duplicate strategies that may have worked for one person, yet are totally ineffective for them due to huge differences in personalities, previous experiences and skill sets.

This problem is most apparent in the process of acquiring and approaching prospects. What works for an extrovert is not easily duplicated by an introvert. What works for an educated woman may not ever work for a male, high school dropout. In my next Webinar, I’ll give you a series of very diverse recruiting strategies which are proven to create large numbers of prospects for all kinds of people.

Years ago, “Big Al” told me that duplication does not work and I thought he was nuts. He wasn’t. In fact, over the years I’ve learned to respect Tom’s opinions more and more. I now understand what he was trying to teach me and I’ve incorporated that philosophy into my own training.

The American middle class is going away and I believe that network marketing offers the best escape from the attempt by consumer capitalism to dumb-down adults into mindless mall shoppers. Join me for my next Webinar and I’ll teach you how and why.

Winner of Loser?
To Be or Not to Be…
You Have a Choice.

After consulting to over 100 different industries and coaching tens of thousands of people directly over the last decade or so, I’ve noticed something strange.

Strange that the information, strategies and tactics and mind set that I presented and dispensed by way of advice, worked gang busters for some, but for the vast majority little or nothing changed.

With having the advantage of working up close and personal, actually in the zoo cage with a bunch of what I now refer to as “Rebellious Entrepreneurs”, I noticed some incredibly important commonalities that separated them from the norm and mediocre.

One of the commonalities was that they had come to the conclusion or simply had adopted the behavior that produced a high probability of success. One of those behaviors was that they recognized that success from a financial business perspective is a mechanical process. And the stuff that stops you from being successful is your own BS.

So in reality, money success is made and achieved mentally before it materialises.

I think it was the famous American preacher Reverend Ike that said “People have more hang-ups about money than they do about sex!”… I think he was right!

Understand this, we live in a world of duality. For example day and night, black and white, up and down, right and left, stop and go…and…RICH AND POOR. They all co-exist.

Further more, currently, two percent of adults command more than half the world’s wealth, while the bottom 50 per cent possesses just 1 per cent – this is according to a United Nations development institute study. Scary but true!!

The awful truth is in any group of people, whether it be your local P&C meeting, a room full of dentists, even any category of business you can think of, roughly 5% of the individuals in the group will have 95% of the wealth.

A further 20 odd percent, should be OK if they don’t do something silly, the rest however can barely afford to pay attention. The interesting thing is that studies dating back to 1952 show these particular numbers to be true even back then.

A more recent study, I think 2003, showed that this statistic has not changed. Now that’s irrespective of the amount of knowledge in the world, advancements in technology, the internet, improved communications, in fact anything that you can conceivably think of like the influences of greats like…. Tony Robbins, Napoleon Hill, Donald Trump, Robert Kyosaki or even God himself…NOTHING HAS CHANGED.

The truth is, in a unique period of 50 years, nothing has changed human behavior.

I guess the choice is yours, you should strive to be part of either the 80/20 or better still the 95/5.

The fact is you can’t do anything about human behavior. What you can do is something about
which group you belong to.

A good place to begin is mentoring.

And at my ‘Rebellious Millionaire Retreat’ coming up in April, you get the chance to be in the room with what I believe to be four of the greatest mentors that exist on the planet today – gathered together for the very first time. To find out more about how you can join the rich and happy minority, click here. Get Them ON DVD at a Fraction Of What You Would Normally Have to Pay; www.millionairemakersinternational.com

Committed to Multiplying Your Profits and Guilty of Conspiracy to Commit Capitalism,

Mal Emery
Get The Details At: www.millionaire-makers-international.com