Facebook is such a great resource for positive people. I absolutely love being surrounded by such optimistic, ambitious people. It makes my journey in life so much easier, as I am sure most of you can agree. Here recently I asked “Which one word would you use to describe your life right now?” and I received some great responses. Honestly, I wasn’t sure of the answers I would get to that question. I thought the majority of the answers would have been average answers, such as, “crappy, monotonous, stagnant, interesting, lame…etc,” I think you get the point. But I was positively surprised  at the response. As you can see to the right, most of the words are positive and motivating.

In fact, most of the people that responded to my question are Entrepreneurs in some way, shape or form. I have worked with many of them. I have seen their lifestyle and they speak truth in their “one word.”

Describe your life in one word

In the past I have asked that same question to people and could tell they were lying through their teeth as they told me their life was wonderful. That’s the worst thing anyone could do. It’s not the fact that they lied to me….the true damage is that they actually only lied to themselves. If your life is a wreck, admit it. Accept the truth…and after you do, set course to change it. One of my mentors, Jim Rohn, spoke about affirmations being a joke. It doesn’t do anyone any good to tell yourself that you are “Skinny and beautiful” when you are 600 lbs and can’t remember the last time you took a shower or brushed your teeth. There must be action behind the belief. To say your life is “Fantastic” when it is truly in shambles is more damaging then not.

Now what you can do is affirm the actions you are taking. That’s a true affirmation. As you are exercising, eating healthy, practicing regular hygiene and learning how to put on make-up, you can definitely affirm that you are “becoming thinner and more beautiful.”

As the common phrase puts it,”Keep it Real!”…..and as Shakespeare put it, just a bit more elegantly, “To thine own self be true.”

Gear up, get ready, do whatever it is you are going to do. If you plan on starting an internet business, home based business or expand your internet presence for your current business, now is the time to take action.

As the holidays come to an end, reality starts to set in for those who had the last week or two off. They start to think of having to go back to work on Monday, and for most people, that’s not what they want to be doing. So what do they do? They start looking for something else that will create a change in lifestyle. Something that will create a little more freedom with their schedule. And you know, most people know there are opportunities in existence that would allow them to work less and make more, yet, they have no idea where to find them or lack the courage to get started. For some, it’s like trying to find a grain of sand in a box of Malt-O-Meal or Cream of Wheat. But even though they have no idea what they are looking for, they will be looking.

Seriously, if you think about it, what time of year do people receive the most desire to change? It’s the beginning of the New Year, and if you’re anything like me, I start to reflect a bit on the past year. In doing so, I find stuff I don’t really like about it, so I set goals to change it. One of the most sought after changes is MONEY CHANGES. People want to make more money, ALWAYS. Money means comfort, lifestyle, family time, freedom, stuff, toys and so on.

I can tell you, being a home business entrepreneur has some amazing perks at the beginning of the year. The other day I had a conversation with someone I know who works for GoDaddy. They mentioned that GoDaddy hasn’t experienced a dip in business AT ALL. They are flourishing! Why?

It because people are looking for other ways to generate extra income, internet based. There is a rush coming. I can promise you that. Find yourself an opportunity that suits you and take advantage of those who will be searching you out. Now is the time to take advantage of the New Years internet business boom. Don’t wait. Get started!

As many of you know I am a home based business entrepreneur and have been working from home for the last 5 years. Every once in a while I have people who want to know why I chose to get involved in a home business instead of doing some kind of brick and mortar business. The answer is simple, it’s all about lifestyle for me. I wanted so much more than just the bi-weekly pay check with two weeks of paid vacation. That’s a life of misery. I wanted financial freedom and the time freedom to enjoy it. I wanted to be at home, to be my own boss and set my own schedule. That’s why I choose to stay right where I am. It’s lucrative, it has given me lifestyle and I am my own boss. What more could you ask for?

So as you all know, a business requires marketing. I do several things for my marketing but my major source of lead generation is through my self-hosted WordPress blog. I share tips on mindset, personal development and business opportunity and by doing so, people naturally become interested in what I do. For me, it generates some of the highest quality leads one can get. If they like my content, chances are, they will enjoy my business as well. The perfect lead! Qualified with a common interest.

With my WordPress blog, I have certain plugins I use to promote my content and extend its capabilities. If you have any good ideas for new plugins, I’d sure like to try them out. They are as follow:

• Platinum SEO Pack – Prepares your blog for Search Engine Optimization
• All in one Adsense – Enables the all popular ad serving network of Google to place relevant ads on your site. I also use it to place a contact form directly following each of my blog posts.
• Twitter Tools – Connects your blog with your Twitter account and updates your Twitter account every time you publish a post.
• WPing.fm – This plugin makes ‘Twitter Tools’ and ‘Wordbook’ nearly worthless. It uses a service called Ping.fm to automatically send a status update every time a blog post is published with a link back to your post.
• WordPress Automatic Upgrade – This doesn’t necessarily assist in extending my blog but is a very convenient plugin. The name should be pretty self explanatory.
• Vipers Video Quicktags – This makes posting videos to your blog posts easy!
• Google XML Sitemaps – This will aid you in a few things. It helps you track the health of your blog by seeing how Google, Bing and Yahoo search bots view your site. It also gets your site indexed with the major search engines quickly.
• Add to Any -This is a social bookmarking plugin that allows your readers to quickly share your content on various social sites around the web.
• Stray Random Quotes – I love quotes and love to share them. This is a plugin that will easily allow you to add quotes to your blog in various locations. Have the quotes rotate, stay the same or change with each visit.
• Wordbook – Updates your facebook account with every published, edited or revised post and/or page.
• Yet Another Related Post Plugin – Enables your readers to get deeper into your archived posts. It shows posts with similar tags and topics below the post they are currently reading.

Feel free to look them up in the “plugins” section of your WordPress back office to see what they do. Each of them play a significant role in my marketing campaign.

I know that this is kind of an off the wall post, but honestly, how many of you have actually husked a coconut? I mean literally picked one up off the jungle floor and with some short of a stationary sharp object, husked a coconut? Now all of you who live in places where coconuts grow, you can’t answer these questions. That’s just cheating. That’s like asking me if I have ever blown up a cactus with a shotgun or “accidentally” hit a Jack Rabbit on the highway(I apologize in advance for my destructive nature at times…I’m a guy). This was my first one and I was pretty excited about it, obviously.

So the setting is on the Big Island of Hawaii this past summer. We were on the Hilo side of the Island and were there in Hawaii for about two weeks. Danny Hawman, a good friend of mine and partner in business, was the camera man. Enjoy the lifestyle, do things you have never done before, otherwise, what’s the point?

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7drNgTwYbM[/youtube]

Last week my wife and I dropped the kids off at the parents house and took off to the tropical island of Puerto Rico! We had an absolute blast and with this being our second visit to the island, we appreciated it even that much more. The weather was perfect and the resort we stayed at was top notch. We stayed at the El Conquistador in Fajardo in the Las Casitas section of the resort. Our room was a one bedroom with a living area and kitchen. It had a patio that overlooked the ocean from up high on the tropical ocean side cliff. The view was inspiring!

So while were were there, our days looked like this:

Saturday – We arrived at the San Juan airport and were greeted by our transportation to the resort by a woman holding a sign with our name on it. We identified our luggage and didn’t have to touch it from that point on. We had a Ford Excursion limo pick us up for the hour long ride to the El Conquistador resort in Fajardo. We ate lunch on a balcony that overlooked the ocean with other self-made millionaires and multiple 6-figure earners in my business opportunity. We hung out at the pool most of that day, just soaking up the sun. That night we went kayaking through a jungle channel which contained Bio-luminescent micro plankton.(I’ll tell you more about that later! Awesome!) After kayaking we hung out in the hot tub until midnight right on our balcony.

Sunday – We paid a visit to Palamino Island just off the coast of the resort. There I snorkeled while Amy soaked up the sun as she normally does. Later that night we had a catered dinner in one of the top steak restaurants in the country called the Strip House which overlooked the channel and cove we kayaked to on Saturday night. This dinner was followed by a small get-together for leaders in my business called “The Repeaters party.”

Monday – We went hiking through the Puerto Rican Rain Forest and guess what….we got rained on! Go figure. The rain forest was amazing. Look for some video footage a little later on. Monday night we attended a welcome reception to the event we were there to attend. We ate buffet style and were entertained by music and awesome company.

Tuesday – Yossi Ghinsberg was our first speaker of the conference. If you have never heard Yossi speak, do it. He is amazing. Following Yossi we heard from Steve Donahue and his uncharted journey across the desert. That night was pretty eventful. We went out to eat with Tony and Jessica Rush and Roger and Suzanne Curwin. Tuesday was the 13th of October, my birthday. The day I turned 33 years old I also broke my tooth on the wrapped duck! Later that night we watched the a new documentary that is soon to be released by our company featuring Michael Jr.

Wednesday – We heard from our final speaker, Neal Petersen, on Wednesday morning. He was great as well. More on him coming in my future posts. We spent our entire afternoon on Palamino Island once again where Danny Hawman and I snorkeled to a separate island approximately 100 yds x 50 yds in size. It was gorgeous! That night we attended a black tie gala to conclude the conference. The steak melted in your mouth..it was perfect. Amy and I spent much of the night taking pictures of ourselves making goofy faces with random cameras we found laying around. Fun stuff. We danced the night away to a band that was the best I have seen in a long time. After which we soaked it up on our balcony in the hot tub. What a great way to close out the event.

Thursday – Our car came to pick us up at 5:50 am, just when the sun was rising across the ocean. Our room faced the east so as soon as you walk out the door….there it was! Amazing! And I tell you what…the best place to ride is in the back of a nice car! Our trip to the airport was just as nice as our trip to the resort.

So that’s it. That was our experience in Puerto Rico. It was amazing, life changing and inspiring and at this very moment, I am going through some withdrawals, wanting to go back. Aside from me breaking my tooth, it was an absolutely perfect trip!

Stay at home Dad time is a very special time. It is the time that most Dads and quite a few Moms miss out on. Stay at home Dad time starts from the moment you wake up, or your kids wake you up, until around 5:30 or 6pm. From then on until the kids are in bed is “regular Dad” time. I make sure my kids are in bed at around 8 – 8:30 pm, so that leaves about two solid hours of time. In my opinion, NOT enough time for regular Dad time!

And yes, being a stay at home Dad means you are at home or with your family all day long! To me, that’s the whole point. It is to be there and have the experiences that Mom usually tells Dad about when he gets home, like: “Macy took her first step today, I wish you were here to see it!” There are certain things that I would much rather experience first hand. My family is one of them.

Yesterday, I asked this question to my Facebook friends: “If you were a stay at home Dad, what would you do today?” One lady got upset because I didn’t ask about stay at home moms, another was grateful her husband isn’t home all day right now and one guy told me that he would be getting “thrown up on and (with more profanity) pooped on. Hi ho, Hi ho it’s off to work I go.” It’s amazing to see the different perspectives and priorities others have in their lives. For the most part, it was a negative perspective.

Sure, anyone can be a stay at home Dad, especially if you have yourself a “sugar Momma” right? She makes the money and you stay at home with the kids. I sure hope you can live with yourself! It’s one thing to have the ability to stay at home and another to have the ability to be a stay at home Dad making CEO level income.

So right now, two of my girls are in school, my one year old is napping and I am working. Instead of my girls coming home from school and having to wait for their Dad to get home from work, I am here at home eagerly waiting for my kids to get home from school. It is a very good switch.

I wake up every morning on my terms, not on a time clocks terms or an employers terms, MY terms. If you can understand what it would be like to have every day as a Saturday, do it. Except, when you want to go to the pool or to a popular spot, there’s nobody else there. They all have things going on and here it is in the middle of the week for you. It’s so refreshing.

The purpose of writing this post is not to brag in any way. It’s to educate you of a completely different lifestyle that most people will never realize exists. It just involves stepping out of the norm, or what everyone else expects you to be doing for a living, and into the creative. That’s all it takes!