Charlotte’s Babblings

I really like the post Get Out of the Zone from James Brausch today.  It makes me smile. I feel all warm and fuzzy. My whole week is made. It flows in the vein of his practical and somewhat iconoclastic philosophy of the 2%.  The title  has a mildly cute twist on a psychobabble clichè.  But that’s not the only reason I should feel this way about that article. It makes clear to me what my true passion is….writing! And well it should.  I wrote it.  An then there’s the article on Weight Loss Dude about how your keyboard makes you fat.  I really like that one too, for the same reason.

 Unfortunately, I’m only batting 666 (how appropriate is that!) as I didn’t make the Costa Rica HQ blog. No surprise there–those articles had no actual connection to my experience.  I must not have used enough imagination. No excuses though. I can write about alien planets, but nobody will ever follow my characters footsteps and prove me wrong. I take that back–I’ve read Podkayne of Mars, who dies on Venus in a plantation explosion…they didn’t know about Venus back in the 50s, so the story was based on what they did know, and now that story is just a fantasy.   I don’t know beans about Costa Rica, except for what I read online, and so much of what I read is real estate and vacation hype.  I just didn’t do enough research.

 I’m one of hundreds (about 4 hundreds if I’ve read correctly) of Brausch’s minions (okay, he calls us interns), and the writing was work for hire–not the first ghostwriting gig I ever had, nor the best-paying one. But what a nice surprise to find it today on my late trek through the afternoon–even better than the monetary award in my paypal account, which was also much appreciated.  Many of the posts on his blogs are written by interns, some closer to his style and voice, others not so much. I feel very good that some other minion thought the articles were good enough to post. I could live for the feeling of someone else publishing my work.

What I learned from that task was that I could write a heck of a lot more than what I am doing–at least if I didn’t do so many other things like intern tasks–and it does not matter that I didn’t know much of anything about the topics. I can research them and come up with something that will work. I can see that it does make a difference if I can relate the topic to my own experience, and I do know how to do that from writing fiction. Time to get out of the blog zone and into my writing.

Usually snow days put me in the dumps. For one thing, I work by the hour, and my college is always closed when it snows–no make-up snowdays for part-timers.   In South Carolina, it doesn’t snow very often, but snow that Yankees would not even notice shuts down everything here.  I did not pay much attention to the rumored weather predictions, but when I woke up at 4 am and could see clearly from the street light outside my house, I knew the white stuff had landed. 

Even though I knew it wouldn’t get much lighter during the day, I got up at 6 and started catching up on some tasks that I would have saved for the weekend.  I watched as the snow began to fall off the trees and the roads melted from slush to wet.  I had to admit that it was pretty and peaceful.

 I posted a list of resources for Christian writers on my Wise Author blog, and set out to find some ezines for article submissions. I took a few pix outside because it’s a law here that you have to document snow. I had an enlightening conversation with my friend about why the poverty-conscious rednecks we know are so hateful towards those who have some money, especially since the “haves” generally worked for it, possibly with some more knowledge, education, or skill that the “have nots” haven’t. 

Her family had much more money than mine did as we werer growing up, which we discussed, but she does not judge others by their income. On the other hand, her sensitive spot is her education, since she for various reasons, did not go to college.  What we came up with for an answer was that people who don’t know what to do may project their own feelings of worthlessness as anger towards those who do know what to do.  Since she and I are in a MLM business, part of the discussion was on how to teach someone what to do, so that they would feel confident enough to do even without skill, and to be willing to get past that irrational resentment. 

It is a lot easier to be angry and resentful, than it is to face uncertainty and possible failure.  It’s much easier to watch TV or play cards or do any number of distrating things and complain about how unfair life is than it is to take a step in a new direction with focus and determination. It is also hard to look back and see that one hasn’t done nearly what could have been done, but water that’s already flowed under the bridge is very hard to swallow (grin).

This conversation gave me a lot of insights to how much my perspectives have changed on so many topics. For example, I don’t complain about my job, wish it was Friday on Monday afternoon, or check the clock constantly for going-home time.  I am glad to be employed at the moment. I am working towards the day when I can work three hours a day on the computer instead of ten to twelve or sixteen, but where I am now is good, much better than in times past.

In studying about how to earn money on the internet, I have felt stuck by the feeling that I did n’t ahve anything to make into a product, nothing that I could sell to anyone. But that’s just that old redneck whining, which I gave up when I went back to grad school.  I don’t know everything I need to know to be sucessful, but I now that learning comes from doing, evaluating, doing, evaluating, and then doing again. Not Trying. Doing.

Then this afternoon, my copy of James Brausch’s Earn a Living by Creating Your Own DVD arrived! I’m going to be learning by doing this afternoon. I’m still looking for a subject for my product. Anybody have any ideas?

I heard this expression at a meeting last night, and I’m sure it will be a buzz word soon, so I want to use it while I still can. It’s backformed from Go-Getter, which he also is.  A go-getter is one who goes out and gets what it is he wants. A go-giver is one who already has what he wants, but wants to give back to the community and help other people get what they want. It’s a great concept.

If you want to learn how to market your stuff on the internet, you need James Brausch. Go to his place now, sign up for his announcement email for his blog. You’ll be glad you did. I AM.

I have read James D Braush’s Internet Business Book Vol. 1 and 2. I’ll be reviewing them this week and putting those thoughts into action.

I am working at building some new projects at home based on his products. You’ll be seeing some of them soon.  Thanks, James.

Bookmark it!

Groan. Bitch. Moan. Whine. Sound familiar to you? That’s what I hear at work all day–some of it from my own mouth. Spit. Pfui. Bleechhh. Let me get a drink of water to wash out my mouth! I am so tired of hearing all that crap. And even more tired of spewing it. No more. Period.

Today I read Joe Vitale’s review of a book written by Will Bowen, a best book of 2007: A Complaint Free World, from a link on James Brausch’s blog.  

Random House’s publisher site has this exerpt from the book:

In this book, you can learn what constitutes a complaint, why we complain, what benefits we think we receive from complaining, how complaining is destructive to our lives, and how we can get others around us to stop complaining. You will learn the steps to eradicating this poisonous form of expression from your life. If you stay with it, you will find that not only will you not complain, but others around you will cease to do so as well. In a short period of time, you can have the life you’ve always dreamed of having.

To get the life I have been dreaming of having, all I have to do is stop complaining about the life I have now. Will Bowen says that 6 million people have taken the 20 day challenge to stop complaining, gossiping and otherwise spreading verbal refuse around themselves.  Thank you, Will for explaining that concept to me.

What a concept! A Complaint Free World!

One of my coworkers shared his 2008 project with me today (we gave up resolutions years ago). He plans to make NEW MISTAKES this year, instead of repeating old ones. After all, once you make a new mistake, it is never a mistake again, but a CHOICE.  There is no point in complaining about a choice that we have made–a tenet of the 12-step programs.  After all, another name for “making mistakes” is “learning.” If my friend works at his project for making new mistakes, he will learn much.

But I also remember reading this week that we need to cultivate gratitude, even gratitude for our mistakes.  After all, we did learn from them, even if we only learned that it was a mistake to do that. And if we didn’t learn not to do that, it still isn’t a mistake when we do it again.  So, I look back at my two failed marriages, my poor taste in men generally, my less than overflowing abundance, and I think, yes, I am grateful, if nothing else, that things are no worse than they are.  I have learned a lot about a lot of things, one being that you attract what you are. I decided my magnet needed to be realigned!

 Better yet, my life is are good. I have never been hungry (except when dieting!) or cold or without clothing or shelter or anything I needed. I haven’t done without much of what I wanted, for that matter. My car runs–it runs so well that I have over 200k miles on it, all but 50k of which I put on it–I have the money to pay the taxes on it and get a new tag for it, a personalized tag.  I have insurance on it.

I don’t have health insurance, which means that my medical expenses for the last ten years have been less than premiums for one year.  I don’t have cable, which is good because I don’t watch TV.  I have DSL internet, which allows me to work at home when I get home from work.  I’m not rolling in dough, but then, I haven’t put much effort into setting up those multiple streams of income that my gurus keep telling me about.

But I still can.  Life is good, folks. LIFE IS GOOD. Thanks, Joe. Thanks, Will. Thaks, James. Thanks, Bruce. Thank you for reading.

New theme this morning for the new year. I really liked the old theme, but it was just too dark to read….like inside of a dog. So, I skimmed the free themes page again, and thought the full moon with all its varous symbolic resonances would be perfect. I even get virtual snow for a whole day with no shoveling or hazardous driving.  although I was looking for custom colors, I even like the color scheme. Thanks, Binary Moon.

You need to subscribe to James Brausch’s blog if you want to see how one person runs his online business.  He gave subscribers a gift–one I forgot about until I opened the email- I took a lot of notes and am thinking about how to change the old sites I already have to show up better in search engine rankings. 

 I didn’t comment on James’s fictionalized version of his story, as I didn’t think I had anything to add, and the point of the story was that one could get back on one’s feet through in two weeks using his business model without a J.O.B. 

While the story was riveting, and I could not wait for each installment to come out, it felt too compressed.  I wonder if one’s head could clear up so much in so short a time, even with Divine Intervention.  Maybe he is a faster learner than I am, and he does say that he used actual events reordered to describe what he would do if he woke up one day homeless and having lost everything.   As a writer, I don’t think the time compression works. I have read the non-fictionalized version, and it shows the ups and downs of coming out of a dark time and relearning how to listen to the Inner Being.  Still, the power of a new story gives us a fable to structure our stories, and he said that his page views increased significantly while he was running the story.  

I wish that I had the clarity to assess the value of what I know to use more of what James is teaching me.  But I can write a story.  If you subscribe to his blog: http://www.jamesbrausch.com/  you may be able to get the password for the story while it is still up.  It’s worth the read, and James’ blog is entertaining in its own right.