Thanksgiving is an amazing holiday, few people really realize what it’s all about, even less actually take the time to think about all the good they have in their lives and why they should be thankful.

I encourage you to read this post in it’s entirety at the end I have a challenge for you.

Thanksgiving was actually created for one reason and further promoted for another reason.

The creation was to show appreciation, the initial Thanksgiving feast was celebrated in 1621. The Pilgrims shared it with the Native Americans because they had taught them how plant crops and hunt for wild game. This feast was how the Pilgrims showed their gratitude to the Native Americans for all of their help. Without the Native Americans the Pilgrims may not have survived the harsh winter.

The promotion of Thanksgiving is not as well know. Thanksgiving was officially declared a holiday by George Washington in 1789. By the mid 1800′s many states observed the holiday but not all on the same day. It wasn’t until 1863 when Abraham Lincoln, who was looking for ways to unite the country during the Civil War, gave his Thanksgiving Proclamation, declaring the last Thursday in November a day of Thanksgiving. President Lincoln knew that by doing this he could more easily unite the country. So the actual promotion of Thanksgiving was in fact to bring people closer together.

In the 1800′s this had great meaning and an actual purpose. In 2010 most holiday’s have become so commercialized we as a society have lost the true meaning behind them.

When was the last time on Thanksgiving you actually sat down and thought about all of the things you are thankful for.

Some will say last year other will answer never.

I have so many things to be thankful for in my life I could not possibly write about all of them with out boring you. I do want to share with you and give thanks for some of the most important things in my life.

My loving wife and family: They mean everything to me and bring so much joy and happiness to me. I could not imagine my life without them.

My Mother: Mom deserves a special shout out, she is always there for me, it doesn’t matter what time of day it is or what I need all I have to do is ask and it is done.

Health: Not just my own personal health but family wide we are blessed. even though there are small health issues we are all living and breathing and enjoying life.

Food and Shelter: So many people in the world lack these two simple necessities we as a society sometimes do not appreciate the simple things.

Network Marketing: This one has changed me the most. Being in Network Marketing has really opened my eyes to new way of life. A way of life where people encourage greatness. Not only are they willing to teach and share every bit of knowledge they have but they actually care about you and want you to succeed. This kind of relationship does not exist in corporate business. Corporate business is cut throat teach them as little as they need to know so they don’t pass you up.

Friends: Good friends are hard to come by, I am blessed to have 100′s business partners, who are my best friends and will continue to be for years to come. Good friends encourage you to be great they don’t bring you down or hold you back.

I’m going to cut it off right there but as mentioned I could go on and on and on.

Personally recognizing people and being thankful for them is only one part of the equation. Letting them know how you feel is most important.

Take some time and write down everything and everyone you are thankful for. Then go one step further and let them know.

I know this is going to sounds stupid, some of you will likely think I am insane and some of the younger readers won’t even know what I’m talking about.

Here is the challenge, take out a pen and a piece of paper and actually write them a letter. (If you are one of the younger readers who don’t know what a pen is paper is you can read about them at dictionary.com.) Now ever crazier yet I challenge you to send this letter through the actually mail. (again if you don’t know what this is check out dictionary.com)

Can you imagine how good that person will actually feel?  How would you feel if you received a letter of thanks in the actual mail.

We live in a fast passed society, with social media, email, cell phones, video phones, etc it is so simple to wish everyone a happy holiday in bulk and personal thought is tossed out the window. All sincerity is lost.

As if it wasn’t easy enough to text, email, tweet a Thank You, now we have even shorted Thank You! to Thanks, TKS, even TY. How impersonal are we going to get in the future?

Maybe they will just be a letter “t” or a head nod to relay a Thank You!

So do it, take some time this Thanksgiving and get back to basics, prove to people they really make a difference in your life.

If you enjoyed this post please share it, so others can embrace the true meaning of Thanksgiving. It only takes a second to retweet, status update, bookmark. Heck print it out and toss a copy in the letter you write…

I wish you all a very Happy Thanksgiving, and remember if you are reading this you have it 100 times better than millions of people in the world.

I am sorry to say I don’t remember exactly where I fist was introduced to this principle, but it has changed my life.

This principle can be applied to every aspect of your life and every day to day actions we take or choices we make.  Basically this is “Free Will”, we as humans have “Free Will” to do what ever we want to do, all we have to do is deal with the outcome of our actions.

Here are a few examples of  “What do you want more”:

Do you want to be on time to work or get that extra 10 minutes of sleep?
Do you want to loose weight or eat that cupcake?
Do you want to rob a bank or stay out of jail?
Do you want to cheat on your spouse or stay married.
Do you want to exercise and be fit  or sit on the couch and eat Bon Bons?

I’m sure by now you see where I am going with this.

Newton’s Third Law of Motion states:  “For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction”

While he was referring to physics and not life choices, I found this law of motion to almost perfectly be present in everyone of our life choices.

The successful professional sports player gave up most of his life to excel in his or her sport. The successful Attorney or Doctor gave up 6 to 10 years of their lives to learn and excel at their trade. The successful singer or dancer practiced countless hours for years in order to reach her skill level.

So what can be learned form this?

It takes hard work, dedication, education, and most of all SACRIFICE to achieve great success. Furthermore it is impossible to succeed if you quit. How many professional basket players do you know who quit before they became pro. The answer is none, it would be impossible to be a pro ball player if they quit before they went pro. This is true for anything.

If this is true of every business, trade, profession, etc, why is it so many people expect to start a home based business, MLM, Network Marketing Company, Opportunity or whatever you want to call it, and expect success to come instantly. It just doesn’t make sense.

Successful people are successful because they are willing to do what most people are not willing to do. They are willing to step outside of their comfort zone and do what it takes to obtain the results they are looking for. They are not concerned with what other people think of them nor are they looking for approval. They put their head down and get to work.

Most of our decisions on a daily basis are actually made unconsciously. Very seldom will we think about our different choices and the end result from each choice.This is why most people never reach their goals and settle for lives of mediocrity

I challenge you to implement the “What Do You Want More” principle in your day to day choices.

Every time you are ready to make a decision think about your choices and the outcome of each choice before you make a decision. Think about any goals you have set, does this decision move you closer towards that goal or further away from that goal. You will be amazed at how many choices you will change simply because you thought about each outcome. If you don’t have any goals set, make some.

Remember this can be applied to every aspect of your day. From your morning routine to bedtime. IE:  doughnut stop, lunch choices, cigarette break, exercise, road rage, speeding, opening a door for someone, saying hi to someone you pass in the hallway, a simple smile, is all it takes to makes a difference.

I’ll leave you with this final thought.

What do you want more? Do you want your business to be a raging success or would you rather relax and watch TV every night?

Sorry I had to go there, some people needed it.

Don’t ever let some someone tell you you can’t do something! 

The Pursuit Of Happiness

In the movie, The Pursuit Of Happiness,  Chis Gardner (Will Smith) tells his son how he was never very good at basketball and because of that his son wouldn’t be any good. So he didn’t want him wasting a lot of time playing basketball.

We all have people in our lives who love and care about us. They tell us what to do and what not to do based on their own life and experiences, thoughts and beliefs.

They do this for many reasons, here are some of the top reasons:

1. They don’t want to see us fail: This is a very noble reason, however this can only hold you back from your true potential. In order to find successful, failure along the way is a necessity. If you took the time to research any great success story you would find dozens if not hundreds of mini failures along their path to success. Only with failure can we learn what works and what does not. Only with failure can you grow to a better you. Lack of failure will simply result in lack of success.
2. They don’t want to see us succeed: Yes it’s sad to admit there are people out there who actually don’t want you to succeed. They discourage you simply because they lack the desire, motivation and or dedication to pursue their dreams. If they can’t achieve their dreams they don’t you to achieve yours.
3. They are lazy or scared of failure: It’s much easier for them to sit back and say that doesn’t work than it is to take the time to make it happen. By discouraging you they don’t have to do anything.
4. They lack the proper knowledge to intelligently discuss the topic: I think this is one of the biggest reasons. People love to have the answers and love to help out. Unfortunately, they too often share what little knowledge they have on the topic and assume it to be “The Law”. When in fact it is incorrect.

   IE: “Your uncle Jimmy tried that, he said it was a big old scam, run away!”

   I love this one, just because Uncle Jimmy tried and failed that means that no one in the world can succeed. I’m sure Uncle Jimmy has never failed at anything, he is likely Jimmy Carter, Jimmy Hoffa, and Jim Morrison all rolled into one. I’m sure he has succeeded at everything in the world except Network Marketing.

   Hopefully you can sense my subtle sarcasm here.

   The important thing to realize is each person’s success or failure is determined by their own actions, desires and dedication. Just because Uncle Jimmy failed that has no bearing on your outcome unless you allow it to.

5. They think it’s a scam: Here is a  line I hear often that I love.

   “More people fail at MLM than succeed.”

   Umm hello, McFly…. LOL, more people fail at everything than they succeed. We as a society fail at far more than we succeed.

   Millions of people try to lose weight and fail. Is this because they failed or because the weight loss industry is a scam.

   Do people fail in Network Marketing? The answer is of course yes.

   Do people fail to be the CEO, Regional Manager, VP. ETC? Again yes.

   Do people fail to, be a rock star, professional basketball player? Once again yes.

   People fail in brick and mortar businesses every day an they have way more invested. Why isn’t this industry considered a scam? After all they hire employees who’s efforts they earn income from. Sounds like a pyramid scam to me. LOL again some subtle sarcasm there.

Here is what I know:
You and only you have the power to succeed or fail.
Confusious said “He who thinks he can and he who thinks he can’t are both usually right“.

So my advice to you is:
Don’t ever let someone tell you you can’t do something. If you want something go get it, PERIOD!

Trying to market a business without overspending can be difficult, so it is important to try and make your advertising budget go as far as you can. In doing this, you have to consider every possible angle. Spending money is pretty much unavoidable when it comes to online marketing, so you have to think of a way to make sure that what you spend is justified in terms of the number of people who see your advertisement. In that respect, one sound move may well be to think about sponsoring a local sports team.

Of course it depends on how popular the sports team is. If they are followed closely by the people in your locality, then the chances are they get good attendances at their games as well as coverage in local and regional media – and possibly further afield. If the team is popular, you also get the benefits of association with them which plays well into people having a positive view of your company. If you make a deal to pay for the team’s equipment – or some part of it – then you can have a presentation ceremony which allows you more publicity again.

If your company is a family-oriented one – for example, a local convenience store or a garage – then sponsoring a little-league team is a good idea. At the team’s games there will always be parents, and it is well-known that most advertising is directed at families, as they are always likely to have some need of what your company does.

Advertising is something that demands a modicum of common sense. Will any company sell more of its product by insulting the customer? Of course not. Will they lose out by being connected in people’s minds with something that they find abhorrent? Yes, they will. Is it hard to strike the right balance between convincing people to spend money and reassuring them that you aren’t just looking to make a quick buck? Without a doubt. The tricky thing in all of this is that you have to make decisions without knowing the outcome.

Some companies think that the best way to market themselves is to launch themselves at the customer. Without putting it in so many words, they will seek to put across the message that anyone who doesn’t buy their product is a moron. Their product is far and away the best and this is because they themselves are geniuses. Why would anyone turn to any other company? They must be idiots, surely?

Of course, even the most arrogant marketers are a little more subtle than that, but the fact remains that they can be very aggressive in selling their product. But how successful is that tactic? It has been noted that people like a company to just tell them the facts and make a case for why the customer should select them. Of course you want people to be enthusiastic about you, but often the flip side of building yourself up is that you insult someone else by doing so – and this does not play well with most.

Companies do not like to spend too much money on advertising because it is one of the few things in a budget for which you cannot quantify the return. Yes, you may bring in more people in the aftermath of an advertising campaign, but how many of them were motivated by the marketing and how many just stumbled across the company? It can often be hard to make any sense of marketing returns, and unless you know a technique will work it is unwise to commit too much money to it.

So what is the solution? Can you advertise for free? The answer is yes, to an extent. You don’t need to spend money advertising your company, but money makes it a lot easier. If you want to advertise your company without spending a lot of money in doing so, then you will need to have a very good strategy.

You can use word of mouth marketing, getting members of staff to “sell” the company to friends and family, but those friends and family may already be customers through loyalty to their loved one. You can get yourself in the public eye by participating in community events while wearing your company logo – but this is a hit-and-miss strategy at the best of times.

If you want to market yourself and avoid spending too much by doing so, then your best approach is probably to demonstrate your value to the community by offering special deals to schools and offices, showing your community spirit. In a way this might cost you money, but if it creates new business it is sound marketing.

Many companies who are looking to make themselves more prominent in the public eye will go for a big-hitting strategy. Although it is expensive and maybe a risky strategy, they will buy TV time and record an advertisement to be shown on a local or regional station. Alternatively they may take out a full page ad in a newspaper or place short, repeated ads on the radio. By spending maybe more than they should, they hope to pull in customers.

The problem with this approach is that no matter how much you spend, you cannot guarantee success. It is very hard to predict the future with any sort of accuracy and, if you place advertising on national TV (on a certain station), you can never be sure that something will not happen between the placing of your advertisement and the time it is meant to run, causing everyone to watch the other side and losing you that marketing punch. It may be unlikely but you cannot guard against it, and it shows the perils of putting all your eggs in one basket.

If you want to bring in customers, history shows that you need to build attention from the ground up. As you get more attention, it gets easier to increase your pull. Doing this gradually rather than going for it all in one hit is the way to go. When you can afford to place TV advertising, go for it – but as a gamble it just doesn’t represent odds that are worth taking.

One of the most popular forms of marketing on the Internet is known as “viral” marketing. If you are not already aware of this, it is a form of marketing which involves placing advertisements on the Internet and creating a buzz around them by targeting them in a way which makes it almost impossible to avoid noticing them. Whether it is in the form of an off-the-wall video clip, a free game or a character blog, it can be immensely effective.

Viral marketing is possible without the Internet, but is a touch more difficult to achieve without the instant connection that the web gives to users. It requires a little more trickery to make it work, but if you are prepared to put the time in it can be as effective as the Internet form. You need to start by arousing curiosity. People need to think “what is this about?”. It could begin with a letter to a local newspaper which makes some outlandish claim, getting people to respond and building into a local news story.

The idea is that you build up hype around the product without revealing what it is. People will be keen to join in the guessing game so that they can be the one to say “I was right!”. When you eventually reveal what the fuss was about (and it is a good idea to have something pretty special to show the customers at this point), you will have the attention of a large group of people, something that advertisers will pay huge money to get.

When you are marketing your company, the one thing you can be absolutely sure of is that you want the public to think of you as the only company they want to come to in your sector. This means putting yourself above the competition, and this in itself can be a tricky proposition.

Obviously you have confidence in your company, but you are biased. How do you convince someone who has no vested interest in giving you money to go ahead and do just that, instead of going to another company?

The fact is that people have free will, and will choose between companies by judging them on their merits. This leads some companies to run hostile advertisements, actively attacking their competition in one way or another. It will usually be somewhat subtle, but it is usually completely graceless. The idea that you can convince people to choose your product by telling them that it is “better than that other company’s product” is pretty misguided. If you sell your company by referencing another, rather than talking about all the great things yours does, it’s a risky strategy.

Apart from anything else, you risk being drawn into a tit-for-tat war with another company, who will probably find things that they can attack about yours. This is a needless situation to be in, as it makes you look immature and amateurish when by focusing on your good points you could be selling yourself far more effectively.

If you were to ask a hundred consumers what the most annoying thing about marketing was, then it is a safe bet that at least a quarter of them would use the word “lie” in some form. They hate being lied to, and they are less likely to take notice of marketing every time someone tells them a lie. This has led to a cynical market out there which is very difficult to nail down through conventional marketing. If you tell them that something is too good to be true, then they’ll believe that it is – and therefore must be a lie.

There is a lot of mileage in being honest to the customer. This doesn’t mean saying to them: “If I were you, I’d go elsewhere. I know another shop that sells this item at about half the price.”. What it means is that you concentrate on the facts and avoid making your product out to be the answer to all their problems when all they really want to hear is that it will make their life easier, more enjoyable or more convenient. It may even be that the product is better than you make it out to be, and when that is the case they are even more impressed.

Gaining a reputation for straight talking is worthwhile. People who are fed up of being lied to will really value the word of someone who is prepared to be less hyperbolic and more constructive in their marketing. Don’t undersell yourself, but be prepared to tone down the rhetoric. In the long run, people will spend more when they trust the salesman.