Entries Tagged 'Simpleology' ↓

You may remember the "Simpleology Bestseller Blueprint" product we released
two months ago …

We closed down registration so that we could complete our 4 "Marathon
Coaching Calls" where Mark promised to stay on the line "until all your
questions are answered, or until I pass out."

Well, ask they did … Sheesh, these guys were ruthless!

In fact, these guys were so eager to squeeze every last bestseller-making
secret out of Mark’s mind that they kept him on for 5 hours at a time (!)
for a total of about 20 hours.  (And Mark loved every minute of it.)

The good news for you:

1.  We recorded every minute of those calls and you can listen to them
in their 100% uncensored glory.  (there are marketing strategies on here
you’ve never heard anywhere else - we guarantee it)

2.  Because these recordings are so extremely valuable, we are going to
raise the price of the Bestseller Blueprint to $1,497.  (hey, that’s still
a bargain - Mark used to charge $2,000 an hour just to talk to him on the phone
and he won’t even accept that now)

3.  We have re-opened the doors and you can purchase the Simpleology
Bestseller Blueprint again now (with the 20 hours of Mark dishing out the
answers to every meaningful question imaginable) - and for the first week you
can still pick it up
at the original price of $997.

If you’re trying to lose your potbelly by doing 1,000 or so crunches a day, you’ll probably be relieved to know that there’s no such thing as spot reduction. (Read: You can stop doing it because it’s not going to work.) Take it from Dr. Gabe Mirkin, author of Getting Thin: All About Fat - How You Get It, How You Lose It, How You Keep It Off for Good. “Exercising a muscle does not get rid of fat over the specific muscles that are exercised,” he says, “If it did, tennis players would have less fat in their tennis arms, but they don’t.”

Bottom line: all the crunches in the world won’t give you washboard abs. And what about the flood of gadgets promising you fabulous abs in just five minutes? Forget about them. Though we may all want to believe that strapping on a vibrating belt could melt away our belly fat while we’re at home watching TV - it’s just not possible.

Mirkin adds: “Exercises and ‘ab’ machines can strengthen sagging belly muscles, but they will not remove extra fat from your belly. The only way to lose fat from the place where you store most of your fat - whether it’s your belly or your hips - is to lose weight overall.”

If the good doctor’s words don’t convince you, get a second opinion from Mike Geary - a certified nutrition specialist and certified personal trainer - who says, “The perfectly chiseled fitness models in the [infomercials] did not get their perfect body by using that ‘ab contraption.’ They got their perfect body through real workouts and real nutrition strategies.”

By that, Geary means you should exercise at least an hour a day and eat wisely.

It’s best if we all get up from our couches and get moving. (Still, we can always dream of a gadget that’ll give us sexy abs while we sleep.)

Recommended Resource: Simpleology 103 - if you want to learn scientifically proven methods for quickly losing fat and sending your energy through the roof.

Ever had your older brother borrow a nickel from you back in fifth grade? It’s likely that he never paid you back - and you never asked him to. It’s either he forgot about it or he thought nothing about not paying you back since, well, blood is supposed to be thicker than money. But admit it. Though you love your brother, losing that nickel must’ve bothered you for some time.

“With three words, you can sum up the most common advice about lending money to your relatives: ‘Don’t do it,’” warns MSN Money financial columnist Liz Pulliam Weston. “People who’ve lent money to family members often complain about ingratitude, missed payments and strained holiday dinners. Even the borrowers grumble, especially when their benefactors start quizzing them about their spending.”

You can afford to brush it off if it’s just a nickel. But what happens when your relative asks for a loan that totals, say, half your paycheck? Again, Weston cautions: “Loans to your nearest and dearest usually aren’t a good idea. But if you feel compelled, do it formally - and put it in writing.”

But if that seems too heartless to you, consider the words of Suze Orman, a personal finance expert and author of books like Women & Money: “Never loan money that you truly need. The best litmus test before you agree to give a loan is to ask yourself if you would be comfortable giving the money away as a gift.” In other words, don’t expect your loved one to pay you back.

Orman then lets statistics speak for themselves, citing the findings of Circle Lending, a company that helps formalize loans between individuals. As it turns out, about 14 percent of loans between friends and family end up in default, compared to just 1 percent or so for bank loans.

Think of those numbers when a loved one asks you for a loan. And, more importantly, ask yourself if you can afford to risk it.

We could all learn a thing or two about office productivity from folks in the software industry. How do they prevent meltdowns in the face of heavy workloads? Simple. They just box time.

Time boxing is a strategy used in software development projects to plan out a project. They split up the project into stages - with each stage having it’s own deadline. By employing this one-thing-at-a-time strategy, they finish the project efficiently. This works well, too, when applied to other work environments.

“There are always several things competing for our time,” says software engineer David Cheong. “At any moment, each of us could have hundreds of outstanding things to do. This question immediately become important: How can we ensure we get as much done as possible?”

He then enumerates the benefits of boxing time:

1. By consciously being aware of time, it allows us to focus on doing the things that matter most.

2. It serves as a reality check on how much time we spend working on open-ended tasks.

3. Because of the fixed time constraints, it can be an effective tool against procrastination.

4. It allows us to work on things during the free gaps we have between our commitments and appointments.

So, if you’re tasked to write a report by your boss, you could time box it this way: write report outline (1:00 to1:30 p.m.), gather data needed (1:30 to 2:30 p.m.), write report (2:30 to 4:00 p.m.), and check report (4:00 to 5:00 p.m.).

Still, this technique isn’t exactly a cure for procrastination. Cheong emphasizes: “If the time available we have is limited, a rational person should immediately think about prioritizing their outstanding tasks based on what’s important and urgent.”

To find out if you’re “rational” enough to make time boxing work for you, answer the Time Management Survey devised by David A. Whetten and Kim S. Cameron, authors of Developing Management Skills. That is, if you really have time to spare.

My friend Matt Bacak had a seminar of his swiped by one of his students and
now to get "revenge" he’s giving away
the entire
seminar for a dollar.

Is this a marketing ploy?

Well sure - of course it is.  But it’s also one based in truth. 
Knowing Matt personally (he and his wife are genuinely sweet people) I can
affirm he is indeed closing down his business to work for another company.

I also know that people "swiping" other people’s intellectual property is an
all-too-common occurrence these days.  Heck, I’ve watched people swipe
entire charts, passages, and genuinely unique concepts from my books and claim
them as their own.

So yeah, it happens.

Matt could have allowed the event to make him bitter, but instead he decided
to turn it into something profitable for him and others.

I first met Matt years ago at one of my seminars.  After that he made a
great success of himself in short order.

I took the above seminar he’s giving away two years ago and it was excellent. 
The info wasn’t new to me because I’d been doing what he taught for years, but
to anyone who is new to e-publishing it is a fast method for learning how to do
it - from the ground up.

Last month we reported on a study at Johns Hopkins showing a strong
correlation between the amount of sleep a child gets and obesity.

Harvard’s
Project Viva, a study of 2,000 mothers and their children, has reported a
similar correlation between the amount of sleep a child gets (or lack thereof),
and obesity.

If the same children also watched a lot of TV they were even more likely to
be fat.

Now, the title of this blog post is deliberately misleading.  See,
science deals primarily with correlations and not causalities.

What does that mean?

Well, it means that we can’t know for sure if the TV itself is causing the
obesity.  It’s one of many possibilites that the correlation suggests.

Another possibility is that the obese kids chose a sedentary activity like TV
as their favorite leisure activity.

I’d love to see if the same correlation exists for kids who surf the net an
equal length of time.

Anyone know someone at Project Viva?  I’d love to know if they are
gathering that data as well …

Suggested Resources:  Simpleology 103 for a lifestyle change that
naturally boosts your
energy and shreds fat.   Simpleology Wimiki to remind yourself to
get up and move, drink water, etc … (available for free to all
Simpleology users)

In The Rise of the Author I
talked about how technology is changing our lives right before our very eyes -
and how the nature of the publishing industry is changing.

The printing press of the future is the computer monitor.

And delivery method of choice seems more and more to be the Adobe PDF file.

Why not just deliver your content via HTML?

Two reasons:  portability and perception.

HTML will not render or print consistently across platforms, as much as we’d
love it to.  PDF will.

And the perception of information delivered via PDF is one of higher value. 
"Oh, this is a special file format. It’s a book."  Not "just a web
page."

You could go purchase Adobe Acrobat for $300 and up (depending on the
version), or …

You can get Primo PDF for free. 
Yes, it doesn’t have all of the bells and whistles of Acrobat or other non-free
PDF converters, but do you really need them?

Suggested Resources:  
7 Day Business
Turnaround Kit for limitless ways to turn PDF files into cash flow.