This will improve your skill in any area.
When I was 15, I learnt a skill which helped me gain tremendous advantage over all my peers. I learned how to Speed read. From reading at around 300 words per minute, my speed increase at around 500 word per minute.
With practice of 6–8 months, I was reading at comfortable 1000 words per minute. Later I stopped using speed reading strategies. But my speed still hovered around 700 words per minute.
That’s at least 450 words per minute more than average reader. Average reader don’t read faster than 250 words per minute. And this was my simple secret to getting a leg up on others.
If your speed is about average you can almost double your reading speed in one or two sessions. Provided you are serious about making a change in it.
There’s a lot of benefit of learning it.
You’ll read faster, get rid of your assignments and word load faster. Don’t forget, you’ll also improve on your concentration and comprehension skills.
And you’ll have lot of free time.
That’s why I am suggesting it to you to get into speed reading course. Spend next 30 days learning speed reading course and it’ll help you for long time.
Accountability – The Success Secret
It’s frustrating that I forgot one of my best habit that I”ve had in my teenage years.
I had a habit of writing a journal which help me be accountable to the things I did. It was like a mirror which always showed me the truth.
I don’t know when I stopped writing into my journal but I know from experience that it was not in my best interest.
One of the things I had to learn while learning internet marketing (and building business) is to be accountable to my own success.
While writing down, I wrote my success, my failures and my learnings which all helped me gain much knowledge along with new experience to forge through in the world of business.
So far I’ve used journal successfully when
1. I wanted to lose weight and needed to write down what I was eating and what kind of workout I was following.
2. I wanted to know which of my blog were successful and which were failure
3. I wanted to know which of my advertising campaigns were doing good.
4. I wanted to make a commitment to learn a new skill like copywriting or Hypnosis.
5. I wanted to be accountable for my own success and failures.
Someone once said, “Own yourself, you own the world”. It can be understood in many ways. And this is one of the way you can start understanding yourself.
My Way of Putting together a Website.
I have been working online since 2004 and I had my shares of up and downs when it came to internet marketing. One of the biggest headache or pain in the ass while starting online is putting together a website.
I don’t mean in technical terms. You can hire anyone to get a website in a week or less. No I meant in terms of Marketing, Producing, it’s like giving a birth to website.
1. What’s Your Goal? – When I am starting out, I ask myself a very simple question. What’s my goal? Now of course, your goal can be, saving the world, making money, just plain old vanilla putting your business offline.
But in this phase, you have to find out how you are going to achieve your end goal.
For example, this website http://www.varunpratap.com/ went through many phases (from a personal website to fitness blog to again a personal website to professional website to phew… tooo many). I ended up scraping all of these earlier versions just because I wasn’t satisfied.
I am a creative person and I need an outlet where I can speak, shout, rant or just be darn creative.
Currently my slogan “Desire. Commit. Succeed” is something I want others to experience. And to me, there’s nothing better using a blog to share your experience. With my experience in many diverse fields, I know I’ll end up talking about tons of different things on this blog.
So you have to decide what’s your ultimate goal? And how you are going to achieve it?
2. How are you going to create a connection? – Websites do not exists in solitude. In fact nothing exists in solitude. So when you are going to make a website, you have to find a way to create a connection with people who are going to visit your website.
There’s no other way. You cannot avoid this. No matter who you are. No matter what business you are in. No matter what your race is or where you live.
Your website cannot live without visitors and there has to be a way to connect with them.
2 Easiest way to connect with them are
1. Blog Like this one.
2. Newsletter
3. Forum (I am adding this one but it takes lots of efforts to maintain a forum).
You also have to understand about the media (Audio and Video). Because they ultimately create a connection. You have to check whether you can use it or not.
3. Potential to monetize or not – Third thing I think about potential to monetize a website. It’s very simple, If you are already making an effort to build and maintain a website, then why not monetize it?
There are many ways to monetize. The easiest to implement are :-
1. Sell advertisement space.
2. You can create a list and sell advertisement.
3. Create a product/s and sell it.
4. Promote affiliate products.
5. Sell your services.
Now this is how I start even before I order a website design to be done. I worry about my prospects. I prepare about how I am going to connect. I prepare about how to market. I prepare about how to sell.
Like I said, any one can put a website online. These days even toddlers and their pets have one. But all of this underestimates the real though that goes behind putting a website together.
It’s not that complicated. In fact it’s easiest the moment you decide “What’s my Ultimate goal with this website?”.
This is first of my 3 part formula “Decide. Commit. Succeed”. The moment you decide and decide to commit, things changes. Everything will work in your favor depending on your will. And Succeeding is just next step.
Notice, there’s no where I talked about SEO (search engine optimization) or any other new internet technologies. Because we don’t have to worry about them.
First build a website in mind, then on paper and only then come online.
Best Regards,
Varun Pratap
Desire. Commit. Succeed.
Appreciation
Last week, I got quite a few emails on gratitude and what not. People, Marketers were throwing this term around.
It made me think about quite a few moments of my life and made me realize very simple things.
We, as a human have deep rooted desire to be appreciated. And we know instinctively when someone really appreciates it or whenever someone does it because their sales manual says so.
Appreciation.
If you remember one of my old post about “Just a Thank You”. How the day-to-day boring and monotone situation changed immediately just because my “Thank You” was really heart felt.
I also remember the name of one of the Fast food chain attendant who just gave me paper napkins and said a few things which connected with me.
I also remember when I once helped a friend and he was really grateful. How his simple thanks stood out and I understood it.
And then there was situation where one of my friends jaw dropped when she saw me after a few months. I had lost over 45 pounds and gotten stronger. I still remember her comments.
Appreciation.
It’s just a simple term, but we don’t get it enough. And we don’t give others enough.
Life is so darn simple. Look around you and appreciate the things in your life. Just like how a 2 letter words “thank you” can be so powerful, I realize how this simple concept of appreciate can brighten your day, change your outlook and create your character.
Remember, the more you give, the more you get.
What do you appreciate about yourself today?
Varun Pratap
Decide. Commit. Succeed.
My Top 2 tips to Time Management.
If you are in business or in a leading role, then I can bet you are spending (rather wasting) tons of your time which can be used far more efficiently. These time management tips I am sharing here will help you a lot.
1. Close your Email Client – First thing you should do is Close your email client. I have noticed this trend in offices, employees (and their bosses) have their email client open 24/7.
Call me rude, but in the office you get paid for doing the work, not check your emails.
I know many people might get angry and protest saying that “our clients are open so that we can get business related emails”.
And my counter argument against it is very simple. Every time You get email, you get distracted from whatever you are doing. Whenever you’ll get distracted, it’ll take you at least few minutes to be able to concentrate on your work. By then, you’ll receive another email and again the process goes on and on and on.
Why I am telling you this? Because I’ve seen one of my friend in the office. His email clients goes off “Ding” every 5 minutes and I checked few of his so called “Office” emails and they are nothing but useless stuff (I am not calling it junk just for the respect of my buddy).
So, now you know, you are wasting tons of time with these distractions. You can close off the client and then get more productive.
2. Improving efficiency by creating better workload – Another big issue people do is they do not organize their work load for the day. If you organize what you are going to do for the day the moment you sit on your desk, you’ll save lots of time, improve efficiency and work better.
Again, one of the hidden problem organizing is “distraction”. If you just club up same kind of work in a huge chunk and finish it, you’ll be far more efficient and you don’t have to re-new your concentration.
So if you are going to call up few people during the day, Find a time slot when you can call all of them and do it in one go. Your concentration will be 100%. You’ll be more focussed on the task at hand (there’s no “Oh Shit I had to call Mr John at 3:00pm”).
Now I suggest try these out for few days and take notice of the changes around you. You’ll notice How efficient you’re after doing this?
What has internet marketing taught me in last 5 years.
Whew, it has been 5 years and right now I am looking back at the lessons Internet marketing taught me over the years. Of course I am not discussing marketing tactics and techniques here otherwise this blog post will probably turn in a huge book.
First lesson :- Strike and Grab the Opportunity fast whenever it presents
This is the first and most important lesson that you’ll learn while doing Internet Marketing.
It all comes down to speed of implementation. If you are slow, time will move on and chances of your profiting from the opportunity has left you by.
If you compare internet time line to offline line real world time line, then time is moving at least 4 times faster on internet (that’s due to advancement in Internet technologies). The cause and effect can be seen almost immediately of internet technology and time.
People who sit on the side line and wait and check are often late and broke.
That’s why I said speed of implementation is important.
Second Lesson : Ideas are dime a dozen, Action is rarer.
Too many people have way too many ideas… but people who take action are rarer. And thats true in harshest of terms for people on internet. With the access to ever changing technologies, people can exchange ideas in a blink. But People who take action on those ideas are rare and those who do, often succeeds.
Again complimented with first lesson of speed of implementation, this will help you tremendously.
Third lesson : Sell whenever the damn you can
Someone told me, “Every attempt at communication is an attempt of persuasion. Either you are persuading someone or being persuaded by someone”. When I am writing as “Sell whenever the damn you can”, it sounds like a sleazy salesman or slick opportunist.
But that’s not my intent at all.
In internet, the method of communication changes a LOT and if you have a business, you have to learn, adapt and implement different communication methods. If you are selling online you have to utilize every opportunity to communicate efficiently otherwise you’ll not sell at all.
Fourth Lesson : Learn to communicate with written word.
Now as you can guess, learning to write is going to be one of the most important way to communicate online. If you can’t write, you can’t communicate. Oh yes there are videos, audios too but let me say it again, written communication is a HUGE part of Online communities. You just cannot ignore it.
Fifth Lesson : It only takes one silly mistake to get crushed in the time
Doing business ethically is important. With internet and the ease of communication methods, you can be easily crushed. If you are a good businessman, then people won’t be able to slander you even with internet. Why ? because your evangelists(customers) will help you fight against them.
You are nothing but a speck of dirt in the time line and trust me, it’s going to be important to do your business ethically and grow and succeed.
There are many other things I can write here but I think the long laundry list is unnecessary. 5 lessons will suffice for now.
Varun Pratap
Desire. Commit. Succeed.
When you can walk on water, take a boat
I was going through my bookshelf looking for something while dusting off the dirt. Frankly, I have no idea why I was looking for it. For some reason, I just stopped writing, got up from my chair and went to look for something.
I have hundreds of books, manuals, binders and printouts on the bookshelf. I felt myself pulling towards this book I read few years ago. It’s called “When you can walk on water, take a boat (Download FREE)” by John Harricharan. The title of the book is not only a beautiful metaphor about life but also something to think about.
When you can walk on water, take a boat.
It’s very much presented in a biographical story where you’ll think about “if it’s true”, “I wonder if all of this happened to John”.
This book will mean different things to different people. It can be true, it can also be a metaphor. When I first read the title of this book, I was like “Whoa, now that’s heavy duty”.
This book is not about religion, or just mindless babble on spirituality. You’ll read a story about how author goes through the process called “LIFE”. In a metaphorical way, he meets god in many shapes and forms (from Krishna to jesus to Buddha).
If spirituality is not your thing, then well and good, I will just like to talk to you about this metaphor about the book title.
Like I talked about how people goes through their life in motions. In the motions of life, even though we might be looking for shortcuts, we are doing it wrong. Life is not a go through process. Instead its a journey. And we are taking every step with out eyes closed and making it harder.
That’s what metaphor is saying “If you can walk on water, don’t waste your energy, take the damn boat”. When I first read the title, it hit me like tons of bricks. I was like “funny, how things can be so simple and we make it so damn complicated”, there’s no need to.
Personally I don’t know what this will mean to you as you are different from me. I do suggest you to take time out and read this book and it’s sequels “Morning has all night coming” and “Journey in the fields of forever”.
Covert Persuasion Or NOT!
Couple of days ago, I was chatting with someone who is studying some persuasion techniques. He was talking about matching, mirroring and “swear to god” techniques that work 
.
I told him, “You cannot persuade anyone who doesn’t want to be persuaded”.
His response was, “No, that’s the beauty of these techniques, you can persuade someone like that”.
Yup, I can see, he is enthusiastic about what he’s learning right now and everything these persuasion experts are saying to him works.
His enthusiasm right now reminded me of the time I spend learning persuasion, NLP and hypnosis. I wasn’t much different from him at that time. Ah, it’s a process everyone goes through.
Young kids (age 4–7) can be great example of the the kind of people who are hard to persuade.
Have you ever faced a kid who has puffed up his cheeks, arms closed and looks away from you when you are telling him why he’ll not get THIS toy?
So far, I’ve not seen any scenario where kids were ever persuaded. They are dead set on getting what they want, and who cares about others…
In persuasion everything comes down to one simple thing, Does the subject want to be persuaded or not?
You cannot make up mind for others. You cannot force your will on others.
In hypnosis, the subject who says “I can’t be hypnotized”, often goes into trance faster. Their refusal is token refusal, it’s like a cry for them “oh yes, pick me, pick me, I want to be hypnotized”.
Now, I can hear people who are into sales grumbling about how often they get rejection and they have to overcome these rejections with ‘persuasive techniques’. So what’s happening there?
Again, the resistance is just a token resistance. Not real at all. If you are in setting with someone trying to sell, the person is interested in one way or another. You just have to over the barriers he/she produce to your sales pitch. People these days have automatic shields against selling. Yet, they are getting sold over things they have interest in.
So how do you go about people who don’t want to be persuaded?
You don’t. There can be many reasons they don’t want to be persuaded, yet.
Notice I said, “YET”. Persuasion changes with Every situation, every person. If they are not ready yet, then you have to wait for them to be open enough to get persuaded.
Like I said earlier, You cannot make decision for others. And it’s true in every walk of life. You don’t have to “attempt” to persuade someone. You just have to be good at Listening, Articulating and Understanding their problem. And the above 3 skills take time to master.
Varun
Desire. Commit. Succeed.
Why You Don’t need to be Self Confident?
I’ve been working on the concept of self image for quite a few years now. One of my earliest discovery lead me to believe it’s more important to have a good self image than self confidence.
It doesn’t matter what kind of situation you are in, you can always work on your self image and improve results you are getting.
About 3 years ago, I found a book by Dr Maxwell Maltz called, “Psycho Cybernetics”. He also puts a lot of importance on the self image rather than confidence. The more I studied, the more I was convinced the power of self image.
If you look at peoples lives (or yours own life), you’ll see, you are a product of habit. If you change any habit, you change as a byproduct of that change. Everything depends on your mental image of yourself that you carry with you always.
Mental image like “I am a failure”, “I am just damn unlucky” or “Damn, I am good” or “I am better marketer than a seller”. Anything that’s your story becomes a mental image.
Your mind starts confirming the image you have in mind by changing your habits. I wonder if you noticed this phenomenon, let’s say you wanted to buy a new car with a special color and suddenly you start seeing this car a LOT more than you used to.
Why? Because your mind creates an abstraction around your sight to make you see things you want to.
Why? because it makes it easier for mind to process the details around you. Otherwise, you’ll end up remembering SOOOOOOOOOOO many things that you’ll go crazy.
So taking the above in consideration, If you think you are unlucky, you’ll start procrastinating every single time and always ending up losing. If you think you are better marketer, you’ll find yourself getting lots of ideas but not being able to close the deals. And so on.
So the process becomes
Mental Image -> Mind confirmation –> Habit change -> Live Results.
You see, the concept of self confidence never even comes up. In fact this concept is so damn flawed that the only one who teaches it are the self development teachers who teaches but does not do it. You know, like they say “Those who can’t do it becomes teacher” is pretty darn true.
Again if you are not confident about selling or may be you can remember anything you read. All you need to do is start changing the image.
I have developed a very sharp memory since my teenage years. About 4 yrs ago, I somehow developed a habit of saying “Ah damn, I just can’t remember people’s name”. And suddenly I found myself forgetting a heck a lot of people’s name. It was like my mind was confirming what I was saying. At that time I was working on the concept of self image so I didn’t have technology like that to create instant change but What I did was started working on my memory and start getting results in 8–10 days.
That’s how powerful this stuff can be. Your self image, your mind is Powerful tool that hasn’t been utilized 100%. Heck I doubt anyone can utilize his mind (may be I need to change image on this idea too).
Change your self image, change your mind, changes your habits and Life.
Varun Pratap
Desire. Commit. Succeed.
GOOOooooNNNN… That’s sound like Trouble
GOOOOoooonNNNNN… That’s the sound (rather noise) my Hard disk is making right now. At first I didn’t notice it but as the noise kept growing. And that sounds like Trouble with Capital T.
Now I am bit worried.
I am worried because I know it is happening one of the 2 reasons.
1. My Hard disk is dieing.
2. Data cable is not processing data properly.
If you have a business like mine, you’d be shit scared right now. WHY? because most of my stuff related to business is in computers. I don’t have to worry about Data back up as I do it often. But more of the passwords, settings my computer has, important email accounts and emails.
Today is Deewali, and I can’t buy a new hard disk because of the festival holiday. ARGHHH…
First is my to Do list for saving back up is
File & User settings. It’ll keep take care of basic User settings.
Next I am going to back up my Outlook Express (incidently I don’t know how, DAMN).
Third I am going to take complete back up of my Master Boot Record and C Drive. So that I can re-install all the softwares and settings in new hard disk. I am worried because this is going to be my first time trying to do this. I’ll Keep my finger crossed and pray it works in 1st attempt.
As I am taking back up, I am bit stressed.
Before all of this happened, I was working on my Live Online Marketing Seminar Next Week and My 3 Week Workshop on “Effortless writing”. It’s scary because now my focus is divided into many things including seminar and workshop, taking care of seminar attendees etc. Of course, I am worried. But even then I am planning to prepare for it mentally and physically and make my seminar and workshop a SUPER SUCCESS.
I know the distraction caused by this hard disk problem will cost me at least a day. If you are wondering how I am going to cope with it? Well I don’t know. When I focus, I focus completely to my goals. That’s always how I did it and It’s how I am going to do it.
I know, I should have listened to my Hardware friend about backups. But hey, there are always things we learn the hard way. 
Varun Pratap
Desire. Commit. Succeed.
Strategic Internet Marketing- Article Writing – Turn Articles Into Ebooks and get paid
- Why You should Ignore Search Engines?
- Affiliate Marketers – Can You reduce Your Time/Money expenditure by 70%?
- How Not To Suck at making Money?
- Internet Marketing Strategy – Why Do Some Affiliate Marketers Fail?
- My Secret Behind High Speed Writing.
- Market Positioning – 4 Tips to Position Yourself As an Expert in Any Market
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