A hermit lived high on a mountain top above a township, and every day as the people below him scurried around, doing their daily tasks, the old hermit would watch.

He had everything that he needed on his mountain, there was plenty of food and supplies, he had a small vegetable garden near his cabin, and he kept a few animals to supply his needs, near a rock pool filled with water that flowed down from further up the mountain.

His life was quiet and content, after breakfast and his morning chores, he would make his lunch and take it to the rocky outcrop where he could sit and watch the activity in the town below.

The town was a long way down, the people running around performing their daily deeds seemed like ants to him, but even through all the bustle and busyness it seemed so peaceful. It looked to him like a great ballet or dance.

He watched the activities in the town every day, finally he decided that he would go down to the town and experience this beautiful ballet for himself. He took his coat and started down the mountain. As he descended, he started to hear strange noises, the closer he got to the town, the louder they became.

Finally, he reached the foot of the mountain. The noise here was almost deafening, everywhere he turned there were people rushing around doing tasks he couldn’t even begin to understand, as he tried to walk through the streets, he was getting pushed and jostled by the crowds of people.

He could not understand where the peaceful and beautiful ballet had gone.

Unable to take it anymore, the hermit fled from the town, back to the safety of his mountaintop. Arriving home, he went to the outcrop and looked down again upon the town, to his amazement the beauty and silence had returned. He could still see all the ants rushing around below, but there was no noise anymore, all the screaming sounds and mixture of voices were gone, replaced with the serene silence he had always heard before.

He sat down and stared in amazement, asking himself how could such peaceful beauty come from such noisy chaos?

In our lives and businesses, we’ll often feel overwhelmed by what’s going on around us, but is it really the stressful pressure-cooker we believe it to be? When we feel overwhelmed, our natural response is to give up, to break down. But instead whenever you feel those times approaching, try to step away from the daily issues and look back at them from afar.

Often, you’ll find that the situation or decision that you have lost control of, that is stressing you out, when you step away from it and see it without all the other clutter, it’s not half as bad as you think, and often when you view it from the outside (looking inwards) you can see the solution clearer than you would when you’re right inside the problem.

Each day, take a moment out, step outside of your business, your problems, find your ‘mountaintop’ and look down on your life from there.

It’s all about your perspective, when the one you have isn’t serving you, simply get up and go to another side of it.

If you look at the wealthiest people in America today – Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, Michael Dell, Paul Allen – you’ll notice they’re all first generation multi-billionaires.

And here’s the wonderful thing: If you do what other successful people do, you’ll eventually get a similar result to what they got, depending on things like timing and market, of course.

But let’s say you only do 1/10th as good. Or even 1/100th or 1/1000th. That’s still better than if you did nothing.

So look at what successful people do. Copy them in your own way. Expect it to take work. And time. And lots of effort.

And then be proud of your results, whatever they might be.

This is the ONE thing you must have that makes everything else fall into place.

Here’s a riddle for you:

What one thing MUST you have that gives everything in your life purpose and makes your life far more exciting? And when you don’t have it, everything is dull, boring and monotonous?

Let me put it another way – are you leaping out of bed in the morning, eager to get going?

Are you excited to work 12 hours in a day?

Do you look forward to your future so much, you almost can’t sleep at night?

If not, then you don’t have a big, fat, hairy goal – that one thing you want more than anything else in this world.

This should be a goal that gets you so revved up, you cannot stop thinking about it and working on it. You want to put in long hours and do whatever it takes – no matter how scary or new – to make it happen because it means so much to you.

This goal is your reason for living and because of it you look forward with eager anticipation towards the future.

You’ve heard plenty of stories about overnight successes.

Someone starts a company and BAM! They sell that company for 10 million or maybe 100 million dollars.

And all you can think is, “Wow, I wish I could do that!”

You can. All it takes is several years of working 12 hours a day, 7 days a week on your big hairy goal.

That – believe it or not – is how you become an overnight success.

When you hear about the 7 or 8 figure sale of a new company, what you don’t hear about is the long hours the founder put in to make that company work.

So how can you possibly put in such crazy hours? It’s easy, when it’s your big goal. When it’s what you want to do more than anything else, then it becomes as pleasurable to you as hobbies are to other people.

Find your big fat hairy goal, whatever it might be. And then don’t let anything stop you from achieving that goal.

You might think this is getting rather picky, but I’ve found it flat out works.

When advertising anything with a price, lower the left-hand portion of the price and test it against your original price.

For example, if you’re currently selling your ebook for $10.00, lower the price to $9.99. Yes, I know it’s only a penny, but look at the left side of those two numbers – 10 versus 9.
People aren’t all that logical. They’re not good at math, either. So while you and I know it’s only a lousy penny, somewhere in their brain they are perceiving one price as being ten bucks and the other prices as nine bucks.

Try it. You’re going to be pleasantly surprised at the increase in sales.

Well now, that’s a sobering thought, isn’t it?

And it’s not just Netflix. You are in competition with Reddit, YouTube, Amazon, social media, video games and every website out there for your prospect’s attention.

Scary, right?

But before you give up and curl yourself into a self-defeated ball, consider this:

You have a message that no one else on the planet can deliver.

It’s your own unique perspective on the world and on your niche.

No one has your exact experience or viewpoint.

No one looks at things exactly as you do.

And no one on the planet can articulate your message like you can.

So beyond delivering what is uniquely yours, what makes for riveting, effective content that keeps your visitors reading, watching and consuming?

Effective content is:

1: Focused. Let your headline guide you and write from an outline so you don’t wander off track.

2: Conversational. Write in a friendly and welcoming tone. Use a style and vocabulary that is appropriate for your target audience – not your English professor.

3: Task Oriented. Write actionable content that solves problems. Keep in mind that boredom is one of those problems, so solve it by being interesting, too.

4: Concise. Use as many words as you need, but no more than that. You have no interest in wasting your reader’s time or putting them to sleep.

You already know all about scarcity. The scarcer something is, the more people want it.

That’s why we use deadlines to entice customers to buy. Without the deadlines, people would put it off and then forget about it.

For decades savvy store owners have used this trick. By limiting the number of items a person can purchase, they increase the number of items sold.

But I wonder – are we using this to maximum advantage online? Yes, we sometimes limit the number of copies sold. Yes, we use deadlines and then promise not to sell any more after that deadline.

But what if we used it in a slightly different way…

Imagine you have different levels of participation in a product launch.

For example: You will sell only 10 copies at $2,500 each that includes actual coaching and one-on-one time with you for 12 weeks.

You’ll sell only 100 copies at $1,000 that includes group coaching for 12 weeks.

You’ll sell 200 copies at $500 that includes the “done for you option,” which is also included in the higher levels, too. But there is no coaching at this level.

And you’ll sell 1,000 copies that don’t include coaching or the done for you option.

Then you place counters on your site that tell how many copies of each have sold.

Yes, this will take some guts. After all, what if something doesn’t sell? But that’s also the fascination factor, too.

People will continue to revisit the page just to see what’s selling.

And what happens when there are only 6 or 5 or 4 copies left of the highest option? Suddenly they’ll start selling FASTER.

The last copy or two will likely FLY off the shelf.

You’re adding a new brand of scarcity, a higher level of fascination and interest and accommodating people’s needs.

You might think of this as a new way of upselling, or a more transparent method than using one time offers. It’s up front, honest, and lets people decide ahead of time what they want.

And if they don’t act fast enough, they will miss out, too.

Short and sweet: If you’re making good money coaching others to do or accomplish something, then you can probably double the money you make without much effort.

It’s sort of a recycle and reuse kind of thing, where nothing in your business goes to waste.

Let’s say you spend time coaching people on how to start their own businesses. You show them the sequence, how to get things done, how to outsource, the shortcuts, the little things they need to know and so forth.

But consider this: There are other marketers who want to get paid for coaching, too. Except they don’t know where to start or what to do.

So you also coach other marketers on how to do coaching.

You let them in on all your secrets of how to get clients, how to work with clients, how the whole process works and so forth.

I suppose you could even let them listen in on your coaching calls. If you do, you need to let your students know someone else is on the line.

And whatever you’re charging your regular coaching clients, you can probably about double for your new students who are learning how to become coaches. Again, it’s up to you.

You’ve got a skill – coaching – that others want to have. So why not become a coach’s coach?

You can give your future coaches templates for their sales pages, techniques for getting their first clients and ongoing support. And for this you can easily charge $5,000.

Even if you just take on two new students a month who are learning to be coaches, that’s an extra $120,000 a year.

I mentioned this to a friend, and he’s a bit snarky. He wanted to know, “If you’re coaching students, and you’re coaching coaches on how to coach students, couldn’t you also coach people on how to train new coaches that teach coaching?”

Actually, yes. But that might be taking things a bit far. 😉

People love to tell you they are logical and rational, and that they make decisions based on the facts. But what people say and what they do are two different things.

Between you and me, people make decisions based on emotion – they just don’t realize it. So how can you tap into those emotions and get them to click your link or buy your product? By adding faces to just about everything you do.

Next time you run a Facebook ad, do a test. In one ad, use any image you want, as long as it’s not a face.

In the other ad, use an interesting face that expresses the emotion you want your prospect to feel.

Now notice which one gets more clicks.

Face images, whether they’re drawings or photos, work not just on Facebook ads, but also on your sidebar ads, blog posts, social media posts and so forth.

And they work especially well on all things Facebook and social media, because people are already looking for faces there. Thus your posts and ads will unobtrusively blend right into your customer’s newsfeed.

The human brain is actually wired to look for and respond to facial cues and expressions, much more so than the written word.

You’ve been wanting to start an online business, but you keep putting it off.

You want to build a new website, write a new book, create a new product, etc., but you can’t seem to do it.

Or maybe you just want to exercise more or eat better, so you have the energy to run your business.

Whatever the change is that you want to make, you might be having a tough time making that change ‘stick.’

Or perhaps you want to help someone else to make a change.

I’ve just started reading, “Instant Influence: How to Get Anyone to Do Anything,” by Michael Pantalon, and I want to share something with you.

It’s his formula for getting anyone to change.

Instead of telling them why they might want to change, you ask them why they might want to change, using these six steps:

Step 1: Why might you change? (Or if the person is you, ask yourself, “Why might I change?”)

Step 2: How ready are you to change – on a scale from 1 to 10, where 1 means “not ready at all” and 10 means, “totally ready?”

Step 3: Why didn’t you pick a lower number? (Or if the ‘influencee’ picked 1, either ask the second question again, this time about a smaller step toward change, or ask, “What would it take for that 1 to turn into a 2?”)

Step 4: Imagine you’ve changed. What would the positive outcomes be?

Step 5: Why are those outcomes important to you?

Step 6: What’s the next step, if any?

That’s it. I invite you to try this one yourself first, before you try it on someone else.

See what happens. I know when I used it to make myself give up a certain food that I was practically addicted to, it worked like a charm.

Next I’m going to try it on bigger things and see what happens.

According to the reviews on Amazon, this simple process has literally changed lives, so maybe it will change yours.

I know a few readers are going to take issue with what I’m about to say.

That’s okay. If you don’t like this or you think it’s morally wrong, then simply don’t do it.

For everyone else, riddle me this:

What do Abigail Van Buren (Dear Abby), Anne Hathaway, Ann Rice, Ayn Rand, Dr. Seuss, Eckhart Tolle, Ellery Queen, George Eliot, George Orwell, James Herriot, John le Carre, Lewis Carroll, Mark Twain, O. Henry, Voltaire and Woody Allen all have in common?

None of these people technically exist, because they’re all pen names.

The other day on the Warrior Forum I saw an old thread with a question that went something like this:

“I’m thinking of using a pen name when I go into a new niche. Is that alright, or am I breaking some sort of rule?”

Answers ranged from a friendly, “There’s nothing wrong with that, go for it.”

…to an angry, “What’s your problem and why are you trying to hide? Are you a scam artist or something?”

If pen names are a benchmark for whether or not you’re a scam artist, somebody better tell the writers and the descendants of writers listed above – I think they’ll be surprised.

From a marketing standpoint, pen names often make more sense than using your real name.

For example, you’ve got a good reputation online as the ‘go-to’ person in a particular niche. You want to enter an entirely different and unrelated niche. If you use the same name, readers in BOTH niches will be confused. And confusion is a sales and deal killer, by the way.

Another example: You’ve got a stellar reputation in internet marketing. You build rapport with your list and you only try to sell them something now and then. But you want to try the churn and burn method of marketing, in which you promote products several times per DAY via email. Naturally you will want to use a different name for this list.

(Churn and burn is getting as many people on your list as possible, and promoting to them like crazy until they can’t take it anymore and get off of your list.)

And by the way, no matter how much you and I don’t care for the churn and burn method, the fact is that it’s highly profitable. Which is why so many big-name marketers use a pen name to run their own churn and burn lists.

Another use for a pen name: You can recommend products created by your pen name, and have your pen name recommend your products. Again, a lot of big name marketers do this. I’m not advocating this method, but it does work.

I’ve also known marketers who only worked under a pen name and never under their own name. Usually this is because they have a name that is virtually unpronounceable and unspellable by most people on the planet, so really it’s a question of branding.

And speaking of branding, you could always choose a name that fits your niche particularly well. For example, if your niche is gardening, then calling yourself Rosemary Greenfield or some such might be a nice touch.

There is one reason for using a pen name that – in my opinion – beats them all, and it’s this:

When you use a pen name to build an entire business, you can then SELL that entire business to someone else. They keep the pen name, and customers don’t even necessarily know it changed hands.

If anything goes wrong with the business after you sell it – for example, the new owner doesn’t deliver on the promises of the business – it won’t affect you or your reputation in any way because your name has never been associated with it.

Bottom Line: There is nothing unethical about using a pen name. They’ve been used for hundreds of years by some of the best writers in their field.

And there are some dynamite advantages to using one.