It’s amazing to me how fast time can fly by. At times I feel like the short fat kid at field day! Which, I was never that kid and I apologize ahead of time if you were! It’s been a great year for CreateFinancialWealth.com and I am excited to see what 2010 brings. I know for sure, it will bring more traffic, more people looking to start a home business or work from home, more personal development seekers and more revenue. I plan to add a few new features to the blog section of the site which will inspire more interaction from you, so get ready for it. And I know, you can hardly wait!

As much as I know that our past NEVER dictates our future outcome, our past does give us a mark to start from and outperform this coming year. A blog is a funny thing…..the more attention, work and value you put into it, the more traffic and revenue you generate from it. Imagine that!

So here are a few stats, in case you were curious:

• Revenue generated through things such as Adsense, Affiliates and various methods, $49,111.94.
• As of today, CFW’s Alexa rating is 259,350.
• We have an average of 3,000 unique visitors per month and over 7,000 page views per month. All from Search Engine Traffic. I don’t use CPC methods for generating traffic.
• Site Expense = $75 for hosting! How’s that for return on investment?
• This site is hosted by none other than IPOWER.

Goals for 2010:

• Triple my traffic
• Triple my subscribers
• Achieve an Alexa rating of less than 100,000
• Create a CFW widget
• Introduce additional Authors to the blog
• Triple my income
• Bring more value to you, my readers
• Create a CFW Social Networking site

So as you can see, I have a lot planned for CreateFinancialWealth! It’s going to be a great year!! Any suggestion you have that you’d like to see right here on CFW, let me know!!

Here are a few of my favorite posts of 2009:

• http://www.createfinancialwealth.com/how-to-pick-an-apple/
• http://www.createfinancialwealth.com/what-a-loser/
• http://www.createfinancialwealth.com/yossi-ghinsberg-the-box/
• http://www.createfinancialwealth.com/blaze-a-trail-of-success/
• http://www.createfinancialwealth.com/entrepreneur-kids/
• http://www.createfinancialwealth.com/we-expand-or-die/
• http://www.createfinancialwealth.com/resources-or-safety-nets/
• http://www.createfinancialwealth.com/associate-of-the-month/
• http://www.createfinancialwealth.com/the-lid-doesnt-exist/
• http://www.createfinancialwealth.com/elephants-in-zoo-die-early/
• http://www.createfinancialwealth.com/living-for-food-and-shelter/
• http://www.createfinancialwealth.com/empowering-language/

Here are a few of my favorite inspirational videos posted here in 2009:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4RcpMVLvM0[/youtube]

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

For the past week or so, as you all have definitely seen, I have taken time off from everything….including this blog, my marketing, making phone calls, masterminding with others in my business, and pretty much everything else. It’s really given me some time to think about where I am, by reflecting on my results thus far since becoming a home business entrepreneur and even more specifically, my results for this past year. I can tell you this much, having the time off,  has been a breath of fresh air!

At times, I think we get so caught up in doing the “thing,” the thing that produces the income, that it’s difficult to see all that is really going on. At times, taking a step back can give you a completely different perspective. You’ll be able to see things that were nearly impossible to see while engaged in the “thing.” For some, they may realize that their current profession isn’t what they really want to be doing. For others, they may get an added sense of conviction and clarity towards their chosen course. Whatever the result, taking an occasional time out can only benefit. You can become the player with the coaches perspective.

WARNING: Just a bit of a notice before you engage in your “time off” session……Expect change! You can’t take a step back for an outsiders look and not expect to change something about what you are doing. In fact, if you take that step back and don’t change something, you didn’t really take a step back. The change doesn’t have to be huge, but it should exist. Maybe a better word for it would be an “adjustment.” You can’t become a “fine tuned machine” without the “fine tuning.”

In my eyes there are five main categories in which you can experience the greatest amount of success and in my opinion, should be the main points of focus. Being a religious person, it reminds me of a scripture, “Wherefore, do not spend money for that which is of no worth, nor your labor for that which cannot satisfy………let your soul delight in fatness.” In other words, invest your time, energy and money into something that is of worth and that brings value to your life and to the life of others. To me, true success comes from achieving things in all areas of your life. “Fatness”……meaning broad, wide, abundant, an overflow of…..not one skinny, narrow channel of success.

• Success Category #1: Self
• Success Category #2: Family
• Success Category #3: Spiritual
• Success Category #4: Financial
• Success Category #5: Recreational

If you notice, the name of each category gets larger and larger. Well, it’s pure coincidence. I didn’t plan it at all….but it does carry a degree of truth with it. Each category builds off the previous one, expanding success to a much larger spectrum of “fatness.” For better illustration, take a look at this success triangle. Now going from top to bottom, it all starts with you, your “Self.” As you get further down the triangle, your success expands, or the more success you experience.

As I said in the beginning, true success is an accumulation of several smaller successes spread across many different areas of your life. Financial success without personal success (Self) or recreational success without financial success just wouldn’t seem like much of a success at all. If you’ve ever felt like you are on top of the world, at the peek of your game, that is what I am speaking of. Instead of feeling like a gnat in the middle of an Arizona monsoon, true success is a time in your life when things are rolling for you and you feel like you are at the wheel of your life. You are in control!

During the next few posts I will expand on each category and how each one plays a vital role in the building blocks of success. Stay tuned!

You will rarely achieve any degree of significant success by sticking with the masses. Now I know this may be a difficult concept to understand for those of you who are currently in the masses. You might say, “I measure success in a different way you do.” Or, “Just because I choose to work a job doesn’t mean that I am part of someone else’s vision.” Or, “It doesn’t mean that I’m not successful because I choose to work a job.” And those are all valid points, however, there are “Degrees” of success. The success I am speaking of involves more than success in just a few areas of life, but success in ALL areas of life….family, self, business, time, community, religion and the list goes on and on.

The masses, meaning the majority of the worlds population, are living someone else’s vision. That vision includes you, not as the main role, but as an extra in their movie. To truly achieve your dreams, a higher degree of success, everyone else must be the extra in the movie you write. You are the Individual. You are the main character in your own movie. When it all comes down to it, the difference between an “A” or a “C” grate average depends on YOU. The individual.

If you think about all the different components of a car that have to work together to make it work, there are a ton. The main goal of all those car parts is to make a vehicle that works. The vehicle, the car, is it. Everything else is just part of it. I mean, if you want to be the rim, the gas pedal, the steering shaft or the radiator, you can fit into that position very nicely and will probably do a great JOB in making that car work…….but you’ll never be the car. When you get into your car, you don’t say, “Man, I love the radiator, the gas pedal and the rims that make up this car.” No! You say, “Man I love this car!” The car is the thing that exists, and as a component of the car, when you break, you are replaced with a better working part. The car still exists. It was always about the car, not the parts.

Are you getting my point here? Sometimes I feel like I get too thick in the analogies, but I think that’s how my brain understands best. And since my brain works that way, so should yours, right!?

You must, and I say MUST, separate yourself from the actions that seem most common in order to get uncommon results in your life. And the uncommon results, are the successful ones. Very few people ever get the joy of truly accomplishing their goals. Very few people ever live out their dreams. But the people that do, have learned to single themselves out as individuals and have created their own path to follow, their own movie and their own car.

Point blank, individuals succeed. Masses do what they are told!

What is one of the main causes of discouragement for an entrepreneur? Rejection is. Throughout the process of creating success in any given business opportunity lies opportunities for rejection. When you apply for a business loan, you may get rejected. When you out in a quote for a job, they may reject your offer. When you make your sales calls, most likely, you will get rejected before you make a sale. Heck, you will probably get rejected over and over again.

Rejection is not personal

Rejection is a natural part of the process of success in any venture, even in a job setting as well as an entrepreneurial venture. How many job applications and interviews does a person have to go through to find the perfect job? How many “No’s” does an entrepreneur have to sort through to find the yes? That’s the key! The more “no’s,” or rejections you get, the closer you are to the “Yes’s!” In addition to a thought out business plan, a great location, a proven system and a customer base, that’s all business is. It’s the process of sorting through the “no’s” until you find the “Yes.”

Discouragement from rejection comes to entrepreneurs who don’t have a strong enough goal, or vision for where they are headed. Rejection can get monotonous, repetitive and quite annoying. It’s easy to look at rejection as failure. Failure brings a lack of motivation, poor mindset and very little progress. It’s grounds to think about the forbidden “Q” word. QUITTING! Which is why it takes a lot of self motivation and ambition to succeed as an entrepreneur. It’s all on your shoulders, success and failure.

What you have to realize is that rejection is not personal. The person on the other end of the phone line, directly in front of you, behind the application, looking at your product or whatever it may be, may reject your offer because of them, not you. Rejection is something that happens when a person doesn’t understand the value of your product or service in their life. That’s it! They don’t say no because of who you are. It’s not a personal attack. It’s just the process of sorting. Success happens when your product or service finds customers who can see it’s value in their own life. That’s who you are sorting for.

So the more “No’s” you get, the better. You can’t treat every potential customer like they are the only potential buyer you will ever see, as you drool with dollar signs in your eyes. That’s insane. They are either a no or a yes. That’s it. As long as your presentation, display, product or service provides value and is presented properly, you will make the sale. Don’t read into it too deeply. Don’t get your feelings hurt when you encounter rejection because it will happen. Learn from it and move forward until you find that “Yes,” again and again and again. If you can do that, then welcome to Entrepreneurship!

I’m going to ask you a very simple question and I want you to answer it as honestly and in as much detail as you can. Okay….are you ready for it? Here it is. How do you pick an apple?

I know….tough question right? So take a moment to think about it.

So what was your answer? Just for fun, let’s see how you measure up to the answers of others. The most common answer to this question would go something like this: Well, I stand under the tree. I reach out with my arm, open my hand, grasp the apple firmly and yank the apple downward. That my friend, is how I pick an apple!

So was that somewhere close to your answer or were you a bit more analytical in the exact same process? Maybe your answer wasn’t even anywhere close to the same. Maybe yours involved a longer process, the true process of picking an apple.

So here’s the correct way to pick an apple:

1. You pick a spot of land. Preferably on your own land.
2. You dig a hole.
3. You buy the tree.
4. You put the tree in the hole.
5. You water the tree.
6. You fertilize the tree.
7. You brace the tree up to protect it from the wind.
8. You put a fence around the tree to protect it from wildlife, such as Elk and Deer.
9. You spray it with chemicals to protect it from insects.
10. You trim the tree from time to time.
11. You then repeat steps 5 and 6, until one day, your tree finally produces apples.
12. You then, stand under your tree, reach out and pick the apple!

That, my friends, is the way to pick an apple! Would it have been easier if I had given you another question as an example, such as: How do you become wealthy? You don’t just reach out an grab the money. There is a process that comes before you “pick the apple”, or get the money.

So many people, in fact the majority of people, prefer to just simply “pick the apple.” They want someone else to take care of the “process” for them, which is exactly why most people will never get to pick the apple or become wealthy. You can’t just skip to the end. That’s a fairytale. Luckily, with modernization and grocery stores, we have people who take care of “process” so that we don’t technically have to pick the apple. That’s their way to create wealth and unfortunately, you can’t just pick up a box of wealth at the store like you can an apple. You must go through the process of creating wealth for yourself.

I teach others how to go through the process, but you must be willing to put in the time and effort before you can reap the reward. But, the process is proven….meaning, it works. I, along with thousands of others, have done it. It’s a lot like picking an apple, but with a few more steps along the way. If you can follow steps, bring a little creativity and a lot of ambition, you too can become wealthy!