For the last 4 months I have been working on an important project.

It cost me quite a bit of money and time.

The exact project details aren’t important but I want to share with
you something I learned about myself and those around me in the
process.

For months others and myself worked hard. We had weekly
sometimes-daily meetings to help resolve issues and deal with
unexpected problems.

Then at the last moment everything unraveled and we had to put a
stop to the project.

Can you imagine the feeling of disappoints and frustration?

These types of setbacks can really send you for a “loop”.

You really begin to question your abilities and was that effort
really worth it.

After beating myself up for a week and whining like a school child
to anyone that would listen to my tale of woe someone really
important to me made a really important point.

Her comment was this…

“I know you can do this again and finish this time. How? Well you
came SO close.”

This floored me.

What a concept!

If you can get so close only to see it all go to pieces at the last
minute why not *try again* and this time prevent the problem from
occurring.

If you or someone you care for has recently failed at something
important, remind them *how close they got* and how with a little
effort next time they *can succeed*.

Gail Devers said, “Keep your dreams alive. Understand to achieve
anything requires faith and belief in yourself, vision, hard work,
determination, and dedication. Remember all things are possible for
those who believe.”

As you can imagine I get a lot of emails from people on the
Internet. While I am happy to get feedback there are just not
enough hours in the day for me to reply to each individually.

A common theme struck me this week as I reviewed some of the emails
I had received.

Some people agreed with what I had said but there were a few that
felt, “Michael you might be right BUT…”

Unless I am mistaken, the BUT all but ignores anything I have just
stated so I am going to call this post, are you living in a “should
be” or a “as is” world?

It goes something like this…

On most issues of importance the world can be divided basically in
those that strongly see things how they are or how they should be.

Let me share an example.

As many of you know I publish a report called, “Get Over Your Ex”.
It is about 50 pages and sets out a series of 21-steps that I
regard essential to overcoming heartache.

It can be found here,

http://nocontactrule.com/

Now these steps are based on my own observations and for hundreds
of people the steps have helped enormously. I frequently get emails
thanking me for the product.

But then there are those that have never read the product that
write, “if you have something helpful then you should be giving it
away without charge”. Their argument is essentially information
should never have a cost and more importantly the Internet is a
no-cost environment. In other words, they argue their position from a
perspective of the way the world “should be”.

The “as is” people know that time taken to create something should
be rewarded. They also know that “you get what you pay for” and if
the item were given away it would probably never be read.

Now I know this is a simple example but this also happens in
relationships. An example from the emails I get is, “my partner
treats me very badly but he/she LOVES me”. They then ask in the
email, what should I do?

If you live in the world of, “as is” the answer is obvious and it
requires no answer from me.

However, if you live in the world of “should be” then you’re
probably thinking, love conquers all and it is only time before
this nasty person comes to their senses and starts treating you the
way they are SUPPOSED to treat you.

See the difference?

I won’t labor the point but next time you confront someone
complaining about a situation (this includes yourself) ask
yourself, is this person living in the world of “as is” or “should
be”.

Talk soon,

Michael.
blog: http://ojar.com/news/
web: http://ojar.com

I just spent the last few days at a business conference in Texas. If you’ve ever spent much time at a business conference you will know that part of the time you spend is time spent networking. Meeting other people in your industry, swapping stories and learning what works and what doesn’t work.

What amazed me was the way that each person dealt differently with success and failure. Of course, success in business is always envied and studied but somehow it seems at least to me that failure isn’t. This got me thinking about relationships.

Why do we spend so much time trying to get into a relationship when so many of us don’t even take the time to give ourselves a short kick in the behind for repeating the mistakes we just made ‘last time around’?

In business as in relationships we all have mental blueprints or to put it another way, “a way of doing things”.

If you have the desire to make changes in your life you have to first admit that what doesn’t work is your fault.

Yes, I said it.

If it didn’t work it was your fault.

Now I know there will be those that say, “but my situation is different”.

But, unless you take responsibility for what happens and really question yourself were their clues before things went bad, or were there things you could do differently do you have the potential to ever change things?

I personally doubt it.

I met several business people that complained that their business went bad because of the morons they hired.

Hmmm… who hired them?

Then I heard from some people at this conference that told me that dated and married someone was dishonest and it didn’t work out.

Hmm… were there big red flags?

I think it is time for us to stop blaming everyone else when things don’t work out.

It’s time to take responsibility.

What do you think?

You can discuss this topic here.

Till next time, Michael.

P.s. For those that are tired of hurting, see my report about getting over your Ex here,

Get Over Your Ex

Its about, when it makes sense to give up or keep trying.

How many times have you heard, “winners never give up” or do they?

You can get the mini-book HERE for and maybe it will help you figure out some good stuff about your situation.

Similar to Stay or Go, sometimes you need help deciding what to do next in your job or relationship.

Hope that helps someone.

– Michael.

A law firm wanted more business, so this is their ‘innovative’ billboard.

In case you can’t read the tag line of the billboard it reads, “Life’s short. Get a divorce”.

Yes, it got buzz on the major media networks but it raises some serious questions.

Excuse me, I feel nauseous!

– Michael.

1. To save bandwidth costs everything will be in black and white. As technical people know that will immediately save 30% of our hosting costs with reduced bandwidth usage.

2. To save moderating time, anyone that uses the ‘report this post’ button more than five times in one week will have their avatar (small picture on the left hand side) changed to that of a crying baby.

3. People suspected of trolling the boards will have their avatar changed immediately to that of a ‘troll’ so that you will know immediately to ignore that person.

4. In keeping with the suggestion to use images and more meaningful names for the different sections of the board, “Tell your story here” will be called, “Word up, 411″.

5. A new board will be set-up called the ‘Naughty Corner’, especially for people that troll.

6. When two people fight they will be given the option to have an ‘OJar face-off”. Here’s how it works. They both start posting insults in ONE thread at one another. The first one to get tired and leave is the loser. The winner gets to pick the avatar of the loser (for a week) and the loser promises not to post for three days.

7. People that delete their accounts and return more than 3 times will be required to take a ‘defensive driving’ course with our favorite OJar member or as an alternative they will have to submit a photo of themselves driving a Volvo 240 — the ugliest car on this planet.

8. The next OJar get-together will be videotaped and sold for profit under the title, “Ojarians Gone Wild”. Applications for camera men and women are being taken. Hey, it’s time to profit from drunk OJarians. Right?

9. In an effort to improve the site, for every mean thing posted about your Ex you have to say something nice about them.

10. Happy April 1st.

- Michael.

Things may seem ‘quiet’ but Juggernaut has been working on a new concept to enhance OJar.

He has taken ideas from the existing site, ideas from some other sites and has really come up with some new concepts that are very exciting.

Imagine elements of myspace/hotornot/blogging/wikipedia combined with things that already work on OJar.

I can’t say much more for now, stay tuned.

Also, keep posting your ideas as many of them are going to be used.

- Michael.

The same idea from a different framework:

Web 2.0 (or, community driven sites) work because enough people are passionate, interested and motivated to make a difference.

We can follow these well-worn steps and solve the OJar paradox by building a “vast array of new sapling” channels.

– Michael.

- How would the home page appear?
- Navigation?
- Colors?
- Layout?
- Visual Cues?

If you have ideas please contact him.

Thanks, Michael

Tonights 1.5 hour call was recorded so you can listen in. I have also made available the slides I used. If you wish to become involved in the future of Ojar you can send me a note and list your strengths. There are currently several groups being formed, content, technical, business development (revenue) and strategy. You can choose one or more of course.

Here is a links to the files which you can Right-Mouse click to save on your computer

The audio link (10MB in size) is found on this Audio MP3 LINK

The slides in Adobe PDF format, SLIDES LINK

If you need a free Adobe Reader for your computer you can find it here, PDF Reader

I wish to thank everyone that joined us tonight!

– Michael.