Tag Archives: financial

Financial Times Copyright Notice

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I was reading an article on the FT.com website and found the following copyright notice at the bottom unique and somewhat compelling: Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2010. You may share using our article tools. Please don’t cut articles from FT.com and redistribute by email or post to the web. The FT.com Copyright term is linked to the Financial Times Services and Tools / Help page. Does the Financial Times simply asking its readers not to cut or redistribute its content actually keep readers from doing so? I don’t know. What I do know is that if you don’t ask – how can you receive?

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8 Reasons Rich People Hate Their Lives

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A young woman discovers in college that she is driven by a burning desire to succeed. She starts a business, struggles, goes through some lean years. Eventually her hard work begins to pay off. She has a good year. Then, a great year. The year after that blows the doors off. She gets everything she’s worked so hard for. The prestigious client list. The Armani wardrobe. The BMW. The gorgeous house in the most expensive part of town. The money pours in, almost effortlessly. More money than she ever dreamed she could have. How do you fill in the end of this story? Most of us end this one with: But the more she succeeded, the less fulfilled she became. She shortchanged all of her personal relationships. The harder she worked, the less happy she became. Finally, she realized that her success was hollow. But by now she was addicted to the high income, and it was too late to turn back. But what if we could write a better ending? Early on, she refused to become a captive of her business. Even in the tough times, she took six weeks of vacation a year, knowing that when she made time for herself, she became an ever-sharper businessperson. As the business became more successful, she traveled the world with her family and friends. She was profoundly grateful never to have had a “normal” job, which would have made it hard to spend serious time with her family. The harder she worked, the happier she became. She launched a foundation to help kids from poor backgrounds create businesses of their own. She became a serious painter. She went back to school and earned a master’s in philosophy. Everything she did to nurture her life seemed to strengthen her business. She was terribly grateful to have caught that initial spark early, and to have acted on it. The first story makes a better made-for-TV movie It feeds our stereotypes. It reinforces our fear of success . It reassures us that we were right never to act on those dreams we had. The second story is a lot more enjoyable to live. Both stories are realistic. If you choose to create a business, large or small, you get to write the story. You decide where you’ll put your focus, what you’ll spend your time and attention on. I’d love to help you write a better story These two stories fascinate me. I’ve known both of these women. I’ve watched them work, watched what they struggle with and what seems to come easily to them. I’ve made an obsessive study of what makes some successful people love their lives, and what makes some utterly miserable. This obsession, like most of my obsessions, ended up as an extended piece of writing, which I’d like to share with you. It’s called The 8 Reasons Rich People Hate Their Lives (PDF) . The report explores some questions that fascinate me: Why taking ethical shortcuts won’t just make you hate yourself, it can also tank your business. Why improving your weaknesses is a loser’s game. How being driven by your ideals can wreck your life, and what to focus on instead. Why some multi-millionaires are still poor, and how you can become wealthy no matter what your income. The reason so many smart and talented people are miserable, and the simple mindset shift that would make them happy again. How to deal with the loneliness that success can bring. Why a wise entrepreneur puts family and friends first. The self-destructive behavior that’s as dangerous as driving drunk, and why it can destroy your business and your life. The report could just as easily be called The 8 Reasons (Some) Rich People Love Their Lives . Because that’s the part that really interests me. How to play the whole game to win — not just the financial part, but the living part as well. If this is a topic that interests you, I hope you’ll check out the report. It’s totally free, you don’t even have to leave your email address. And if you find the report valuable, please share it with people you care about. Rather than writing your business story as a sappy melodrama, let’s write something for you that’s a lot more satisfying, a lot more appealing, and a lot more fun. Download The 8 Reasons Rich People Hate Their Lives. About the Author : Sonia Simone is Senior Editor of Copyblogger and co-founder of Inside the Third Tribe .

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How to Overcome Your Three Greatest Blogging Challenges

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Let’s say you thought it would be pretty neat to climb Mount Everest. You find two “how-to” web sites that explain what’s involved. One details a tough training regimen, spells out all of the financial costs, has a serious conversation with you about the risks, and gives you a complete list of the gear you’ll need to maximize your chances of a successful ascent. Another tells you that since you go for a 20-minute run every day, you’ll be totally fine. Nah, don’t buy a bunch of fancy equipment. Just wear your flip-flops and a sweater. Who’s doing you the favor? There are plenty of people out there who’ll tell you that if you want to promote something — anything — you need to start a blog. Don’t be intimidated, just jump right in. Start with a free account on Blogger, do a bunch of Google searches for good content, rewrite it with some cheesy automated blogging tool, and that juicy search engine traffic will just start rolling in. Think that person is doing you a favor? Or might they be sending you to the blogging equivalent of eternal rest as part of Everest’s permafrost? Here’s the really good news Publishing a successful blog that supports your business goals? So much easier than climbing Mount Everest. Also, much, much less chance of dying or losing your nose to frostbite. But there are times when you start out when it doesn’t feel easier than climbing Everest. Maybe you’ve been wrestling with installing *$%#^ self-hosted WordPress for a month and every time you think about it you burst into tears. Or you’ve been stuck at 22 readers for a month and you’ve already nagged everyone you know until they refuse to take your calls any more. Or maybe you haven’t posted in a month because everything you write looks kind of stupid to you. Does this mean you’ll never figure out how to run a decent blog? Not at all. It just means you haven’t done your training. And that well-meaning person who said, “It’s really not that hard” was either full of baloney or forgot that when you’re starting out, damned right it’s hard. So here are some ways to get over three of the toughest hurdles bloggers face. The sooner you get these out of the way, the sooner you can get to the fun part. I’m not saying it’s going to be easy. But it’s also not as hard as it looks right now. If the technology is killing you I’ll admit it, I’m not a technology moron. I’m worse. I’m almost a technology moron. Because I have mastered formatting a bulleted list in HTML, I believe that I can do anything. This belief is incorrect. I have been known to spend days trying to fix technical problems that a well-trained chimp could code up in 20 minutes. Don’t get me wrong, it’s all learnable. Apply a little stubbornness and some focused attention and you will figure it out. But is that actually what you should spend your time doing? If you’re pounding your head against the technology and trying to make stuff work, allow me to suggest that you forgo your favorite treat for a few weeks (Starbucks, cute shoes, that iPad that’s been calling to you so sweetly) and hire someone to help you get this thing done. There are plenty of people who will set you up with a WordPress blog for an impressively reasonable price. And there are thousands of other very capable folks who can help with the related stuff. Eat ramen for a month if you have to, but get some help. Then take the time you’ve saved and develop a simple, inexpensive product . Get it onto your now-functioning blog and pay yourself back. If your reader numbers aren’t budging The hardest, loneliest part of your ascent is right at the beginning, when you’re writing and posting and you’re not at all sure there’s anyone there to hear you. The first training tip is to spend that time making your blog someplace worthy of all that traffic you want to attract. If you got 10,000 visitors today, what would they see? Three posts about your cat, one about how you can’t figure out Twitter, and the “Hello, world” post that you never bothered to delete when you installed WordPress? So while you still have some privacy and the utter freedom of anonymity, write some good cornerstone content . While you’re at it, get an email autoresponder up and running. Make your blog someplace worth going to. Once you’ve got the place presentable, it’s time to get out there and do some guest posts. Make friends with people who blog about the same topics you do. Make intelligent comments on their posts. Follow the people they follow on Twitter. Be interesting and helpful. Then offer to write some guest posts. Start with smaller blogs at first, then work your way to medium and then larger blogs. Guest posts are still the best way to build your audience, find new loyal fans, and grow your subscriber numbers. If you’ve run out of things to say This is an interesting moment. One possibility is that you’re midway up the ascent and you realize, “Oh crap, I actually never did want to climb Everest. I’d much rather swim the English Channel.” The difference between climbing Everest and running a blog is that your attempt at the summit takes a day. (It needs to, because if you stay on the mountain overnight you die.) Your blog is something you’ll think about every single day until the day you shut it down or sell it. So if it’s not where you want to be, the right answer may be to shut it down now, or to radically change direction until it’s something you actually want to spend this much time on. That’s why the experts all tell you that passion matters. Trying to write on a topic you don’t care about is really, really hard over the long run. On the other hand, you may just be chickening out. You may need to deal with your own fear of failure, fear of success, or fear of mediocrity . If it’s not one of those, it might be something very, very simple. Just write. Write every damn day . Write when you don’t feel like it. Write when it’s stupid. Write when it’s not coming out right. Write when you think that no one in his right mind would read what you have to say. You don’t have to be an amazing writer to be an amazing blogger. But you do have to write. A lot. (Even if you’re a podcaster or a video blogger, you need a smart, sharp script or outline.) The more you write, the more ideas will come. Sounds weird, I know, but it works. So get off on your backside and do it. If you’re looking for someone who will tell you the truth about marketing your business, and will give you the step-by-step training to make it a lot less overwhelming, you may want to look into my Remarkable Marketing Blueprint. It’s open for new members, but only until 5:00 pm Mountain Time today (Monday, May 24). Check out the details now , because tonight, the opportunity goes away. About the Author : Sonia Simone is Senior Editor of Copyblogger and the founder of The Remarkable Marketing Blueprint .

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What Do You Do When You Run Out of Knowledge?

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Bloggers have a distinct disadvantage. When someone hires an expert in — oh, let’s say marketing — that expert can dispense the same information she did for the last client. And the client before that one. And the one before that. Not bloggers. Blogging is about breaking down everything you know into bite-sized chunks so that people can learn it all over a period of time. If they look back through the archives, they can often see the entire breadth of your knowledge. Then one day, your well runs dry. This is a scary moment for any blogger. It’s not like running out of inspiration or having writer’s block . This is when you’ve said it all. Your blog contains absolutely everything you know. And let’s be fair — it’s a lot of knowledge. But you simply don’t have anything new to say . What do you do? Go get yourself some new knowledge I’m always amazed by how few people continue to educate themselves on their topic after they’ve become an acknowledged expert in it. Hey, everyone knows me as the number one guy on naked mole rats! Clearly, I know everything there is to know! But as an old coach of mine used to say, you’ll never know everything there is to know in your field of expertise, and there’s always something new to learn. People make new discoveries and innovations every day. You have opinions about those innovations. You agree or disagree with them. You try them or manage to take them a step further. Of course, if you don’t find out what those discoveries and innovations are, you don’t have anything to say about it. No wonder you’re stuck for posts. Actively pursuing new knowledge about your area of expertise has a side benefit: it provides more value for your clients. You may find the inspiration for a new ebook or web course to help newcomers understand and benefit. New knowledge could be the next big thing for your business — if you go out and find it. Doctors are one of the few professions actually required to update their knowledge of their field of expertise continually. If a doctor doesn’t know the latest innovation in surgery, his next patient might die from the lack of that knowledge. That’s a huge incentive for the doctor to always be learning and for the patient — and the medical board — to insist on that continual education. No one is going to force you to attend conferences or read books or take courses, but you’ll be much more respected as an expert if you continually update your knowledge. Your client’s life may not be on the line, but their business, their financial goals, and their happiness probably is — at least, their happiness with your products and services. Where can you find new knowledge? Well, you may not have heard about this gizmo called the internet, but it’s pretty handy for that sort of thing. It seems silly to mention using the internet to upgrade your knowledge on an online blog, but shocking numbers of people don’t use it for this particular purpose — even those who practically live online. Libraries are an awesome (and free) resource for new knowledge too, and so is your local bookstore. Go pick up some new literature and get someone else’s perspective on what you do. Magazines and trade journals, of course, are terrific for more recent innovations and information. Find ones that focus on your area of expertise and stay on the lookout for new ideas that sound interesting or innovative. Once an article grabs your attention, go do some independent research on that topic and find new resources to pursue. Actively pursuing new knowledge won’t just make you a better businessperson — though that’s reason enough right there. It’ll also pretty much guarantee that you’ll never run out of blog topics ever again. About the Author: For new knowledge that makes you a better businessperson — and that helps you hit the bullseye of success for your freelancing career, check out Men with Pens — or better yet, grab the RSS feed here .

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What Do You Do When You Run Out of Knowledge?