Where Are You Going To Put Your Energy

September 2, 2008 at 2:12 am · Filed under make moneys

When I first started going through the divorce process, I think that I probably wasted an extraordinary amount of time and energy stressing about those things that I could not control. Things like whether or not my ex would be made to pay adequate child support. We had originally agreed on a number, but unbeknownst to me, he had been hoarding cash, a fact that I didn’t discover until later on.

He works for a corporation that bears his name. He is its sole employee, and it’s a corporation that at that time, made an unusual amount of money for being a one man operation. I had previously done his books, I had worked for this company, and I knew that he made a lot more than he was admitting.

You all know that a corporation is its own separate entity, so he had the company paying him X amount per year (on paper), and he was the only one who had access to its bank accounts, books, etc. He controlled everything that that company did with its money. The court did not check as to just whether or not what he had on paper was in fact accurate, and if any checking was to be done, the court let me know that it was I who had to foot the bill to get it done.

While we were in the court process, he had purchased a Porche 911 (that he hid from myself and our children for two years), and a Mercedes ML350 (he’s since moved up to the G500). That being said, I learned after a mere two times in court, that he actually could hide the details of his finances from a judge, I learned that no one would make him disclose those details unless I brought up the specifics, and that I had absolutely no control over what was going to happen in court with regard to how it would see his finances. I learned that he could submit his financial statements to the court the morning of our court date instead of submitting them within 30 days of his being served, and there would be no penalty for his doing so. I learned that although I played by the rules as relayed to me by the system, that same system taught him that he didn’t have to abide by any rules but his own, and I learned that there would be no penalty to him for doing so.

Between paying a lawyer to twiddle her thumbs and make idiotic comments in the chair beside me and having enough nerve to charge me for her complete incompetence, and the court not recognizing that a man on his “salary” couldn’t possibly afford the things that my ex now owned (which, besides the cars, included a million dollar penthouse), I decided that enough was enough.

I felt like a pawn. I felt as though I was on some kind of TV show, in which everyone knew the objective of this surreal game, but me. I felt as though the judge and the lawyers were actually actors, hired to play their roles to the extreme, and someone was eventually going to jump out of a closet somewhere and tell me that I’d been punked. No such luck. This was crazy, and this was real.

So I opted out. I decided that this was causing way too much stress in my life, and in the lives of my children, and I couldn’t control it. If the money was that important to him, he could keep it. I had to spend that energy and that time on something that I could control. Few things are worse than finding yourself in a situation where someone else has a hand on your emotional compass, your mental well being, and your destiny…your financial destiny in particular.

If you’re going to go through the process, realize this; you MUST behave as though no one has the best interests of yourself and your children in mind. You must realize that this process is going to dictate your every thought, your every move, your every mood, and ultimately, the very well-being of your children for as long as you let it, and you must decide for yourself…is it worth it?

Do you know what IS worth it? Working on getting your act together. Working on getting something for yourself that only you control is worth it. Here’s the lesson that I learned; regardless of what we think is right, society teaches us that money (and having it) is important. I’ve learned that as a divorced woman it is especially important to have my own money. I learned that I had to put all of my immediate energy into making my own money.

Do whatever it takes to have something of your own. Don’t make the mistake that I made in thinking “He would never do that to his children.” Granted, he might not. And if he doesn’t…great. But even if he proves himself to be an honorable man, you still need to be self-reliant. I know that what I’m saying makes sense to you, or you wouldn’t have made it to the bottom of this article. Believe me, no one else is going to do it for you. From the depths of my heart, I can’t stress it enough.

Thanks for reading.

To Your Success!

Melissa.

Copyright 2006 Melissa Harvey All Rights Reserved

Melissa Harvey is a divorced mother of two. She believes that “as divorced women, we must consider first and foremost, our own emotional, mental, and financial well-being. If we don’t have those things, we don’t have much.” Start considering your own financial well-being at http://reallifeafterdivorce.blogspot.com. Email Melissa at lifeafterdivorce@mail.com.

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Setting Up Your Work-From-Home Internet Business When Are You Ready to Start

August 29, 2008 at 6:31 pm · Filed under make moneys

It would be nice to be one of those Internet gurus. To know everything about doing business online. To be able to slap down page after page of HTML without breaking a sweat. Create a new web site in fifteen minutes any time you want. Get three ezine articles, four pay-per-click campaigns and six joint ventures set up before lunch. Ah, yes.

But there are two major problems with waiting until you’ve acquired that level of skill before actually going into business.

First, you’ll never get there. Nobody knows everything. If you wait until you do, you’ll be waiting for hell to freeze over as that flock of pigs goes flying by. Which is to say, you’ll never do it.

Second, trying to learn everything first is a ‘Catch 22.’ You have to get in there and do it to learn it, so if you wait until you learn it, you’ll never do it. Real sandcastles can never be built in the mind. But they can really be built.

Okay, then. Am I saying you can just roll up your sleeves and open a business online when all you know about computers is how to turn one on? Well, not exactly. Then again — almost.

Sure, you should get as comfortable as possible with the computer in general, and with the Internet in particular. But it is possible to get started with not a whole lot more than the surf-and-send-an-email basics.

So let’s take a look at what might be holding you back. Could it be that you don’t have enough money to hire someone to create a website for you, and the idea of doing it all by yourself is just too intimidating?

Well, did you know that there is something called WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) software that will actually allow you to build a site with nothing more than the ability to type up some text in Word (or whatever wordprocessor you’re familiar with), then copy and paste it onto a pre-decorated web page called a template? That’s it. Really.

And getting it up on the web may sound intimidating when you’re told you need to know FTP. But that’s nothing more than the old ‘drag and drop’ that you’ve been using on your computer desktop to put your files (letters, pictures of your kids — or your grandkids) into folders.

And if even that doesn’t convince you, you can get your feet wet in the online business wading pool without any website at all. There are drawbacks (for example, you can’t begin to build a mailing list if you have no website where potential customers can sign in). Even so, it will at least get you going. And, obviously, you can’t get where you want to go if you don’t start, right?

But, you say, I hear that to do business on the Internet, I have to know about marketing. Well, indeed you do. But that’s true of any business, online or off. And it’s a lot easier — and a whole lot cheaper — to reach potential customers online than off.

And even if, right now, you have no idea about how to do it, the Web has a virtual overload of information on the subject. In fact, with all the free tutorials that are offered online, you can learn the basics — and more — without paying a penny.

So what’s stopping you? Do you think the Internet is for someone else - - like techies and gurus and people under thirty? Well, think again.

We may have separate churches for Protestants and Catholics, Muslims and Jews . . . even separate countries for Americans and Iranians, and Indians and Mexicans and . . . well, you know what I mean. There’s a lot of separation on this old planet. But not on the Internet: that, my friend, is for everyone.

Max Ehrman once wrote, in his Desiderata, “You are a child of the universe no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here.” This can also be said of the Internet. So come on in, Child of the Universe: it’s your Internet, too.

Bob Brooker has made it his mission, as a devout non-techie who is nonetheless a child of the universe, to help his fellow non-techies start their own work-from home Internet businesses. Bob continually searches for those products (eBooks, CDs, etc.) that are the simplest to understand and use. So if you’d like to see a website that was created entirely with WYSIWYG, visit Bob at http://www.makingmoneysimplified.com

If you want to find out how to do it yourself, read Bob’s report on some simple WYSIWYG software at http://www.makingmoneysimplified.com/review1.html

And if the very thought of creating your own web site has you taking to your bed with the vapors, check out his report on how to do it even without a web site at http://www.makingmoneysimplified.com/review2.html

Hey, it’s your Internet: come and get it!

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Internet Marketing Relationships

August 20, 2008 at 10:30 am · Filed under make moneys

We all have this dream. I wish I could work from home, have my own business, be my own boss, get up when I want, determine my own income and then we meet Internet Marketing, Network Marketing, MLM call it what you want.

I use to be so frustrated in Network Marketing because I would jump from one program to the other, getting new downlines, try another program, add another product, and then everything changed. Something in my mind changed. Now I see the world rushing forward in that same mode, and I relax. My thinking has changed.

So, what happened you may ask. I realized that Internet Marketing is not about the money, the products, the downlines, the traffic, the new signup.
Internet Marketing is about people. People like you and me. Real people with real families and real dreams.

If you focus on people and relationships, the rest will follow and it does.
Did you know that the average network marketer only build a downline of 2 - 3 before they give up? Some of your downlines will never even sign up one person. Building an online relationship will not only help that person to be successfull, but it will help you put money in your pocket for a long time to come.

If you want your prospects to literally ask you to be in your downline, the you have to start giving them personal attention.
Something that really get to me is people that will sign up in your downline, and when you send them an invitation to talk to you, they don’t even bother to reply to your email. What is happening in the world if we can’t take the time to talk to someone?

Where do you start?

Focus on people. Start talking to people. Find out what their dreams are, Find out what makes them tick. Start writing personal emails. Ask the guy on the other end about his children.

One of the tools that really helped me is a little free program that I downloaded from www.skype.com that let you talk to people across the world from your PC for free. It is amazing. You can see the guy’s picture. This tool is really great for building Internet Marketing relationships.
If you can build a relationship and teach other to do the same you will have hundreds of downline members that will not go away next week to try some other program. If you choose your program wisely you will make money. No matter which network marketing company you choose.

A lot of my time is spent mentoring people over the internet, and the one thing that sticks out above all is that if you care about people and relationships, your business will prosper. I want to challenge you today, get to listen to people’s hearts and I will guarantee you a prosperous business.

Read some more of my articles at http://www.netbiz.ukwaka.co.za or contact me for free personal Internet Marketing coaching at chris@ukwaka.co.za
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Reproduction of this article is allowed with an html link pointing to http://www.netbiz.ukwaka.co.za

Christo Fouche is an online marketer who specializes in free online training. His motto is If you help enough other people to get what they want, you will end up with what you want.
Christo Fouche
CEO
Ukwaka Netbiz
http://www.netbiz.ukwaka.co.za

chris@ukwaka.co.za

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