What led to this? It was a change in my heart, brought about by God.

Three years ago I moved to a farm that is 80 miles from where I worked. Thankfully, my employer allowed me to work from home two days each week. This helped me make the situation work, for a time. In reality, it just became too much to handle a full-time job, 12 hours a week commuting, a farm, and most importantly my family.

God spoke to my heart through this verse:

There is that maketh himself rich, yet hath nothing: there is that maketh himself poor, yet hath great riches. — Proverbs 13:7 (KJV)

I had a great job that paid very well, yet things weren’t going right with God and my family. I won’t go into details here, except to say that I found myself always saying that I was too tired, too busy, or too short on time for my wife and children.

I had spent the prior 40 days seeking God’s will about this and some other things that will remain between me and God. Between commuting and the time away from home, I was finding it hard, if not impossible, to be the husband and father that God wants me to be. While I was successful in a material sense, I was not from a relationship sense.

The only real riches are “treasures in heaven” not material wealth here on earth.  These treasures start with my wife and children, extend through my family, then neighbors, acquaintances, and other people I come in contact with. I was not doing a good job with my wife and children, much less anyone else. God woke me up to this.

I had looked at leaving my job before, but the timing wasn’t right.  This time, God gave me the assurance that he will provide for me and my family. I have the skills and ability to develop an on-line business with God’s help.

I will trust God to provide for my family. I will be diligent in building a business from my home on the farm to support us. Whatever comes in the future, I am at peace with this new chapter in my life. I will never regret leaving my job to spend more time with my children while they are still home with my wife and me.

I am looking forward to my new life. It is a blessing from God to take this first step.

Mike

A couple weeks ago, I put up a quick post about Jimmy D. Brown’s is “retirement”  Yes,  Jimmy D. Brown is “retiring” (IE Removing them from the web and no longer selling them) ALL OF HIS OFFERS on the web. He is doing this for several good reasons, which you can read about here.

The first to go were all of his small reports from SR Zone. I got word from him that 2,144 units were sold in the week before he shut the site down. (That alone tells you that his products are great!) He wasn’t kidding about “retiring” this stuff.

His next “retirement” is an interesting one. It’s something that he previously has not released.

Yep, he’s releasing it … and retiring it at the same time!

Jimmy has a content-rich blog that has some of the best internet marketing information around. Almost as impressive as his content is the blog theme he uses at the site. It’s a beautiful design. Jimmy used a custom, one-of-a-kind design for his blog. It was designed and coded for his exclusive use by a first-rate graphics guy. This graphics guy charges $499 per project. Which is too expensive for me!

Over the months that Jimmy has been blogging, many people have asked him, “which theme did you use”? He let them know it was a custom job and explained the price tag. Ouch. Most people can’t spend $499 for a blog theme no matter how great it is.

After getting as Jimmy describes it “a gazillion” requests for his blog theme, he decided to hire his graphics guy to create a theme that is very similar to his own that he could sell to the general public at a very small and affordable price.

He calls it: “Multiple Streams Theme”.

Why that name?

Because it has ten built-in ways to make money just by using the theme at your own blog.

You can read all about it at the Multiple Streams [of income] WordPress Theme page!

IN FACT, if you’re a blogger, I’d highly recommend you buy a copy of the theme right now before you forget. Even if you only plan on being a blogger SOMEDAY, I’d highly recommend you buy a copy of it right now!

This is a limited time offer!

The clock is ticking. On Friday, March 19, 2010 at 10 PM Central time, Jimmy will be discontinuing all sales for the site. If you haven’t purchased it by then, it will be GONE.

There is also going to be at least one price increase between now and then, so if you want it at the absolute
lowest price (which, really IS “pennies on the dollar!”) get your copy now.

This really is a great opportunity to upgrade the professionalism of your blog for a very low price.

This is a time-sensitive offer. Don’t let the Multiple Streams WordPress theme get away!

Disclaimer: This blog post contains affiliate links that will provide compensation to our company if a purchase is made.

The regular price is $15.  You can get any, or all, of these reports for just $10 each. This offer is good until Friday, February 26th at 10PM.  After that time, all of these reports will NO LONGER BE AVAILABLE  for purchase.

Here is a list of what’s available.

1. Piggyback Launches: 3 Surefire Ways To Get A Steady Stream Of Free Traffic For Any New Product
2. Homepreneur Habits: How To Run A Successful Home Business
3. How To Get Free Traffic To Your Website With Ezine Articles
4. How To Get F.R.E.E. Traffic with PLR Reports
5. 8 Irresistible Ways To Get Super Affiliates To Enlist In Your Sales Army
6. How To Improve Your Information W.R.I.T.I.N.G.
7. The Upsell Report: How To Get Customers To Spend More Money

You can read through a complete description of each report on the SR Zone website.

I *STRONGLY* recommend you grab a copy of “Homepreneur Habits”. It’s a 65-page “operations manual”.  In it, Jimmy takes you “behind the scenes” to look at how he runs his own business, complete with photographs of his home office. He tells you what software programs he uses, tools and equipment he uses and even a schedule of tasks he performs.  At only $10, it’s a no-brainer!  EVERY internet marketer should have a copy!

Once again, this offer will end on Friday, February 26th at 10PM. I urge you to take advantage of this special discount where you can get each report for only $10!

One thing to note. The SR Zone website will still list the price as $15. Don’t worry.  You will only be charged $10 when you checkout.

Also, you can click over to Jimmy’s blog to read all about WHY Jimmy is retiring ALL of his offers.

REMEMBER, you only have a limited time to order any of the small reports that you are interested in.  On February 26th at 10PM the site will be shut down.  No kidding!

Disclaimer: This blog post contains affiliate links that will provide compensation to our company if a purchase is made.

Enter our web hosting company. I have a reseller account and my son has a hosting account with me. My reseller account is hosted through HostGator. While everything has gone well so far with my reseller account, you really don’t know how well until you have a problem.

With this problem, I found their service to be excellent.  I opened a ticket and they responded within a few hours (on Sunday) with instructions on how to request a restore.  The cost of the restore was $15 which my son was happy to pay. I entered the restore request last night and woke up this morning to find it done.

His website is up and working again like nothing ever happened.  My son has learned a valuable lesson. I have learned that HostGator truly does have good service.

Disclaimer: This blog post contains affiliate links that will provide compensation to our company if a purchase is made.

While I am waiting for the printed version to arrive,  I was able to immediately get my hands on the content with the PDF download.  Once the download was completed, I took some time to page through the PDF, reading segments as I went along.  I have a lot of WordPress sites and I can’t wait to start applying the information in this book. I found the book’s presentation to be easy and entertaining to follow.  This is not a boring technical manual.  It is organized so you can go to a specific subject and use it right away.  While you will benefit by reading it from cover to cover, this is not required if you already have a basic understanding of how WordPress works.

The authors give you lifetime access to updates of the PDF ebook.  They also have an active blog with even more useful information. Both the beginner or experienced WordPress user will find this book a fantastic resource.

Disclaimer: This blog post contains affiliate links that will provide compensation to our company if a purchase is made.

2010 offers a fresh start and I believe it can work.

Here are my goals:

1. Set aside time each week to work on my business.
2. Limit the time I spend on things that distract.
3. Liquidate the remaining physical inventory from my e-commerce site.
4. Read the latest edition of The 4-Hour Workweek and apply the principles to my business.
5. Re-start one of the courses I subscribed to last year.
6. Start earning some income from affiliate marketing.

Now that I have written down my goals, it is time to start working!

The 4-Hour Workweek, Expanded and Updated

Timothy Ferriss. Crown Archetype 2009, Hardcover, 416 pages, $12.67

Free was definitely the price point of choice.  Here are a few observations that I recall from watching:

• All members of the panel loved GMail.
• Google is a trusted brand.
• They don’t click on ads unless made to. When clicked, they don’t buy.
• Several had hand-me-down cell phones.
• While all used it, most would not pay for Facebook.
• Not all used Twitter.
• They will pay for online services if their friends are there too and if there aren’t free options.

It is important to note that this was a small focus group and it would be a stretch to apply these conclusions to teens and early twenty-somethings universally.  However, these are important insights. Free and good, will attract them. It is hard to get them to pay beyond that.  I think that Guy got a little frustrated in that he didn’t find much they were willing to pay for!  You remember the lean years as a student, don’t you?

Many of these products also offer a forum or membership site to help you with support and questions. I have tried several of these and cancelled more memberships than I kept. It seems that so often once the sale is made, there is no more attention paid to you by the “guru” who owns the forum or membership site.

I’m here to tell you that there is a membership forum that is head and shoulders above the rest. It’s Lynn Terry’s SSWT Elite Forum. I stumbled upon Lynn Terry’s blog a little over a year ago and joined her Elite Forum last October. While I believe she would not accept the “guru” title, I’m here to tell you that she is a true expert in Internet Marketing. You can see for yourself by checking out the SSWT Public Forum.

There are several things that set the SSWT Elite Forum apart from the others.

• Lynn is active in the forum.
• Lynn hosts a brainstorming hour every Thursday for Elite members.
• The Elite community is outstanding. There are few internet communities like it!
• Many of the Elite members are experts in their own right. There always seems to be someone online who can address your problem.
• You can discuss your business ideas and challenges “behind closed doors.” The members (and Lynn) are there to help.
• It’s a great place to build your Internet Marketing network.
• Special deals (including many free items) for Elite members.
• The community gives you a built-in review committee to help you improve your projects.
• The price is right – only $27 per month!

I’m a big fan of the SSWT Elite Forum and recommend that you join up. You really don’t have anything to loose and success in Internet Marketing to gain!

There lies the trouble. I only got started, then I stalled. Why did I stall? Of course there are several reasons!

1. I took on a web-redesign project. I am really interesting in doing website upgrades, so that is why I took on the project.  Even that is slow-going – NOT GOOD. This has now become my top priority to finish.
2. I didn’t set aside a definite time to work on affiliate marketing. This will be done, starting with #1 above.
3. Farm-work and my regular job are busy right now.  Both of these will right themselves in due time.

As you can see, I am almost back to navigating some roadblocks, only this time it is not as serious. I believe that website upgrades may be part of my business plan, so this extra project is really worthwhile. I know that I can get back on track, I just need to focus. Lynn Terry posted a great blog about Staying Focused When You Work Online.  There is a lot of good advice in there!

I am taking a multi-pronged approach to eliminating this distraction:

• Deciding which emails I truly value.  These are not constant streams of email sales pitches, but rather provide me with useful information and tips within the email.
• Unsubscribing from emails that either I don’t recognize or that I have not found to be valuable.
• Marking spam emails. Some are true spam and others are spammy. By spammy I mean emails that don’t offer an opt-out, even though I know how they got my email address.  What else can I do when they don’t offer a means to unsubscribe?

This is what I will be doing, every time I work my in-box – eliminating distractions from email.