1950-2008

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Popularity: 85% [?]

I’m excited to tell you that the fire sale to help Mike Ambrosioa’s neice is live…

Check out by clicking on the 125X125 banner:

It’s a great way to get some quality products & and help a sick young women pay her medical bills all at the same time. Truly one of those rare “win/win” situations.

These are NOT the same tired products you see over and over again with PLR and Resell Rights on every membership site in the business…

No, these are valuable products that are begin sold online for a premium every single day, some for hundreds of dollars, and some of them are BRAND NEW.

I’ve personally used several of these products & even wrote the sales letter for one of them. Head on over there and check it out…

Popularity: 82% [?]

Just finished up my new product yesterday. It was hard work to make it by the deadline… not as hard a digging ditches. But, still I was under a tight deadline.

My friend Mike Ambrosio has created a fire sale to help his niece with some of the medical costs her family will encounter in her battle with colon cancer…

*Love for Lauren

*Lauren is my 17 year old neice.
She is currently battling colon
cancer - a cancer which inflicts
less than 3 in 15 million children.
Partial proceeds from this sale will
go to help offset some of the
astronomical medical costs.

Mike asked me to contribute a product, and the decision was a no-brainer. My wife is a breast cancer survivor so it was an easy decision to help. We were lucky and had excellent insurance coverage. Even with such a great insurance coverage we only had to come out of pocket about $4,500.00. If you know anything about cancer treatments you’ll know that’s next to nothing.

Just to give you an idea of costs. The average Chemotherapy treatment starts at $3000.00, and goes up from there. And that depends on the type of chemotherapy drugs needed.

I decided to contribute a product exclusive to this fire sale, and have been working hard on it for the past couple weeks.

22 People have contributed to this project… some big names have stepped up to help. Here is a run down of the people who are involved:

1. Michael Ambrosio
2. Tom Beal
3. Tim Brocklehurst
4. Michael Cheney
5. Willie Crawford
6. Jeff Dedrick
7. Harris Fellman
8. Ross Goldberg
9. Keith Goodrum
10. John Hostler
11. Jason James
12. Lucius Kern
13. Ray LaFoy
14. Aaron Leighton
15. Eric Louviere
16. Fabio Marciano
17. Edward & Roberta Peters
18. Martin Salter
19. Nick Sanders
20. Howie Schwartz
21. Frank Sousa
22. Sterling Valentine

You will be able to get all 22 contributor’s products for one low price. I’ve used some of these products myself. I was even the copywriter for one of the products included when it was 1st released.

This fire sale kicks off tomorrow at 12 noon est. I’ll include a link when it’s live.

I can’t give a sneak peak of the product I’ve contributed, but I can give you a preview of the eBook cover:

Popularity: 73% [?]

OK… if you are not over forty you probably don’t recognize these lyrics. They are from a song by the Go Go’s an ’80s band.

It was great to take a break and go on vacation…

I would like to thank Sharyn Essman the owner of FeeFiFoto.com for stepping in and guest blogging. I enjoyed the post and it looks like many others did also.

This year we went to the Outer Banks, NC for the week. And we really went to the outer banks. The only way you could get access to our cabin was with a high clearnence 4-wheel drive. We only had to drive 8 miles on the beach to get to our cabin.

It was a blast… a whole week without cell phone, internet, cable or even a land line phone. It very restful to get away from all of the modern conveniences of the world today.

Here are few pictures…

There are wild ponies that roam the northern end of the Outer Banks. They are descendents of the Spanish Mustangs, and have lived here for 400 years.  It was so cool to see the magnificent animals living free.

Here is a great picture of the beach… notice the tire tracks.

Here are some more ponies up on the sand dunes grazing. You are suppose to stay 300 feet away… I had to use the zoom to get this shot.

Here is our daily beach setup with the Xterra. The best part with this is we could toss everything in the back, lock it up and go for a walk on the beach. The raised tail gate made for some nice shade… we don’t need no stinkin umbrella.

Here is a shot of the dune, and someone’s beach access. About every half mile there is a break in the dune. This is where you drive your vehicle over to get back to the cabins. It is the only place you can be on a dune. They want the rest of the dunes to stay free of any traffic, walking… to help protect erosion.

I’ll post some more pictures, and tell more about the trip later. It sure was great to get away for awhile.

Popularity: 63% [?]

Popularity: 64% [?]

Ryan Healy the other day listed on his blog The 12 Books That Changed My Life. He wrote that he loves to read and track each book he reads.

In fact, I began logging every book I finished starting in the 8th grade, and I’ve been doing it ever since. Every January, I close out the prior year, print my log, hole-punch it, and put it in my book log binder.

It’s nothing fancy, really. Just the book title, author, a few sentences about the book (including what I did or didn’t like), and a rating.

Wow, that’s impressive. I’m lucky if I can keep track of the bookmarker while reading a book.

Anyhow here are my choices of the books that changed my life.

1. Never Give In by Stephen Mansfield

This book is an excellent study in the leadership skills of Winston Churchill. Many of the leadership lessons I strive to follow.

2. The Wealthy Barber by David Chilton

The principles taught in this book are simple, yet effective. The story is entertaining, and a quick read. When I was done, I realized that the story had taught me the fundamentals of financial planning. Stuff I still to this day use.

3. The Tough-Minded Optimist by Norman Vincent Peale

I had been around people who practiced “positive thinking”. They would run around saying… everything’s great… Nothing was negative & the glass was always half-full. This attitude always seemed odd to me. It came across like you were suppose to stick your head in the sand, ignore the situation and everything would magically fix itself.

This book showed me that it was OK to recognize things for what they were. Then get tough, deal with it and move on. Changed my way of thinking.

4. Theodore Roosevelt An Autobiography

I like to read autobiographies of great leaders, and Theodore Roosevelt was one of our greatest leaders. Many people do not realize that he laid the foundation that made the US the superpower it is today. It was inspiring to see the obstacles he overcame to become president.

5. The Late Great Planet Earth by Hal Lindsey

This is the book that converted me to Christianity. I never understood the true meaning of salvation until I read this book. I could go on about this, but it’s as simple as the last 2 sentences.

6. The Ultimate Marketing Plan by Dan Kennedy

My Window cleaning business was slowly circling the drain until I picked up this book at Kinko’s. This book was a radical paradigm shift in my way of doing business. I can clearly point to this one book as the reason I built a profitable business.

7. The Bible

If I was stranded on a desert island & could only take one book, then this would be the one.

8. Plain Speaking: An Oral Biography of Harry S. Truman by Merle Miller

The one thing that got Harry Truman into so much trouble was he spoke his mind. Because of that trait he is probably one of the most under rated presidents of our time.

The buck stops here was on his desk while president. Taking responsibility was a strong theme throughout his life. That principle left a strong impression on me.

9. To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee

This Pulitzer Prize winning book was required reading in high school. It made a huge impression on me concerning race, and standing up for the right cause… no matter what others around you are saying.

Those are the books that greatly influenced me. I’m glad that Ryan wrote this post, and asked others to put up their list. It was fun to sit down and write about why these books influenced me. In fact I’ve decided to read the books on this list again. It will be interesting to see what I get out of them this time around.

OK, what about you? Make your list; post it on your blog, and link back to Ryan’s post. It will be interesting to see the books that have influenced you.

Popularity: 67% [?]

About 2 weeks ago I had a very disturbing experience. My computer got a keylogger installed on it, and caused some serious problems.

A keylogger is software used to log keystrokes, and then transmits the logs to a specified location. The original purpose of this software is to keep track of employees activities, or to keep children safe from predators.

Unfortunately, it also used by the dark side to gain access to private information on a computer. What these criminals are trying to do is get login information to emails, banks and other financial accounts.

Luck was on my side…

In my case, luck played a huge factor in limiting the damage. I happened to be logged into the first account these scumbags tried to take over.

I won’t tell you how, but they messed up one of the steps to change the password. I got an email alert, and quickly changed my password.

Later that day the scumbags logged back into that account with the new passwords. These Einstein’s made the same mistake as before, and once again I was alerted. That tipped me off that my computer had a keylogger.

I switched computers, and started changing passwords. I also got on the phone with the company these scumbags were trying to get into, and had the account locked down.

The next few days were hectic as I tried to find the keylogger software on my computer.

Keylogger software is designed to run in a stealth mode. This makes it hard to detect, and it took 2 anti-virus/spyware programs to find the little bugger. Once I deleted the keylogger, it was reloaded almost immediately. That tipped me off that a trojan reloader might also be on the computer.

It took a 3rd anti-virus/spyware program to find the reloader. I was able to delete the reloader, the keylogger, and finally the computer was clean.

The aftermath

Everything seems to be restored back to normal. (Knock on wood) I only lost one email account, and I have kept the one account frozen for the time being (just in case).

As I look back over the events I realize what had happened. I had gotten complacent, and a little sloppy. My biggest mistake was not keeping my anti-virus/spyware software updated. Unfortunately, that was enough to start the ball rolling.

I’ve spent the last two weeks shoring up my computer security, and will show you what I’ve done. This security quest also extended to plugging the holes on my blog.

Over the next 2 days I’ll show you what I’ve done, and how you can also shore up your security.

Stay tuned, because some of this stuff you already know… but some of this will be a real eye opener.

Popularity: 24% [?]

This is pretty cool. I started this blog on January 15th this year. It so far has been a lot of fun, and also exciting. I thought I’d take this time to show the stats for the 1st two weeks of the blog.

When I sat down to start his blog I wrote some goals for the month of January.

Here they are:
Blog Posts - 13
Unique visitors - 500
Links - 50
Page views - 1250

I based these on… well, actually I just pulled them out of the air. The blog post came from my decision to blog at least once a day Monday - Friday. And since I started mid month I only needed to post 13 times. The unique visitors I totally made up, as well as the links. The page views came from reading someone who said they wanted to average 2.5 page views per unique visitor. So, I 500 X 2.5 = 1250

And here are the actual results:
Blog Posts - 15
Unique visitors - 694
Links - 108
Page views - 2336

I was really happy with the results. Actually shocked would be better response. Seeing these numbers really motivates me to keep on going.

The big lesson I’ve learned is… you can’t do it alone. Over the past two weeks many people have sent trackbacks, encouraged their readers to visit and left comments. It’s cool to see so many reach out and lend their support.

I really appreciate their help, and would like to publicly thank them. Here are a list of folks that sent trackbacks here. I encourage you to go and check out their blogs…

Ryan Healy http://www.ryanhealy.com
Sam Carrara http://www.samcarrara.com/marketing
James Brausch http://www.jamesbrausch.org
Jack Keifer http://www.jackkeifer.com
Ricky Breslin http://www.rickybreslin.com
Aaron Brandon http://www.aaronbrandon.com
Frank Haywood http://www.frankhaywood.com

Keith

Popularity: 15% [?]

I met Stu Heinecke a couple years ago at the Kennedy/Glazer Superconference. Stu was a great guy, and I had a lot of fun hanging out with him. He built a list at the conference by offering to mailing anyone who signed up a personalized cartoon. It was a great way to get people to sign up on his list. I did, and about a week later I this in the mail. I put it away, and intended to get a frame to hang it up on the wall.

I was cleaning out my desk today and found it. I made a note to buy a frame and hang it on the wall. I will keep it because it has my name on it. It’s personalized… I’ll never throw it away. Hey it’s got my name on it!

The lesson is Stu made an irresistible offer to get me to sign up on his list.

Here’s the link to Stu Heinecke’s site: http://cartoonlink.com/. You can sign up on his email list and he will send you a personalized cartoon.

Can you resist? For me resistance was futile…

Keith

P.S. Sorry about the lame Star Trek pun… I couldn’t resist.

Popularity: 18% [?]

A letter that took 8 months to write.

See what Ryan Healy wrote about…
http://www.ryanhealy.com/eight-months-to-write-a-letter/

Popularity: 9% [?]