Today I'm going to share with you one of my most powerful secrets of success. But first...

In the beginning of December, I re-launched my Startup Victory training, with a guarantee of profitability, or 250% back. You can check it out here:

http://www.StartupVictory.com

I've been lost in the ether ever since. December has been crazy! My businesses are booming - I just haven't had the time!

This week is a very special one for me, and despite my lack of time I just had to get this email out to you...

It is an important one... Some people who have been on my list for years have gotten this message several times.

Well, here goes again!

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Tomorrow marks not only the end of 2009, but also the end of this decade.
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Now is the time for some serious thought.

Most entrepreneurs stay so busy with what is in front of them, they don't take any time to think about the future, ponder the past, and prepare themselves mentally for the upcoming year.

The week between Christmas and New Years is very special for me. I usually take the entire week off for reflection, prediction, and preparation.

I ponder the year gone by, and write down the lessons I've learned.

I think about what I want to accomplish in the upcoming year.

I review the goals I set last year, and see how many were accomplished. (Once I write down my goals, I don't look at them again until the following December. It is amazing how many are accomplished...)

THE SIMPLE ACT OF WRITING SOMETHING DOWN IS SO POWERFUL, IT CANNOT BE UNDERESTIMATED

... especially when it is done with the intention of referring back to it later on.


If you're like me, you've been getting a hundred-thousand "2010 prediction" emails recently.

It is because marketers in particular know the power of a prediction.

Writing your 2010 goals down is like making your own prediction... It is an extremely powerful method to improve the results you get in 2010.

Here is how I do it:

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HOW TO DOUBLE YOUR EFFECTIVENESS IN 2010
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** All of this should be written down. Put it in a safe place where you'll find it next year. **

* What big things happened? Did they happen because you made a knowing, concerted effort to make them happen? Or... did they just happen?

  - "Audaces fortuna iuvat" is latin for "Fortune favors the bold". In other words, there is a big difference between "letting" something happen, and "making" something happen.

By writing down your goals this year, you are taking the first step to MAKING SOMETHING HAPPEN.


* What good things happened? What bad things happened?

  - What lessons did you learn from these things? You don't need to take a lot of time to extract the meaning - just write down the
first thing that pops into your mind... trust me, the act of writing it down will make it stick.


* What do you want to happen next year?

  - Break your goals down into as many categories as you need to.

    Mine are:
    - PERSONAL
    - PROFESSIONAL
    - TRAVEL

  - I often write my goals down in past tense, as if they already happened. This has the effect of tricking my brain into visualizing what it was like, enforcing the already powerful magic of writing everything down.

  - Be specific, and write down everything that comes to your mind. You can always revise it or eliminate it later.

Here are some ideas to grease the tracks:
* Do you want to have more time?
* Do you want to make more money? How much? In what fashion?
* Do you want to go places? With who? In what fashion?
* Do you want to read more? Fiction? Non-fiction?
* Do you want more material things? Cars, house, clothes, etc?
* Do you want to learn new skills?
* Do you want to spend more time with certain people?
* Do you want to run a race? Climb a mountain? Learn a new language?
* Who do you want to be perceived as? (What kind of a person?)
* Who do you want to meet?
* What charities do you want to give to?

Now put it away. Give yourself a 2 day breather to reflect on the things you've written down.

Come back to it in a couple of days. Revise as appropriate.

Then, show your significant other. Or your mother. (Yeah, that sounds scary, but it's important because the act of showing it to somebody else "commits you" to the concepts you've written down.)

Now, store it in a safe place to review at this time next year.

You are done - your subconscious has been sufficiently primed for success next year. Congratulations!


Now... HAVE A HAPPY HAPPY NEW YEAR. I wish you the best of success in 2010!

It's gonna be a fun ride.

Looking forward,

Travis Giggy

PS. Startup Victory training is based on time-proven principles to build a solid, profitable business. Get started now and you can be financially independent this time next year:

http://www.StartupVictory.com

A hard-core, eagle-eyed, "been-there-done-that" investor WILL NOT FUND YOUR IDEA.

** He will only fund YOU. **

Today, I'm going to give you a FREE investor cheat sheet, called "10 rules investors use to bet the jockey". This cheat sheet is super-valuable, and only available for a very short period of time...

This FREE PDF Cheat sheet will only be available until Monday - at which time I will remove the link for downoad. If you're interested, get it now:

[link removed - sorry!]

Soon, I'm re-launching the Startup Victory training. This cheat sheet, along with the complete interview with Mr. Rose is only available as a bonus for members.

I'm super proud of the content coming out of this training... so proud that I'm putting my own money on the line.

I guarantee that if you complete the simple weekly assignments, at the end of the training you will own a business with at least enough monthly profit to replace your current paycheck - or I'll give you 250% of your course tuition back.

Travis

PS: If you are a current Startup Victory subscriber, you'll get all the new bonuses for free... and there are a lot.

I am here to tell you that I am a big, fat failure.

I've failed in business more times than I have succeeded. WAAAAY more!

But that doesn't bother me - not one iota - not even a twinge of embarrassment. The good news is you only have to be successful ONE TIME to have it made.

(I have been fortunate enough to notch several victories in business over the years, and after the first, I got so hooked on the startup phase I turned it into a science...)

Most people know that I started 43 businesses, and that's how I ultimately came up with my "7 Steps to S.U.C.C.E.S.S." formula for starting a new business.

What many people do not know, however, is that most of those businesses never got off the ground. (I never had a problem ditching a business idea when it proved to be a loser...)

The truth of the matter is that you have the highest chance for success or failure right out of the gates - when you select the market you will cater to.

-- Choose the wrong market - and you start off at a huge disadvantage.

-- Choose the right market - and your job is so much easier. (and funner, and more lucrative)

Let me say again: The one time an entrepreneur can really make a difference and put themselves in a great position is when choosing a market to cater to.

This 2 minute video is the first thing I do when considering a new business idea.

http://www.smallbusinessvictory.com/club/video-googletrends.aspx

Looking forward,

Travis

PS. If I could teach you the ONE single thing that contributed to my own success more than anything else, it would be: persistence. Keep trying. keep fighting! The next most important thing is picking and researching a potentially profitable market, and this is my first step:

http://www.smallbusinessvictory.com/club/video-googletrends.aspx

Instead of giving you another expert interview or business tip to help push your business forward -- I'm going to tell you what might be holding you BACK.

FEAR

Fear, in some form or another, is the *number one* reason most do not succeed.

• Fear of failure.
• Fear of loss.
• Fear of being wrong.

This is a 3-day series on facing fear. Today is the first part, and I'll post the rest later.

I'm here to tell you that fear is senseless, mindless, and USELESS!

Fear holds me back too... Even after tremendous success, I still fight my own tendencies...

• I was afraid to "get out there", take a leadership role, and let people know who I am. (for fear of rejection)
• I was afraid to spend money - even when I had plenty of it. (because I grew up very poor, money was something to be frugal with, not blow)
• I struggled to make big decisions that affected others. (the last thing I want is to harm someone else because of a wrong decision)

Sure, fear was a useful emotion when the cavemen were deciding whether or not to attack that sabre tooth tiger... but in this modern society... it just holds most of us back.

Fear has many names, like 'apprehension', 'anxiety', 'distress' - but they can all be overcome easily by applying something else evolution gave us: Reason.

The 9 Ways to Face Fear that follows is how I finally took control of my own destiny - and overcame the huge emotional road-blocks holding me back -

So without further ado...

9 Ways to Overcome Fear (Part 1)

1. Do the Right Thing!

Just doing what you think is "right" is the most powerful way to face your fears. If you know inyour heart of hearts that something is the right thing to do... it's easy.

2. Use Pain to Motivate Gain

If you are not happy with your current situation - change it! Use your unhappiness with today to take charge of your future and create something better for tomorrow.

Don't focus on the pain, but instead focus on joy. Visualize exactly what your life will be like when your situation isdifferent. When you are prosperous, have freedom, and security. Ifyou have painful parts of your life now, you have all the motivation you need to make it different.

3. Try, Try, Try Your Way to Courage

This is a quote by Henry James I like: "Until you try, you don't know what you can't do."

I like to think of "trying" something as less intimidating than "doing" something.

When you try something - even a little part of something - the mystery is gone. Fear is in large part due to the "unknown". And when you just TRY something, it is no longer unknown.

I'll share another story and parts 4-9 in a few days!

Looking forward!

Travis

PS. One useful way to overcome your fears is to use a checklist. When you can follow a checklist, step-by-step (like putting together a toy), a daunting task becomes easy. That is what I provide with my"7 Steps to S.U.C.C.E.S.S" formula in the Business Victory Club - a step-by-step system to build your own profitable business from scratch:

http://www.smallbusinessvictory.com/club/

In the early 2000's, I was a successful Internet consultant. I had a thriving consultancy, and I was making pretty good money. But it wasn't meant to last... the dot-com bomb destroyed the cashflow of most of my clients...

Which in turn destroyed my business.

So with nothing to lose, living on a home equity line of credit, I moved to Southern California to make my mark on the world.

I spent several months looking, every day, for a new job. But SoCal was going through the same thing, with thousands of resourceful techies flooding the market - and they were willing to work for less money...

I finally found an entrepreneurial opportunity that I could live with. It involved a very low guaranteed salary, but the promise of a huge bonus if I could turn around the fortunes of a small direct marketing division of a strange little operation in a Century City high rise.

The overall business was run by two Israelis, who were combative, secretive, and hard-to-understand. This was my first (but not last) business deal with folks from the middle-east - and I learned that they do things a little differently than we did in the Mid-West.

In the area where I grew up, we made an agreement and shook hands on it. Done deal.

With these guys, the handshake was just the start of negotiation. (Nothing really wrong with that way of doing business in-and-of-itself, but if you don't know going in... you won't come away with a pleasant experience.)

So I slaved away, day and night, taking the company from $0to $80K/mo in only 6 months. I killed myself to get that big bonus... literally going into debt financially, emotionally, and in my relationship.

But all the pieces were in place, and with solutions of technology, human engineering, and creativity, I did it.

And then my boss told me that plans changed.

The company was throwing all resources into another project,and I had to help them launch an Internet business to get my bonus. 

So I was off to the races again. Working even crazier hours to reach their never-ending series of deadlines and modifications. I was working myself crazy, and ruining my relationship.

Three months later came the low-point of my professional career.

I found myself in the office - a high rise in Century City - at 3AM in the morning. I had been at work for 19 hours. A plane was leaving in 5 hours - and my fiancee' and I were supposed to be on that plane - on our way to get married.

My "boss" held a check in his hands that meant financial life-or-death to me. But he would not hand it over until I finished his special little project. I was a hostage to him for that check...

At one point, after countless requests were fulfilled, tasks accomplished, and minutae completed, I blew up. I found myself in a face-to-face screaming contest with my boss. I was at my wits end. He was screaming at me. I was screaming at him.

I turned to the side and threw my pen at the wall. He thundered, "NOBODY throws things in MY office! How DARE you disrespect me?"

I glared at him, with my bravest face on, and said "Well, I just did. What are you going to do about it?"

His defeated reply: "Nothing..."

Although it was never said, we both knew I would never be back.

Finally at 5AM, the project was completed. He made me sign a non-disclosure, a non-compete, and a privacy statement. Then he handed over my life-blood - the check.

I made the plane (barely) and got married as planned.

I learned a lot of valuable lessons from that experience, but none more important than these:

• I vowed on that day NEVER to allow ANYONE to hold me hostage for money again. My wife made a pact with me that she would never fault me for taking self-respect over cash. (Funny how that actually makes you more cash in the long run…)
• I vowed that I would NEVER treat people the way I was. A handshake is what I work on to this day. (In fact, if a client insists on signing a contract prior to an engagement, or if I get a funny feeling, I won't work for them. Trust is now my main currency...)
• I learned that I need to make my own fortune - financially and otherwise - and I dedicated my life to that task.

My Business Victory Club is the culmination of that life objective. I have created a repeatable process that gives me the surest shot to start with _nothing_, and turn it into a profitable business.

In just the second lesson, you’ll learn how to start making some immediate money. Soon afterward, you learn the most reliable way that I know of to prove if a market is profitable.

You’ll learn everything that I have learned over the years. 

http://www.smallbusinessvictory.com/club/

I hope you're paying attention... life's lessons can be forgotten. Life can be hard sometimes - but it can also be sweet. You only need to pay attention, and apply the lessons you learn in a dedicated way.

When viewed from this frame - Failure is Success. The more you fail - and learn from your failures - and apply it to your life - the more likely you are to achieve your version of success.

Leave with this quote in your mind:

"History has demonstrated that the most notable winners usually encountered heart-breaking obstacles before they truimphed. They won because they refused to become discouraged by their defeats." - B.C.Forbes 

Sincerely,

Travis

PS. Does it seem like the story of your entrepreneurial career has been: fail, fail, fail, fail?? If so, you might be interested in weaving a new story for yourself:

http://www.smallbusinessvictory.com/club/