Customer service is obviously very important.

However, so is taking some time OFF of the computer!

Here’s what I do when I don’t want to bring my computer on vacation, but want to answer emails:

1. I have an outrageously fantastic virtual assistant who can answer 99% of all my emails off the top, which saves a TON of time…

2. Anything she can’t answer, she forwards to my personal email address.

3. I open up my AudioMemos on my iPhone:

(I’m pretty sure this comes standard on all iPhones, but if you don’t have it, you can grab it for free right here.)

(I’m also sure there are Droid and Blackberry apps that will do this same thing…)

4. I open up my email and record (dictate) my responses to all the emails that my assistant didn’t know the answer to.

5. I email the recording to my assistant, and she types out my answers.

(It’s EXTREMELY easy to do if you’re familiar with an iPhone, but the technical details are: make your recording, hit “pause” when you’re done, then hit “done”. The recording will come up in a list of all your recordings… hit the blue arrow next to your recording and select “Email recording”, then put in your assistant’s email.)

Presto! That’s it! In less than 10 minutes you can knock out a TON of emails (and your V.A. will have already hopefully pre-screened the majority).

You don’t need your computer AND you have the joy of knowing things are being taken care of!

If you don’t have a smart phone, you can use Jing (free for the basic version) to record little 5 minute video explanations. I use this all the time when I’m on my computer!

A few years ago, I had a business partner who simply couldn’t make himself get things done.

He told me he had the best intentions but simply couldn’t make himself do the things on his to-do list.

At the time, I didn’t have much empathy. We were under deadline and I could not at all relate. I’d always just gotten things DONE when I wanted them done, period.

But since then… I’ve definitely had reason to gain empathy.

In fact, just a few hours ago I was getting frustrated with myself. I wanted things to happen and I just couldn’t make progress.

So I asked myself a few questions, pulled out a few things from my bag of tricks, and presto… I’m here writing my second blog post in an hour.

Because of that, I present to you in no particular order –

 “The Top 7 Things To Do When You Can’t Get Motivated”.

7. Ask yourself why. Are you in alignment with what you’re working on? Is it something that truly revs you up and excites you?

One way you can find an answer is to take a couple deep breaths and just ask your gut – “Do I want to be doing this?”

Or, if you’re too stressed to get a clear answer, take out a piece of paper. Label it “Why can’t I get motivated?” and then start writing. See what comes up. If you stick with it long enough, you’ll get your answer.

If you’re not in alignment with whatever you’re working on, be honest with yourself.

It may be time to stop doing it – whether that’s abandoning a project (I have NEVER regretted canceling a project because it didn’t “feel right”… even if my logical counterparts couldn’t understand it) or outsourcing it.

Assuming you ARE in alignment with what you’re working on, here are some more things to do:

6. Listen to classical music at 60 beats per minute. Music at 60 bpm balances the left and right hemispheres of your brain and helps your thinking and creativity.

This type of music always helps me produce better results.

I’ve bought this before and really like it.

5. Work off of a plan. Sometimes to-do lists can be random gobbledygook that ends up just being busy-work. Tim Ferriss once said something to the degree about how being perpetually busy is LAZY. People fill themselves up with loads of crap to to avoid actually thinking.

Instead of loading yourself up with work that may have no rhyme or reason… work off a PLAN.

Set a goal, plan it out (#2 on this post may help), and then create your to-do tasks based off of your plan. If you feel purposeful and know WHY you’re doing what you’re doing, you will likely feel a lot better about doing it.

(Bonus if you break up your plan into small, workable chunks so you don’t feel overwhelmed.)

4. Find inspiration. There are many ways you can inspire yourself:

- Visualize what you’re doing this all for. Think about the emotions you’ll feel when you reach your goal.

PLEASE (!!!) have an emotionally-driven “why” for doing what you’re doing… and remind yourself about it.

- Identify “role models” and model them.

- Read books that motivate you (I personally love Man’s Search For Meaning (which is not meant to be motivational but it inspires the heck out of me), Do The Work, and The War Of Art. I’ve heard some great things about Outwitting The Devil but haven’t read it yet.

3. Move your body. If you feel blocked, it only makes sense to un-block your body by moving it around. This can look like going for a walk, dancing around the house, or some other kind of exercise.

One thing I like to do is just jump around and move my arms, legs, jaw… just shake everything up. It looks crazy, but it ALWAYS snaps me out of a funk.

2. Create accountability. This can look like publicly posting your goal on Facebook, having an accountability partner, or joining a like-minded mastermind where you can share your goals.

If you know that you have to report to other people about what you’ve set out to do, you’ll think twice before ignoring it.

1.  Be OK with it. If you’ve tried to get motivated, and you know that you are in alignment what you’re doing… then just let go. Sometimes these things ebb and flow. I believe everything not only happens for a reason, but for our highest good.

And sometimes letting go and not beating yourself up about it can open yourself up to magic.

For example, a few months ago, I was in a hotel room doing my best to “force” myself to create a presentation. I was set to speak in a couple days and I just couldn’t get motivated to create my PowerPoint.

I pushed and pushed all day, and nothing was happening.

By nighttime, I was getting desperate. I bargained with myself that I would order room service, finish the presentation, and reward myself by getting to go out and play.

Thankfully room service didn’t offer any options I liked, so I walked over to the hotel restaurant. I brought my notebook with me, but mostly just concentrated on eating a fantastic dinner.

Somewhere in between bites of the delicious food and looking at the beautiful aquarium surrounding the restaurant, inspiration just jumped at me.

I got out my notebook and ideas flowed like wine.

It was amazing… as soon as I stopped PUSHING, the flow came.

I suspect the same may happen for you too.

—

I hope these help you!

If you have any of your own tips, please post them below – I’d love to hear!

Hey guys!

Just wanted to share a couple books I’ve been LOVING lately.  If any of them resonate with you, I totally recommend them!

1. Man’s Search For Meaning by Viktor Frankl – This book is INCREDIBLE. It’s not a business book per say, but you can use the lessons from it in business.

It’s one of the most inspirational, life-changing books I’ve ever come across.

I plan on writing an entire blog post about this soon (I have PAGES full of notes)… but for now, a quick overview:

Viktor was a Holocaust survivor. He went through some of the most horrifying things known to mankind.

Some of the stories he shared shook me to the core.

But the way that he went through and survived through things…. how he used his mind to get past things… amazing.

For example, he talked about one day how he was having a particularly bad day. He let his mind go to a lot of “smaller” things he ordinarily wouldn’t have worried about – like what he was going to do with his daily bread ration, if he should exchange it for a cigarette, how to avoid a certain guard, etc… and he was just getting very cranky about everything.

Instead of continuing to stress about the small things he couldn’t control, he took a mental picture of his reality that day, and kind of put it into a “movie screen” in his mind. He looked at the big picture. He saw himself lecturing to a crowd of people one day… in a well-lit room, with people sitting on padded chairs. He saw himself sharing his stories and helping people.

All of a sudden, his mind shifted.

He was able to get through the day and he was in a much better mindset.

And maybe it sounds like a small thing, but this was incredibly powerful to me. It showed how a quick perspective change could shift everything.

To put it into business terms… maybe you’re getting frustrated by some annoying technical work or something. If you make a perspective change – look at how this is going to help you build an empire, or see it as the temporary frustration eventually helping you support the people you love… it totally erases the annoyance.

I FREAKING LOVE THIS BOOK.

2. The Slight Edge by Jeff Olson – I love this book too. Dennis bought it for me a few months ago, and it’s just great. It basically talks about how a lot of us want instant gratification… but by making small progress every day, the compounding effect is huge.

I really learned this the other day with my 5 gallon water jugs.

Last time I tried to lift one of these things:

…I dropped it in the driveway and broke the container open. 5 gallons of water spilled everywhere.

But I’ve been doing a minute of planks every day now, and the other night, I was able to fill up 2 of them (50 pounds apiece)…. bring them into my house… AND turn them around and onto the stand, without spilling anything! In fact, I barely felt a thing.

The minute of planks hasn’t taken much from my day… but the gains in my strength have been HUGE.

So in business terms… this could look like writing a Facebook post every day, or a blog post a few times a week… maybe it doesn’t seem like a huge deal at the time, but the compounding effect is huge.

I’d definitely recommend this book too. The author lays things out really intelligently and definitely motivates you to make magic happen.

And there you have it!

What Do YOU Think?

Have you read either of these books? Or have any book recommendations of your own? I’d love to hear them!

Yep – what the title says.

This experience has been crazy.

Not fun.

Emotional.

Embarrassing as all get-out.

I’ve hyperventilated a few times. One time for over an hour.

But… I know it needs to happen.

Otto and I were flawed from the beginning.

Neither of us ever got the feeling the other was “The One”.

We had so much love for each other though… so much respect, such a deep soul to soul connection… that we tried to override the fact that we never had the passion, the romance, the stuff that separates lovers from best friends.

It’s been 3 years and 3 days since we first got together.

And even on January 11, 2009, I remember sitting in a car with Otto, talking about if we should get together.

He was torn. He said he really liked me, we had so much in common, etc… but I just wasn’t his “type” and it was really messing up his mind.

Now before you judge that… please realize that most men have a “type”. It might not be a specific body type, or hair color, or whatever… but most men are hard-wired to be drawn to a particular type of woman.

And since men are visual creatures… this is important.

I don’t know why we got together even then. I think it’s because we both knew we had things to learn from each other.

Since we got together we’ve had 4 or 5 conversations about us breaking up. We even did break up for a few months.

But we ultimately kept getting back together.

I guess we had more to learn.

Through our relationship we’ve always had impeccable communication. We’re both always incredibly honest with each other and I know we’ll still be there for each other no matter what.

My family loves Otto and he loves them.

Otto and I will still do a few biz things together (which was another flaw I think… I don’t want to do business with a romantic partner again in the future. It can be a real passion-slasher.)

I just know we need to not be together in a marriage capacity. That it’s time to transition our relationship.

I have zero desire to settle.

And both of us would be settling.

Bigtime.

I know I have a lot to do while I’m here on earth.

A LOT.

And while I don’t know what all of that is yet… I do know that having a relationship that I don’t feel completely congruent with isn’t helping me find out my purpose any time sooner.

And having a husband who has never really been that attracted to me is terrible for my sense of self-confidence and esteem.

We both deserve better than that. We deserve passion. We deserve total head-over-heels in love.

I’m not crazy. I know that things aren’t always going to be rosy. I know that marriages need to be worked on. I get all that.

But this isn’t about a rough patch.

Our relationship has always had this undertone.

I think the universe agrees with us. The day after we decided to divorce, after Otto had been having a string of bad luck business-wise, he closed $10k worth of business and acquired a big piece of a company.

I might be coming off as nonchalant about all of this, but trust me, I’m not. I’ve been extremely eaten up about it. Like I said, I had my hyperventilation sessions. I cried in the middle of Starbucks (more than once). I had my screaming sessions. I cursed the universe (with real “OOMPH” on the f-word.)

I felt like a FOOL. We’ve only been married 7 months. And I know people have such judgment about divorce, how people don’t give it enough effort, etc etc…

But we really have tried. We’ve been together for 3 years.

Both of us had huge freak-out sessions the day before the wedding. I think we both knew it wasn’t right… but our love for each other on a best friend level made us do it anyway, because we didn’t want to hurt the other person.

At the end of the day though… my heart knew it was coming. Otto and I made 2012 goals on December 31st. Last night we were talking about how Otto never included me in his. And mine said, “I am in the relationship of my dreams” and “My man worships me and I worship him”.

I never specifically said Otto’s name.

When I mentioned this to Otto yesterday, he said “I do worship you, but not in the way you want.”

Case closed I guess.

Edit: We’re getting annulled. We just learned that since Otto doesn’t know if he’ll be ready to have kids in the 3 years he initially promised, we legally fall into an annulment. That was another huge reason for us to lean this way.

I was invited to go for a hike and then to the hot springs last Sunday.

I was very excited about the hike part, but not about the hot springs. I didn’t want to wear a bathing suit.

(If you haven’t read, I’ve gained a lot of weight since eating meat. And I am FINALLY OK with it… so much so that I’m a little embarrassed to recount this story, but feel called to, so I am.)

Here’s what happened:

I am very aware that everything I say comes true. The power of our subconscious is HUGE.

When I was younger, if I ever tried to get out of going to school by saying I was sick, I’d get sick. Even if I was totally healthy before.

When I was working as a cashier in high school I wanted to call out of work. I knew that I’d get sick if I told them that, so I decided to go a different route. I had my stepfather name a random car part. He told me “catalytic converter”, so I called and said my catalytic converter broke.

The next week… boom,  my catalytic converter went out.

I’d never even heard of that before.

So while I know lying isn’t that great anyway, this fast manifestation stuff ensures I generally don’t do it.

But I was so worked up about the stupid bathing suit that Saturday night I told Otto I was sick. I figured I’d get myself sick real quick so I could avoid having to go on the hike the next day.

(I am not proud of this.)

I felt very bad for lying, and so in the morning, the first thing I did was wake Otto up and (tearfully) confess. I hate lying and feel bad that I did it. It’s amazing how much emotion and power I had been giving to this weight gain.

After I confessed I realized I was being ridiculous and I went on the hike. I had an AWESOME time. In fact, I think it “clicked” me back. I’d been having a not-stellar few months, and after the hike I feel like I got “me” back. No more cranky, miserable Rachel, thank you.

But I guess I’d already set the process in motion for getting sick, because on Monday, boom… runny nose, sore throat, laid around for 3 days because I couldn’t work up any motivation to get out and go to the cafe.

(As a side note, it was kind of nice to be lazy. I drew, journaled, and drank lots of tea.)

Last night I was sicker than any other day.

I was sick of feeling yucky, so I decided I was finished.

Before I went to bed, I told my mind that I wanted to wake up feeling good, with enough motivation to go to the cafe, no more runny nose and no more sore throat.

I still have a slight runny nose (much less than yesterday), woke up with no sore throat, and am at a cafe right now. Motivation is running through my veins.

It’s fascinating how much power we have over our minds.

And to make myself feel better about the fact that I’ve been so whiny about my weight… I’d like to mention I’ve made tremendous strides to stop being so upset.

I bought a pair of jeans yesterday in a new size. I was resisting buying new clothes because I didn’t want to admit defeat, that this size is the new size I’d be…

But I decided yesterday that I’d feel better if I wore something that fit well and made me feel good.

So I got a new pair of jeans in a size that would’ve been unthinkable for me in the past.

And I am OK with it.

So I am moving forward, and definitely using the “power of my mind” to make magic happen.

Next up… changing the world.

I am about 42% through with Steve Jobs’ biography.

It does seem like the biographer went out of his way to look objective with his book, maybe to the point of making Steve seem more of a jerk than he is…

But dude seems like a total asshole.

Other things I’ve read/heard confirm that.

I know he made the Mac, and I know people love it, and I know he is behind a lot of things that make my life better. I love my iPad and my iPhone.

I have a Mac too. I bought it because every marketer seemed to be talking about how great the Mac was… and so when my (AMAZING) PC got stolen from my car, I took it as a sign to buy the MacBook Pro.

Now I’m used to it, and love programs like Screenflow… but I really don’t understand what the cult following is about. Truthfully I prefer the PC.

In reading Steve’s biography, here are some things that really stood out to me:

1. Steve had a great friend who stuck with him for YEARS… even when he abandoned his daughter. His friend lived with him, helped him with Apple, etc… and then when it was time to give out Apple shares, Steve insisted his friend didn’t deserve the shares because he wasn’t upper level enough.

His friend was shocked. He’d been with Steve and helped him out for a LONG time. He just assumed Steve would take care of him down the line.

Many people thought Steve’s friend was right… that Steve should take care of him. One person who did have stock went up to Steve and told him he’d happily match the amount of stock Steve gave his friend. Steve’s reply? “OK… I’ll give him zero.”

For someone who allegedly wasn’t about the money, that sucks.

2. When he was laying people off at one of his other companies (NeXT I believe, but it might have been Pixar), he wanted to lay hard-working people off with no severance pay and no two week notice. These are people that worked VERY hard for him (lots of hours, and also a lot of aggravation considering how hostile Steve was).

When someone told Steve he should at least give the people he was laying off two weeks’ notice, he said “Okay… we’ll do that. The two weeks is retroactive from two weeks ago.”

I know he had been overfunding the company, but dude.

Again… for someone who is allegedly not about the money, that’s really messed up.

3. He treated people like CRAP!!! Stories of people getting him birthday presents he left in his hotel room, talking down to people, trying to oust people from their positions, cheating Wozniak out of bonus money that wouldn’t have even been made had Wozniak not done the work…

He just seems like he has very little integrity and is NOT someone I would respect.

I know he made a big impact and transformed the world, but so did Hitler.

I’m not saying he’s like Hitler. I’m just saying that solely transforming the world isn’t a reason to idolize someone.

He does have some great products that I love. He’s an amazing marketer. He (allegedly) cares a lot about user experience (though part of me wonders how much that is just his ego loving the control).

Ugh, and that part about how he felt he was enlightened… makes me feel sick.

I’m not saying he was some evil dark force, but I definitely don’t find him enlightened. I find him selfish, an egomaniac, completely devoid of empathy, and mindblowingly self-centered.

Does this say something about me? Am I getting frustrated about some “shadow” part of me?

Possibly. I don’t think so though. I don’t feel an emotional charge around this. I just feel sad that this is the type of person people are idolizing.

If someone wants to aggrandize a person for changing the world, there are many better choices. Why not go with Mother Teresa? Gandhi?

ANYONE who seemed to think beyond themselves.

My lord.

Yesterday was a great day.

I finally got to meet Alexis in person (after partnering on a business together, haha!), see Craig again (who is so nourishing to my soul), and see Steve Pavlina again (who rocks).

I also got to meet Alexis’ two kids, Kaia and Noah, who are great.

Steve was talking about his blog, and I just got such an overwhelming urge to start blogging again.

So here I am.

A really fascinating concept Steve mentioned yesterday is “social currency”… and how people with social networks online are canceling out the need for money in a lot of cases.

For example, with Steve… he just did a 30 day music trial. And when he talked about it at his workshop, he got tons of help from people who read his blog. He got free Skype sessions, one-on-one help, and lots of feedback on the music he was producing.

When he went on a road trip, people who read his blog offered him places to stay as he drove along. (I was one of them – he stayed with Otto and I in Ashland.)

It’s truly a very fascinating way to look at things.

I’ve been noticing it too. The other day I had a wonderful woman contact me and offer to talk with me on the phone. She said she’d been noticing I was going through some tough times lately and wanted to offer some ways to make me feel better.

(Turns out she is a very well-read therapist, knows a lot about Myers Briggs and was using my temperament to teach me some interesting things, and has family connections that give her very “cutting edge” health information that’s about 2 years ahead of the media.)

I would have paid to connect with her if I knew all of that beforehand.

And the more I think about it, the more I realize I’ve been offered a lot of great things actually, just from people who knew me online.

It’s kind of a very empowering way to look at things.

There are many people (understandably) worried about the state of the economy. But I think a lot of people are forgetting that even if the money system goes completely kaput… we’re still all human. And social connections will save us.

Granted, I’ve always been an idealist.

But that being said – sure, we may lose material things… even maybe homes… but our basical survival needs can always be met, without having to rely on any bigger “outside force” like the government. We have our neighbors.

I remember once reading a story about Mother Teresa (she’s one of the top 3 people I admire most). She talked about when she came across a family who hadn’t eaten in days. They were STARVING. And when she gave them a (tiny) portion of rice, the first thing they did was split it in half to give their neighbors, who also hadn’t eaten in a while.

And then I remember this email from an American living in Japan, after they had that huge earthquake.

Wth all this fear-based talk, I think remembering things like this are very empowering.

I woke up this morning with energy running through my veins, still so excited about what we accomplished last night.

$50k. With less than 10 hours or so hours worth of work. 100% for charity.

Here’s the back story:

Back at the last Practical Profits event, another speaker, Wil Mattos, and I were sitting on a couch and talking about how much we like to do for charity. I was telling Wil of my dreams to build a school, then he mentioned how he wants to go help underprivileged children in Brazil (where he’s from).

We were feeding off each other more and more, getting more and more passionate about things that could be done to help the world. We decided we wanted to do something ASAP.

Our first idea was to get backpacks filled with school supplies to severely underprivileged children in Brazil. Wil sent me a video of the situation for some of those kids there and it was absolutely heart wrenching.

We asked the rest of the Practical Profits team if they would be interested in helping and they immediately said yes.

At first we were going to start a nonprofit. We did apply for it, but the paperwork takes a long time and we didn’t want to wait years to do something (though the paperwork is still in progress).

Wil mentioned that he knew of a charity, Spirit Of A Giving Heart, and that we could help them for our first project.

Spirit Of A Giving Heart helps children in an Indian reservation in Arizona. There are 618 kids in this school and they’re extremely poor.

• 90% of them don’t have electricity…
• They’re bussed up to 40 miles (one way) to get to school
• 90% of them are eligible for the free lunch program
• A substantial % of their families are below the poverty line
• Many children are so poor that they have to live at the school, going home only for weekends and holidays
• 50% of the children who start kindergarden are not ready for it
• The children get a package of “Tribal” clothes once a year. The packages are becoming smaller and smaller, and last year because of funding they didn’t get their coats until February – way after they needed it….
• Every year they’re allowed to ask for 2 or 3 things for their Christmas wishes. They ask for things most children take for granted – like pens, pencils, and notebooks.

Wil and I decided we would get backpacks for every single child in that school, filled with school supplies appropriate for their age level.

I had my assistant research some prices and we thought we’d have to pay $30k or so, shipped, for everything. We knew we could raise that and were happy with it. But one day Wil randomly mentioned to someone what we were doing and they mentioned told him of a nonprofit that specifically creates and fills backpacks for nonprofit charities. He followed up with that company, and they gave us a HUGE discount.

$14k for all 600+ backpacks, filled and shipped right to the school.

WOW.

Our plan to create the money was this:

1. Ask our marketing friends if they’d donate products at a discount
2. Create mini sales pages where each product would be displayed
3. Sell limited quantities of the products, discounted, on a live webinar (with the money going right to the charity’s PayPal)

It was absolutely beautiful how many people were open to donating.

Here’s everyone who ended up donating, in alphabetical order of first name:

• Brian Johnson
• Brian Koz
• Brittany Lynch
• Dan Hollings
• Dennis Becker
• Jaime Mintun
• James Jones
• Jason Fladlien
• John Rhodes
• Keith Dougherty
• Maria Gudelis
• Matt Rhodes
• Rachel Rofe
• Shane Melaugh
• Tim Castleman
• Wil Mattos

Everything came together so seamlessly and easily.

We kept getting pleasantly surprised. Marketers were donating products that were worth $1,000, $2,000… even $4,000.

I ended up creating mini descriptions of each product and then Wil plugged them into his shopping cart. He had it set up so that there was one main sales page, and people would just have to refresh it every time a product ran out to get to see the next product.

It was SO easy! He really did a knock-out job.

When we started the webinar, James Jones, Maria Gudelis, Keith Dougherty, and John Rhodes came on to support everything.

James immediately said he was going to eat all the PayPal fees for every single product bought so the charity would get 100% of the donations. (He is one of the most generous people I have ever met.)

We started selling products, and WOW. It was unbelievable. People were so excited to be there, to support the cause, and to get such great discounts.

Wil MC’ed everything (he was GREAT at it!!) while I announced the products.

At the end of the webinar sales were showing up slowly. There was so much activity on the PayPal account! The webinar ended up going 3.5 hours!

At the end of the webinar, Wil finally announced we were at $36k in sales.  Keith Dougherty spoke up and said, “I don’t like $36… I like $37. I’m going to donate another $1,000.”At that point I guess a few more sales came in, and we got to $38k. James said, “We should push for $40k!”

Wil said he would put in $1k, then James said he would match him. I said I’d put in another $1k, and then so did Maria and John, which got us $5k even more.

Then, with all the cash donations from other marketers we got even before the webinar… we were able to round up to $50k with donations.

It was UNBELIEVABLE.

So magical.

This whole experience has forever changed me. I told Wil and Otto… I’ve had a lot of achievements in life. I’ve been a cover story in a magazine, wrote a book, lost 100 lbs, and a slew of so many other things… but this is what I am the most proud of, by FAR.

It’s just amazing. I am so grateful for everyone who supported this.

It’s incredible. This went from Wil and I sitting on a couch to asking Practical Profits to help to a few hours worth of calling people, doing some tech stuff, writing a little copy, etc… to the webinar.

We worked a grand total (including the 3.5 hour webinar) of less than 10 hours.

And it didn’t feel like work.

Most people didn’t even get to mail their lists for us. At the peak of our call we had about 250 people. If we would have pushed more, who knows what would have happened?

All I know right now is that education is huge. Knowledge is power. And everyone who helped took part in possibly rewriting a child’s destiny.

Absolutely magical.

I feel so inspired and amazed at what humans are capable of. This has forever changed me.

I had a GREAT learning lesson today.

I had to go to Western Union earlier this afternoon. I just found out a friend had been robbed and I wanted to transfer some money to him.

When I got there, the lady running the counter didn’t know exactly what she was doing. She was flipping around her screen and asking ME what she should type in for different things that I had no idea about.

I gave her my best guesses, and it seemed to work…. but when I went to pay with my PayPal card, it came up declined.

I KNEW I had money in there, and even double checked my balance on my cell phone to make sure.

The lady told me my PayPal card was a “pay as you go” card, so it wouldn’t work.

I told her (in a VERY nice way) that the card works as a debit all the time, and asked if she could please try again.

She became very agitated and told me, “Ugh, fine”.

When she did it, it came up denied again.

At this point she became VERY hostile with me and rude. I told her I was concerned because I had no other debit card, reminded her that my friend was robbed, and told her I was just trying to think of something because he had no money. I was still VERY nice about it.

Maybe she wrote me off because she thought I didn’t have funds or something, but she was so rude. She basically told me I was out of luck, reiterated that PayPal will never work because it’s “pay as you go”, walked away from me, and was really unfriendly.

When I left, I was pretty mad. I don’t know if I’m explaining well enough how rude she was, but she was extremely nasty for no reason.

I left the building seething, thinking about how I would go to another store, have it work, and then have my assistant call Western Union and the Safeway she worked at to tell them how rude and unhelpful she was.

(I NEVER complain about people, especially since people have bad days and I’ve worked retail, but she was so mean!)

I went to Fred Meyer, another grocery store, and as I figured, the PayPal card worked fine. The cashier at Safeway did something wrong.

Something in me decided to call the first cashier and tell her what happened.

When I called her, I was very nice about it. I said, “Hey, this is Rachel. You were just helping me with my Western Union. I went to Fred Meyer and it worked. I think what happened was that the other cashier put in my friend’s middle name, just so you know for next time!”

She was VERY nice and sincerely thanked me for helping her.

What did I learn out of this?

1. After I called her, I felt like the situation was resolved. Any residue of anger I had just dissipated. It was magical.

2. I stood up for myself in a “confrontational” yet kind way, which felt nice. (Normally I’d probably do nothing and just “eat” the anger, which would never REALLY go away….)

3. I actually got to help that cashier! She seemed very grateful for me telling her what happened.

All in all, it was a great learning lesson. I’m really proud to have stood up for myself and to lift the situation to something where we both left much happier.

Hey everyone! I’m on my honeymoon right now, but had this auto-scheduled to go out June 7th

This blog post is another one that I tried to make on the plane, but unfortunately, it was WAY too loud.

Someone recently asked me about my SEO strategy and what I do to get ranked.

Truth be told, I am NOT a big SEO person. I don’t know very much about SEO and I don’t really care to. I do know enough to get top 10 rankings for niche sites though, and that’s the main thing I use it for.

If you’re interested in how to get ratings for competitive sites, I think the best resource out there, from what I’m told, is Bring The Fresh. A lot of SEO products will tell you not to try to rank for super-competitive terms, but the guys at BTF not only did it… but they ranked for it very quickly. They say most people make SEO look a LOT harder than it is, and I think that’s the case too. And the guys at BTF teach SEO in a way that’s not overwhelming at all.

Anyway, what I do, that works pretty well, is:

1. I use Angela‘s and Paul‘s backlinks. If you’re not familiar with them, here’s how it works: these places are basically services that show you where you can post links that Google thinks highly of. For example, maybe they find an NBC article that has a high page rank. They’ll tell you about it, you can post on there with a link to your website, and then Google sees your link associated with NBC. Google sees you as more of an authority site and thus rank you higher in the search engines.

I use an amazing guy named Shaon to post links for me. He happens to have more availability, so if you want to hire him, scoop him up! The guy is INCREDIBLE and was Bangladesh’ top freelancer of the year. His email is shaon@privateoutsourcing.com (I get nothing for sharing that).

2. SENuke is a GREAT tool I have my traffic outsourcer do. I don’t know a lot of the details but I know whenever he uses it, our rankings go WAY up.

3. We convert all of our articles into Powerpoints, read them out loud and make videos of them, and then post them to video sharing sites. This helps us leverage the same content in many different formats. (You could also post them as podcasts, which I *think* we’re doing but am honestly not sure).

This alone works pretty decently, especially in small niches.

Honestly though, we do a LOT better with our affiliate program than SEO. If you missed the (free) post I created on how we got 2,536 affiliates, you can check it out here.

And if you have any other internet marketing questions, please feel free to ask them! I’m happy to answer (almost) anything!