The significant challenges that we face today cannot be resolved by the same level of thinking that created them.

Hi and welcome. Last week I told you the weatherman hadn't quite caught on to the fact that it was spring. He must have been listening though. My birthday was on Wednesday and it was an absolutely beautiful, sunny and warm day. It's been a mix since then but I am grateful for that one day.

I'm so excited about the new web conferencing that has been added to the Quikonnex membership. And it's free. Can you believe it? Jim and Carolyn are awesome. Now I have my own web conference room. Imagine being able to show someone how a certain software program works or help them fix a problem on their own computer. I've only had time to take a brief look at it but can't wait to start using it regularly. Membership in Quikonnex certainly has its rewards!

I don't know the exact count but we have a lot of members in Quikonnex. Jim and Carolyn, the creators, hold meetings twice a week on Yahoo Instant Messenger. Tuesdays usually expand on the system itself and Thursdays are intended to help with our marketing efforts. These meetings are priceless and full of good information. You're really missing out if you don't take advantage of them.

Without a doubt, today's Feature Article has to be one of the best I've ever read concerning the importance of goal setting. Ignite Your Mental Pilot Light by Gary Ryan Blair not only explains the importance of writing out your goals but shares how and why this first step is so crucial to your ultimate success - the actual achievement of your goals.

Willie Crawford brings us today's Special Feature - Internet Marketing In A Room FULL Of Naked Men!. Many internet beginners fail to understand the importance of having their own domain name when there are so many free sites out there. Actually, this was another point that was covered in Thursday's Quikonnex meeting as well. On a free site, everything on it points to the people offering the free service - not to you. This means that they receive the traffic and build their business while you basically exist. Become a leader - not a follower.

I found a terrific article on the Success Steps channel.

Are You Fighting the Wrong Enemy? talks in depth about fear and what it really is that may be holding you back in your efforts. Fear is not necessarily a bad thing. It's our inability to deal with the consequences of that fear. Take a few minutes to read this insightful article.

Have a great day and keep smiling.

Publisher, KIT and the Home4Success Channel
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Ignite Your Mental Pilot Light
by Gary Ryan Blair

That nice, warm shower which you took this morning, and the delicious meal you’ll enjoy later this evening are dependent upon a small, continuous flame called a pilot light.

This seemingly insignificant stream of gas operates around the clock and is always ready to ignite your water heater, boiler, furnace or stove into action. It never takes a vacation, never makes an excuse, and is always ready to perform on demand.

If the pilot light is not lit then the main burner will simply not work. It’s a safe bet to assume that you’ll be taking cold showers and most likely eating take-out until you get it to function properly.

Your mind is blessed with a similar mechanism, a mental pilot light called The Reticular Activating System (RAS).

Much like the pilot light in your place of residence, your RAS is always on call and ready to help you achieve any goal you desire.

The process begins with written goals that are specific and supported by an intense focus.

You are well aware of the fact that written goals are catalysts, transforming agents for success and achievement. And, you also know that when you focus intensely on something you really want – you usually will get it.

But have you ever taken the time to ask these three why, what and how questions:

• Why does goal setting and focus work?
  
  
• What role does my mind play in the goal achievement process?
  
  
• How can I tap into this process on demand to achieve any goal I desire?

In this lesson, I'm going to provide you with some insights on the mechanism in the brain that causes goal setting to work. I’ll provide you with real life examples, along with a plan on how you can put your RAS to use to achieve any goal.

Understanding the RAS

The RAS is the attention center in the brain. By understanding and taking advantage of how your brain works, you can:

• Accelerate the goal achievement process.
  
• Dramatically improve your performance.
  
• Unlock your creative capacities.
  
• Empower all five senses.
  
• Boost recognition of opportunities.
  
• Manifest uncommon levels of success.

The RAS is a uniquely complex collection of neurons. It’s the part of your brain where all outside stimulants (such as everything we see, hear, touch, smell, taste) converges with all our internal thoughts and feelings.

It provides the neural connections that are needed for the processing and learning of information, along with the ability to focus on a goal and its associated activities.

In plain language, the RAS can be viewed as the mental switch you must flip in order to “turn on your brain”.

A Sophisticated Filter

The RAS is an ever-vigilant gatekeeper of our senses, it tells the conscious part of the brain how alert it should be and what specific information should be filtered and where it is to be filed.

Everything you see, hear, smell, feel and touch is a message entering your brain. The RAS filters through all these messages and decides which ones get front row treatment - that is, stimulate the brain, and which messages get relegated to the nosebleed section.

The RAS functions much the same way that Outlook or any email software does.

In essence, when you want to isolate mail from certain people or companies, whether it’s mail you really want to keep, or junk mail such as spam you really want to avoid, you go to the control panel and program exactly how you want the software to perform.

The RAS works in exactly the same fashion. By programming your mental pilot light with the goals you want to achieve you automatically position yourself for success.

It all comes down to clearly defined goals, commitment and intensity of focus.

Neglecting the RAS

The RAS brings to us the people, places, and things that we focus upon. Consider the following examples:

• Buy a new car and you’ll suddenly start seeing more of the same car.
  
  
• A pregnant woman will start noticing other pregnant women.
  
  
• Comedians will find jokes in the most unusual of situations.
  
  
• Learn a new word and you’ll begin to hear it more often.
  
  
• Someone will say something in passing which is exactly what you needed to hear.
  
  
• While flipping through a magazine you suddenly find the answer to a problem.
  
  
• Entrepreneurs will find opportunity where everyone else sees chaos.
  
  
• Your baby’s slightest cough or cry will awaken you from a deep sleep.

All of these things were there before, but because you did not activate your RAS through proper goal setting and focus you never paid much attention to them.

As a result, your lack of goal clarity and inability to focus causes you to underutilize your talents and miss out on so many wonderful opportunities.

The obvious question is, how much of the world are we NOT seeing because our RAS has not been instructed to see it?

How much of the abundance of this universe are we walking by every day because our brain has been filled with mundane or even limiting ideas and pictures?

Flipping the RAS Switch

Focusing on your goals triggers your mental pilot light, which in turn sends a powerful signal to your brain:

"Wake Up, Pay Attention, Don't Miss This Detail!"

Once you write down a goal, your brain will be working overtime to see that you get it. It will alert you to the signs and signals that were there all along, but which you never noticed before.

To solve a problem or achieve an important goal, you must keep it at the top of your mind. Think about it, talk about it, write about it, dream about it, and imagine it as completed.

This is one of the reasons why affirmations work so well and why it is important to review your goals frequently.

Perhaps the most important aspect of igniting your RAS is that you begin by setting goals that you are passionate about and which you absolutely love to achieve.

Passion is truly the path of least resistance as it is so much easier to remain focused on activities that we enjoy.

Ask yourself this – If I could do anything at all and money, talent, education and time were not a factor – what would I want to do?

What is it I'm passionate about?

Once you're able to answer those questions, then you are ready to flip the RAS switch!

If you choose to focus on improving a specific key indicator of your business success, your RAS will pass through sights, sounds, people and ideas even remotely related to that point of focus.

In other words, if you measure your progress visibly, frequently, and attentively, it will improve.

To ignite your mental pilot, simply identify an important goal or key business indicator. Be sure to write the goal in specific, measurable and time-bound language.

At every opportunity, talk to your family, employees or whoever is associated with the achievement of this goal.

Be sure to place pictures, charts and graphs of these goals or business indicators on a high visibility wall.

Make your interest in these goals be very active, visible, and most important, consistent.

Use your RAS to ignite your performance and results to new levels in the same way that your pilot light allows you to enjoy a nice, long, warm relaxing shower.

Remember this final thought as well: when someone asks you the secret to your success, tell them "I activated my Mental Pilot Light!"

Everything Counts!

Gary Ryan Blair is President of The GoalsGuy. A visionary and gifted conceptual thinker, Gary is highly regarded as a speaker, consultant, strategic planner, and coach to leading companies throughout the globe. Visit The GoalsGuy Shop for all of your goal setting and life planning needs.

Joe Robson of Newbie Club fame has received thousands of pleas for help from people because their computers have been infected with a virus or worm or hacked into that he decided to put together the new PC and Internet Security package.

The purpose of the package is to help protect you from these risks using techniques and software readily available. The advantage is everything is all together in a nice neat bundle and of course, you won't need to be a rocket scientist to use and implement it. As always, it's presented in easy to understand language - what Joe likes to refer to as 'Newbie Speak.

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Cherish your visions; cherish your ideals; cherish the music that stirs in your heart, the beauty that forms in your mind, the loveliness that drapes your purest thoughts, for out of them will grow all delightful conditions, all heavenly environment; of these if you but remain true to them, your world will at last be built.
- James Allen, As A Man Thinketh

Never give up on a dream just because of the time it will take to accomplish it. The time will pass anyway.
- Source Unknown

On the contrary, if I shall have the belief that I can do it, I shall surely acquire the capacity to do it, even if I may not have it at the beginning.
- Mahatma Gandhi

Internet Marketing In A Room FULL Of Naked Men!
Copyright 2004 by Willie Crawford

NO, that's not one of my secret dreams :-) It's an observation that you need to make. Years ago, I read Harvey MacKay's fantastic best-seller, Beware The Naked Man Who Offers You His Shirt. I really enjoyed the book and even sent Harvey a note. He sent me an autographed copy of his book "Swim With The Sharks Without Being Eaten Alive." It's one of my most prized possessions - but back to the naked man ...

When you surf the various websites offering advice and information products teaching you how to earn an online income, it becomes glaringly obvious that many people who created these products haven't done what they teach! They are in effect, "naked men offering you their shirts."

Anyone just starting out online can understand why this happens. If you put up a website on making money online, and you admit that you haven't made any yet, people will realize that you have no useful advice to pass on. To avoid this consequence, beginners often "fake it, until they make it."

One of the reasons many online marketers never "make it" in the first place is because they ARE following the advice of "naked men." They are absorbing, believing, and then re-teaching the conventional wisdom so prevalently shared in the internet marketing arena. The consequence is that not only does the creator of the info product fail, but so do all of his mislead followers.

We have two problems within this situation. The first is, "How does a beginner establish himself as an expert if he has achieved no major online marketing success?" The answer is that he creates a product in an area that he IS an expert in or that he has very thoroughly researched.

The beginner can also very easily create a product by interviewing or partnering with someone possessing the knowledge or skills he lacks. I sort of touched upon this in another article I wrote entitled, "Don't Pretend To Be An Expert, Become One." That article is available on my website at:
http://williecrawford.com/articles.html

The second problem is in knowing who is genuine and who hasn't really learned the ropes yet. My advice to many of my clients is to fully check out anyone before following their advice. Simply go to any major search engine and enter their domain or their name. Visit many, MANY of the sites that are listed as featuring something related to this so-called expert. This will give you a very good feel for who you are really dealing with.

If sites about them contain testimonials, contact some of the people providing the testimonial... especially if something doesn't quite "feel right." That's right... I'm advising you to trust your instincts.

Another way to easily check out someone is by using a website called "The Way Back Machine." This website visits sites scattered across the internet and takes a snapshot of them. So if someone tells you that they've been in business for 5 years and you see that their only website is barely a year old, run away very fast - and don't look back!

The way back machine can be found at:
http://www.archive.org/web/web.php

If you enter my url, http://williecrawford.com in the search box, you will see that it offers snapshots of how sad this website looked beginning in 1998. Prior to that time, all of my websites were self-replicated websites offered by various affiliates programs, and websites built on free hosts such as FreeYellow, Angelfire, Hypermart, Webspawner, and about 30 others :-)

To digress just a little, I purchased my own domain name when someone responded to one of my posts in Links Exchange Digest insisting that I would have a lot more credibility if I got my own domain name AND ditched the Hotmail account. I kept websites on free hosts for several more years, but finally started really listening. People were telling me that using a free hosting company... building and promoting their domain, was just bad business. When I listened and took their advice, that's when things REALLY took off for me.

I've just pointed out to you a way to avoid the naked man look. If you are a beginner, get you own domain... one with a url that is easy to remember and that suggests what your business is all about. My domain name, WillieCrawford.com was a poor choice in many ways, but over the years it has developed a very strong brand. My second flag-ship domain, Chitterlings.com, was a better choice since it centered around "soul food" and the name was easy to remember to anyone familiar with that category of cooking.

Another way for beginners to avoid pretending to be something that you are not, and build online credibility, is simply to market other people's products. If you want a higher than normal commission either approach them about joint ventures, or obtain reprint rights to in-demand products. Don't waste your time and resources promoting products that there is no demand for. Many reprint rights that are offered for free are priced that way because the owner of the product couldn't sell them :-)

The benefit of obtaining products that are proven sellers through reprint rights is that you often get a tested website that will generate a steady income for you if you just drive traffic to it. It's really easy, but again, you have to make sure that the product is one that is worth the effort. The criteria that I use and suggest you use is, ask yourself if you would purchase the product at the price you plan on offering it for. Also read the template website being offered and notice whether or not it gets you really pumped up. If not, look elsewhere.

I do recommend that you eventually develop your own product or service. However, that may take some time. In the interim you need to establish a professional business that's built on quality and integrity. Avoid coming across as a fake or "naked man." Also beware of those who have to fake it until they make it. You know and appreciate that we all had to start somewhere. Most of us could not afford to buy a huge, thriving web business, so we had to start from meager beginning. Just look at my websites in The Way Back Machine for proof of that :-)

Here's a site you might want to bookmark and refer back to in view of the number of 'spoofing and phishing' scams that plague your email inbox. An excellent resource.

http://www.millersmiles.co.uk/identitytheft/spoof-email-and-spoof-web-page-library.htm

This a litttle bar that you can put on your webpage, and everytime your visitor needs a calculator all they have to do is click on the bar and the calculator pops up. Neat huh?

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Legal Stuff ...

We accept no responsibility whatsoever for the content, profitability or legality of any published articles or advertisements contained within KIT.

And, although all of the articles have been selected for their content, the publishing of such articles within this newsletter does NOT constitute a recommendation of the products or services mentioned or advertised within those articles.

Be responsible! Always do your own Due Diligence before responding to any offer.