This is a real quick post as a follow up to the Want to Start an Email Marketing Campaign post I did last week. In that post I had mentioned “Constant Contact” as a source for your email marketing campaign. However great the service, they do not accept accounts from certain industries. Some of these industries include Network Marketing, Online Medical supplies, Mortgages and Loans and many others. The list is pretty long and in my opinion, they should have just made a list of all industries they do accept. It might have been a shorter list!

I did come across another site, MailChimp. I signed up, of course, and created an email campaign based on motivational, inspirational and empowering Movie Quotes. Feel free to subscribe. MailChimp is a great service for the beginner as it is very simple to use and it can be used for free. You can send up to 3000 emails per month for free, forever, as long as you have less than 500 subscribers. It has an easy to use custom form builder for forms that can be embedded onto your website or subscribe page. Setting up an email template was very easy and simple to use. It took me less than 10 minutes to sign up, set up an email campaign, design a logo for my emails and enter a few quotes.

I still consider myself a newby in email marketing but know the effect it can, is and will have on my business. For those of you involved in Network Marketing or online marketing, have your leads go to an email marketing system that you can customize to your marketing ideas. You own your lead list. Use it with care, use it wisely and give value to your readers!

Now I don’t care what anybody thinks, Transformers was one of the coolest movies ever, especially to a guy who used to own all of them as a kid and at times, believed himself to be one. I was a huge Transformers fan. Good against evil, you know, it was good stuff.

Inspirational Quotes from Transformers

Now, once again, I love the lines they feed us in some of these movies. If you pay attention and listen closely, nearly every movie uses a principle of personal development or inspiration for their punch lines. Here is an example of  inspirational quotes from Transformers:

Simple yet profound right? Basically, victory requires effort. Believe it or not, regardless of what home based business you choose to pursue, this is the biggest reason for failure. People think they can get something for nothing. You must give before you get. Give effort, consistently, then you get consistently.

Now, the the punch line of the movie that inspired me the most, was towards the beginning, when they were faced with the choice of getting into the car/transformer:

Sam Witwicky: “He wants us to get in the car.”
Mikaela(Megan Fox): [laughing nervously] “And go where?”
Sam Witwicky: “Fifty years from now, when you’re looking back at your life, don’t you want to be able to say you had the guts to get in the car?”

Needless to say, they got into the car and chose to take part in something greater than themselves. By doing so, they had a shot, one opportunity, to be great themselves.

How many times will you be faced with that one shot to make something happen in your life? How many opportunities does one person get to become great?

When faced with that decision, don’t treat it lightly. Successful people make decisions quickly and seldom change those decisions. Sometimes those decisions can come and go before you realize what happened. When your shot comes, act on it out of ambition instead of fear, and become great! Fifty years from now, you can look back on your life with full regret or no regret. It doesn’t take a lifetime of passing up opportunity after opportunity to be full of regret. It just takes one time, because it will haunt you for eternity.

To answer Mikaela’s question, “And go where?” Wherever you decide. The Sky Is The Limit!

As you all know I am a huge movie watcher. I don’t really care for TV shows but love the movies. BraveHeart! What a great movie with a great message. Yeah, I know that a ton of people had to die to get this great message across, but even past all the blood and gore in the movie, it had a great plot. The plot of freedom. It shows how average people become great and accomplish great things. Where there is a will, there is a way and where there is passion, many will follow.

Inspirational Quotes from Braveheart

How many of you who are in your current job would like to tell your boss or employer something like this: “Before we let you leave, your commander must cross that field, present himself before this army, put his head between his legs, and kiss his own arse.” -William Wallace

I was once told by an well respected colleague of mine that most people only really get one shot, maybe two, to make something great of themselves. When facing that one opportunity, and having turned it down, you may never get another chance. William Wallace says it best, “Aye, fight and you may die. Run, and you’ll live… at least a while. And dying in your beds, many years from now, would you be willin’ to trade ALL the days, from this day to that, for one chance, just one chance, to come back here and tell our enemies that they may take our lives, but they’ll never take… OUR FREEDOM!”

Don’t be caught years from now wishing that you would have taken that one chance to do something great with your life. Don’t wait to live. Living is for now, not for later. Don’t just sit around on the couch with a false sense of security just because you have a job or a steady paycheck. I once read that most people die at age 30 and are dead men walking for the other 60. “Every man dies, not every man really lives.” -William Wallace

When you think about freedom, what does that mean? Does it mean living in America and being able to go here and there, from state to state, worship as you may, have the right to bear arms and the freedom of speech? I love and enjoy those freedoms, but still, Dad’s are away from home ten to 12 hours a day just to kiss their kids goodnight and in some cases, the mother also. Their children are being raised by someone else that is paid to just watch them instead of nurturing them and teaching them how to be great. In trade for food and shelter they sacrifice their family time and their freedom! There is so much to live for, to enjoy and to experience and working my life away for someone else is not my idea of freedom.

“It’s all for nothing if you don’t have freedom.” -William Wallace

Who says that watching TV is good for nothing? I guess it really depends on your mindset at the time you are watching TV. Believe me, I love action flicks just like the next guy and that is what I watch most of the time, but there are often lines within these movies that resonate with me. Being involved in the personal development industry, I pick up on lines that others might not think of as such a big deal.

So I was watching Batman Begins the other day for probably the 20th time, and two lines from the movie jumped out at me!

1. “Why do we fall? So we can pick ourselves back up.”
2. “It’s not who you are underneath…It’s what you do that defines you!”

If you remember, Bruce Waynes Father used to tell him the first quote. Rachel, the supposed girlfriend, shared the second quote with Bruce as he was walking out of a restaurant with a few ladies after taking a dip in their fountain.

“Why do we fall? So we can pick ourselves back up.” It is human nature to fall, but also human nature to get back up and in the process, we grow, we get stronger and we learn to adapt. When walking down the street you happen to trip and fall, sure it’s a little embarrassing and it may hurt a little, but you pick yourself back up and move on. The pain and embarrassment are temporary and will go away. It is amazing to me that some people will burro down inside that moment and allow it to influence their entire lives, careers, relationships, etc. No single event will ever influence the outcome of your life. Your life’s success is determined by many events, whether successful or not, that is up to you!

“It’s not who you are underneath…It’s what you do that defines you!” So if I think I am a leader, people will automatically follow me? If I think I am a millionaire, I am? I feel like I am a good person, why can’t others see it? So many of us probably view ourselves differently than the rest of the world views us. I think I am the best basketball player in the state of Arizona, but do my actions on the court support that? I want to help so many people and I pray for that every day but have I actually taken a meal to someone in need or offered shelter to someone without it?

There is a huge gap between knowing and doing. Sure, you can know that you are a great and giving person, but until you actually do something to show that, it is all worthless. Too many people think rather than do. Your true greatness will remain underneath if you don’t do something to define it!

I never did think that one could get so many of life’s lessons from movies and cartoons. If you pay attention, the theme of most movies is based on one theory or lesson that dictates the choices of the characters in the film. Even though you get all the Hollywood jazz and crazy plots, it is all engulfed around the moral of the story. Every action a living soul takes is based on some kind of law or principle.

The Ghost Rider

Take The Ghost Rider with Nicolas Cage as he plays Johnny Blaze who is a stunt biker performing along side his Dad. After one of their shows there was talk about how reckless Johnny was being by trying to impress the ladies. The father said something that influences Johnny’s decisions through the rest of the movie. He told Johnny that he had better make decisions that will influence his circumstances, or the circumstances will make him. Thus, from that point on, he started making decisions. Big decisions. Heck, he sold his soul to the devil. But he was creating, instead of being governed. He took control of who he was destined to be and did it well.

We all have purpose and we are all very powerful. The only thing that lacks is our knowledge of just how powerful we really are and what we feel we can accomplish. Are you the one who is going to be governed and ruled or are you someone that is the dictator of your life. How many people are an extra in their movie of life? Seriously, are you the main character in your life or are your thoughts and actions focussed towards someone elses life and in making them the movie star of your life? Remember, you create your circumstance, or it creates you!