One of the great mysteries of Twitter to me when I started to gain a good following was the “glass ceiling” of only being able to follow 2,000 people. The next great mystery was that no-one seemed to have a good idea of what it was all about, or how to break through it. I knew that it COULD be broken as there were a lot of people out there way over the 2,000 mark – but what did they do??
Well – it helps to understand some of what Twitter is trying to do here. Their thought is that everyone should be allowed to follow about 2,000 people – the exact limit is a bit vague and varies by person, based on the age of your account, how much twittering you do and how fast your following base has grown, but it’s around there. If you are following 2,000 people and you are putting some sort of quality content into your twitter stream, it’s not unreasonable to expect that you have a fair number of people following you back! If, on the other hand, you are simply following more and more people to try and boost your own numbers, then there will be a big imbalance between those you follow and those that follow you – Twitter is not about this, so they’re not going to let you just keep doing that – they’re going to stop you at 2,000 people.
So – the net result of all of this is that in order for you to pass through that 2,000 barrier you have to balance those you follow with those that follow you. But how to manage that with an fair sized account? For me, I automatically follow those who follow me – if only to see what they are about – but I don’t necessarily unfollow them when they stop following me. Also, there are those that I follow that never follow me back – for whatever reason.
Enter Twitter Karma – this great little application pulls a complete list of all of your followers and following users. Then you can filter them – so you can see only all the people you are following who are not following you back, for example. But what makes it REALLY powerful is with one click of a button, you can unfollow all those who are not following you – that automatically balances your account completely! One word of warning tho – keep a note of anyone you find really valuable who does not follow back – you might want to unselect their name from this process.
Now – Twitter is not completely unreasonable – they know that not everyone you follow will follow back, so you do not have to have a perfectly balanced account in order to break through that 2,000 barrier. Again, the degree of imbalance seems to vary based on your account, but you need to balance within about 100 – 200 users – in other words if you are following 2,000 people then you need to have 1,800 to 1,900 followers before you can follow person number 2,001.
The good news? This gives you a chance to build a very solid Twitter base – once you have balanced things like this – you should have a good habit of providing quality content to your readers and being somewhat selective about who you follow. Now you can continue to build your network, keeping that balance all the way!
How many times have you heard someone, or found yourself, wishing that there were fewer problems in life? And doesn’t it always seem that just as you are in the midst of solving one problem, so a bunch more come along? Well – I was listening to some personal development this morning, and in that I learned exactly where to go to find thousands of people who have already discovered that life without problems.
But before I tell all – the question for me is why on earth, in this blessed life that we lead, do we even have problems anyway? To find that answer, as is often the way, the quickest route is to spend some time around children or young animals. You see – to them, EVERYTHING is a problem! From walking to talking to changing the channel on the TV – they have no clue how to do all these things. All they know is that other people around them do possess these skills, and they want to be able to do the same for themselves. Figuring out the details is just what there is to do.
Have you ever watched a small child learning to walk? Do they just decide one day that they’re bored with crawling, stand up and walk through the mall without assistance? Of course not! Learning to walk is a long and painful process – involving much waving of arms, clutching onto things for support and falling down. Some times it even looks impossible – how can you ever develop the skills needed to balance 200lbs of person on top of two spindly legs like that? But our children only know that is what they want, and they keep on waving their arms, clutching on to support and falling down until they get it.
Now – as a supportive parent – we let them get on with it, right? Because the alternative would be to carry them everywhere for the rest of their lives. If we wanted to spare them all the pain of learning to walk, we could – but the result would be an underdeveloped child, handicapped in their ability not only to walk, but to run, to cycle and many other endeavours. So we hang back, we patch up the bruises, we support where we can, but we let them solve the problem of how to walk themselves because it is essential to their development.
Fast forward a couple of decades. Now that same child is in adulthood – they learned to walk a long time ago (we hope) and now they face the challenge of building a career, or a business, or a happy marriage. Sure, you can help with education, training and books, but ultimately the problem has to be solved by the person facing it – it’s amazing how each problem is tailor-made for the individual. None of us face exactly the same problem, nor do we come to exactly the same solution – but when we do press through and find that solution, we are equipped for much more. Just as the child who learns to walk can now run.
So what problems are you avoiding today? The ones you are dealing with are great, but it’s the ones you avoid that will hold you back. Seek out a bigger problem to solve. If you solve a $100 problem, that’s great. But why not solve a $1,000,000 problem? Chances are, it’ll be not much harder than the $100 problem.
Oh – and that place where all the people have no problems? It’s the cemetery. Everyone there is at peace – they have no further problems on this earth. But that’s no way to live – looking forward to having no more problems!
I’ve written on here before about how important it is to know your numbers in business – it’s too easy to simply follow the latest “guru” into spending your vital capital on adwords or other advertising – but if you don’t follow the numbers behind that advertising, then you have no chance to build a viable business!
Check out this article from Rick Berg – he does a great job of rounding up the basics that you need to know in your advertising plan!
Network Marketing on Twitter, Facebook and Google Part 1 : Work From Home
Just this last weekend, there was some fresh cement work done around our apartment complex – nothing major, just repair works to the sidewalks, but it involved cutting out a reasonably large section of the old cement and pouring new. The great thing about cement, of course, is that it takes some time before it is completely solid. So – as soon as the workers had left – some of the more artistic people in our complex felt obliged to express themselves in the wet surface…
Those expressions range from the profane to simply names and dates, but it got me to thinking about our innate drive to express ourselves, to leave a lasting impression on the world. Some years ago, I read that the fastest way to achieve success in any endeavour is to stop worrying about who gets the credit for the work. In that case it was referring to a corporate position, but I’ve found that that principle works equally strongly (perhaps more so) in other areas of life and in being self-employed too. Once you take yourself and what you have to gain out of the situation, it clarifies things dramatically!
With your personal needs and ego out of the way, you are clear to focus on the “real” problem and on getting the best solution for others involved. Coming from that place, you are much more likely to find a solution that meets the needs of the majority. On the other hand, if you are mainly thinking about how you can claim credit for solving this problem, or how you can make the most money from the situation, your vision will be severely limited. You might well get the best solution for yourself this time round, but your chances of longer term gains or working relationships are much less.
What’s this got to do with cement? Well – maybe if we spent a little less time trying to write our names in the cement of life, and a little more time thinking about how we can contribute to others, we’d be creating a truly long-lasting monument to our achievements. Physical things (even those made of cement) are temporary – but those who achieve great benefits for others are those who are remembered.
Here’s a quick update to my post about trading in foreign currencies – like I said, I’m no expert, but thanks to MarketOldFox for suggesting this website: www.neatlysaid.com – a collaboration of investors and other experts predicting what the various stock and currency markets are going to do. I’m not making guarantees to the quality of the information on there, but they seem to know what they’re talking about – let me know if you get any great results following advice on there!
Maybe there are some out there who would venture an opinion on this… But I thought I’d share what I’ve learned about here!
The deal is around Iraq – stop now if you’ve heard this one, but I hadn’t… Way back when we liberated Kuwait, put the country back together and then let them go out on their own, there was an interesting cycle in their currency. Before the whole thing kicked off, the Kuwaiti Dinar was around $3, after the liberation it was more like 1,000 to $1 and then, when they became officially independent again, that same Dinar started rising until today it’s back to $3+
Fast forward to Iraq… (Bearing in mind that Kuwait is the world’s 3rd largest oil producing country and Iraq is the 2nd) – Again, before the war, the Iraqi Dinar was around $3. Right now, you can buy 250,000 Dinar for less than $300. But here’s the fun part – it’s expected to go official very shortly (certainly before we pull our troops out next August) and go right back to $3 or $3.50
It’s been a while since I studied math, but according to my calculator, that means you could turn $300 into $750,000
Like I said, I’m no forex expert, but this sort of return seemed like a good way to invest $300 to me… The guys over at SafeDinar.com delivered exactly as promised and now we’re just waiting for the announcement. If you have thoughts (or better still, news!) post a comment on here!
I received an email recently, here’s a section from it:
I had cause recently to go mucking about in my spam folder – all the stuff I never see because software dumps it for me. As I ran through it looking for one e-mail, I found an interesting common thread in much of what was there (aside from magic herbs that will do wonderful thing to your penis – NOT!). I saw get a degree without any studying, lose weight without exercise or diet, and even “make money in sleep”. In other words, a lot of spam is offering to give us something for nothing – or at least something without doing any real work for it. – The Generous Husband
In this case, the email was about putting effort into your marriage, but it got me thinking about our general attitude to life and what we want from it. Extend the above paragraph to include commercials on TV and on radio, and even the latest commercials for the movie ‘Fame’ and it seems that everyone is looking for that “fast buck” – the original get rich quick scheme. And yet if you read any of the biographies of successful people (Donald Trump, Richard Branson, Tony Robbins – pick your favorite!) not one of them achieved their success by doing nothing.
Now – I’m not saying that it has to take a long time to create a fortune, but I am saying that you cannot expect it to come without effort. Sometimes that effort will be in the form of long hours and late nights, other times it will be financial investment, but the biggest and most powerful investment will be the time you put into yourself. If you are looking for that easy road to wealth, then that has to be the single best thing you can do – and the best part is that you don’t have to pick up the phone, or place ads or talk to anyone – the downside is that it may be more painful than you imagine, because the mindset that got you to where you are now could be pretty well entrenched. But as Jim Rohn puts it – “for things to change, YOU have to change” – the really good news is that’s ALL you have to do – everything else will follow!
If you’ve been following my posts over the last few days, you might be forgiven for thinking that we were obsessed with how to make money for ourselves. After all – when you’re struggling to make rent, it’s hard to think of anything else, right? Well – the problem with that, is that it is very counter productive.
As most successful people will tell you, the real trick to getting what you want is to work out how you can help as many other people as possible get what they want. It’s a philosophy quoted by Zig Ziglar and repeated many times over, but very easy to forget. When the pressure is on, the tendency is to go to the place of “How can I get what I want?”.
So – what I did was to sit down with my new plan to provide computer services, and I started thinking about all the ways that others struggle with their computers and how I could best help them. Starting with how I could actually get in contact with the people who needed my help in the first place – advertising online probably wasn’t going to work for someone with an internet problem!
But here’s where it gets exciting. As I started looking for ways to help others, so the opportunities started to come my way. First my father in law with storm damaged computers – very happy to have me sort them out for him. Then my brother in law – solving a laptop problem that he had had for a couple of years and thought unfixable.
Then the most exciting contact came through a small coding job I picked up through one of the forums. I was on there, suggesting answers to the coding questions that people were asking, and one guy asked me to sort out a script for him. No problem – something I’d done before, and only 30 minutes work to solve. But here’s the thing – that same guy was looking for a technical partner in a brand new online venture… More on that tomorrow – but I hope you’re starting to see how your attitude to the world can create opportunity.
How easy would it have been for me to charge a few hours’ work for that initial script? Sure I might even have gotten more work – but it would have left a bad taste and probably killed any chance of a future partnership. Instead, I gave a lot of my expertise for free, charged reasonably for this job and now we are on the verge of a multi-million dollar launch – in less than 60 days since I landed in Dallas with my family. Looking for a quick turn around? There’s nothing quicker to change than your attitude!
So far, you might be wondering where all this is going – it’s not been the most inspiring story of success, but I do have a point here!
It doesn’t matter whether you read the Bible or The Secret – the message is the same. There is a benevolent force that takes care of us – makes sure that we have everything we need and want. Now – we do a great job of sabotaging that most of the time, but when we step out in faith, with thanksgiving for what we already have and stating clearly what we want to happen – the results are absolutely incredible!
We came back to Dallas, stating our intention to make some serious money over here, working from home. With almost no plan beyond catching a plane and little money to work with, we have gotten ourselves accomodation, utilities and created an income. And the income has come from some very unexpected sources – and is about to explode in some very unexpected ways!
So what’s been our secret? Simply to stay focused on what we want – keep stating it and keep doing what we can see to do. There have been a lot of times where I had no clue how rent was going to get paid, but I did know that I had flyers to put out. So I put out the flyers, and the rent got paid – though not always through a direct link. But you just keep putting one foot in front of the other and the results are awesome!
I’m very excited about the opportunity that has come about through this process – more on that tomorrow – but tonight I just want to make the point that we don’t have to know everything, only what’s next. And if you haven’t watched The Secret lately – now would be a great time!
The problem with needing to know everything about anything is that you can never actually achieve that! People talk about needing to know “all the facts” – well, you can never know ALL the facts and, in many cases, if you wait too long waiting to gather all the facts, you’ve probably missed your opportunity anyway!
And that’s where we were – we knew that being in the UK was not working out for us, and that we wanted to be back in Dallas, TX and building our own business. We had a couple of ideas for businesses that might work for us, but nothing concrete – and we had a shocking credit report and little capital to work with… Basically we came back to Dallas largely on pure faith and being able to see only a few steps ahead of where we were.
Once we got into the hotel, making money was pretty urgent – you can’t live in a hotel for long without it, and really we needed to raise a deposit for an apartment or a house – anyone who’s tried to live in a hotel room with two small children will know how challenging that can be! Our first business plan fell through – something that we thought was a sure-fire deal turned out to be something that could not happen for a few weeks – too long for us to wait.
So we started to think about what we could do. And here’s the thing with that – EVERYBODY can do something! No matter what that something is, there is always a way to make money, even if you have little or no money or equipment yourself. Then it’s just a matter of letting others know that you are in business. For us – I have experience in repairing computers and creating websites – and I had a laptop and a few basic tools with me, so that was our first opportunity.
Money was still a challenge, so I needed a way to advertise that was cheap and local – I didn’t want to be spending my profits on transport! So I started doing flyers – local apartment complexes – anyone within walking distance. Flyers are something that I have resisted doing, even dreaded working with, for all of our businesses so far, but when you hit a certain place, you will do absolutely anything! 5am each morning – out with those flyers to hit as many local people as possible before they left for work.
Let me ask you – just how uncomfortable are you with your current situation? Is it bad enough to make you do absolutely anything? I could not think of anything worse than flyers, but when it comes down to how to keep a roof over your family – what would you do? Here’s my suggestion – if you are REALLY serious about changing your life, then start writing out all the things you detest about your current situation. Everything from the traffic in the morning to the lack of time with your spouse to your boss. And really get into it – if you don’t have a desperate situation, you need to MAKE it desperate – so bad that there is no way you would ever stay there in your right mind. NOW you’ve got a good reason to make whatever you try work – and that’s very important.
Of course – if you LIKE your life right now – write down all the things you like – and stop wasting time looking for other opportunities!
