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You Probably Don’t Know What Traf-O-Data Or Virgin Vodka Were

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Traf-O-Data was a business with an objective of reading raw data from roadway traffic counters and create reports for traffic engineers. The company had modest success but quickly fell apart. This is one of the countless examples of a company falling apart, but the rest of the story is about perseverance.

One of the people who founded Traf-O-Data and watched it collapsed was some guy named Bill Gates. Even one of the richest men in the world had a business that fell apart. Bill Gates learned from Traf-O-Data’s collapse and created Microsoft.

That’s one story of an entrepreneur going from one collapsed business to creating something remarkable. There are many entrepreneurs who have gone from collapsed businesses to successful enterprises. One of those people was Richard Branson.

When you think of Richard Branson, you probably think of Virgin Airlines and Virgin Records. Chances are you do not affiliate Richard Branson with Virgin Coke or Virgin Vodka. Virgin Coke and Virgin Vodka are two of Branson’s businesses that quickly failed. After learning from his mistakes, Branson was able to start Virgin Airlines and become a billionaire.

The list goes on and on for entrepreneurs who first failed and then became very successful. Henry Ford’s first two car companies failed and left him broke. Mark Cuban was a carpenter and waiter among other things before becoming a billionaire. When looking at successful figures, we often forget that there was a point when these people were not successful. There was a point when all of the billionaires were struggling to make a living. The reason you didn’t know what Traf-O-Data or Virgin Vodka were is because few people accept the fact that billionaires were once regular people who just wanted to make it in the real world.

Maybe you may be in what seems to be a hopeless situation. Being broke after creating two businesses that failed, selling vodka, floundering amongst low paying jobs, and watching a business that was successful completely fall apart also seem like hopeless situations. Bill Gates, Richard Branson, Henry Ford, and Mark Cuban were in those hopeless situations.

 

The Biggest Mistake Bloggers Make With Their Subscription Boxes

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There are millions of blogs. Although a majority of bloggers have a subscription box on their blogs, many of these bloggers are creating ineffective subscription boxes that take up space and get no subscribers. In order to establish a powerful presence for yourself on the web, you need to have a subscription box that is going to get you more subscribers.

Here’s where the mistake comes in. Most bloggers decide to caption the button something like, “Subscribe Now” or “Subscribe For Free Updates.” The mistake is that the buttons include the word “Subscribe.”

Even when my blog’s traffic started to increase rapidly, I continued gaining a small number of subscribers. Even though my blog was getting thousands of extra visitors I was not getting a lot of extra subscribers. In some cases, I would not get a new subscriber to my blog for a week.

Then, I made a small change to the subscription button. The original button said, “Subscribe Now For Free Updates,” but I decided to make that button say “Count Me In!” Right when I made that change, I immediately got more subscribers. Now I am gaining several subscribers every day.

Growing your list is one of the most important ways to build a strong presence for yourself on the web. By growing your list, you will be able to get in contact with more people who want to buy your products. Does your subscription box say “Subscribe Now” or something similar? If you are using the word “Subscribe,” then you need to change that to get more subscribers.

 

How The “My Life Isn’t Good Enough” Mindset Works

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Mindset

In one of Tony Robbins’ videos, he discussed how the “My Life Isn’t Good Enough” mindset can set you up for success. It was an interesting video where he interviewed Frank Kern and John Reese about success. One of the parts of the formula got referred to as the “My Life Isn’t Good Enough” mindset.

Most people who think in this mindset know they have been dealt with an unfair hand, and they use that unfairness as an excuse. The people who constantly make excuses will not get themselves out of the “My Life Isn’t Good Enough” mindset. While most people see this mindset as a way to crush dreams and settle with being unfulfilled, there is another way to take advantage of this mindset.

There are many people who have used this mindset to become very successful. The people who used this mindset to become successful realized their lives were not good enough, but took action to make their lives better. That’s why you hear about the stories of people going from $100k in debt to making over $1 million in 1 night. That’s why certain people get to become professional athletes.

This mindset is the creating or breaking point of your success. If you use this mindset to limit yourself, you will remain limited. However, if you use this mindset to realize you need better results and be inspired to take action, then this mindset will allow you to become very successful.

 

4 Factors That Go Into Writing Content That People Will Love

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Quality Content

More people focus on writing content while less people focus on writing content that visitors will love. In order for your blog to grow, you need to write content that your visitors will love. This will encourage visitors to stick around and eventually subscribe to your blog. In order to get more people to write content that your visitors will love, you need to have these four factors.

  1. Some people love the content because of the story. There is a difference between a 38-year-old writing this blog post and a 16-year-old writing this blog post. There is also a difference between an average person writing blog posts on the Shoemoney blog versus someone who used to live on a friend’s couch writing blog posts on that blog. You need to have a story that people love, and then your content looks a little better. This is not the difference between good content and bad content. A good analogy is that the book on a $0.99 discount looks better than the book at a regular price. The blog’s content with a good story looks better than the blog’s content without a good story.
  2. Write blog posts that are easy to read. The only way your visitors will love your content is if they read it. Your blog posts need to be easy for your visitors to read. If I smushed all of the content of this blog post into 1 big paragraph, it would be more challenging for visitors to read the blog post. By spacing your content into several paragraphs, your visitors will have an easier time reading your blog posts.
  3. Write quality content different from other bloggers. The word quality is just as important as different. Writing a blog post with typos in every sentence is different, but that does not mean people would love to read it. Write about topics and go into detail about those topics in a way different from other bloggers.
  4. Proofread your blog posts before you publish them. No matter how good your blog post is, one typo will hurt a lot. In order to avoid publishing blog posts with typos, you need to proofread them before you publish them. Spending 5-10 minutes reading 1 blog post will allow you to feel more confident about your blog’s content.

In order to write content that your visitors will love, you need to have these four factors on your side. What are your thoughts on the list? Do you have any additional tips? Please share your thoughts and advice below.

 

The Powerful Urge That Will Make You Want To Earn More Money

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money

There are many things that urge us to earn more money. While some of these things are not shared by everyone (being homeless, being in a desperate situation, wanting to save up for college), there is one thing that applies to all of us. One powerful urge that will make you want to earn more money is by spending it on yourself.

I would quickly like to point out that although spending money on yourself is a great way to get motivated to earn more money, you should not spend money to the point where you go bankrupt. Only spend about 5-10% of your money on yourself. That will be enough to get the urge going.

The first thing that I bought with my own money was HootSuite Pro. Before buying HootSuite Pro, I got very comfortable with making $200 every month which by no means is an income to live by. When I committed to spend $9.99 every month, I realized that I was not making enough money. In the future, I plan to buy access and upgrades to other tools such as ManageFlitter. In addition, I plan to use some of the money for things outside of my business.

This urge made me stop giving myself a pat on the back. In terms of making money, a pat on the back represents you are satisfied with the amount of money you are making. We all want stuff, and by purchasing some of that stuff, you will want to earn more money. This powerful urge will make you put in more work and effort to see your business succeed or for you to get the raise in the company you are in.

UPDATE:

I ended up buying access and upgrades to ManageFlitter and other tools. A significant portion of my budget is allocated towards outsourcing costs. I am spending far more money each month than I was when I first wrote this blog post.

The motivation exists more than ever for me to increase my revenue. I still haven’t spent any money on myself outside of my business because I don’t have a desire to do so yet. Anytime I spend money, it is an investment to my entrepreneurial domination.

Not only will spending money, more specifically, investing in yourself amp you up with more motivation. But spending money also makes you much smarter about how you spend.

I recently read Power Of Broke by Daymond John in which he mentioned that it’s not always good to get more money. Daymond has the perspective of an investor who says no to some businesses and provides extra money to other businesses.

Some people who get an extra dose of money are overwhelmed with all of the different ways they can start spending that money. Then, the money gets spent through a variety of means but ends up getting wasted.

 

Money isn’t made to be spent all of the time. For your business, you must always spend smartly. Spending smartly means analyzing your income and expenses. If you spend more than you make, then you’ll be in debt soon enough.

When I started to invest money into outsourcing, I didn’t start off with a team of dozens of freelancers. I started off with a single freelancer. It was a bumpy transition because I never gave a part of my work to someone else before. I interacted with that first freelancer often to make sure the job was being done properly.

Once I felt comfortable with outsourcing, I gradually outsourced more of my work to other freelancers. My outsourcing money has been money well spent due to the time it has opened up to me. If I immediately hired over a dozen freelancers, the transition would have been far more stressful due to the added work and anxiety of making sure multiple parts of my business were being managed properly.

Investing in yourself gives you a powerful urge to make more money. You are your greatest asset.

 

How To Turn That Urge Into Riches

Discover how to create a plan that, when fueled by the urge, will allow you to make more money.

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Why Running Will Make You More Likely To Succeed

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running

There are many articles on the web that mention exercising as a way to become more productive. I started to read these kinds of articles during my freshman year when I recently joined my school’s cross country and track & field team. When I saw that exercising increases productivity, I was astounded. Increasing productivity was one of the (very small) reasons why I continued running track (the bigger reason is that I enjoy the sport).

One of the big things about cross country and track & field is that the committed athletes who love the sport always want to get better. In the running world, PR does not mean press release. Instead, it stands for personal record. When an athlete gets a PR, the athlete celebrates that PR for a day, but on the following day, that athlete wants to set another PR. I remember boosting my workout from 4-6 miles every day to 8 miles every day over the summer. Now, I plan to run over 16 miles every day in the summer (if it happens, I’ll be in really good shape). I quickly realized that the runner’s attitude towards getting more PR’s has been the recipe to success all along.

If you become an active runner, you will want to get better every time. You will want to run the mile faster this week than you did last week. Active runners decide to run longer distance and more challenging workouts in order to get better times. This constant need to improve leads to longer workouts which ultimately leads to a more successful running career–whether you are running for fun around your neighborhood or hope to make it to the Olympics.

Once you apply this mindset to one thing, it will be easier for you to apply this mindset to other places as well. One of the places you will be able to apply this mindset is your niche. When I found the time to think of my entire journey as a runner and entrepreneur, my blog started to improve in traffic and content as I ran more often.

The big spike in traffic for this blog (my blog went from 500 views to over 10,000 views in 5 months) started during my sophomore year of cross country (that’s when I started to take running very seriously). In addition, this is the same time when I went from gaining 50 followers every day to gaining over 300 followers every day. In addition, I found the time to write two blog posts every day weeks before the first cross country practice for sophomore year.

Just to prove that I’m not making any of this stuff up, Steve Scott (there are a lot of Steve Scotts in the world) is a self-published author who is poised to make over $300,000 every year from his Kindle books. It just so happens that Steve is also a marathon runner. Is it just a coincedence? I think not.

What are your thoughts about running? Are you an active runner? Do you plan to become an active runner? Please share your thoughts below.