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10/18/05  Fast Boat to Where?

"They don't work," she said.

"They take money from the government, and do not work."

Her face was flushed, and she obviously felt strongly about it.

I was discussing politics (again) with my guide. 

"So what," I asked.  "Do you get a "gold star" for working hard?  Do you go to Nirvana?"

How to explain internet marketing, where a good idea coupled with a brilliant promotion can generate a fortune over a weekend?  Where you can be fabulously successful while working an hour or two a day?

It's fascinating to watch capitalism change East Germany.

My guide was confused.  She knew that work was "good," somehow, but she couldn't quite articulate why.

She knew it was "wrong" to take money from the government, but she wasn't sure why.

I started to explain that you have make huge political contributions or be an oil company to receive government handouts that were really meaningful, but I just didn't have the German for it. 

Since the people receiving the handouts had to spend it immediately, all it was doing was funneling the money through them into the economy- where each Euro could be spent several times.  An indirect subsidy to the beer, food and housing industries.

In the picture to the left, a neighbor noticed the band heading out for a gig, and came running over- "I have bratwurst!"

That's East Germany, to me.  The sharing of (perceived) scarce resources between friends.

My guide should be a little careful about running rough shod into the future- she might end up with a country where a guy could go to jail for years for stealing a hundred bucks from a 7-11 while another guy has to "retire" with full benefits for stealing millions from "the government."

Or a country where a politically connected corporation can steal enough in a month to feed every poor person in the country for a year.

Where you can just barely see the homeless people sleeping under the freeway through the tinted windows of your Hummer.

Naw- there ain't no country like that.

My guide was circling over a fairly interesting question, though.  Why do we work?  What motivates the Joe Vitale's and Mark Joyner's to sit over the hot computer for hours when they could be doing anything they liked?  Or nothing at all?

Why do some guys hang out down to the corner store and drink beer for breakfast? 

And what about me? 

What am I doing slogging around Germany on a tour that would challenge a much younger guitarist?  And working a couple of hours a day on my "Portable Empire?"  And reading advanced Social Psychology books like Indiana Jones, looking for the clues that lead to the click-whir, which leads to the "cha-ching.?"

This is part of the answer- Johan S. Bach used to work and play in this church.  You can still hear organists playing his music, sitting on the rough wooden pews.

But that doesn't explain why I'm touring- it just explains why I'm in Europe.

The trick about "work" is that it's the boat that carries you where you want to go.  It's the means through which you achieve your goals.  Only rarely is attachment to the boat a good idea.  When you get to your destination, it's ok to get out of the boat.

Or not.

Some people like riding in the boat.  That's cool- in an infinite universe, such as the one we happen to be living in- there is no shortage of resources.  That's the big news. 

The boat is fuelled by ideas.  If you're using any other fuel, you're wasting your time. 

The better the fuel, the faster the boat goes- and the less time you have to spend in the boat to get where you want to go.  if you've got great ideas and happen to like to work, you can end up going quite a long way.

Right now, most of my German friends who have jobs are trading time for money.  We know that doesn't work.  That's a slow boat.

This guy has a clue-  he's a free-lance bread merchant. 

His compensation, I suspect, is tied to how much bread he sells on the street.  That's a boat that has some potential- I could come up with a business plan for him that would include duplicating the costume and franchising the idea.  Might be huge.

When you really get in the groove, though, is when you're not working- you're playing the game.  It isn't work at all.

I love the internet marketing game.  It's not hard- you identify a need, you provide a solution, and you tell them about it.  Like chess, the moves are easy to learn.  You can actually "play a game" using memorized moves.

You can be successful at internet marketing by just following the directions on the side of the box- that's what meta-webs, adsense, and the other systems processes do.  Follow the directions, and they make money.

To me, it's far more interesting to get into the game.  I first noticed this when I was making records- yep, back in the days when you recorded on tape and the final product was pressed into a vinyl disc.

There are times when I was recording music when I would lose all track of time.  I was totally hypnotized by the act of creation, and there is nothing like hitting the "playback" button and realizing that you have created a beautiful thing and it is good.

I can get the same rush from writing and creating products (what time is it, anyway?)

I said that work was a boat that takes you where you want to go- if you're very, very lucky, it becomes a magic carpet that you really enjoy riding.  That's what the Portable Empire is all about.  Realizing that life is an adventure, and putting that sense of adventure into every single thing we do.

So, where do you want to go?

Stay tuned- there are some really exciting things going on that are going to make it easy for you to have a portable empire of your own.

10/10/05 Dangerous Knowledge that you need!

Let's take a walk around historic Weimar, Germany, and see what we can learn about life and internet marketing-

Germany is a wonderful place for gathering perspective.  Looking from a distance.

The buildings they put their history in, their museums, are older than our history.  Great civilizations and alarming innovations come- and then gone.

A depressingly familiar sounding despot attempted to conquer the world.  He's gone.  The world's still here.  That gives me hope.  He's never mentioned, but I think I saw him on the balcony of the Elephant Hotel.

The "impersonating a rock star" tour continues.  I keep looking over my shoulder for the "rock-star police," but apparently my scheme is escaping their notice.

As you can see, I'm keeping it casual. 

It's the "no-stress" tour- at least for me.  I'm concentrating on the music, which is probably the least important part of this (or any) tour, from the audience's perspective.

A savvy few are documenting the tour on video- lots of cameras- but the general public would be more interested if I made it look harder, and wore my flashy clothes.

We all know, by now, how to get a crowd's attention- right?  It's just like writing a great sales letter- headline, curiosity, lead them into the first sentence, keep 'em guessing, close with the "offer"-  I've got five CD's out on ZYX Records, and they're all available right after the show...

They call it the "music" business, but it's not.  It's about licensing deals and product placement and tour endorsements and video screens and having the whole show Midi'd so the singer can concentrate on their moves and not have to worry about playing music.  The worst it can sound is perfect, because nothing's live... what matters is how it looks, right?

I think it's interesting to have three experienced musicians on stage actually manipulating their instruments.  The blues form is just as primitive and restricting as the Italian Sonnet or the fugue- it's just a simple framework to hang improvisations on.  Some people get it.  Some would prefer more sizzle and less steak, but that's tough.

The coolest aspect of having created my portable empire is the freedom it brings- instead of being concerned about pleasing the audience, I can play music for the right reasons. Selfish ones...  more on that in a minute.

Bratwurst, antipasta, salad, coffee...  that's all in the works.  

Just like in my family- my host does the cooking while his spouse plays.  In this case, with their rabbit, "Henry."  Henry is an aristocratic rabbit whose ears hang down instead up.

In the meantime, I'm editing and updating a couple of e-books.  Work does not stop just because I'm on tour.  I'm definitely getting some perspectives here that I would not have gotten if I hadn't come to Germany. 

Got to keep that "portable empire" rocking.

The next step is to release the e-books, as well as companion audios - with enhanced learning Milagro VF and original music in the background- before Christmas.  You're going to love them.  It's in your best interest to grab them quick when they're announced.

Meanwhile, the band played the "Zweibel-Markt" festival.

It's an ancient celebration of the onion harvest, but at this point in history, it's just the name of the city-wide party.  There were dozens of stages with live bands from all over the world.

I think it's fascinating to visualize minstrels, through-out history, playing for the onion festival. 

We played a short set, and then I visited with some friends, and walked around snapping pics.

Conversations, at any but the most superficial level, tend to gravitate towards politics- they had an inconclusive election- too close to call.  Unlike some other countries, neither candidate has stolen the election.  They're discussing, negotiating... they might even be trying to decide what's best for the country.

The issues seem simple to me- because I don't know enough to see the fine shades of gray, it really looks black and white.

One candidate represents the people who are in favor of a social net.  A guaranteed minimum income- Germany has no poor people right now.  Everybody gets enough to live and eat. 

In East Germany, where capitalism is a shocking idea- still- to many, and the psychological tools necessary to understand, much less compete, are lacking- well, the social net is pretty popular.

Without it, Germany will start looking a lot more like Texas.  Homeless people.  Hungry people.  Street people.  Desperate people...

The other candidate represents the people who are having to pay for the social net.  They work long hours and make sacrifices to get ahead, and resent their money going to people who don't have jobs.  If they get their way, Germany will look a lot more like home- Hummers and guns to protect you from the street people.

Sound familiar?

And what's that got to do with internet marketing?

Plenty.  It's the absolute key to what motivates people: their own self interest.  Betsy and I were talking about this, and she mentioned that an exception may be parents, in terms of their children.

Maybe. 

It's hard to see this clearly in your own back yard.  Too much information... there's always a "yes, but" response. 

But here, it's easier for me to see.  The people who need (or think they need) the social net want it, and they don't care who pays for it, or how.  The overall good of the country doesn't even enter the conversation.  They just want their money.

The people who are paying for the social net want it gone, or greatly reduced.  Those others can get a job.  Or not.  The obvious conclusion to their argument- that those who can't get a job will fall further down the social/economic scale so that they can go further up... buy more cars, nicer houses, take nicer trips...  isn't mentioned.  They just want their money.  Since they've already got the money, and therefore the power, my money's on this party winning. 

For our purposes, keeping in mind that a person will do what is in their own best interest- pretty much regardless of the consequences to others- is the sort of dangerous knowledge that we can use in our own best interest.

After all, that's what's important, right?

10/07/05  Changing the Frame!

These stairs have been leading people to the top of this bell-tower since 1100 A.D.

Sometimes, to see what you're looking at, and to find what you're looking for, you need some perspective.  Some distance between yourself and your subject.

It works.  From the top of the ancient tower, my lithe guide and I looked out over the orange rooftops while she pointed out places of interest in the city that would have been hard to describe from on the ground.

As you know (because I keep harping on it- it's important!), the real change in my life happened when I completely changed the way I was looking at the world.

The picture probably didn't really change- objective reality, if there is such a thing, is a constant.  However, by changing the frame through which I viewed the world, my subjective reality changed dramatically.

All it took was a little distance, and the willingness to believe that the world could be different.

Part of the process of changing that frame was traveling to Europe.  I was 47 years old before I ever left the U.S.

Oh, I had been as far south as Monterey, Mexico- but Monterey is just Houston South.  Not much of a change, or need to change.

East Germany- now that's a change.  My first tour, I spoke no German, and the band spoke very little English.  It was remarkably powerful for me-

You know how you can get into a "rut?"  The way things are done are just the way things are done, and you don't really have a reason to find better ways to do them, because it never occurs to you that there could be another way to do them, because the way things are done is just the way things are done...

And then you get a wake-up call- walk off the airplane into a place where things are done quite differently- and in some cases, much better.

It makes you wonder, doesn't it?

Looking around with new eyes, the question becomes, "is there another way of looking at this?"

Just asking the question will totally change your frame- and it could lead you to success beyond your wildest dreams.

It has for me- and my dreams are pretty wild!

Some appallingly small number of Americans hold passports.  And an even smaller percentage use them.

Just as I could see the town of Erfurt, Germany much clearer from the top of a thousand-year old bell-tower, you will see America much clearer from a distance- and away from the alarming barrage of persuasion and intimidation messages that Americans are bathed and bombarded with daily.

Although I miss my family, friends, and master-mind group, I have to admit that I come up with some of my best, and most profitable ideas while walking through medieval plazas, or sitting alone in a centuries-old house in a small village in East Germany.

The lack of distractions helps me focus on what's important.

So, how can you change your frame?

What opportunities are sitting right in front of you- that you only need to shift a few degrees left or right to actually see- and take advantage of?

10/04/05  Portable Empire- Doing the Time Warp, again.

What century is this, anyway?

The pics on this page are from Meiningen, Germany.

On the medieval plaza, surrounded by old and majestic buildings, there is a fair going on.  Walking over the tiny bridge and looking at the architecture and scenery, I wouldn't be surprised to hear the clop-clop of horses hooves as knights on their way to the crusades thundered by.

Beer and spiced wine are being consumed.  Bratwurst, Indian food, and Turkish food are going fast.

 Children are bouncing and getting wired on candy. 

Everybody wants to ride the ferris wheel.

I'm deep in the former German Democratic Republic.  The people here have had an "interesting" time of it.  Since the end of World War 1, anyway, they've been bounced from political system to political system- the Weimar Republic, the Third Reich, and then the Russians.  Then Capitalism. 

Whew- what a ride.

The German Democratic Republic was really none of the above-  it was a satellite state of the U.S.S.R. 

The Ruskies weren't real interested in capital investment, so much of East Germany is pretty much like it was at the turn of the Century.  In fact, much of it is pretty much like it was several centuries ago.

For a history buff like me, it's heaven.

I spend a few hours back in the 21st Century tending to my Portable Empire.  Coaching, customer service, blogging...  then I step through the door into a very different world.

For many of the people I meet, I'm the only American they've ever seen.  They're struggling to learn English, they get their information about the U.S. from T.V. - Think "Dallas."  When they find out I'm from Texas, they assume that I live on a ranch and drive a horse.

The fascinating part for me is that they want to tell an American their story:  what life was like in the GDR, how hard it is now...

They were promised a "cradle to the grave" socialism.  In 1989, when the Berlin wall came down, they got their freedom- including the freedom to starve. 

Some of them are making the transition beautifully.  Some aren't.

Beer helps.

I can kind of relate- the start of the "Portable Empire" experiment- the start of my internet marketing career- came as the result of me realizing that everything I thought I knew was wrong- and I had better change my beliefs, thoughts, and programming if I was going to improve my world

Of course, it was my choice.  And my world didn't really change that much... I had the benefit of a "western" education, and a working knowledge of capitalism.

Obviously, I'll never know exactly how it feels to have your whole world change overnight the way the East Germans do.

Sometimes, having everything change overnight is exactly what you need. 

There have been books, for example, that changed my world-view immediately.  Conversations.  Seminar lectures.

Then there were the knocks on the door, or the late-night phone calls that also changed my life irrevocably...

Like I mentioned below- I'm treating this trip as a vision quest.  Seeing what it might be like to lose my ethno and geographic centricity.

A strange time-warp of a country where I don't know the language...
 

Perfect!

10/02/05 - The Portable Empire IN Germany-

So, the question is, "is it possible to continue growing, building, and maintaining an internet business while exploring the world and having fun?"

The answer is, "yep."

I choose to take my portable empire on the road, because I love to travel.  Between sets, it's fascinating to me to sit with, in this case, Germans, and discuss their local politics and environment.  I want to have a deeper understanding of the world.

Your portable empire journey may be from the bedroom to the kitchen...  the concept is the same.

That's what I love about the internet lifestyle- it's about the freedom to go where you want to go, do what you want to do, whenever you like- without silly frustrations like bosses, traffic, punching a clock (or in my case, punching a boss), etc.

(for the guitar nerds out there, that's a custom strat going through a Voodoo-Labs sparkle drive, a Marshall bluesbreaker, a Dano wah, and a Line 6 tape echo simulator, into a Fender stage 120 amp.)

Here's my office.  I've managed to tap into the house internet access, which is twice as fast as the service I have at my house in Texas, and costs 3 euros a month.  I've replaced the house computer with my laptop, which is the same computer I use at home- all of my software, passwords, etc. are available at the touch of a button.

I didn't have any problem getting the laptop to Germany, even though I flew Delta- a word to the wise:  "Delta's employees are angry and vocal about the bankruptcy."

Maybe I should offer them a copy of the "Absolute Beginner's Guide to Internet Wealth?"  That's another beautiful thing about a portable empire.  You're not tied to a local economy.

German beer.  'nuff said.

No additives, no preservatives, made from natural ingredients according to laws that are centuries old, from recipes that are much older than that.

We've started the tour in small clubs.  I like that part best- festivals are fun, too, but I like to hang out with the people between sets.

After the show, the waitress in the back got her English textbook, and asked me for some help with her English. 

Remember, until 1989, the East Germans had to learn Russian- no English.  It came as a rude shock when the wall came down to find out that Russian was not, in fact, the language of world trade.

So- English is very important in East Germany, where unemployment is very high.

Shortly, there were seven or eight people gathered around the table while I gave an impromptu English lesson.  It's a way to give back.

They do love music.

It makes me realize just how lucky I am to live near Austin and San Antonio- there are world class musicians playing clubs every night. 

In East Germany, there's really not much available in the way of live music.  Bands that have pretty much run out of steam in the U.S. continue to tour here- sometimes with an original member or two.

Even that is hours away for these people, and gas in Germany is pushing $6.00 a gallon. 

Of course, I'm lucky to be able to play to such hungry audiences, too.

This, by the way, is the second strangest autograph I have ever signed.

I'm treating this tour as a vision quest.  A chance to get in touch with what I really want to do next- as well as the final test of the portable empire. 

So far, it's effortless.  My coaching clients are getting the instruction they need.  I'm handling the customer service for the Milagro Research Institute every morning- no problem.  I'm keeping my newsletters current and doing research- (I brought psychology text books for a little light reading, as well as the obligatory Kinky Friedman novel.)

After the tour, and after the Big Seminar, I'll be working on a way to share the portable empire concept with others.  If you've got any ideas or suggestions, email me at pat@patobryan.com

And I'm watching...  hungry crowds eager to learn, and learning English... that sounds like my kind of market. 

Stay tuned!

9/23/05- The Portable Empire Does Germany-

(to see pictures of Joe and his new guitar, keep reading!)

Therapist, coach, and author Carolyn Matheson has just released her new book, "Yes to Less Stress."

Since her time goes for about $700 bucks an hour, getting an ebook you can refer back to over and over again for a small fraction of that is a screaming deal. 

If you're dealing with stress at any level (in other words, if you're breathing) you need this book. 

Click HERE.

We're still sending positive energy toward Rita. 

The storm has veered to the East and is apparently going to miss Houston.  That's really the best possible outcome, unless it were to decide to just reverse itself and go play harmlessly in the ocean.

Keep those positive vibes coming!

I was just thinking that hurricanes are wild, unharnessed energy.

Energy comes in many forms.

I had lunch with Mark Joyner (and about a dozen other people) in Phoenix.  We had sushi.

My brain scans sushi as "bait."  I had rice.

However, it was worth it to listen to Mark and Craig Perrine talk about marketing.  Their ideas are charged with energy.  Out of this energy comes products that make, in some cases, millions of dollars.

This led me to think about lists.  You can generate a lot of energy by sending emails to your list.  I met several guys at the seminar who had lists of over a million subscribers.  Sending information to a million people with the press of a button is powerful- I'm visualizing Thor sending a million lightning bolts in an instant.  This is that powerful, but you can do it from any "hot-spot" on the planet.

That leads, at least in my mind, to money.  I've heard that "money is energy" for years, but I've only recently come to see how that works.

You add the energy of a good idea with the energy of a big list, and you create energy in the form of money.

Except money doesn't exist. 

A coaching client in South Africa sends $500 to my paypal account, and I can immediately use that money to buy Indian food and coffee in Berlin.  Or transfer it to my bank in Austin.  Or buy something in Malaysia or Hong Kong that will be shipped across the globe and be waiting when I get back from Germany.

At no time does a dollar bill exchange hands.  It's all energy.  And the stronger the energy you are able to focus at any given time, the more energy you're able to generate.

And it doesn't require much energy!  Unless I'm putting together a new product, I can usually get my work done in less than two hours a day. 

And, most interestingly, I can put in that two hours anywhere on the planet. 

That's what the "Portable Empire" is all about.

For the next month, I'll be posting from Germany.  I'm taking the portable empire on the road. 

My goal, is to go where I want to go, and do what I want to do, when I want to.

And then, once I've solved all the problems and learned all the tricks, I can teach that.  In the meantime, we'll learn together.  .

To see where I'm playing, click HERE.  My agents will be adding more dates.  They don't believe in giving me too much advance notice.

You're probably wondering why I tour.  Sometimes, I do, too.  It's not for the money.  I usually lose money touring after the expenses are deducted from the gross.  It definitely takes time away from what I do best, which is making and marketing products online.

This is probably my last tour.  I intend to treat it as a vision quest.  Distance gives perspective.  I intend to set the intention of mapping out my path to the next level while I'm watching the German countryside zoom by.  I intend to have fun, reconnect with my German friends, and take a good hard look at what I'm going to do next.

Up to this point, internet marketing has been a fun game.  I suspect it will always be fun.  I'm curious to see what I can accomplish as I get serious with it, and treat it like a business. 

Want to join me on my vision quest?  You don't even have to leave your house.  Just set aside a little time each day and close your eyes.  Set the intention to visualize where you want to be in six months, a year, five years.  Feel it.  Immerse yourself in having already attained it.

At Thursday's MasterMind meeting (my last until November) Joe and I celebrated our success with the Pelmanism project by exchanging gifts.  He gave me a cigar-lighter fit for Donald Trump.  I gave him a guitar.  Check it out.

It's an updated design based on a National Steel guitar, which was popular with the old blues guys in the 20's and 30's.  It's got a unique tone, and is LOUD.

This one even gets louder- it's got two pickups, so you can plug it into a guitar amplifier and wail. 

The secret is out.  That's what internet marketers do when they're not internet marketing- they wail on their national steel guitars.

Anyway- I'll be posting pictures of castles, cathedrals and rowdy Germans.

Stay tuned...

9/18/05  The Portable Empire in Phoenix

Before I show you around Phoenix, and show you the sexiest seminar picture in history, I want to tell you a story. 

Check this out.  I get emails every day from people who want me to promote their products.  I check them all out- and it's obvious that most of them are not right for my subscribers. 

A few days ago (I'm watching the sunlight on the mountains as the sun rises in the sky.  Who needs T.V.?  You can just sit and watch the shadows as they move across the mountain.  Fascinating.)

Anyway, a few days ago I got an email about a book called "Mind Over Money."  You can go HERE to check it out.

I realized that it would be perfect for my subscribers.  It's an intelligently written 30-day course that uses basic principles of psychology and the sort of techniques we talk about in "The Lost Art of Pelmanism" to help you get control of your inner real-estate.  Your mind.  And we all know that once you've got control of your mind, everything else just falls into place.

I really like the "one simple lesson a day" aspect of it.  Go HERE to snag it (it comes with lots of bonuses, of course, and is only available until the 27th of Sept.).

Phoenix.  Sprawling town of improbable mountains, intense colors, and one of the most interesting internet marketing seminars in history.

This is the view from my hotel room- it's even better at night.  I'm trapped in this very comfortable hotel room with my laptop computer, good coffee and cigars.  The Beatles are on the stereo, and there's a full moon out tonight.  The Portable Empire on the road.

Oh yea.  Want to hear about the seminar?

You don't come to internet marketing seminars expecting surprises, do you?  They're usually fairly predictable affairs. 

I guess if you were expecting to be surprised, you wouldn't be- but nothing prepared us for what went on today.

Michael Fortin and his partner Sylvie Charrier were giving their presentation.  They've come up with an alarmingly clever product that converts keywords in text into hyperlinks that are pulled from a database of clickbank products.  It does a lot of other stuff, too.  It's really quite revolutionary.

Towards the end of the presentation, Michael, who showed no noticeable signs of instability before-hand, suddenly dropped to one knee and- on the microphone, in front of a severely shocked crowd- proposed to Sylvie.

Totally romantic-  "Will you marry me?" he asked.

He presented her with an engagement ring on the spot.

The crowd, of course, went wild.

This was supposed to be a surprise.

Sylvie, who is no slow cookie, responded with a ring engraved with the word "yes."

Brave men, strong women, and Craig Perrine clapped and cried.  It was truly touching.

If you want to visit Michael and Sylvie to congratulate them- Michael is HERE.  Sylvie is HERE.

It didn't hurt sales, either- once the emotional dust settled and the two love birds finished their presentation, people were throwing their credit cards at them.

 Literally.

Check out the power point slide in the background.   That's funny!  I wonder if Michael planned it that way?

I was watching some of the other speakers while this was going on, and I could read their minds.  They were wondering what they could do to get the audience's attention like Michael and Sylvie did.

I predict that internet marketing seminars get a lot more interesting.  Michael and Sylvie have raised the bar.   I'm sure we can expect more, and more shocking stunts from the stage.  There may be beds on the stage at the big seminar.

Craig Perrine, Sylvie, Michael and me in the lobby during a break.

Craig will be the "best man" at the wedding.

Mark Joyner had the crowd dancing in the aisles. 

This was a good thing...  the speakers are covering an amazing amount of material.

For hours on end we sit and absorb information.  It's good information.  It will increase our revenue and we want to hear it.

It makes my butt hurt.

Here's a million dollar idea- a free-lance massage therapist would make a fortune if they were to set up their massage bed (or borrow the one from the stage) and offer ten/fifteen minute massages during the breaks.

One of the things that goes on at seminars is "power networking."

Some people have products they're promoting- they need to meet the people who have big lists.

The guys with lists are really popular.  Kinda like the guys who take their '59 Les Pauls to guitar shows.  Or the only pretty girl in the bar at closing time.

There have been some impromptu brain-storming sessions that have given birth to some businesses.

There is an aura somewhat like a "singles bar."  You can tell by watching who's making deals...

They walk around with a dazed look and a huge smile...

The ones who aren't getting lucky are starting to get a little brittle. 

Business and personal relationships are formed.  I've had a blast with the meta-webs guys, some wild conversations about spirituality, the Tao Te Ching, Kerouac and the beat poets, laughed so hard I almost fell out my chair... 

You need to go to seminars.  If you're going to build your own portable empire, you need the knowledge and the relationships.  I have never been to a seminar that didn't increase my income by at least ten-times what it cost to attend.

One of the speakers pointed out that the human community is moving online.  We don't really know our physical neighbors anymore- I have no idea who the people are who live next door to me- but we have intimate online relationships with people all over the planet.  This trend is going to continue.  One of our boys, for example, lives in Wimberley with us physically, but lives in California with his friends online.  Because of the time difference, he's up way too late and sleeps way too late- in the physical world of Texas.  He's on California time-

This virtual world allows us amazing possibilities.  My booking agents are in Germany.  My web design guy is in Pakistan.  My coaching clients email me from all over the planet. 

Consequently,  my income comes from all over the planet.  This is the first time in the history of the world that one guy with a laptop computer can run an international business, with outsourced labor and international product delivery- and immediate payment. 

There used to be bumper stickers in Texas during the last oil-boom that said, "If you don't have an oil-well, get one." 

Today, it should read, "If you don't have a portable empire, get one."

It's all about freedom.  The freedom to do, have and be anything you want.  Go anywhere on the planet and still keep generating income. 

Most of the action happens in your mind.  It's the great ideas that bring in the money.  However, you need a way to get that great idea into a sellable package, and then let the world know it's there.

I've gotten tons of email asking me about the infrastructure of a Portable Empire.  What kind of software do you need?  What kind of hardware do you need? 

Here's how I do it.

Hardware:  (on the road) laptop computer, digital camera, portable stereo (CD player, mini-speakers, noise-canceling headphones), video camera, cell phone.  The Glenfiddich and cigars are optional, but I find that they help.  I like being able to set up my command center in the same way in each hotel room.  I can travel with a backpack and a carry-on duffle bag, and carry the physical part of my empire with me without having to check any bags.

Hardware:  (back at the office)  I make a lot of my own audio products.  If you deal with e-books, etc., you probably don't even need an office.  Scanner, printer, recording studio.

Software:  You need to have a way to put websites online.  I use Microsoft Frontpage.  Microsoft Word would also work for the kind of websites I make. 

You need an autoresponder to stay in touch with your readers.  At the top of this page, on the right, is a banner-ad for 1ShoppingCart- they provide my autoresponder.  Click on that if you need one.

Email:  I use MicroSoft Outlook and it really, really, really sucks.  Unfortunately, I'm not aware of anything that's better. 

Web Browser:  I use FireFox 90% of the time. 

Photos:  my laptop reads SD cards, which saves a lot of time.  I can just pull the card out of the camera and put it into the computer.  I use PhotoStudio 5.  Photoshop is better.

Video: Sony Vegas Pro works for me. 

Audio:  I could set up an audio-product generating room at seminars, but I don't want to be the recording engineer.  However, I have Sonar 4 on my laptop, and I've used that to record products at Joe's kitchen table, my dining room table, coffee shops, etc. 

Accounting:  I use Quicken.  My CPA is getting pretty adamant about keeping records, etc.  I detest and resent every second I spend doing book-keeping.  I dislike the consequences even more.  Quicken sucks, but it's the best of what's available.

More pics and info from Phoenix coming up soon- stay tuned!

9/11/05 - The Portable Empire in Atlanta

Do you like to travel?

Do you like to make money?

I thought so.

Me, too.

In the past few weeks, I've carried my "Portable Empire" experiment to Houston, Texas, Corpus Christi, Texas, and Sacramento California. 

Next weekend, I'll be in Phoenix, Arizona.

Two weeks later, I fly to Germany and hook up with my band for a
month long tour.  I'll post the dates and locations in a few days- and I'll be blogging and posting from Europe during the Month of October.

This weekend I attended the "Success Mania" seminar in Atlanta, Georgia.

It was a mixed bag- I'll give you a full report in just a minute.
 

The whole point of the "Portable Empire" experiment is to discover if it's
possible to go on "permanent vacation," and still successfully run my online
businesses.

I'd say the evidence is pretty overwhelming that it can be done as long as 1) I don't have any employees and 2) I find a way to involve my family.  From talking to other internet marketers, it's pretty clear that balance is the absolute toughest part of the biz.

This is the seminar itself.  I didn't count the people, but the room is "ballroom" sized.  It  wasn't completely full, but there was a large and very, very responsive audience.

When I say responsive, I mean that they were engaged with the speakers in a very church-congregation sort of way, and they bought an alarming amount of products.

Credit cards were steaming.  Bank accounts all over the country are starving.

The products came in various shapes and packages, but really, most of the speakers were selling "hope." 

Hope that the buyers would be able to, by buying the product,
be able to break out of their lives and into the life-style of their
dreams.

Buying a product ain't gonna make 'em a dime.

I teach my coaching clients the hard, cold truth- that you can only make money online by either making products, selling products, or doing both.  Most of the attendees at this conference do neither- they're into network marketing and MLM, which means that they don't control the products or the sales. 

Some of the speakers were awesome, some of them were alarmingly cynical and, in one case, downright larcenous (in my opinion.  I'm not a lawyer).  More on that in a minute.

The hotel where the convention was held, the Atlanta Renaissance, borders on the airport.  Seriously.  Here's the view from my balcony.

I've set up my command post here in the room- portable stereo, good cigars, cell phone, and my trusty lap-top plugged into a screaming high-speed connection.  The portable empire with room service.

It's really nice to come back to "reality," after spending several hours of having my emotions manipulated and check on my various
promotions, handle the customer service issues, and stay in touch with the world- literally- with email and cell-phone.

I'm old enough to remember a time when this technological command post would be either magic or impossible.

Speaking of being old, and the world, I just got my schedule for my German tour- I'll be playing 26 one-night-stands in a row.  No breaks.

I'm excited about seeing so much of Germany, and I'm afraid I may have lost my mind.  I'm 50 years old, fer gosh sakes.  In "rock and roll" years, I'm 179 years old, at least.  Isn't that a little old to be impersonating a rock star?

This may be my last tour- I'll make that call after I live through it.

In the meantime, back to the seminar-

Let's skip over the cynical, manipulative speakers- especially the guy
who fell to his knees on the stage and cried, begging the audience to buy
his products (for their own good, of course).  I'll just delete a few paragraphs,
and let's go on to the great speakers.

My favorite speaker at this seminar was Armand Moran.  Aside from his odd predilection for Karaoke bars, Armand is a good guy.  And his talk was easily worth the price of the airfare, hotel, and tickets to the seminar.

He pointed out, in 90 minutes, about eleven hundred ways to make money on the internet.  They all involved either making or selling products, or both.

He pointed out that everything at http://www.gutenberg.org/ is in the public
domain.  Everything (almost) that is printed by the U.S. Government is in the public domain.  (Pretty much) everything printed before 1923, and a whole lot of stuff printed before 1960 is in the public domain.

We just did real well with a public domain project (www.PelmanismOnline.com)

Really, really, really well... so I was all ears.

Armand gave the audience more than hyped-up hope and false exuberance.  He gave information that, if put into action, could make you rich.

Another really, really, really...  really....  really really (that's how he talks)
good speaker was T. Harv Eker.

Ol' T. Harv wrote "The Millionaire Mind," which is a very powerful book that lives on my desk... and several million other places. 

T. Harv (do his friends call him "T"?) was the most motivational speaker I've  ever heard.  He was also brutally honest.  He pointed out that you can tell the "fruits by the roots."  In other words, your results are determined by your
Thoughts and feelings, which direct your action.

If you're not getting the results you want, you need to change your thoughts and feelings (for which you are responsible), which will change your actions.

In other words, if you're not just exactly as successful, happy, and rich as you want to be, quit whining and change it.

Read his book, "The Millionaire Mind," to find out how.

Good stuff.

This is John Childers.  He's the guy who taught most of the other good speakers how to speak.  His professional speaking course costs $25,000- and is a bargain.

I'll probably invest in that course next year.  It takes four days, and I just don't have four days off this year.  At least, not in a row.

He not only teaches you how to be an effective public speaker, he teaches how to get very rich doing it.  Guaranteed.

Funny guy, too.

Bill Hibbler, Frank Garon, and humble self.

Bill's my road-trip buddy.  We both live in Wimberley, we're in the same mastermind group, and we both grew up in the music
business.  He's at www.gigtime.com- go say hi.

Frank is a mighty man in the internet marketing world.  He's an  ex-truck-driver who has built a very successful business, and he now spends his time teaching others how to do it.

He's also a great guy with a wicked sense of humor.

I was going to list his website- so I did  google search on him- 147,000 sites that mention him are listed on google.

Go see for yourself.

The guy on the right is Stephen Pierce.

The girl on the left is one of about a dozen people trying to fill the orders for his products.

He was an honest speaker, and an entertaining one. 

He brought 36 "businesses in a briefcase," and I'm pretty sure he sold all of them- at $5,000 each.

Bill and I agreed that they were too cheap.

They included (get this!) an ebook (the product) a professional web page with a professional sales letter, an autoresponder packed with a whole series of messages, registered domain name, web hosting, a year of coaching from Stephen, and I forget what else.  Too much good stuff.  All unique.

If you can't make five thousand bucks in a week with that kind of head start, you're not trying.  Of course, the minute he let the audience get up from their chairs and head for the sales table there was a stampede.  It had a brutal kind of beauty to it.

And that's about all I want to say about the seminar-   some of the speakers I didn't mention are playing the "churn and burn" game.  They'll eventually run out of "marks."

Bill used to live in Atlanta, but apparently Atlanta has changed a little bit in the last twenty years.

 We went exploring.

We got lost.

This is somewhere in the Buckhead area.

We dubbed this the "kudzu cathedral."

Kudzu is an oriental plant that may one day rule the world.  It's everywhere.  It's amazing.

And what about the portable empire?

Mission accomplished.  (is that cynical?)

Really. 

All the promotions are proceeding, all the people who needed help got help, and, honestly, I didn't run across a thing that needed doing that I couldn't do-  except, this weekend I did it with room service, while watching huge airplanes land at a major airport- every 30 seconds.

The real test will come in October.  Can I run my online empire from Europe while playing blues clubs in a different town every night? 

It's gonna be... interesting?

8/26/05  A Kinky Night

Joe Vitale and I discovered an amazing lost book, written in 1919, and we've brought it back to life.

It's called Pelmanism, and it's a precursor of "Think and Grow Rich."  In my opinion, it's at least as valuable as Napoleon Hill's book- and it's been lost for decades.  You can get your very own copy by clicking HERE.

Also, and this is really cool, you can see some high quality scans of the original advertisements for Pelmanism.  They're pretty awesome- click HERE.

It's August in Texas.  Can you tell?

I agreed to play a benefit for the man I hope will be the next governor of Texas, Kinky Friedman.

Here we are, between sets.

In my earlier years, I did some time working in politics, and I don't know why an intelligent, honest man would want the job.  In Kinky's case, it will involve a serious cut in pay- he's been a best-selling author for a long time.  I think the guy just loves Texas.

He stopped in Wimberley to promote his grass-roots campaign, sign hundreds of books, posters and t-shirts, and do a live TV interview with Bill Maher on HBO. 

He brought his car. 

I have no idea what it is, but I like it.

Running for office has its trying moments...

and its perks.

And how, you ask, is Pat going to tie this to internet marketing?

Actually, I learned a lot about promotion and marketing watching Kinky and
his surprisingly professional team go about the business of building a
grass-roots following.

His campaign is internet driven.  I have no idea how large his mailing
list is, but he's gotten 40,000 people to volunteer to work for his campaign-
strictly from online marketing.

That's a lot of affiliates.

I was also reminded of something Dan Kennedy says, "If you want to be
successful, look at what everybody else is doing and do the exact
opposite."

That's what Kinky's doing, and it's working.

There have been lots of attempts to grab the Governor's mansion
by candidates who tried to run as "independents."

The last guy to win the race for Governor of Texas running as an
independent was Sam Houston. 

It's tough to get the money, the machinery, and the press without party affiliation.  If he did the same things other independent candidates have done, he'd get the same results.

That's been my secret since I started my internet marketing adventures:  If you want something other than the obvious to happen, you have to do something other than the obvious.

The internet is pretty over-populated with people chasing the latest hot topic.  Watching what the gurus do, and then doing an imitation.  They're a pretty frustrated bunch- if this has been your strategy, ask yourself if you're really getting the results you want.

Who do you think made more money, Elvis, or an Elvis impersonator?

It's been my observation that the guys and gals who really hit the ball out of the park are the ones who come up with either an original idea, or an original way to present an existing idea.

So, I'm grateful to the "Kinkster."  He blew into town with a good, entertaining show.  He stands a chance of ending Texas' run of really bad governors, and he's doing it for the right reasons.  And, he appears to be having a whole lot of fun doing it.

And he's inspired me to be even more outrageous. 

Stay tuned!

8/19/05  Kali, the benevolent destroyer

First, there's a video on "Introduction to Autoresponders" HERE.  I made it for my coaching clients, but if you're curious about what, exactly, autoresponders are and why they might be useful, you'll probably enjoy the video.  It's free.

Enjoy!

In Hindu Mythology, Kali is the symbol for the cycle of destruction and creation.  She is identified with the darker side of the feminine- but it's important to remember that the destruction she represents is a necessary trough in the cycle of destruction/creation.

You can't have one without the other.

The Tao Te Ching talks about this concept in gentler tones.  It's the hole in the vase that allows you to carry water.  It's the door in the wall that allows you to enter the room.  The value of what is, is made available by what isn't.

This can be a tough concept, but I've found it very useful.

Sometimes, to attract something that works into your life, you have to get rid of what doesn't work.  To have what you want, you may have to give up what you don't want.

But, bottom line, you have to make room in your life if you're going to attract something new.

For example- when I was first beginning my internet marketing journey, a year and a half ago, I was spending up to five nights a week playing in bars.  This involved loading my truck with my music gear, driving (sometimes hundreds of miles) to the gig, setting up the gear, playing music for four hours, and then the whole process repeated in reverse.

Sometimes, the sun was rising over the Texas hills as I drove into my driveway, which is real romantic sounding unless you're the one actually dragging home at six in the morning.  Of course, I was useless for the rest of the day, and I'd do it again the next night.

In Texas, you can count on making, on average, about fifty bucks for playing in a bar.  Sometimes more.  Sometimes less.

Once I made the commitment to build my online empire, I had to stop doing that.  It was a leap of faith.  The money I made from playing guitar wasn't much, but it was all I had.

But I couldn't have both.  I couldn't continue to wear myself out playing bars and still have the energy to create and market information products.

Kali swung her terrible sword, and I just stopped playing bars.

And a funny thing happened.  Almost immediately, positive things- events- opportunities- rushed in to fill the vacuum.

Another funny thing happened.  As part of my business creation, I put myself through a sort of "Masters Class" in learning to think like a successful marketer.  I filled my mind with books and articles about success, positive thinking, creative visualization.  I basically reprogrammed my mind.

I had a lot of help, for which I am very grateful- but it was the result of a massive commitment on my part to delete the limiting beliefs and "loser" mind-set, and replace them with beliefs and thoughts that would result in success.

Here's the funny part.

As I became more aware of my "self-talk" and belief structure, I became less interested in hanging out with people who were stuck in "loser" mode.  You know the ones.  In Texas, there are actually guys with "born to lose" tattooed on their arms.  A lot of the musicians I knew had it tattooed on their minds.  Booze and easy chicks are part of the attraction, but there's also a "beautiful loser" syndrome endemic among musicians that encourages failure.

Finally, I had to delete most of them from my life.  And the strangest thing happened.  A whole new group of friends appeared to fill the vacuum.  Wonderfully creative people whom I never would have met if I hadn't made room for them.

This brings to mind the story of the general who had his troops gather on the shore and watch as their ships burned.  The general had ordered the ships burned so that his soldiers, stranded in foreign land, would understand that they had to either win (and build new ships) or die.  This was brutally motivating.  They won.

On a side note, I have heard two highly successful businesspeople give a passionate lecture about deleting the word "try" from your vocabulary.  Think Yoda.  There is no "try."  If you're going to do something, do it with all of your heart, and with a full intention of accomplishing what you set out to do.  It is a waste of your time, for example, to "try" internet marketing. 

Don't bother.

It's a waste of your time to "try" to have a successful relationship, or learn to play the piano, or skydive.  Either do, or don't do. 

In the spirit of Kali, both of those speakers were women, by the way. 

So, what's this got to do with you?

It depends.  If your life looks exactly the way you want it to look, and you've got everything- spiritually, psychologically, financially- that you want, you can probably just nod sagely and go on.

If you're like most people, there is an opportunity here for you.  Do a "what's working" inventory.  Brutally (but compassionately) inventory your life, and make a list of what's not working- and delete everything on it.

Just like that.

Visualize Kali with her sword, and get rid of what's not working.

You'll be amazed at how quickly the void is filled with things that do work. 

If you're going to be an info-product marketer, and you can't seem to find the time... now is the time to look at the things standing between you and success and make the decision to choose success.  This means NOT choosing the things that are causing you to fail.  Delete them.  Stop doing them.  Make room for success in your life, and leave no room for the distractions.

This works for whatever your goal is- if you're going to do it, don't "try"- DO.

8/09/05  Back in the Real World

It seems as if I had just stepped off the airplane from Sacramento, and here I was loading up the XB for a video shoot in Corpus Christi.

You'll be amazed at how powerful our new products are going to be- we'll be speaking to you on many levels, visually, aurally, hypnotically, and subliminally. 

Very exciting- off to the land of great cheap Mexican food, hypnotic beaches, and soggy margaritas.

I'll post pics of the video trip, but I want to talk to you about the realities of "making it" in the online world.

As you know, I run a coaching program for newbies.  I've got clients in Europe, England, South Africa, Australia, and all over the U.S.  You can sign up here- if you're ready.

I was talking "via email" with one of my newest clients today.  They had fallen for some bad information.  Unfortunately, there are some less than scrupulous marketers out there.  If somebody offers to take a certain amount of money from you, and then give you back substantially more money- with no effort on your part- they are lying.

Let's just let that soak in for a second. 

If you're just starting out on the web and want to make an income from it, you're going to have to do some work.  It's easy work.  It's nothing you can't handle.  But, if somebody is offering to do it all for you, and make you more than they cost, hit them with a brick if necessary, but get away from them. 

There ain't so such thing as a free lunch.

Looking at my client's website, which a company made for her, which was going to make her money... I almost wanted to go visit them.  Have a long talk about ethics and morality.  With a cricket bat.  A nice hunk of hard wood.  Think Spinal Tap, here.  These guys are preying on the helpless.

That site was about nothing but selling the company's products.   Basically, you pay them to host their commercials.  Isn't that nice?

Let's talk about what you really need.  Product, list, and a way to take money.  A way to handle affiliates.

Clickbank, 1shoppingcart, and an imagination.

I imagine that the learning curves look daunting.  So much new information, so much to learn.

So, when someone offers to make it easy and do it for you, that sounds very appealing, doesn't it?

It never works.

It's like the coaching services that "guarantee" that if you send them $12,000 they'll make you rich with no effort on your part.  Ask to talk to a "repeat" customer who has had that kind of success before you sign up.

Life just doesn't work that way.  A lot of my clients are refugees from those programs.

So, take a deep breath.  You can do this.

First of all, you want to control your list.  There are only two companies that professionals use to do this- 1shoppingcart.com  (see the banner at the top of this page) and aweber.com.

Your list is your lifeline, your goldmine, the key to your success.  It's the most valuable asset you will own. 

You'll want to feed them information, and train them to look forward to your emails.  Then, when you ask them to buy something, you already have a relationship with them- you're not just another hand out in their mailbox.  Basically, a one to three ratio is about right.  Give them information and gifts three times for every time you ask them to buy something.

So- you need to get an account with 1shoppingcart and learn how to use it.  it's really not very hard, and their online tutorials, while boring, are very good.

Then, you need a product.  that's where I come in- I can help you weed through the BS and find great products in your mind or on the web. 

Products are everywhere.  Every problem is a product, and every product leads to another product.  For example, right now I'm learning how to edit video and burn DVD's.  I'm starting as an absolute beginner.  I've got the software and the right gear, now- it's amazing how much difference that makes.  You can't get professional results with amateur gear.  The good news is that pro gear is remarkably cheap.

But, in addition to the ability to make marvelous new products, which will bring in even more money, I can then make an ebook (or a video) about how I learned to edit video and then sell that!  

Any time you solve a problem for yourself, you put yourself in front of a percentage of the world that hasn't dealt with that problem yet.  If you can make it easier for them- soothe their pain- they will pay you.

But watch how these things come together.  You will market these products to your list, and people who buy your products will also get on your list... so keep an eye on the ball.  You'll want to develop a lot of products that have something in common, so that your list will keep buying.

You need a niche or a theme.  I've written in detail below on how to do this, but the bottom line is- find out what's fun for you and get people to pay you to do it.

I love to travel and to learn.  That's how I'm choosing my niches.

Then you need a way to take their money.  Clickbank is good for this, but has some limitations.  They have a fifty dollar limit on products.  I've gotten them to go as high as a hundred bucks, but that's about all they'll do.

But, yes- you do have to learn how to use Clickbank.  Don't fight it.  Embrace it.  Go to www.clickbanksuccessforum.com and ask questions and search for answers. 

Paypal is cool for the more expensive products, but paypal doesn't serve some countries.  I have a coaching client in South Africa, for example, who has to pay with 2checkout, which is at www.2checkout.com

that's a merchant account, and anybody with a credit card or a checking account can buy through them.  very useful.

Be sure and get a Paypal debit/credit card.  Your sales are available for your use immediately.  I've paid for a couple of trips, while on the trips, by running promotions using payment through Paypal.  Launch the promotion from the hotel room, and use the Paypal card to pay for the room... brilliant.  Fun.  Exciting.

So, if you're willing to do just a little work, this gets real easy.  You need stuff to sell, a way to take the money, and people to sell to.  If you control those three points, you're well on your way to financial freedom.  If you give up control of any of these points, you're just going to have to start over and learn this stuff anyway- so you might as well just do it now, right?

So- it's daunting, but do-able.  and doing it this way, you retain control- you don't have to put any links on your web page that you don't want- you can design your online presence to build your brand (much more on this later- it's a cool trick.)

If you'd like my help, go HERE and sign up for my coaching service- but you'd better hurry.  I'm not sure how much longer I'm going to be offering this service.  Remember, I'll be teaching you how to do it- I won't be doing it for you. 

Why wouldn't you want to be that free?

8/03/05  The needle pierced the skin and just hung there...
          and he didn't even notice!

The first thing to "get" is that we're all in a trance.  We're already hypnotizing ourselves and each other. 

It can be as simple as a smile, or as complex as 9/11, which put us all in a trance- but basically, we're constantly going in and out of trance, and being influenced by the things we see, hear and feel.

It seems to me that we've got a choice.  We can either remain uninformed about how the mind works, and allow ourselves to be surprised by our actions and thoughts, and the responses we get from others as a result of our actions and thoughts, or we can become informed- and get the results we want.

I spent three days learning theories and techniques of hypnosis, and the first thing I learned was that everything I thought I knew about hypnosis was wrong.

That's Wendi Friesen, and we're acting goofy after the seminar.  If you'd like to know more about Wendi, and hypnosis, click HERE.  Tell her I sent you!

Hypnosis is just NLP with an induction.  Cool.

The induction is the first part of a hypnotic session, where you are instructed to close your eyes, relax, etc.  There are many kinds of inductions- confusion, shock, relaxation...  a good movie is an induction.  The point of the induction is to put your mind the its "alpha" state, which you experience right before you go to sleep.

I've been using Milagro VF in our successful Milagro Research Institute products to put minds in their alpha state, and that's a very effective technique.  I'm really excited about the possibilities of combining these techniques for even more powerful products!  Stay tuned...

Although inductions are useful and important, with hypnosis training, you can take advantage of the fact that everybody's already in a trance to influence and persuade them to...  well, let your mind play with that one.

For me, the most immediate benefit of the training was learning how my mind works, and how to control it. 

It's like using the power of attraction on steroids!

You can play this game at home, if you'd like...

In a minute, close your eyes and breathe deeply.  Let your eyes naturally roll up and and your eyelids get heavy.  As your eyelids melt onto your cheeks, and your cheeks relax, you'll feel yourself relax deeper with each breath.

Now, focus on something you'd like to have accomplished in the future.  Take yourself there and feel it- how it feels to have accomplished it.  Look at your accomplishment.  Listen to the conversations, and to your own inner voice as you describe the feeling, look, sound (taste?) of your accomplishment.

Make the future memory so vivid that it's real. 

Because the mind can't tell the difference between something vividly remembered and reality, your subconscious mind will take it from there and reverse engineer your life so that your "future memory" will become your future reality.

Of course, that's not all there is to it.  Using these techniques, you can learn to control your inner dialogue (self-talk) and delete your self-sabotaging habits.

I'll be working on a series of audio products to help you do that.

It's amazing how powerful the mind is, isn't it?

Under hypnosis, one of the seminar attendees was unable to feel a needle that was stuck in his hand- and left there to hang.  Some people have been able to undergo surgery without anesthesia while under hypnosis.

The mind, which controls our bodies, really can't tell the difference between something imagined and reality.

By learning to control our minds, we can use this to our advantage.

You might want to lose weight, quit smoking, stop self-sabotage, overcome the loss of a loved one, or increase your income.  These things are all easy to do, once you learn how to control your mind.

Over the next few months, I'll be coming out with products to help you do all of those things and more. 

And remember the "portable empire?" 

I've been teaching people how to build their online empires for a while now.  Some of my students have accomplished some amazing things:  they've built lists, created products, and through Joint-Venture deals and affiliate sales, they've made their dreams come true.

I make it a point to "walk my talk."  With a laptop computer and internet access, I can run my rapidly expanding online empire from anywhere on the planet.  As you read the postings below, you'll see pictures and read examples of how I've done this. 

I feel remarkably lucky to be able to fly to California, hang out with Wendi and the other hypnotists, stay in a lovely hotel, enjoy the vacation aspects of it all, and at the same time keep my businesses pumping money 24/7.  It's a remarkable way to live- and I'm extremely grateful.

I'm also extremely curious as to why anybody wouldn't want their own portable empire.  Aren't you?

If you're thinking it would be fun to have that kind of freedom, click HERE.

7/30/05 Rubber Ducks and Ping-Pong Balls

I'm still happily camping on the 21st floor of a hotel in Sacramento, California.

Still buzzing from the hypnosis seminar. 

Today, Wendi confirmed something that I sorta suspected, but wasn't sure of.  I've studied Neuro Linguistic Programming in a non-focused way for years.  It turns out that NLP is just hypnosis without the induction.

The induction, I learned this weekend, is the first part of a hypnosis session where the subject is told to relax, and then is led into trance.

Since we're all in a trance of some sort, it seems like there are lots of opportunities to hypnotize and be hypnotized every day.

There are. 

I watched as four adult women, under hypnosis, experienced their arms as numb and immovable.  Trying as hard as they could, they couldn't move their arms until the hypnotist gave them permission and released them from their trances.  These weren't actors and there were no special effects.  It was just a demonstration of how easily controlled the human mind can be.

Not to be alarmist, but there is nothing more trance-inducing than T.V., and the people who design the commercials for T.V. are very aware of this.  The more I learn about hypnosis and persuasion tactics, the firmer my commitment to monitoring what goes in my mind becomes. 

It works.  The more success-enhancing books I read, the more CD's with positive information I listen to, the more successful my business becomes, and the happier I am.

It seems like this information should be common knowledge, but it isn't.  I wonder why?

I also learned something interesting about why adults have "issues" that can be traced to childhood.

I'll bet you'll be surprised to learn that children are pretty much in the "Alpha" state from the time they're born until they're about 8 years old.

The Alpha state is that magical state you feel just before you go to sleep, and just as you're waking up.  In alpha, it's very easy to daydream, and visualize...  you can pretty much take yourself anywhere you want to go when you're in alpha.

You're also completely defenseless to hypnotic suggestions when you're in alpha.

Be careful what you say around children. 

For example, let's imagine you as a child.  You stumble, and your mother says, "you're so clumsy."   This simple observation on her part, made with no harmful intent, goes directly to your subconscious.  In alpha, you have no barrier to outside programming.

Imagine, further, that your mother calls your aunt and tells her, in passing, that you are clumsy.  You're programmed again.  The programming reinforces the behavior, which leads to more programming.

The result is, as an adult, you're programmed to be clumsy- and have a belief that it's true.

This can work for any character trait or characteristic.  Shyness, loudness, forgetfulness, confidence... all the issues that keep therapists riding around in Mercedes Benz's.

Luckily, there are ways to counter-act this early programming through hypnosis.  I actually watched a woman who was too shy to say a word in our class start volunteering answers to questions- she even volunteered to be a subject in a hypnotic experiment.  This was totally out of character- in the past she was shy.  After a simple hypnotic session performed during class, she became outgoing and fearless.

It's amazing how much information and training Wendi is packing into each day- I'll be processing this information for weeks.

I'm pretty sure that it will have an effect on how we design our products at the Milagro Research Institute, too.

I'll post more later, but in the meantime, check out this great painting on the side of a building on J Street in Sacramento.

As you look up from the sidewalk, it seems that the people in the painting are escaping.  Very realistic, and a real nice surprise to see as you walk down the street.

Here's a look inside the seminar- right before the mass massage.

I'm not even going to go into the rubber ducks and ping-pong balls, except to say that I traded my rubber duck and four ping-pong balls for a night light.

If you're curious, email me (pat@patobryan.com) and I'll explain.

In the meantime, the "Portable Empire" project is rocking along nicely.  I've done my coaching duties, handled some customer service issues, and launched a promotion of the most magical copywriting seminar I've ever heard of- 

Brian Keith Voiles, and several of his fellow master-copywriters, are finally (finally!) going to turn their magic bags inside out and teach a few lucky copywriters how to make dangerous amounts of money by writing copy.

You should probably click HERE to find out more about that.

7/29/05  More pics from the Wendi seminar/Sacramento

I'll post more from the seminar tomorrow.  In the meantime, here are some pics.  Enjoy!

Wendi Friesen hangin' out before the seminar with yours truly.

Wendi making a point- we're hypnotized.

We're also obedient.  The part where she hypnotizes us to bark like dogs and quack like ducks is tomorrow.

An  Escher moment after the seminar, looking out over the lobby of the hotel.

Sacramento is art-intensive.  See below. 

A very European scene on the way to old town Sacramento.

7/29/05  The Portable Empire #4

I had coffee in Wimberley, Texas this morning, lunch in Phoenix Arizona (an $11 burrito!), and a fine Vietnamese dinner in Sacramento, California this evening.  It's been that kind of day.  I'm gently jet-lagged and completely exhausted- but I want to tell you about the latest adventures of the "Portable Empire."  (I've already picked out the Mediterranean restaurant for tomorrow's evening meal- there must be 100 restaurants within a half-mile of this hotel.)

"Why is Pat in Sacramento," you ask?

I'm attending Wendi Friesen's hypnosis seminar.  It's an intensive, three-day training.

I'm a firm believer in training and knowledge.  Every seminar I've ever attended has brought me back at least ten times what I paid to attend.  The knowledge and skills acquired are important, but the relationships are even more important.

I'm a firm believer in the concept that the best investment you can make is an investment in yourself. 

Joe Vitale's hypnotic writing seminar was $5,000 a ticket.  For two days.  At the time, it sort of took my breath away.  I was able to squeek into that seminar at the last minute.

I'm pretty sure I've made over $50,000 from the sales pages I've written using what I learned at that seminar- and that's in less than a year.

I've had copywriting training with Joe, Ted Nicholas, Brien Keith Voiles... learned list-building from Craig Perrine and Joel Christopher... coaching from Terri Levine, inspiration and chutzpa from Cindy Cashman... and now I'm learning hypnosis from Wendi.

It's been expensive.  But, think about it.  What other legal investment can pay off so well, and for so long?

And when I need a joint-venture partner, or a co-writer, or advice- the people I've met at these seminars know me and are more than happy to help.  It works both ways- some of them have made a lot of money from projects I introduced to them.  Any good relationship will benefit all the parties involved.

But why hypnosis?  What's that got to do with internet marketing?

First, success starts in your mind.  We've learned this from Napoleon Hill, and Joe drove it home with his book, "The Attractor Factor."  We really can influence the physical world with the thoughts we hold in our mind- if we know how to hold them correctly.  Joe's got pages and pages of testimonials from people who have attracted cars, homes, jobs-

I was talking to one of those people earlier this week.  She just landed the job of her dreams by doing the meditation in Joe's book.  After listening to her, I said, "you've always attracted what you focused on."  She stopped...  and then she got it. 

Once you learn how to focus on what you want to attract, and then let go of the attachment to the outcome, things just happen.  It's magic.  It's the power of the almighty.  However you want to frame it, it's supernatural and it works. 

Hypnosis is just another way for me to learn to control my mind.  It won't hurt my copywriting skills, either. 

The second reason I'm here is to learn more about the mechanics and theory of hypnosis.  At the Milagro Research Institute, we have a hypnosis product that Joe and I created, called "The Ultimate Success Hypnosis Program."

Click HERE to check it out. 

It's the most successful product we've ever had, and the testimonials are just amazing.  This stuff works.  By learning hypnosis, I can make it work on myself, and I can help create products that are valuable and life-changing for our customers.  That's easily worth the price of a plane ticket, hotel room, and seminar. 

I'll be using what I learn this weekend for the rest of my life.  Pretty exciting stuff!

So- here's the big question.  How are you investing in yourself?  What information product, training product, seminar, or coaching program are you using right now? 

You get the information every day- and every reputable marketer out there offers at least a 30 day money back guarantee.  We offer a 90 day guarantee on everything we sell.  You really can't lose.  And yet, how many times do you just hit "delete?" 

It's important to believe in yourself, but it's also important not to kid yourself.  You have to have a reason to believe.  Give yourself the gift of knowledge.  Learn or polish a skill.  You're all you've got- it only makes sense to give yourself what you need to succeed.

Back to the "portable empire."  I'm sitting in a nice hotel, looking out on the twinkling lights of Sacramento.  I've got my laptop, and broadband internet access right in the room.  My experiment is to see if I can keep all the balls in the air- handle my coaching duties, keep up the promotions I'm working on, handle customer service, and keep on writing- while traveling, learning, and having a blast.  I set that intention over a year ago, sitting on a white leather couch in Erfurt, Germany.  The fact that I'm sitting here a little over a year later, in California, and doing it is a testimony to the power of the law of attraction.

Give it a shot.  You might just surprise yourself.

The seminar starts tomorrow- I'll post updates as it goes along.  In the meantime- let's go for a walk in Sacramento, California.

I knew I was in a special place as I walked from the plane to the cab stand.  Check out this sculpture- baggage stacked to the ceiling!  In the baggage claim area, no less

After checking into the hotel, I walked to "Old Town Sacramento."  There are several old trains facing the river.

Walking past the old town, I came to the river.

There are several river-boats on the river.  The one on the right was hosting a party- Mexican disco music and some fine, fine threads.

 Old Town Sacramento looks like a Western movie set, with gourmet coffee, pizza, and several saloons. 

This sculpture is on the edge of the "old town."  Not really sure who it commemorates,
but it looks pretty cool.

Walking back from "old town" toward the hotel, I passed through a semi-underground mall. 

This town is teeming with sculptures.  Everywhere you turn there is art of some kind.  

This is the tunnel under the freeway, leaving "old town" and heading for downtown.

Again- art everywhere.  Definitely a city of visual stimulation.

7/24/05  Gold on the playground.

"If it's work, it won't make you rich."  Dan Kennedy

"If it ain't fun, I ain't doin' it."  Pat O'Bryan, May, 1996.

"If this seems hard to you, you're doing it wrong."  Pat O'Bryan's advice to coaching clients.

At this week's mastermind meeting, the joke was on me.  We were talking about the projects I have in progress, and Bill said, "he'll probably have 'em done before sundown."

Joe, Craig, and Nerissa laughed... and I think in a nice way.

I've gotten a reputation as the guy who cranks out dozens of products while others are still talking and planning theirs.  It's true.  An example:  "The Absolute Beginner's Guide to Joint-Venture Proposals."  I had the idea during dinner, and had it finished, edited, and online before I went to bed.

Due to my long years as a musician, my bed-time is probably different from your bed-time, but I know people who have spent over three years getting their first ebook started.

Here's another good quote:  "Money loves speed."  Joe Vitale.

We all know that the secret to making a good living from info-product marketing is having multiple streams of income.  Yes, John Reese made a million bucks in one day.  Yes, gurus like Joe have five and six-figure days.  But, for the rest of us, we have to make our money the old fashioned way.

And, there's nothing like a string of base-hits to keep you in the game while you're working on a home-run.

So, what's the secret to creating a product-generating lifestyle?

Fun.

That's the big secret.

Some of my coaching clients have been agonizing over finding their "niche."  I think that's a non-problem.  I have lots of niches.  So do most of my guru friends.  I choose my niches based on the amount of fun I think I can have.  My niches are my playgrounds, where I go to have fun.

In my case, I create and market audio products for "inner-directed professionals" at www.instantchange.com.  I teach dozens of students the basics of info-product creation and marketing through my coaching program- www.nobscoaching.com.  I write and co-write ebooks on various subjects.

How do I choose my niches?  Strictly based on how much fun I think I'll have.

I've been a musician since I was a small child.  I really can't help it.  I'm addicted to that magic process, and the moment when I hit "play" in the recording studio and listen to a piece of music that I've written and recorded is payday for me.  The fact that I can sell that audio product is just gravy.   Mostly.

I love to write.  I come from a long line of writers.  My father was a professional writer.  My dad and two of my uncles were newspaper publishers.  I can remember going to bed as a child to the music of my father's typewriter clacking in the next room.

And, that moment when I convert my latest ebook to a PDF and it appears on the screen as a finished, professional product is also magic.  It's a way in which we exist in God's image- the act of creation is one of the most spiritual things we, as mere humans, can do.  The fact that the income from those ebooks supports my lifestyle is just gravy.  Mostly.

I love coaching.  It may be the "big brother" in me, although, looking back, I was a pretty rotten big brother.  It may also be a genetic predisposition.  Both of my siblings, several of my cousins, and at least two aunts and one uncle are all educational professionals.  It runs in the family.

I could never operate in the public school environment- my mind processes public schools as prisons.  I'm eternally grateful that my son was comfortable in charter schools, and is now out of school.  From the design of the buildings to the attitude of the administration, I found lots to rebel against in the public school environment.  No fun there for me.

But, I do love to teach.  I especially love to teach students who love to learn.  My students must love to learn- I charge them for it, and I'm a pretty tough teacher.  By focusing on fun, I've created a teaching environment that pays much better than teaching in the public schools.  Just gravy.  Sort of.

(I'm about to make a startling confession.)

I'm also addicted to the thrill of watching invoices slam my inbox.

There.  I've admitted it.

I do love the process of creating.  But, I also love the thrill of the hunt.  Creating something and then finding that it resonates with others- enough so that they will part with their hard-earned cash to purchase it- is akin to the feeling that some bow hunters must feel after they've spent hours or days tracking an elusive elk, and subdued it.

It's fun.

It's especially fun when it happens fast.  Those times when I've gone from concept to cash in a day or so- when the rush is on, and I'm focused and in the zone- are times I relish.  It's when I'm at my best.

There are those who choose their projects based on time-intensive research and planning.  Scouring google and overture to find out what the hot search subjects are and then creating products based on their research. 

I don't think I could get passionate about a subject that way, although I do research my own way.  I hang out on forums- usually at www.infoproductu.com and see what questions are being asked.  Those questions represent a problem that somebody is having.  I love to solve problems.  I just hang out and see which problems resonate with me.  What solution would be fun to come up with? 

I love the puzzles that the info-marketing game presents.  I have a saying, "every problem is a product."  That's how the whole "Absolute Beginner's Guide..." series got started.  I figured that if I was having trouble with something, others would be, too.  I was right.  A niche was born, and now I'm the author of a series of books on solutions for "Absolute Beginners" and a recognized expert in the field.

It's pretty amazing what you can accomplish if you focus on fun.

My next project sounds like a lot of fun to me.  I'm going to explore video, and the ways it can be utilized to solve problems.  I'm able to visualize several applications, from straight-ahead educational videos to psychological conditioning training.

I stumbled on this niche totally by accident.  I just thought it might be fun to have a video camera.  It is.  Now, I'm looking for fun ways to monetize it by solving problems.

So- what's this got to do with internet marketing, and more importantly- what's this got to do with you?

If you're wondering how to create your own online empire, let me tell you the secret.  Look at all the possibilities.  Imagine what you would do if you had no fear, and no limitations.  Then, holding those options in your mind, let yourself feel each one- and find the ones that feel like fun.

That's where you want to play.  That's you're playground.  And, proving once again that the universe is a wonderful, magical, holodeck of a place, that's where you'll find your success.

7/12/05  The Gold Zone

Betsy and I were just talking about the difference between how things feel when you're in the "gold zone" and how they feel when you're not.

Julia Cameron calls it the "Vein of Gold," and wrote a great book about it.  Athletes call it "the zone."

Let's call it the "Gold Zone."

She was reminding me of the months right before I got serious about internet marketing.

I had been a working musician since I was 15.  I went "on the road" the first time when I was 17.  I was gone for three months, and it was hard on me and hard on my family when I had to come back from being "on the road" to finish high-school.  I took several detours, but for the most part, I was a musician for over thirty years.

In spite of some success, I never really "made it" as a musician.

I got really, really close a few times... but something would always go wrong.

For example- in 2003, I played an extended tour of Europe.  We went to Sweden, Holland, France, and England.  I played from Bogner Regis in the far south of England all the way up to the Isle of Aaron in Northern Scotland.  It was a wonderful tour, and the people seemed to like my music. 

The scenery was breathtaking- from Moose in Sweden to the Holy Isle in Scotland to the coffee shops in Amsterdam to the street performers in London...

Everything was wonderful except... things kept going wrong.  My band-mates made the decision to stay completely amphibious for the whole tour.  Blame it on Amsterdam.  The big festival in Sweden got no promotion, and nobody came.  That's a long way to drive to play for twenty people.

And then I got robbed at Waverley Abbey, outside of London.  Lost both guitars and all the money.  And my passport.

I was clearly not in the "gold zone."

After I finally got home- and believe me, with no money and no passport, getting home was tricky- I took some time off to think things through. 

I had started researching the internet marketing game, and met some of the players.  It was interesting... but there were a lot of unknowns.  There were also some very steep (but relatively short) learning curves involved.

So, while I was thinking, my agents booked another tour- this time to Germany.

That was the tour when all hell broke loose. 

Betsy was alone with the boys, both of whom woke up one morning and decided to start acting like the teenagers they were.  It was like fishing at the old pond, where the most dangerous thing you'd had to deal with was a catfish, and suddenly a fifty-foot alligator jumps in the boat.

And I was over 3,000 miles away.

After that tour, I really did some thinking. 

I either had to move to Europe and play music, or do something else.  Moving to Europe, at that time, just wasn't going to work... and, more importantly, it just didn't feel right.  Betsy and the boys also had strong opinions about that.

Worse, every time I strapped on my guitar, I felt like the "rock-star police" were going to arrest me.  For impersonating a musician.  I never once felt authentic as a musician. 

This is odd- I was an award-winning songwriter, with a recording contract, zealous agents, and a publishing deal.

I was a fraud.

I know some "real" musicians.  I have a guitar-player friend who has several gold records on his wall.  He tours with a band that has had #1 singles.  When he's home, he sits in his studio and plays guitar.  For fun.

I once heard an interview with YoYo Ma, and it really touched me.  He talked about the most wonderful moments of his life.  Those moments are when he takes his million dollar+ cello out of its case and sits alone, just loving the sound and touch of his instrument.

My guitars stay in their cases between tours.  That was a clue.

Ever since I discovered internet marketing, I've been in the "Gold Zone."  It was like finally seeing the "Pull" sign on a door I had been trying to push open for decades.

Duh.

It was crystal-clear to me. 

I "got it" at the first internet marketing seminar I attended.

The people who were successful were the ones who made products and sold them.

The people who were not successful were the ones who did something else- or did nothing.

I had a lot of help.  I've immersed myself in internet marketing, read scores of books, and sought out the company of successful internet marketers.  I threw myself at learning curves, and bounded right up them.

I had a blast.  I quickly made a pile of money.  I found my "Gold Zone."

Have you found your "Gold Zone," yet?

It's easy- especially in the internet marketing world.  You can make a good, even a GREAT, living by solving other people's problems.  It pays well, and it's karmically good for you.  You can pick almost any subject- cooking, driving, relationships, ebook authoring, etc... anything but how to get rich online (please- unless you have become rich online), and build a portable empire by solving problems in that niche. 

I have a saying, which will eventually be turned into a book- "Every problem is a product."

My most popular book- which I give away- is "The Absolute Beginner's Guide to Internet Wealth."  It was easy to write.  I just identified the five essential problems that "Absolute Beginners" to internet marketing have and gave the solutions.

Thousands and thousands of people now have copies of that book.  That's good for them, because the book really does line out all the problems and solutions that a new internet marketer needs to know about.

It's good for me.  I used that book to build a large and responsive list.  I also get the psychic benefits of helping a lot of people- I like that. 

So, I make money and I help others.  Perfect niche.

How can you tell if you're in your "Gold Zone?"  Things get real easy. 

One of the things I stress to my coaching clients is, "if this is hard for you, you're doing it wrong."

If you find yourself getting bogged down and disinterested in your topic- you've picked the wrong topic.  Quickly choose another one.  If your subscribers consistently choose to not buy your products, quickly change your strategy.  In the online world, you can make dramatic changes instantly.

Life is too short to bang your head against the door marked "pull."  You can push and push and bang and hit and throw bombs and cry and just generally exhaust yourself... and the door will stay closed. 

I would say that the most important thing you can do to improve your life is find your "Gold Zone."  Find your passion, and then find people to pay you for doing what you love. 

Quit banging on the door and just open it.

7/06/05  The Portable Empire, part 3

Breaking News!!!  The Ultimate Success Hypnosis Program, featuring Dr. Joe Vitale is finally available.

Click HERE

I worked with Joe to create a hypnosis program that would guarantee success.  That's right- guarantee success. 

In the process, we accidentally made the ultimate weight-loss audio tool- "The Fat Burner."

This audio course has never been available before- it's brand new, and it's going to change your life.  IF you've got any interest at all in success or weight loss, you should click HERE now.
 

One of my coaching clients has come out with a product you're going to love-  "Success Psychology."

Click HERE to find out how you can sleep better, sell better, have more money, and understand how YOU can achieve success.

News from the Portable Empire

Betsy and I tried an experiment this 4th of July.

Here was our plan:  we were going to drive to San Antonio, check into a luxury hotel, eat at nice restaurants, walk up and down the riverwalk, act like tourists, and drink margaritas.

As part of my "portable empire" experiment, I took my laptop computer.

I knew we would have a great time.  My question was:  "could we have a great time, and still run our businesses?"

The answer was a resounding "yes!"

The first thing I did, after we checked in, was plug in the laptop.  We were running a promotion for a Milagro Research Institute product, and I needed to monitor how that was going.

Betsy curled up with a book on the balcony.

Then, I checked in on my coaching clients.  Some of them are progressing at a marvelous rate- they've gone from complete newbies, to having lists and creating products.  I'm proud.

(If you want to know how to take advantage of my coaching service, click HERE.)

After answering a few questions, I decided to do a special promotion to pay for the trip.  I spent about fifteen minutes deciding what to promote and writing an email to my list- then it was time to hit the riverwalk.

You'll remember- (or, you could scroll down and read)- how Bill Hibbler and I went to Houston and tried this experiment in internet cafe's and cigar bars.

To me, the greatest benefit of living the "internet marketing lifestyle" is the freedom.

The financial freedom is nice, but what good is that if you're tied down to a desk?  I want a portable empire- so I can enjoy watching the boats on the river, the deepening light of a Texas sunset, and still run my business.

For the first time in history, technology has made this possible. 

When you stop and think about it, technology is magic.  Sitting in a hotel room, miles from home, I plug in a laptop computer- and I've got a fax machine, photo-processing studio, post-office, typewriter, filing cabinet (a big one), research library (an infinite one), CD player, DVD player, and a secretary.  Wow.

What would Ben Franklin have thought of that?

I think ol' Ben would have been pleased.  Every man and woman on the planet can now have their own online printing press.

Once I "got it," that we are living in an infinite universe, and can create the world we want, I decided to do something about it.  If there are no rules and no limits, why not create the life you want?

We're still taking "baby steps."  As we get the data from each experiment, and it supports the "infinite universe" theory, we get a little more ambitious in our experiments.

I'm not sure which is better- sitting in a boat on a lazy river watching tourists eat Mexican food, or eating Mexican food watching tourists on the river.  They both are pretty nice.

As the sun sets over the old Spanish buildings of downtown San Antonio, the light takes on a quality that I've only seen in Mexico.  Colors become more vibrant, and the shadows get mysterious.

Only an hour south of Austin, San Antonio has the flavor of a foreign country.  On the riverwalk, you hear as much Spanish as you do English.

This courtyard feels and looks like something from the barrio antigua (old town) in Monterrey, Mexico.

The margaritas weren't bad, either.

After the sun goes down, there is a magic to the night air.  It gets cooler, and there is a breeze that shoots down the river and shakes the palm leaves.

The next morning, I checked my email- the experiment was a success.  Everything was running just as smoothly as if I was in the office- and we paid for the trip with the promotion I had "thrown together" the night before.

That called for a celebration!

I'm not sure where this experiment is leading, but the journey is a blast.  I'm envisioning a world of internet marketers, with their laptop computers in backpacks, sitting in European coffee shops, walking the streets of Old Mexico, eating sushi in Japan, and exploring all parts of the United States.

You can research and write an ebook from anywhere on the planet.  You can then upload it to the internet and sell it- from anywhere on the planet. 

But that's my vision- I love to travel. 

Lots of my marketing friends love their five-minute commute from the bedroom to their home office.  They're happy right where they are.

That's the beauty of the portable empire- it works from wherever you are.

6/30/05  Do YOU make these internet marketing mistakes?

At today's mastermind meeting, Joe, Bill, Craig and I got into a long discussion about Joint Venture proposals.  This is a subject that my coaching clients are struggling with, and really, most beginning marketers struggle with.  (Nerissa was home editing video, and Jillian got there at the very end of the conversation.)

It really hit home to me how lucky I was to be sitting at that table. 

Joe Vitale is one of the fathers of the internet marketing business, and just keeps growing from amazing success to amazing success.  His goal is to be the world's first trillionaire.  I wouldn't bet against him.

Craig Perrine is one of the up-and-coming gurus.  The gurus all know him, and respect him.  He's one promotion away from being a guru himself.  He's also got a dangerously skewed sense of humor. 

Bill Hibbler is one of my oldest friends.  He's the one that got me into internet marketing, and introduced me to Joe.  He's quietly built up a very impressive internet empire.  He also used to manage rock stars- so we share the music biz connection.

To get these guys together for a consultation would cost thousands of dollars an hour. 

Let me share the wealth with you, by letting you listen in to a conversation we had about joint ventures.

There is a temptation for new internet marketers to use the "shotgun" approach when they try to set up Joint Venture deals.  In the shotgun approach, you send a form letter to everybody you can think of, asking them to promote your product.

We were unanimous on this.  The shotgun approach NEVER WORKS.

There.  That's all you need to know about the shotgun approach.  Don't waste your time

Bill reminded me of a time, 8-10 years ago, when I tried the shotgun approach in the music business.  I put together a promo kit, with pictures, press clippings, and my latest CD and mailed it to record companies.  Wasted several hundred dollars.  I got no response.

Later, I got a record deal, publishing deal, and a couple of great agents- but I didn't get them by using the shotgun approach.

Well, what does work?

We all agreed that building a relationship was important. 

So, I asked Joe, Bill, and Craig to imagine they were sitting in... Cleveland, Texas, or some other backwater spot, and they wanted to establish a relationship with a potential JV partner.  What would they do?

I want to make it very clear that the first step is to identify who you want to establish the relationship with.  You need to focus on each potential JV partner one-at-a-time.

Here are the steps they would take:

1.  get on their list.
2.  subscribe to all of their newsletters and read them.  You want to know what their niche is, what their interests are, and- this is very important- what they like.  More on this in a minute.
3.  send them an occasional email telling them that you like their ezine, and telling them exactly what you liked.  quote the ezine or newsletter.
4.  once they've responded to an email, and acknowledge you,  offer them a free article or ebook to use as a bonus for their promotion.  It's important that your bonus has some relation to their promotion. 
5.  politely ask if they'd be interested in promoting your product.  Do NOT send attachments.  Do NOT send a long email with your biography.  Do send a polite request stressing what's in it for them. 
6.  repeat step five politely but persistently.

I've seen this work with Joe, and I believe that it will work with most gurus IF... and this is a big IF... the product you want to promote is actually a great product and it is the sort of thing his customers will actually buy.

For example, Craig's customers are savvy, experienced internet marketers who are interested in the nuts and bolts techniques of list building.  My ebook, The Absolute Beginner's Guide to Internet Wealth, would be totally inappropriate for his list.

Joe, on the other hand, has a list of people who will find that book very useful.  He'll be promoting it soon.

Now, look at step two- where it talks about finding out what they like.

Now, close the door.  Make sure you're alone.  I'm about to tell you a secret...

You can get a guru's attention by bribing them.

This is a secret.  Don't tell anybody.  You didn't hear it from me.

It's true.

Here are some of the bribes that have worked:

- single malt scotch
- italian leather coat(s)
- a case of oreos
- vintage books
- steak dinner
- gourmet coffee
- official baseball-team cap (worked wonders with a Japanese record exec.)
- twenty-dollar bill
- maduro churchill cigars (I live in hope.)

note- clever works better than expensive.  You can't buy these guys.  You can amuse them.  If their passion is coffee, and you send them a pound of blue korona grown on a small coffee plantation, dried and roasted by loving hands- they'll think of you as they drink the coffee, and they will read your proposal.  The point is that you cared enough to learn about them, and learn what they like- and send it to them.  Don't go buy a hundred pounds of coffee and send it to a hundred gurus.  Find the one who is passionate about coffee and concentrate on him.

Or find the one who has a sweet tooth for oreos, and send him a case.

(disclaimer:  this is word of mouth.  Hearsay.  I have no evidence of anyone ever receiving or responding to a bribe.  If I did, it was years ago and the statute of limitations has run on it.  If it ever happened. In the case of the case of oreos, the evidence is long gone- his son ate 'em.)

A bribe will not guarantee that the guru will promote your product. 

However, some of these guys get dozens of offers a day.  It's a full time job just reading the emails.

If you send your proposal FEDEX, with a memorable bribe (remember, you've researched them to find out what they like), you greatly increase the chances of your proposal actually getting read.

It's still up to you to create a great product, and offer it to marketers who actually have access to the people who will buy it.  Be sure to stress the benefits to the list-owner and his list.  This is not the place to give your life history, or beg for help.  Desperation does not sell.

A quick and easy way to build a relationship, and create a product, is to interview or co-write with your potential JV partner.  The less work they actually have to do, the more likely they are to agree to your proposal.

Why would you do this?

1.  When people see your name associated with a guru's name, there is a perception that you are worth listening to.
2.  It gets the guru emotionally involved in the project, and he'll do what it takes to make it successful.
3.  The first one is the hardest.  Once you've successfully worked with one guru, it's much easier to connect with, and work with, others.
4.  You get to "cream" the guru's list.  You can build your own list by capturing the names of people who show interest in the product you create with the guru.

This led to a discussion of other problems beginning internet marketers have.

Craig said it best, "If you are currently broke, you have no business creating or marketing success products."

The funniest JV proposal any of us have ever received said, "I've got a great marketing course, I just don't know how to market it."  It's actually become famous in guru circles as the ultimate bad example.

Bill followed up, "The internet marketing niche is full.  Not only is there no room for anyone else to market products in that niche, if you do compete in that niche you're competing against the best marketers on the planet.  You don't stand a chance."

I can tell this to my coaching clients until I'm blue in the face, and they'll still try it.  I don't understand. 

Your chance of success is higher in just about any other niche.

The trick is to discover what you're actually good at, and sell that.

What are your skills?  Be honest about where you are now.

Craig, again:  "Do you like being lied to?  If you're marketing success products, and you're not successful- you're lying."

Craig had the solution- "There are two kinds of people in internet marketing:  marketers and product developers.  You're probably a product developer.  Find what you're good at, and make a product out of that."

This led to a discussion about product development. 

It's easy.

If you like to write, and you write well, it's even easier.

If you don't like to write, or don't write well, get an audio recorder and record interviews.  You can record interviews over the phone.  You can make camtasia videos and sell those.  A cheap video recorder is good enough to make professional videos- the bar isn't very high, because you need to compress the videos so they can be downloaded.

Somebody brought up the story of Joe Kumar, who was a broke student who lived in Singapore.  He emailed a bunch of gurus and asked them a simple question about marketing.  He knew that getting an answer to an email was easier than any other form of gathering information.

He also figured out that the gurus he interviewed would be emotionally involved with the product, and would be motivated to see it succeed.  When the product was ready to market, his interview subjects became his joint-venture partners.

He made a pile of money.  His story after that is kind of sad, but is worth learning about.  Do a google search-

This is a great business model.  Joe and I used it when we created "The Myth of Passive Income."

We bounced this around- that's the beauty of mastermind meetings.  The energy just swirls around the room.

One of the ideas that came out of this swirling energy- what if an overweight person interviewed a group of weight-loss experts, and created a product from the interviews?  Then he could write an ezine to document his/her progress using the advice the weight-loss experts gave him.  You could sell a lot of these.

There are opportunities everywhere.  Get a copy of "The Absolute Beginner's Guide to Internet Wealth" (it's free) to read more about this.

***

News-Flash!

Bill Hibbler and I are taking "InfoProduct U" on the road!

Infoproduct U is the hottest, most valuable internet membership site on the planet. 

Our plan is to hold mini-seminars all over the country, educating people about the opportunities that abound in infoproduct marketing, and building a network of marketers.

If you'd like to host an "InfoProduct U on the road" mini-seminar in your town, email me.  If you'd like to attend an "InfoProduct U on the road" mini-seminar, email me.

***

Reminder:  There are still a few spaces for coaching clients-  If you'd like to work one-on-one with me to create and market your ebook or other info-product- click HERE.

6/23/05  The Portable Empire, part 2

(quick note-  Blair Warren is giving away "The Ten Greatest Self-Help Classics You've Never Heard Of" FREE.  Click Here.  Remember to come back!)

A year ago, I wrote about "The Portable Empire."  I was on tour with my band in Germany, while a product I had created was being launched world-wide.   I was able to publish my ezines from a wonderful internet cafe in Erfurt, Germany- it had white leather couches, excellent coffee, and was right across the street from a 1,600 year old cathedral.

Down the street and around the corner was another cathedral where Johann Sebastian Bach had been the Kappelmeister.  His organ is still there, and during the day, organists play- for free.  One afternoon, I was sitting in the cathedral, in the narrow balcony, listening to the organist, when a fierce lightning storm began a light show outside.

Listening to the huge pipe organ in the ancient stone cathedral, while lightning flashed through the leaded glass windows was one of the most profound experiences I've ever had.

I decided then that I wanted my business to be 100% online and portable.  I love to travel and meet new people.  I knew, from reading Joe Vitale's books, that I could design any reality I wanted.  Why wouldn't I design one that allowed me to travel? 

Since then, I've loaded the laptop with all the software I use in my business, and concentrated on online products.  I've got a "portable empire" that keeps the cash coming in while I'm out sight-seeing.

Want to know how I did it?  Keep reading.

This week, my buddy Bill and I decided to take a road-trip to Houston.  We took along our businesses in backpacks.  T

his was a great opportunity to see how the Scion XB likes the highway.  Good news!  It's a road-trip machine.  It cruises at 75 mph with no trouble, is as comfortable and quiet as I had hoped, and the CD player sounds fine.

It also scoffs at gas stations.  Tuesday, I had to drive to Austin for a meeting before we could leave town.  I filled up the tank, drove to Austin and back, then picked up Bill and we zipped off to Houston.

When we got there, I filled up the tank again.  We almost fell down, we were laughing so hard.  Total gas purchase price:  $17.57!  For pics of the road-trip machine click HERE.

Before we left town, I stopped for coffee and saw this amazing art-car in the parking lot.  I had to take a pic.  The car's owner, I'm assuming, had glued dozens of little plastic creatures to all the available surfaces.  It looks like a fun car to drive.  Lots of company.

Of course, the hotel screwed up our reservations, but we eventually found decent rooms.  Unlike our first choice, this hotel did not offer internet access.  We solved this problem by driving to an internet cafe near Rice University and logging on. 

This cafe didn't have white leather couches, but the chairs were comfortable, and the internet access was free.  We opened our backpacks and went to work.  An hour later, I logged off-

I've managed to design my work-day so that, on most days, I can spend an hour in the morning and another hour in the evening working.  The rest of the time I spend developing new products, writing, and living my life.

In that hour, I answered email from my coaching clients, dealt with some customer service issues, logged onto Infoproduct U and posted in the forum, and read my emails. 

Our real reason for taking the road-trip was that the Museum of Fine Art is hosting an exhibit of baseball memorabilia.  At least, that was Bill's reason.  I'm not much into sports, but the museum also has art.  This pic is the tunnel which connects the two main buildings of the museum.

I spent over an hour in one small room, but it was a pretty special room.  There were four Picasso's, a Matisse, and Brancusi's "The Kiss."

In addition to the sheer artistic power, I couldn't help but think that I was in the presence of over a billion dollars worth of art.  All of it within ten feet of where I was standing.  I just sat and absorbed it.

Then I "did" the baseball exhibit, which took me five minutes.  Bill had spent two hours- holding Babe Ruth's bat, looking at old pictures, jersey's, etc. 

We're both from Houston, originally, so we had to go visit Herman Park.  The pigeons are pretty tame.  Here, a flock of them are feasting on popcorn.  They barely moved as I walked through them.  Basically, they pretty much ignored me.

Here are a couple of trains- when I was younger, riding the train at the park was about as much fun as I could handle.

We've had a tradition for a decade of eating at a certain Vietnamese restaurant.  Here's why.

Houston is hot.  Humid, hot, and potentially unbearable.  These kids have found the solution. 

The Japanese garden is another good place to get away from the heat.  Lots of shade- but I had an ulterior motive.

I'm starting to visualize a house.  I really like traditional Japanese homes, and there aren't that many to look at in Texas.  There's one in the Japanese garden.  Since I've been using the techniques I learned in Joe Vitale's "The Attractor Factor," I've come to accept the power of manifestation.  If you can create something in your mind, you can attract it.  I wanted to give my mind a clear picture.

There's something about the sparseness, the polished wood, and the clean lines that really appeals to me.  It will be interesting to see how long it takes me to actually manifest this house, on a larger scale, in the Texas Hill Country.

That evening we spent another hour at the internet cafe, working- and it worked.  Sales continued, coaching clients got the information they needed, customer service issues were resolved.  Bill and I had a gratitude moment- thanks to our "portable empires," we had more money at the end of the trip than we did at the beginning.

Stop and think about that.  Thanks to our portable empires, we could continue building our businesses, and finance trips to anywhere on the planet.  Want to go to France for the week, take your portable empire and go.  Want to visit New Orleans?  New York?  Once you've built your portable empire, you can go where you want and do what you want to do.

This is what I teach others to do with my coaching service.  If you'd like to join us, click HERE.

What does a portable empire look like, and how do you build it?

My goal was to have a successful business that I could run from a laptop computer anywhere in the world.  I've got it.  It took me about a year to build.

Here's what you need. 

1.  A list of people who are interested in what you want to sell
2.  A way to contact them
3.  Things to sell them
4.  An online method of receiving money
5.  A web store that receives high traffic

I've had a lot of help building my portable empire.  Joe Vitale, Bill Hibbler, Craig Perrine, Cindy Cashman, and several others.  Would you like some help building yours?

Does having money arrive in your email box while you're sleeping, looking at art, eating Vietnamese food- just fill in the blank- sound good to you?  Would it feel good to have that kind of freedom?

You bet it would.

That's why, to show my gratitude to my mentors, and the universe, I wrote "The Absolute Beginner's Guide to Internet Wealth."  You can get a free copy HERE.  It covers every aspect of internet marketing in detail, and it's written for the Absolute Beginner.  However, you may be a beginner at some aspect of internet marketing.  Even if you're a pro copywriter, there may be something about Search Engine Optimization you don't know.  There is a chapter on list building, one on Joint-Venture proposals- unless you're already as successful as you want to be, you probably need this book.  And, best of all, it's FREE.

Of course, if you really want to super-charge your business, you'll join my No BS Coaching program HERE.

Dozens of people have joined, and are busy building lists, making products, and selling them.  They're building their portable empire.  You don't want to get left behind, do you?  When you're ready to really "go for it" and claim your share of the internet gold, click HERE.

On our way out of town, we decided to check out a cigar-bar.  Houston traffic is brutal, and comes to a complete stop between 4 and 7:30.

Fine.  The cigar bar had excellent coffee, free internet access, and a walk-in humidor about the same size as the Japanese house above.  I grabbed a couple of Mi Cubano maduros, Bill got a Romeo Y Julieta, and we went back to work.  Here's what that looked like. 

Would you like to join us? 

5/26/05  How big is your box?

There are a bunch of freebies HERE. 

These are gifts from my coaching clients.

So, help yourself- there are seventeen freebies on that web page.  Enjoy!

***

Last Monday, I attended a birthday party for a musician/studio-owner friend of mine.  The party was held at a fairly rowdy honky-tonk in historic Gruene, Texas. 

There was bar-b-que, chips and hot sauce, and adult beverages.  The focus of the party was a free-for-all jam session.

Who else, but musicians, gets together and "works" for fun?  I'm trying to imagine a bunch of accountants, getting together over bar-b-que and beer, with spreadsheets and green visors.  For fun.

Not gonna happen.

Back to the party. 

It was a blast- but I left early.  As much fun as playing guitar can be, I felt the pull of my laptop.  I had a couple of promotions going on, some coaching clients who needed help. 

The internet marketing game is addictive.  I'm hooked.

But, I got an internet marketing lesson between sets at the jam session.  It was fascinating.

There was a guitar player there who was just amazing.  Played rings around everybody else there.  He sang like a country Otis Redding.  He's a nice guy.

He's trying to live like I used to live- playing bars in Texas for $30/$50 a night.

I took him aside, and asked him if he'd like to break into the next level.  I offered to introduce him to my European agents.  I might as well have been talking to a brick.

His vision extends just about as far as the next bar gig.  He's about as likely to fly to Europe and tour as he is to fly to the moon on a motorcycle.  It ain't gonna happen.

Why?

Why can some musicians make the transition to recording artists and touring acts while others, who are just as talented, spend their lives playing bars for no money?

It's the size of their "box."

Bill Hibbler and I were talking about this today, and we realized that the same thing is true of internet marketers.

Why do some internet marketers just "take off" and build successful businesses, while others, who are just as talented, continue to struggle?

Bill's the one who said it, "It's the size of their box."  Your world can be as big or as small as you let it be.  That's your box.  You can succeed as much as you let yourself succeed- that's your box, too.

You attract what you focus on.  Focusing on concepts and objects that expand your box will make your world bigger. 

I hang out in several internet marketing forums, and help run one (HERE).  When I read threads posted by successful marketers, they're almost always positive in tone, and energetic.  When I read threads by those who are struggling, they're almost always negative, limited, and dull.

My guitar playing buddy would do great in Europe- he's the perfect combination of blues and country. 

He just can't visualize doing it.  He focuses on how hard it is to "make it" in the music business, how club owners don't want to pay very much for bands, how the audience doesn't appreciate his music.  And that's what he attracts.

I laid it out for him in plain English- and he just couldn't see it.  He could be touring in Europe next month, making plenty of money, and getting the appreciation he deserves.

He could be, but he won't be.  He'll still be playing in dives for drunks who don't appreciate him, and taking home just enough money to get to the next gig.

That's not romantic, or noble.  That's living in a tiny box.

One thing I've learned, from studying Joe Vitale's "The Attractor Factor," and several other books, is that we create our own world.  We attract what we focus on. 

We can have, do, or be anything we want- and what we have, do or are is the result of our inner landscape.  It's actually one of the most profound discoveries I've ever encountered. 

And it leads to a word of caution.  Think about it- you attract what you focus on.  If you carelessly focus on failure, scarcity, poverty, failure, and unhappiness, then that's what you'll attract.

What do you see when you watch T.V.?  What do you hear when you listen to the radio?  What is the story in the books you read?

What are the topics of the conversations you have?

That's what goes into your mind, and that's what you're focusing on.

That's what you're going to attract.

The magic happens when you realize that you're responsible for your own outcome, and start doing what it takes to achieve the outcome you want.

When you start focusing on what you want to attract, you'll attract what you want.

When you write down your goals, and look at them every day, and take the action necessary to achieve them- you will achieve them.

Since you're creating your world, and since you have to live in it, doesn't it make sense to create a world of prosperity, success and happiness?

Can you allow yourself a box that big?

5/17/05 

Milagro World #40 is online and waiting for you HERE.

5/16/05

Well, InfoProduct U is off to a raging start.  Major props to Bill, who handled all the inevitable technical problems.

InfoProduct U is the online forum I've always wanted to be a member of- it didn't exist, so we built it.

It's here.

That's been the big excitement this weekend. 

We're finishing up the final details on the Milagro Manifestation Method project.  It will be out in the next few weeks, and I'm really excited.  I've been working for months on that, and it's the most important product we've ever released.  You'll be hearing more about it, I promise.

In the background, we've got two kids finishing high-school, which is a big deal.  It seems like only yesterday I was walking Patrick to his first day of school.  Now he's 6'1", and ready to take on the universe.  I hope.  Parenting is the hardest job I've ever had.  It's like driving downhill with no brakes.

One of my bands is recording a live CD next Friday night- check back for pics, etc. 

I'm talking with my agents, working on my fall '05 European tour. 

In the internet world, in addition to my coaching business (click here to find out more), putting the finishing touches on the Milagro Manifestation Method, riding herd on InfoProduct U, I've been working on a beginner's guide to Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), which I hope to have out in a month or so.

SEO is a tricky topic, and it's a topic that changes fast.  The search engines are constantly changing the rules.  However, there are some basic things that we can do to help get our sites to the top of the list, and that's what the book is going to teach.  I'll let you know when it's ready.

5/13/05

Well, it's Friday the 13th.  That's gotta be good.

This is the new studio at the Milagro World Headquarters.

We recently doubled the size of our offices, and I (finally) have a private studio where I can work on audio products.

For all the musicians out there- what you're seeing is a Fujitsu Lifebook C series running Sonar Producer series 4, a Behringer tube pre-amp, Kurzweil PC88, Korg JV 1010 module, Alesis D-4 percussion module, and a pair of Alesis pro.2 powered monitors. 

I use a Tascam USB ADDA.

There are 10 stringed instruments- a violin, a mandolin, a national steel, Guild Pilot bass, a Seagull rosewood jumbo artist series acoustic, a Seagull 12-string, a custom strat, 335, Schecter Artist electric, a lap steel, and some other guitars.

I've got a venerable Fender "hot-rod deluxe," which has played most of the bars in Texas, and some in Mexico with me.  However, these days (and I wince to admit it) I use a Line6 amp modeler for studio work.  You really can't hear the difference, and it make recording guitar tracks very convenient.  I miss the sound and feel of paper cones blowing in the breeze- but they finally got the technology right for recording guitars direct, and it does make it easier on the neighbors.  I play loud when I use the amp.  I can get the same tone at a reasonable volume with the modeling rig.

Technology.

I've been working on a new Milagro audio product- it's amazing how having the studio organized and isolated helps me work faster and better.

Ah... the online lifestyle.  Rocks.

btw, Bill Hibbler and I just opened our new membership site.  From now until Monday, noon, you can get in for just $9.97 a month.

That's a screamin' deal.  It's already value packed, and as more and more people join, it's just going to get better. 

It's also going to get more expensive.  You'd better go join right now.

It's called InfoProducts U, and it's HERE.

See you there!

5/04/05

Milagro World #38 is online at

 http://www.milagroworld.com/mw38.htm

If you're not already a subscriber, zip on over to http://www.milagroworld.com and sign up.  It's free.

All the back issues are at http://www.milagroworld.com/directory.htm, if you want to see what you've been missing.

***
I'd rather fail big than live small

I just got back from driving through the hill country and listening to Dan Kennedy interview Gene Landrum.  As a "gold" member of Dan Kennedy's mentoring service, I get CDs every few weeks of Dan, or his partner Bill Glazer, interviewing a mega-successful entrepreneur.

Lundrum gave Dan a delightful interview full of amazing stories taken from his books.  And he made me feel  like I belonged to a group, which is a feeling I don't get much- even when I'm hanging out with musicians.  You'd be amazed at how many artists and musicians are just sitting around waiting to be discovered while they continue to do the same thing all the other musicians and artists are doing.

Losers, losing by following losers.  Not much of a plan, but it's pretty popular.

Until I discovered the internet marketing world, I felt like the only square peg in a world of round holes.  Listening to Dan's interviews makes me realize that I'm actually in good company- I'm a member of a group of entrepreneurs who follow Sam Walton's Rule #1.

Do you know Sam's "Rule #1?"  He used it to build the most successful retail business in history.

Do you want to know the secret that he used to make WalMart unstoppable?

Keep reading.

His "rule #1" has been my credo all my life, and I've caught a great deal of shit for it- it turns out that Ayn Rand, Thomas Edison, Frank Lloyd Wright, Henry Ford, H. Ross Perot, Donald Trump, Richard Branson, and most of my other heroes had the same credo.

Want to hear a story?

Due to a bizarre and surreal series of circumstances, I found myself living the life of a high-school drop-out street hippie in 1973.  I'd tell you the story, but you wouldn't believe me.

Kafka's an amateur compared to East Texas wingnuts- and I got on the wrong side of a town full of East Texas wingnuts and had to quit high-school at 17.

My best option at the time was to move in with a house full of hippie musicians in the Montrose area of Houston.  It was shelter, and we usually could scrounge food- Anderson Fair, a spaghetti restaurant that featured folk music, would feed us in return for a few hours of music, but only the zucchini spaghetti. 

You can live on zucchini spaghetti if you have to.

We played strip clubs and gay bars.  We played for peanuts- literally. 

After a year or so of this, on a hot and humid night, I accidentally drank a quart of mysterious tea, which caused me to take a psychic time-out.  When I came back from visiting the red queen, I realized I needed to go to college.

So, I walked, in the early morning hours, through the darkest, most dangerous part of Houston,  to the bus station and took the bus home.  I walked into the house as my father was drinking his morning coffee and announced that I was ready to go to college.

Skeptical, he suggested I get a job.  After a year or so of manual labor, I finally made my way to North Texas University- on the strength of a good SAT score and a better audition with the piano faculty.

After a year of cutting down trees, I was probably the "buffest" piano major on the campus.  While I was there, I designed and -with the help of a physics major buddy of mine- created the first laser light show in the southwest.  We had a running engagement at the Fort-Worth Museum of Science and History.

After three years at NTSU, I sent an audition tape to the University of Texas, and got accepted in their graduate composition program.

I still hadn't gotten my high-school diploma, technically, I was a high-school drop-out going to grad school.

I loved college.  I ended up with music and English minors, but that only tells part of the story.  I was a photography major, studying under Gary Winnogrand.  I studied journalism.  I took art classes.  I was in heaven.  My degree plan was to not worry about getting a degree.  I was getting an education.

After a few years, I got a glimpse of the naked under-belly of the modern classical music world and didn't like what I saw.  A showdown with a famous composer during a seminar was the final straw.

He accused me of prostituting my art by making money writing commercials.  What a crock!  This was the same guy who financed his studio by doing sound-effects for shampoo commercials.  And some of the other ways he prostituted didn't have anything to do with his art.

I bailed on college, and joined a rock band.

Wouldn't you?

A short time later, we were touring with Cheap Trick, Heart, ZZ  Top, The Climax Blues Band- it was a wonderful, exhausting, amazing experience. 

At this point in my life, I was probably the best educated high-school dropout rock star on the planet. 

What's this got to do with internet marketing, writing e-books, and running an international online business?

EVERYTHING!!!

I think the most valuable benefit of my internet marketing lifestyle is the people I get to hang out with.  After years of being a loner, I've got a "peer group!" 

I get to hang out with Joe Vitale, who broke all the rules in the book publishing business, and went to number one twice on the national best-seller charts- while the authors who played by the rules sat around and complained.

I get to hang out with Cindy Cashman, who made a million bucks by "writing" and promoting a blank book with a great title.

I get to hang out with Craig Perrine, who has achieved amazing success by breaking the rules in the internet list-building business.

And there are many others- the internet marketing is world populated with wild, intelligent, brave, and interesting people.

These are the mavericks- the square pegs- I'm honored to know them.

All my life, I've heard "get a REAL job!"

The miserable, gray people- the ones trapped in the job they hate (which, according to Dan Kennedy's research, is 2/3 of the population) wanted me to join them in their misery.

Parents.  Teachers.  Unsuccessful musicians. Bosses (musicians have lots of bosses- because we keep a day-job just long enough to book gigs, then we move on). 

Television- Trump and Branson have TV shows, and that's a good start... but they're about hiring employees!  The winners get a JOB!

You can bet your momma's egg money that Donald Trump doesn't want a job.  Richard Branson doesn't want a job.  They didn't get where they are by working for someone else.

I think they should award prize money to the contestant that tells Donald Trump to take a flying f**k at the moon, and starts his own business.

The education factories-  imagine what would happen if schools taught entrepreneurship instead of wage-slavery?  Our whole education system sucks lemons because it's based on a 19th century model, and designed to turn out workers- for jobs that haven't been available in decades!  Factories that turn out waves of miserable, gray people- suffering through the week and living for the weekend.

What would happen if they taught people how to think, instead?

Family- here's the big one.  Anytime my family gets together, I get to hear about how I'm the one who's always "coloring outside the lines" from one of my relatives- he thinks he's insulting me! 

That's the thing I'm proudest of, and the key to my success.  Nobody ever accomplished anything important, or grand, or OUTRAGEOUS by coloring inside the lines.

Following the rules is for losers.

Did you notice the list of heroes I put at the top of this article?  They have a lot of things in common:

1.  They didn't wait for permission to be great- they just went ahead and did it.

2.  They didn't worry about credentials or diplomas.  Richard Branson has an eighth grade education.  Frank Lloyd Wright had about three months of formal schooling.  All educated successful people, regardless of how much "schooling" they have, are self-educated.  You can't trust the educators to educate you.

3.  They were OUTRAGEOUS!  Branson and his hot-air balloons, and now space flights.  Thomas Edison announcing the light bulb long before he actually had created one.  Everybody on that list listened to sage advice from the gray people and called bullshit on it.  Then they went on to create a better world.

4.  They made their own rules.  And then broke them.

5.  They had grand failures, followed by grand successes.

I tell my coaching clients (www.NoBScoaching.com) , and I'll tell you- there ain't no such thing as failure.  It's all data.  To succeed BIG you may have to fail big.  It's just a stretch of highway- you may have to go through some bad road to get where you're going.

The odds that we will be as successful as Thomas Edison or Richard Branson are small, even if we try... but if we don't try, there's no chance at all.

I'd rather fail big than live small, wouldn't you?  Especially knowing that "failing big" is just a stop on the way to "living large."

And what was Sam's "Rule #1?"

Here it is:  "Break the rules."

4/22/05  Welll, he did it again.  Once wasn't enough.

"The Attractor Factor" went to number one again today on the Barnes and Noble best-seller chart.  It didn't do quite as well on Amazon, because Amazon sold out.

As a matter, the entire first printing of 50,000 sold out in less than 48 hours.

The printer, amazed, is scrambling  to get more printed.  It's a problem, but what a fun problem to have.

We're all very, very proud.  And grateful. 

Watching Joe do "the impossible" is absolutely the best way to learn how to do "the impossible." 

Nothing is impossible.  Miracles happen.

It's kinda fun to be front row, center, when they do.  

It's inspiring, in a very real "I can do it" kind of way. 

Thanks, Joe.  Congratulations.

Let's go get that car.

***

It won't go to number one, but my new book, "The Absolute Beginner's Guide to Joint Venture Proposals" is available HERE.

This is another book that was inspired by my coaching clients.  Several of them are ready to start pitching JV's, and they needed some direction.

Of course, I'm working with them one-on-one, but there are some basic concepts that apply to everyone.  If you'd like a copy, go for it- they're free.   For now.

***

After today's MasterMind meeting, Bill and I went to the coffee shop to talk and catch our breath.  Today's meeting was just amazing.

Joe, of course, was focused on his book.  Craig has some big news- I can't share it, but I can tell you this:  by this time next year, Craig Perrine is going to be one of the most successful internet marketers on the planet.  It's inevitable.  He's just too talented to avoid it.

Bill's been fighting the virus wars and putting up our membership site.  Nerissa is building her video empire-  www.thevideoqueen.com

I'm building the Milagro store at www.instantchange.com, doing the backstage work on the Milagro Manifestation Method- there are over thirty... maybe forty downloads in that product.  I've got some other projects going, and I'm working with sixteen coaching clients on a daily basis- www.NoBScoaching.com.

But what I noticed was that we were all working on the same issue- just at different levels.

All of us have read "The Millionaire Mind," so we frame it in terms of our "success thermostats."  Since we've been working together in our MasterMind group, we have all gone "to the next level."

That means different things to different people.  Joe was already well known.  He's becoming a superstar.  At the other end of the spectrum, I was playing guitar in bars for $30/.$50  a night- and touring when I could.  Now, I've got a successful internet marketing business, about forty products on the market, and a thriving coaching business.

We're all at different points on the success continuum, but apparently, each time we shift gears and move on to the next level, there is work to do internally.  We've got to grab that thermostat and set it higher.  And higher.  I do.  We all do. 

Because we know that the only limits are the ones we impose on ourselves.  It's all in our minds.

Right now, honestly, I wouldn't feel comfortable with the kind of success Joe is having.  I haven't done the internal work to accept gifts of that magnitude.  Joe has.

But watching Joe, at his level, and Craig at his, makes it easier for me to visualize greater success.  And anything you can visualize, you can achieve.

If you've got any questions, go to www.bn.com and snag a copy of "The Attractor Factor," before they're all gone.  Read the book and make your own miracles.  Why wait?

4/12/05-  Well, the big news is that Joe knocked Harry Potter off the top of the best-seller charts.  That's big news.

I wrote at length about this in MilagroWorld Issue 36
   We had a small celebration at last week's MasterMind meeting. 

***

Also, I released "The Absolute Beginner's Guide to Copywriting," as a free e-book.  You can get your copy HERE.

That book is, in several ways, a product of my coaching experience. 

First, I have several coaching clients who were struggling with the basics of copywriting.  I had to put together a resource for them.  I guess a more experienced coach would have sold it to them, or recommended a product I could snag an affiliate commission from.

That's B.S., and I don't do B.S.

I do recommend Joe's Hypnotic Selling Secrets mega course in the book.  I'd recommend that to anybody- but it's a thousand bucks, and for most of my clients it's over-kill.  It's a PhD program in copywriting- my clients need (for now) the Freshman survey course.

So I wrote it.

But there's more to the lesson than that.  Everybody who intends to make a living on the internet needs a list to market to.   It wasn't that long ago for me- I was sitting around appreciating how useful a list would be and wondering how in the world I was going to acquire one.

Joe taught me a valuable strategy.  Trade something of value for email addresses.

The coaching clients have been watching all this from backstage- I sent them an email telling them what I was doing and how I was doing it.  Their assignment was to write an e-book to give away.  In that way, they can all build lists.

And now, I've got a rapidly growing list of people who have shown an interest in copywriting.  It's like having an auditorium full of people who want to hear what I've got to say on the subject. 

I'm a ham.  I love an audience.  Too cool!

***

Bill Hibbler and I are creating a membership site. 

That's actually a lie. 

Bill's putting together a membership site, and I'm applauding him and being as supportive as I can- given my absolute lack of skill at html, etc.

But we are both going to "run" the site.   It's going to be a glorious, valuable, informative, and entertaining meeting place, it is.

I've always maintained that Bill and I, between us, have all the traits of the perfect internet marketer. 

Bill is meticulous, careful, and precise.  He writes "Ultimate Guides" that are exactly that.  He plans.  He keeps excellent records.  His office is immaculate.  He's HTML literate. 

He's got gold records on his wall and signed pictures of himself hanging out with rock stars on the wall.

And then there's me.  I'm mister "Ready, FIRE, aim!"  Sometimes it's "Fire, ready, aim."  Sometimes it's just "Fire- DUCK!"

I flow with the universe, tread where angels wouldn't go without armed guards, throw my receipts in a paper bag, and my office has been known to... well... I know which pile everything is probably in, and there is a path from the door to my chair... 

I've got signed pictures of me hanging out with rock stars- in a box- in the garage.

You might say we offer different frames through which to view the internet world. 

I think it's going to be a blast! 

What I've seen of it is pretty exciting.  There is a forum, a place for lots of goodies, a chat room...  it's got all the bells and whistles.

It's going to be all about internet product creation and marketing.  I call it "The Playground."

I'm pretty excited about the playground.  I've always wanted a place where people who create and market e-products could go hang out and share ideas.   Most of the forums I go to are just too broad- try to cover too many subjects. 

It gets lonely in internet land.  When I finish a project, I want to hang out with people and talk about it.  Share what I learned.  Ask questions.  Maybe do a little Irish Jig...

I usually finish products early in the morning when Betsy and the kids are sound asleep.  Jigging, except maybe a quiet, barefoot jig in my office, is definitely out of the question.

I think it will be great to barge into a forum, jigging online, as it were, and find some like-minded people I can celebrate or commiserate with.

Like an English pub for internet authors... that spans the globe.

I'm excited.

4/5/05

Well, it's started.  Emails whizzing around the globe.  Millions of them.  I sent over 6,000 myself. 

What on Earth could be generating such a buzz?

Joe is officially releasing "The Attractor Factor" today.  It's going to go to number one on the best-seller lists today, too.

I've been watching Joe put this together for months- he always puts 110% into whatever he does, but he's putting 150%+ into this- and with good reason.   He's even giving away a thousand bucks worth of freebies when you place an order- go read about it at http://www.mrfire.com/factor/.

He knows how powerful that book is- in its former life, as "Spiritual Marketing," it changed thousands of lives for the better, including mine.

When people ask me how I went from "broke blues guitar player" to "successful author, marketer, and coach," my short answer is-  "Joe handed me a book." 

You can find out more at http://www.mrfire.com/factor/

I've spent the last two days working on our new website- http://www.instantchange.com

Even Bill Hibbler, the master site reviewer,(www.mastersitereviewer.com) tells me it looks great, and Bill is, to put it mildly, slow to compliment- he's trashed every other site I've done.

Why is this one so good?

Want to hear a secret?  I cheated.  And if you want your sites to look professional, you should, too.  I placed a bid-request at www.rentacoder.com and got about a dozen bids to design the site.  I didn't take the lowest bid, but the one I did take met all my requirements.  The programmer wrote excellent English and had a great portfolio.

It took him and his crew several tries to get it like I wanted it, but the great thing about rentacoder is that you don't pay until you're happy. 

I don't mind using MS Frontpage- I've been using it for years- but I have no desire to learn HTML, or to be a programmer.   When it comes to designing websites, I'm a hack.  An amateur.

So, for a lot less than I thought, I was able to get three templates built by a pro that I could modify with Frontpage- so I can do updates, add products, and fix problems myself.  Even a hack like me can have a professional presentation with a little help.

I've been reading, and hearing, since I first got into this biz that the biggest mistake you can make is trying to do everything yourself.   The trick (they told me.  and told me.) is to find what you're best at and do that, and farm out the grunt work.

I resisted farming out stuff, though.

At first, I couldn't afford to.  Then, I had a bad experience with a programmer and my inner control freak took over- I just about drove myself batty handling all the details.

I'm better now, thanks.

The internet makes it too easy.  So now, I've got a programmer in Florida, a research team in India working on my next book (found them at www.elance.com), and a crew of juvenile delinquents who handle the CD production and duplication.  I get to concentrate on writing, product development, and coaching- which is what I'm good at.

Over a year ago, I wrote about creating a "portable empire."  What I had in mind was a world-class business that could be run from anywhere in the world.  Now, I'm beginning to see how that can be converted from a dream to a reality.

Economist Paul Krugman had an article in the New York Times a few days back titled "The World is Flat."   He just pointed out the obvious, but sometimes, the obvious will escape you.  There are really no borders, anymore.  Microsoft is moving a lot of their R&D to China, their customer service is handled in India- and, thanks to companies like e-lance and renta-a-coder, even a micro-business like mine can successfully outsource.  I've got almost as many customers outside the U.S. as I have here.  It's a little breath-taking-  I'm running a multi-national company from Wimberley, Texas- in my gym shorts!

I've always loved John Lennon's song, "Imagine."  I've put a lot of time into visualizing the world the way that song describes it, but I guess I thought that the changes would happen as the result of political upheaval.  

Wrong. 

The changes happened because of technology.

I wonder what's going to happen next?

btw, I've got one slot open for a coaching client.  If you're interested in becoming a successful e-book author and marketer, go to http://www.NoBScoaching.com and sign up.

4/2/05
Is there a name for the opposite of  "the Midas Touch?"  I'm not talking about brakes, here.  I'm talking about the king who had the disturbing experience of having everything he touched turn to gold.

In the end, it wasn't all that great-

I've just gone through a week-long period where everything I touched, metaphorically speaking, turned into poop.  I had the "poop" touch.  This is a family 'zine.  If you're over 30 and can handle it, substitute the proper word for "poop."

I first noticed it when I reached for the bag of garlic powder I bought at Whole Foods, and it came out of the cabinet upside down and unlatched...  making my kitchen floor look like the evidence room of the Hollywood Police  Department.  White powder everywhere.

The final straw was Wednesday night, when I reached for my laptop to respond to a posting on a forum, and knocked a full glass of Shiraz-Cabernet into my Fujitsu Lifebook.

I immediately turned it off and upside down- hoping for the best.  The next morning, it was a rock.  No light.  Pushing buttons didn't generate any sparks at all.  Dead.

I run all of my businesses from this laptop- I back up most of the important data, but this is the only one that has all the software I use.  I made a conscious decision to create a "business in a backpack," and that's just hunky-dory as long as the laptop works.  It's a recording studio, a graphics studio, a video editor, a web-page creator, and handles my finances... when it works.

Bottom line, I was out of business.   How to turn THIS into something good?

I took the laptop to my computer guru and just took myself off the hook for a couple of days.  Checked out.

There is a very comfortable coffee shop here in town, which has a computer and internet access.  After taking care of the absolutely critical stuff, I found a spot in the sun on the front porch, with cigar, coffee and water at hand, and read a good book. 

A non-internet marketing book.

I recommend it.  The "poop touch" just went away.

I've been exhausted since the seminar...  it was a hell of a way to spend my fiftieth birthday. 

So, two days on a sunny front porch smoking cigars and drinking coffee... excellent therapy.  I'm recharged and rested and ready to go.

Today my computer guru brought back the laptop- it's going to need a new keyboard, but other than that it's fine.  I definitely dodged a bullet. 

Tomorrow, I'll go back to my death defying schedule.  There ain't no such thing as passive income.  If there is, I haven't seen it.  I work seven days a week on e-books, audios, web sites, coaching, and networking. 

Except...  I think... about once a month I'm going to pretend that my laptop got drunk again.  Just turn it off, put it in the backpack, and put the backpack in the bedroom...  and go to the coffee shop.

Here's the surprising thing:  the world kept spinning.  My coaching program filled up.  People kept buying my products.  Nobody really noticed that I was out of touch for two days...  I took two days off and got away with it! 

I may actually introduce the idea... slowly, so I don't startle myself... of taking a day off every week.  I'll have to work up to that, though.

**************

About coaching:  I'm going to stop taking clients when the roster reaches 12, and we're almost there.  Right now, I'm waiting to hear from a couple of people, and trying to figure out how to get around the fact that PayPal doesn't work in South Africa.  If you're interested, now would be a good time to contact me- see the link in the upper right hand corner. 

Thank you.

***************

3/25/05 

"Sixty thousand dollars a month." 

"Forty thousand dollars a month. "

"Four hundred fifty five thousand dollars in one day." 

"A million dollars in a week."

"Twenty-five thousand subscribers at $5 each."

Is your head spinning?

Mine was.  As I was mixing down the audio from the seminar, I got to listen to some of the things I missed while I was recording the audio at the seminar.

There are some relatively normal looking people making absolutely silly amounts of money on the internet.

It's inspiring.  It's intimidating.  It makes me laugh.

Picture this:  There was a late-night round-table discussion with about ten of the "membership site" gurus.  And Brian Keith Voiles.

Now, Brian gets $25,000 for writing a sales letter- and he is in high demand.  He has a membership site that brings in about $3,000 a month.  And he was whining like a puppy dog who could see a T-Bone steak... just on the other side of a plate glass window. 

Because the guy next to him on stage was bringing in $60,000 a month, every month, from his membership site. 

When I think of all the gigs I've played for $50 a night.... 

And then there's Ted Nicholas.  Ted's a class act.  He showed us pictures taken from his chateau in Switzerland.  He's made (and kept- nothing slow about Ted) billions of dollars- just for writing ad copy.

There was a lady who looked like a Carol Burnet skit and sounded like fingernails on a chalk-board, I don't remember her name, who has turned e-bay into a science.  She gave a fascinating talk about using ebay to generate massive traffic for your website.  If I can find someone to transcribe it for me, I intend to read all about it. 

Rosalind Gardner spoke twice about affiliate marketing.  She spoke once, privately, about how to treat a guest speaker.  She's my hero.  Go buy something from her.  Buy her a car.  Send her flowers.  Tell her I sent you.

Search Engine Optimization is about as sexy as tax returns to me.   My buddy Bill started breathing heavily while the lecture on SEO was going on-  I was wishing I had a Kinky Friedman book to read.  Bill likes the tech/geek stuff.

Then the speaker started showing how much money he was making from Amazon.com and other sources using his SEO tricks, and I started paying attention.  Leave Kinky to his Jameson's and cigars.  This guy was raking in serious cash every month, just by manipulating a word in a headline, or a meta-tag, or a supercalifragelistic-expialidocious... I don't know...   it would be greek to me, except I find greek interesting.

A fascinating contrast:  talking to the attendees who were "gonna" but hadn't yet.  They've been researching search terms for six months.  Working on the title for their e-book for three years.  Thinking about setting up an affiliate page, but haven't quite gotten around to it yet.

You need to be careful with excuses.  I've come to realize that a good excuse is more dangerous than a pound of cocaine.

A good excuse will keep you from accomplishing a thing.

The only difference between the people who were living their dreams and accomplishing great things, and the people who were "gonna" is that the people who were "gonna" had great excuses.

"I was "gonna" write that e-book, but...  (insert great excuse here)."

One of my favorite quotes is, "If you're not failing on a regular basis, you're not trying near hard enough."

I live by that. 

It's all data.  If you try something and fail- you haven't failed.  You've successfully identified something that didn't work.  That makes your job much easier.  Go on to the next right thing, and don't do the thing that doesn't work again.

I try to imagine the guys (or gals) who did things the first time.  Just picture the first guy who made beer, for example.  You just know he made some awful messes on the way- but aren't you glad he didn't stop?

Same thing with milk.  Imagine "Ug," and "Ugette" looking at a cow's udder and thinking...  well, I'm not sure I want to know what they were thinking... but somebody had to be the first to milk a cow.  I've milked a cow.  It's not something that you would intuitively do.

Eating a bowl of ice-cream, on the other hand, is pretty intuitive.  No sweat at all.  And if it wasn't for Ug and Ugette, there would be no ice cream.

What's the point? 

Just do it.  I'm sorry if that sounds trite, but that's our lesson for the day.  Take your great excuse out into the front yard, hand it a sandwich wrapped in a road map, and give it a good swift kick in the ass.  Then do the next right thing.  When you're through with that, do the next right thing.

The next thing you know, you'll be sitting on a stage at a seminar talking about the $60,000 a month that you're putting in your bank account while the people with great excuses are listening to you.

3/20/05

It's been an educational and exhausting weekend.

I just got back from an internet marketing seminar.  I met some great people, learned a whole lot, and got no sleep. 

Let's get a couple of things out of the way, and then I'll show you the pics and stuff.

1.  Mentoring programs.  Please.  Let's get this straight.

If somebody is going to tell you what to do, charge you for your training, and keep control of your clients- that person is your BOSS, not your mentor.  You are not independent, or self-employed- except in the narrowest sense.  You are a wage-slave, who isn't even guaranteed any wages. 

Don't do it.   Spend the money getting knowledge that you can use on your own.  

2.   Be real.  Be yourself.  I saw an alarming amount of fake smiles, back-stabbing, and ass kissing over the weekend.

If your "guru" requires  you to (or lets you) kiss his ass, fire him.  He's gonna have his hand in your pocket for the rest of your life if you don't, and he's laughing at you when you're not around.

I started my public speaking career this weekend.  It was a blast.

My first speaking gig was also my last audio gig.  I handled the live sound, audio for video, audio for web-cast, and recorded the show to digital audio tape and .wav files.   Never again.

It was a challenge- the people coordinating the event were remarkably unsophisticated about technical stuff.  They went WAY out of their way to make things difficult and clumsy, and then bitched when things were difficult and clumsy!   What a stress-generator!

BTW, here's a tip.  Try to get on the "crew" at an internet marketing seminar at least once in your life.  It's like working backstage at a rock concert.   You can see the show for free, and you can see what your guru/heroes are really like. 

It's a little like sausage or politics- you may not want to know. 

Once you've seen the diva flash her sparkling smile at the audience and then turn into medusa when she turns around, snarling and spitting... and then flash the smile at the audience again...  you'll never see a music show the same way. 

Marketing seminars are like that- there's a whole different show going on behind the scenes that you NEED to see if you're going to be in this business.  Most of the guys (and gals) are amazingly smart and bright, and at the same time humble and authentic.  A few aren't.  You can find out who's real and who's not pretty fast working backstage.

This is Bill Hibbler, Brian Keith Voiles, and me.  Brian is one of the few great copywriters on the planet today- his fees start at $25,000 to write a sales letter.  Go HERE to get to know him.  (Bill's over here.)  You WANT to get to know Brian, because 1) he can teach you how to write amazing copy and 2) he's a real fun guy.

It's amazing how many musicians have infiltrated the internet marketing world.  Brian is a songwriter and record producer, Bill used to manage bands, Joe Vitale is a harmonica monster, John Carlton is alleged to be a pretty good guitar player...  we've decided to start having jam sessions at these seminars. 

This sprightly young lad is Ted Nicholas, who has been a famous and successful copywriter since the Civil War.  Well, maybe not quite that long, but he's had more influence on the copywriting business than anyone else alive today.  His direct mail promotions are legendary.

He operates out of a chateau in Switzerland, which looks out over a crystal lake which reflects the snow capped mountains in the distance.  He "auditions" his clients- he's very selective about who he works with. 

He's also a blast.  I had a chance to hang out with him and his son for a while.  No BS.  No airs or attitude.  It was an honor and a pleasure. 

It was also a little strange... taking copywriting lessons from Ted is like taking guitar lessons from Clapton, I would imagine.  Every example he showed us was familiar.  And he wrote them all. 

Joe Vitale was one of the featured speakers.  Wouldn't you love to get him and Ted together for a few hours?  With a tape recorder?  I would!

Here's Bill and Joe hanging out between shows.

It's always a good idea to attend internet marketing seminars.  The sheer amount of data can be overwhelming.  You can learn what to do by watching what others do, and you can learn what NOT to do by watching what others do.

I think the most important things I brought home from the seminar were:

1)  I learned from Brian that EVERYTHING happens for the best, and that you can love and learn from all life experiences.  Thank you, Brian.

2) I learned from Ted Nicholas that "if you can't cry, you can't write."  Ted reinforced what I've learned from Joe- that authenticity and honesty is the most effective way to succeed. 

And finally, to the people who showed me what NOT to do- thank you!  Any lesson I can learn from someone else's bruises is a blessing.

3/13/05

You say it's my birthday...

I'm a little out of sorts right now.  Bear with me.

I thought I would spend the Saturday before my 50th (gasp!) birthday doing what I do every Saturday-  playing with the Plucking Idiots (www.pluckingidiots.com) at the local coffee shop.

The Plucking Idiots is a kind of non-band.  We don't take anything seriously- it's very much not like my touring situation.  We had a rehearsal, and liked it so much we decided to make it an annual event.

The tourists who come through the coffee shop have no idea that what they're hearing is a group of seasoned touring musicians who have played with some of the biggest names in show-biz and have record deals and such... and we don't tell them.  It's kind of like a bowling club.  We do it for fun.

That's me on the right, with the new resonator guitar I got for my birthday. 

That's also a belly dancer.

So is that.

Our relaxed Saturday afternoon get-together was turned into a small surprise party.  Betsy thought it would be fun. 

I cannot dance.  That's not modesty.  That's just a mature assessment of reality.  I can do a lot of fun stuff, but I can not dance. 

That's me dancing.

Next weekend we'll be at the seminar in San Antonio.  If you're there, stop by and say howdy. 

And bring some belly-dancers, ok?

3/11  There are days when I want to work out, and days when I don't want to work out.  On those days when I don't want to work out, I work out anyway.

And what's irritating is that I've been at this a month now, and I'm not movie-star skinny.  Probably not smarter, either.

I've replaced some fat with some muscle, which has decreased my waist size... but I haven't lost much weight. 

Oh well...

Are you going to Joel Christopher and Ted Nicholas' "Double Birthday Bash?"  I just found out this week that I was. 

Surprise, surprise, surprise.

I'll be recording the event for Joel.  My son Patrick will be the tall, red-headed kid in the back of the room selling Milagro products. 

In the meantime, we've got a factory going here.  Every CD is lovingly recorded, labeled, and packaged right here at the Milagro World Headquarters.  Since the Tibetan girls are on holiday, Patrick and I are filling in. 

We're right on the verge of opening up the Milagro online store, so this is a good practice run.  Most of the problems we're running into can be easily solved by purchasing more and better equipment. 

The double birthday bash should be a lot of fun.  Joe and Nerissa will be there.  Bill Hibbler will be there. 

We'll all be staying at the hotel where the seminar is to be held.  Be sure and say "hello." 

By the way, we'll be showing off "The Milagro Manifestation Method," which is the official name for "The Secret Briefcase Project" we've been working on for months.  It's huge.

Twenty CDs, two workbooks, a diary/schedule, and a quick-start guide.  I'm not going to tell you- you have to come see.  If you can't make it to the seminar, I'll show you online right after the seminar.

3/5/05   I've decided to re-frame my manifestation.   It's easy to confuse the trappings of wealth with wealth.

And, I must admit, there is a bit of the "old hippie" in me, still.  Conspicuous consumption is "tacky."  I've got some definite issues to work through here.  I spend a lot of time at www.motors.ebay.com looking at cars.  Half the time I'm looking at big luxury sedans.  Half the time, I'm looking at restored VW vanagens.   Talk about dissonance...

So, I've put the luxury car on the back burner, and am manifesting a successful business instead.  Once that's firmly entrenched in reality, it can buy luxury cars if it wants them.  Or VW microbuses.  Or both.  My subconscious mind can fight this one out without my participation. 

Reading "Rich Dad, Poor Dad," led me to read "Inc. and Grow Rich." 

I've also been reading Dan Kennedy's "No B.S." series of books. 

The steps you need to take to create and protect your business are fairly simple, once you accept the fact that you have a business and are going to be successful.

Speaking of successful, I've made it to the gym every day for the last two weeks.  Prior to that I missed a day, because I was at a sweat lodge.  I haven't written about the sweat lodge, because I want to do another one first.

But yesterday was the hardest so far.  I DID NOT want to work out.  I got on the elliptical, put on my headphones, and pressed "play" on my walkman.  Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon" started thumping in my ears.  By the time the last moan had ended on side one (right before "Money.") I had done my time on the elliptical and made the round of my machines.

I still didn't want to work out.    But, as I dragged my sweat drenched body out to the truck, I felt...  something.  I was the guy who worked out even when he didn't want to work out.

I have a suspicion that I can also be the guy who finished his projects and made his business successful- even when he doesn't feel like it. 

There are days when the sun is shining in the hill country, and the oil-slick bodies are basking in the river, and the bbq and wine are calling seductively...  and I'm in my office clacking away, or recording music, or (my least favorite) packaging CDs. 

That's one of the "tricks," I guess.  I'll get the body I want if I work out even when I don't want to.  I'll get the business I want if I work even when I don't want to.  Nobody said it was going to be easy.

***

2/8/05  Watching my friend Bill manifest his Mercedes 500SEL was pretty motivating.  I've known Bill at least a decade, and I've watched him grow- he just thunk himself up a luxury car.

Well, I'm going to manifest a BMW 7 series. 

Bill and I are both using techniques we learned from Joe Vitale's "Spiritual Marketing," which is about to be released in an expanded edition as "The Attractor Factor." 

Let's put my money where Joe's mouth is, so to speak, and see if I can use his techniques to manifest a luxury car.  More about that later...

Have you read "Rich Dad, Poor Dad," yet? 

It's based on 6 basic principles:

1.  The rich don't work for money
2.  Teach (and learn) financial literacy
3.  Mind your own business
4.  The history of taxes and the power of corporations
5.  The rich invent money
6.  Work to learn- don't work for money.

I had a lot of resistance to reading it- overcoming my parent's misconceptions about money has been one of the hardest parts of "growing up" and taking responsibility  for my own beliefs.  Be careful how you talk about important subjects around your children... their future therapists are listening!

I've got a ring-side seat in an interesting experiment concerning rich dads and poor dads.  I come from a large family- one branch is breath-takingly wealthy, the other branch- my branch- is...  not wealthy.  The difference is beliefs and attitudes.

Three generations ago, neither branch of the family had any money. 

Last week, "Paw-Paw," my 92 year old great-uncle, went to the great golf-course in the sky.  He and "Mimi," his wife of 72 (!!!) years, were the ones who originally  pursued the wealth, and taught their children and grand-children how to achieve wealth.

The night before the funeral, I drove to the town where he, and most of my family, live- stopped at the store on the way to the motel to pick up the toothpaste I had forgotten, and bought a copy of "Rich Dad, Poor Dad," to read.

When I put that book down at 2:00 the next morning, my entire perspective on money, and on "Paw-Paw," had changed.

I've got a degree in accounting, and I learned more from that book than I did from four years of business school.

I also learned a great deal of respect for the "money" side of my family, and a sense of compassion and regret for "my" side of the family.

So, it was with a deep sense of curiosity that I went to the funeral the next day.   I was surrounded by cousins, some of us sloping into middle age.  How were the ones with "rich dads" different from the ones with "poor dads."

It was glaring.  Obvious. 

One thing that has me intrigued- the "rich dads" and their kids were slimmer and healthier than the "poor dads" and their kids.  That can't be just about money.  That's about attitude.

It was also funny.  One of my shorter- probably ten years old- cousins came up to me and asked, "what do you do?"

I said, "I write books and make records.  What do you do?"

In reply he said, "What kind of car do you drive?"

It's obvious where this kid's head is, and what his parents talk to him about.  His sense of value, and of estimating the value of others, is

1.  What do you do?
2.  What kind of car do you drive?

Fascinating.

I have no doubt that ten years from now, that child will be doing something profitable and driving a nice car.

But the thing that caught my attention- because I had just finished the book, was the financial stratification of my cousins.  We fall into 3 groups:

1.  Owns businesses and has investments.  This group would smile at the phrase "passive income," but that's what they've got.  Stocks, real-estate, and really good accountants and attorneys to protect them.  Incorporated, with trusts.  This is the group that contains "Rich Dads" and their kids.  Exclusively.  Not an ounce of fat in the bunch.

2.  Good jobs.  This is the smallest group- worked their way up the corporate ladder.  Retirement plans.  Safe, managed investments.  Lots of the "trappings" of wealth- nice cars, nice houses.  It would be interesting to see their balance sheets- I suspect that assets (at liquidation) minus liabilities would equal "oh no!" if the jobs disappeared.  Nice suits and cars, though.  Overweight.  "Poor Dads" and their kids.

3.  Work jobs, part 2.  Either unmotivated or uneducated, this group is trapped in the lower middle class and barring divine intervention, that's where they'll stay.  One paycheck away from disaster. 

That's the financial stratification.  You could do a similar division based on happiness... I tried this one and I could discern no pattern at all.  There is no correlation between money and happiness- although some of the complaints the "Rich Dad's" kids had would seem frivolous to a person without money. 

No matter how much money you've got, you can find something to be dissatisfied with if you try hard enough.

I tried doing the stratification by education.  That was more interesting.  There was no correlation between education and wealth, but there was a correlation between education and happiness- inverse!  My guess is that this comes from confusing "book learning" with financial literacy, and resentment at lack of financial reward for increased education.  In a couple of cases, I'm sure that's the problem.

I also noted that each generation of "Rich Dad's Kids" was providing more and better education for their children.  It will be fun to see what that generation is like when they're older- financially literate educated people!  What a delightful, rare combination!

I have a personal bias, here.  When I stood where Goethe and Napoleon had their famous conversation, it was useful for me to know who Goethe and Napoleon were, and why that conversation was interesting.

When I'm talking to my East-German friends who grew up under communism, it's fun for me to be able to join in the conversation with a working knowledge of Marx-Engels, as well as a knowledge of the reality of my government and their government during that time. 

And so on.  I'm pro-education.  Knowledge makes the game more interesting.  My mistake, too, was confusing "book-learning" with financial literacy.  "Book learning" won't help you win the game, but it makes the game a richer experience.

I thought about my cousins as I drove across Texas.  I thought about Paw-Paw, who started out selling newspaper subscriptions in return for chickens and produce in the depression and ended up owning a string of newspapers, a radio station, investments and real-estate...

When I got home, I handed my son my copy of "Rich Dad, Poor Dad," and said:

"Read This!  Everything I've ever told you about money was wrong.  Forget everything I've said, and read this.  When you're through, I'll give you a short test- if you pass the test, I'll give you twenty bucks."

Wouldn't it be fun if he is able to keep his love for learning, his creative "what box?" attitude, and also learn how money works?  I'll keep you posted.

In the meantime- That BMW I'm manifesting is black, with black interior. 

P.S.  And I joined a gym and am working out every day.  As an internet marketer, I sit on my duff- either at my desk or in the recording studio- up to 12 hours a day.  What the heck am I working so hard for, if I'm going to be too fat and out of shape (or dead?) to enjoy it?  

1/18  Listen and Grow Rich is up and running!

I am so proud of this one.  We put the enhanced learning technology with some very cool music, and then the Think and Grow Rich audio course on top of that.  It's seriously the best way to learn this important information.

click here to check it out.

1/10  Well, I'm excited.  I've just finished up our new audio course, "Listen and Grow Rich," and it turned out great.

You never know.  I learned this making music CD's.  You can start with a great song, use great musicians, and record everything perfectly... and still get a dud.  Or a hit.  You can take every precaution, but when you're dealing with creativity, you're dancing with magic.  You're not leading.

This time, the dance went smoothly.  Check back next week for details... you are going to love it.

Speaking of creative endeavors, my latest issue of Milagro World has been reprinted in several nice e-zines around the internet.  You can read it here:  http://www.milagroworld.com/mw21.  

If you're not already a subscriber, go to Milagro World and sign up.

January 29th was Joe-Day.  It was Joe's birthday, and we threw him a big party.  You can see pics here. 

Betsy and I have set an intention to have a place in Europe by May 2006.  If you're reading this in Europe, contact me and tell me what it's like.  The non-negotiable aspects of the place we're looking for:  outdoor coffee shops, cathedrals, castles, fresh food, and a healthy social environment- i.e., access to good wine and interesting conversation.  And high-speed internet access.  Email me at pat@patobryan.com

The response to our Christmas freebie was phenomenal.  If you haven't already gotten yours, look below for the link.

12/25  The full moon is shining outside like the headlight on a Rolls Royce.  It's not quite as bright as day, but it would be easy to take a walk tonight under the stars if it wasn't so cold- 24 degrees F.

It's Christmas day- and Joe Vitale and I have put your Christmas presents at http://www.milagroworld.com/holidaygifts.htm

There is a huge list of free books and products that are yours for the taking.  Enjoy!

I've gotten emails this holiday season from friends all over the world- it's wonderful that right now everybody in my immediate circle is healthy and happy.  Since this moment is all we've got, I think I'll savor it and be grateful for it. 

We've got a lot of projects planned for 2005; it's going to be a busy year.   I've got e-books to write, audio projects to write and record, paintings to create, at least two European tours to play, and a new CD to write and record.   I'm very aware of how lucky I am to be able to realize my creative projects and make a living at it.   I can hardly wait to get started!

But right now is a good time to sit back and reflect on the wonderful things that have happened this year- so many new friends, so many good experiences.  

Have a great holiday season and start making plans for a great new year.

12/4  Pictures and stories from the German tour are HERE!

12/2  Back.  The tour was amazing.  We played 13 shows in 14 days- from Hamburg to deep in the Black Forest.  I'll put up a separate web page with pics and narrative, once I get over the jet lag.

What was even more amazing, the internet businesses kept on rocking, while I was rocking in Germany.  For the first time, I had access to high-speed internet every day.  I was able to handle most of the customer service issues immediately.

Influence 101 is a bona-fide hit- thank you all!  It was a wonderful feeling to wake up in Germany, grab a cup of coffee, and hit send/receive on the email- and see the inbox fill up with invoices for sales.  With internet marketing, there really are no borders.

I'm glad I went in the winter.  Yes, it's cold, but the Germans know how to do cold.  The roads were fine, the buildings were warm, and snow is actually pretty.  Sometimes charging straight at what scares you is the best way to get a grip on it.  I was afraid of the cold- now I'm not. 

It takes me a couple of days to get back in the rhythm of being home.  Taking the kid to school, domestic stuff... much different than being a touring musician.  Check back in a day or so for a full report.

11/11  Thermal socks, yep.  Silk long-johns, yep.  Expedition gloves, yep.  Big coat and flannel shirts, yep.

You'd think I was going to sprint up Mt. Everest, right?

Nope.  Just a little trek to Germany.  A short tour.  But I'm not leaving anything to chance... 

However, before I leave, I want to show you these two new products.  On your left- the ones that say "new." 

Sign up for the "Milagro World" ezine to catch the rest of the story.

Will the products get promoted before he leaves on Monday?
Will the e-zines continue publishing while he's gone? (yes)
Will Pat freeze his huevos completely?

I'm real excited about the new products.  The e-book problem solver is going to change lives.  Influence 101 is a "must-have" for anybody who wants to know how to persuade and influence.   Check 'em out.

And remember to send me warm, cozy thoughts while I'm bouncing around the frozen Siberia-like autobahns of Germany!

11/8 I spent a couple of relaxing hours yesterday at the Vitale estate.  You may remember that several months ago I asked my list to send in questions about e-books. 

Joe Vitale and I sat down at his kitchen table and recorded answers to those questions.  The questions were fascinating- "how do you get the courage to write an e-book?" was my favorite.  I can relate-  what makes what we have to say or write important or interesting enough to charge money for it?

Joe just blew that one out of the water.

Others wanted to know "nuts and bolts" kinda stuff-  how do you actually write the book, choose a topic, come up with a web-site, and then sell it and make money?

We covered all that.  I pitched in what I've learned in the ten months I've been doing this full time.  Joe has almost 30 years of experience.  Between us I think we covered it. 

That audio will be available very soon. 

In the meantime, go check out www.influence101.com.  It's up and running!

11/4  Influence 101 is finished!  I'll be sending it to Clickbank over the weekend.  Influence 101 is a 5-part training program for mastering the psychology of Influence- with an emphasis on 1) sales and 2) protecting yourself from having the tools used on you.

I'm fascinated by Social Psychology- the study of why people do what they do and believe what they believe.  I've distilled the basics down to a 45 minute course, with accompanying workbook.  A complete study guide.  I think you're gonna love it.

To my European friends- about the election- "I'm sorry."  I did everything I could do.  The decision now is whether to stay and fight or move until the nightmare is over.  We're weighing the options.

Less than two weeks until the Winter German tour.  I'm dreading the cold, and looking forward to seeing my German friends. 

Tonight my acoustic band, the "Plucking Idiots," played at the museum of art and music in New Braunfels.  It was a lot of fun.  I'm going to play their Christmas Party on December 23, with Al Barlow. 

10/26  All three e-zine lists have been successfully exported to 1shoppingcart.  Finally.  They said it couldn't be done.

I'm not going to mention the name of the "old" autoresponder company, but if you've got lists to handle and want to make sure your correspondence gets out in a timely fashion, don't use them.

I've got a banner ad for 1shopping cart at the top of the page.  Use them. 

And it's three weeks until I fly to Germany.  I'm less delighted about this tour than I have been about the others.  There are some cool gigs, and then there are some not-so-cool gigs, but all of the gigs will be COLD! 

By the time I decided to try canceling the tour, it was too late- magazine ads already purchased, for example... and my band was counting on the income they make when I'm there, and they didn't have time to book gigs to replace the ones I wanted to cancel. 

So, I'm going to do the tour.  But I'm going to need your support- I'm going to be three weeks behind in the internet world when I get back, and three weeks in the internet world is several months in the rock-n-roll world.

I'll have e-zines set up to go out while I'm in Germany, but I won't be able to do any customer support at all until I get back.  We're doing ten shows in ten days, and driving way too much...  no internet cafe's this tour. 

10/23  The enhanced learning audio is online
here.   Why is that interesting?  Well...

First of all, it features our new enhanced learning technology, which is going to make your life much simpler.  It automatically puts your brain into a focused state that makes learning easier. 

Second, it showcases a chapter our of the new, unreleased, home study course that I'm working on with Dr. Joe Vitale, based on the Napoleon Hill book, "The Law of Success." 

Third- it's free.  That's right.  Free.  It may be the most valuable free resource you ever get- don't get left behind.  This enhanced learning technology is going to revolutionize the way we learn- and free up huge chunks of time for other things- like coming up with products and selling them!

In our weekly mastermind meeting last Thursday, I was... well, actually I was complaining about how much time I've had to spend on infrastructure lately.  Just solving the autoresponder problem, moving my lists from an unprofessional company to a professional one, took over a week. 

Would you like to save yourself a great deal of frustration?  If you're considering hiring an autoresponder company, I recommend 1shoppingcart.  They also handle merchant accounts, affiliate programs, and pretty much everything else you need- from $19/month.  I wish I had known about them when I started my online businesses! 

Then there's the computer issue- every aspect of my work includes a computer. 

The Milagro Research Institute recording studio is completely computer based.  When I started editing audio for video, I started working with 90 minute files instead of 3-15 minute files.  My relatively new Athlon 1.6 Sony computer just won't do it.  Well, it will do the work, but it complains constantly and works like a teenager cleaning a kitchen.  Slowly and inefficiently.  (I know, I've got three teenagers.)

It's time for a new computer.  

I publish three e-zines, and they're all created and distributed from my laptop, through the autoresponders, to my lists- and also online as web pages.

Then there's the co-ordination with clickbank- that was quite a learning curve for me.  Now we've got over a hundred affiliates marketing our e-books and audios through them.  Each product requires a separate web page and download page, both coordinated with clickbank.

Jillian, who is a member of the mastermind group, commented that it took her most of her first year to get all the mechanisms in place.   Cindy and Joe probably spend the least amount of time on infrastructure- they've outsourced most of the "grunt" work.  It still has to be done, but they don't have to do it.  Bill has become somewhat of an expert on infrastructure, and has turned his expertise into a business- he reviews marketing products.  Craig concentrates on lists and list building, but he's got an assistant and the other guys at Nitro to deal with some of the details. 

If you don't already have a local mastermind group- get one.  It is the single most powerful tool available to you as you work towards success.  If you've got questions about starting a mastermind group, email me at pat@patobryan.com. 

I'm glad I've got a strong mastermind group to help me stay pointed in the right direction.  And I'm going to be very happy once all the different softwares and websites and affiliate programs are talking to each other without my assistance.

I like to turn problems into products, but this is an opportunity I'm going to leave for someone else.  It seems to me that every marketer, at least every marketer who is going to be successful, will have a unique set of infrastructure problems- I know that each of us in the group approaches our internet marketing from a different angle, that requires different software, online services, and integration.  The guys who use "cookie-cutter" solutions get "cookie-cutter" results.

The new autoresponder should be online early next week- I'll resume publishing e-zines then.

10/18  I've been working on the problem of information overload lately.  I'll bet you can relate.

I try to dedicate some time every day to learning.  There's plenty of information on internet marketing available online.  Then, there's the rapidly growing pile of books, CD seminars, DVD's...  One of the benefits of hanging around Joe Vitale is that he hands me a book, or two, almost every time I see him.

Then there's the truck-load of books and training material I got when I attended his Hypnotic Writing Seminar.

Information overload.  And yet, I need this information.  I've only been an internet marketer for ten months- I'm way behind. 

The final straw was an NLP training course (audio) that I got at Joe's seminar.  It's exactly what I've been looking for- the real meat of NLP. 

So, turning a problem into a product, I took the CD to the studio and dropped it onto the hard drive.  Then I did some research and came up with a Milagro VF frequency that enhances learning and increases concentration.  Then I added ocean sounds to drown out my teen-age room-mates.

Works like a charm.

You can hear an example of the technology HERE.

We'll be offering a series of these enhanced learning products in the very near future.  I'll be giving a free one to all my subscribers- if you want to
get my Milagro World e-zine, and a free enhanced learning audio, go HERE.

The German tour is still on, which is pretty good evidence that I'm a dedicated performer.  Nobody in their right mind would go to Northern Germany in late November, drive to a different town every day- just to play guitar and sing.  Would they?

I know the time I spend on stage will be magical.  I'm concerned about the time spent getting to the gigs.  I'm a Texan!  We get about two weeks of "winter" (that means we turn the air conditioning off) every year.  I'm going to freeze my juevos off- aren't I?

I'll keep you posted.

10/6  Leaving, on a jet plane...  buying plane tickets, choosing which guitars to take, wishing I had more experience at doing cold weather... the November tour is coming at me real fast!  I've never been anywhere that is as cold as Germany is going to be in November. 

I'm figuratively holding my breath- Joe's moved his webinar to 10/12.  This is a big, big, big deal.  You can read about it in the new Milagro World issue (click)!

Click here to register for Joe's free web seminar!

Interviews start tomorrow for the "Sounds Like Success" series.  Once I've got a half dozen "in the can," I'm going to open the doors and start selling tickets.  Right now, my focus is on making the interviews as powerful and informative as they can be. 

Choosing the right interviewees is the trick, I think, and I've got some great people lined up...  stay tuned.  It's going to be a membership site.  If you've got a good feeling for what you'd pay to hear two great, professionally produced interviews with successful entrepreneurs- who will tell you what you need to know- email me at pat@patobryan.com. 

This is my last year to be a "soccer mom."  We've got two high-school seniors, and with any luck at all, they'll both graduate this year.  I'm sitting here wondering what it would be like to not have to get up and ferry teenagers around...  actually, I'm wondering what it will be like to sit around the south of France, or in Italy, and wonder what the kids are up to. 

I'm sure that by the time they're out of college, I'll be curious.

10/1  Yesterday, I made the intention to host an online audio interview show.  Today, the website is up and I've lined up my first three "victims." 

Money loves speed.

Check it out HERE!

It's called "Sounds Like Success," and it's going to be fun!  My format is to go to internet entrepreneurs and brutally interview them- wring their deepest money making secrets out of them, and make it available online. 

Also, there's a new "Milagro World" e-zine online for you. 
Click Here to get your free copy. 

In the new issue of Milagro World, you'll find a link to Dr. Joe Vitale's FREE webinar-  you don't want to miss this one.  It's broadcast over your computer- you just log on and listen.  Joe's going to give away some of his secrets about hypnotic selling, and talk about his new course. 

At the heart of his new course is the "Hypnotic Writing Seminar" that I attended.  Joe recorded the audio and video, and it rocks!  It cost $5,000 to attend, and was worth it (I was there.  I know.)

Joe's gonna tell you how to get it free! 

9/14-  The New "Milagro World" E-Zine is out.  You can get your free copy by clicking HERE.

I'm still recovering from Joe Vitale's Hypnotic Writing Seminar.  Saturday and Sunday, 9/11, 9/12.  Joe basically opened up the top of my head and poured in his 30+ years of hypnotic writing experience.  Or as much as an old rock-n-roller's head will hold- :).

Would you like to hear about it, and my new time machine?  Click HERE.

There's a lot going on here in Milagro World.  I've been cranking out prouduct and hiding it.  Why am I hiding it?  Because Joe and I are working on the biggest, baddest, most important project either one of us have ever taken on.  I can't tell you the details, but our goal is nothing less than complete mental and financial freedom for our clients and peace for the world.

Sound ambitious?  It is.  It's also exhausting- but it's gonna be worth it.  I promise.

In other news, I recorded a new song with my English friend "Nigel."  It will be available soon.  It's funky, bluesy, and hilarious.  It will re-define some parameters of internet marketing...  at least.

I'm also working on an acoustic CD.  A lot of my songs have... well, I don't want to say they suffered... but, it's possible that my tendency to over-produce my CD's has led to some of the songs getting lost in the wall of sound.  I'm gonna give you a chance to actually hear the songs.  Using only my 12-string and 6-string acoustic guitar, mandolin and bass, I'm re-recording 12 of my songs in a stripped-down...  naked, if you will, format.  Melody and lyrics.  I think they're strong enough to handle it.  I've written one new song for this project, and it's the best song I've ever written. 

My A & R man at ZYX records, Steve Hamelink, disclosed that he loved old Crosby, Stills and Nash records.  Well, this one's for Steve.  Acoustic guitars and harmony.  You're gonna love it.

November is coming at me like a freight train.  I got the final dates for the German tour, and it's a ball-buster.  I'm a little worried about freezing my rapidly expanding tushki... but I know my German friends will take good care of me.   Still, I can't help wondering what effect a Northern European winter is gonna have on a Texan.

Stay tuned!

8/18 German tour dates are in!  Click on "schedule."

8/16  OK!  Thanks to our friend Bill Hibbler at Ecommerce Confidential, the new "Think and Grow Rich site is up and rocking!  Click here to check it out.  Bill is becoming the go-to guy for tweaking web-sites.  Ours looks SO MUCH better now.  Check it out!

Due to multiple requests, we're making the Milagro Research Institute audio products available at Clickbank.  This means that you can sell them, and make 51% on each sale.  If you're an affiliate marketer, you understand how valuable this offer is.  If you've been waiting for a good reason to start your affiliate marketing career- here it is!  Email me if you have any questions.

On the music front, I'm negotiating my German tour.  We've got two boys graduating from high-school this year.  This just isn't a good time for me to slope off for five weeks during the school year.  My agents, who get paid a percentage for the gigs they book, would like me to stay five weeks.  I'm thinking two weeks is about the limit.   You can follow the action at Willie Woigk's (my german agent) website at www.eastsidepromotion.de  -  tell him I sent you!

8/12/04 

We're moving all the Milagro Research Institute products to Clickbank!  This means that YOU can be our affiliate!  The website is almost finished, the links are all in place... tick... tick...  Go sign up for the Milagro World e-zine to get the word first.

btw, my "10 day" tour of Germany this November has turned into a five week tour... not sure I want to be in Germany for five weeks in November/December...  go to www.eastsidepromotion.de and click "tourneedaten" to see the gigs. 

7/04

The Myth of Passive Income hits the internet- and leaves it reeling! July 9, 2004-  we just released the book and already the sales are starting to pour in.  Wheeeeeeee!!!!  click on the link on your left and go see what all the noise is about. 

Pat's next tour of Europe begins in mid-November, and will include the Blues Garage in Hanover, Germany!

The Kansas City mini-tour was a success, ending with a show at the River Market Brewery with "Blue River Ordonance."  Pat's been invited to come back this fall for an extended mini-tour.  Kansas City is the blues capital of the world, with over 30 blues jams a week!

The first issue of Pat's new eZine, "Effortless eBooks," hit email boxes across the globe last week.

Pat is (finally) accepting coaching clients!  There is room for four more- if you want coaching, counseling, and direction with your product creation problems, hiring Pat is the solution. 

Pat's learned the secret of life's escalator-  you can climb the mountain one bloody, grueling, step at a time (like most people)-or you can just jump on the escalator- let him show you how!  Email him at koanwrangler@yahoo.com to check availability and rates. 

Check back often.  Pat's got a ton of projects in the works, and every day brings new ideas and opportunities.