For an internet business, we are always talking about making the most of your time and not wasting it. We talk about not getting distracted and really focusing on what your want to achieve and how to achieve it. A lot of the key ingredients to a successful internet business are not so much major overhauls of your current ways of doing things but are sometimes just a bunch of subtle changes or minor habit replacements. Much of the time you business strategies have good principles, they just need a different focus or a little nudge in the right direction.

This time of year, everywhere you go, you are bombarded with attention to the upcoming new year. You see all kinds of advertisements trying to take advantage of people’s new year’s resolutions. One of the biggest new year’s resolutions that people make is related to fitness. Many people set new year’s resolutions of losing weight, exercising more or just being more healthy. Companies that sell weight loss programs, exercise machines, and health club contracts thrive on these resolutions and make the most of it at year’s end. Haven’t you noticed a lot more of those fancy-schmancy, super-duper, ab-crunching, muscle-building, fat-eliminating, energy-boosting, health-saving, exercise contraption infomercials claiming you will be the model of fitness if you just but their product?

Now why am I telling you, “Don’t waste your time on new year’s resolutions.” Because new years resolutions are made and broken. The intentions are usually good. It is a worthy attempt at being better. However, resolutions are normally set with a “TRY” attitude. A try attitude is a failing attitude. You cannot TRY to do something and accomplish it. Think about it a little bit. In fact, let’s do a little test. Look at an object you have sitting around you such as a pencil. Now, try to pick the pencil up. Go ahead, try to pick it up………

Did you pick it up? If you did, you did not TRY to pick it up, you DID pick it up. Do you see what I mean? Don’t try to do something, just DO IT. As the great philosopher Yoda once said, “Do or do not, there is no try.”

So, do we just throw away making new year’s resolutions all together? Not really… I’m just saying change your focus a little bit. Instead of new year’s resolutions, you need to set goals. Successful people set goals. So, set a GOAL that you want to reach by the end of the new year. Don’t just leave it at that. You will keep procrastinating and you will see the goal as too big and too far away to reach. Before you know it, you are waiting for the end of another year to come so you can set another resolution that you won’t achieve. You need to break it up into smaller attainable goals.

Maybe you want to set smaller monthly goals. You may even want to break it down into weekly goals. Once you get the goals smaller and more attainable you will more likely believe that you can reach your goals. You will begin to form good habits and you will have a sense of accomplishment with each small goal you reach. Obviously, you need to take action on accomplishing your goals. It does no good to set them and do nothing to reach them. If you do take action and don’t quit, you will soon be on your way to success.

Set your goals, break them down into smaller goals, and take action to achieve them. Don’t waste your time on new year’s resolutions.

Happy New Year!

- Hill Robertson

I’ve found that one of the best times to really get to know your kids is when they are snuggled in bed with the lights out. I like to listen to their prayers each night. You can tell a lot about their heart and what is important to them. You can also learn a lot about yourself and how you are raising them by the little things they say in their prayers.

Take the time to listen to your children. They are your responsibility and they are watching your every move and picking up on every little thing you do - both the good and the bad. Whether you like it or not, they will follow in your footsteps. Be sure the footsteps they are following are paving the way of truth, morals, and Godliness. Train them in the ways they shall go in their youth and when they are old they shall not depart from them.

You only have a few fleeting years to really mold their hearts and minds. They will learn from someone whether it is you, a daycare worker, a babysitter, a schoolteacher, a peer, or anyone else you choose to allow them to spend time with. Choose your relationships wisely. Set a good example and spend as much quality and quantity time with them as you can.

Be the best example you can to them. If you are doing the right things and living a wholesome life, that is what they will learn. If you are not living a wholesome life, then that is what they will learn. How do you want your children to turn out when they are older? The way you live today is the way they will live when they grow up. Think about it. Change your ways if necessary.

Even when the kids are fussing, screaming, and getting on your nerves, you should realize that they are a blessing. Just think about it. In 20 years or so when they are out of the house, all of the little fussing and screaming will not matter. You will be wishing they were little children again running around the house in their pajamas or underwear fussing and screaming again. You’ll actually miss those moments. You will be sitting in your quiet lonely house wishing you could do it all over again. So, enjoy it today. Enjoy all of the little times that seem so annoying… You will cherish them for the rest of your life.

- Hill Robertson

Today I was modifying some of the code on my blog. I love to play around with PHP and MySQL databases…. Anyway, as I was working on some updates and looking at some of the backend of Wordpress, I noticed my “little spinny thing” (official technical term for the animated icon on the browser indicating the page is still loading) was still spinning after the page should have been done loading. Apparently it was still trying to load something.

Even though I didn’t change any code that would cause any problems like this, I looked a little deeper. The problem was the social bookmarker plugin I was using. I had it active on the site for a couple of weeks and never noticed the problem before. The way the plugin works is that it puts links to the common social sites so a visitor can easily click on the icon of choice to quickly and easily add the blog article to the social website. The issue boiled down to the external links to the images.

A lot of plugin or add-on features for many blogs and other websites use external links do display data (in this case image files) that is stored on external servers. There are several advantages to this.

Here are some of the common advantages:

• Easy for the website owner (usually just a simple javascript snippet or other link pasted into site)
• External server controls data and can update without site owner doing anything
• Eliminates bandwith from site owner. All data is transferred between the client’s browser and the external server.

However, there are also disadvantages:

• Site owner does NOT have any control over the data on the external server or how it is displayed. This can cause formatting or layout issues on the primary website that can be difficult to debug.
• Different browsers may display the data differently and the primary site owner may not be able to correct the differences.
• The primary site may not display properly or it may not even show up at all if the client’s browser cannot access the external server. This is the problem I was having.

My problem was that a couple of the images could not be loaded from the external social web sites. This caused my page to “hang” on these images and not fully load the page. I could have manipulated some of the code to change them to load at the end of the page but I just didn’t like the “spinny thing” going all the time. I also could have used local copies of the images. However, for now I have just deactivated the plugin.

So, let this be a lesson to everyone with a blog (or website) using these external site based techniques. They can be nice when everything works but they can also be a real pain when they don’t. Sometimes you may not see the issue yourself if the connection to the external server and your browser is fine but someone else may be having trouble that you are never aware of.

The moral of the story is…….

Sometimes external links are bad.

- Hill Robertson

As we approach the end of another year, take some time to reflect on the past year. Take a look at the goals you set for yourself at the beginning of the year. (You did set your goals didn’t you?) Are you where you want to be? Are you where you planned to be? Did you meet your goals? Did you surpass your goals?

Analyze what you did (or didn’t do) throughout the year and why you surpassed or missed your goals. Take notice of how closely you followed your plan throughout the year. Be honest with yourself. If you make excuses to yourself, you will not learn anything from this past year. Even if you did miserably, if you are honest with yourself, you can see why. Don’t make excuses about anything. You are where you are because of the choices you made.

Whatever your results were this year - good or bad - they don’t matter for the next year. If your results were less than what you wanted, you can change your behavior to get better results. If your results were what you wanted, you can’t just sit back and relax, you need to follow the same type of plan that worked for you. You can even work on improving it this coming year.  Just don’t think the work is done.  There is more work to do.  You are just now building the momentum.  You need to keep adding to the momentum.  Don’t relax and lose the momentum.

Keep pushing forward no matter what happened in the past. Any “failures” are just one more way that doesn’t work. It means you are one step closer to something that WILL work. Never give up. Focus on the positive.

Start planning the coming year now. Set your goals and break them down into smaller attainable goals that you can build on. Be ready to hit the ground running on Jan. 1st. Make it the best year you have ever had. You can do it. Plan on it……

- Hill Robertson

I wanted to wish everyone a wonderful Merry Christmas!

May you and your family have a blessed and safe Christmas. Spend some time with your loved ones and let them know how special they are to you and how much you appreciate them. Focus on the positive things and think of others first. Count your many blessings. Don’t worry about what gifts or how many you receive for Christmas, focus on all of the many blessings you already have and be a blessing to others.

Now go enjoy some turkey with stuffing and gravy… Have a little sweet potatoes and top it off with some pumpkin pie and whipped cream! But most importantly, spend some quality time with your family, friends, and loved ones.

Merry Christmas!

- Hill Robertson

Everyone has some sort of passion. Your passion can be a great place to start if your want to start an online business. I have made a lot of money off my passions once I understood how to use my talents to generate profit. In the beginning I did them just for fun. Eventually, they turned into great businesses.

One of the most important reasons a passion can usually be turned into a profitable business is that you are probably an expert (compared to most). When it is something your love, you find out everything you can about it and you spend a lot of your “free” time on your passion. You are always learning more and more about the details. You are probably “hands on” with your passion which solidifies your knowledge and gives you valuable experience that others would probably like to know.

One of my passions is Christmas displays and really going all out with fancy displays. Since I am a total geek (or nerd - whichever you prefer) I always have to take things to the extreme when they are technical in nature. So, I designed and built some hardware to control all of the Christmas lights from my computer. I wrote software (in Linux - a whole other passion of mine) to interface with my hardware that would synchronize the Christmas lights to Christmas music that I transmit from a low power FM transmitter (that I built). I take great joy every year around this time in computer controlled Christmas displays.

If this kind of geeky stuff tickles your fancy, you can take a look at http://computerchristmas.com.

So, since I loved doing computer controlled Christmas lights, I learned everything I could about them in my spare time because it was fun. I spend a lot of time designing the circuits, building the hardware, and writing the software. I learned more and more as I went. I became one of the few experts at the time (around 2000). Now, I have taught thousands of people how to do the same thing on my website and through other forms of consultation. Now it is a continuous revenue stream that I never intended to profit from in the beginning.

Another passion of mine is developing websites. I am one of the founders of a web hosting corporation that has built up into an extremely profitable business and it is something I love to do. We get rave reviews especially on our customer service since it is something we love to do and therefore excel in. If you treat your customers right and give them great products and services, they will be with you for the long term (and will refer others to you as well). Again, I point this out because this passion has also turned into extremely good profit.

You can turn your passion into your profit. What are your passions? You ARE an expert in the areas of your passions to many others out there wandering around the internet searching for the same information that you already have. There is profit to be made. Take action and go get it.

- Hill Robertson

This evening I was at the local mall doing some Christmas shopping with my kids. While they were looking at the different toys, I noticed a mother with her two children. (I love to observe people - especially during the Christmas season). One of her kids was asking about one of the toys she was looking at. The mother quickly snapped at the child and with a fairly loud tone exclaimed, “I heard you the first 5 times you asked me.” She then followed it up with, “This is miserable!” as she stomped off with her children in the shopping cart.

I was quite surprised at how she acted to her children. She must have been having a frustrating day and was probably not happy dealing with the Christmas shopping traffic and crowded stores but there was no reason for her to treat her children that way. Sure, they may have been getting on her nerves, but to yell at them and say how miserable she was does not help the kids in any way.

We must realize that we are an example in all that we do to everyone around us. I’m sure she didn’t realize that I saw what had happened but she was being an example and I knew I would not want to be around someone with an attitude like that. She was also being a horrible example for those kids.

I always try to look at the good side of things. The good side of this incident was that it made me appreciate my family more and to even more realize that our every action is closely watched by our children and they will follow in our footsteps when they get older.

Are you setting a good example for those around you? Are you doing positive things that lead to success in all areas of life or are you focusing on negative things and bringing people down? Think about your attitude and actions and what impact you have on others. You will have an impact whether it is positive or negative. You are the only one that can control your attitude and actions. Focus on the positive for your own sake and for the sake of everyone around you.

- Hill Robertson

Some of the same people that complain to me about not having time to build a business are the same people that watch 3 or 4 hours of television every night. The truth is, most people just to the least amount of work to get by (if they even do that much). They usually just go to work and do the least amount of work possible until the end of the work day. Then, they go home, and plop themselves down on the couch or their favorite recliner and waste the evening away watching television.

For the most part, there is not much benefit at all to watching television. It basically robs us of valuable time that could be much more productively used on spending quality time with family or building a business. Most of the television programs promote immoral activities or at best provide empty entertainment.

There is a time and place for relaxation and entertainment but don’t squander away quality opportunities now and regret it in the future. Just think about it…. You can use that 2 or 3 hours (or more) per night that most people waste on mindless television on creating a successful internet business. After working diligently at it for a while, you can generate an amazing income that will allow you to do anything you want to do. It is your choice what you do with your time. You can sit in that recliner every night and work at your job for the rest of your life and have nothing to leave to your family when you die or you can shut off that future-robbing television, build a successful internet business, make your wildest dreams come true and pass on some wealth to your family when you pass away.

Only YOU can decide your future and you WILL make the decision…… One way or the other….. Whether you want to or not…..

- Hill Robertson

Whether writing an article for your blog or writing an article for other ezines, you can write unique articles that people will want to read. It is not as difficult as you might think. When I first started thinking about writing articles, I thought I didn’t have enough to say (although my wife will tell you I talk too much). I kept thinking that I was not a writer and I don’t know all of the big fancy words that make you sound intelligent. But the truth of the matter is, many of your readers won’t know those “fancy” words either and they really aren’t needed for a good article.

It is all about the content. If you know more about something than someone else, you are an expert. All you need to do is write an article about it. Write some of the details about what you know and explain the details as if your reader was sitting right in front of you and you were having a conversation.

Don’t worry about it being perfect. If you do, you will rewrite your article to death and you will never be happy with it. You will probably never publish it either. So, just write what you have to say and publish it. Don’t think about it too much. You will never be perfect. I’m still not a professional author by any means but I keep getting better each article I write. As long as the information is interesting for your readers, they will enjoy it and come back for more.

People are constantly searching for information. They are not looking for a perfectly written manuscript with flawless grammar and punctuation, they just want to find out about information they are looking for. Give it to them in a way they can understand and relate to.

- Hill Robertson

There are a lot of things that make having your own business very attractive. Having your own internet based business can have even more advantages than your own “traditional” business. It can give you a tremendous confidence about your future and a great amount of joy as you fulfill your wildest dreams.

Having your own business of any type can give you a great sense of control over your future and potential security that you may not have at a JOB. You can better control your income (and your own raises) once your business is thriving. If it is built properly, you can eventually have more flexibility in the hours you work. You can even design it where you work less hours and earn more money! With your own business, you can gain great freedoms that you will never achieve in a typical JOB.

With an internet based business you will probably have extremely low expenses compared to traditional brick and mortar businesses. You also have the flexibility of running your business from anywhere in the world (that has internet access). Typically all you need is a laptop and an internet connection. You can also have more flexibility in the hours you work. If you are a night owl like I am, you can do your email communications in the wee hours of the morning instead of having to be right by a phone during “normal” business hours in many cases. This can be a huge advantage to your family life. You can spend the day with your family during their “normal” hours and run your business at night while your kids and spouse are asleep. This is what allowed me to start my internet business without having to sacrifice quality family time.

A lot of the online tools and services you need to run an internet business are very affordable and can be very automated saving you time and money so you can focus on the important details of your business.

Your potential customers are limitless. Virtually the entire world is online and more and more people are using the internet for all types of products and services with more and more people getting online every day.

An internet business can bring you joy and freedoms you never before imagined. You can even start one up in your spare time to see if it is something you would enjoy doing without spending much money at all.

Do you want to start up an internet business? Do you want to earn an extra income in your spare time? That’s what this blog is all about. Subscribe to this blog by filling out your name and email on the right side of this blog to get the latest updates and information on running a successful internet business.

- Hill Robertson