Diary of an Online Business

You may be asking where I have been all this time? Well I’ve been very busy getting my new membership site ready and it is now launched and ready for viewing – www.secretstoemotionalhealth.com.

I’d like to give you the first instalment in “The 6 Vital Steps to Emotional Health” Hope you enjoy.

How To Be Free Of Emotional Baggage and Finally Live a Life of Health, Vitality and Abundance

Did you know that research shows that 90% of all illnesses are stress related?

Did you know that stress is caused by negative emotions such as fear, worry, frustration, powerlessness, resentment, bitterness, sadness and many other feelings?

If you control your emotional health, you control your overall health and well being!

Here are Six vital steps that if you take action with, will help you get started on a more energetic, healthy, happy, content and fulfilled life.

Let’s get healthy:

Step One – Establishing Self Care as an Integral Part of Emotional, Mental and Physical Health

“What you are is God’s gift to you. What

you do with yourself is your gift to God.”

Danish Proverb

Human beings are a complete system made up of the physical, emotional, mental, spiritual and social. Each part of our system impacts on the other. To have good emotional health we must have good physical health. To have good physical health, we must have good emotional health. So let’s start at the being with how to care for our body and reap the rewards of strong emotional health.

On any given day, we have a certain amount of energy to spend to accomplish the necessary tasks for the day. If life is going well and we are fit, healthy and happy, then we will have a larger amount of energy to spend than if we are going through some form of life crisis. When faced with life’s problems, our precious resource of energy can be very quickly used up.

Digestion uses more energy than any other activity we engage in. However, negative painful emotions are the second greatest user of our finite stores of energy. In other words, personal disaster will cause us to feel many painful emotions such as, fear, hurt, frustration, confusion and powerlessness and these emotions will use up a very large proportion of our daily energy allowance.

Without an adequate source of energy, we will find it very difficult to successfully navigate the challenges we may face as we move forward to a healthier life. Not only will our body feel exhausted but our brain function will also be diminished and we may find it difficult to make decisions and remember things.

Just like a car requires not only petrol to run, but the right sort of petrol – our bodies also require the correct fuel and proper care to perform at a time when we are most challenged.

Below, is a simple but effective prescription for self care that if followed, will help you perform at your optimum:

· Be careful about the types of food you eat. When under pressure, we often turn to the fast foods that are easy to reach for and give us a quick burst of sugar. In very simple terms:

o The best food to eat is unprocessed. Try to stay away from processed foods such as, fast food, cakes, chocolates, sugar drink.

o Replace these with vegetables, fruits, nuts and protein such as meat and fish. Complex carbohydrates such as fruits, vegetables and whole grains help increase our levels of serotonin. Serotonin is a brain chemical or neurotransmitter that helps us feel calm. Of course, this is very important in times of crisis.

o Protein taken three times a day, at about the size of the palm of your hand, will help you to not feel as tired.

o Try to eat something no more than one to two hours after waking as this will help keep your blood sugar levels up for the day

o Eat frequently, that is every three to four hours, the types of foods I have mentioned, as this also will help keep your blood sugar levels up, thereby helping you to not feel tired and confused.

· What you drink is also important. Remember to drink a minimum of two litres of water per day. Reduce or cut out alcohol as it acts as both a stimulate and depressant. During times of stress our adrenals are working overtime and it is a good idea to avoid anything that will further stimulate them. Caffeine and sugar also stimulate the adrenals so it is important to reduce or cut out drinks such as cola, coffee and soft drinks.

· Try to get some form of cardiovascular exercise 4 – 5 times a week for between 30 – 45 minutes each session. This form of exercise includes walking, swimming, cycling, running and dancing. Cardiovascular exercise helps us produce many good chemicals such as, serotonin, already mentioned and endorphins which are a natural opiate or feel good chemical. This form of exercise also helps us get rid of the stress chemicals such as, cortisol and adrenaline that are produced in times of adversity and stress.

· Try to get adequate rest, sleep and relaxation. During periods of stress, the body produces high levels of toxins. It is when we relax and sleep that the body has an opportunity to repair and restore itself. Denying yourself rest will affect your ability to continue to reach your full potential.

· Tap into every form of support possible.

Although this information may be a bit technical I have found that if people understand why they need to keep up these basic self care practices they are more motivated. Keeping your body in good shape, will be one of the most powerful things you do to help keep your mind and emotions in peek condition to help you bring about the changes needed to live your best life.

I’ll send part two very soon but to learn more why not come to one of my seminars:

Talk soon

Julie

PS the website again is www.secretstoemotionalhealth.com and I’ll be sending out lots of free products to change your life

Rick Warren - The Purpose Driven Life, achieving your goals, health and wellbeing, internet businesses, membership sites, motivation, online businesses, success Add new tag, building membership sites, health and wellbeing, internet business, online business, Rick Warren - The Purpose Driven Life, success; secrets to success; motivation; online business; internet business

This may seem an unusual article for my blog but when I read it I was really impressed and wanted to share it with you. A sharp mind, capable of making quick, clear decisions is essential for both business and life success. You’ll be surprised (as I was) by what you can do to achieve a sharp mind and consequently, improve your chances of success.

How to Improve Memory

 

Use It or Lose It:  Dancing Makes You Smarter

 

Musings by Richard Powers

 

 

For hundreds of years dance manuals and other writings have lauded the health benefits of dancing, usually as physical exercise.  More recently we’ve seen research on further health benefits of dancing, such as stress reduction and increased serotonin level, with its sense of well-being.

 

Then most recently we’ve heard of another benefit:  Frequent dancing apparently makes us smarter.  A major study added to the growing evidence that stimulating one’s mind can ward off Alzheimer’s disease and other dementia, much as physical exercise can keep the body fit.

 

You’ve probably heard about the New England Journal of Medicine <http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/abstract/348/25/2508>  report on

the effects of recreational activities on mental acuity in aging.   Here

it is in a nutshell.

 

The 21-year study of senior citizens, 75 and older, was led by the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City, funded by the National Institute on Aging, and published in the New England Journal of Medicine.  Their method for objectively measuring mental acuity in aging was to monitor rates of dementia, including Alzheimer’s disease.

 

The study wanted to see if any physical or cognitive recreational activities influenced mental acuity.  They discovered that some activities had a significant beneficial effect.  Other activities had none.

 

They studied cognitive activities such as reading books, writing for pleasure, doing crossword puzzles, playing cards and playing musical instruments.  And they studied physical activities like playing tennis or golf, swimming, bicycling, dancing, walking for exercise and doing housework.

 

One of the surprises of the study was that almost none of the physical activities appeared to offer any protection against dementia.  There can be cardiovascular benefits of course, but the focus of this study was the mind.  There was one important exception:  the only physical activity to offer protection against dementia was frequent dancing.

 

            Reading – 35% reduced risk of dementia

 

            Bicycling and swimming – 0%

 

People who played the hardest gained the most:  For example, seniors who did crossword puzzles four days a week had a 47% lower risk of dementia than those who did the puzzles once a week.

 

            Playing golf – 0%

 

            Dancing frequently – 76%.

That was the greatest risk reduction of any activity studied, cognitive or physical.

 

 

Quoting Dr. Joseph Coyle, a Harvard Medical School psychiatrist who wrote an accompanying commentary:

“The cerebral cortex and hippocampus, which are critical to these activities, are remarkably plastic, and they rewire themselves based upon their use.”

 

And from from the study itself, Dr. Katzman proposed these persons are more resistant to the effects of dementia as a result of having greater cognitive reserve and increased complexity of neuronal synapses.  Like education, participation in some leisure activities lowers the risk of dementia by improving cognitive reserve.

 

Our brain constantly rewires its neural pathways, as needed.  If it doesn’t need to, then it won’t.

 

            Aging and memory

 

When brain cells die and synapses weaken with aging, our nouns go first, like names of people, because there’s only one neural pathway connecting to that stored information.  If the single neural connection to that name fades, we lose access to it.  So as we age, we learn to parallel process, to come up with synonyms to go around these roadblocks.  (Or maybe we don’t learn to do this, and just become a dimmer bulb.)

 

The key here is Dr. Katzman’s emphasis on the complexity of our neuronal synapses.  More is better.  Do whatever you can to create new neural paths.  The opposite of this is taking the same old well-worn path over and over again, with habitual patterns of thinking and living our lives.

When I was studying the creative process as a grad student at Stanford, I came across the perfect analogy to this:

 

            The more stepping stones there are across the creek,

            the easier it is to cross in your own style.

 

The focus of that aphorism was creative thinking, to find as many alternative paths as possible to a creative solution.  But as we age, parallel processing becomes more critical.  Now it’s no longer a matter of style, it’s a matter of survival — getting across the creek at all.

Randomly dying brain cells are like stepping stones being removed one by one.  Those who had only one well-worn path of stones are completely blocked when some are removed.  But those who spent their lives trying different mental routes each time, creating a myriad of possible paths, still have several paths left.

 

The Albert Einstein College of Medicine study shows that we need to keep as many of those paths active as we can, while also generating new paths, to maintain the complexity of our neuronal synapses.

 

 

            Why dancing?

 

We immediately ask two questions:

 

*  Why is dancing better than other activities for improving mental capabilities?

 

*  Does this mean all kinds of dancing, or is one kind of dancing better than another?

 

That’s where this particular study falls short.  It doesn’t answer these questions as a stand-alone study.  Fortunately, it isn’t a stand-alone study.  It’s one of many studies, over decades, which have shown that we increase our mental capacity by exercising our cognitive processes.

Intelligence: Use it or lose it.  And it’s the other studies which fill in the gaps in this one.  Looking at all of these studies together lets us understand the bigger picture.

 

Some of this is discussed here

<http://socialdance.stanford.edu/syllabi/intelligent.htm>  (the page you probably just came from) which looks at intelligence in greater depth.

The essence of intelligence is making decisions.  And the concluding advice, when it comes to improving your mental acuity, is to involve yourself in activities which require split-second rapid-fire decision making, as opposed to rote memory (retracing the same well-worn paths), or just working on your physical style.

 

One way to do that is to learn something new.  Not just dancing, but anything new.  Don’t worry about the probability that you’ll never use it in the future.  Take a class to challenge your mind.  It will stimulate the connectivity of your brain by generating the need for new pathways.  Difficult and even frustrating classes are better for you, as they will create a greater need for new neural pathways.

 

Then take a dance class, which can be even better.  Dancing integrates several brain functions at once, increasing connectivity.  Dancing simultaneously involves kinesthetic, rational, musical and emotional processes.

 

            What kind of dancing?

 

Let’s go back to the study:

            Bicycling, swimming or playing golf – 0% reduced risk of dementia

 

But doesn’t golf require rapid-fire decision-making?  No, not if you’re a long-time player.  You made most of the decisions when you first started playing, years ago.  Now the game is mostly refining your technique.  It can be good physical exercise, but the study showed it led to no improvement in mental acuity.

 

Therefore take the kinds of dance classes where you must make as many split-second decisions as possible.  That’s key to maintaining true intelligence.

 

Does any kind of dancing lead to increased mental acuity?  No, not all forms of dancing will produce this benefit.  Not dancing which, like golf or swimming, mostly works on style or retracing the same memorized paths.  The key is the decision-making.  Remember, Jean Piaget suggested that intelligence is what we use when we don’t already know what to do.

 

We wish that 25 years ago the Albert Einstein College of Medicine thought of doing side-by-side comparisons of different kinds of dancing, to find out which was better.  But we can figure it out by looking at who they studied: senior citizens 75 and older, beginning in 1980.

Those who danced in that particular population were former Roaring Twenties dancers (back in 1980) and then former Swing Era dancers (today), so the kind of dancing most of them continued to do in retirement was what they began when they were young: freestyle social dancing — basic foxtrot, swing, waltz and maybe some Latin.

 

I’ve been watching senior citizens dance all of my life, from my parents (who met at a Tommy Dorsey dance), to retirement communities, to the Roseland Ballroom in New York.  I almost never see memorized sequences or patterns on the dance floor.  I mostly see easygoing, fairly simple

social dancing — freestyle lead and follow.   But freestyle social

dancing isn’t that simple!  It requires a lot of split-second decision-making, in both the lead and follow roles.

 

      I need to digress here:

I want to point out that I’m not demonizing memorized sequence dancing or style-focused pattern-based ballroom dancing.  I sometimes enjoy sequence dances for several good reasons <http://socialdance.stanford.edu/syllabi/sequences.htm> .  Plus there are stress-reduction benefits of any kind of dancing, cardiovascular benefits of physical exercise, and even further benefits of feeling connected to a community of dancers.  So all dancing is good.

 

But when it comes to preserving mental acuity, then some forms are better than others.  When we talk of intelligence (use it or lose it) then the more decision-making we can bring into our dancing, the better.

Challenge yourself to try new things.  Make more decisions more often.

Intelligence: use it or lose it.

 

Hope this article encourages you to get out there, have some fun and make yourself smarter

 

Until next time

Julie 

 

 

achieving your goals, improving memory, internet businesses, motivation, online business, success Add new tag, improving memory, online business; internet business; success; learning;, success; secrets to success; motivation; online business; internet business

Step six—Monitor and fine-tune to maximize results

Activate your sales campaign by going to Google adwords and reactivating your ads. The campaign is generally up and running in under 30 minutes. You can check that it’s working by doing a Google search on one of your key words, and clicking on the ad. It should go straight to your home page with your sales letter.

Every day for the first few weeks (or until the campaign is consistently profitable) you need to monitor two things:

• Number of sales—You can check how many books you are selling by logging onto Clickbank and looking at the Daily Sales graph. You generally expect about a 1 % buy rate, that is, for every 100 people that click on your site, you should be selling 1-2 books. If you are selling less than this, you may need to:
  • Make some changes to your sales letter
  • Increase your advertising budget, as your ad may be stopped (if it hits your budget) before your market is “awake”.

If you are making changes, it’s important to change only one thing at a time, so you can see what’s working.

You will also need to monitor the number of refunds. This is also done via Clickbank.

• Effectiveness of your advertising—You can monitor this on Google adwords. The things you need to watch and improve on are:
  • Number of impressions—this is the number of people who see your ad. You can increase this by adding more key words. You will also find that the number builds up naturally over time as other people pick up your ad and place it on their own websites.
  • Number of clicks—this is the number of people who’ve seen your ad and clicked on it. You are aiming for a few hundred clicks a day, but the more the better. You can improve this by adding more key words.
  • Click through rate—this is the proportion of people who see your ad, who actually click on it. You can increase this by changing the wording of your ads, or deleting the ads that are not performing well. You can also increase the price per click, which will put your ad further up the list. You should be aiming for about 5% on your top key words.
  • Conversion rate—this is the proportion of people who click on your ad, who actually buy the product. This will also tell you how much it costs you in advertising to get each sale. Expect it to cost about $8-$10 per book, for a $27 e-book.

If you have put a “contact us” button on the home page, you will also have to reply to email questions and comments regularly.

We found that Perry Marshall’s “Definitive Guide to Google Adwords” improved our income enormously. Go to www.PerryMarshall.com for his manual.

Don’t forget to have a look at this link if you are interested in building either a ebook or membership site business. This is what we have been using and found it truly fabulous

http://www.ourinternetsecrets.com/2009/lookinside/opt2.html

I hope you have enjoyed this series on building a ebook website and it has inspired you to have a go. It is never easy but can be very rewarding.

Until next time

Julie

Andrew and Daryl Grant, ebooks, internet businesses, online business Add new tag, Andrew and Daryl Grant, ebooks, online business, success; secrets to success; motivation; online business; internet business

This transcript was recently sent to me by a friend and although the formating is a little rough I felt that it was such an important message that I wanted to share it with you.

“Rick Warren is the author of a publishing phenomena – “The Purpose Driven Life” His work has been instumental in my life as well as my husband’s.

He has helped millions of people worldwide and as far as I know that includes Rupert Murdoch and some of his executive team.

If ever there was an example of how to live life in tough times, I think that the interview below is it.

Enjoy the read – you may need a few tissues:

This is a interview with Rick Warren. He wrote the Purpose Driven Life.

Read it through to the end…………
You will enjoy the new insights that Rick Warren has, with his wife now
having cancer and him having ‘wealth’ from the book sales. This is an
 absolutely incredible short interview with Rick Warren, ‘Purpose Driven
Life ‘ author and pastor of Saddleback Church in California

 In the interview by Paul Bradshaw with Rick Warren, Rick said:

People ask me, What is the purpose of life?
And I respond: In a nutshell, life is preparation for eternity. We were
not made to last forever, and God wants us to be with Him in Heaven.

 One day my heart is going to stop, and that will be the end of my body–
 but not the end of me.

 I may live 60 to 100 years on earth, but I am going to spend trillions
of
 years in eternity. This is the warm-up act – the dress rehearsal. God
wants us to practice on earth what we will do forever in eternity.

 We were made by God and for God, and until you figure that out, life
isn’t going to make sense.
 Life is a series of problems: Either you are in one now, you’re just
 coming out of one, or you’re getting ready to go into another one.

 The reason for this is that God is more interested in your character 
than
your comfort; God is more interested in making your life holy than He is
in making your life happy.
 We can be reasonably happy here on earth, but that’s not the goal of 
life. The goal is to grow in character, in Christ likeness.
This past year has been the greatest year of my life but also the
toughest, with my wife, Kay, getting cancer.

 I used to think that life was hills and valleys – you go through a dark
time, then you go to the mountaintop, back and forth. I don’t believe 
that anymore.

Rather than life being hills and valleys, I believe that it’s kind of
like two rails on a railroad track, and at all times you have something 
good and something bad in your life.
No matter how good things are in your life, there is always something 
bad that needs to be worked on.

 And no matter how bad things are in your life, there is always something
 good you can thank God for..

You can focus on your purposes, or you can focus on your problems:
If you focus on your problems, you’re going into self-centeredness, 
which is my problem, my issues, my pain.’ But one of the easiest ways to 
get
rid of pain is to get your focus off yourself and onto God and others.

We discovered quickly that in spite of the prayers of hundreds of
 thousands of people, God was not going to heal Kay or make it easy for
 her- It has been very difficult for her, and yet God has strengthened 
her
character, given her a ministry of helping other people, given her a
 testimony, drawn her closer to Him and to people.
You have to learn to deal with both the good and the bad of life.

Actually, sometimes learning to deal with the good is harder. For
 instance, this past year, all of a sudden, when the book sold 15 million
copies, it made me instantly very wealthy.
 It also brought a lot of notoriety that I had never had to deal with
 before. I don’t think God gives you money or notoriety for your own ego
or for you to live a life of ease..
 So I began to ask God what He wanted me to do with this money, notoriety 
and influence. He gave me two different passages that helped me decide
what to do, II Corinthians 9 and Psalm 72.
First, in spite of all the money coming in, we would not change our
 lifestyle one bit.. We made no major purchases.
 Second, about midway through last year, I stopped taking a salary from 
the church.

 Third, we set up foundations to fund an initiative we call The Peace 
Plan
to plant churches, equip leaders, assist the poor, care for the sick, 
and
educate the next generation.
Fourth, I added up all that the church had paid me in the 24 years since 
I started the church, and I gave it all back. It was liberating to be 
able
 to serve God for free.
 We need to ask ourselves: Am I going to live for possessions? 
Popularity?

Am I going to be driven by pressures? Guilt? Bitterness? Materialism? Or
 am I going to be driven by God’s purposes (for my life)?

When I get up in the morning, I sit on the side of my bed and say, God, 
if I don’t get anything else done today, I want to know You more and
love You better. God didn’t put me on earth just to fulfill a to-do 
list. He’s more interested in what I am than what I do.
 That’s why we’re called human beings, not human doings.
Happy moments, PRAISE GOD.

 Difficult moments, SEEK GOD.

 Quiet moments, WORSHIP GOD.

 Painful moments, TRUST GOD.
Every moment, THANK GOD.
 If you do not pass it on, nothing will happen. But it will just be nice 
to pass it on to a friend….just like I have done.
 God’s Blessings”

I hope you were inspired by this as much as I was.

In the near future, I will be letting you know about my new membership site which is along these lines of finding your purpose and living your best life now.

Until next time

Julie

Rick Warren - The Purpose Driven Life, motivation, success Add new tag, Rick Warren - The Purpose Driven Life, success; secrets to success; motivation; online business; internet business

Ok, am I the only one who at times suffers from self doubt?  Am I the only one who sometimes thinks this is all too much for me and I’ll never be as successful as all those other people out there who are running successful online businesses?

I didn’t think so! What human being has not suffered from some form of self doubt in their lives? Will she accept my offer of a date?  I don’t think that I’m going to be offered the job. Why is it that everyone else in the world is smarter, prettier and more successful? Or, here’s the big doozie: “Why does everything have to be so hard for me and so easy for everyone else?”

Come on now, be honest, surely I am not the only one who goes through this painful experience of self doubt?  The question here could be why write about this on a blog designed for online business success? For one reason only: self doubt could rob you of any opportunity to be successful with your online business – hey, even with me and my online business.

Most success coaches (that’s me believe it or not) would tell you that success is determined 90% by what we think and only 10% by what we do. There was an interesting experiment some time ago that looked at coaching success for basketballers. They took three groups: the first group was only allowed to think about shooting hoops, the second group was only allowed to practice shooting hoops and the third group was coached in both mental and practical basketball skills. Which group did the best? Group one and three both succeeded to the same level. In other words, the actual action of shooting hoops made litttle difference. It was all about training the mind.

Occassionally this self defeating blockage of self doubt pops into my head so what do I do about it? This is what I do and maybe it will help you:

1. Remember the dream. We have a dream book and I like to remind myself of exactly why I started this online business in the first place. It is a powerful motivator.
2. Allow myself a little pity party but after a short time of feeling the feelings and feeling sorry for myself, I take a deep breath and tell myself to get back on with the job.
3. I recall all the things in my life that I have already been successful with eg. raising three daughters and for part of that time on my own, completing two degrees, having  a  private practice for 15 years, managing a 140 staff successfully in the program that I run currently, surviving a terrible divorce and best of all finding the love of my life later in life. If I can do these things then I can continue to face life’s challenges and win
4. Mix with people who will pull you up, not pull you down. We all need encouragement. I truly hope that my blog is an encouragement to you and that in some ways I can be a mentor to others in need.

Let me know what you do to deal with an attack of the self doubts. I know that it will be of help to others who are reading this.

I’m off for a weeks holiday to beautiful Coffs Harbour tomorrow so no post for a week. I really am a firm believer in the need for self care and nurturing.

Until next time

Julie

achieving your goals, internet business, internet businesses, motivation, online business, online businesses, success Add new tag, mental blockages, online business, online business; internet business; success; learning;, success; secrets to success; motivation; online business; internet business