Photo Credit: Nyghtowl

This message is from Mike Young. He’s a lawyer that specializes in internet business law and from time to time he sends out messages to his list that are at times inspiring and at other times a forewarning. Anyway, he sent this out on St. Patrick’s day and I felt it was appropriate for me to repost here.

Reposted with permission.

In the spirit of St. Patrick’s Day, an Irish blessing: “May
you live to be a hundred years, with one extra year to repent.”

Legend has it that Saint Patrick drove the snakes out of Ireland.

No one would believe a story about how Saint Patrick did Ireland a
favor by importing snakes to infest the Emerald Isle.

Why?

Fear of snakes gives credibility to the the myth that he got
rid of them.

Whether the fear is rational is irrelevant.

One of the most-feared “snakes” that I’ve encountered among
entrepreneurs is a sense of failure based upon expectations of
where they “should be” based upon the apparent success of others.

This is a no-win game because most of the “success” stories are
fraudulent at worst or overhyped at best.

Let me give you two examples.

I know a “guru” who claims to be making over $30K per month from
one website. Based on the traffic stats for the site, if 100% of
the visitors bought from the guru, it still wouldn’t be enough to
support the claims.
Another “guru” claims to have had a high six-figure product
launch recently. Yet the guy is broke and has creditors breathing
down his neck.

Don’t compare your business to others based upon earnings claims.
There are too many variables involved for the comparison to be
accurate, including the probability that your competitor is lying
about how much money he’s making.

Here’s a key point. Even if the claims were true, it wouldn’t affect
where you are now. Your success is not dependent upon others’ failures.

Focus on the fundamentals of your business and when you achieve
your business goals, don’t brag about it.

To your success!

-Mike

P.S. Remember that your online business fundamentals include
putting the right legal protections in place. Resources created to
help you do this can be found at this link.

Recommended Resources

Michael E. Young, J.D., LL.M.
Attorney & Counselor at Law
Law Office of Michael E. Young PLLC
Tel: 214-546-4247

MATERIAL CONNECTION DISCLOSURE: You should assume that the
sender of this e-mail has an affiliate relationship and/or
another material connection to the providers of goods and services
mentioned in this message and may be compensated when you
purchase from a provider. You should always perform due diligence
before buying goods or services from anyone via the Internet or
offline.

5068 W. Plano Parkway, Suite 300, Plano, Texas 75093, USA

I think it bears repeating, that we need to “focus on the fundamentals.” Thank you Mike!

If I were to use the web interface to keep up with people, there would be no real way to keep up with everything.

I’ve tried using a lot of different programs, to manage my twitter feed. After trying many different ones, I found one that works well for me. I use a program called Tweetdeck.

Tweetdeck lets me separate people into columns, or groups and the groups are stored on a Tweetdeck computer somewhere in the ether. What that means is that no matter what computer I sit at, if it has Tweetdeck installed, I will have access to my columns. Tweetdeck even has an iPhone version of the application. I’ll go out on a limb and say that the reason that the Twitter website now supports “lists” is because so many people used Tweetdeck for the columns that they had no choice but to adopt that feature.

The picture below shows my tweetdeck columns. I have about 9 columns, but I only display 3-4 at any one time. Click on the image to see a much larger version of it.

Columns, aka groups, are easy to setup in Tweetdeck and the 3 standard Twitter columns (All tweets, @messages and Direct Messages) are setup for you by default. If you have a preferred Twitter client, what is it and why do you use it?

It’s a special interview that I was able to do with Michelle Lopez.

Who is Michelle Lopez?

She is the Associate Director of Student Development and Retention at Texas State University in San Marcos, TX.

The interview is focused on higher education and more specifically on:

• How to pay for a college education
• What you as a parent, or as a student interested in going to college, can do to ensure you can fund your college education
• How to make the most of your time on campus
• How to pick the right school to go to
• What types of students are most involved with their campus communities
• Other challenges that latino, and other student groups face when pursuing a college education

After I recorded the interview, this new article came out on Inside Higher Ed that says that nowadays there are more latino women in college than there are men.

Let me know what you think of this interview in the comments. Specifically, I’d like to know if you think I should I delve more into latino issues like this in a new and different podcast series?

Thanks!

Nowadays, I subscribe to fewer than 10 lists and I actually regularly read less than 5 of those. It’s not that the remaining lists I’m subscribed to aren’t good, it’s just that during any given week only 3 or 4 of those emails have a subject that interests me.

One of the blogs that I regularly open is the Seth Godin blog. He sent out an email with the subject “What matters now” and links back to his site where he’s giving away a free ebook. Lots of free ebooks aren’t worth the electrons they occupy, but Seth’s stuff is always, always good.

This one does not disappoint. It’s a compilation piece that 100 thought leaders contributed to. There were a few names on the list that I wanted to see what they said so I went ahead and downloaded the ebook.

Here are a few of the gems I’ve found in the ebook:

• You have to find your own schtick – Hugh MacLeod, p.10
• More megaphones does not equal better dialogue – Howard Mann, p.12
• Find the one percenters – Jackie Huba and Ben McConnel, p. 17
• Work your strengths – Marti Barletta, p. 22
• FOCUSED INTENSITY over TIME multiplied by GOD equals Unstoppable Momentum – Dave Ramsey, p. 27
• If you’re checking for email every 5 minutes, that’s 24,000 times a year. – Merlin Mann, p.73

Those are the just 5 gems in a book filled with gems.

Bottom line, there is an undercurrent that runs through all of the pages in the book. What matters now, is passion. Have passion for what you do, create purple cows and stand out from the crowd.

Seriously, you need to download the book and read it in order to get the full effect. It’ll take you 30 minutes of focused action to read the book, taking action on the recommendations in the book will take you a bit longer.

Photo Credit

There’s one more video from the event, which we’re debating posting. Anyway, thanks for watching!

We’ve upgraded computers, so we need to sell the older one.

Here are the primary specs for the computer:

• Dual 2.3 GHz PowerPC G5 processors
• 2 GB of DDR2 SDRAM
• 250 GB Hard Drive
• NVIDIA GeForce 6600 PCIe 256 MB Video Card
• Includes the full size Apple keyboard and mouse
• Includes the power cord
• Does not include a monitor

We’ve never had any problems with the computer, and it will come with a clean install of OS X 10.5.1. We’re not including any applications with it since we feel it would break the EULA. The computer is in awesome cosmetic shape and looks great from a physical standpoint. Here are some pictures of the specs and of the computer itself.

Feel free to email if you have any questions.

We will consider the best offer, but unfortunately am not willing to trade unless it’s something spectacular. We’re willing to meet almost anywhere in the Austin metropolitan area including San Marcos.

Basically, mind mapping is just a way to organize your thoughts. Some people call it brainstorming, but I feel it’s differnet from brainstorming because mind mapping involves organizing thoughts, not just thought diarrhea.

I’m getting better at making mind maps and organizing my thoughts as time moves on. I really think it’s an acquired skill.

A quick note about the video, it features an online mind mapping tool called mindmeister. I don’t use mindmeister, I use a tool called Freemind, which essentially works the same as mindmeister only it runs on your local computer.

I may switch over to mindmeister since I like the idea of not having to keep track of which version of my mind map is on which computer/ thumb drive/ ftp server.

As usual, your mileage may vary, but ever since I decided to get seriously organized, I’ve been mind mapping everything. Organizing everything has made it easy for me to systematize what I need to do to launch my new services.