Most people naturally fit into one of two catagories either book-smart or street-smart.  The street-smart bunch are often very people-smart - in other words they can connect with people instantly, have lots of friends, finds tons of opportunities through social networking etc.

I myself was always book-smart growing up.  I could learn anything on my own, through research and reading.  However interacting with others always made me a little nervous.  Social situations where I had to introduce myself to new people always left me stressed out.

I would meet many street-smart or socially intelligent people.  I would notice that they have super slick social skills yet their life isn’t going anywhere.  Often they lazy and just tried to use others for their own benefit.  Additionally they had a tough time getting organized or showing up on time.  So while I envied their social skills, I often didn’t envy the rest of their lifestyle.

After learning more about success and life in general I had an important realization.  I realized that success usually requires both, being book-smart and people-smart.  Since I had the book-smarts down, I started working on my people skills, and my social skills.

At first this was very uncomfortable.  For example I signed up for an “improv comedy” class and had to perform on stage in front of others which made me extremely nervous.  However as I started getting better social skills something pretty interesting happened.

I found that through my social network, I was getting a lot more opportunities for succes in life.  And since I had the book-smarts to back it up, success started becoming easier and easier whether it was in increasing my income, building more satisfying relationships or have a more fun lifestyle in general.

Productivity is a requirement for success and success is a requirement for productivity.  It might be obvious why you need to be productive to be successful.  In today’s busy life you are constantly getting bombarded with new info.  Most of the info is a waste of time.  However there are little gems in between that will create lots of opportunity for you.  For example, if you read 20 different posts about how to make money online, you’ll usually find that there is only one post that’s really good and that you can apply.

Being productive is a skill that one builds.  As you become more productive you become better at judging info.  You can quickly see whether a piece of information is useless (and therefore you can ignore it) or is useful (and therefore you can concentrate on it).  Productivity is also important when it comes to your thinking.  Often most of our thoughts are useless and most of our worries are a wast of time since they never come true.

Becoming mroe aware of your thoughts, your worries will help you get red of the useless ones.  It will free up your mental energy so that you can focus and concentrate on the important things in life.

By now you are probably wondering how success is a requirement for productivity.  Well if you are successful you are often rewarded for it, most commonly through money.  You can then use this money to outsource mundane tasks and therefore increase your productivity.

It’s the reason why most wealthy business men have an assistant to take care of mundane tasks for them.  However you can start being more productive without being successful.  If success is your goal then you should start trying to be more productive and efficient starting today.

During the past 3-4 years I’ve probably researched and read about every possible way you can make money online.  And I’ve found that every money making method fits under one of two categories.

You can make money online by helping others make money.  Or you can make money online by helping others solve their problems or achieve their dreams.

How do you make money online by hleping others make money?  You get paid for advertising their products, you become an affiliate (working on commision) or you send them traffic for an agreed upon payment.  This is a great place to start when you are new to the internet.  However this isn’t where the big bucks are.  But it’s certainly a great place to get your feet wet and experiment.

The second way to make money online is by helping others either solve their problems or acheive their dreams.  This is where the big bucks are.  You basically find a group of people online (through forums, blogs, social networking sites) that have a need or a want that’s unfulfilled.  You research their need or want.  You learn all you can about it.  Then you created  a product (ebook, audio or video recording) that has the solution they are looking for…

With this method, the smaller the intial group the better.  Lets say you have a friend who wants to learn how to train her hamster but can’t find any books on the topic.  This might be a great opportunity for you to do some research and create an online hamster training guide that you can sell.

Now what are you waiting for? Go out there and start making money online.

Almost everyone focuses on the “outer game” of weight loss: dieting, eating right, exercising and so on.  This is why they never lose weight or if they do, they always gain the weight right back.  Many people have never even heard of the “inner game” of weight loss.

The “inner game” of weight loss is simply your thoughts, emotions, and attitudes that you need to work on to lose weight.  Say what? But I thought it was all about dieting…WRONG.  Here is a quick example.  Ever find yourself craving junk foods and reaching for them when you are depressed even though you’ve promised yourself to eat healthy?  I hope now you are starting to see how emotions can play a big role in permanent weight loss.

To deal with tough emotions you must do two things.  First you must try to eliminate the original source of those emotions if possible.  If it’s a stressful job, try looking for a new job, or talking to your boss about it.  Secondly you must find other relaxation activities instead of eating (taking a walk, calling up a friend, going to the movies etc.)

Another “inner game” factor of weight loss is your thinking.  Your thoughts are very important.  If you’ve tried to lose weight in the past and always failed, you’ve probably got lots of negative thoughts in your head.  You probably think the following “I’ll never be able to lose weight”, “What’s the point of trying when I failed too many times”, or “Maybe I should just give up and accept being fat”.

These thoughts are holding you back, they are causing you to doubt yourself and sabotage your weight loss efforts.  Each time you find a negative through going through your head, you need to stop, and rephrase the thought positively.  So if you hear your mind saying “I’ll never lose weight”, say to yourself “I will lose weight” etc.

Once you take care of the “inner game” of weight loss, the “outer game” (like exercise, eating healthy etc.) will take care of itself.  Not only will you lose the weight but you’ll also be able to keep it off.

Starting a blog to make money online is so popular these days.  Yet wher percentage of bloggers actually succeed?  While I think a good amount of bloggers make money online, most are making pennies a day.  Very few actually take blogging to the next level and start bringing in hundreds a day.

Now you might think that bringing in hundreds a day through your blog is going to be really tough.  If you are making pennies a day right now you might even think you’ll need to get a 100 times as many visitors to your site to make hundreds.  This is false.  If you are making pennies a day, it’s because you’re using the wrong money making model.  Use the right model that I will share with you to monetize your blog and you’ll see more and more income.

Many bloggers just slap ads on their blog (adsense and such) and then wonder why they are only making pennies.  There is nothing wrong with putting adsense on an older blog that you don’t update or that you lost interest in.  However if you have an active blog that you regularly update, adsense is a waste of space on your pages.  Instead you need to create a product.

Now creating a produc might sound complicated, it’s not.  Your product could be a telisiminar, an audio recording, or just simply a pdf ebook.  Let’s start with the ebook.  It’s the easiest and quickest to create.  So how do you create one?

First you start out by surveying your blog readers.  Lets say you write on weight loss.  Post a survey asking your readers what their biggest pains and frusterations with weight loss are.  Now take their responses and their issues, do research, and write out the solutios in an ebook.  Once the ebook is done, sell it through your blog.  Your readers will certainly buy it because inside is the answers to the questions they’ve already been asking.