“It was the best of times, and it was the worst of times”, wrote Charles Dickens.

That’s exactly how it has felt for the last couple of years.

On one hand, my wife’s father, and both my parents – all passed away in a span of 3 years, leaving our kids with no grandparents, and leaving us utterly devastated.

And on the other hand, my career has gone from good to Great to UNBELIEVABLE! (including the ALL CAPS & “exclamation point”). My wife and I both have been able to quit high-paying jobs, become full-time entrepreneurs, move to beautiful and pleasantly sunny San Diego, California. We work full time from home, we’re always there when the kids come home from school, we eat lunch together as a family every single day, we basically do whatever the heck we want, whenever we want – all while we grew our business by 1,000% (yup, one thousand percent) in less than 1.5 years.

So yes, it has been the best of times, and it has been the worst of times. A very big roller coaster ride.

And as the year comes to an end, I have been reflecting on where to go from here.

From a career perspective, I do have a best-selling book under my belt, a successful online business together with my wife, and am part of a wonderful community of customers, associates, partners, peers, and fans (yup, I apparently have some fans too!)

I am looking to take my personal brand to a new level this forthcoming year: I plan on doing more blogging, more speaking, more consulting and more coaching. And it was during this time that I happened upon a course called “Experts Academy” being promoted by a person named Brendon Burchard.

I was first introduced to Brendon’s products earlier this year when all of the big marketers in the industry were promoting his product. I received an email from at least 20 different people pitching his product “in my face”.

To be honest, I was a little turned off at that point. Plus I was in a different place in my life at that point, and did not give it further thought.

Over the months to follow, after the hype had died down and the launch had ended, I somehow kept running into Brendon’s videos, audio and other content from time to time, and the more I watched and absorbed his material, the more his brand grew on me. And I found the stuff he was teaching to be something not too many people taught (or taught like he did), very powerful and eye-opening – even for me, someone who has “been there, done that” in the online marketing world.

So this time around, when I found out that he’s re-opening the doors, the timing couldn’t have been more perfect.

I’m in a place right now where I am looking to actively and aggressively go into the “Expert” space, and launch more products in the coaching, consulting and seminar space.

This is exactly what the doctor ordered for me. And I have already decided to buy the course. Most people would consider it “expensive”, but for me, it’s going to be pretty “cheap”, because this is exactly what I’ve been wanting to learn, courses like this from someone who has proven themselves are rare to come by, genuinely good people like Brendon are even rarer, and the value I’m going to be getting from this is going to be so immense, that it is going to be the best gift I’ve bought myself in a long time.

Going by his free videos, his reputation, and his results, I predict this is going to be the product of the year. And if you could purchase just one thing over the next entire year, then let it be this one.

Even if you don’t buy the course, it would be crazy not to at least check out the bucket-loads of amazing free coaching that he’s giving away as part of this product launch. And as you watch each video, be sure to study the whole launch strategy – especially the “12 positioning tools” video that teaches how to market yourself as a a high-value, highly-paid expert starting starting today.

I have never, ever watched any “how-to” video for longer than 10-15 minutes at a time – ever. But I watched the first video which is like 45+ minutes long, in one sitting, completely mesmerized, furiously taking notes, while my brain was going so nuclear with all of the possibilities, that it could’ve probably powered my entire San Diego neighborhood!

Oh, and use this free FireFox plugin (one of my favorites) to download the launch videos, as even the free information is just too good to be skipped and forgotten. You will be watching them many times over, so make sure you save them to your computer for offline viewing.

- Ravi Jayagopal

P.S: So Where You At? What have you planned for 2011?
Do comment below.

PPS: Some of the links in this blog may result in an affiliate earning for this web site. We do not recommend products for the sake of earning a commission. Rather it’s the other way around. When we want to recommend something, we check if they have an affiliate program. If not, we recommend it anyway.

Do you sometimes bitch and complain and whine about your life?

If only your parents had given you the right education…

If only you were given your due recognition at work…

If only your family loved you…

If only you had more customers…

If only you had more people promoting your product…

If only you had a super-affiliate sending out emails to millions…

If only you knew how to write sales copy…

If only, if only, if only….

Here’s something that will help you stop bitching, and start counting your blessings.

Here’s how you “Work with what you’ve got”.

And trust me, you’ve already got a LOT!

The “3 Foot Giant”:

Life Without Limbs:

Once you’ve read this, also check out this post.

I believe it is critically important to have role models, teachers, mentors, gurus, leaders, spiritual guides – from whom we can draw courage, inspiration, enlightenment, guidance – in times of need at various stages of our life.

So here’s a short list of my role models, who have all tremendously inspired me, taught me, and given me courage in difficult/tough/desperate/sad/challenging times.

Times when I ask myself…

What would Nick Vujicic do?

What would Seth Godin do?

What would Steve Jobs do?

And of course, I never stop thinking this….

What would my beloved Father do? (And what is he doing now?)

- Ravi

I have a friend whose main purpose in life is to find deals and bargains and cut costs.

He once spent several weeks filling out an insane number of really long forms and processing rebate information, for a mail-in rebate promotion for a laptop. And he purchased that crappy, low-end laptop because that was the only one which had a mail-in rebate promotion available.

On top of that, he then wasted hundreds of hours in lost productivity because of the terrible performance of the low-end crappy machine which was very slow and kept crashing because it didn’t have enough memory and other resources.

He spends at least an hour a day looking at how else he can save money.

Switching his Phone, TV and Internet services from Cable Co. to Phone Co. when the former has a new customer promo. Then 6 months later, when the promo expires, switch back all of his services – Phone, TV and Internet – back from Phone Co. to Cable Co.

He is on the phone several hours a week, asking companies for discounts, looking for deals, filling out rebate forms, browsing online for deals, clipping coupons, driving tens of miles because some store somewhere is selling something for less, spending several hours during the weekend picking up used free stuff that people would rather give away (than trash them) on Craigslist.

He is the ultimate money-saving-machine. And he probably saved about $3,000 by being on top of his game.

The Flip Side

And during that same time, I have created 3 new products, tripled the size of my mailing list, wrote blog posts which brought me new paying clients and business contacts, improved several of my existing products, re-wrote and optimized multiple sales pages, launched 2 new membership sites with paying members, gave away my book for free online and still ended up selling several hundred digital copies, and made thousands in profits, and primed my business to make several tens of thousands more within the next few months. You could say roughly about $20,000 in profits in the same time frame.

$3,000 SAVING money.

- OR -

$20,000 MAKING money.

Doh!

Incredibly exciting, inspiring, and motivational video. 50% of the credit goes to the music and the “style” of presentation.

[Update on 09/19/2009: See the video that I just found on YouTube at the end...]

Original Post from 07/08/2006…

Everytime you are ready to give up, every time you think:

• I am too tired right now…
• I am too sleepy right now…
• I am too hungry right now…
• I am not feeling too well…
• I don’t have the strength…
• I don’t have the time…
• I don’t have the money…
• I don’t have the patience…
• I don’t have the will …
• I just need one last puff…
• I just need one last drink…
• My parents didn’t give me the education…
• My parents didn’t give me the right values…
• God didn’t give me the looks…
• God didn’t give me the intelligence…
• God didn’t give me the talent…
• God didn’t give me the skill…
• God didn’t give me the gift of…
• I can’t…
• I won’t…
• I am not…

Every time you catch yourself saying one of the things above, just think of this guy:

“There were times when I felt depressed and angry because I couldn’t change the way I was, or blame anyone for that matter. I went to Sunday School and learnt that God loves us all and that He cares for you. I understood that love to a point as a child, but I didn’t understand that if God loved me why did He make me like this?

Is it because I did something wrong? I thought I must have because out of all the kids at school, I’m the only weird one. I felt like I was a burden to those around me and the sooner I go, the better it’d be for everyone. I wanted to end my pain and end my life at a young age, but I am thankful once again, for my parents and family who were always there to comfort me and give me strength.”

….

“I have many dreams and goals that I have set to achieve in my life. I want to become the best witness I can be of God’s Love and Hope, to become an international inspirational speaker and be used as a vessel in both Christian and non-Christian venues. I want to become financially independent by the age of 25, through real estate investments, to modify a car for me to drive and to be interviewed and share my story on the “Oprah Winfrey Show”! Writing several best-selling books has been one of my dreams and I hope to finish writing my first by the end of the year. It will be called “No Arms, No Legs, No Worries!”

Are you capable of inspiring others like this? Would you be capable of inspiring others like this at least before you die?

Start on the path today – the path of doing something to make yourself worthy enough of inspiring others. If not tomorrow, someday you will be successful, I promise.

My hat’s off to Nick Vujicic, my newest Guru Drona .

Update on 09/19/2009:

Just found this video on YouTube. This one brought tears to my eyes.