2. Dan, I would like to become a distributor of your products.

3. I want to start an online business building and selling custom computers.

4. How can I combine my love of sewing and spending time with my grandchildren into a business?

5. Is it legal to use a pattern I bought to make chairs that I sell?

6. How can I stay motivated when I don’t the personality to market my business?

“Chase your passion, not your pension.”

Saadi (approx. 1250 AD)

*****************************************************************

******************************************************

You can bypass those with more degrees, intelligence and experience by taking advantage of the knowledge in carefully selected books.

And no, this is not a setup for you to buy my books.  All I want to do today is direct you to two that are totally free.  The first is from Seth Godin and is titled Idea Virus.  It was written back in 2000 but was one of the tools that exploded our 48Days business.  Just click on the title and you’ll find the entire 197-page book on ideas to expand your business.

The second is a much newer book by Julien Smith titled The Flinch.  It’s available as a free Kindle download – and no, you don’t even need a Kindle.  There’s a free Kindle app if you just have a smart phone of any kind.  Again, click on the title to take you to the Amazon link.  This is an insightful and entertaining look at what we do when first confronted with a new challenge.  Think about stepping into a totally cold shower.  That’s “the flinch”.  Then Julien says to go ahead – step in.  You know it won’t kill you.  It’s only that momentary flinch you have to get past.  But how many times is that reaction keeping you from walking through to something amazing.

Want to improve your speaking, relationship or leadership skills?  Want to feel better physically?  Want to be a spiritual leader?  Want to double your income in the first six months of this year?  Read great books!  If you’d like to see an expanded list of my book recommendations – check this.  Enjoy the reading and let me know about the quantum leaps forward in your success.

“Dan, my wife mentioned recently she wants to learn to decorate cakes, and since I’ve been listening to you, I immediately thought of making it into a business that we could run together and be able to spend more time together. My wife, however doesn’t see or believe that this is feasible. My question is, what is the best way to show her the potential? Should I work up a business plan? Find ways to market a few of her cakes once she gets going?”

*****************************************

Wow – you’re a guy after my own heart.  As soon as Joanne makes some beautiful note cards or a gorgeous
painting I immediately start thinking about how we could duplicate those and make a million dollars.  And then she gently reins me back in by reminding me that her enjoyment comes from the process itself, or perhaps by doing it for one of our children – not because she wants to make some money.  I had to learn to allow her creative and artistic gifts to be expressed simply for the joy that it gives her – not for yet one more way for ME to see how to make money.

I would encourage you to go carefully on this.  The fact that your wife wants to learn how to decorate cakes may be far removed from creating an income stream.  Her feeling that it’s “not feasible” may be her resistance to immediately putting pressure on the quality or marketability of her work.  It may be a soft way to tell you she wants to do something independently without having you looking over her shoulder.

There are a lot of ways to make money.  But we also need activities in our lives that are just there for the enjoyment.  I suggest you list 10 other ways you could create additional family income and choose from those.  Let your wife learn, experiment and hear the affirmation of others for a year.  Perhaps somewhere along the way she’ll get the idea that cake decorating could be a profitable business.

Why is it that in jobs or businesses people often believe that if they just persist, somehow things will get better?  And that they need to be loyal and never show signs of “giving up?”

Here’s a question from Susan:
“I would like to know what to do when you are working so hard and everything seems to continue to fail. Do you change plans or what?”

Susan, quitting a job does not mean that you’re quitting your commitment to provide for your family.  Quitting a business does not mean that you are walking away from the thrill of controlling your time and income.  Quitting a ministry or non-profit organization does not mean that you’ve given up on your desire to change the world or help the less fortunate.

Your job, business or ministry is just one strategy to accomplish your bigger vision.  Your “purpose” or “calling” define the big goal.  If your job is clearly a dead end, it makes perfect sense to quit, take your skills to a better fit and release your ability to provide for your family.  If your business is failing, learn from the experience and start in a new direction.  I constantly have areas in my business and personal life that are on the bubble.  If they are not proven successful in a very specific period of time – they’re gone – I quit but keep moving on to success in other ways.

Here are my recommendations:

• If your job provides nothing for you but a meager paycheck, plan to quit and be gone in the next 30 days.
• If you have been running your business for one year and after expenses it’s only netting you $500 a month, quit and find a new venture.
• If you started a non-profit ministry and after two years you find that you are spending 80% of your time on administrative work and have no real economic model for continuing, consider linking arms with an established organization.

Winners quit – they quit quickly and often.  Yes I know we hear that quote about nothing matters but persistence, but if you are a duck trying to climb a tree, all persistence will get you is web feet that are too sore to even swim well.  Have the maturity and guts to quit the ineffective things in your life.

While we’re at it, ask yourself if these well-known adages are always true:

1. The customer is always right
2. Everything happens for a reason
3. Never judge a book by its cover
4. You can’t teach an old dog new tricks
5. Absence makes the heart grow fonder
6. Better be safe than sorry
7. Good fences make good neighbors
8. You can’t have your cake and eat it too

Don’t let commonly accepted clichés misdirect you from the unique path you are on.  There are many exceptions to each of these time-honored clichés.

In fact, his ease of creating musical works gained him the scorn of his contemporaries.  While fictionalized, the movie Amadeus reveals the jealous and angry feelings of Antonio Salieri, another composer in Vienna, Austria at the time:

“Astounding! It was actually beyond belief. These were first and only drafts of music. But they show no corrections of any kind. Not one. He had simply written down music already finished in his head. Page after page of it as if he was just taking dictation. And music finished as no music is ever finished. Displace one note and there would be diminishment. Displace one phase and the structure would fall. It was clear to me. That sound I had heard in the Archbishop’s palace had been no accident. Here again was the very voice of God! I was staring through the cage of those meticulous ink strokes – at an absolute beauty.”

Can you imagine having talent like that?  Talent that just breaks through – without formal training or book knowledge?   Maybe you do have that kind of talent.  Is there an area in your life where you suspect a God-given talent that has never been fully released?  In art, music, comedy, writing, cooking, landscaping, architecture, gardening or ???   Have you second-guessed it because it’s “not normal?”  Because you never read all the books on the subject?  Could it be that you too are a vessel for imparting a supernatural gift to the world?

Click on this YouTube segment of Mozart’s Requiem.  As you listen to Mozart “capturing the voice of God” ask yourself where your greatest talents lie.  Are you allowing them full release?

2. I started a job 5 months ago, and now realize it a poor fit.. Is there a minimum I should give a job before I decide to move on?

3. I’m discovering my current field is not a good for my God given gifts.

4. What do you think of the SOPA Bill and PIPA (Act)?

5. How can I promote my services as a coach in my home town

Whether it’s:

• your commitment to Occupy Wall Street
• negotiating with your boss
• relating to your spouse
• teaching teenagers
• evangelizing the natives, or
• gathering support for your politics

this principle is one to remember.

With the online masses crying out against the PIPA/SOPA bills this week (check out my recent blog post on the debate here), it couldn’t be a better time to do an assessment of your business, and make sure you are protecting your intellectual property, and not infringing on anyone else’s!

Let’s define the legal ways that you may protect your creativity:

1. Copyright. According to the U.S. Patent and Trade Office (USPTO), a copyright “protects works of authorship, such as writings, music, and works of art that have been tangibly expressed.” In the United States, copyright is secured automatically when the work is created. Use © on your website, your articles, and elsewhere. Some use the free product Copyscape to help ward off plagiarists who might “borrow” your website content.

2. Trademark/Registered Trademark. The USPTO’s short definition for trademark is, “a brand name.” Use ® if the trademark has been registered, and ™ if it has not. For example, my Ali’s Success Club is a brand that I’d like to protect, so wherever you see these two words together, we add the ™ symbol to protect our brand. You do establish rights by using the trademark symbol, but in some cases, you may want to take it a step further by conducting a trademark search using TESS (Trademark Electronic Search System) at the USPTO website. (Check out their Small Business section here.) After determining that your trademark is available, the next possible step is registering it.

3. Patent. Did you know that you can’t patent an idea? The USPTO grants patents for inventions for 20 years, effective only in the United States. Your invention must be “new, useful, and non-obvious.” Patents are more complicated than copyrights or trademarks, and you’ll probably want to involve an attorney with this. You can get more information here.

Now that you have some of the intellectual property terminology down, what other ways can you protect yours?

- Use Non-Disclosure Agreements (NDAs). Many workplaces require that you sign an NDA, and it’s smart. You may have already signed one yourself some time, so why not use one to protect your ideas? You can pick one up at a legal publishing company in your state or check out online legal forms on websites like Legal Zoom. Don’t reveal your ideas until you’re protected.

- Tweet carefully. When you tweet on Twitter, anyone can read it, so it becomes part of the public domain. So tweet with care, and don’t share your business ideas there before protecting them.

- Register domains for the long run. More than one big company has been embarrassed by forgetting to renew their domain name and been greeted with a blank webpage one morning. Don’t let that be you! Consider registering your domains for several years and creating a system for keeping the administration information current.

- Defend what you protect. Once you go to the trouble and expense of protecting your intellectual property, you will need to defend against people who encroach on your ideas. This takes time and money, so weigh the pros and cons of doing this. Sometimes a “cease and desist” letter from your attorney is all that it takes to make someone stop, especially if someone is ignorant of the law. Just make sure that you don’t spend more time defending what you’ve done in the past than innovating for the future.

- Consult an attorney. As your small business hits the big time, you’ll need to involve attorneys for a variety of important tasks. Do you homework and know what others in your industry are doing, and bring up your concerns with your attorney to determine your best approach.

Avoid Copyright Infringement

Even though corporations and the U.S. government still battling over how to stop online piracy, YOU as a business owner can make sure you aren’t contributing to the problem. If you pull quotes, statistics, and information for an article on your site, then make sure you give credit where it’s due. A simple, “According to…”  to open up a statistic, or “(Source: LINK TO THE SOURCE)” following your quote should suffice.

Also, be weary about posting copyrighted music and images on your site or using them in your information products, logos, etc. Your best bet is to stick with royalty-free sites to grab images, music clips, etc.

Wikipedia defines royalty-free as, “the right to use copyrighted material or intellectual property without the need to pay royalties for each use or per volume sold, or some time period of use or sales.”

The Open Directory Project offers a very comprehensive list of nearly 50 websites where you can find music, many royalty-free. Here’s just a sampling…

- AKM Music – Copyright free, Royalty free music and sound effects for television, video production and multimedia soundtracks.

- All Music Library – Royalty-free, buyout, and production music tracks available as CDs or instant downloads.

- BBM.net – Royalty free music loops for multimedia and web design projects

- Crank City Music – Production Music Library, download premium royalty free MP3s or purchase CDs. Free production music downloads.

- Cut to the Beat – royalty free music resource for Film, TV & web media producers.

- Loopsound.com – Royalty free drum loops, music loops and sound effects, for use only in corporate media.