Archive for March, 2010

This is Part 2 of the series. Get Part 1 here!

#5 Roboform/ 1password (mac)

This software is a Godsend and has probably saved me hundreds of hours (no exaggeration!) in the past 5 years. It remembers your passwords, sites and all your details so you can fill out those peskily long forms instantly! It even submits the form for you once its filled out. Works with Internet Explorer and Firefox but to date no compatibility with Google Chrome or Opera. Security is high as you can set your master passwords to protect everything if your computer gets stolen, and its easy to backup and import/export if you ever need to change computers or reformat.

For the Mac, you can’t go past 1password which has similar functionality to Roboform!

#4 Kitchen Timer

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During the start of my Personal Development Journey, I once heard Zig Ziglar say ‘turn your car into a university on wheels’. Almost 10 years later, I’ve fully embraced that philosophy and had the pleasure of learning from some of the world’s best minds in my transit time.

The average ‘working’ person spends 1.5 – 2 hours in their car PER DAY, which translates into 40 hours per month, or 480 hours per year! This is the equivalent of 15, yes you read right – FIFTEEN – University Semester courses you could have taken!

Tim Ferriss, in the updated and expanded edition of the Four Hour Work Week which I just finished, wrote of people becoming fluent in multiple languages, just by having language learning courses in their car!! How cool is that?

In this article, I’m going to share with you how I get even more bang for my buck.

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Here are some of the tools I use regularly to run my online businesses.

Thought I’d make this post a little more practical, and give you some recommendations that you can implement right now. I’ve been making a living online now for the past 5 years, and although there’s still a long way to go for me, there have been some great tools that have helped me along the way.
These are the absolute critical items in my arsenal.

Great news is many of them are free or cost less than $100.

If I’ve missed any that you deem to be essential, please leave a comment and tell me!

So here they are:

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Lately I’ve been asked alot how I got to interview so many great experts.

If you’ve never heard of me before, I’ve interviewed over 30 gurus and experts in all areas including, bestselling authors, movie stars, investors, business owners, speakers and more from all over the world. The beautiful thing is, when I first started nobody had ever heard of me. So, how did I manage to score so many high profile interviewees?

I’ll share some of my insights with you in this article.

First, start by practising with one of your friends. Watch Oprah. Watch Barbara Walters. Or any other well respected interviewer you like, and see how they seamlessly carry on a flowing conversation without really knowing much about the topic at all!

Once you’re confident you can start the following process

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You’ve probably heard it time and time again – “How do I demarcate between my personal life and business life on Facebook?”

It’s a very good question. And from the experts I’ve interviewed, a difficult one to answer.

In a perfect world, everyone would have a detailed business plan on their Facebook strategy before they signed up. But things don’t work that way, and that’s why you’ll find many entrepreneurs, actors, leaders and generally ‘famous’ people have varying degrees of usage.

You’ll often find yourself shocked at what one of your ‘professional’ colleagues post, or even super impressed with another’s skill or talent or travel adventures. Boundaries are crossed left right and centre. And there are people judging you – for better or worse – all the time.

There are some who use Facebook purely for business purposes. Every post, every photo, every link is painfully scrutinised. If it doesn’t in some way establish that person’s message or branding or business, it just doesn’t make the cut.

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Last weekend I was at a party and got round to meeting some of the esteemed guests there.

I got speaking to a store owner who owned one of Brisbane’s boutique cake shops. After pleasantries were exchanged, she asked me some of the things I did, and I ended up telling her about some of the incredible interviews with wealthy people I’ve done lately. I told her I’ve done close to 30 interviews now, from people ranging in net worth from $1 – $50 million dollars.

She was very interested and realized the scale of wisdom I’ve been privileged to encounter. What came next really got me thinking:

“West, tell me one thing that you would say is the major distinction you’ve observed that distinguishes these people from the rest.”

I thought to myself: “Great question!!”

My answer surprised even me. And although I don’t think it’s the all encompassing answer, it certainly is right up there in my reflections of the key traits.

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