Earl Nightingale once said “What the mind can conceive and truly believe, it can achieve!”

Was he right? Well you tell me, the proof is right in front of you! Take a look around, right now, this very moment. Everything you see before you, the consumer goods, the furnishings, the decoration, they all began as a flicker of an idea in someone’s imagination.

The truth is, you can achieve absolutely anything you want to. But you have to be realistic here, you have to take account of your own physical limitations. I mean, if you’re currently enjoying the autumn of your life, I’m sorry to have to tell you, you ain’t going to win an Olympic gold medal in the 100 metres sprint. And if you throw yourself off the top of a hundred storey building, flap your arms as much as you like, but rather than soar with the birds you’ll still make a nasty mess on the pavement.

If you’re still with me, you’ll appreciate that there’s an absolute limit to your potential that I’ll call your “real ceiling”. Now unless you’re pretty peculiar, the chances are that you’re currently living under a “false ceiling” that you’ve created and installed all by yourself. Didn’t know you were a craftsman did you?

This “false ceiling” is severely restricting your growth. It’s so low, you’re banging your head on it every time you try to stand up straight. Your banging your head so much, trying to achieve anything is a constant headache. Ouch! There you go again!

A lot of people have made a big mistake, they’ve built their “false ceiling” no more than three or four feet from the floor. They can’t even sit up straight without banging their heads. Are you one of them?

So how high is your “real ceiling” then? Imagine you’re standing in an atrium, or even a cathedral, where the ceiling towers above you by as much as 100 ft or more. There’s your “real ceiling”! Look up, how high is that? You’ll get a stiff neck just looking.

This “real ceiling” is the limit of what you can realistically and absolutely achieve in your life. But here’s where it gets interesting.

I want you to imagine everything you’ve ever desired, even in your wildest dreams, the fast car, the big house, the money, the power, the happiness. How high is your “dream ceiling”?

Believe it or not, in order to achieve everything in your wildest dreams you would only have to reach a ceiling of about 50 ft. “But hang on a minute” I hear you cry “that’s only half the height of my real ceiling!” Exactly! It’s well below your “real ceiling”, so you should be able to reach it easily shouldn’t you? Your wildest dreams are all easily achievable.

Just imagine for a moment that you’ve broken through your self-imposed “false ceiling”. You’re standing up straight and tall, and for the first time in your life you’re not banging your head. You look up and can clearly see your “real ceiling” towering above you. You can do absolutely anything that any other person who has abilities similar to yours has done. What’s more, you could even surpassed them. How fantastic is that?

Yes, you could become very successful online if that’s what you want. There are tens of thousands of people around the world making a successful living online. It can’t be that difficult otherwise all those people wouldn’t have achieved it, right? These people aren’t special, they’re just like you and me. The majority are just honest, hard-working people who have access to exactly the same opportunities and knowledge as you.

So what’s stopping you? Quite simply, you are!

No, not your background, upbringing, education, partner, the government, next door’s cat, or even the man in the moon. They’re all excuses that reinforce your “false ceiling” and make it harder for you to smash your way through.

You’ve got to start taking responsibility for your own life. All it takes is a little self belief and you can begin hacking away at that “false ceiling” of yours. Imagine how much you can save in Aspirin from all those headaches! Even better, imagine where you’ll be this time next year when you’re used to standing tall and gazing up at your “real ceiling”.

Remember, you can achieve everything that your mind can conceive, so long as you truly believe. But first, you must believe in yourself.

Be successful.

You may have wandered off the safe path through the Internet business forest, or you may be wary about setting off in the first place. What’s stopping you from continuing? Is there really a Big Bad Wolf waiting to jump out and finish you off?

If you’re experiencing this sort of hesitancy, then a little regression therapy may be necessary. Think back to when you were a child. When you had little experience of success or failure. When you approached each new challenge with vigour and a sense of adventure.

I remember when my Dad taught me to ride a bike. If I fell off, I just got straight back on and tried again. The fact that I may fall again and again never entered my head. This was new, it was fun and I was spurred on by the prize for my endeavours; joining in with my elder brother and our mates who were already racing around on two wheels.

As children we charged forward with gay abandon into every new adventure. But as adults we hesitate and check our step. Why is that?

The answer’s simple!

The one thing that’s changed our perceptions of new and uncharted territories, like starting our own business, is fear. It may be fear of failure or fear of rejection. As Edmund Burke once said “No passion so effectively robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reasoning as fear.”

But is there anything wrong with failing once in a while?

Certainly not!

You never learn anything from doing things right all the time. Making mistakes is an essential part of the learning process. That being said, you must remember that you never learn much from a mistake the second time you make it.

Fear is an important emotion. Like the Big Bad Wolf, it provides a safety check to ensure we’ve thought through our actions and planned for likely outcomes. But you should never allow it to stop you from setting off on your next great adventure.

In his inaugural address of 1933, Franklin D Roosevelt famously said “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” Are the things we fear always realistic and tangible? I think not! We often tend to create our own ‘monsters under the bed’.

Take our arch nemesis the Big Bad Wolf for example. I mean, how could any hairy transvestite quadruped fool anyone into believing it was Grandma. And if it had despatched Grandma, wouldn’t there have been blood stains on the eiderdown?

But I digress!

These ‘monsters’ are barriers we create for ourselves that reside in our imagination rather than in reality. So, let’s get back on that path through the Internet business forest then, and stride bravely forward. If you’re fearful about starting out, or you’re fearful of taking the next step, don’t let that fear ruin your journey. Let it simply act as a reminder to check what’s round the next bend once in a while.

What! You’re still scared?

OK, take along the woodcutters axe for protection if you must.

By the way, he’s behind you!

Be successful.

I was recently reminded of a TV advert promoting a travel company. In the ad a character was wandering about a wilderness calling out “Is there anybody there?”. The idea of the ad was that everyone had gone off on cheap holidays bought from the travel company.

OK, so what’s the point?

I was reminded of this while searching the web for joint venture partners for an extremely lucrative deal I wanted to offer them. I was more than a little surprised at what I found; or what I didn’t find more like.

I couldn’t believe how difficult it was on a lot of websites to find an email address I could use to contact the webmaster or someone at the company. Granted, some had one of those featureless online message forms. I don’t know about you, but I find them very impersonal, somewhat akin to posting a message in a bottle, tossing it in the sea and hoping sometime someone will answer.

I much prefer a proper bona fide email address that I can enter in the “To:” box of my email, and a name of a real person to converse with. I’m sure I’m not alone. There are probably hundreds, maybe thousands, of your potential customers jumping up with a hand in the air at this point, shouting “Me to! Me to!”

The upshot of this is that some webmasters and companies somewhere lost out on the opportunity of making a tidy sum all because of a missing contact email address.

The moral of the story is don’t make the same mistake on your website. Include your full contact details, make it blindingly obvious where they’re located, and above all make it easy for people to contact you.

Don’t worry, you won’t have a queue of clients forming outside your front door, or ringing you up at all hours of the day and night. What you probably will have, is more trusting clients, safe in the knowledge that they know where you live and can ’send the boys round’ to knee cap you if you ’stiff’ them. No, sorry! Got a little carried away there.

Including your full contact details on your website, i.e. name, position, email, telephone and fax numbers, and mailing address, will help your clients to have a little more trust in you. By identifying yourself, they can hopefully see that your not some ‘fly by night’ who’s going to do a ‘moonlit flit’ before they get their goods. You’re not are you?

Also, on an even more positive note, next time someone like me comes along ready to offer you a stonking great joint venture deal that’s going to make us loads and loads of ‘wonga’, they’ll be able to find you won’t they?

Be successful.

Many people spend the whole of their lives searching for that elusive secret to their own success. Often the so-called ’secret’ is sitting right under their very nose.

Let’s face it, unless you’re naturally gifted, making a success of anything involves a whole lot of hard work. A lot of the time, the work we’re faced with is often boring and monotonous. Wouldn’t it be great if it were fun? Ding, dong! Are the lights starting to flash, and bells starting to sound inside your head yet?

I’m tempted to carry on rambling at this stage, but I know your just itching to find out what a GOOBI is.

Am I right?

Well I’ll put you out of your misery right now!

GOOBI is simply a mnemonic for Get Out Of Bed Inducer. It’s that thing that gets you out of bed in the morning and puts a spring in your step. It’s also been described elsewhere, as your “Friday night essence”. Think about it, what would you happily spend Friday night working on instead of dining with friends or watching a movie?

I was reminded of the GOOBI concept recently, whilst watching a film. The title of the film escapes me, which is probably best because it was rubbish. If I was to tell you the title you’d only go watch it, and then you’d be saying why did he mention that film it was rubbish.

Anyway, at one point in the film, the leading character made a statement that struck a chord with me. He said “The secret to success is to find something you love doing, and do it for the rest of your life!” Of course, he was talking about finding your GOOBI.

So here comes the hard part.  To find your GOOBI you have to start thinking for yourself. I know that bit’s going to come as a shock to some of you, as a lot of people will go to the ends of the earth to avoid thinking for themselves. Isn’t it just a lot easier to run with the flock and let the shepherd and his dog make all the decisions for you?

If you’ve just answered “Yes” to that last part, then all I have to say to you is “Baaah!”. For those of you who don’t speak Sheep, roughly translated this means “You’d be better off grazing with the flock, you haven’t got what it takes”.

If you think that thinking is hard, you ain’t seen nothing yet!

(Authors note: “think that thinking is hard” is it me or does that have chicken and egg connotations? Never mind, hopefully you see my point. Let’s get back to the plot.)

What do you really love to do? It’s a simple question; so don’t try to make it a hard one. We’re talking about constructive exercises here so don’t cheat by saying “Nothing”. Anyway, I’m sure you’d get bored doing absolutely nothing for the rest of your life.

The answer you come up with should be your true vocation. If you’re totally honest with yourself, then if you do the thing you love for the rest of your life, you can’t fail to be successful. You’ll literally do anything you need to do, to carry on doing what you love to do. Hey, have I just invented a new tongue twister, or another piece of nonsense rhyme?

So, go find your GOOBI! You know it makes sense, which after reading what I’ve just written, is more than I do.

Be successful!