Our Deepest Fear is that we are Powerful Beyond Measure

This is a quote that Autumn and I found in a "Dream Home" we toured in Utah about 8 months ago. It is something that we just found again and I am planning on framing it in our house somewhere and will be a Mantra that I will start each day with.

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are Powerful beyond measure! It is in our light not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask Ourselves, who am I to be Brilliant, Gorgeous, Talented, Fabulous? Actually who are you not to be? YOU ARE A CHILD OF GOD!

Hopefully as we move into the new year we will look into our light that lies within each of us and grab hold to it. That we will see our potential and move towards it this year.

Happy New Year!

A Tithe and Living below ones means.

Today I read an article on CNN Money located here. It talked about this family who has been saving and teaching their kids to save.

MOst of the comments on it were getting on them as how they defined Tithe as well as whether or not they should take out a HELOC when they have no debt what so ever. I love that they were getting on these people who are doing much better than most. Why do people have to nitpick whether he is paying a "FULL TITHE". The definition of a thithe is paying 10% of one's increase. Anciently it would have been 10% of the increase in one's flocks or harvest. Today it is an increase in what one makes or receives.

First of all it isn't saying exactly what he paid or his philosphy on it. The real point of this article is what people have been taught al along. Save a portion of your money. SPend less than you make. Most of us CAN do those things. We choose not to do that because we are not willing to lower our standard of living now in order to have a more secure higher standard of living down the road.

We live in the age of "On Demand", Microwaves, ITunes, Text messages and Black Berries. We expect to get what we want now not later. I will be the first to admit that I am an Impatient person. But I also believe that I would trade some of the luxuries we have now and live a lower "standard"(will get to that in a second) of living in order to retire earlier and in more comfort. To know that I had more money in the bank and less on a credit card or loan. I think a lot of the stress that we deal with comes from not being secure. Knowing that we are never secure that if we lost our J.O.B(just over broke) we would not be able to subside for even a month for most people without racking up debt.

To be continued.

Using the Second and Third Tier Search Engines.

Gordon Choi had an interesting post today about using second and third tier search engines. Most of his comments are really just common sense.

Choi said

Never expect the lower-tier PPC search engines to perform better or even similar to the top search engines. The best is to initially set lower expectations. The top tier PPC platforms are just too powerful regarding click volume and demographics, user experience (with platform functionalities), bid-gap reduction (or discounter), and click fraud protection.

Honestly if someone goes to a second or third tier search engine and believes that they are going to perform at the same level as a first tier search engine they are just flat out crazy! How can you expect a search engine(or contextual player) with siginificantly lower volume and reach could perform half as well as the market leaders?

When he said you shouldn't try 2nd and 3rd tier to begin with that isn't a bright assumption to begin with. I am glad he came back and changed his mind.

Some of the best 2nd tier players like Miva, and Marchex have decent quality traffic. Yes the bigger search players have better controls, optimization, and fraud detection... but don't we hear all the time that google could do more on those fronts as well?

If you are going to go test new CPC text display ads do it in an orderly fashion. MAke sure you monitor things closely and use all of the tools available. Adbrite just recently rolled out a BETA version of its keyword targeted CPC text ads which a user can buy in bulk through the uploading of a simple CSV file. On a side note if you go into Comscore and sort through the ad networks by sheer volume of impressions available monthly Adbrite is 3rd behind Google and Advertising.com. Now mind you it is in BETA so of course there are bugs to be fixed. but for example if a company (Adbrite or any other second tier engine) gives you the opportunity to pass through a numeric code which corresponds to each particular website you are getting traffic from why would you not use it? I have seen advertisers come in and say no we won't do that we will stay archaic and try to pass you back referral URL's instead which then have to be sorted through on each side. Does that make sense to anyone?

Cool new Search engine

OK so its not new but it is COOL! Redzee is a cool new search engine. It is family friendly (which all to many places on the net are not)and has some awesome new features which set it apart completely from any other search engine out there. Everyone is always making changes to their search engines but basically it is just a new feature on a very old platform of text links.

Check out their new visual search function. You ain't seen nothing like this.

Now of course there are some things it could do to tweak it. Some of the search results are a little off. But for a new concept it is definitely cool.

Go there and search, by clicking on the search 2.0 function.

Let me know what you think.... and feel free to email them they were very helpful in answering my questions and open to suggestions!

Blogging, Schmogging

So I don't Blog.... I sit on a computer all day long for work anyways. You would think that someone involved in internet marketing would be..... well.... more involved in some of the basic things that keep the internet running. I love that blogs have taken over a world. If you have a sound enough opinion on any given subject, can piece together basic facts figures and link to other peoples sites all of a sudden you are an expert in the field.

I guess the thing that is interesting about blogging is the fact that for many people it is almost an open wide public journal of their life. NOt sure I want to share everything with everyone. Yeah yeah I know there are privacy options and such but what is the point of writing something if you don't share it?

Anyways. Now I have another blog post one more and I will be on a roll!

Kodak "Winds of Change Video"

This is freaking awesome. It is nice to see a company steeped in tradition and history realize that people today want more edgy stuff. They don't want bland dry advertising but rather something that makes them laugh, smile or so hold up that was different. It is a little long but obviously people think it is cool because it has been spread around the web virally now and gotten hundreds of thousands of views. It would have been smart to link the video direct to their webpage so they could have some more control over it. And so that people would interact more with the kodak brand and website.

check it out its cool!

Change

Change is the one constant in life.... quite the oxymoron but definitely true. In my life I have a few more things which I consider to be a constant. My love for Autumn (and hopefully her love for me). I know the purpose of life which does not change either. but the circumstances, our surroundings, our jobs, cars, houses, clothes, shoes, food, and something I think is one of the hardest to change is the people in our lives.
I don't know anyone who had ever gone through life without having "friends" who have not always helped ujs move our life in a better direction. For some of us it is ex something-or-others, for others it may be people we went to school with or worked with. They came into our lives under the guise of friendship, and caring about us but if we stepped back we would see that most of the time friendship to them meant getting what they wanted. I know I have experienced this personally with some of my "BEST FRIENDS". They were there for me when it was convenient for them... When I needed them they never seemed to "have the time" or be able to return phone calls.
There are also those in our lives who for some odd derranged human flaw we have built into us... we actually believe care about us. We trust them! We look up to them and call them our "friends", "our lovers", or our "significant others". They "know" our dreams and our goals and what we have said would make us TRULY happy deep down inside, and yet they do sometime things that are obvious... sometimes things that seem "innocent", or they say they didn't realize would hurt us... that keep us from being happy. The person who uses maybe money to influence us.... the person who knows that you have a weakness for a particular substance and pushes you towards it.... Step back don't allow them to do it. If they do not help you be better and truly work towards your dreams then they are NOT your friends! time to go out let the past be the past. Learn to live in the present and move on! Go out and find true friends. Look inside you and ask "why do i feel like i can't let go of these people?" Why do i feel like i need to be friends with this person or be accepted by them even though i know they may not be the best for me? Look inside start to change there and get rid of influences and people in your life who are not going to help you get where you want to be. Now I am not saying don't help people who are down and out. Charity is very important... but there is a difference between charity, and welfare. A difference between friendship and abuse or co-dependence.
Change is not easy change is hard even GOOD changes.... right now we are going through a lot of change.... My father just passed away.... I got Married to the most beautiful, patient, supportive, loving (and sexy) woman in the universe. Autumn you are everything i ever wanted and more!
We are moving out of our house to downsize, I am starting a new job.... life is full of change and each day(in reality each second) is a new chance to look at our lives and decide Whether we are where we want to be. If we are not if we are not on path to our goal, those dreams which reflect our inner truths, then we should change.

new blog

I am starting a new blog here. why you may ask? well because I want to. I do not think I am going to use proper punctuation or sentence structure. But hey you never know that could change any day now!