Whether you are studying and need to remember Newton’s laws of motion or whether you are going to the grocery store and need to remember which foods to buy, I’m going to give you a simple secret to remember anything you want very easily.

Remembering By Association and NLP

It is far easier to remember something by association than it is by just cramming it into your head. An image, a sound, a smell, a taste or a touch are helpful ways of remembering something. When you hear certain songs on the radio, I am sure that you have certain memories attached to them. When you smell a certain perfume, I am certain it makes you think of somebody. This is how our brains work, they associate senses with information.

NLP (short for neuro linguistic programming) is a form of hypnosis that can be used to ‘anchor‘ ideas/emotions/information to an action or thing. Okay, that sounds complicated. Let me explain:

The term ‘anchor‘ means to make permanent, to engrave it into your memory. (Just like a boat uses an anchor to stay in one position). While many ‘anchors’ occur naturally, (like the example of perfume and songs on the radio I mentioned above), with knowledge of NLP you can consciously create anchors for anything you want.

I am not an expert on NLP and am not going to give you exact processes how to create anchors for yourself. However, I find it to be a very interesting subject and it is definitely worth buying a book about. (Read more about NLP on Wikipedia).

I spent some time with NLP a few years back, and I created an anchor after having a really good night that I always wanted to remember.

The anchor I created was a firm squeeze on my left inner-elbow and up to this very day, whenever I squeeze my left inner elbow I immediately think back to that night and relive it very clearly. I’m honestly not making that up and I find it incredible that NLP can actually do things like that. Mind-blowing!

A Simple Secret To Remember Anything

The Strings Method

I learnt about this method from a friend a few years ago. It is very easy to learn and it can really help you to remember something very quickly and for a very long time.

I mentioned ealier that we remember things easily if we associate them with something. This will make you understand why the following method is so effective.

Let’s take an example of meeting someone for the first time over coffee. You do not know anything about each other but you want to get to know each other and have a fun conversation. I don’t know about you, but often I don’t even remember someone’s name the first time I hear it.

Here is how to make sure you remember alot about someone or something from the very moment they start to give you information:

Attach Imaginary Strings

• As the other person is talking to you, you are going to attach imaginary strings with different objects for different pieces of information. Where you choose to attach the strings is up to you, but I like to keep them in sight, usually to the tops of people’s shoulders.
  

Attach Relevant Objects

• To each string you will attach an imaginary object that relates to the information you want to remember about someone or something. Let’s say that the other person mentions that they like to travel – attach an imaginary aeroplane to a string from their shoulder. Let’s say that the other person tells you they have been playing guitar professionally for years – attach an imaginary guitar to another string from their shoulder.
  

A New String For Every Memory

• As you learn more about the other person and have more things you want to remember about them, you keep adding strings to their shoulders with objects related to the information you want to remember.
  

Remember The Imaginary Objects

• Since you chose the objects to attach to the person’s shoulders, you will very easily be able to remember them. Think how much easier it is to remember ‘plane, guitar, sushi, bmw, laptop, Eiffel Tower‘ than is is to remember:

  ‘He worked in a BMW dealership for 5 years. He travelled overseas twice a year and his favorite place to go is the Eiffel Tower. He has climed it nearly 20 times with his wife. He usually goes for conferences with business men and they always end up eating sushi, he doesn’t mind it but is not particularly fond of it either. When he was younger he played guitar in a band and performed at concerts multiple times.’
  

It’s Like A Computer

To Sum Up

The two useful techniques I have listed for memory improvement and easy-remembering are Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) and the ‘strings’ method.

• NLP uses a process to anchor information or a memory to a certain action/image/smell/sound etc. NLP anchors can last for years if not a lifetime. While it takes a bit longer to learn, it may be very worth your while.
• The ‘strings’ method allows anyone to remember lots of different things very quickly by attaching imaginary strings with associated objects to the person or thing that you are trying to remember things about. After reading this post you should be able to apply the ‘strings’ method already.

By the way, you can apply the strings method to anything you want. If you use it for an exam or interview, just attach the imaginary strings to the end of your pencil or your watch or whatever you will have in your sight at the time.

Try it out and let me know if you notice a difference in remembering something. Is it quicker and easier than before?

P.S. If you are interested in using a scientifically proven method to improving your brainpower and gaining a much more relaxed state of mind, I highly recommend binaural beats.

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Hey guys and girls, ladies and gentlemen…
This is officially the last post on Upgradereality.com for the year 2010!

I’ve said pretty much everything I wanted to say about 2010 in my last article, and now it’s time to look ahead to 2011 and make it just as awesome or better than 2010!

It seems to be tradition to make new years resolutions towards the end of every year, but unfortunately the majority of those resolutions don’t even make it past the month of January before they are broken or brushed aside and written off.

You may want to eat healthier, get in shape, lose weight, go out to get more dates, start a blog to make extra income, learn to play an instrument etc.

I’ve said this many consecutive years and made many courageous and reward-promising resolutions, only to forget about them after a couple of weeks into the new year.

Why New Year’s Resolutions Never Hold

From my experience I deduce that the problem lies in the fact that when you make one giant resolution (goal) in December for the year ahead, that goal is way too big and vague to actually materialize.

Let me explain a bit better:
When you decide that you want to lose weight and get in shape next year, that is a fantastic goal and resolution to set, because you and people close to you will benefit when you achieve that goal.

Now you have a goal, but there are two important things missing from the picture…
1-) You need a plan of action how you will achieve your resolution for the year ahead.
2-) You need to follow your plan and take action towards achieving that goal every day/week.

Without a plan and without taking action, I suspect that your new years resolution will not hold longer than a couple of weeks. This may sound obvious in theory, but when it comes to making new year’s resolutions, most people won’t make a plan and most people won’t take action.

How To Make New Year’s Resolutions Work

A method of setting new year’s resolutions that actually stand a chance to be fulfilled is to break your resolution up into smaller goals and break those smaller goals up into even smaller goals.

Imagine needing to move a solid block of steel weighing 3650 pounds for a distance of 300 feet (without any equipment). Sounds pretty impossible right?

Now imagine moving 10 pounds every single day for a distance of 300 feet. Sounds much easier and very do-able right?

The idea is that you take any large resolution that you want to achieve in the year ahead (e.g. losing weight and getting in shape) and break it into bite-size daily and weekly goals that you can easily carry out for the next 12 months on a routine basis.

Instead of saying that you want to lose 36 pounds next year, set the goal of losing 3 pounds a month.

Combine that with making a plan of action of going to gym 3 times a week and doing cardio 2 times weekly, and you have yourself a resolution that you can actually achieve without giving up before you even got started.

Goal Setting Software to Support Your Resolutions

Personally I’ve been setting small goals for myself on a daily and weekly basis for the entire 2010, and I must say that I’m very happy with the results. My productivity is up tenfold and I feel very satisfied with what I have achieved.

I’ve been using a whiteboard, post-it notes and notepads to write my daily/weekly goals on, and although it works, it can become messy. The problem is that it is an unorganized method and system, it is hand-written and it is prone to confusion at times (goals/tasks get lost, become unreadable or get overlooked).

At the beginning of December I was approached by Harry from Goals on Track – an online goal setting software site. Harry told me all about his goal setting software and the features, and I decided to give it a try because it is something that could benefit me and the readers from Upgradereality.com.

I’ve been using Goals on Track for the last 3 weeks and am highly impressed by it’s effectiveness and functionality. It costs $5 per month but it’s well worth it and I’ve signed up for the next 12 months.

Goals on Track is a website where you get access to a specialized goal setting system with your own login and dashboard.

• In your personal account you are able to create daily, weekly and monthly goals with a few clicks of your mouse.
• You are able to schedule tasks for specific calendar days.
• You are able to make notes of your progress with your goals.
• Above all, you are able to easily oversee all the goals that you have set, completed and that are still outstanding on one single page.

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The reason why I find Goals on Track so effective and useful is because you can:
Plan all your tasks and goals weeks in advance,
Have them all neatly organized in the same place,
Oversee them very easily,
Have scheduled tasks sent to your email to remind you ,
And the best is…you can access your goals from anywhere in the world because they are stored online!

Anyways, the main thing I want you to take away from this article is that you need to break your new years resolutions into smaller goals. Goals that you can achieve on a daily, weekly and monthly basis, so that you are certain to fulfill your resolution (or at least keep it up for a couple of months instead of the usual few weeks).

Click Here To Sign Up for Goals on Track

Whether you want to keep track of your tasks and goals on paper or whether you want to use Goals on Track (I suggest the latter) is up to you. Just make 2011 a year where you make changes to create a life that you are happy with and that you WANT to live.

Wishing you a happy, healthy and prosperous 2011!!
Sincerely
Diggy

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Together those two changes could result in an awesome journey for you to follow. Here’s what I’m thinking:

(Can’t see the video? Click here to view it!)

My Personal Life Flipped Upside-Down

Starting December 1st, I’m giving myself 13 months to build a full-time income on the internet. There are no safety nets.

I’ve decided to quit everything I’m doing, get a place in the city and focus on building an online business that will make me a) enough to live off comfortable and b) rich (and hopefully in the process will help hundreds and thousands of people improve their lives in some way).

I have enough saved up to live off for the next 2 years so I don’t need to get a day-job and can focus full-time on my online projects.

In the last 7 years since I graduated high-school I’ve done a heck of a lot, ranging from running a massive supermarket with my father to managing pretty large investments to physically helping to build a house.

However, those things have all been with my father leading the way and kind of making decisions for me. I’ve learned a lot and am ahead financially, so there’s nothing to complain about. But now I feel it’s time for change and I want to walk my own path.

But it’s scary…that I can tell you. Sometimes I feel this HUGE anxiety and voice inside my head screaming ‘STOPPPPPP’. It’s because I have never done this before, and I’m totally moving out of my comfort zone.

Worst-case scenario:If I don’t make money online…the worst case is that I will need to get a normal day-job. Looking at it this way makes it seem much less scary.

It’s great to feel the fear of uncertainty, because the only way to grow is to move out of your comfort zone. That is exactly what I’m doing.

My Strategy

If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.

I have a plan, and I have a strategy. Are you wondering how I’m planning on making enough money online to be able to live off comfortable and live how I want to life? (My goal is a steady $5000 per month)

Firstly I want to say that I have a bit of a start and not beginning completely from scratch. I have this blog with 2500 subscribed readers, which definitely helps.

Secondly, I have a couple of sites and I’m already making about $500 a month on average.

Thirdly I have $5000 saved up for the purpose of putting into my projects and business. This can be spend on new projects, advertising or even buying existing sites that are already making money.

I’m going to be very open and transparent about my journey, and if I fail or am not doing as I should, I will write about it too.

My strategy will involve creating my own products, creating products with other cool people, affiliate sites and marketing, building email lists through PPC and banner advertising.

Of course I’m going to try to be such a cool guy to all of you that you will want to support me and buy all the products that I’m going to make for you *Cheeky Smile*

I’m a huge believer in providing value, so the purpose behind everything that I will create is to help people and to give them more than what they pay for.

Changes on Upgradereality.com

Although many of you appreciate my articles and get in touch with me to let me know that, I feel I’m too impersonal. I feel that my articles don’t contain enough of me and my personal journey…and that is what’s going to change.

From now on, you’ll still get the occasional ‘How To’ style post, but more often than not you will get my personal story. You’re going to get articles and videos about the 3 things that I love most:

1-Making money
2-Girls
3-Health and Fitness

I’m going to share with you exactly what I’m busy with in my journey to online success. I’m going to share how I live, how I eat, how I spend my time with friends and my social life with girls and all.

I realize that not all of you may be interested in following my personal story, but I also know that many of you have thought about the idea of making an income online and being able to live the life you want.

I’m just 24, and I’m starting at the bottom of the ladder. No matter where you are in the world or what situation you are in or how old you are…if I can do this, so can you.
(And I KNOW that I’m going to make it!)

NOTE:If you are reading this in your RSS reader and you haven’t signed up for my email newsletter I highly recommend that you do so (Subscribe form in the sidebar). I send out many more updates and articles and I would love to be able to keep you up to date.

I hope you’re going to enjoy the updates from here onwards.

To our success!
Diggy

P.S. My buddy Brett from Pluginid.com had the cool idea of putting every post of his in a video format too. I’m going to follow his lead and add videos to most posts, so that if you don’t feel like reading the article you can just watch the video!

Please leave a comment through the link below :) 13 Months To Freedom

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Photo Credit

Kindness is something you can share at any time, with anyone.

It’s not always easy to kill ‘em with kindness, but it’s always worth it. Why? Because there are some pretty awesome benefits from being kind.

Whenever I find myself acting out in kindness, I find that the following things happen: I feel great, I make someone else feel great, I gain good karma, I physically feel better, and I inspire others to be kind.

Who wouldn’t want those benefits? Here, take a look in more detail at the benefits of being kind:

1. You feel awesome.

When you treat others with kindness, you feel pretty great. Just think about the last time you did something nice for someone else. How did you feel? You probably felt pretty great, didn’t you?

I know that every time I do something kind – even if it’s the smallest thing – I feel great. Being kind to others is really a way to be kind to yourself.

2. You make others feel great.

Of course, the most obvious benefit of kindness is that you make others feel good. It seems obvious, but it’s actually really important.

Being kind is a way you can spread goodness in the world, a small way to make the world a better place. Just think for a moment about what the world would be like if everyone were kind…

3. You gain good karma.

Whether or not you believe in karma, you must realize that when you do good things, good things happen to you. I know from personal experience that this is true.

When I treat others with kindness, I find that kindness is returned to me in some form. Putting kindness into the world helps to bring a whole lot of it back to you.

4. You improve your health.

It’s been said that doing kind things for others helps you to feel better physically. I’m no doctor or expert so I can’t say for sure if this is true, but it sure makes a lot of sense to me.

The kinder I am to others, the happier I feel. The happier I feel, the more relaxed and centered I am. Give it some thought the next time you’re kind to someone else. Do you physically feel better?

5. You inspire others.

Acts of kindness are one of the greatest ways to inspire others. When I see someone do something out of kindness, I feel incredibly inspired and it makes me want to do something kind.

When you commit a kind act, those around you will take note and your kindness can have a ripple effect. Start that ripple now by treating those around you with kindness today.

Kindness is something we can all engage in. Kindness is a choice. You can choose it in every single situation. While I know this isn’t always easy, it’s always possible.

You may not fully realize it, but every single moment of your life, you have the choice to choose to act in kindness.

Choose kindness today and reap the benefits!

This post was written by Dani, a twenty-something striving to live positively in the present moment. Dani’s blog, Positively Present, embraces the idea of “living happily ever after now” by focusing on all things positive. Dani is also the creator and author of Hope Springs Internal, a blog focusing on the positive representations of women in the media. You can find Dani on Twitter @positivepresent.

P.S. Something healthy and delicious is coming your way November 16th – watch this space!

Please leave a comment through the link below :) 5 Positive Benefits of Kindness

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If you’re not willing to put in the work then you may as well stop reading right now.

A big part of creating the life you want to live is financial independence. Notice how I don’t say ‘wealth’ or put a figure on that financial income you need in order to be free.

All I’m saying is that you want to achieve financial freedom.

This could mean $1000 a month if you’re young and single and live in a place like Thailand or Mexico. It could mean $10 000 a month if you’re married with kids.

Today I’m going to tell you everything I know about a method that you can start using today to create your financial freedom, and it’s called affiliate marketing.

What Is Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing means that you promote other people’s products on the internet and get commissions for any sales you make.

The Benefits:

• You don’t need to create any promotional products.
• You don’t have to deal with customer support.
• All you need to do is connect the buyer with the seller and take your cut.
• Commissions on products are often as high as 75% of the sale.

The Downside:

• Many markets are very competitive.
• It can take a lot of work to make money as an affiliate (but it doesn’t have to).

How To Start Affiliate Marketing

Contrary to what you may think, you don’t need much technical experience to be able to make money with affiliate marketing. You don’t need a diploma or degree, and you don’t even need to be considered smart to do this. All you need is to be interested and to not give up.

It helps if you know how to make a site or set up a blog, but those are things you can learn along the way.

The most important thing is that you must understand the concept of selling. You can’t just choose a product and try to push it on everyone that you meet.

What you need to do is find a person who needs something, and sell them something that will solve their problem or desire.

Think about real life for a second, if you try to sell someone a cheap poncho in a shopping mall when it’s dry, you won’t make many sales (if any). But…if you come prepared when an unexpected rainstorm hits an open-air baseball stadium during a popular game, you can sell hundreds of those cheap ponchos for triple their price.

Give people what they need or want and they will eagerly buy from you. That is the principle behind making great sales.

Affiliate Marketing Techniques

Article Marketing (Free)

This method means that you write articles to promote your product.

First you do your keyword research, meaning that you choose a topic and niche that gets a decent amount of monthly searches in Google. (I’m not going to tell you how to do keyword research but Copyblogger did a cool tutorial here).

Once you have chosen you niche and keyword, you need to find an appropriate product on a site like Clickbank (more about finding products to promote further down in the post).

Then you will write an article (usually 400-750 words) with your chosen keyword in the title and spread throughout the content. You add your affiliate link at the bottom of the article and submit your writing to a special article directory like Ezine or Goarticles.

Rise and repeat. The more articles you write targeting different keywords and different niches, the higher your chance of one of your articles hitting a top ranking and getting a lot of people to read it and buy through your affiliate link.

Article marketing can work, but it’s a heck of a lot of work and if you hate writing or hate writing about products/topics you don’t care about, then this is not a method for you. On the other had, if you can write 2-5 articles every day, then that’s 60+ a month. Do this for a couple of months and you will have built up quite an arsenal of affiliate links and promotion material.

Building Mini-Sites (Small Investment)

Another way of making money as an affiliate is by building small 2-6 page mini-sites that promote your affiliate link. My buddy Glen wrote a detailed guide about how to make mini-sites called Cloud Living (which has sold over 1000 copies to date).

The idea is that you buy a domain and create your site with a few pages of content and links to the product you are promoting. Once you have your site then you just need to drive traffic to it (get people to visit your site).

This can either be done by purchasing traffic or ads from other sites, by writing articles (as mentioned above) and link to your mini-sites or by doing proper SEO (Search Engine Optimization) by building enough backlinks (so that you get a top ranking in Google and get free, targeted traffic every day).

Building a mini-site requires that you purchase a domain and web-hosting. Then you would also need knowledge of how to create a web-page or how you can install and modify WordPress (a popular blogging platform).

I personally created a bunch of affiliate sites this way. Some of them made a few hundred dollars a month and others barely made $50 a year.

If you have some skill, you can build a mini-site and get it making $100 a month. That is like 4 sales for most products, maybe 2 sales if you promote something more expensive.

If you do basic math and you convert at 1%, that means you need 100 visitors for every sale.
4 Sales a month means you need 400 visitors.
400 Visitors means roughly 14 visits a day.
So theoretically to make $100 a month from a mini-site all you need is to build a site and send 14 people to that site a day. (Of course the more targeted your visitors, the more likely it is that they will buy. Someone who is looking for dog collars will not be interested in buying golf clubs for example).

A site making $100 a month can easily be sold for $1200. (12 times monthly revenue)

So, if you know what you are doing and have a system that can allow you to make sites that make $100 a month pretty easily, you can do that and sell them for 12 months income. How cool is that?

You could also just keep building sites and eventually get 20 making $100 a month, but that is not as easy as it sounds. Sites need attention or they lose their rankings and traffic, and thus their sales. That is why it is easier to focus on 1-2 sites at a time instead of trying to work on 20 sites at once.

If you try to focus on 20 sites at the same time, I can tell you now that you will lose focus, get burnt out or just can’t keep up with them. Don’t try it.

Blogging (Big Time Investment)

I briefly want to mention using a blog to make money from affiliate marketing. Don’t do this unless you have a lot of time and a lot of patience.

It takes a huge amount of effort to build a blog to a sizable audience (Upgradereality.com took a year to get to 2000 subscribed readers).

2000 readers may sound like a lot, but the truth is that only 0.1% – 4% of your audience buys what you recommend to them (depending on how good your relationship with your readers is and how relevant your product is to their needs and desires).

That means that of 2000 readers only 2-80 people will buy something. If I make $20 per sale, then I could make $1600 or I could make $40 per affiliate link that I promote on my blog. ($1600 would be sweet but it’s pretty unrealistic in most cases).

To sum up, blogging can definitely make you money from affiliate marketing, but it takes an incredible amount of time and effort. Count on 18 months and a heck of a lot of writing and networking before you make good money from blogging and affiliate marketing.

Finding Products To Promote

Pretty much anything that you can think of has an affiliate program.

You can promote books, movies and gadgets from Amazon.

You can promote information products and courses from Clickbank.

You can even promote my Upgrade Reality ebook here.

The best way is to first find a niche and keyword, and then search for a relevant product that you can promote. A quick Google search with “YOUR NICHE + affiliate program” will give you plenty to work with.

*TIP* – always promote a product that provides value and helps your prospect solve their problem or desire. If you sell junk to people, you are not making this world a better place.

Affiliate marketing is something that everyone can do. Even if you just free up one hour a day and spend it promoting your links, then you can build up a nice income of a few hundred dollars or a few thousand dollars a month.

It will take work and effort. Nothing happens overnight. But affiliate marketing could just help you create your own financial independence.

The Affiliate Marketing For Beginners Course

I wrote this post to give you as much of an understanding as possible about the concept of affiliate marketing.

Unfortunately I cannot write enough words here to guide you step by step through the entire process of how to start making money as an affiliate.

The Good News:

My good friend Corbett Bar created an excellent course about affiliate marketing.

Corbett used to work in a corporate job but decided to quit and pursue his own projects. He built up his online business in just 18 months and is making $xx xxx per month from online. The majority of his income comes from affiliate marketing, which is why I recommend learning from him. He knows what he is doing and is not some scammy internet marketer like the majority of the “Make Money Online” crowd.

Corbett spent months developing an affiliate marketing course for beginners. It teaches you all the fundamentals and gives step by step instructions and tutorials that you can follow and use to start making money by affiliate marketing.

If you are interested in learning the basics and fundamentals about affiliate marketing, I highly recommend Corbett’s Affiliate Marketing For Beginners Course. (Click Here)

I wish you good luck with your affiliate marketing journey!

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