An example

Google Affiliate Program Advertising

A Google program fluctuates wildly in its revenue. It is not a good primary business but an excellent secondary income stream. Google should be piggy-backed on a strong traffic reseller and form-based affiliate business. User clicks are too random to be a reliable income stream. Google is an excellent “gravy” program because it feeds directly from the traffic your website already generates. Google clicks can be a “by-product” of an already operating business and it costs you nothing to try. We have all heard rumors of people making $15,000 per day from Google clicks. Google income is a “random walk”. It moves in a random pattern if graphed on a chart. This is not good as a primary source of income. Google also pays only if your performance meets certain requirements. This is another limitation that has to be overcome. But we have engineered a methodology to blend all of the characteristics of Google with the strengths of other programs. Google can supply you with yet another check in the mail for a single business. Google ads require no additional maintenance, so once they are embedded in your website, you need not bother them again. If you blend Google, Information Marketing, Affiliate Marketing and Traffic reselling into one business. It would look like the diagram below. The coolest part of this theory is that it really is all the same business. We would suggest an income pyramid like the following:

Now let’s recap how all this works together. You can build and test market your information products and sell them immediately on E-bay. This is one new income pathway. Products that sell well on E-bay could be moved to their own website and again (same product) sold as another information product. As an independent product it could sell for more than 10 times what it sold for on E-bay. Information products have the ability to bring in amounts as high as $1000 per item. Information products and E-bay form the base of the pyramid because their income potential could easily replace your job, and sales can be regular and dependable. These two items are not traffic dependent as much as they are “interest” dependent. Their sales will rely on your reputation on E-bay and on other forms of communication.

Affiliate sales and being a traffic reseller can be a very high revenue business but it is dependent of internet traffic which is random. At $100 per completed form this is dynamite, but the random element of internet traffic makes it a better secondary income stream than a primary one. You can strategically place your website; you can optimize it for Google and Yahoo, and have moderate success. Your expectations should be linked to your traffic optimization capability and site mapping. You need to also be conscious of the fact that each affiliate program pays differently. Some sales you make this month may not be available for 30-40 days later.

Finally, you should consider your Google AdSense business. Google revenue can vary wildly.  It is an excellent “gravy” business. Now let’s review this pyramid in action and take a look at its results. The data below is actual financial data from an information products marketer.

Marketer X (Month of November)

Information Products: $9900

Commission Junction Revenue: $1700

E-Bay: $1100

Google AdSense: $900

This marketer spends about 5-10 hours working his business per week! He is truly making money when he goes to bed at night. The information products are the base of his pyramid. They sell on average at a price of $75-$200 per item. He holds down a regular job like most other people, and keeps his job for the insurance purposes of his family. The same products sold on his websites are sold on E-bay, no difference except E-bay requires a cheaper price. He has a store that links the products to his website, encouraging yet more sales. You can see how all this works together, the business forms a fully optimized cocoon that makes money at each level. His total income of $13,600 is a hefty haul for setting up his businesses. The coolest thing of course is that he does minimal actions between collecting his checks. He is selling the same products in two different environments. He is selling space on his websites to the affiliate programs. He is selling clicks off his website to Google. He is selling traffic to and from his website through traffic reselling. All of these items are things he already has!

Another way to make money online _ Affiliate Programs

Continuing with my research. I am currently working through a third party to develop an Amazon Affiliate site. I will give you details when it is up an running! Meanwhile I found this:

Affiliate Programmes

We will use the term affiliate programs to refer to all affiliate programs other than Google. Some affiliate programs are packaged like those at commission junction. If you have not heard of cj.com, it is the web address of commission junction. Commission junction is an affiliate “Mecca”. There you can find credit card programs, real estate, loans, etc. These people specialize in selling products on-line for other companies. Some of the highest paying affiliate lead programs are listed below:

  • Countrywide
  • LowerMyBills.com
  • Foreign Credit Card Companies
  • Chase Manhattan Bank

These programs pay for leads. Leads are simply web surfers that fill out forms for their website. You post the form on your website, and when forms are completed, you get a check in the mail.  Affiliate programs are very hot right now. Getting users to fill out forms can be very challenging, and of course there are some nifty tricks you need to know.

Often the pay per lead can be quite high, for instance some programs can pay $32.00 per completed form, and credit card companies can pay $150 per approved credit card application. Getting clients to fill out credit card applications can be extremely lucrative! Here are some commonly used tactics to get clients to fill out forms:

  1. Offer a free gift (this is the same tactic used in malls)
  2. Stack your applications for a “nice” gift (this can sometimes net as much as $500 per person with good credit)
  3. Use a mailing list of trusted resources to get forms filled out
  4. Place the forms in community websites where visitors feel comfortable in filling out forms
  5. Create “free stuff” websites where visitors come looking to do a little work get something for free
  6. Target market your products by offering free CDs to music lovers, etc
  7. Spread your commissions across websites targeting high and low commission item basing your advertising on customer interest versus your need for money

The richest affiliate programs require customers to become leads for major companies.

Other programs simply require users to click on a link on the website. By far the biggest of these programs is Google’s pay-per-click program. Yahoo has also started a similar program, but it is not as mature as Google. Many, many smaller programs exist claiming they pay more per click than Google but you need to watch out for several big stumbling blocks. Many marketers think that if they get to the top of a search engine in a category they will get rich. It simply does not work that way. Often traffic to a website only converts at a rate of 1-3% to AdSense clicks. This trend is true with other pay-per-click programs as well. Nothing can be more valuable than relevant ads streaming to your affiliate website. Web position is crucial, but ad relevancy is the second, critical piece. What good does it do to be the second website on Yahoo, in South Carolina business which gets an average of 6,000 hits per month when, all your Google ads are about banking? Your links will never get clicked. The same is true with other pay-per-click programs.

Information Product Marketing

Information products are powerful tools.

E-bay is the “CD” of your business portfolio, then information products are the stocks. They are either hot or they are cold. Information products are powerful tools that simply “create” money. You put together a system that sets you up as the expert. From there, you sell kits, tapes, books, etc about the topic of your business. You do need some good marketing strategy to sell these items though.

Here are some critical points about selling information products on-line:

  1. The average person sees a product 28 times before buying it on-line.
  2. The basis of any advertising program is repetition. One-shot deals don’t work. This is often why flyers and short-term newspaper ads yield bad results.
  3. You need to divide the random observers or visitors from qualified and interested buyers. You need to start a mailing list, and send out newsletters. This informs your qualified buyers that you are there and keeps them interested in your program.
  4. Open the door to your public. Ask them to give input and discuss the product at length with them. Make your sellers feel that you care about them and that your product IS worthwhile.
  5. Make your newsletters personable, don’t give your subscribers the hard sell, sell softly and talk about yourself and your life with your potential clients.
  6. Work WITH your clients. You should talk to dissatisfied customers and get their view of your product.

Below is a list of profitable on-line products for information sales:

  1. Home Businesses
  2. Medical Products
  3. Sex Products
  4. Testing Products
  5. Legal Products
  6. Cooking/Food Products
  7. Gambling Products
  8. Gaming Products

Information marketing is a business that has very clear objectives and steps when it comes to selling.

The most important point to remember is how to move people from one part of the pyramid to the next and ultimately to the buyer’s area. The mailing list and communication is the method of facilitation for this business. When potential buyers respond to ads, you HAVE to be there to talk to them. Using services like answering services or “virtual offices” simply disguise who you are. You are selling your business, so talk to your customers and sell your product yourself. Most people know it is a small operation. Stop hiding behind your website or advertisement, only large retailers and corporations can do that.

   I will list below the most common mistakes information sellers make on the internet:

  1. Selling information products you are not an expert on
  2. Refusal to talk to or face customers one-on-one
  3. Improper website design
  4. Creating a façade to hide behind with 1-800 numbers, and dead phone lines
  5. Failure to engage the customer directly and follow-up on leads

You can’t sell information you are not an expert on. It comes across in the information product. Your customers will ask for refunds. Your speech and e-mails will not be convincing. This is a nightmare. Don’t try this!

Refusing to talk to potential customers is a death nail. You are doing this because you are providing a garbage product. A strong product has a good history, low or now returns and you can talk to customers afterwards. If your product is shoddy or you are unsure, give it away first and test the waters. Poor customer feedback will destroy your reputation. It is better to test the market with any market before selling it. This is a critical point you simply must understand.

Improper website design is also a common mistake. Please note customers do not like to make a lot of clicks on websites. This means your newsletter must gather information in what Google calls the “hot zone” of the screen. Users should be able to input their e-mail address without additional clicks. Users should be able to input their addresses, purchase and perform any or other critical business activities with a minimum of additional clicks. Small business owners need to wake up. People will spend 10 minutes on Ford.com figuring this stuff out. They will not do it on simpletesting.com. Let them purchase, sign-up for newsletters and anything almost immediately after visiting your website. You will be more successful, I promise.

Let’s recap these items:

  1. Put your mailing list sign-up in the Goggle “hot zone”  of the screen
  2. Put your purchase link in the Google “hot zone” of the screen
  3. Always create a mailing list sign-up

Creating a façade to hide behind creates confusion and “space” between yourself and your customers. For instance, customers respond by calling your 800 number with live operators but you e-mail them from a yahoo address! That’s ridiculous. Facades need to be complete in order to work, and they seldom inspired trust. Trust is exactly what you are trying to build. You should simply not do this. Talk to your customers one-on-one and watch the sales come in.

Following up leads and creating a customized response for inquiries is key for sales. Call your people and let them call you. This seems contrary to the big sales mentality. Trust is the cornerstone for internet sales. Open the door to inquiries and you open the door to sales. It is that simple. Once you build this trust, you will be able to send out one e-mail to you list at 7pm, and in the morning when you wake up, you will have $1000 in your PayPal account. It is that simple.

Let’s take a hard look at E-bay:

E-bay Business Planning

Product Development Timeframe: N/A

Product Lifecycle: 30-120 days

Website Expenses: 2-6% of every purchase

Marketing Techniques:  Marketing techniques for external websites can be difficult. Links to your website are not open and obvious. E-bay bans sellers that market external sites without buying a store.

Average purchase: 0.01 – $30.00

Client List Building: Client list building on E-bay is non-Existent. Customers are not truly associated with the seller, and if you put them on a list without authorization you are spamming your customers.

Test Marketing Techniques: The Andale E-bay toolset (http://www.andale.com) is very nice, and fully functional.

Product Cloning: It is very easy to find, and clone a successful product on E-bay with the research product. Product cloning is a smart and easy way to make money fast. With the Andale tool, you can find, isolate and copy a product faster than you can sneeze.

Law of Business Diversity: Always combine businesses, so that during periods of financial stress, some business will still produce, like stocks in a portfolio. E-bay is a nice business to have because it generates steady income without much time involvement.

Cash flow Planning: You MUST plan next month’s revenue today. Your business demands you get a calendar and plant financial seeds for next month further out.

E-bay is definitely a business you can make money on while you sleep. All you have to do is create (not buy and resell) 20-40 products and sell them on E-bay. These need to be products you produce yourself that CANNOT be bought in a regular store. These products should be very cheap to produce, cheap to ship, and listed as cheaply as possible. After your initial sales you need to send out second offers. The second offers will bring additional revenue. Some examples of profitable items for sale on E-bay are:

  • Information Products (Paper)
  • Special Sauces and Mixes (Mostly water)
  • Printing/Writing Services (Service)
  • Autos (Fix broken-down cars)
  • Custom Services

These are all items you can get as cheaply as possible, add a substantial markup and then resell. E-bay can be a critical part of your portfolio, but its major limitation is that E-bay products tend to sell cheap, and if your goal is to start a full-time business you have to sell 50-120 E-bay items per week to make a living at it. This is not a pleasant prospect. Your day job may be much easier than this. Now, let’s look again at the list, this time with a little “better” view:

  • Information Products (Paper)
  • Special Sauces and Mixes (Mostly water)
  • Printing/Writing Services (Service)
  • Autos (Fix broken-down cars)
  • Custom Services

Bag any E-bay business that involves a supply-chain if you want to make money while you sleep. Supply-chain management is tough. When your digital binoculars sell on E-bay on Tuesday, you don’t want them sitting on a dock across the United States. Focus on services you can provide from home on a Saturday with just your local resources. E-bay global is a book written just on this particular subject. Purchasing abroad, paying duty, and dealing with people in other countries who may shaft you is not pleasant. Stick to what you know and make the system simple. KISS, “Keep It Simple” is a common phrase.

E-bay is a wonderful business that could have you living at the post office, spending hours wrapping and putting packages together or it could be a simple $1000 per month business like mine that takes 2 hours per week. It is your choice. Now let’s recap how to optimize E-bay:

  1. Create your own products.
  2. Manage your cash flow through advanced planning.
  3. Use the Andale tools (http://www.andale.com) to clone successful products and turn them to your advantage
  4. Focus on products that are in the $20 – $40 range, cheaper products require a lot of time and energy. You want your business to be worth your time.
  5. E-bay makes money for you 24 hours per day, with little effort if we want to optimize it.

In conclusion, E-bay is a very powerful tool if used in an optimized format, and it can be a strong contender in the business portfolio.

7 Ways To Start Earning Money

Information Entrepreneur

An information sale is a powerful, cheap and effective way of making money. It is the single most powerful tool for internet sales that exists. Entrepreneurs can make THOUSANDS of dollars per day selling information to others. Here are some key factors in this business:

  1. Product Development Timeframes
  2. Product Lifecycle
  3. Website Expenses (Keep them low and bundled)
  4. Marketing Techniques
  5. List building
  6. Test Marketing Techniques
  7. Product Cloning
  8. Law of Business diversity
  9. Cash flow planning

We are going to delve into each of these strategies and how to use them to build a successful Internet marketing business, E-bay business, Google AdSense, On-line Travel Agent, Traffic Reseller, and Search Engine submission service. You may wonder how all of this can help in all the other areas. The core business principles apply to whatever business you get into.

How to Make Money

More Ideas about working online.

How do you make money? How do you not let money use you? Well let’s take the first question? How do you make money? Here are some easy ways:

  1. Job
  2. Start a business
  3. Inherit money
  4. Lottery / Gamble
  5. Crime

Most of the population makes money via a job.

We work for others. This is a familiar, respectable and time honoured approach to supporting yourself. The only problem is sometimes you end up jobless, defeated, and angry. Welcome to the rat race!

Starting a business sounds nice.

Become the boss with all the neat stuff like suits, executive offices, and lavish lifestyle. This sounds great as long as you are successful, and you assume ALL the risk. We touched on this before. Mentally you need to prepare to go through the fire of being an entrepreneur if you have never done this before.

Inheritance is great.

You just need someone rich to die and leave it to us. This is not likely and nonrenewable. The money is always running out if you don’t make more.

The lottery is simply NOT going to happen.

Gambling is just plain stupid. Casinos don’t build 75 million dollar fountains with the money they lost to patrons.

The constants in making money are preparation, preservation and perspiration.

The preparation is what we’ll call the money trap. Preparation centers around the business construct, the marketing action, and the follow-through. Efficiency is of the utmost importance.  Preservation means that your business must preserve its value. Value embedded as hard assets, or financial instruments have long been used for value preservation. Preservation of value is re-investment. Re-investment is business building.

Perspiration is the undeniable cost of owning and running a business. Most of the fantasies about running and owning your own business fade when the self-employed realize that when they don’t work, they don’t eat. This is the hard work that nobody likes to talk about. Successful owners are diligent, disciplined and focused people. They work weekends, holidays, and virtually every day.

Most business has entry barriers, the minimum cost of investment. With the age of computers has come new businesses like internet marketing, desktop businesses, and other digital businesses. It is critical that entrepreneurs take advantage of automation. Few business forms don’t involve interaction, high entry barriers (big investments to start) and other difficulties. MOST traditional brick-and-mortar businesses involve the investment of thousands of dollars, often with no business training or mentoring in the field of business.

An excellent business is one that fits the following description:

  1. Low or no investment
  2. Requires little/low time investment
  3. Requires few/no employees
  4. Provides a RENEWABLE source of income
  5. Services are FAVORED over goods, as services are infinitely renewable, products reach a sales maturity level and decline

Below are some examples of desktop businesses you can use at home to make money:

  • Resume writing
  • E-bay
  • Internet Information Marketing

Permanent Tourists….

There are a lot of benefits to living and working outside your daily environment. It is very difficult to increase your risk tolerance while you are “trapped” by your current lifestyle. Often businesspeople “find” themselves when laid off. You may need to step outside your life to go the next level. 

Most people can’t envision themselves stepping outside their lifestyles because we are so well conditioned to go to a job. Think about it, you are trained to get up and go “somewhere” on a schedule your entire life. In kindergarten, kids are conditioned to get up and live on a schedule from that point on. True businesspeople don’t have a rigid schedule. They earn their way by balancing risk with reward, one of which is personal freedom.

What is your freedom worth? Often, we ask what is it that the successful know that we do not. The answer is nothing.

The difference between the businessman and us is that he will accept the risk or tough way to eke out a living and we will not. We implore you to summon your courage. Summon your courage and come on vacation with me for a second…..

Imagine…

You have decided to follow the desires of your heart. You have quit your job and gone home. You need a business you can run cheaply with little or no investment. On the 15-20th you have over $1100 in bills due. What will you do? You need an efficient vehicle to make money and you need to make money now! You have to step outside your life yet again. What if you had a vehicle to make money and you gave it everything you had to get it going? What if you handled it with the same professionalism you do your job, with the same preparation and concern? What would that business be worth to you?!!  There are a lot of other ways to step outside your life. You could travel to a foreign country for inspiration. Following are some destinations and what they have been noted for historically:

  • Egypt – Learning and Education
  • Paris – Food, Wine, Art
  • Italy – Food, Wine, Art, Government, Religion
  • Japan – Business, History
  • England – History, Learning and Education

How the Rich Live

Continuing my research and sharing of Internet Business ideas.

How do the rich live?

We see them on television playing polo and living the high life. What are they willing to endure to live that life? Who are these people? Why do they skip the drudgery and pain of financial struggle that most seem to endure? They pay less in taxes and earn more with seemly no effort. What are their secrets?

A better question is not “What do they know?”, but “What do they do?”.

Do you work with wealthy people. Imagine your boss is worth 20 million dollars. His boss is worth 120 million dollars. How do you change your fortune to be more like them? Well, your sense of fear has to go. These men have very little sense of fear. This is a base observation.

You can NEVER grow rich fearing loss or risk.

People become rich by being risk takers. Unfortunately this is the same personality that becomes addicted to gambling. Rich BUSINESSMEN are gamblers and risk takers. This personality is a critical piece of your persona if you expect to grow rich. Unfortunately lots of schooling and high-paying jobs put you at the opposite end of the spectrum. Executives make their living by being educated, cultured and working for security. While these men do quite well, they will almost certainly never become wealthy. Their whole lifestyle is contrary to the risk-taking mentality. One of the first characteristics of wealthy people is they have a healthy attitude concerning risk.

The other issue that most people don’t seem to understand is the value of assets and liabilities.

Many young people will say “I don’t want to borrow money for college”, but will go out and spend $30,000 on a new car. A college education can pay you everyday of your working life. What asset can you buy that pays in this manner? Perhaps an equity or liabilities portfolio, but that does not pay every two weeks. The poor do not take advantage of small improvements to better the overall effectiveness of their financial situation. Constant optimization leads to an elite status. Below are some examples of circumstances people tend to think are optimal:

  • No car or owned transportation
  • Living in a “cheap” neighborhood
  • Purchasing a car at a “low-end” car lot
  • Bad Credit “Cheaper not to pay bills”

Not having a car costs a lot. Persons without transportation have to pay for almost every place they go with taxis or friends. It is FAR more expensive to bum rides or pay for a “friend’s” gas at every turn. Cheap neighborhoods have higher insurance rates, and higher tax rates; NONE of which build value yearly. Purchasing a car at a low-end lot costs far more per month than a conventional purchase. Finally it is never cheaper not to pay your bills. You pay more for loans, credit cards, and all lines of credit.

The wealthy take advantage of lower interest rates, wealth-build opportunities, assets that build cash value, optimal housing, educational, and tax conditions.

Most people fail to take advantage of these conditions and with a rising cost of living fall farther, and farther behind.

Frying Pan and Fire

Ok so things weren’t going so well in Casablanca.

Decision made – move on.

New challenges and all that sort of thing. I was about to fly back to the UK and regroup, then an old friend contacted me.

“Do you still teach Physics?”

“If I need to.”

“I just had a Physics teacher quit at my school, send me your CV.”

“Ok.”

Two days later, interviewed and a job offer came. Cool, a steady income, cash flow, while building everything else.

Covid meant travel restrictions and special permission to travel from the government. It’s the Brave New World. No real problem.

After a few weeks teaching remotely, with a 3 hour time lag (0430 for me was 0730 for them), my permission letter came, which meant book a flight, organise a Covid test and time to move. My flight was booked for 27th September.

Delayed at Casablanca, over permission to fly. Same issue in Istanbul. However I did finally arrive early morning, 28th September.

In Baku.

Azerbaijan.

Nobody told me there was a war!

The Tipping Point For Prosperity

When I worked in Direct Sales – you know that bit where you get on the phone and make calls and visits – I came across Randy Gage “Direct Selling Success: From Amway to Zombies“. Since then I have followed his Youtube channel called Prosperity TV and read some of the Prosperity Series of Books.

Anyway, since then I have followed Randy on his blog and emails. He has started a regular post called ‘Friday Filosophy’. I get this every week and have a good 5 to 10 minutes thinking about his latest idea. This week his message tied in quite nicely with the recent posts about Optimism. I decided to share most of it with you – you can sign up yourself from his website.

These are Randy’s thoughts for Friday 25th September

“This is my weekly missive to you, exploring a subject that I’m thinking about – and I suggest you think about as well.  And what I’m thinking about is…the mental tipping point for prosperity. 

There really is a tipping point, because prosperity is always created in the mind first.  Prosperity is not having money and material things, it’s a state of consciousness.  Poverty is not the absence of money and material things, it’s also a state of consciousness.  People with positive thoughts and prosperity consciousness manifest abundance in their lives.  And people with negative thoughts and poverty consciousness struggle to achieve abundance in their lives.  Which leads to the relevant question in the issue…

What do you do, when you realize that most of your thoughts are negative?

First, you have to start catching them.  Meaning you notice when you have a lack-centered or fear-based thought.  This is much harder than it sounds.  Because you’ve been conditioned to think you are your thoughts, as opposed to the thinker of your thoughts.  (Which I’ve discussed often on my blog.) 

When you catch a bad thought, you have to stop and reposition it.  Example: You’re single and notice someone you’re attracted to at a party.  Your first thought is about being rejected.  You notice that and speak to yourself mentally.  “Isn’t that interesting?  I was thinking about meeting that person, and my first thought was rejection.  Where did that come from?  Aren’t I just making that up?  Why am I not thinking that they would be delighted to meet me?” 

They still could reject you. But even if they do, you would have started the change in your thought process.  Every time you do this, the negative thoughts lose some of their power over you – because they can no longer influence your behavior subconsciously.  They can still affect you, even give you fear.  But you know they are giving you fear, and that makes a difference.  And each time you make an incremental change, it takes you closer to the breakthrough point.

Here’s what else happens…

Every time you notice a negative thought, it becomes categorized and labeled in your mind, and you will usually notice that same thought the next time.  Each time it gets weaker in its pull over you.  You start to notice other negative thoughts, and over time you notice more and more negative thoughts, but now you reframe them.  Each time this happens, you inch a little closer to the positive side of the equation.  Then one day you wake up, and you’re having 51 percent of positive thoughts, and you’ve crossed the tipping point.

Of course, you still have negative thoughts sometimes.  We all do.  But thoughts feed on like thoughts.  Once you are at the 51 percent threshold, you have a slight majority of positive thoughts to feed on.  So soon it is 53 percent.  Then 57.  And it keeps going from there. But most importantly, you have made the jump from poverty consciousness to prosperity consciousness – and the results you manifest will improve right along with the percentage of positive thoughts. “

What do you think?

If you look into Randy’s life  you will find he went through some really hard times – drugs, alcohol, violence – and yet still became prosperous.

He is a great teacher from experience.

Could you learn from this?

Improve Your Physical Health by Being Optimistic

Being optimistic, of course, has mindset benefits, and did you know there are physical health benefits to being more optimistic? When you think of being optimistic, do you believe that some people are naturally born with it and others simply aren’t that lucky? The good news is that while, yes, some were born with a naturally cheery disposition, others can learn how to be optimistic. Even better news is being optimistic can improve your overall physical health.

The Benefits of Optimism on Your Physical Health

With a framework of a belief system of “I think I can, and I know I will,” your workouts, your exercise routines, and your high intensity interval training will transform before your eyes. With hard work and, more importantly, a committed dedication to achieving your fitness goals along with an optimistic attitude you can see your goals come to fruition.

In the story of “The Little Engine that Could,” the Little Engine (a small, blue engine) takes on the task of pulling a larger train which has broken down, up and over a mountain. With diligence and much effort, the Little Engine tries to pull the larger engine over the mountain. However, without the benefit of an optimistic mindset (“I think I can, I think I can”), the Little Engine might not have succeeded.

Once you develop an optimistic mindset and apply it to routines, the benefits include:

  • A more enjoyable workout
  • An increased capacity for a sustained commitment to your workout routine
  • The learned skill of creating momentum and reaching your fitness goals
  • An enhanced self-confidence helps you succeed in other areas of your life
  • Reaching goals with more ease by thinking optimistically
  • A willingness to take on other challenges in life
  • Experiencing satisfying results of optimistic thinking and affirming your success
  • A healthier mind and body
  • Improved sleep
  • Building your self-esteem

Focusing on how hard your workout is or how much you dislike doing it keeps your mind focused on what does not work. This will only make you think, feel, and take action steps in the opposite direction of having optimal physical health. Optimistically focusing on the thought process of “I think I can, and I know I will,” keeps your mindset in a forward-moving, goal-setting pace where your goals are more achievable.

The Mind, Body Connection of Optimism

Think about the mind, body connection. Have you ever been disappointed? What does that feel like? It probably feels like a sinking in the pit of your stomach and your shoulders begin to sag. Your emotions, thoughts, and feelings are all stored in your body somewhere. Nervousness can show up as butterflies or an upset stomach. Anxiety can show up as sweaty palms and trembling, while embarrassment shows up with a red flush to your cheeks.

If you want a better body and a better workout, instead of adding more hours to your workout routine, try taking on learned optimism instead. If you think you can and know you will, your body and mind will begin to show the results. With more effort and less time, you may begin to see better results. Your mind and body will thank you.