Having used (and sometimes abused!) computers for the past thirty years or so, I’ve often tried to stay, for the most part, paperless. I’ve recently come to the conclusion that it’s not necessarily the best way to go. For sure it’s great to save a few trees, but there are some times when it just feels ‘right’ to have some things on paper. Since I’ve been listening to Jim Rohn and other success gurus talking about the value of writing down thoughts and ideas I’ve started keeping a journal. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve heard really useful little snippets of info and then completely lost them because I either didn’t write them down or I entered them into whatever organizer program happened to be my flavour of the month (I have a bad habit of switching software regularly).

Here’s an example… I was listening to an intro to Matt Bacak’s Secret Money Ring system this evening and there were three things that he said that I thought warranted writing down for future reference.

1. They can take anything away from you, but they can’t take what you know.

This really struck a chord as my whole life these days revolves around studying and learning. To quote Jim Rohn – “Learning is the beginning of wealth”. It really is the most valuable possession that we all have – what we’ve learned. It would be easy to write an entire book on just how essential learning is to success. Not just financial success but also success in our own lives, success in our health, success with family relationships and success with business relationships.

2. Start by making your first dollar – then it’s real.

Matt was talking about goals, and specifically how his first goal was to make a single dollar online. When you make that dollar, online marketing becomes real. Then you work on your first $100, your first $1,000, your first $10,000, your first $100,000 and of course – your first $1,000,000. Goal setting is one another essential component of being successful.

3. There are talkers, thinkers and walkers.

How true is that? There are people who talk about doing things, people who think about doing things and then that small group of people (the walkers) who actually do it!

So there you have it – 3 little gems of wisdom that I now have in my journal that I can refer back to whenever I like (regardless of what software I am using on my computer)! I’m really looking forward to looking back at those notes in a year or two, to see how much walking I did, what goals I achieved and how much more I know. Perhaps I’ll write a blog post about it .

I guess it depends on what business you are in. If you are in the business of making money then units sold has to be the key indicator of success. If you are in the business of creating a unique life for yourself then I think that lives changed would be higher on your list of priorities.

There’s nothing wrong with making money of course – it’s what most economies are based on. When you don’t really care how you make money or at what cost it comes to your customers then ‘units sold’ can turn into greed.

Let’s be realistic though. Not all products or services can change lives… at least not directly. If I buy a packet of kitchen sponges or a box of toothpicks, they aren’t going to turn my life around or bring me great success. But even basic products like sponges and toothpicks have the potential to change lives. It may be that the owners of the sponge and toothpick companies give a percentage of their profits to charities and other worthwhile causes.

Do you know how hard it is to find a decent domain name with ‘Gary Smith’ in it?  I gave up trying some time ago after I registered garysmith.gs (my old blog). I thought it was pretty cool at the time but I really wanted a dot com. After all, most of the work I do and all of my own servers are based in the U.S.A. So here is my final home. Seriously! This is it!

I think I think way too much so I’ll be talking about all sorts of things here. I’ve been working from home, mainly programming for online marketers, for the past 5 years… so I’ll be talking about some of what I’ve learned over those years.

This year I’ve been studying personal development so I’ll also be offering my words of wisdom and talking about things that have changed my attitude and general outlook on life. I hope you will drop by from time to time and comment on some of the things I’ll be writing about.