Success.

How do you attain it?

In any field, there are about half a dozen things that really matter. Mastering them takes time and focus, but it’s usually not too hard to figure out what the essential elements are.

Pay attention to what people who are successful in the field you want to succeed in actually do. Not what they say they do, but what they really do.

Be smart enough to listen to the practitioners who tell you straight and be very wary of the ones that tell you all the answers are contained in their latest “Launch.”

While it may be true there are only a few things you need to do well in order to succeed, there are a countless number of ways to screw up and that’s what this article is about: screwing up.

The facts of life

Very, very few people are on the receiving end of either incredibly good or incredibly bad luck. Some things go our way. Some things don’t.

When we fail, it’s because we do ourselves in.

There are two basic ways to do yourself in:

1. Failing to invest in yourself

2. Tangling your life up with people who bring you down

Let’s look at these two mistakes in detail

1. Failing to invest in yourself

I’m NOT talking about buying an expensive “mentoring” program from some telemarketing boiler room.

I’m talking about simple things like not making the time and effort to uncover your real interests and talents…

…Not reading and taking relevant classes

…Blasting huge amounts of time in unproductive activities like watching TV

…Not making the effort to reach out and develop colleagues who share your interests and values

…In short, not taking the time you have on this earth seriously.

All this comes under the umbrella of not investing in yourself.

Screw Up Method #2...

2. Tangling your life up with people who bring you down

A second and very reliable way to screw up your life is to bring people into it who screw it up for you.

I’m not talking about the so called Law of Attraction.  I’m talking about letting people into your life who screw you up and letting them stay in your life to screw you up another day.

There are a lot of good, hardworking people who take themselves down this way.

How do you get around this one?

When you’re in the middle of it, it can seem the most baffling problem there is.

You might ask yourself:

“Aren’t the people who come into my life a matter of the luck of the draw?”

“Don’t we need people in our lives to have full lives?”

“Don’t people sometimes trick us by presenting themselves as being one way and then turn out to be exactly the opposite?”

Yes,  yes, and yes, but…

The luck of the draw

There is definitely a degree of randomness about the people you meet.

On the other hand, I believe that people who think that you attract who you meet by some mystical force are wrong.

You “attract” whoever happens to be on a collision course with you. That being said what you DO with this accidental event is ENTIRELY up to you and that definitely is an expression of what’s going on in your mind.

Rather than talk about the “Law of Attraction” when it “attracts” the wrong people into your life, it should really be called the “Law of Stubbornly Turning What Could Have Been a One-Time Meeting into an Ongoing and Painful Soap Opera.”

If meetings are random, it’s best to keep moving until you find the right folks: partners, vendors, employees, colleagues, mates, buddies  (fill in the blank.)

The right one, not the one right now. Big difference.

But people need people, right?

Yes, in the long run, but if you want to solve all your people problems now and forever and reliably nip future ones in the bud fast, tattoo the following somewhere where you will never forget it:

“It is infinitely better to have no person in my life than it is to have the wrong person in my life.”

First, the wrong person will drain you and make your life miserable. No fun.

Second, the wrong person will mess you up so much that even if the right person were standing right in front of you with a flashing neon sign over their head, you stand the chance of being too worn down and/or tied up in knots to even notice.

Is is really that hard to tell people who are good for you from those who aren’t?

If you’re scrupulously honest with yourself, you will probably admit that it’s really not that hard.

The “bad seed” who caused you so much grief probably telegraphed his or her massive f*cked-up-ed-ness (a technical term) virtually from Day One, but you didn’t see, or to be more accurate…you didn’t want to see because…

You were not operating from this ironclad principle:

“It is infinitely better to have no person in my life than it is to have the wrong person in my life.”

You needed an employee. Someone put on the charm and nodded a lot during the interview. You hoped for the best and hired them.

You were in a rush to get a vendor and you took the first one who answered the phone.

You had to have a partner to help you with the burdens of your business and…you get the idea.

And you took the person on, let them embed themselves in your life, and you got what you got.

Jean-Paul Satre said: “Hell is other people.”  If you don’t know the deep truth of that statement, you’re one lucky person.

How to steer clear of the bad ones

First, make sure that you’re operating from the principle: ”It is infinitely better to have no person in my life, than it is to have the wrong person in my life.”

Second, believe that all God’s creatures are worthy of love and respect and treat them accordingly.

Three, know beyond any shadow of a doubt that at least nine out of ten of the people you encounter in life will have major HIDDEN competence, reliability, and/or  integrity issues. A small percentage will be flat out mentally ill and a percentage of that number criminally so.

Let me put it another way, when you meet a new person, they are 900% more likely to become a problem for you than a boon if you let them into your life.

As if that’s not a grim enough statistic, consider this:  Some of the very worst people come in the very nicest and most pleasing packages. They’re masters at creating “positive first impressions.”

They can also be very good at projecting “sweet , harmless and innocent.” It’s part of their pathology and modus operandi.

We’re social creatures

Normal human beings love to bond, they love to make new friends, they love to fall in love.

That’s great, but here’s a suggestion:

You can just as easily bond, make a friend and fall in love with someone after you’ve checked them out as thoroughly as you can. Fireworks, good times, charm alone are never a good reason alone to open the door to someone.

The next time you find yourself getting all excited about someone new ask:

1. Is there a big gaping hole in my life for this kind of person? (Be honest.)

2. Am I methodically overlooking flaws in this person and dreaming I’ve found a winner based on zero information, or worse, my own vivid imagination? (You don’t have to be asleep to be dreaming you know.)

3. Am I putting myself in a position where this person can do me harm before doing a thorough examination of their character? (which is easily determined by: a) watching how they act and b) checking their track record)

What’s that old saying? “Trust everyone, but cut the cards.”

And never, ever underestimate the harm the wrong person can do to your morale, your energy level, you bank account, your reputation. The downside is often much bigger than you think.

Trust and verify

First, know what your bottom line is. What you really want and what you won’t accept.

I’d say that competence, reliability and integrity are three good places to start.

Lack of integrity should be an instant deal killer.  Lack of reliability is its cousin. Lack or reliability in small things telegraphs lack of reliability in big things.

When you see signs of these two things cut and run. There is no possible way you can win in any situation with a human being who is reliability and/or integrity challenged.

As for lack of competence, if you really think you’ll be happy endlessly picking up the slack for an employee, a partner, a vendor, a mate etc. who lacks competence in areas that matter to you, have at it. It won’t kill you, but it probably will get to be old faster than you think.

People change, right?

Generally, people do not change, unless it’s for the worse.

The employee who showed up late the first day and had a reason he had to leave early is just going to get worse and worse.

The date who whips out his or her cell phone at dinner to take a long call will find newer, grander ways to disrespect you in the future.

The colleague who takes and takes and never quite gets around to giving back will find ever creative new ways to extend the trend until he’s bled you dry and kicked you to the curb.

So don’t expect that it will ever get better than it is right now – with this particular person.

What you see is what you get and if it’s bad now, it will probably get worse, much worse.

It’s not all bleak – in fact, the future is quite bright

Some may say I have a negative outlook because I’m recommending you take a long, hard look at negative things.

These same people might accuse of me of failing to use positive thinking.

I accept these accusations because I believe that mindlessly parroting positive thinking principles can be the most dangerous thing in the world.

Parroting positive thinking keeps people in bad situations, hoping that the situation will get better just as it propelled them into the bad situation they never should have gotten involved in in the first place.

Instead of being “parrot positive” be truly positive.

Know that “it is infinitely better to have no person in my life than it is to have the wrong person in my life” – and that you’ve got the strength to wait as long as it takes.

Know that all God’s creatures are worthy of love and respect and treat them accordingly – and use your God-given judgement to weed out trouble-making people from your life before they become a problem for you, or, failing that, as soon as you realize you’ve made a mistake.

Finally, know that in spite of the super abundance of trouble-causing people, the world is full of human gems. One out of ten, give or take.  And among that number, some truly amazing ones. Not perfect, but decent, honest folks you can rely on and will even surprise you by going beyond what you could ever reasonably expect.

They exist and there are plenty of them…

…If you will take the time to look…

…If you will take smart steps to avoid and eliminate negative entanglements that are wearing you out and…

…If you will value yourself, your time and your energy enough not to randomly hand it over to unsuitable people just because they happened to cross your path at the same moment you happened to think you needed someone like them.

Success really is for the taking.

Invest in yourself and have high standards for the people you allow in your life and you’ll be improving the odds for your success exponentially.

You’ll also have a whole lot more fun along the way.

- Ken McCarthy

P.S. If you found value in this, consider sharing it with friends and colleagues.

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So many Jim Rohn quotes to choose from but here are a few I find myself going back to again and again.

These quotes might be particularly useful to Internet marketers and marketers of all kinds. I’ve added commentary to each one to help

Be original

“Don’t borrow someone else’s plan. Develop your own plan and it will lead you to unique places.”

My comment: This is why I don’t sell or promote so-called “businesses in a box.” Even if they work, and they rarely do, they practically guarantee mediocrity.

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I just received news of Jim Rohn’s death today.

Jim Rohn had an absolute genius for simplifying life and success. Barely a day goes by when I don’t think about one of his aphorisms.

If you know his work, you know what I’m talking about.

If you don’t know his work, by all means check it out.

Here’s a good place to start:

Jim Rohn remembered in death

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Thanksgiving is, hands down, my favorite holiday.

It doesn’t compel frantic gift-giving (like the commercialized version of Christmas), it doesn’t promote excessive alcohol consumption and forced gaiety (like New Year’s Eve)…In fact Thanksgiving is so laid back, it doesn’t even require that folks exchange cards.

Instead, Thanksgiving celebrates the basics: food, family, and friends and the deep fun that accompanies taking the time to enjoy life’s simple pleasures.

As icing on the cake, Thanksgiving encourages us – in its characteristically quiet and understated way – to take note of the things in our lives that are positive.

Gratitude is power

It’s easy for entrepreneurs to fall into the trap of feeling that life is a never-ending struggle, where letting your guard down for a moment can mean ruin and every day is another day that the ever-growing “Must Do” list fails to get done.

If you don’t know what I’m talking about, you are a very fortunate person indeed, but I have a feeling you may know a little about the outlook I’m describing.

How do we get ourselves out of this particular ‘no win’ trap?

Thanksgiving is the answer. Robert Emmons, a professor at the University of California, Davis, demonstrated through an elegant set of experiments not long ago that if you want to sleep better, feel better, and motivate yourself to take better care of your health, regular ‘thanksgiving’ sessions work magic.

Once a month…once a week…once a day

Right now we celebrate Thanksgiving once a year and, truth be told, it can be somewhat of a ‘production’ and actually be a bit stressful for some people.

But what if we had a Thanksgiving Day once a month?

What if we defined “Thanksgiving Day” to mean spending a whole day with the people you really want to be with just living: eating, talking, playing, resting, and being militantly free from worries (and ambition) of any kind.

One day per month. Is there anyone so busy that they can’t arrange at least one day per month for Thanksgiving?

Notice, by the way, that I said “arrange” not “find the time for.” In my experience, trying to “find the time” rarely works. In contrast, arranging life to make the time for things has a nearly 100% success rate.

If it’s a good idea to have Thanksgiving once a month, why not have it once a week?

I’m talking about consistently carving out one day each week where you avoid the “busyness” of life and sit back to enjoy a good meal and revel in the pleasure of spending time with people you love the most. That’s what weekends used to be for. Remember?

Finally, if Thanksgiving makes sense once a week, why not once a day? A good meal, good company, peace and quiet, and attention not on the things that aren’t working, that need to be improved, that are still undone, but dedicated to enjoying and appreciating the many things good in our lives.

Happy Thanksgiving Day!

- Ken McCarthy

P.S. This year’s System Seminar will be in Chicago, April 9, 10 and 11.

For more info: The System Seminar

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No matter how cool Gabe and Max are…

No matter how many Rolex watches or trips to the Playboy Mansion they offer me…

I promise that they will NOT be speaking at the System Seminar this year.

But maybe I’m being too hard on them. You tell me.

To see who IS speaking at System Seminar 2008, click here.

For the full list of this year’s System 2008 faculty, you can click on this link.

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Following the financial news?

I don’t have a TV so I can only imagine the reporting. Markets going down, down, down. People getting worried. In private at least. On TV, I’m sure it’s Kool Aid as usual. Or maybe it’s finally getting through.

In any event:

The party is over – for the time being at least – and what a party it’s been.

Real estate loans. There was a time when house deals were all cash. Literally, “cash on the barrel head” after the builder drove in the last nail. No such thing as “spec” building in the sober old days.

Then came short term mortgages. Then the big post-WWII lending innovation. 30 year mortgages for everyone with a job. It made and makes a lot of sense.

What didn’t make sense and what was bound to end in tears were the “no-down- payment-no income-verification-no-valid-appraisal” loans of the recent and fast fading go-go years.

We are talking high insanity here. And to squirt a huge bunch of lighter fluid on the fire, low “teaser” rates were used to entice people into taking out loans that were way too big for them.

What were they thinking? “They” being Alan Greenspan former Fed chairman who actually encouraged this madness. He wisely retired a while back before this particular flock of chickens came home to roost.

“They” we thinking the marketplace needed more cash dumped onto it to further cover over years of monetary mismanagement.

First there was the Asian meltdown in the 90s. Fed solution? Throw cash on it.

Then there was the Y2K crash (which never happened.) Fed solution? Throw cash on it.

Then there was the dotcom crash. Fed solution? Throw cash on it. Then there was 9/11. Fed solution? Throw cash on it. The big “oops” in Iraq. Fed solution? Throw cash on it.

Get the picture?

The solution to every crisis in the US in the last ten years (longer really) has been print more money. Of course, the Fed doesn’t literally print and ship the money (though they did for Y2K.) They create money by stimulating credit. That’s how money gets created in our economy…through loans.

There’s just one catch to this brilliant plan: the loans have to make sense…because if they don’t, they don’t get paid back and the newly created money “disappears.”

What was once an asset on a lender’s books, turns into a zero and in the case of real estate, a liability. (If you take back a house, you’ve now got taxes, insurance and maintenance to pay.)

That’s why traditionally, people who loan on real estate used require down payments of 10% to 20%. And why income verification was such a big deal. And why appraisals were expected to be legitimate. Because if the buyer has no skin in the game, doesn’t have the income stability to make the payments, and the house it not really worth what it is appraised for, then the lender is going to eat it. Big time.

That’s what’s happening now and my guess is the worst is yet to come. The default rate is high, but the newer “adjusted” rates haven’t even kick in yet.

How could so many lenders behave so foolishly?

The buyers were dumb and encouraged to be dumb…by the loan brokers who made their money on closed deals whether they made sense or not…because the lenders knew they could “package” the loans and sell them to investment banks…who knew they could in turn sell the turkeys to investment managers.

And the investment managers? Ultimately, they’re just one step of sophistication above the people who took out these loans in the first place. They don’t want to have to think too hard and their main ambition in life is to get out of the office by 4:30 PM each day.

Well, they got their wish and now they’re choking on bad paper. Which means that when they need to go to the cookie jar for something, they can’t sell the “securitized” loans they bought and they have to sell something else.

There are a lot of guys in this boat. And they’re all selling stuff…stocks, junk bonds, developing market stuff, high flying currencies, anything they can to meet the shortfall.

Here’s the problem: everyone is selling and fewer and fewer people are buying. Thus prices of many things are heading down, down, down.

Prices have a long way to go (for the time being) and here’s why: they were inflated due to EZ credit terms.

Look, when money is being given away to everyone just for having a pulse, the money has to go somewhere. It makes its way into various markets in the form of people being willing and able to pay more. Lots of money chasing a finite amount of stuff and up go the prices. It’s Supply and Demand 101.

It works in reverse too. Thanks to some truly moronic and reckless lending a whole bunch of money just went up in smoke. Gone. Poof. And here’s the crazy thing. No one can tell you how much. Hundreds of billions? For sure. And now as money managers scramble to raise money by selling other assets, they’re driving those prices down further.

It’s simple physics. What was up is going down.

For example, last night I watched a single New Zealand dollar contract fall $3,000 in just a few hours. Normally a move of a few hundred dollars in a day is news. Nearly half the move took place in minutes. There simply were no buyers. The Australian dollar took a similar dive. (There’s money to be made right now shorting assets that were inflated by the EZ money game, but it’s not a game for beginners.)

Here’s my simple rule about money that will keep you out of trouble:

“Easy money is always followed by hard money.”

It works for investing. It works for business. When times are flush, save and always keep an eye on the exit. If it’s easy to sell something today, you can guarantee some day it will be hard to sell. Don’t confuse flush times with an inherent “genius” on your part and don’t be the last one standing when the music stops.

Something no one is talking about because few understand it: all this madness is driving the US dollar up. Yes, UP…for now.

Why? Because money is being taken off the table all over the world and shipped back to the ultimate lender of last resort, the US Treasury. Thus, the price of treasuries is going up and the rates they’re paying is going down. To buy treasuries you need dollars. Can’t buy them with Euros or New Zealand dollars.

Here’s another odd piece of unspoken reality. For all its recent poor-mouthing, the US has a ton of money. Recently $20.7 TRILLION dollars in the hands of mutual funds, private pension funds, state and local pension funds and life insurers.

This amount is close to FOUR TIMES the amount of the entire world’s official foreign currency reserves. These are the guys who move the markets. When they start moving money around, the earth rumbles.

And right about now treasuries are looking good to these fellows and all that money that’s been propping up the Euro and the Peso and the New Zealand dollar et. al. is coming home. So don’t be surprised if for a while at least the US dollar keeps moving up as the price of everything else moves down.

OK. So what, right? How does this effect the bootstrap entrepreneur?

Well as my favorite money man Warren Buffett likes to say: “When the tide goes out, you find out who’s been swimming naked.”

Retracements, such as the kind we’re in, are good news for real entrepreneurs (assuming they haven’t hocked themselves up to their eyeballs to pay for toys.)

Here’s why:

1. Selling gets harder and since most business owners are sales and marketing whimps, those who understand the art of selling get the playing field all to themselves.

2. Employees, vendors, suppliers, owners of all kinds of assets etc. come down off their high horses and suddenly get a lot easier to deal with.

And as our $20.7 TRILLION dollar stash indicates, the economy of the good old US of A isn’t going away in the forseeable future and money is not going to disappear entirely – even if it may seem that way for a while.

“Easy money always becomes hard money.” The second part of this is that: “Hard money takes the weak players off the playing field (often in stretchers.)” Frankly, there’s nothing more annoying to a real entrepreneur than some twit with a pile of easy money driving the prices of everything up and stinking up the market place with his noise.

I don’t know where the bottom is to this thing will be. “Clever” financial innovations have a nasty way of turning into brief, but potent nightmares. And never have financial people been more “clever” than they have been in recent years.

The thing to remember is there is money to be made in ALL markets and many, many, many businesses actually thrive and expand in downturns. It’s all a matter of perspective.

I don’t have a TV because if I did, I’d watch it. Staying away from the nonsense on TV allows you to think clearly and do real research. No one ever learned anything deep from watching TV I can assure you of that.

The best investment in good times and the best investment in bad times has always been the same thing: a smart, well run business that’s in touch with marketing reality.

The only thing that keeps most people from enjoying the fruit of own their own successful business is a lack of knowledge. Plenty of people are willing to work hard and they do – for other people. But hard work without an entrepreneur’s insight and know-how is a prescription for being on an endless treadmill.

So how do you get off the treadmill and profit whether times are good or bad?

You invest in your most important asset: Yourself.

You develop the most valuable real estate you own: The space between your ears.

Internet marketing is still the best shot that the little guy has to get traction and escape consensus mediocrity and live life on his or her own terms.

Cost of entry is lower than any other business I know and the upside is enormous. Even more important is that as you find your way in the business, it’s very forgiving. You never have to “bet the farm” on an Internet idea, nor should you. If something isn’t working, you find out right away and can either fix it or move on to something better. Very important these days when you don’t want to get “locked in” to a losing proposition.

As many readers know, I’ve been teaching online marketing since 1993 and web marketing since 1994. In fact, I organized and sponsored the first seminar on the subject of web marketing ever held.

I’ve been in the field continuously ever since and have been consistently among the leaders to first test and try new things long before they became popular: e-mail marketing, banner ads, pay-per-click advertising, Internet audio and video. I’ve introduced thousands of people to the business over the years and many of today’s self-proclaimed “geniuses” got their foundation in the business from me.

This summer I had the hunch that Internet marketers needed something different. I felt the now-popular guru routine of “give me $10K, $15K etc. for my secrets” wasn’t doing people trying to learn any good and rather than curse the darkness, I decided to light a candle.

Here’s what I’ve come up with:

http://www.SystemIntensive.com

It might be just what you’ve been looking for.

Ken McCarthy

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A study soon to be published by the International Journal of Research and Marketing confirms it: Businesses with positive word of mouth grow faster than their competitors.

Today with the over-abundance of marketing messages, what friends and neighbors say about a product carries more weight than ever.  The Internet makes such exchanges easier and more impactful than ever.
Some interesting comments from a 6/28 Financial Times article on this subject:

1. Positive word-of-mouth is more common than negative word-of-mouth
2.  However, when negative word-of-mouth does get going it can spread rapidly and very  destructively.  (Remember what happened to the Krypotonite lock when it was revealed via an Internet video that it could be “picked” with a ballpoint pen?)

Here’s the take away from the article:

Paul Mardsen of ClickAdvisor.com says that working to cut the level of negative comment about a product has almost TRIPLE the impact on sales as the same investment made to foster positive word of mouth.

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There seem to be two schools of thought in the Internet marketing world.

The first I call the “rape and pillage” school. These folks don’t know their customers and they don’t want to know their customers. They just want to get people to their site, convert them, and get their money.

False advertising, forced continuity, less-than-zero customer service…anything and everything goes. It’s all OK to these folks. (more…)

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It’s Mother’s Day and I just placed my last minute order for flowers on FTD.

I’m guessing that today is the biggest flower sales day of the year and that a lot of FTD customers are going to wake up to a strange charge on their card a month from now. It will be small (just $10) and many will not even notice it.

Here’s how it works…
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What’s the classic Internet marketer’s dream?

Sell nothing, talk to nobody, provide no customer service…

In short: do nothing…and watch the big bucks roll in.

This fantasy – pushed aggressively by an ever-growning army of Internet pitchmen – has probably caused would-be Internet marketers to lose more money (not to mention time and sleep) than the national debt.

Let’s make 2007 the year we all get over it. (more…)

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