My Secret February Experiment

Every month, I like to take on a new 30-day challenge of some sort. It’s usually like an experiment where I implement a new daily habit, and religiously follow it every day for 30 days.

You may remember a few months ago when I did my natural/organic foods experiment and ate almost obsessively healthy for 30 days. It was one of the most challenging things I’ve ever attempted, and benefitted me in huge ways…not just health-wise, but also my confidence and self-trust.

Last month, I implemented a morning gratitude routine. Every morning, first thing after waking up, I made a heart-felt mental list of 5 things I felt really grateful for. This experiment made huge improvements in my day-to-day mood and my appreciation for the ways I’m blessed in my life. It also brought lots of positive attention to the small pleasures of every-day living. Definitely a worthwhile experiment, and I’ve decided to make the habit a permanent part of my life.

This month, I’ve decided to do a 30-day visualization experiment. Each day, I schedule time to sit down with my laptop or a blank piece of paper and visualize my life exactly as I dream for it to become in every way.

I write it as if I’m writing a letter to a best friend, describing my ideal life as if it were already real…and making sure to deeply and genuinely feel the emotions that are connected to those aspirations as I write.

One of my best friends and my girlfriend are both doing this expirement with me. I recently found myself explaining the top “tips” on effective visualization for them…so in case you’d like to follow along and do the same, here’s the low-down:

1) One easy way to start your visualization on paper is by writing, “I am so happy and grateful now that…”

2) When visualizing, most people imagine the scenarios in their minds as if they were watching themselves as actors in a movie. This is not effective because it tells your mind that the one experiencing these positive things is not YOU…because YOU are just an observer. You must see the movie through your OWN eyes. For example, if I’m visualizing myself getting into my new black Ferrari, I should imagine seeing my arm reach out in front of me for the door handle, or my hand on the gearshift beside me.

3) Feel the emotions and feelings behind the scenario as vividly and powerfully as possible. In the Ferrari example, I would try my best to smell the leather seats. Feel the warm summer wind whipping around my hair with the top down. Feel the tug of my body into the back of my seat as I punch the accelerator on a straight stretch. You get the picture. Get really into it. FEEL IT.

4) Stop at 30 minutes. Once you start visualizating, you start to really get into it and enjoy yourself because it’s fun. It’s tempting to go overboard and write for an hour or longer, but don’t do it. If you do, it will become harder and harder to motivate yourself to do the daily visualization because it will have become a major time investment.

5) Schedule it! Actually scheduling something into your day makes you FAR more likely to do it consistently than just saying, “Oh, I want to make sure to do it sometime today before I go to bed.” That plan rarely works.

Let me know what you think…and feel free to join in on the experiment! I’ll let you know how it goes. They say visualization is extremely powerful…and that every hour spent on visualization is worth several hours of work.

Follow along as I give it a try…and prove it right or wrong for myself!

Are personal blogs worth the time and effort?

The past few days I’ve been thinking…

Is this blog really worth my time?

My reason for keeping this blog is to keep record of my experiences and thoughts for future reference and enjoyment, and also so that others can keep track of my life. The other purpose is so that I’ll have a way to articulate my thoughts regarding business and personal development in a way that’s fun and practical to read.

Also, I’ve kept in the back of my mind the purpose/possibility of making money somehow from this blog in the near future by building up traffic and eventually using the traffic for affiliate product promotion or advertising revenue.

But is this blog…or any personal blog…accomplishing any of those purposes very effectively?

Truth is, no matter how much I want to be raw, open and transparent in my writings on this blog, there are some things that I’m just not willing to post publicly on the Internet.

Everyone has personal struggles, relationship thoughts, and other kinds of topics floating around in their heads that they want to express…but aren’t really appropriate for everyone else to be reading.

The problem is…I WANT to record those parts of my life! After all, many times they are the most important and impactful parts of our day-to-day lives. And recording them for the future would be valuable.

It all comes down to this. I like the IDEA of a personal journal posted publicly online for everyone to read. Heck, I’d love to read a dramatic, action-packed (and well-written) journal that shared personal details. But when it comes down to actually doing this in real life, it just doesn’t WORK.

So here’s the deal…

From now on, this blog will feature mainly thoughts and articles on specific issues or topics. Like gratitude. Or motivation. Or a cool new technique I’ve found to travel around Europe cheaply. Or an exciting new blog I’ve stumbled across. Or a great quote that was mentioned by one of my favorite mentors.

To keep it “juicy”, I’ll continue including personal details…however, they’ll be included in the articles/stories instead of being posted directly in the form of a private diary entry, and I won’t feel forced to include every major personal event in my life with the world.

From now on, those more personal topics will be kept inside a private journal of my own.  

So tell me…what are YOUR thoughts? Are personal blogs in diary form really useful?

The Last Semester Begins

I’m now back at school after more than 3 weeks at home on Christmas break. It was a nice break…definitely enjoyed being with family. But it’s also good to be back.

Lacey (sis) and I drove back to campus on Sunday evening. The plan was to spend the evening unpacking, but I ended up catching up with friends and going out instead.

We saw “Bedtime Stories” with Adam Sandler, then came back to the apartment where we watched movies in the living room until 5AM. Wish I could be more specific, but it was a great night…and a great start to the semester.

The next day was just as nice…basically slept in late, cooked a big brunch for friends, went grocery shopping, then spent the rest of the day napping and watching movies.

It was cool to forget everything and totally relax for a while. Honestly, those first two days  back on campus were far more relaxing than Christmas break.  

I’ve also spent some time recently making specific goals for the next 4 months. Instead of new year’s resolutions, I’ve decided to switch to shorter-term goals (6 months or less) per the advice of Tim Ferriss in his kick-ass book, “The Four Hour Work Week”.

Here are a few of them:

• Gain 15-20 pounds of muscle with the help of a weightlifting trainer and a nutrition plan by May 1
• Build my monthly income from online business projects ALONE to over $3k/month by May 1
• Create the habit of writing down 5 things I’m grateful for first thing each morning, and vividly imagining each area of my life as I want it to look each night as I fall asleep.

That’s a sample of them, anyway.

That said…I’ve realized that when it comes to goals (as with most other things) less is more. So I’ve only set 5 goals for the next 4 months.

Trying to reach a couple of goals at a time tends to be FAR more effective than setting 10+ goals and trying to accomplish them all at once.

As part of the plan to reach my business goals, I’ve been taking measures to make sure that I’m kept accountable.

For instance, I promised a friend of mine and my sister that I’d pick them up and drive them to their morning class 3X/week so they wouldn’t have to walk across campus in the freezing cold.

This not only helps them out, but it gives me some motivation to get up early every morning and be productive despite the fact that my classes don’t begin until after noon.

As a result, I’ve committed to getting up early every weekday morning and going to a coffee shop to work on business/personal development stuff until about noon.

Today was the first day of that new morning schedule, and let me tell you…it was GREAT. I was able to accomplish so much more in only about 3.5 hours than I normally get done in a whole day of dabbling in work. It was a great way to start the day and I enjoyed it a lot.

Lessons learned? FOCUS is everything. And for me, a quiet block of time in the morning is amazingly condusive to productivity. I’ll continue that habit and record the results here on my blog as I go.

Classes started yesterday, as well. I was pleasantly surprised to find out that most of my classes this semester are actually valuable for what I’m going to be doing as an entrepreneur.

Most of them are high-quality marketing classes that delve deeply into topics like Marketing Research (how to make accurate data-driven decisions), Marketing Strategy (how to put together effective marketing campaigns from scratch), and Buyer Behavior (why customers do what they do and how to market to them using psychology).

Cool. Finally I feel like my college education is good for more than preparing me to sit in a little box for the next 40 years of my life as someone else’s slave. It’s pretty motivating when you realize that your classes are actually preparing you for your career (a novel idea, I know).

OK…I’m out for now. Stuff to do! Hasta luego…

Highlights of 2008

A friend of mine asked me the other day, “If you look back over each of the years you’ve lived, which one would you say has been your favorite?

I thought about it for a moment, and then answered, “This one.”

Truth is, I’ve been very fortunate…I’ve had a lot of cool experiences in my 22 years.

And maybe it’s because I’m learning to live more “in the moment”…or developing better appreciation for the different scenes of life…but it seems like this past year has been more chock-full of memorable experiences and life-changing breakthroughs than ever. 

It would take way too much time to tell you all the stories, so I won’t. But you’ll find a list below of the some of the most memorable events and experiences of 2008. This list is impromptu, so I’ll probably forget a few things…but check it out and enjoy!

In 2008, I…

• Turned 21 years old
• Went on my first solo trip to a foreign country
• Lived for four months in Costa Rica with a local Tico family
• Learned to speak Spanish at a near-fluent level
• Travelled alone to Granada, Nicaragua for 3 days of reflection and relaxation
• Experienced snorkeling for the first time
• Bought a delicious bowl of fresh mango for 5 cents at a Nicaraguan pro baseball game
• Discovered the magic of Twitter
• Attended one of Eben Pagan’s Guru Mastermind events in Los Angeles
• Built close relationships with 2 new millionaire mentors
• Learned how to copywrite effectively (write sales letters) and landed my first paying project
• Failed in building two small online business ventures (and learned a LOT)
• Spoke as a guest speaker at a seminar for the first time
• Swam underwater with a giant school of tropical fish off the coast of an island
• Was hired as a consultant for the first time
• Bought my first nice car
• Worked for 3 months as an intern at the Latin American HQ of Citi in downtown Miami
• Mingled with celebrities and famous models at a fashion show on South Beach
• Learned to play squash
• Completed a 1-month health experiment (ate all-natural foods ONLY…no greasy stuff, no sugar, no processed foods for 30 days)
• Hired my first personal coach
• Ate a scorpion
• Got a $500 cell phone bill (should have known I’d need unlimited texting)
• Shot a poisonous snake with a shotgun
• Threw a big pajama party at my apartment and upset the neighbors
• Got mono and missed two weeks of school with a fever of almost 105 degrees
• Watched a monkey try to steal my backpack from my towel on a beach
• Went on a date with a girl from an online dating site who ended up looking MUCH different than her picture
• Came up with my best and most exciting business idea yet
• Rented a secluded jungle house in the Caribbean for spring break  with A. and T.
• Took salsa lessons
• Survived Walker’s Quantitative Analysis class
• Dated girls from 3 different countries and 3 different states (only 1 of them seriously)
• Lived in an apartment for 4 months with several of my best buddies
• Used Kiva to give micro-loans to two different entrepreneurs in Africa
• Got 2 girls mixed up and texted back/forth with the wrong one for nearly a month before discovering my mistake in an unbelievably embarrassing and awkward course of events.
• Hiked to the top of a smoking volcano and looked over the edge into the crater 
• Zip-lined through a rainforest
• Bought gas for $5 per gallon…and then 6 months later for $1.47 per gallon

It’s been quite a year, and I feel incredibly blessed. And with that said…I can’t wait to see what 2009 will hold! Something tells me that…like the past year…it will be full of surprises, breakthroughs, valuable lessons, and and memorable experiences. Who knows what kinds of stories I’ll be telling a year from now?

The coolest part is…it’s mostly up to me.

Goodbye 2008…welcome 2009!

It’s Crunch Time

Lately, I’ve been realizing the full impact of my decision not to get a traditional job after graduation.

My friends are frantically applying for positions…flying out for interviews…deciding between offers…preparing for the totally new life that will suddenly become real once they walk across that stage.

And me?

I haven’t done a single job search.

…submitted a single resume.

…gone to, or even asked for, a single interview.

Ever since my senior year of high school, my goal has been to learn how to make money online, and to build up my own business projects to the point where I could support myself comfortably after graduation.

That goal has been a big part of my life for the past few years…but now, suddenly, it has become more than a goal. It’s become a decision. My chance to follow the traditional path of life and get a job working at a large corporation after graduation like everyone else is slowly slipping away.

…and now it’s up to me to build up this kind of income totally on my own.

It’s crunch time.

I regret the fact that my posts on this blog have been so sparse, since so much has happened. And it’s unfortunate that several of the events I’m most grateful for are a little too personal for this blog.

But I’ll take a moment now to share what I can.

Christmas break has hardly been a break, at least if you consider workload alone…I’ve worked harder these last few weeks than I usually do even at school with a full course schedule. 

Just before break, I was able to arrange a deal with one of my favorite personal development companies in California to act as a consultant and help them improve their sales letters. In the past couple of weeks, the deal has turned into an ongoing ”position” that will probably be of great benefit to me in the next 4 months. I was really grateful for it…and I hope to add a lot of value to their work.

I was also scheduled to speak at a seminar on writing and selling eBooks. Unfortunately, the seminar was rescheduled. But, I ended up making a very cool connection with a certain lady who had been scheduled to attend, which led to another consulting deal.

I’m finding that I love consulting far more than copywriting…and for some reason, I seem to be even better at it.

In addition to all of this, I’ve been working on a couple of sales letters for mentors of mine….and now, doing research and making plans for a couple of high-potential business ideas that have come to my mind in just the past few days.   

It’s getting a little overwhelming to be honest…the fact that I so seriously need to build my income up to my target level in just 4 months. While it seems that I’ve got many resources, connections, and ideas to work with…it feels like an enormous challenge to decide which ones to pursue, and how to divide my time between them.

My plan for going forward?

• Put together meetings with my best mentors, coaches, and mastermind partners for advice on how to best move toward my goal.
• Begin setting a % of my income aside to build up an emergency fund of at least $1000 as quickly as possible.
• Make a list of all my ideas, resources, and relevant connections…then prioritize and create an action plan.

And that’s the business side of life…as it’s been through my eyes since the last post.

For the sake of a true update, I’m currently with family in South-East Ohio where I’ve been for the past few weeks on Christmas break. It was a relaxing holiday aside from the work. Since break began, I’ve learned to play “Here’s to the Night” by Eve 6 and “Hero” by Enrique Iglesias on the piano, started AND finished the classic novel Great Expectations, to name just a few things.

It’s been good.

In the 5 days that remain before my return to school, I hope to accomplish a lot more…and fully enjoy the chance to relax without classes and homework. And when that’s over, I’ll be looking forward to going back to the apartment where I’ll hang out with my best friends once again…and launch into the 4 months that will be probably the most transformational of my life to this point.

Let’s do it!

A Note On Gratitude

Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays in the year. Not just because of the tables full of delicious home-cooked food and warm parties with family and friends, but because of what it means for us…especially those of us striving to live life to its fullest.

Gratitude, for many of us, feels like an obligation. We feel like we “should be” thankful for the ways we’ve been blessed, and we know that we take a lot of blessings for granted, yet we’re far too busy worrying about our problems to really feel gratitude on a daily basis. And this is a shame, because gratitude is one of the most powerful and under-estimated emotions we’re capable of feeling.

Here’s what I mean…

1) Gratitude is one of the main ingredients in happiness. The happiest people I know are also the most grateful people I know. Think about it: Do you know anyone who you would say is truly happy, yet truly ungrateful at the same time? It’s just not possible. Happiness and gratitude are closely connected, and you can experience this for yourself. A heartfelt “thank you”, even whispered quietly into the air, just plain feels good. The happiest people I know say “thank you” the most often. They find joy in the small things…they appreciate the details of daily life that most overlook. So it’s no surprise that many of them have a habit of whispering a sincere “thank you” as soon as they wake up each day…for the safety of their family, for their ability to see, for the taste of a warm cup of coffee, even for the softness of their bath towel. True happiness comes from this.

2) Give thanks for what you’re happy about, and you’ll get more of it. One of the laws of the “universe” that I’ve found to be true over and over again is the law of “givers get”, or “give and you shall receive.” This law goes way back to nearly the beginning of time. Even the authors of the Bible, who lived thousands of years ago, wrote, “Give, and it shall be given to you…” Anything given with heartfelt sincerity and hope of ultimate good comes back to us ten-fold. And of all the things we could give, gratitude is perhaps the most powerful and long-lasting. Want more money? Learn to say “thank you” every day for the money you already have. Want better health? Whisper a sincere “thank you” several times each day for the ways that you’re already healthy. Try it. It works. And wanna know a little secret? You’ll be a lot happier, too.  

3) Gratitude forces us to live in the moment. One of the most powerful ways to live life to its fullest is to learn to be totally present; to live every day in the moment. People who live in the moment are happier. People who live in the moment are more successful. And they’re a hell of a lot more fun to hang out with on weekends, too. By feeling gratitude for how we feel and what we experience at every moment in the day, we are forcing ourselves to live in the moment. Most people live the majority of their lives inside their heads. And because of this, they end up sleepwalking through the experiences that could have become their most treasured memories. As my friend Scott said during one of our phone conversations, “When we’re inside our heads, we don’t have appreciation for the things we view as undesirable.” Gratitude is the ”hidden door” to the greener grass on the other side, because it opens our eyes to the fact that the greenest grass is right where we’re standing.

Feel free to share your thoughts…and as Thanksgiving 2008 slips into the past, remember the power of a sincere “thank you” as you strive to live life to the fullest and create the future of your dreams.

Until next time…

You Know You’ve Found “Your Thing” When…

This past weekend was probably one of my favorites weekends since classes began in August.

And you’ll never guess why.

Seriously…you won’t.

After accepting a copywriting project from my mentor last weekend, I’ve been working hard to get the “feel” of the sales letter I would need to write. It’s purpose is to promote a new program designed to take local small business owners by the hand and teach them how to promote their businesses on the Internet to local target markets.

I launched into the project last week, spending most of my afternoons and evenings in various coffee shops and at my favorite Panera Bread. And by the time the weekend began, I had already made some great progress. But there was still lots of work to be done, so…

I slept in a little bit on Saturday, took a hot shower, and then grabbed my laptop and drove down to Stoney Creek Roasters in Cedarville for breakfast. It was relatively quiet, so I got to work quickly without any distractions and immersed myself in writing…stopping only to take an occasional sip from my steaming cup of deliciously brewed coffee.

A few hours breezed by and I made a lot of progress before running into a few friends who had stopped by for lunch. We talked for a while, then I made my way home for a relaxing lunch. Later that afternoon, one of my roommates (Adam) and I jumped in the car and drove to Panera Bread at The Greene to spend the afternoon getting more work done.

The rest of the day was spent relaxing, writing, and talking around the fireplace at Panera. Eric’s parents (one of my other roommates) had driven down from New Jersey to visit for the weekend, so we met up with them and Bridget (Eric’s girlfriend) for dinner around 8PM at BD’s Mongolian Grill. It was a fun evening, and we went to Books & Co. afterwards to spent some time just hanging out.

This type of Saturday would bore a lot of the people I know. But for me, it was great. Not because writing in coffee shops is my idea of an exciting weekend, but because I knew that relaxing days of hanging out in coffee shops was becoming my definition of “work”…and because I felt like I was getting a true taste of the life I have been striving to be able to live after my college graduation.

There’s something about copywriting that really relaxes me…calms me…makes me feel like I’m accomplishing something worthwhile. The psychology of it is fascinating. Every word has a purpose. Every sentence has a cause. And every little detail is carefully crafted to elicit a certain kind of response or feeling inside of the reader. It’s one of the most powerful money-making skills that exist because a good copywriter can practically make money grow on trees. Learning the art of copywriting is not only a lucrative quest and a lot of fun, it’s also helping me develop the general ability to connect with people on a deep, emotional level…and the benefits of that skill go FAR beyond making money.

In short, you know you’ve found “your thing” when you’re working your butt off on a Saturday and actually enjoying it.

Binge Blogging and The Elusive Obvious

When it comes to my blogging habits, I am a clear “binge blogger”. One month, I write every day. The next month I don’t write at all. And then I start again. So much has happened that I’ve been giving myself a guilt trip for missing…what, about 6 weeks now? Mainly because October was a CRAZY month.

Here’s what I mean…

In the beginning of October, Vicky flew up here from Miami to visit for a few days (a cool girl I met as a result of the Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Swim shows on South Beach this past summer). We went camping and hiking at Old Man’s Cave with a few of my best friends for a weekend. Although all the rivers/waterfalls at the State Park had dried up due to the drought, the scenery was stunning…the trip was a highlight of the month.

October was also one of the most stressful months I’ve experienced in a LONG time. I’m taking a class called “Operations Analysis” here at Cedarville and, to put it simply, I would be failing the class had I not done something drastic. I hired an excellent private tutor at $10/hour for 4 hours per week and was able to pull off a ”B” on the first exam. The second exam wasn’t so easy…barely scraped by with a ”C”. But then something interesting happened. We were given a crapload of homework…and my tutor left town for a week.

This freaked me out a bit, as you can imagine. But then something interesting happened. Knowing that I was either going to have to sit down and figure it out myself, or take a major hit to my grade, I got up early one morning and went to the library to study. To my surprise, I was able to figure it out and get my homework done…and even UNDERSTAND it…within the same amount of time as my usual tutoring sessions!

This is a perfect example of the principle that we almost always underestimate ourselves and overestimate others. I always wondered why the rest of the class was getting good grades without tutors (I was the only student with a private tutor). Suddenly I understood. They weren’t all smarter than me, after all. The only difference was, they believed that they could do it on their own. No more tutor. $160 per month saved. Lesson learned.

OK…I’ve got a quick story that I MUST share with you now…

The other night, I called one of my mentors in Arizona just to catch up. He’s a great guy and I respect him a lot. It seems like every time we talk, I learn something really valuable. This time was no exception.

As you probably already know, I am a copywriter. Copywriting is my thing. It fascinates me. And somehow, I’ve managed to get myself into a position where copywriting projects are abundant and easy to get. Despite the fact that I just began studying copywriting about 5 months ago, I’m already having to turn down projects. But that said…I’ve taken on enough work to keep me insanely busy.

In fact, I’ve been working my arse off lately. And here’s the shocking part: I’ve been making so little money that I’d literally be embarrassed to post the numbers here on my blog. 

I’m a good copywriter…I’ve written squeeze pages that have converted at higher than 30%. I’ve spent more than a year and several thousand dollars studying and learning from the very best how to write copy in a way that connects with people deeply and gets amazing results. And I’m working a LOT. And making almost nothing? What? How does THAT happen?

It wasn’t long before my financial reserves began to dwindle and I started to feel stressed about being able to pay my bills. If things continued this way, my money would only last another 2 months before I would hit some MAJOR problems. Worrying about this on top of that cursed operations class was about to drive me crazy. So I started searching for side jobs and seriously considering getting a job as a server at a nearby restaurant…just to make sure my bills would get paid.

This is why it was such a big “aha” moment for me when my mentor told me…

“Dude, stop working for free. Never work for free.”

 See, I hadn’t technically been working for “free”. I had been working for “future pay”…deals like “Hey, maybe you can write this sales letter for me or edit my landing page…and when it starts making money, I’ll give you 8% of all the revenues”.

Sounded great to me! After all, I’m all about residual income. In my mind, it didn’t matter that I wasn’t making money now…because 5 years from now, I’d probably be rolling in dough. Yeah? Really? And you know this how? Well, I realized during the call with my mentor that I DON’T know that.

He said (paraphrasing)…

“You need to ALWAYS charge an up-front fee, regardless of any % agreement, because you have NO CONTROL over what happens after you write the copy! If they decide not to use the copy, or they don’t use it correctly, you’ll never see any money from your work. You’ve got a valuable skill. You don’t need to work at a restaurant. You could be making a LOT of money right now.”

Whoa.

Scary.

Not only that, I’ve been offering LOTS of advice on copywriting, eBooks, and other stuff like that. Just because people were asking. No matter who it was. Again, I was working FOR FREE. How could I be so stupid? I should have been charging consulting fees!

Wow.   

Turns out, I’ve been doing professional work…and managing myself like an amateur. How could something so simple as “Don’t work for free” be such a revelation? Eben Pagan (one of my role models) likes to talk about the “elusive obvious”. Sometimes we get so caught up in what we’re doing…and the problems we’re having…that we don’t realize how simple and obvious the solution actually is.

It’s now November 2…and I’m turning over a new leaf in my professional life. While I realize that I still have a lot to learn, I will strive to never again undervalue my skills. And working for free? Yeah…right.

Be sure to check back often…I’m going to be (fingers crossed) writing a lot more often this month to track my progress in several different areas of my life.

A preview of what November will hold:

–Starting a weight lifting/diet routine to gain 10 pounds of muscle in one month. Before and after photos, as well as progress reports and exact details on what I’m doing, will be posted here.

–A visualiation experiment. I’ve re-created my dreamboard and will be visualizing my goals & dreams for 20 minutes per day for 30 consecutive days. They say that when you visualize your goals consistently, magic begins to happen. Follow along with me and we’ll discover if it’s true.

That’s it!

Tengan un buen dia…hasta pronto!

Sore Throat From Hell and My New Experiment

The past week has definitely NOT turned out like I expected. This time last weekend, I was finishing up a weekend at home with family. My body was beginning to feel a little lousy but nothing really worth complaining about. And as I drove back up to school last Sunday night, I was mentally trying to prepare for the dreaded Operations Analsis exam the following day.

Little did I know that within 24 hours, I would be back at home…and lying on the couch, where I would spend the next 7 days while not at the doctor’s office.

A major storm had raged through Cedarville earlier that Sunday evening. The winds were strong enough to litter the streets and yards with piles of leaves, branches, and tree limbs…some of them big enough to block the road. Electric poles and power cables were down all over the place, leaving the entire town of Cedarville (and beyond) without electricity. Classes were cancelled on Monday, much to my relief since I didn’t really feel prepared for the exam. And because I woke up on Monday morning feeling like total crap.

I spent the whole day on the couch sleeping. And when 9PM came around and the electricity was still out and I figured that classes would be cancelled for Tuesday as well. Knowing that I had no classes until 2PM on Wednesday if Tuesday’s classes were cancelled, I threw my luggage back in my car and drove over to pick up my little sis from her dorm and go back home.

My sickness got progressively worse over the next 4 days, despite a doctor’s visit on Tuesday morning and a couple of meds. But after another doctor visit, I got the correct meds and the swelling began to go down. At this point, I’m feeling much better…but my throat hurts like it’s never hurt before. It’s really a sore throat from hell. Seems like it’s lasting forever, too…hopefully it’ll be gone soon.

Anyway, it’s Sunday and I’ve already missed an entire week of classes, minus last Monday when classes were cancelled anyway due to the power outage. It looks like I’ll miss at least another couple of days this week.

But whatever. It is what it is. In the meantime, I’ve been writing a lot of copy for Guy and the project for our Short Sale My Home eBook. Almost finished with the follow-up email campaign and a whole new to-do list of copy will follow. It’s fun though…and great experience. The project has a ton of potential.

OK…now for the “decisions, decisions” part…

As I mentioned on here a couple of days ago, I just recently finished a four week experiment called, “How much better would I feel if I ate ONLY natural, organic, liver-friendly foods?” Despite the challenges, it was a fascinating experiment and resulted in some worthwhile benefits. So, I’ve decided to make it a habit to do a new 4 week experiment every month. Which brings up the all-important question: What should October’s experiment be?   

I’ve taken some time to think about the options based on my own desires/needs for improvement, and came up with the following list of three possibilities:

1) The Morning Priorities Experiment. This experiment would answer the question, “How much would my productivity increase if I developed the habit of completing two items from my to-do list that will bring me closer to my goals each day before 11AM?”

2) The Internet Income Stream Experiment. “Is it possible to build an Internet income stream from the idea stage to a profit of at least $500, in only four weeks, with only 1 hour of work per day?”

3) The Focus Experiment. “Is it possible to improve grades, highten focus, and lower stress by focusing intensely on homework and school-related work ONLY during weekdays between the hours of 9AM and 5PM…and forbidding yourself to even think about school outside of those times?”

Those are my three options. I’ve got a break of about 9 days to rest until the 1st of October arrives and the new 4 week experiment begins. So, there’s a little bit of time to decide. If you’ve got any suggestions or advice as to which of the above options I should choose, leave me a comment!

Pussy vs. Printer (Why I Like Cats)