7 Great Personal Development "Guru's"

1. Tony Robbins – Tony is widely regarded as the greatest Personal Development “Guru” of the world. It is fair to say that Tony Robbins “popularised” Personal development and brought it to the masses. Tony’s career has spanned about 30 years and he has addressed over 3 MILLION people. Tony had a tough life when he was young, he was homeless at the ago of seventeen, and in 1994 he was diagnosed with a tumour of the pituitary gland. Thankfully, since then Tony got over the medical condition and has never failed to continue his brilliant work.

2. Stephen Covey - Stephen is one of the pioneers of Personal Development. His Amazing book set the standard for many people, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. Many people in Personal Development such as Tony Robbins and Brian Tracy recommend the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. Stephen also has other very popular books such as Principle-Centred Leadership, more focussed towards management and business-orientated. Stephen’s books all have a recurring theme of having a “changeless core”, and are very moral and principle based. If we have the correct foundations, we can build every other aspect of our being correctly on top of them.

3. Jim Rohn (RIP) - It is fair to attribute the birth of Tony Robbins Personal Development career and much of his initial success to Jim Rohn. When Tony was only 17, he started working for Jim promoting his events. Jim’s mentor was a guy called Earl Shoaff, whom planted many of his idea’s into his head. Jim grew up on a farm in Idaho, and frequently referred to himself as a ” Simple farm boy from Idaho”. Because of his upbringing, Jim focussed on conveying his message in the simplest way possible. “Don’t try to conquer the exotic until you have mastered the basic.”

4. Robert Kiyosaki - “I thought Robert Kiyosaki wrote the Rich Dad, Poor Dad series of books. Doesn’t he hence fall into the Business category?” I hear you say. Although Kiyosaki is primarily a business “guru”, his book Rich Dad Poor Dad has much personal development intertwined in the message. The Rich Dad Poor Dad book literally has the potential to change your life. It taught me a great deal about the basic principles of business many people don’t know, and also contained some valuable life lessons. In the words of Kiyosaki, “Its easier to conform rather than question.”

5. Napoleon Hill (RIP) – Famous author of the book “Think and Grow Rich”. This book is amazing, and although it was originally published in 1937, over seventy years layer it remains as a best-selling book. This is another timeless classic, with many valuable lessons in Personal Development. This book was written after Hill had spent many years with over 500 very rich and successful people such as Thomas A. Edison and Henry Ford.  Hill talks about such qualities one must possess to succeed such as faith, belief and a burning desire.

6. Brian Tracy – A great speaker, but most well known for his books such as Eat That Frog, a book that taught me a great deal about being more productive. Brian attributes his success to analysing what successful people are doing and emulating them. Brian is very highly thought of by many people in both the business and Personal development field. He has published 34 books that have been translated into over 20 languages, most of which have been highly successful. He has also spoken at a number of events and still holds seminars, having given more than 5000 talks and worked with over 1000 companies worldwide. “If what you are doing is not moving you towards your goals, then it’s moving you away from your goals.”

7. Dale Carnegie (RIP) - Most famous for his best-selling book “How to Win Friends and Influence People”, and also “How to develop self confidence and influence people by Public Speaking” which was recently written by his widowed wife, based on one of his earlier textbooks. Dale taught people such as Warren Buffet how to become confident public speakers. Public Speaking is an extremely important skill to develop, and also something that 99.99% of people hate doing because of the fear and ostracism they feel. Dale’s books give people great ways to improve their confidence and public speaking. I had learnt so much from the book “How to develop self confidence and influence people by public speaking” after just reading the first two chapters! Like Napoleon Hill, much of Dale’s work is timeless, and his books are still as relevant today as they were seventy years ago.

The importance of planning

“Being busy does not always mean real work. The object of all work is production or accomplishment and to either of these ends there must be forethought, system, planning, intelligence, and honest purpose, as well as perspiration. Seeming to do is not doing.”Thomas Edison

Thomas Edison has effectively encapsulated the essence of this article. Belief and Action are meaningless without a plan. Especially for those of us who work online in any capacity, we are working in a virtual world where, at least to begin with, nothing seems tangible. That is why you must write down your goals, for how can you achieve anything if you’re not sure what your aiming for? The more specific your goals, the better and easier they are to reach. Planning = structure, and anyone working for themselves will be able to relate to this, it is near impossible to achieve anything with an unplanned and unstructured regime.

When you have worked out your path, start immediately by planning. I know some very successful entrepreneurs who plan twice as much as they work, and although this may not be necessary for most people, it shows the importance of planning for anyone serious about building a business or meeting any other goals. Stephen Covey suggests that we “Plan weekly and review daily”. We must have a plan, but due to external factors like our bosses, (if you’re unlucky enough to have one!  ) colleagues, customers, family and friends, it is unlikely that we can follow our plans 100% every day. Hence, by having a daily review we can make the necessary amendments to our plans, as long as we don’t deviate from them too much. From personal experience, I can tell you how much your productivity and progress increases just by having a plan and structure in your life.

There is a huge difference between activity and action. You can be “busy” but not productive, make sure that you make a good plan and stick to it, constantly analyse what you are doing and ask yourself if it is bringing you closer to your goals. You will know when you are at the extreme of this, as you will feel guilty when you are not working! Don’t get me wrong, I’m not telling you to have no fun and no social life, but you must remember that success initially means sacrifice. A plan takes little time relative to what you will achieve, so you have got no excuses not to go out and get planning, then start working immediately!

Useful Resources:

Great Hub(page) on Planning

Lewis Howes on Planning and having the best 2011

Jack Canfield: Planning your day (VIDEO)

Building an Online Presence

Having a presence throughout the internet is essential if you want to succeed online. It’s not really about how much money you spend on a website. Any Internet Marketer in the world will tell you that you can have the best website in the world, but if you do not have any traffic i.e. visitors, then the site is effectively useless. The best way to get free traffic is through multiple traffic sources rather than solely relying on one site to refer all of your visitors.

*WARNING* If you are NOT prepared to take MASSIVE action and put a great deal of hours in, stop reading now!

If you have not already created a blog or site, this is quite straightforward. I recommend you create a site with WordPress. If you create a site on WordPress you will need to spend a small amount of money on a domain and hosting. If you want to create a Blog you will get free domain and hosting, but the name of the blog will be in the title e.g. yoursite.blogspot.com. For blogs I recommend Blogger and/or Tumblr.

If you are not providing people with VALUE, you will struggle to make a single cent through your blog or site. People are much more likely to buy a product from somebody that they KNOW and TRUST. So give them something first.

Let’s now look at the options we have to generate traffic for our blog/site.

1. Get sites ranked on Google through SEO (Search Engine Optimisation)

Pros – Highly targeted Traffic

Cons – No guaranteed timeframe or results, extremely time consuming.

2. Use the various Social Media Platforms to promote your site. Bear this in mind, the legendary Gary Vaynerchuk said “Social Media is basically an extension of normal life.” That is how important it has become.

Facebook – over 500 million users, with the average user spending at least 55 minutes per day logged in to their Facebook account, Facebook is quite simply too big to be ignored. Currently, 25% of web page views in the United States are on Facebook. However, as Facebook is not used primarily for business, it is a case of finding the targeted leads in a vast sea of users. I find giving away something free on your Fanpage helps, for example “Click ‘Like’ and receive my FREE video course on creating a blog.” I suggest keeping business to your Fanpage and keeping your Personal Profile for exactly that, i.e. family and real friends.

Twitter – Twitter currently has almost 200 million users, many of whom are logged on and “tweeting” for several hours a day. Twitter prides itself on being a concise social network, with each “tweet” limited to only 140 characters. Twitter is a great place to easily network with like-minded people and high profile people within your industry. Quick tip – follow as many people as you can within your Industry and make sure that your tweets are high quality and not always pitching something. Whatever Industry you go into, make yourself look like both a valuable resource and an expert in your field. It is important that you engage your followers. The problems with Twitter are that characters are extremely limited so its hard to convey a longer message without a link. Additionally, 99% of users have a business angle, so it can be more difficult to turn your followers into buyers.

LinkedIN – Has over 85 million users. LinkedIN has a massive advantage over all of the other Social Media sites, as many of its members are there to do business. It is at least as important as Facebook and Twitter for anyone in business. Ironically, LinkedIN is still disregarded by some marketers, but when a whopping 45% of their members are business decision makers, you’d be daft to ignore this platform! LinkedIN also has an extensive group network covering almost every profession, and if you don’t see a group to suit your profession, you can go ahead and create one! If there are groups associated with your field of expertise, your passions and your hobbies, be sure to interact within these groups as it’s a great way to network. Network with as many people as possible and be sure to have an interesting profile that you can happily showcase to all of its members.

Flickr – Ever heard the saying “A picture paints a thousand words”? Flickr is a great social media platform used by millions of people, currently storing over 5 billion images. It is widely used on twitter. Even though users can upload videos, flickr is mainly know as a photo-sharing community. As business increasingly respects the smaller entrepreneur, Flickr adds a personal touch, especially if you can find a happy medium between promoting your business and revealing selected aspects of your personal life, showing your fun side!

3. Promote your site through video. Video marketing is the future of online business, the “faceless” marketer can not make much money any more. Even though video marketing is not suited to every personality, I highly recommend it! All you really need is a handheld video camera, and you can get a great one for under $100.

Youtube – This is the third most trafficked website in the world (according to Alexa.com). Videos currently account for two-thirds of Internet Traffic, and this is believed to go up to 80% by 2013. Youtube has its own keyword search tool, so you can optimise your videos in a short amount of time to get a great deal of views. A high-quality video may also rank on page one of a traditional Google search, jumping above many websites that have been in the top ten for months, or maybe even years. The only downfall of youtube is that your video may be one of thousands of results, so in some markets it can be difficult to get a  significant number of views.

Viddler – This is a much more exclusive website. If your content is not of extremely high quality, Viddler will not host your videos. This may be something to look at a few months into your marketing as you need a minimum of 5,000 views per month in order to have a (free) commercial account with these guys. However, be sure not to disregard uploading your videos to Viddler, as you can customise the video player to display your logo and make the video much more user-friendly than an embedded youtube video.

TubeMogul – This is basically a video syndication site where you can upload your video once and distribute it to a dozen or more video sites for free. Remember, the more sites that display your video, the more views it is likely to get and hence your blog and/or site should receive a higher number of videos. Some critics say not to use tubemogul as it is can be difficult to remember where you have posted it, and that you should just post your video on youtube so that you have more control over its distribution.

4. Promote your site through commenting on other On-Topic blogs

Fast Blog Finder – This is a great way to find blogs containing the keywords that you want to rank for on Google. This falls under the “SEO ” category in certain ways, but you should leverage similar blogs as a means to build an online presence rather than just get links. You don’t want to look like any other spammer. Add to the conversation by reading the article or watching the video, and add high quality, thought provoking comments. It is a great way to build your online profile if done correctly. A downfall to this method is that the site’s admin will usually have to approve your comments, and sometimes for no reason they won’t be approved. Try to look for sites with a great deal of recent activity and conversations.

Look at the bigger picture. You should  aim to have a long-term and sustainable business, so you will have to work on these social media platforms for a number of months before you see money coming your way. Play the long game, and it will pay off. The bigger your profile and more respect for you in the online communities, the easier it will be to sell to people. Just remember that, so keep your patience and your burning desire to succeed.

I hope this has helped you in your journey towards building your online presence. Feel free to contact me or leave comments below.