Hey, this is just a post to catch you up on my week in Austin. It was a really cool week. Some bad shit happened too, but fortunately the good stuff far outweighed the bad. You’ll also learn how I’ve been a TOTAL IDIOT…

I got a great place on AirBnB.com (best site ever if you like to travel – who doesn’t?) with a great host. I also got a decent rental car… more on that later.

Thursday night I went to the Internet Marketing Party. It was really cool, especially cause one of the people I was looking to meet there ended up speaking on stage for a bit. He’s now a really good friend and potential business partner, that’s Couch Surfing Ori of course with MakeWPEasy. Not only is Ori a genius, he’s also one of the coolest and FUNNIEST people I have ever met. It’s even reflecting in his course.

After hours at the bar I met a smart guy named Todd, and chatted with him for 15 minutes before realizing it was Todd Schlomo, one of the founders of MLSP. When I was focused entirely on MLM that was my favorite system and education platform for learning online marketing. Getting to meet Todd (who is the tech genius behind it all) in person was pretty awesome.

Then of course there was the Leverage Summit. It was full of a TON of great education – so much more than I had expected. I was totally blown away, and am SO grateful that I decided to come. It would take a lot more than this post to sum up the experience and values gained, so I’ll just give you my 3 biggest takeaways:

1. I put away my ego and found out that I have a LOT to learn about internet marketing. Despite having a full-time income with an internet business at my age, I am still a TOTAL NEWBIE and can take my potential to a much higher level. I can make millions in the next few years, and I need to keep learning and set my sights high.
2. I need to leverage my business more by outsourcing more so I could focus on higher-level tasks and by using my knowledge to create information products, which will create a more leverage-able and sustainable income stream.
3. I recognized that some of the greatest brands and businesses in the Internet marketing world are built almost entirely through partnerships and relationships. I also formed some great relationships myself, and recognized that I have skills that make me a great asset to even top gurus.

Shortly after the Leverage Summit, I found myself at Robert Hirsch’s birthday party (CEO of Elevation Group) and met some top Internet marketers and other entrepreneurs. It was really cool to meet Mike Dillard in person after studying his material years ago. I got to thank him for his influence on me so far, and we chatted for a few minutes.

The Bad Shit…

So I mentioned some bad shit happened. Basically, I worked super hard all week, and really under slept. I was learning and networking by day, and working on my new ideas and client projects by night.

I wasn’t that focused towards the second half of the week… I managed to get in a car accident (I’m ok) one day and got my iPad stolen the next day.

But overall, the positive far outweighed the negative. Increase in insurance and a stolen iPad can be replaced with under $1,000 … but the information and new connections I got this week are worth hundreds of thousands, maybe millions, if not priceless.

Most of all I realized I have a tremendous opportunity to do something really significant right now, both with my company and with the new Freedom Passion Purpose project, and even overall with my personal life and personal brand. I’m only 23… I have an incredible opportunity and a huge head start, and now I have a rock solid platform from which to build a significant and meaningful life and have a massive impact.

Since I got back I’ve been working a ton, and tomorrow I leave for Washington, DC for the Underground Online seminar (most posts coming on that!). Hopefully I’ll get an interview in with Yanik Silver and Michael Dunlop. Then I’ll be back working for a week until I leave for my well-deserved vacation with Ally.

Life is awesome share the love and excitement!

PS – I also realized that I’ve been a TOTAL IDIOT for not actively building a list. So here’s the deal, I don’t have some free course or eBook to give you YET, but here are two reasons you should get on my list:

1. Because I will only send you AWESOME content… and updates about the Freedom Passion Purpose project… which includes interviews with Top Entrepreneurs and successful gurus.
2. I will give a 15 minute free online marketing evaluation and coaching session to the first 15 people who sign up after this blog post gets published.

Hey,

So this weekend I’m in Austin Texas attending an event called Leverage Summit. Apart from American Airlines totally messing up my flight there… it has been a great trip so far.

I got to meet and network with many key players which was a great experience for me. But the best part was definitely today’s event.

In a nutshell, the event today, called The Leverage Summit, was hosted by a group of multiple 6-7, even 8 figure earners.

We all got together in a banquet room at the Omni Hotel.

And they shared many insider secrets of how they use leverage in their business. I was really pleasantly surprised at how much great applicable content they taught at the event.

So great in fact, I was inspired to write this post tonight to share with you a quick tip and technique I learned that you can use immediately. (You know I’m big on action

I may very well be compiling most of my notes not just from today but from all three days into a readable and applicable form for you in the near future, so keep your eye on that. I may, I may not.

These are the lineup of speakers at this three day event. Keith Baxter on the right hand side is actually the speaker that shared these 3 traffic secrets.

For those of you who don’t know Keith, he’s an SEO and traffic expert. He has taken a brand new site and taken it to a couple hundred thousand visitors a month in 6 months time; the guy showed me his traffic stats. He definitely knows a thing or too. I’m sure you’ll like his info.

Anyways, one last thing. For those of you who don’t know of Yanik Silver, I’m actually going to his Underground Online Seminar in a couple of weeks so my life might be a little bit hectic, but whatever the case, keep on the lookout for some really cutting edge info in the coming weeks because I am going to be learning many, many insider secrets (I’ll be updating this blog a lot more often, thanks to my awesome new marketing intern Larry Yu who is helping me organize and write content).

So here are the techniques.

Product Curation

Product curation is a great way to get traffic by capitalizing on buzz. Hardly anyone is doing this! It’s a simple concept.

Various events happen in the world each day/period of time and naturally related “keywords” and interests pique for a period of time. For example, say there was a big celebrity breakup or scandal (Ms. Kardashian hint hint). For a period of time afterwards, people will be interested in and will search for terms related to that topic.

You can capitalize on this traffic by being on top of certain buzz/news in the world or even better, in your niche, by simply curating the content. Which is really you taking a piece of content and “reporting” it in your own words via video, article, etc.

But the key is to tie it into an offer of yours. This offer could be an affiliate product, newsletter sign up, whatever. After having your piece of curated content, simply upload it to your own blog or social media sites like YouTube, etc.

This is a really effective way to build traffic.

Press Releases

These aren’t talked about as often with internet marketers but according to a Guru to the Gurus, Keith Baxter, the sure frickin’ work. They’re great traffic generators in themselves and they are a great way to build high quality backlinks to your site.

Retargeting

I don’t know if you have heard of retargeting yet but it will soon be the wave of paid advertising. It’s best explained through an example.

You visit a site, say Zappos.com (the shoe company).

From that point on, for a given period of time, as you visit other sites, say CNN.com (the news authority) you will see a banner advertising Zappos.com. This isn’t by coincidence.

Google has now allowed us marketers to “follow” our visitors with our advertisements. Not only that but the ad that “follows” them doesn’t even have to be the same. For example, you visit my site, Zappos.com.

Then you visit CNN.com and you see a banner ad with a pair of black shoes that says visit Zappos.com.

Then you visit addictinggames.com and you see another ad from Zappos but this time with a pair of brown shoes as the image.

Once again… this is not coincidence.

Zappos has deliberately chosen to have its ad “follow” you around, this is called retargeting and it has deliberately chosen to switch the ads from black shoes to brown shoes (and possibly back to black shoes as you visit further sites).

So we all know people don’t usually buy the first time they see an offer. They buy the 7th or 8th time. This is why email auto responder series which allows you to make the same offer a few times is so powerful.

Well now with retargeting you basically have an autoresponder but with a banner ad.

Visitor comes to your site and doesn’t buy anything the first time. No worries. Your banner follows them around for a period of time afterwards. This will greatly increase conversions and not to mention strengthen your brand. You can imagine what a visitor thinks when they see your banner on a HUGE site like CNN.com.

I highly recommend you check out retargeting.

Putting it all together

A key concept I want to remind you about (that I was reminded about today) is that in general you shouldn’t be doing the “manual labor” like writing press releases, articles, etc.

For the most part you can outsource such jobs at very, very low prices. (Believe me, I just hired a full time employee oversees so I know). 

You are the visionary. You are the strategist. You are the one that puts all the pieces together. You’re the marketing master. The rest of the technical aspects you can just hire someone to do it.

So I’ll end with that today. Use your time wisely.

Best,

Dmitriy

P.S. Implement what you learned here! Haha action, action.

I just finished watching CFO-In-A-Box, a 13 video series by Mark J. Kohler on the best tax and legal strategies for 2011.

Firstly, I want to say that I was really excited about the course when I first heard about it. This is my first year filing a real tax return with significant income from my business. I’ve operated as a few different entities in 2011, have had expenses, contractors, employees, and multiple streams of income… so I was in the perfect frame of mind to learn this stuff.

In fact, before I watched the course, I was super stressed out about doing my taxes for 2011. I wasn’t sure about how proper book keeping worked, what I could and couldn’t write off, how I should pay myself, etc.

After watching the video series, I am not only excited to do my taxes this year (and keep more money in my pocket!) but am even more excited about my future as a business owner and all of the tax advantages I have.

I just feel like I have a much stronger grasp on the financial and legal elements in my business and the economy overall. I feel excited, educated, and empowered.

Before I go into more detail on the course and how to get your hands on it, I want to make it clear that I was very lucky. I was lucky that I just happened to visit my good friends Cory Shanes and Marcelle Allen in Orange County, CA while they were starting to work with a team of internet marketers to get Mark Kohler’s material into the hands of thousands. I watched the content and got so excited that I found a way to get involved with the project through my web design company Purpose Inspired Marketing, helping to build the membership site and product informational pages.

I think the initial plan was to sell the course for $197… and I have no doubt that it will be sold for that sometime soon. And I have no doubt that a lot of people will buy at that price.

But right now that’s not the case. They are making the course available to a niche community of internet marketers called the Warrior Forum first… for a tiny fraction of the retail price. It’s kind of a special Holiday thing.

It ranges from $27 – $47, depending on when you buy. The sooner you buy, the cheaper the course.

But I’m not here to sell you on it. Just to share my own review: I can say with confidence this material empowered me to save an extra couple thousand dollars this year, and a lot more than that in coming 2012 and beyond. I’m now buying Mark’s published books and look forward to reading them.

The bottom line is that if you currently are or plan on becoming a small business owner (network marketing, blogging, affiliate marketing all included!) then this video series is a must have.

Even if you already have a great CPA doing your tax returns, this course will make you aware of strategies and concepts that can still save you thousands while creating a long term wealth formula for yourself.

The best thing is, this course doesn’t even cost anything. If you apply it, it will pay for itself many times over. Plus the purchase itself is entirely tax deductible.

You can get the course here, only available for the next few days at this price, with the price going up by 10 cents for every ten purchases.

purposeinspiredmarketing.com/cfo

And yes that’s an affiliate link. I am proudly making a commission promoting this awesome offer

On another note, OC is absolutely beautiful this time of year compared to Boston… can’t wait to move here next year!

Had a nice Mustang Rental in OC!

NO!

Let me explain – only you can change your own life for the better with the decision that you make. BUT having a business coach can have a dramatic impact on the direction that you take your life in, and the results that you get from your business and your life.

I was inspired to write this post because I have been working with a business coach, Garry Carlson, since late March, and the past three months for me have been transformational, to say the least.

What you can gain from a business coach:

• Accountability. It is a literally coach’s job to care about your business and ensure that you keep the promises you make to yourself. Having weekly coaching calls helps you stay on top of your goal list. You will report back every week with an overview of what you have and haven’t accomplished based on your long term goals and your action items for the previous week. This alone change dramatically improve your personal productivity.
• Experience and wisdom. A business coach works and has worked with many other business owners, and understands the financial, psychological, and emotional struggles that entrepreneurs face. He or she has dealt with them many times, and has helped many of his or her clients get over them. A coach’s wisdom can also stop you from wasting months or years (or thousands of dollars) working in the wrong direction, and can provide incredible guidance when setting your goals and developing your strategy.
• Bigger and clearer goals. Having a coach by your side will empower you to set bigger and more defined goals for yourself and your business, because you know you will have someone to help guide you towards those goals. Additionally, a coach may often believe in you more than you believe in yourself in the early stages, and will encourage you to set greater goals for yourself.
• A process to the madness. Entrepreneurship can be tough, crazy, and disorganized, especially when you are primarily working solo. Having a coach helps you add a structured, guided process to ensure success in your venture, not to mention overall better organization in your life and business, especially when it comes to time management.
• Balance. I don’t know about other coaches, but my coach Garry has helped me find greater balance in my life, helping me not only grow my business financially, but also develop it in such a way that it helps me attain the lifestyle that I want to create for myself. He encourages the business FUNdamentals, teaching that it is difficult to succeed at something that you can’t have fun at!
• Encouragement. If you struggle with self-doubt, as many entrepreneurs do especially in the early stages (I know I did), a good great will help you replace that self-doubt with a rock solid self-confidence. This confidence will be the result of not only a changed emotional state, but also assurance in the fact that you have a plan, are achieving improved results, and have greater clarity in everything you do.

For me personally, working with Garry has been a significant factor in my ability to start my business on a full-time basis after graduation. Not only is my business profitable now and has incredible prospects for the near future, I have also been able to significantly improve my lifestyle and general happiness. I take more time for what I love, like playing tennis with my friends, spending quality time with my girlfriend Ally, learning new things (currently teaching myself Spanish), and traveling to new places (just came back from Aruba two weeks ago, currently writing this post in Vermont, and have a lot of travel plans in the coming months).

If you are a business owner looking to grow your current business, or an entrepreneur looking to start a business, I strongly encourage you to get in touch with a coach. Some offer a 15 minute free coaching session… I know Garry does so, you can fill out his form here to get your free session.

If you are a business owner (including network marketing or any other home business!), I hope this post gave you insight into growing your business. If you have had any experience with a coach, please comment below!

I was very inspired by John C. Maxwell’s article in the most recent issue of Success Magazine. I want to share his mentor’s (John Wooden) secret to success and happiness here. According to John Wooden, you can find happiness in your life by making and keeping these nine promises:

1. Promise yourself that you will talk health, happiness, and prosperity as often as possible.
2. Promise yourself to make all your friends know there is something in them that is special that you value.
3. Promise to think only of the best, to work only for the best, and to expect only the best in yourself and others.
4. Promise to be just as enthusiastic about the success of others as you are about your own.
5. Promise yourself to be so strong that nothing can disturb your peace of mind.
6. Promise to forget the mistakes of the past and press on to greater achievements in the future.
7. Promise to wear a cheerful appearance at all times and give every person you meet a smile.
8. Promise to give so much time improving yourself that you have no time to criticize others.
9. Promise to be too large for worry, too noble for anger, too strong for fear, and too happy to permit trouble to press on you.

I am personally printing out these nine promises and putting them on my office wall where I can see and read them daily. I hope these inspire you and improve your life.

This reminds me that life is short, and that I should live in the moment every day, every moment, and value each of my experiences and all the people in my life today, not just sacrifice for some elusive future.

SLOW DANCE

Have you ever watched kids
On a merry-go-round?
Or listened to the rain
Slapping on the ground?
Ever followed a butterfly’s erratic flight?
Or gazed at the sun into the fading night?
You’d better slow down.
Don’t dance so fast.
Time is short.
The music won’t last.

Do you run through each day
On the fly?
When you ask “How are you?”
Do you hear the reply?
When the day is done
Do you lie in your bed
With the next hundred chores
Running through your head?
You’d better slow down
Don’t dance so fast.
Time is short.
The music won’t last.

Ever told your child,
We’ll do it tomorrow?
And in your haste,
Not see his sorrow?
Ever lost touch,
Let a good friendship die
Cause you never had time
To call and say “Hi”?
You’d better slow down.
Don’t dance so fast.
Time is short.
The music won’t last.

When you run so fast to get somewhere
You miss half the fun of getting there.
When you worry and hurry through your day,
It is like an unopened gift….
Thrown away.
Life is not a race.
Do take it slower
Hear the music
Before the song is over.

Often times in my discussions and debates with people about creating change in the world (or in their personal lives), we run across the topic of inner-work and meditation as action in itself. The concept presented to me is this: with our positive thought patterns, we are co-creating a new and more positive reality for ourselves and for the world; recognizing negative circumstances only perpetuates them, so we should focus our minds on the positive.

While this approach may sound appealing and even virtuous, it is actually somewhat selfish and short-sighted. To stand by and close your eyes to evils will not eliminate them; and to open your awareness and raise others’ awareness will do anything but perpetuate the evils. Recognizing an issue is required to be able to act on that recognition. And while thoughts are important (thoughts are the basis for all actions and decisions), it is the actions and decisions that change the world, not just the thoughts that stimulated them.

I was reading Peace is Every Step by Thich Nhat Hanh this morning and came across a very powerful passage that touches on this very concept:

Mindfullness

Must Be Engaged

“When I was in Vietnam, so many of our villages were being bombed. Along with my monastic brothers and sisters, I had to decide what to do. Should we continue to practice in our monasteries, or should we leave the meditation halls in order to help the people who were suffering under the bombs? After careful reflection, we decided to do both – to go out and help people and to do so in mindfulness. We called it engaged Buddhism. Mindfulness must be engaged. Once there is seeing, there must be acting. Otherwise, what is the use of seeing?

We must be aware of the real problems of the world. Then, with mindfulness, we will know what to do and what not to do to be of help. If we maintain awareness of our breathing and continue to practice smiling, even in difficult situations, many people, animals, and plants will benefit from our way of doing things.”

Neither I nor Thich Nhat Hanh suggest that meditation might not be useful. On the contrary, meditation and mindfulness is necessary to become fully aware of an issue, to better understand the suffering of the issue’s victims; only then can appropriate action be taken. But you cannot meditate away a real problem… not in your personal life, and not in the world around us. We certainly are co-creators of our collective reality, but creation on our end takes more than just meditation and the proper thoughts, it also takes appropriate decision making and actions in the physical world.

“All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.” – Edmund Burke, Philosopher and Politician, 1729 – 1797

I encourage you to read Peace Is Every step … it is actually free as an ebook on Amazon. Just click on the image on the Amazon page.

(Reposted from FreedomPassionPurpose.com)
The concept of a Triple Bottom Line is relatively new to the business world. It means measuring business (and societal) success in more than just economic profits (the bottom line), but rather with the 3 E’s: Equity, Environment, and Economics… also known as the 3 P’s: People, Planet, and  Profits.

Many people (especially entrepreneurs), like many businesses, seem to live their lives with a single bottom line: a concept of success measured by the accumulation of finances… of material wealth and socioeconomic status. When I first started in business for myself, I had a similar paradigm. I wanted to achieve financial success so badly. I believed that financial success would bring me all the other treasures of life. As a result, I focused my efforts on learning how to earn, but not learning how to live.

While I have been slowly shifting this paradigm over the last couple of years, it made a dramatic turn for the better after I met with Robert Staub and read his book 7 Acts of Courage. He and I spoke about the concept of a Triple Bottom Line in business… and the Vision Development Exercises in his book allowed me to develop my own personal Triple Bottom Line.

The Triple Bottom Line that I have developed and discovered for myself is the name of this blog: Freedom, Passion, and Purpose. I know look at every activity and pursuit in my life through this new lens.

If I join this business, work on this project, study this subject, will it…

Bring me closer to personal Freedom?

Fuel my fire? (Can I be passionate about it?)

And will it help fulfill my Purpose? (To empower others to improve their own lives and the world).

If an activity, business, or project doesn’t match these three criteria, I try to keep it out of my life. That simple. I can’t begin to explain how much more rich and fulfilling my life has been since I started applying this principle.

I encourage you do the same. Figure out your Triple Bottom Line (it doesn’t have to be “triple” … you can have more or less central values). If you’re struggling, check out my post on creating your personal vision and complete the entire exercise. It takes some discipline at first to break the old habits, but once you start experiencing a more enriched and meaningful life, you’ll never want to go back. Decisions become lighter, and life becomes fuller.

For inspiration, check out my friend Ben Dixon’s post on why success almost cost him his life. Ben has accomplished so much at such a young age and is a huge inspiration to me – and there is a lot to learn from his perspective on life.

I hope this post inspires you to find your own Triple Bottom Line in life… to find your central values and aspirations. I look forward to hearing your results in the comments below.

As always, if you have any questions or need any help, contact me directly!

P.S. – If you liked this post, you may enjoy my future ones… Subscribe to my Blog and Newsletter below:

Thank you for reading!