One of the many reasons people fail is the lack of persistence. If you have read my article earlier on Ezines Rejected My Articles, do note that my articles with them is resubmitted, and rejected again. This time, I did not follow a different editorial guideline.

I was also rejected with my submission of this blog to Blogcatalog.com. This is the list of possible reasons they replied me for the decline:

- We could not verify ownership of your blog.
- A link back, widget or meta-tag is required to verify site ownership.
- The URL you submitted is not a blog.
- The URL you submitted is solely for commercial purposes, or is suspected to be spam.
- Your blog is brand new and/or doesn’t have enough content to make it truly valuable. If this is the case, please resubmit after you have made more postings.
- Your blog contains pornographic material.
- At the time of review your blog was unavailable or there was a typo in your submission URL. Please make sure the URL submitted is correct and accessible

Hence, I began to wonder and started to amend my blog over the past week to meet their guidelines. I resubmitted at least three times and still, I received a Submission Declined answer.

Some people may at this point forgo submission of both the articles to Ezine and blog to Blogcatalog. Not me. I decided that persistence is the only way I can achieve success over the long run. Hence, I changed my strategies. For my articles, I began submitting them to other article directories that I have previously mentioned. All of them were accepted, some almost immediately. As for EzineArticles, no I have not given up on them. I continued to follow their strict guidelines and changed my submission. I have not received any update from them yet but the good thing is, they have a very good support team that never fails to explain the reasons behind their rejection.

As for Blogcatalog, instead of changing my blog again, I sent them an email to check what is wrong with my blog that resulted in the decline. After a day, their support replied that my blog is approved.

I have learned valuable lessons from this. If I had not persisted, I would not have got my blog approved at Blogcatalog. If I have not persisted, I may have not even have a chance of getting my articles approved on EzineArticles.com. Even though I am still waiting for approval, I have strong believe that this time it will be approved. I have also learned that I should have read the editorial guidelines carefully before making the mistakes. It could have saved me time on the amendments and resubmissions.

Persistence is one of the critical factors for success. And my believe for persistence is even stronger than ever before. I hope that you persist in what you do too, and may you success follow.

Recently I keep hearing people around me complaining about work. I can fully understand… Given the pressure and the lack of direction in my office, I can understand that people want OUT! I too feel the pressure and lack of direction. But as I sat through and think about how unmotivated I am here, I also think of how I can change my mindset so that it is more empowering rather than discouraging.

I too do not wish to work, but what I am looking for is to have the ability to achieve financial independence through passive and residual income. And my goal for retirement (regardless of age) is to do what I love because if I can do what I love doing, be it a job or not, it is not work. This is what many people want to achieve but how many can really live such a dream? I do not know. What I do know is this is what I am working for. I am going to build my pipleline so that water runs for me not now, but in the future.

So instead of saying ‘How I Wish I Don’t Have To Work’ I will say ‘How Can I Spend More Time To Be With The Ones I Love And Do What I Love’.

The latter is definitely more empowering and propels me to put in more effort now and to enjoy my rewards later.

I would like to introduce you to this book that I am reading. It is The Parable of the Pipeline by Burke Hedges. It is not a new book. I picked it up late… but better late than never. Anyway, this book explains the concept of leverage in very simple terms and if you embrace the concept with an open mind, it will open up the doors of possibilities for yourself.

Here is a review from Amazon.com

By Scott McKenzie (Louisville, CO United States)

The Parable of the Pipeline: How Anyone Can Build a Pipeline of Ongoing Residual Income in the New Economy (Paperback)

The parable in this book is an eye opener. The story is well done and interesting. The story was helpful in opening my eyes to the work mindset which had been ingrained into me since a child. Learning about building pipelines, which is residual income, was excellent. I highly recommend this book personally and for business building.

The problem for many people is that we are trained to work a job and have not learned how to own a business. This book teaches principles on business ownership. The story is told in such a way to help us shift from working our whole life and having little in the end, or becoming a business owner and getting financial freedom. This book goes along well with Rich Dad Poor Dad and Cash Flow Quadrant by Robert Kiyosaki – cheers

So, if you are interested to check out Burke Hedges’ The Parable of the Pipeline, you may purchase a copy from Amazon here!

My family and I watched Toy Story 3 yesterday and I sure did enjoy the long awaited movie.

In Toy Story 3, Andy is all grown up and ready to head for college. This means that he has to leave his toys behind for a fresh new start. While Andy’s intention was never to forsake his favourite toys, things did not turn out as it was meant to be.

Thus, new ‘toy’ characters are introduced and it became a whole new adventure once again for the toys.

My daughter loved the movie even though she is only a 4 year old. I liked the movie too. Like I said, there is a whole new adventure, new toys, and still, there is a very personal touch especially at the end of the movie where Andy had to part with his toys.

If you have watched Toy Story 1 and 2 and have been waiting for Toy Story 3 like me, you will not be disappointed.

Been working on my new site and about ready to test Adwords again. It’s an affiliate site anyway so hopefully can generate some sales. Am thinking of giving out some free lessons for hope of sign-ups.

I know that to make it online, I need to have my own product and stuff. Still figuring out how I should really pursue my online business. Been going through Chris Farrell’s blog. Very inspirational. Pondering on whether I should join his membership site.

Let me work on my new site first… Hope I can start my Adwords campaign by Wednesday.

I took time to rethink what do I really want for my online business and my life over the weekend. Yes indeed I am very interested to have an online business but it already took me a year and still I see no results. Should I give up? Or should I continue to pursue where my interest lies?

Anyway, I took some time to find some of the stuff I bought online and have yet to put to use. One of them is Mike Filsame’s PowerLink Generator. I bought this together with some MRR (Master Resale Rights) stuff some time back. Just didn’t have the chance to go through them.

As I though through, I realize that my approach was wrong. I went around ‘shopping’ for the next big thing and after I bought them, I did not actually use them. Maybe I should just list down the stuff that I bought for this year.

1) Viral Twitter Secret – Devon Brown (tested)
2) Magic List Bot – Paul Ponna (tested)
3) PowerLink Generator – Mike Filsame (tested)
4) Viral Friend Generator – Mike Filsame (not tested)
5) Mass Article Control – Adeel Chowdry (tested)
6) Secret Affiliate Weapon 2.0 – Ewen Chia (completed)
7) Adwords List Building – Simon Leung (completed)
8 ) Butterfly Marketing – Mike Filsame (read halfway)
9) Lead Evolution – Brian Koz (tested – did not like this)
10) Some PLR & MMR stuff

The above has cost me thousands of dollars (some of them are really expensive) and I have only put a few of them to use, or at least tested them out.

I tried PowerLink Generator yesterday and found out it works more or less like Magic List Bot (of course, MLB incorporates list building and twitter as a more complete package).

Anyway, I will take time to start learning how to use these things that I have bought for my online business.

Another thing I have come to realize is I have not been taking this as a business seriously enough. To me, it acts like a backup plan and I do it part-time. I guess I must really change my mindset and take it seriously like a business. I came to realize this through one of the free course from Eric Holmlund (http://www.ericstips.com). I am still following his lesson day by day and hopefully I will get much value from him. I am into my 14th lesson now.

I am also following this guy named Chris Farrell’s blog and reading how he started from scratch to become voted as The No. 1 Internet Service by IMReportCard.com. Thinking of whether to join his membership site. Has many great reviews and testimonials. Perhaps I should first finish what I already have and complete reading his blog before joining.

Meanwhile, there’s so much for me to do. I have to complete the following tasks for myself:

1. Revisit my previous purchases
2. Complete one of my sites
3. Finish Eric’s Tips
4. Finish reading Chris Farrell’s blog

So many things and so little time… Must really focus.

I am also starting to go through a slimming and health program. My body is really out of shape and I want to be fit for my family. I have created a blog at http://losingmyinches.blogspot.com/ to keep record of my progress. Do visit if you are free.

WARNING: May contain images that is disturbing to some (my body).

Final words: I must say I really begin to enjoy typing my post now at this blog. Because I know that I am being true to myself. Of course, I still hope to have progress and to share my experience in a positive way.

It has been slightly more than a year since I started to get involved in internet marketing. From starting my first blog, to coming up with my first website, I’d say my journey is a fun but not a very rewarding one so far.

I am going to share my experience for this one year and I am going to end this blog’s origninal direction. They say ‘Fake It Till You Make It’. I’ve learned that this does not apply to me in my online journey.

Anyway, I’m just going to share my experience for this one year and start this blog from a different approach.

My experience:

My first site http://www.visiting-singapore.com started from SiteBuildIt. I paid for a one-year fee and started learning about how internet marketing works. Then I decided to select info marketing and started my site.

I learned about selecting niches, about keywords, about how to drive traffic. I began enthusiastically going around Singapore to take photos for my site. I used the block by block site builder as I was not familiar with html. I was so excited about my site when it finally appeared on the internet, page by page and even more so when it started appearing in google for some keywords. Nevertheless, what I am earning out of this site (mainly Adsense) is not enough to ensure its continuation. Hence, with effect from March this year, I transferred it to a fellow SBIer and I trust it will be in better care. It is doing great now as I continue to monitor its pageranks and Alexa results.

My second site http://changewifme.com started in July 2009. This was my continuation of my internet marketing exploration. I was told to start a blog, so I started one with wordpress.com. I updated stuff like the changes I was going through, the books I read, the decisions I made and some other stuff. Then, I learned that on wordpress.com sites you can’t put Adsense. So I learned about buying a domain name for my blog and learned how to migrate my wordpress.com blog to wordpress.org.

My third site http://empoweringday.com (this site) – This is a continuation of my previous site. I wanted to make it like a personal development blog and share stuff about personal development. I put some Adsense scripts on it and hoped for it to make me some money. Alas, you can’t get money without traffic. As you are reading now (if you happen to be reading), I rarely update this blog now. It is this blog that lets me see that I should not be blogging about something that does not interest me as it will bring me no where. Hence, I am redefining my interests and niches. I will have to relearn what I have learned and start from scratch. Luckily for me, I am still passionate about making money online and because of what I have learned, I am certain that I can eventually do it. I just need to continue to believe that my believe will become a reality.

I will stop blogging about empowering stuff on this blog. No more fake it till you make it stuff. Instead, from this point onwards, it will just be a diary for me to document my online journey. Just pure, honest updates. I will update what I know about Internet Marketing and the steps I take every day as I work online. I believe that my hosting expires in September this year and I hope that by then, I am already making money online.

Currently I own two other sites and I will be spending some time to build them. Both are niches of my interest although they are highly competitive.

I have learned much from the Internet in this year and I know that I have been making beginner’s mistakes – Not focused on my business and jumping from niche to niche. Hence, I have decided to put my focus to only two things – to stay focused on my two sites and to learn all I can about search engine optimization/marketing.

I have also chanced on a membership site that seems to give good value. I am undecided if I should join but I will certainly check out the site (non-member portion) first.

With this, I end empoweringday.com and I shall embark on a new beginning.

Just returned from my two weeks National Service In Camp Training. Boy, I had a wonderful time with my camp mates. Caught up with them some already changed their career some had an extra child in the home and some changed their cars and homes. Good progress for everyone.

A lot of changes have occurred from the last time we met. In fact, over the course of these two weeks, I also observed changes in the company that I am working (although I am not there) and changes in my own home. Things happened, and did not happen. Whatever the case, I believe that changes occur for their own reasons.

Nevertheless, I have watched a movie over the weekend and picked up this line – When does change happen? It happens the moment you decide.

Yes, many of us knows that changes are needed in our lives. Some wants to change to lead a better life. Some wants to change to a better environment. Some just wants to stop smoking and some may want to change their boss (ha ha, just kidding).

Regardless of what you want to change, it stems from a decision made by you. No one else can make you change except yourself. And a decision is not a thought. It is an act, and this act will transform not only you but it will also transform changes around you.

So for those who have always thought of changing themselves or someone for a better tomorrow, stop thinking about it. Decide today and change!

I was taking a bus yesterday and saw a mother and her son. They were seated and the son was holding on to a workbook and looked like he was doing his homework.

“On a bus?” I thought.

Then I heard his mom start to scold his son for not understanding his mathematics homework and making mistakes.

Some of the words I heard her use were:

You are so careless
It is so easy
I can see whether you are trying or just doing blindly
This is so simple
You are taking so long
Stupid

I felt really uneasy when I heard all this and honestly, I pitied the boy, who looked the age of ten to eleven. He merely continued staring at his homework with a blank look on his face.

At this time, some of the other passengers on the bus began to look at them as the mother’s voice were pretty audible. Still, she continued.

I alighted when the bus reached my stop.

But my mind continued to ponder on her words.

I am not condemning her teaching her son but I am puzzled at why she had to use such disempowering words. To me, it may not help his learning at all. And I personally think that we should use more encouraging words to help the young ones learn instead. Nevertheless, I am in no position to comment on her actions.

My mind also brought me back to a local movie I watched entitled “I Not Stupid”.

I recalled that the movie mentioned that as parents, we give our children all the praises we can give when they are young. When they took their first steps, when they said their first words, we were always there to offer praises. “Well Done!” we said. “Good Job!”

But as our children grow older, such praises slowly turned into scoldings. We reprimand them for not paying attention, we punish them for not doing their job well, we no longer praise them, even if they did something that deserves our recognition.

I could not agree more. Because this was exactly what I saw on the bus.

And I questioned myself if I would be like this when it’s my turn to parent my growing daughter at a later stage. And I pondered and pondered.

I can only say I hope not.

I will do my best to empower her journey to be a positive one. To learn that life can be hopeful and academic study is merely one of the ways to move to the next stage of life.

Because to me, life is not all academic. There are many important things to learn and have fun with. There are many things to appreciate in life, while we have the chance.

My daughter has had Hand-Foot-Mouth-Disease (HFMD) for the last two weeks and I had to spend time to look after her. Good thing is she has finally recovered and is back to school this week. Hence, I am also back to work.

I would like to share this story that I have received from a friend. There is no title to the story so I will just call it

The Story

Two men, both seriously ill, occupied the same hospital room.

One man was allowed to sit up in his bed for an hour each afternoon to help drain the fluid from his lungs.

His bed was next to the room’s only window.

The other man had to spend all his time flat on his back.
The men talked for hours on end.

They spoke of their wives and families, their homes, their jobs, their involvement in the military service, where they had been on vacation.

Every afternoon, when the man in the bed by the window could sit up, he would pass the time by describing to his roommate all the things he could see outside the window.

The man in the other bed began to live for those one hour periods where his world would be broadened and enlivened by all the activity and color of the world outside.

The window overlooked a park with a lovely lake.

Ducks and swans played on the water while children sailed their model boats.Young lovers walked arm in arm amidst flowers of every color and a fineview of the city skyline could be seen in the distance.

As the man by the window described all this in exquisite details, the man onthe other side of the room would close his eyes and imagine this picturesque scene.

One warm afternoon, the man by the window described a parade passing by.

Although the other man could not hear the band – he could see it in his mind’s eye as the gentleman by the window portrayed it with descriptive words.

Days, weeks and months passed.

One morning, the day nurse arrived to bring water for their baths only to find the lifeless body of the man by the window, who had died peacefully in his sleep.

She was saddened and called the hospital attendants to take the body away.

As soon as it seemed appropriate, the other man asked if he could be moved next to the window. The nurse was happy to make the switch, and after making sure he was comfortable, she left him alone.

Slowly, painfully, he propped himself up on one elbow to take his first look at the real world outside.
He strained to slowly turn to look out the window besides the bed.

It faced a blank wall.

The man asked the nurse what could have compelled his deceased roommate who had described such wonderful things outside this window.

The nurse responded that the man was blind and could not even see the wall.

She said, ‘Perhaps he just wanted to encourage you.’

Epilogue:

There is tremendous happiness in making others happy, despite our own situations.

Shared grief is half the sorrow, but happiness when shared, is doubled.

If you want to feel rich, just count all the things you have that money can’t buy.

‘Today is a gift, that is why it is called The Present.’

Yesterday as I was queuing up to buy breakfast, I noticed that the couple preparing the food was in some sort of argument. The gentleman was reprimanding the lady for not doing something right and he kept scolding her non-stop. The lady, on the other hand, chose to remain silent although I could see from her facial expression that she was not happy.

As I continued to wait for my turn to order my food, I noticed that the lady turned more and more agitated by the partner’s remarks and she started showing her frustrations through the way she handles the food orders.

Soon, the predictable happened. A bowl of chili sauce fell from the table to the floor due to the way she started throwing things around and the whole cooking area became a mess. Needless to say, she received more scolding from the man.

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Today, however, as I queued up for lunch at a different place, I noticed something different. This food outlet is operated by three or four staff and from the way they took order, prepared food, and presented it to the customer for payment, it was one fluent flow of motion. Minimal communication was needed as each one of them knew exactly what their role was.

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From the two incidents above, it allowed me to learn some important lessons.

For to work well with partners, there is a very clear need for a common goal and clearly defined roles. And when these are set right, there is also a need for a very efficient system to be in place. A system that is easy to implement, and it should be one that allows you to achieve maximum results with minimum effort. Take fast food restaurants as an example. They are successful because food can be served in the least time needed due to an extremely efficient system.

And when you have this kind of partnership, to me, what follows is understanding and communication.

For the first incident, if there was positive communication about how things should be done and could be done better, I believe that the outcome will change. Communication creates understanding which results in positive outcome. Lack of communication, on the other hand, leads each party to ‘guess’ what the other party wants and more often than not, it is a wrong guess. And when each other’s needs are not met, disagreements will set in.

For those who are already in a business partnership, it will be good to check if you have a common goal with your partners? And do you set very clear roles and have a system in place? Most importantly, are you communicating with your partner so that your understanding can only bring out the best in your venture?