I guess that I will be feeling cool enough only when I will be more popular and I will be publishing e-books of other authors. Don’t misunderstand me, it’s great to be allowed to share the knowledge in such “official” way, but still it’s nothing like a real book.

Nothing like a real book, eh?

I’m old school, y’know? I love to feel the texture of paper, flip pages and this kind of stuff. That’s why I can’t really learn from e-books, which is a little bit of an irony. I’m writing e-books for others, but personally I would never be able to learn everything from it.

The problem I see with e-books is that they’re a lot faster than classic paper books. You can purchase 10 e-books at once, and hope to read all of them. But in the end, you won’t be able to do so, because you won’t have time, and subconsciously you will know that you have purchased e-books only to read over them and acquire knowledge. All of this as soon as possible. It’s fast, and unpleasant.

Books are different – you’re purchasing one or two books, then you’re waiting for them to arrive via postal mail, and they you’re sitting down in your favorite chair, taking a great pleasure reading them – it’s a cool way to relax.

New VS Old

So here I stand facing this ironic paradox – I want to share the knowledge using simplest method, so everyone could benefit from it. And on the other hand, I would love to share this knowledge using pleasant methods – like classic paper books that are much more relaxing. Ergonomic versus economy – what a problem!

Perhaps the best way of getting out of this paradox would be to offer people two versions of my works – digital e-books and printed books, for example, through Lulu.com. That’s always an option, not mentioning that it would look just awesome to have my own book on my bookshelf, eh?

Nah, just ranting a bit…

Devil in the details

Darren Rowse’ Problogger is a great resource of knowledge. John Cow’ or John Chow’ blogs too, even that weird guy Glen Allsopp’ Cloud Living e-book is useful (although you should not even try to purchase it). But I’m sorry guys, your knowledge is useless as long as the person that acquires this knowledge is brainless – are you brainless, my dear reader? Let’s see :).

Examples

Here’s one of the most popular advices around blogsphere to increase traffic to your blog. I’m running a website about paranormal & the occult, and I want to increase the traffic. So I’m advised to send few trackbacks. And of course, I’m also encouraged to write guest posts from time to time for other blogs in my niche. Cool, so what’s the problem? If I would be brainless, I would try to send as many trackbacks as possible, and write as many guest posts as I can. But I won’t do this – because in my niche, there are no blogs I would target, and if there are, I already established partnership relations with them – two blogs, that is :). And I’m sorry, but in paranormal niche 90% of people is s uneducated in running a blog they do not allow comments,  nor trackbacks, nor they even place a contact details in their blogs. For many, everything that comes from readers is considered to be spam. Now that sucks!

Not that I think every other blogger is stupid, I don’t – but a lot of them lacks the knowledge about blogging, which makes this niche particularly difficult.

It’s all screwed up!

The problem is that 90% of people who read over these blogs and e-books is not really thinking about what they read – no matter what their niche is, they’re trying to copy/paste the ideas, and they end up with nothing. Yes, I admit that a lot of ideas is working. That’s the point – some ideas works, some doesn’t – your role as blogger or online money maker is to understand the niche you’re operating within. You need to know what works in your niche, and what doesn’t work. You need to be creative and prepared to risk, trying to implement something totally new, something that no one ever tried before. Then, you might be successful.

Don’t copy, think!

Therefore:

• Do not copy and paste every single idea – it might not work.
• Think what might work in your niche and implement it.
• Analyse your niche – find out what works and what doesn’t.
• Don’t be afraid of creativity, try to think about something original by yourself.

Even that can’t guarantee a success in online business – but it will surely help you a lot, if you’re thinking about having your piece of a cake.

Do you copy/paste ideas of others? Or do you do research on your niche? Share your stories in comments below!

I thought this ebook is going to be the best deal of my life – as it turned out after reading it, every single piece of information is available for free in the web, all you have to do is to look around. Glen did nothing more than putting all the information together and charge 37 usd for this. Damn!

First of all, first 20 pages or so discuss why is it so cool to make passive income each month. Paying only to learn why it’s so cool is weird idea. But let’s move on…

Second part of the ebook discuss running a blog – and honestly, that’s one big mistake, because 90% of what’s in this part is already discussed on… WordPress Codex! How to download WP, how to install it, how to manage it. C’mon, that’s stealing money in my opinion. Everything else from this section can be found on ProBlogger.net. That’s a perfect example of “grab something that is free, put it into ebook and sell it”…

But earlier, first part discuss affiliate marketing and building minisites to promote products. At first I thought it was the only original part of this ebook, some unique knowledge… until I downloaded FREE ebook by John Cow here. As it turned to be, John Cow explains everything the same, step by step – for free! Now there’s no reason at all to pay $37 USD for Glen’s ebook…

Other sins of the ebook are – terrible quality of videos, and something like “but it’s too general, there’s a lot more to learn” – that’s how you feel when reading this ebook. Glen writes about stuff in very general way, without too many details. Hell, for $37 I would expect a lot of details and much better quality of videos, c’mon…

Honestly, in that three links I included in this ebook you can find everything and even more about making money online with blogs and affiliate programs – FOR FREE. There’s no need to pay $37 USD for Cloud Living. The good part is – you can get the refund very quickly…

You see, when you just think positive, no matter what terrible things are going on around you, you keep thinking “it’s OK, it’s OK, it’s going to be awesome, I’m cool” – but in reality, you’re not. It’s nothing more than telling lies to yourself. Lies that can not help and that will definitely help you not, in any way. And if the things aren’t working, you should change the tactics.

Instead, of positive thinking, you should practise a slightly different technique – you should always look on the bright side of life. So when things are going totally wrong, don’t think it’s going to be OK. Think about something that is already OK. For example think about your lovely wife, or about your business going smoothly, or about cool morning you had, tasty dinner you had, or that nice day off.

Those (and many other) are the things that already happened, and those are the things that are positive, not your imagination and wishful thinking. You remember the Secret? Teachers were talking about gratitude – that is not positive thinking, that is looking on the bright side of life. Being thankful and grateful for nice things that already happened is the thing that really makes the Law of Attraction working.

Connect this with passion boards, setting goals, life philosophy and the Law of Karma, and you will get the mixture of successful life!

Without creativity, we would be still living in caves trying to survive another day. But instead, we have Newton physics, Einstein, Apple, tons of gadgets, Internet and God one knows what else. Hell we’re creative :). Oh, we wouldn’t have Facebook nor Twitter without few creative minds. But sad truth is that current public education system is suppressing creativity among children and I don’t mean USA, right now I’m speaking from European point of view, this problem is present in whole world. Let me give you few examples:

• Fast reading – you know how to read fast? You need to use pointer, kids are often using their index finger to follow up with text, but the teacher says “don’t use your finger, it will slow you down” – the hell it won’t, on the contrary, the pointer increase the speed of reading and every single person who was taught to read fast will admit I’m right. How does this suppress creativity? The kid knows he read fast, but if the teacher said something, then this must be the truth, so the kid thinks he’s wrong. Therefore, teacher is always right. Even if he’s not.
• Answers key – tests are so popular all over the world, you have a question and four possible answers: A, B, C or D. Where’s creativity here? You can’t really think on your own, you have to choose the right answer. Sure, when it comes to numbers and general knowledge then it’s OK, but when it comes to abstract knowledge, then the problems begins…
• Teacher is always right - I won’t write anything here but single link to post made by Collis.

School today teaches the general knowledge and will try to suppress every single kind of creativity and individuality. I got personal experience with. When I was in infant school and I was about 6 years old, I found few bricks that were supposed to be used in construction of a castle. But I was creative, I quickly used the bricks (because of their shape) to build… four-leaf clover :). It was perfect (but um… the bricks were red, I had no way to paint them), you know what my teacher did? Nothing, she ignored me! Because haven’t build a castle, because I created something no one ever thought about before. What was I supposed to do, most of the bricks has been lost or eaten by other kids?!

To be creative or not to be creative

I say be creative! Two types of people become rich, those who got cash for investment and those who are creative. I don’t have cash, I’m just creative :). And I’m also hard to stop when I set up my goal. So…

• Be original - create something no one every thought about, or thought about, yet never created it :).
• Use mind-maps – the best way for creativity to flow…
• Play with your ideas – by using mind-maps :P
• Don’t be afraid to take the risk – only those who take the risk can achieve success!
• Keep smiling – the hardest thing to do, but it works!
• Be mad – if something is too crazy to work out, it will work out for sure.

This is just a tip of an iceberg – but it gives you the basic knowledge to start with. Now go and let the creativity flow!

Doing good things

Karma in my eyes is simple – do bad things, and bad things will happen to you. Do good things and good things will happen to you, in other words: what goes around, comes around. I decided to do some good things.

• I went to WordPress support forum and answered few calls for help, not many – two at most if I recall correctly.
• I also recalled that I had few sachet of spices I didn’t need, so I picked them up and gave them to neighbour girls. With positive thinking I went to sleep.
• Next morning while walking on the street, I was remaining calm and haven’t pushed anyone in a hurry. I also picked up a newspaper from a guy who was distributing it and engaged conversation – he said he’s being paid for number of newspapers he distribute among people, and not for the hour. So I picked up few more issues of that newspaper from others distributing it around the city ;).
• Whole day I was smiling.

My good karma started to increase, I guess, because…

The reward

At the end of the day I had sold themes on Theme Forest and few adslots via AdTaily. Those were first money made online in weeks and I was very happy. Additionally I have to mention that through the whole day I was visualizing money on ThemeForest, and emails in my gmail box saying “you have an ad for moderation” – and heck, it worked :). That experience taught me few things.

• Karma works – do good things and not bad things and the Universe will reward you for the things you do. But keep in mind if you will do bad things, the Universe will reward you too – but with bad things :).
• Visualize things you want – that’s what The Secret teaches. Literally visualize money or emails or comments or number of subscribers, everything you want. Visualization is powerful when it comes to the law of attraction.

And from now on, I have to pay attention to both karma and visualization. Do you have such experiences with these two things? Or maybe other advices regarding karma or law of attraction?

I don’t want to copy and paste it here so I will point you to this website. Basically this is the story of a man who was not afraid of water because he flow with it. But you have to read it and find your own teaching inside :). Anyway, sometimes it is the best to let things be… How can we refer the story above to the system? For me it’s pretty simple, the system just is, the world looks like it looks and in reality you can’t fix it, at least you can’t fix it alone. Therefore, instead of fighting with it, use the opportunities the system is giving you.

People scream “I don’t have money for this” – well OK, why don’t you get more money? “I can’t find better job” – why not making your own company or running your own business? “The man won’t let me to” – screw the man, be the man yourself! Do you want to be a pawn all your life, or do you want to player, or even better – gamemaster? I want to be gamemaster…

My Tao is simple, be good person. But being a good person doesn’t mean you can’t use the way our world operates and make some big money. Whatever you dream about, you can achieve, just dream about it. You must be the person that doesn’t fight with the world, instead you must use the system to turn your dreams into reality.

They’re ruling the world!

Who’s ruling the world? Does it really matter? I know many “against-the-system” kind of people, they all see someone who’s pulling the strings, they’re all worried about the whole world and they refuse to get themselve normal job, because they don’t want to become part of the system. In the same moment they want to be happy and be rich. But hey, they can’t achieve what they want if they won’t flow with the rest of the world. Being against the system means you can’t get to the top of – and that’s the point, to get to the top, or at least to the middle of the financial pyramid.

You know, you can read all these self-improvement blogs like Zen Habits, or Steve Pavlina, but this won’t change your life – these guys are paying taxes just like everyone and yet, they live a happy life, why can’t you? Being against the system is the pseudo-philosophy that lead to nowhere, if you want to achieve something in your life, you have to:

• Follow the rules – follow the rules our society is based upon, be a good person and pay taxes. You can’t win with taxes :P.
• Screw the rules – be creative, perceive the world from different point of view, invent something, make something everyone thought won’t work.
• Aim high – don’t want to be just a pawn and live your life, aim high, you have to want be the man, otherwise you will never become one.

Forget about someone somewhere making the rules, I see no point laying the blame on someone you don’t even know, if you have problems with your life you are the only person responsible for them and only you can fix your life, so go and do something. And stop worrying about the system, flow with it – use it for your own advantage!

And beside the fact I’m not standing but sitting, everything rest is true. Let’s see where am I now. I’m living in a nice city of Wroclaw, I have a girlfriend, tons of books and laptop, I make money online, nice grades on University… Turns out I made my dreams come true without even realising it. So how did I actually get the things I have now? I attracted them…

How?

OK, some people will still say that I earned money with hard work, I got girlfriend because I walked away from the computer, I got grades because I learn hard. But isn’t it the law of attraction? Isn’t that how law of attraction works? We want something, and the universe is giving us the opportunity to achieve our goals – all we have to do is to decide what we will choose. The Secrets talks about the following rules of attraction:

• Ask - ask for the thing you want, what do you really want?
• Believe – believe you can receive!
• Receive – and feel like you would already have it.

That’s actually what I do – I ask for something, I believe I can receive it because I recognise how many things I’ve already received thanks to the law of attraction, and then I just receive – I have the thing I want. Sure, it takes some time – from few days to few months, the biggest goals are meant to “be attracted” for years. But so far I haven’t been disappointed and the law works well for me.

Why?

Why do I receive things I want? Why do I achieve goals I set for myself? Because I want something? Because this is what I want? Because this is how things work in this world? What I perceive as great problem of people is that they ask “why, how, for what reasons“… I do not ask, my Tao is simple – do or do not. There is no thinking, you ask for something and then you just achieve.

I haven’t really thought how to earn money for laptop but I was forced to get it – so this was my ultimate goal, to get the laptop. Within few weeks from setting this goal, ThemeForest was open and it allowed me to make some money. Then, I’ve became active member of polish WordPress support forum, which allowed me to find clients for some freelance work. Within few months I’ve earned enough money to buy the laptop.

The same mechanism worked with my girlfriend and University – I just set the goal for myself and I haven’t thought for a minute how the heck am I going to achieve these goals. Few months later, they were already achieved. I could be talking about similar examples from my life for hours, but I guess you already got the point :).

There is no why – you want something, and you get it.

The cool part

What’s the cool part of the law of attraction? The simple fact it just is… And that it works, I have a lot of goals today, and I know they won’t be achieved overnight, but someday, all of them will be achieved. Then I will be at peace with my life and my mind. For now, I just know I have to live my life and keep doing what I’m doing. And the universe will take care of the rest.

What do you think? Does the law of attraction works? Have you ever noticed it worked in your case?

No matter what you do and how you do it, there will be always people who will try to discourage you. Their reasons are different, some doesn’t like you’re doing something they can’t do, some might be jealous for other reason, some might just not like you. But remember the saying:

The people who matter don’t care and the people who care don’t matter.

Empty critics won’t do anything good for you, but it can do a lot of bad things as long as you will let it influence you and whole your mind. I used to accept that there are people who will criticise me just for the simple fact. I accept that and I don’t care, I just move on. Sure, I could be filling my mind with terrible thoughts, something like:

• Why don’t they like me?
• Are the things I think and say correct?
• Where did I made the mistake?
• Will my plan work?
• Is it really a good idea as I previously thought?

Such thinking could lead only to ruining your whole plan, and maybe even life. So I refuse to think like that, I think positively. I’ve been taught to return to my basic principles and goals in every situation of empty critics, such act is meant to enforce ones point of view and mental state. But with time I learned that I don’t even have to go back anywhere, since I totally ignore any kind of empty critics – it just doesn’t matter because I just know why I speak what I speak. I know where are my principles are, what are the fundamental rules and knowledge for all my actions.

And by this, by following the Taoistic rule of doing without doing as I always wanted, without even realising I’m following the rule, I accomplished something great. I’ve created a form of total focus on achieving my goals. In some small degree, I’ve won a battle with myself.

He who knows others is wise. He who knows himself is enlightened.

One step closer to serenity. And there’s more, just by realising how great personal step I made I’ve discovered motivation to make even more such steps. Once again, after few months of sadness and emptiness I have this feeling that my mind is in peace. I know there is hard time yet to come, but once again I feel I have the strength to overcome all obstacles.

And knowing this thing is the best thing that happened to me in last few months.

At least I hope so… Crazy and creative ideas works well. Create something no one ever thought about and flip the switch – and you’re a rich guy! Too beautiful to be real? Yes, I think so as well. So, what exactly is the problem with creative and crazy business, if it’s meant to be successful, then why is it that there aren’t many of such projects being made? I believe the problem lies within that risk part – not everyone is ready to take that risk.

The risk within

Let’s say I got a crazy business idea, I want to create a website that will target a small underground niche of people who don’t really want to show their faces because most people believe they’re crazy, or even worse – worshippers of Satan (like wiccans, don’t get me wrong). It leads to problems:

• How do I advertise the project?
• How do I get new customers?
• How do I make money from such underground niche?
• Am I ready to sacrifice my money and time and take the risk?

If I won’t take the risk, I won’t become rich. But if I’ll take the risk, I might become successful. I already know about asking right people to learn valuable opinion, I got the business plan, contact, I studies simplicity and self-improvement to stay positive, but nobody really discussed the subject of taking the risk. Or at least I haven’t stumble upon it :).

But it doesn’t have to be a whole company, sometimes our business can be small – from a blog to a small startup. Personally, I want to become full time blogger – there’s still place for this kind of people and as we can see, there will be place for this kind of people for the years to come. This is the future of the information in the web I believe… But still the risk remains – I do sacrifice a lot of my time to write blog posts, brainstorm ideas, search for online partners etc. Yet even if I do make small money from my blogs, this question about risk still hangs in my head. What if something will go wrong, hmm?

How to deal with the risk…

You can’t change it – the risk is always here and there, it doesn’t matter if you’re choosing a vacation trip or a business to create. You have full control of what you’re going to do, but you don’t have control over the risk – risk is a factor and it can be defined as 0 and 1 – it either exists or doesn’t exist. And if it exist, you can’t really do anything with it – that’s why we’re taking the risk or not – you can’t control it :). The best course of action will be to follow old Taoist saying:

Be still like a mountain, and flow like a great river.

I see no better way to deal with the risk of starting something new than to accept it and move on. What do you think? How do you deal with the risk to take?