Friday, August 31, 2007

Profit from your passion By Nicola Cairncross

Nicola_cairncross_2_2 Do you want (or need) to earn some extra money to help you fund everything that you want to be, do and have in life? Here's an article from top UK Wealth Coach, Nicola Cairncross to give you some ideas:

How many of us dream of creating a part time business from doing something we enjoy and are passionate about?

There must be a market for these hand made slippers / old fashioned cakes / feng shui'd nursery cot dressings / low fat nutritious ready meals, we say. And wouldn't it be wonderful to make your living - or even better, make your fortune - doing something you love? In my time I have tried being a fashion designer, a specialist dinner party chef, flat finder and a hairdresser - none of which made me any money, all of which I enjoyed immensely.

I don't want to go into the details of starting a business too much - this is about Profiting From Your Passion not Minding Your Own Business! But one of the secrets is not to try and re-invent the wheel, don't start from scratch but do your research. Find out if anyone is doing what you want to do, successfully. Perhaps look at related or complementary fields to your passion where business is booming and it's a similar target market. Don't be worried about finding out that there is competition; that's a good thing. It means that other people are making a living from a business based around their hobby or passion and if they can, you can.

Feeling a bit overwhelmed? One of the best quotes I heard recently was by Dolf De Roos, one of Robert Kiyosaki's advisors (Robert wrote "Rich Dad, Poor Dad"). He said the best reason to set a goal to become a millionaire is for the knowledge you will acquire along the way. I agree and also think that one of the best reasons to start your own business, doing what you love, is for the knowledge and skills you will acquire along the way (and the fun you will have).

So many people never get started because they think that they have to have something else (equipment, staff), know something else (perhaps technical knowledge, marketing skills, book-keeping skills, how not to fall foul of the tax man) or be someone else (more positive, from a business background, cleverer) but really, you don't. No one else has all the answers. Just get started and learn along the way.

And what about the people who don't know what they want to do, but only know that they want to do something?

I have always loved the idea that you can create an income flow or business from ideas. Think about record royalties (Dolly Parton made more from the song "I Will Always Love You" than Whitney Houston did. Why? She wrote the song); think about the greetings cards made from the paintings of Cezanne or Van Gogh. The estates of those painters are profiting from every greetings card sold!

There is also a growing industry in packaging knowledge, or intellectual property, into programmes" or e-courses. I have just created the Financial Intelligence 101 eProgramme, which is delivered by email, once a day, for 101 days. It turned into an ebook, which sells from my website http://www.themoneygym.com/ - while I'm asleep. Then it became a real life book on Amazon - while I'm asleep. All largely passive income, created from the thing I know about and am passionate about. Financial Intelligence.

What do YOU know about, or have experience of, that other people might need to know, or that could help people get through a specific situation? What skills do you have that could be packaged up into an ebook or eprogramme? If you have a collection of resources that you found helpful, someone else might pay for the knowledge. What have you done in your life that could help others?

Napoleon Hill said in his book "Think & Grow Rich" that if you can find a way to serve a great number of people, then you will almost certainly become wealthy. I like that idea a lot, because it gives me pleasure to serve others. It's a positive thing.


In addition to "The E-Myth Revisited" by Michael E Gerber, you should also read "Striking It Rich.com" by Jaclyn Easton, the story of 21 online businesses you probably never heard of, that make more than 1 million dollars PER YEAR. Most were started by people in their attics or garages about things they were passionate about. That'll really get you going! After reading that book I finally took action about an idea that had been knocking around from my music biz days.

My other site www.artistmanager.com matches up unsigned artists and music managers, worldwide, via an automated powerful database, while I sleep. People pay to be able to browse the database for one year, then every so often, fifty, sixty, one hundred pounds pops into my bank account. Marvellous! Go on! What are you waiting for? Don't make the slippers, sell the secret of making and selling slippers! Virtual slippers R Us. Dot Com.

Copyright: Nicola Cairncross, Wealth Coach, www.TheMoneyGym.com

Tuesday, August 28, 2007

My Single Friend

Sarah_beeny If you're single and you live in the UK, you may be interested in a website I found recently - My Single Friend. Here's how the owners describe the site:

mysinglefriend® is the brainchild of TV presenter Sarah Beeny and her childhood friend, Amanda Christie.

Sarah is notorious for setting her friends up (with mixed consequences!) so it occurred to her that if we could create some kind of online resource where we could describe our fabulous single friends, then they could all check each other out.

So the core idea of mysinglefriend® was born, and it developed so that people could seek out suitable dates for each other, generating a little matchmaking amusement - and not by a computer, but by someone who actually knows you.

As the site grows, our singles can recognise and get to meet 'friends of their friends' who are single - and the Team at MSF think that's a wonderful thing!

We've created the antidote to the solitary 'online dating' experience - as friends join the site together.

  • Single or not - you can join in:

  • a friend can add their single pal who then has to look over, approve and add comments to the description before it goes live

    or

  • a single can nominate themselves, ask a friend to describe them, again approving the description and adding comments before it goes live.

Visit the website at http://www.mysinglefriend.com/

Wednesday, August 22, 2007

Mary Hunt's new blog

Mhbloglink_2 Mary Hunt is the founder of Debt-Proof Living (formerly Cheapskate Monthly), an author, Woman’s Day money editor and syndicated columnist (”Everyday Cheapskate” is available in 500 U.S. newspapers). If you live outside of the US, you may not have heard of her, but her book, Debt-proof Living, is recommended by two of the best British wealth coaches that I know - Nicola Cairncross and Judith Morgan of the Money Gym.

Mary has a new blog, which she describes as 'where I go on (and on) about money, debt and all the stuff that bugs me'. It's definitely worth a look! There's an excellent tip about watch batteries on there which I'm sure would apply wherever you live in the world... The link you need is: http://www.moneyrulesdebtstinks.com/.

Buy Debt-proof Living from Amazon.co.uk

Buy Debt-proof Living from Amazon.com

Friday, August 10, 2007

Great quotes

Mark_twain"Twenty years from now, you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover."
Mark Twain

Thursday, August 09, 2007

How many colours have you eaten today?

Row_of_peppers We all know by now that we should be eating at least 5 portions of fruit and vegetables every day. But, just to make life a little more complicated, did you know that we should be choosing our fruit and vegetables carefully to ensure that we are eating a range of foods from the five different food colour groups?

'What's that all about then?', I hear you ask. Read on...

http://style.uk.msn.com/wellbeing/healthyeating/gallery.aspx?cp-docume


Thursday, August 02, 2007

Get the best seat on the plane!

Plane_seat Before you book your next seat on a plane, you may want to check out SeatGuru, which shows you the seating layout for all planes used by the major airlines and indicates which are good seats, which are poor, which seats have extra legroom and which have power ports, etc.

SeatGuru is an excellent resource if you prefer checking-in on-line and has all sorts of other information such as check-in times, boarding times and latest flight news for each airline.