I used to be addicted to day planners.

The beautiful leather, the tabs, the magic of managing my time and contacts…it was intoxicating.  I kicked it nearly cold turkey after I got my iPhone 3.

But recently my little iPhone 4 has been struggling under the weight of the old paradigm of “contact management”.

Today instead of 30 or 40 close contacts, I have shallow relationships with 2000 people.  Deepening that connection is where the value lies.  The interconnection of social media is either a curse or a blessing depending on what one uses to interpret that information.

I am testing a cool relationship management platform called Mingly.

It reminds me to reconnect with people.  It shows me the last time I interacted with someone and what we said.  When I finally reach out to someone it show me what’s going on in their life.  So cool…so powerful.

You might like it.  Try it out for free and play around with it.  How can you deepen the connection with the hundreds of shallow relationships around you?  This might become your favorite tool for that.

I’ll keep you posted.  If you test it, let me know what you like best about it.

I grew up hearing the phrase “When the hell are you gonna grow up?”.

It made me mad.

I used to argue with my father all the time.  I just knew that AC-DC was the greatest music on Earth.  I thought I was smart and knew everything.   I thought I was smarter than my father until I was age 24.  Getting rejected from a job interview at Radio Shack opened my eyes that maybe I wasn’t as smart as I thought I was.  My father was principal of a high school at the same age as I was deemed too dumb to sell batteries.  My opinion of my dad changed.  I realized what concepts like work ethic, patience, sacrifice and focus meant.

For the past 20 years I have invested a lot of my time hanging out with people at least 20 years older than me.  I find great wisdom in studying the lives of the Baby Boomers.  I can see with my eyes bad choices like the impact of excess.  The visible damage of vices is evident.  Lack of discipline in health, fitness and finances are glaring when you hang out with friends a generation or two older than you.

In the past few weeks I have been interviewing 20 year old students for a summer intern position with my internet company.  I can’t stop shaking my head and wondering if I was as dumb as these kids at their age.  No wonder they wouldn’t let me sell batteries.  Imagine that kid in the photo above with a long mullet down to his shoulders, an earing and a Metallica t-shirt.  Good grief my poor father must have wondered if I was retarded at times.

Parents, take heart.  There is hope for your hammerhead kid.  It took me years of reading books and listening to audios to turn the trainwreck of my life around.  But if I did it, so can your 20 year old.

Practice patience.  A hug is 6 inches above a kick in the ass.

Friday morning…how’s your week going?

Today is a COACHING CALL-IN day!

I have set aside 6 hours to help the readers of my blog, my friends, and my coaching clients to focus and plan and grow their businesses.  Could you use a little help today?  No charge of course.

What’s missing from your master plan?

What’s working, but could be improved?

What’s bugging you?

What’s the big scary goal that frightens you?

I am here to help from 10 am to 4 pm EST today.

Skype me at “teamdragonslayer”, or IM me through Facebook.

http://FB.com/davidledoux

First come, first served.   If I don’t respond right away be patient.  I’m here and ready to serve you.

Let’s dig at the root today, shall we?

Standing by.

I appreciate you!

David

p.s.  if you don’t use skype or Facebook IM, just go out on your front porch and yell as loud as you can, I’ll do my best to hear you.

I remember seeing guys at grappling tournaments spitting into a cup an hour before weigh-ins, desperately trying to dry out and lose that last pound to make weight.  I’m the guy on the left with the grey in his beard.  I was beating the shit out of the guy on the right 16-0 until I got cocky and he caught me in an arm bar…the popping noise in the joint is never a good thing.

In June 2008 I cut 21 pounds in 17 days to drop from 163 pounds to 142.  I couldn’t even eat cake at my 40th birthday party.   Absolute misery.  I lost the Canadian National Sanshou Championships by 1 point after having my nose busted in the first 4 seconds of that match.

No, this weight loss is different.  I used my iPhone.

I have a free app called MyFitnessPal.  I recorded every scrap of food that got shovelled into my vortex in the app.  I lost five pounds in 10 days without changing a thing.  It’s a magic app that converts your iPhone into a diet wand.

Hate to punch keys on a phone?  Try taking a photo of everything that goes into your mouth for 2 weeks.  Go ahead, try it.

Does it work?

Doesn’t losing weight take expensive diets and personal trainers and fancy food?

Can you really lose weight with a free iPhone app?  Or just a phone camera?

Try it religiously for 21 days and report back.  Don’t take my word for it.  The diet business is a billion dollar industry.  Test, question, and think for yourself.

‎“Unless we’re willing to think we shall have to work, & the less we think the more we shall work, & the less we shall earn for our work.” – C. Haanel.

That includes affirmations, meditations, and contemplations.

So I like to narrow it down to one word for the day.

Today’s word is COURAGE.

• how can I face difficulty with spirit and enthusiasm?
• how can I be bold?
• where have I overcome adversity in the past?

Today I will think about COURAGE.

What will you think about?

A lady from  Thailand popped in, blasted a quick spam, and then vanished.

Forum spam?  How 1998.

A couple of the lads got furious.  A few of us <ahem> more mature marketers chuckled.

It’s tempting to fall into the trap of believing that “this time it’s different”.  Now that I have actual hair growing in tufts inside my ears, I’ve gained enough personal mileage to know that most things don’t change.  It just seems like it changes.

Want some instant wisdom?  Read a self-help book from at least a century ago.  It’s astonishing to read The Science of Getting Rich and not marvel at how fast life was getting in 1904.  Lightposts on street corners.  Horseless carriages.  Women allowed to leave the house without an escort. It was a golden age, was it not?

I recently found an iPhone app called “Self Help Classics”.  You get 31 books for the price of a can of aeresol Cheez Whiz and package of beef jerkey.  It’s in the app store.  I use it as part of my morning success routine.  I invest 15 minutes each morning reading a classic and making notes in my journal.  Today was chapter 17 of The Master Key System.  Powerful way to start the day.

Note To Internet Marketers:  if you’re feeling “stuck” in your online business, let me know.  Sometimes a slap upside the head is all you need.  You can find me on Skype at “teamdragonslayer”.

I remember my teacher explaining how the world works very clearly.

Go to high school.

Go to university.

Get a job with a big corporation.

Work for 44 years.  Take 2 weeks off per year.  Pay off your mortgage while saving money and investing in the stock market.

Retire comfortably at age 65 with a secure government pension, a paid off home, plus the weekly interest payouts from your savings.

Looking back, it’s a wonder she didn’t tell me the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus were real.

If you’re age 20 and reading this, look around.  Is this how the world works that you live in?

If you’re age 40 and reading this, look around.  Did we buy into a huge lie?

If you’re age 65 and reading this, congratulations.

I was relaxing in Florida just 7 short weeks ago, and everywhere I looked were retired people.  I would estimate that 95% of them wished they had some extra money in their pocket to enjoy in their golden years.  If I stood at the fishing pier in the yacht club handing out Ben Franklin notes to seniors, how many would wave their tanned hands at me and exclaim, “No thanks son, I’ve got plenty!”.

If you and I were born a century ago, we could get in front of trends like the Industrial Age, cars, planes, railways, jazz and whiskey,  Today we can use our noggins and get in front of massive trends like the graying of America, micro-entrepreneurs, robots, and things that Baby Boomers shove into their pie holes.

Today I find people entering the home based business industry are dealing with overwhelm, frustration and confusion.  They throw money needlessly at webinars, training programs, and gurus with little return.

I am kept busy helping friends get unstuck more than ever.   It’s no longer a matter of looking for people who want to start online businesses…nowadays it’s a matter of teaching focus, clarity and concentration.  How do you deal with being overloaded?

Do you know anyone who desperately wants to build an online business who is dealing with the dreaded overwhelm?

Tell them to get my free newsletter.

I will help them.

…”Yea but I know a guy who says….”

Really?

Does he just say it will be easy to sell you something?

Listen to your intuition.

Your nervous system is smarter than your belief system.

That’s all we get.  Same for you, me, a pothead or a bodybuilder, a millionaire or a pauper.  168 hours.  Where does it go?

Today I am going to pay attention.

Today I am going to watch for vampires and moochers who try to steal my time.  I will say “no thank you” today.  I will protect my time and look for ways to leverage it and enjoy it.

Instead of thinking “time management” I will think “lifestyle optimization”.

What do I want?  What do I NOT want?

What’s the highest use of my valuable time?

Sometimes making a list of what you DON’T want is smarter.  Isn’t it amazing how other people’s dramas and agendas become yours if you don’t have a plan?

I read a quote early this morning when I was doing my pre-dawn routine.  It struck me as poignant and I wrote it in my journal, then tweeted it.

“Learn to keep the door shut, keep out of your mind and out of your world every element that seeks admittance with no definite helpful end in view.” G.M. Adams