A Unique Way To Make Married Life Exciting
By Cheval John
Photo courtesy of Living Consciously TV
What if a person can make their marriage exciting?
Many would think that once they get married, life is over.
Well, Drs. Rob and Janelle Alex has busted that myth as they came up with a unique way to make the marriage more fun and exciting.
It is called, “Mission Date Night.”
It is like the married couple type of “James Bond adventures.”
I had the opportunity to interview this awesome couple recently on “What’s The Word?” on BlogTalkRadio to chat about the “Mission Date Night,” their podcast by the same name and how they decided to become entrepreneurs.
You can listen to the interview here.
Also, if you like the show, you can go to the show’s page on this website to check out other interviews I have done with amazing guests.
Sam Houston Advances In College Insider.com Tournament
By Cheval John
Sam Houston State rebounded from their Southland Conference Tournament Finals lost with a 87-71 win over the University of North Carolina-Wilmington last night during the first round of the College Insider.com Tournament at Johnson Coliseum.
In the process, the Bearkats achieved their 26th win of the season, the most ever since they moved up to the NCAA Division I almost 30 years ago.
The Bearkats shot 43.8 percent from the field and shot 47.4 percent from behind the arc.
What is even better is that Sam Houston State shot 66.7 percent from the three point line in the first half.
Most of those treys in the first half came from Lithuanian national, Aurimas Majauskas.
Majauskas came off the bench and was the main reason why SHSU’s bench outscored UNC-Wilmington’s bench 38-8.
Majauskas led all scorers with 27 points.
The Seahawks (18-14) tied the matchup at 17 with 8:04 left in the first half after Addison Spruill, who finished with 11 points, made a layup in the paint.
That was as close as UNC-Wilmington got as Sam Houston exploded on a 14-2 run, which included an ally-hoop play from Jabari Peters to Michael Holyfield, to expand their lead to 31-19.
By halftime, the Bearkats was leading 46-25.
Holyfield finished the game with a double-double (10 points and 11 rebounds) while Peters had 11 points and 6 rebounds.
Sam Houston plays host to the University of Louisiana-Lafayette this Saturday in the second round of the College Insider Tournament.
UL-Lafayette brings a 21-13 record to this matchup and also former Bearkat coach Bob Marlin in facing his former assistant, current Sam Houston coach Jason Hooten.
Hooten will try to get his 100th win of his head coaching career in this contest.
Don’t Do What Everyone Thinks Is Best For You
By Cheval John
Photo courtesy of Stuart Miles
When I first started blogging four years ago, I would not have imagined that I would fall in love with it.
I saw this as an opportunity to showcase my thoughts on what was happening in the world and being able to tell stories of people who are achieving success the right way.
Let just say that I did not had a direction of what niche I wanted to get into.
All I knew was the fact that this was an amazing platform.
One thing I did not do was remain consistent in the blogging schedule because it was like the spur of the moment if a particular event happened.
In that first year, I learned that you had to keep on blogging every week because if you did not, you would lose some readers and it would take a while to gain them back.
Even to this day, I still struggle with writing long form content because I will admit, I get bored if the content is very long winded and it does not get straight to the point.
However, it has been a fun challenge to write longer form content because I am a contributing blogger for Millennial CEO and I want to give their audience the best information possible that will make them feel better and give them actionable advice.
Since founding this website three years ago, the blog posts has been a mixture of sports, some travel and university affairs.
Also, the site has been growing slowly with viewership from around the world whether they stumbled on the site by accident or had meant to visit it.
I will be honest of the fact that I wished I could have bigger viewership.
At the same time, I rather this type of slow growth because I want to see what works and what does not work.
I also want to achieve what is called the “5 to 10 year overnight success” because I want people to see that there is no such thing as an overnight success.
I want them to see that they have to put in the effort and work to achieve their goals and not think that someone was lucky when they achieved their goals of writing a great book, running their own company, etc.
When they say that someone is lucky, all they are doing is cheapening the success of the person and validating their excuse that they cannot achieve their goals.
Also, I want this site to be as close as the Huffington Post as possible.
Is this a lofty goal?
Yes, it is a lofty goal.
At the same time, I believe it can be achievable and I am willing to work extremely hard to achieve the goal of being a close to the Huffington Post.
The only thing is that I will not use any short cuts to get there because I rather achieve the fruits of my labor.
Another thing I want to address is the fact that there have been so many blogs, podcasts webinars, etc. that talks about choosing a niche.
While I am totally in agreement with the people who mentioned about choosing a niche, I have to disagree with them to a small degree.
The reason is that I love sports, travel, business and social media and I feel that it is very difficult to choose one out of the other.
I believe that these things above is who I am and I want to express myself here by writing about sporting events, travel and interesting things that is going on in social media.
Maybe I am not the only one who think this.
If I am the only one who think it is o.k. to write about different subjects like sports, travel or other things that interest them and not just one particular subject, then I will not apologize for it.
All I care about is making the reader feel better about themselves and solving their problems.
This is the reason why I am blogging.
I hope that you will do what you love and not worry about what other people think about you.
Going To The Next Level Through Writing A Book And Starting A Podcast
By Cheval John
Photo courtesy of Danilo Rizzuti
Disclaimer: I am an Amazon Affiliate and I receive a commission for each book I recommend.
I decided to try to gain more book sales for my first book, “8 Things You Need To Do Before Quitting Your Job” by putting it on Sweet Free Books site after I saw success with running a campaign on there with my second book “8 Lessons Every Podcaster Needs To Learn.” You will see the results below.
The first book is still on sale for .99 cents on Amazon.
Without further ado, here is the article.
You have started a new business and are looking to gain new customers or clients.
Whether it is a sports nutrition company, being a baseball trainer, a public relations consultant, etc., you want to set yourself apart from the crowd.
You have heard the many advice on starting a blog to grow your audience.
Though that is a great idea, which I am a strong proponent of blogging, you will be in competition with other people because the blogosphere is really oversaturated with about 450 million blogs in every niche.
Two ideas that can help you to stand out and add more power to your blog is starting a podcast and write a book.
I will explain further.
Podcasts have been around for about a decade.
However, they have been exploding at record pace and recently, they were 1 billion downloads on iTunes.
Another thing to keep notice of in podcasting is that Apple came out with the New Carplay system last year, which allows a person to connect their iPhone to their dashboard of their car.
The Apple Carplay is set to be in about 50% of cars this year which will allow any podcaster to reach a huge audience.
One more thing to keep notice of is that they are about 300,000 podcasts in the world.
So that is ample opportunity for anyone to get out their message and separate themselves from the competition.
Another great way for an entrepreneur/solopreneur to stand out from the crowd is to write a book.
The reason why this is important is because not many people write books.
According to this 2011 article by Publishing Perspectives, about 200 million Americans dreams of writing a book.
However, not many follow through.
They might see the plenty obstacles like gaining the attention of a literary agent who can pitch your book proposal to publishers.
However, many can circumnavigate this by self-publishing.
And self-publishing has become more popular thank to platforms like Amazon’s Createspace.
Now that is good news for anyone because they can get their message out to the world.
And the point that you have written a book will elevate you to another level because people will see you as an expert.
What if you want to get the word out about your book and stand out from an estimated 4 million ebooks on Amazon.
One of the ways to stand out is running promotionals on discounted book sites.
The ones that are really great are Buck Books and Book Bub.
The criteria to run a campaign on Buck Books is that your book must either be 100 pages or have over 10,000 words.
I have seen people who ran their book campaigns on Buck Books gained Amazon-Best Seller Status including No.1 in different categories.
Before I show you how running a book campaign on these discounted sites helps an author, let me explain something that I have learned while taking a Self-Publishing Success Academy class from the teachers, Kimanzi Constable and Jimmy Burgess and I am paraphrasing.
Amazon wants a person to become a best-selling author because it will help drive more business to their site and help them to make money in addition to you making money.
The way how a person become an Amazon best-selling author is to have their book ranked in the top 100 overall.
Though you might think that you can’t get your book in the top 100 overall, their is good news.
If your book is ranked in the top 100 in any category that you choose to feature your book, you will have become a best-selling author.
And Amazon update their best-selling author’s list every hour.
The interesting thing is that even if you don’t sell a whole lot of books overall, the point that your book sold enough at a certain time will allow you to achieve the Amazon Best-Selling status.
Now that you know a little bit about achieving the Amazon Best-Selling Status, here is how Beau Henderson became an Amazon No.1 best-selling author.
Mr. Henderson ran a campaign on Buck Books for his book, “The Rich Life: Ten Investments For True Wealth” and it made the No.1 Amazon Best-Seller in three categories.
That distinction of being a No.1 Amazon Best-Selling Author will always give Mr. Henderson the opportunity to gain even more clients and take his business, The Rich Life Group to another level.
Now if you have written a book that is less than 100 pages, then there is an alternative to Buck Books.
It is called Sweet Free Books.
Sweet Free Books has books ranging from romance to non-fiction.
If you are accepted to run a book campaign on there, you would have to pay $5 dollars to run the campaign.
That is really cheap.
Also, you will have to change the price of your book on Amazon to either free or .99 cents days before the campaign hit live on Sweet Free Books.
I know this because I ran my second book, “8 Lessons Every Podcaster Needs To Learn” on Sweet Free Books and I forgot the first time to change the price on Amazon before the campaign ran.
However, I did not make the above mistake again and as a result, I became an Amazon Best-Seller in the Small Business and Business and Money Categories.
I will be very honest, I did not sell thousands of books.
However, I sold just enough to achieve the Amazon Best-Selling author status.
Here is the results below.
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #59,415 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
o #70 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Business & Money > Entrepreneurship & Small Business > Small Business
o #100 in Kindle Store > Kindle Short Reads > 90 minutes (44-64 pages) > Business & Money
As you can see, it was 70th in Small Business and 100th in Business and Money.
At one point, the book was 78th at the 3 p.m. hour on February 8th in the top 100 in the Small Business category:
Amazon Best Sellers
Our most popular products based on sales. Updated hourly.
Best Sellers in Small Business
• Top 100 Paid
74.
Decide: Work Smarter, Reduce Your Str…
by Steve McClatchy
4.8 out of 5 stars (116)
Kindle Edition
$10.99
75.
Black Hole Focus: How Intelligent Peo…
by Isaiah Hankel
4.9 out of 5 stars (117)
Kindle Edition
$13.99
76.
Start Your Own Business, Sixth Editio…
by Inc The Staff of Entrepreneur Media
4.0 out of 5 stars (1)
Kindle Edition
$14.72
77.
Local Online Marketing: Small Busines…
by Claude Whitacre
4.8 out of 5 stars (44)
Kindle Edition
$2.99
78.
8 Lessons Every Podcaster Needs To Le…
by Cheval John
5.0 out of 5 stars (1)
Kindle Edition
$0.99
79.
Turning Memories Into Cash: a step by…
by Kathy Moore
4.9 out of 5 stars (11)
Kindle Edition
$2.99
Then it dropped to 95th in the top 100 at the 5 p.m. hour before dropping out completely:
Amazon Best Sellers
Our most popular products based on sales. Updated hourly.
Best Sellers in Small Business
• Top 100 Paid
92.
Local Online Marketing: Small Busines…
by Claude Whitacre
4.8 out of 5 stars (44)
Kindle Edition
$2.99
93.
El Emprendedor que llevas dentro (Spa…
by Alvaro Mendoza
4.4 out of 5 stars (12)
Kindle Edition
$6.99
94.
The Way to Wealth: Advice, Hints, and…
by Benjamin Franklin
2.5 out of 5 stars (2)
Kindle Edition
$2.51
95.
8 Lessons Every Podcaster Needs To Le…
by Cheval John
5.0 out of 5 stars (1)
Kindle Edition
$0.99
96.
Turning Memories Into Cash: a step by…
by Kathy Moore
4.9 out of 5 stars (11)
Kindle Edition
$2.99
97.
The Virtual Assistant Solution: Come…
by Michael Hyatt
4.3 out of 5 stars (63)
Kindle Edition
So you have seen how you can stand out from the crowd by writing a book and starting a podcast in addition to blogging.
The only question now is what are you waiting for.
Always Reinvent Yourself To Maintain Success
By Cheval John
Photo Courtesy of Frame Angel
The most popular advice when starting out as an entrepreneur or podcaster, etc. is to pick a niche.
That is great advice to a huge degree because you do not want to spread yourself out too thin.
The thing about it is that sometimes that advice could get outdated in the long run.
Many college students have been specializing in a major which they believe will allow them to get a quicker path to getting the job of their dreams.
At first, it works out to a degree because they land a great job with an awesome starting salary.
When that skill is shipped off overseas, they are in trouble because they only are good in that particular skill.
One of the things a person can do when they are about to get laid off because of their department getting shut down is to reinvent themselves and learn new skills.
The reason being is that they will avoid being caught off guard when that layoff occurs.
They will be in a fantastic position to be at the right place at the right time when the company posts a job opportunity that they are qualified for.
Like Carlos Gil and Hank Blank.
Mr. Gil was working as a banker before he unexpectedly got laid off from his job.
He took great advice from his mother and set up an account on LinkedIn and connected with important people which allowed him to become a thought leader, speaker, and also landing a job in St. Louis.
Unfortunately, he got laid off again earlier this year in St. Louis.
Though he was surprised, he did not panic because he already had a strong social media presence and had established himself as a thought leader which led him to his current job as a Senior Social Marketing Manager at the very place which help him to reinvent his skills, LinkedIn.
As for Mr. Blank, he also is a strong advocate for reinventing your skills because he has been reinventing himself for over a decade as a self-employed consultant.
Before that he was working in advertising for about 25 years before he was unexpectedly fired from the agency where he was partner in 2001 over the phone.
Undaunted, Mr. Blank created his own business cards and launched his consulting practice.
He has leveraged LinkedIn and has built a solid reputation as a consultant.
Even though it is important to have a niche, it is always important to go outside of that niche and learn a new skill because when times get tough and you are looking for something new, you will be ready for the “hard times.”
Now, I want to share about another person who has reinvented their skills: myself .
I consider myself a sports writer because I have spent over two years freelancing for a daily newspaper in Huntsville, Texas.
Thought it was great and I loved the fact that I could cover sporting events and share stories of athletes who have succeeded, I was “trapped” because the sporting events happened during the fall and spring seasons.
So in the summer times, I was out of work.
I was over-specialized in one skill, which was covering sports and I could not continue to freelance for the paper during the summer times.
That was when I learned the importance of being knowledgable in other subjects in addition to sports.
That way, I would be able to better my chances at gaining other gigs which could supplement the “dry” months while waiting for sporting events to happen.
Now, I can say that I am learning other subjects like social media and I am a contributing blogger to Millennial CEO, which deals with social media, business and leadership.
It is also safe to say that I had reinvent myself because I am about to be a guest on a Twitter chat called “Content Chat” tomorrow at 3 p.m. eastern, 2 p.m. central to chat about podcasting.
So you see why it is important not to overspecialize in one skill.
Though it is important to have a strong expertise in one skill, it is always important to reinvent yourself and learn new skills everyday even if it is outside your comfort zone.
When you reinvent yourself, you will be in a much better position when the company decides to cut your department.
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