Let’s be clear: when you’re in the market for a certain product, *especially* a nice new laptop, there’s plenty of reasons to sell yourself into buying a product with very little convincing from a salesperson. Today was a perfect example for my partner, who’s in the market to buy a nice new portable laptop.

In this post, I’m going to talk about:

• Marketing through scarcity – Apple and Costco
• What went wrong with the marketing strategy and the launch of the new ASUS Zenbook, more importantly will this impact upon ASUS’s profitability of this product?
• The overall result for the consumer, including the perception of loyalty of the ASUS brand

The element of scarcity: no, you can’t have it!!

How crushing is the feeling that what’s advertised isn’t available for purchase? It’s the balance between supply and demand and the element of scarcity that can convince us to make spur of the moment purchases on items that may even be over priced. This is a strategy that Apple uses very well. Why does Apple get hundreds of people lining up to buy their products? It’s because they create a limited supply. If you don’t buy now, you’ll have to wait – and you might be waiting a while!

Now I’m not one who has joined this long line, but I can completely understand the reason why. If you’re already sold on the product and you’re happy to part with your hard earned cash, you’ll go to every length to get what you want. The thought of us being told ‘no’ makes us want the product even more.

I can relate to this strategy myself, after a recent visit to the new exclusive ‘members only’ Costco store that recently opened in Canberra. Yes, you’re allowed to browse, but if you want to make a purchase then you’ll have to fork out $60 to become a member first. So here I am happily browsing products knowing that I am not actually allowed to buy. What did I do? Sign up of course… How dare you tell me no! I think we are programmed to avoid feeling like we are ‘missing out’.

A similar strategy is also used in the online marketing world. Sales letters need to ‘close’ the sale by making you take immediate action, otherwise you’ll miss out. What would make you do that? Telling you that an offer is only available now – done by limiting one or more of the terms of the sale: a limited number or products or a limited time frame. Why? If we had forever and a day to buy, would you? Unless the marketing for a product makes you want it straight away, would you think to come back in a week? A Month? Would you remember at all?

ASUS Zen: a marketing fail or marketing win?

After stumbling upon the ASUS promotions team with their fancy holographic like promo display screens, we were instantly drawn to take a further look. It’s the release of their new ASUS Zen series laptops. My partner was instantly hooked. As told by the young woman, the laptop was now available in three stores: Harvey Norman, Dick Smith and JB Hi-Fi.

Having already researched competing models, he decided that this was it. The decision was already made. It was time to go shopping. After investigating all three stores, the result was clear: most stores didn’t have stock or only just the base model machines.

On return to the ASUS promotions team, we quizzed the young woman about the availability of the laptop for purchase online. “I don’t know, I’m not sure” was the reply. On further investigation, it was clear that it wasn’t available for purchase online yet. Hence, the element of scarcity.

But is this really a good type of scarcity, or just a marketing fail? Apple obviously knows their projected sales, and only release a percentage of their product to purposely create scarcity. I think for the case of ASUS, it was just poor marketing. Why start actively promoting something if you can’t even pre-order? In the case of JB Hi-Fi, they didn’t even have the product listed in their system yet.

What was the result? Frustration & annoyance. Instead of making my partner want the laptop even more, he decided to look at alternative brands. In the end however, the ASUS Zenbook is still the favourite and he has since decided to wait.

My question to you is: take a similar experience and multiply it across the majority of ASUS’s market, and what would the overall result be? Would you switch to another brand? Is the marketing behind ASUS Zen strong enough to hold interest in the product, just like purchases from Apple fans? Check out the product at http://zenbook.asus.com/design and leave your comment below.

Over the last few weeks I’ve been traveling throughout Europe with my MacBook close to hand.  I’m ALMOST living my dream of ‘living’ from my laptop! From traveling to places like London, Paris, Switzerland, Nice, Monaco, Rome and Venice and Norway the experience is quite overwhelming to say the least!

So if you’ve built your own business and you plan on working while traveling, is it possible?

Here are a few tips:

One thing that I’m clear on is that without the Internet, things don’t happen! McDonalds is your best friend. As much as I despise McDonalds at the best of times, and the thought of eating a big Mac is horrible when you’ve in a foreign country.  In France, all you need to be is passing by a McDonalds and you can easily connect. In Italy, we gave up. Apparently they do have Wi-Fi points, but I never had any success.

Keep your passport handy. I’ve heard that Internet cafes in Italy request to see your passport first so they can track you back to the sites you visit!  We didn’t actually go to an Internet café. Many local coffee shops provide free Wi-Fi to customers, so a tip is to keep an eye on what Wi-Fi networks appear in your area and try to match the network name with a café nearby. Also look for a ‘Wi-Fi’ sign as you scout for a coffee!

Keep your valuables safe. I’m probably a little bit on the ‘too cautious’ side and keep my valuables close to me – probably after being told too many horror stories! Generally, it seems if you going to be in a large crowd (like the Rome metro or major tourist spots), keep your pockets almost empty and carry your backpack on your front. You’ll feel more secure!

Working while on tour doesn’t mix. I agree it’s great to make use of travel time to be productive. The thing I’ve found the past few weeks is that this can be quite a difficult task. Especially after undertaking a tour of Europe (rather than going at my own steady pace). When you are on tour, you’ve got many people talking to you, you aren’t on your own time and you don’t get what I often need – some ‘down’ time.  So in reality, even in transit, my time wasn’t overly productive. Don’t forget how exhausted you may feel and the temptation to sleep may be strong!

Ideal conditions for mixing work and travel

• Don’t race around the world. If you have created a global / portable business, then plan your travel to accommodate sufficient time for you to be ‘productive’ (and go on a tour that gives you plenty of free time).
• Plan ahead. If you get can cheap Wi-Fi from your hotel, this will save major headaches!
• Expect to have some sort of delays or limited access to the internet. You won’t know how addicted you are until you can’t connect!
• If you are going to be on the go on a regular basis, you’ll want to still be contactable (and to make phone calls cheaply). I’ve found the best solution was to sign up for a regular skype plan that enables you to make unlimited calls. I’ve got the ‘Unlimited World’ which allows me to call landlines all over the world for AU $15 a month. You can also get yourself a local skype number so that people back home can call you on this number. If you aren’t available, then the call goes to voicemail and Skype sends you an email alerting you that you’ve missed a call.  I think this is a great solution!

If you make work and travel mix together without hiccups, then I’d love to hear from you. Leave a comment below!

I’ve decided to create a video in Animoto to highlight the year that was 2010 for me. At the same time, I thought I would show you how easy it is!

To create a video, you’ll need to sign up for an account via Animoto.com (affiliate link)

Step one: Plan your video

Before we dive into Animoto and start creating, I would recommend taking the time to plan or script your video. You don’t need to spend too much time on this process, but having a good understanding of how you will organise your video will make it much easier when you get to the point of editing your video. Think about the overall message that you would like to portray, and who is your intended audience? Are they your friends and family? Are they business associates?

Look over your photo library and identify what images you could use. Start thinking of some catchy captions! Note: Animoto restricts text to two lines per screen, with 22 characters on the first line, and 30 characters on the second. If you need more room, you may need to either have multiple text screens for your message, or create an image in Photoshop, and type set your text from there. If you want to release your video online, or share your video in anyway, you may want to plan ahead your audio options – do you use royalty free music or music licensed under Creative Commons? Note: Animoto does have a stock library built in, so if you aren’t too sure yet, you can always pick one from their music library and know that the music police won’t chase after you!

Step two: Click on ‘create video’

Once you have a basic idea on the structure of your video, you can choose a video style. There are quite a few to choose from, ranging from special holiday themes to more generic everyday themes. I recommend browsing through a couple, and work out what style fits with your message. Once you’ve picked a theme, all you need to do there is click create. I’m going to choose the theme called ‘simplicity’.

Step three: Select your imagery

You can select from either their stock image and video library or you can upload your own clips. For me, I want this to be personalised, so that’s why I’m going to upload images from my computer. Click on ‘upload from your computer’, and navigate to your pictures or video folder. Note: depending on the speed of your internet connection, it may take a while for the images or video to upload.

Once you’ve uploaded all your images and created text screens using the text tool, you may need to shuffle your images around so that your sequence flows logically. All you need to do is drag and drop! (Just think, in the days of analogue video editing, editors would manually cut (with scissors) the tape and tape it up with another to create a sequence. Imagine how time consuming that would have been!)

Step four: Select your music

We now need to select the music to go with our images. You have two options: you can either select from their library or upload your own music clip in MP3 format.  Typically, the length of your audio will be the length of your video, so keep that in mind!

Just a reminder that if you upload your favourite music, you cannot legally distribute it to your friends online if it is protected by certain copyright laws. As mentioned earlier, I would recommend using royalty free or creative commons music.

Step five: Pacing

The majority of the pacing of the video will be generated on the fly dependent on the type of music that you select. What a time saver!  There are a few settings that you do have control over, including:

i.      “Image pacing”: “1/2 speed”  “Normal speed”, and “2x speed” – I recommend normal speed unless you want your images to appear extra slow or fast.

ii.     “Video Length: “Short” or “Full Length” – I recommend full length, as this will use the entire audio (that’s if you have sufficient images at the right pacing). If you want a short ‘preview’ of your video, then you might want to select “short”.

iii.     “Video Style” = If you wish to choose a different style, you can still change this now.

iv.     “Options” = Tick . We wanna hide the logo, so there’s no Animoto branding appearing on the video. Note: this feature requires you to upgrade your account to a paid membership.

v.     Then click ”continue”

You can type in a brief title and description, remembering you can always change this later if you plan to download and re-upload to other video hosting sites like Youtube / Facebook. Then, click on “create video”.

Step six: Render the video

As you can see, it’s really quite an easy process.  You will be sent an email when the video has finished rendering and is available for your to view. If you upgrade your account, you’ll be able to download full length videos in high-definition without any Animoto branding!  You could then burn this to a DVD, send it to your friends and family, and even post it to Youtube or Facebook, etc. But, I hope that gave you a very good overview of how simple this process can be!

Just a final note: any link contained within this page is an affiliate link, which means if you do later decide to sign up for the Pro account, a small portion of the amount you pay will go to me. I hope this post was valuable and I am happy to answer any of your questions. Thank you!

Then again, just spending time on social media isn’t necessarily going to make an impact. Ever watched the clock tick by and wonder what happened with the last three hours of your life?

That’s why I completely understand now that if you are ready to bring your business ‘online’ and connect with a limitless audience, you firstly need to fully understand your desired outcome and follow through with a set strategy. First impressions matter. If you don’t fully understand your message, or your intended audience, then take the time out to do your homework and make your voice consistent from day one. This book can assist!

I really think the above quote summarises the complete shift from over-the-top advertisements to a user driven community where brands/identities and icons are openly discussed. The brand owner needs to be an active participant in the discussion and add value rather than the traditional ‘pitch pitch pitch… sell sell sell’.
 
Here’s a perfect example of the shift in marketing online: I’m going to give you a link to the Amazon page for this book, and make it very clear that if you buy the book through the link, a very small portion will be sent to me as an affiliate. I’m going to recommend the book not because I want you to buy it so I can make a few cents, but rather I’m sharing a useful resource that may help you. I’m not going to create a flashing icon for you to buy, because then it would appear I’m more a salesperson rather than trying to share information. Honesty and authenticity can take you a long way in today’s online world!

What are your thoughts on this strategy? Have you used it in your business?

Anyway, I’m not here to give away the juicy bits of this book, so if you’d like to read more, you can grab a copy from Amazon.

These are questions that have been running in my head for some time, and I’ve finally taken action. If you are considering registering your own business or company, and are TOTALLY confused by the process, I’m hoping this article will help.

Warning:

I’m definitely not qualified to give advice on this topic – so any information contained within this article is for information only, I would suggest seeking your own advice before taking action.  I do not guarantee the validity of any of the information contained within this post.

The Basics:

If you want to form a business in Australia, then you have the following three options:

1.       Registering  as a Sole Trader

2.       Registering a Partnership

3.       Registering  a Company

Register as a Sole Trader

Let’s get this straight, a sole trader is NOT a company. It’s a business that is solely owned by you and you only. “You” are the business. You are legally reliable for anything that happens in your business. Yes, that means debt collectors may take away your precious couch and TV if you get into some serious debt. If that doesn’t worry you, it probably is one of the easiest ways to start a business.

Naming your business

As a sole trader, you will have two options when it comes to naming your business. Firstly, you can register your own name (by signing up for a free ABN), or registering a business trading name if you would rather not trade under your actual name.  However, business names aren’t free! To register a business name, you’ll need to sign up for the name dependent on what state you’ll be doing business in.

Here’s a list of sites

• Business name registration in Queensland
• Business name registration in New South Wales
• Business name registration in the Australian Capital Territory
• Business name registration in the Northern Territory
• Business name registration in South Australia
• Business Name registration in Western Australia
• Business Name registration in Victoria

Personally, I chose against registering a Sole Trader business. Later on, it will become clear as to why. However, if your capital is very limited and you feel that you need to make a start, a Sole Trader business might be your best option.

Advantages:

• Cheap to setup
• Less paperwork (always a good thing!)

Disadvantages:

• You ARE directly liable for everything
• Your business will die with you

Register as a Partnership

So, you want to go into business with a business partner? You might assume that a partnership refers to two people running a business. In fact, you can have up to 20 partners. However, the inherent issues with a Sole Trader business also carry over into a Partnership.  To put it bluntly, each partner puts their life on the line for each other, as one bad business decision will affect all partners. Not necessarily a nice thought!  A partnership may work in your example, but make sure your partners all compliment the business and work in harmony. You don’t want things to end in an ugly mess.

Advantages:

• Cheap to setup
• Wider pool of resources

Disadvantages:

• Your bad business decisions can affect your partner
• Their business decisions can affect YOU
• The partnership may end if a partner leaves the business

Company Structure (Pty Ltd, ACN)

Bingo! That’s the structure I’ve registered. I believe there is a lot of unnecessary assumed complexity in registering a company. To be honest, the entire process was complete in about 20 minutes and a few minutes later I received all the paperwork by email. I was a little bit shocked by how fast it was approved!

If you want to be in your market long term (and you expect your business to boom), then you should ultimately aim to transition your business to a company structure if you didn’t initially sign it up as one.

The best explanation I’ve heard of a company structure was from Ian Daley (investor / Tax adviser, headed ITP Income Tax Professionals in Queensland for 15 years) who indicated:

“A company is a person. It’s a separate person that cannot die”.  So unlike a Sole Trader or a Partnership, you are basically hiring a security guard to stand in front of you at all times, with the ability to instruct them what to do, and let them take all the hits for you. In order words, you limit your liability.

Advantages:

• You are not DIRECTLY liable, giving you more peace of mind if legal issues arise
• It is now very simple to setup

Disadvantages:

• Increase in the amount of reporting requirements
• Costs more to setup

My deciding factors:

Ultimately, I knew that a company structure was my long term goal. This limits my liability, however forces me to take what was perhaps a ‘hobby’ to something a little more serious knowing that I have to work with the best interests of my company at all times. Little factors of motivation like this ARE important! With the amount of services now setup to fast track the application process in setting up a company structure, you can now register your own company is 20 minutes online (yes, you will pay a little extra for the service).

Getting your business / company structure together isn’t easy. It takes time, knowledge and money. Take the time required to learn the different structures so you’ll be happy with your business structure from day one. This is in no way to be considered a comprehensive guide, and as I said in the beginning, should be taken as information only.

I would highly recommend you research some of the following sites to gain a further understanding:

• ASIC – Starting a Company in Australia
• Passion Computing – Starting a New Business in Australia

Perhaps it’s the perception that blogging is a timewaster, and doesn’t contribute to anything necessarily productive. But all of a sudden a few things have happened to inspire me to change my attitude. That’s what I’m going to discuss below, because I’ve been unnecessarily sending my blog to the gravesite… well before its time!

In this post, I thought I would outline why I’m not / you shouldn’t give up your blog….

You’ll always get visitors even if you don’t post new content.

Ok, so I had a sudden realisation after recently checking my blog stats that even if I haven’t blogged in months, I STILL GET TRAFFIC! Of course it’s not a huge amount, and it’s certainly not growing – but it’s consistent.  It made me realise that if people are still visiting…. still finding me for content that I posted ages ago, then I’m still having an impact on the blogosphere (and maybe… just maybe I’ve helped someone in some away). So, if I give my blog some fresh ideas / regular content, then this will directly coincide with an increase to the number of visitors.

Give value and you shall receive.

Having a look at all my previous posts, it’s a clear winner that the most popular posts are the ones that provide information or answer a question. It’s a nice feeling to think that your experience and expertise can help an anonymous reader!

Comments give you confidence.

Just when you think your blog is dead and buried, someone will find your article interesting and leave a comment thanking you. It made me re-think my approach of ‘ditching my blog’ for more important tasks and gave me a reason to continue blogging (even if it’s not converting to the dollars you had hoped for).

Earning $2 dollars AdSense revenue is better than nothing.

Let’s be honest… if you don’t have an increase in the number of readers, then you cannot convert this into an increase of revenue. However, why not be inspired by the fact that your blog has made a few dollars here and there. It is proof that blogs can make money, just not necessarily big dollars overnight. The point I want to make is, it’s not the amount that matters, it’s the fact that a blog IS converting to revenue. It’s just a matter of scaling this up by introducing more content and work on some back linking strategies. So why was I procrastinating? You tell me!

Your blog is your voice.

I realised that I needed to chance my attitude to blogging. I didn’t fully understand the true value of a blog. It is the opportunity to create, share and distribute our thoughts and opinions to a mass audience. How else can one do this with such ease and for such a small investment?

Patience is a virtue.

It’s very tempting to throw in the towel after blogging for some months and feeling like you haven’t really achieved anything. In all honesty, you have, you just can’t see it yet. It’s like any major project – whether it be the construction of a house or painting a masterpiece, you won’t see results straight away. Even better, the chances of fame through blogging is far more achievable in comparison to becoming a famous artist…. You don’t necessarily have to die before your work is considered valuable!

Photo Credit

Annie Mole Britain Going Blog Crazy : Metro Article

Overall, I think the most important thing that we have to understand is regardless of all the marketing hype that is out there, online businesses and internet marketing will not make you money overnight.

It is just like an offline business in terms of it requiring a lot of research and a lot of planning. It does require an investment of your money as well, but, obviously a far, far less amount.

Let’s look at the top seven mistakes:

1) People buy knowledge, but don’t implement it. What I mean by this is that it’s often all too tempting to follow all the latest news, and all the product launches, and to get excited all the new opportunities out there. Too much hype can lead to too much use of the credit card! I’m implementing a new rule. If I buy an information product, I’m doing my best to implement the knowledge before I go on another buying spree. Implementation is the key word!

2) Not enough research. We’re often told that you need to do lots of research, and then you launch your own product. Sounds simple enough, but actually sticking to this basic rule can be difficult. We think everyone wants what we’ve come up with. We don’t want to prove it, because we have already convinced ourself! So, it’s like inventing something and not testing the market first before spending millions of dollars. Bottom line: until you know your audience agrees with you, don’t invest all your money!

3) Getting bogged down with information overload. If you’re subscribed to all the main internet marketers then you probably have received 20 emails just promoting the one thing on any single given day. Throw in a good mix of many different ideas from other marketers and all of a sudden you’re bombarded! This can be very daunting. In many cases, it might make us want to simply give up. I’ve found the best solution is to take some time out, refocus and review your key goals. This process helps identify all irrelevant content – ready for you to delete… DELETE DELETE DELETE!

4) Trying to do everything ourselves. Yes, I’m a perfectionist. I will often feel like I will never meet my own expectations, so therefore, I’ll never get to the point of distributing my work. So, what I’ve been learning to do is to tell myself “look Joel… things don’t have to be necessarily perfect”. I keep hearing that consistency is far more important than perfection. I agree! I also have decided that I don’t need to be an expert in everything, and have learnt the value of seeking help in our areas of weakness.
5) Not having a consistent routine. I often look at my emails before I action anything else. Big mistake! I’ve realised that I need to start developing a consistent routine (especially if you’re a blogger). The problem is, there are always so many distractions popping up all the time. I’m learning to work around them and schedule — I think the keyword here is ‘schedule, schedule, schedule’. For example – every Tuesday night I produce new content for my blog, whether that be a new video or new podcast, etc. etc. This gets entered into Outlook as a reminder. Trick is – don’t be hard on yourself. If you try and give yourself too much to work on, then you’ll just flip out and won’t get anything completed, which I have known to do in the past.

6) Not having a business plan. Winston Churchill once said “He who fails to plan is planning to fail”. It’s an old saying, but very true. If you don’t have that overall view of where you’re going, you are really going to chase your tail. Think about the example of an offline business. What are your chances of success if you open a corner store without doing prior research? Will you attract the right customers? Will you be in the right location? Unless you strike it lucky, you will need to know your audience and know the numbers. Just like an offline business, do yourself a business plan. What strategies are you gonna implement? How you gonna do it?

7) Letting procrastination rule. Procrastination obviously is a major issue that we all encounter at some form. I think one of the big issues especially for me is to look at one of the reasons as to why I’m procrastinating over something. If you don’t work this out, then you are going to continue the same pattern over and over again (despite your grand intentions). Take a good look at the cause of your procrastion. Am I procrastinating because at the end of the day, I’m too tired and I don’t have any energy left, so I put it off for a rainy day? Is it because I’m not enjoying the task I’m working on and I would rather do something else? Is it a combination of many other factors? A problem stated a problem half solved, right?

I’d love to get your options and your experiences. Please feel free to comment below.

My experience

The problem is that my short term and long term goals are clashing (they are not harmonious!). I’ll explain why…..

My long term goal

• Build my own business
• Travel the world
• Live my passions
• Help others succeed
• ….and the list goes on and on! (I will discuss this more in another vide0)

I have no problems developing long term goals. However, it all goes wrong when I convert this into smaller steps. I’m sure you know what I mean! Does the following description ring true for you?

You come home from a really long day at work, absolutely exhausted. You barely have enough energy to make it through the front door. The first thing you spot is the couch. You collapse. All you need now is a glass of your favourite wine (I’m not a beer person) and a snack. You take a few sips and life feels wonderful. The opportunity for rest is absolute bliss. You turn on the television, pop in a DVD and watch the hours go by.

Meanwhile your dreams are fading away, or being postponed into the distant future. Perhaps I’m dramatising a bit, but this has been my struggle. The requirement for rest seems to outweigh all other goals.

It’s all about motivation

If we really want to succeed, we need our passion and desire for change to outweigh the short term need for relaxation (to put in Tony Robbins terms, it’s what we associate with pain or pleasure). I’m not saying that we shouldn’t take time to relax and unwind, but we shouldn’t allow this process to engulf all of our remaining free time.

Visualise your goals

I’ve found that the more aware of our goals we are, the more likely we will be motivated to work towards them. In order to do this, we need to surround ourselves with reminders that trigger the thought of accomplishing our goal. Our goal needs to make a lasting impression in the front of our mind for an extended period of time. Our decisions are based on what thoughts find their way in our conscious mind.

Reward your small accomplishments

I have found that this is such an important step to follow. How often do we achieve something and forget to pat ourselves on the back? In order to have the drive, the passion to continue, we need to feel like we are making progress. You can create this feeling by celebrating, rewarding yourself on a regular basis when you complete a task that is on track with your goals. Remember, it’s the small things you do that make massive changes in the long term.

What tips do you have that keep you motivated? What is your secret to success? Comments are always welcome

But I would like to share with you his email. (I hope you don’t mind Chris!)

Hi

I was inspired mostly my your youtube video today … to do something like you – which i think we can all do and all make a passive income if we focus on something we really like.

I have a q-link and i also live it but what i don’t have right now is a website to get started – so i guess I’m approaching you for advice on how to make an attractive webpage just like yours

i really think you have done a great job and that it’s about time to step back into your focus and put that sunrise video up.

thanks for any info you send my way – please remember my email so we can link to each other via blog linking – v important part of online marketing

Thanks

Chris

Which inspired me to create the following video. Although some months back I  uploaded my two part morning person challenge to YouTube, I never got around to editing the time lapse footage into a shorter video (seeing that I’ve been learning that shorter videos are usually are more successful).

I have to call this a tribute to the city of Brisbane, a place I called home for over 6 years (yes perhaps I’m a little homesick!). After looking over this footage again, I must say it has inspired me to continue with my love of setting challenges and early morning starts. So, stay tuned in the next couple of weeks. I think some early morning footage from Canberra is on its way!

Oh, and P.S. Chris – if you are reading this, thanks for contacting me. I have fixed my contact form and you should now be able to resend your details.

Lets roll back a few months…

My partner made a decision to leave the current industry he works in and move into another. A wonderful opportunity for an exciting new career and a move over 1300 kms from our home in Brisbane, Queensland to Canberra, Australian Capital Territory.

ALL OF A SUDDEN EVERYTHING WAS CHANGING.

That being… leaving many friends behind and resigning after 2 and a half years in my current employment to face utter uncertainty. My head was spinning. How do I react? At first I was horrified. I felt, what if my life changes for the worse? What if I’m not happy? What if I feel stuck? What if.. what if!!!! I loved everything about living in Brisbane…

The friends, the weather, the food, the lifestyle and the memories… the list goes on! I always liked the idea of living in different places of the world but never expected such a rapid change to happen ever so quickly.  They say change is as good as a holiday… right?

We weren’t going to make the decision until I was happy to accept the change. Let me just say… My thoughts were very active! My approach to life is to see the positive in each area of my life, and this would be no exception.

For me, the following were the deciding factors:

• Change is all about growth and making the most of my life experience.
• My hobbies and interests can be pursued from anywhere in the world.
• I am open to the opportunity to travel more, including to visit family and friends on a more regular basis.
• Happiness comes from within.
• I won’t know until I try.
• I enjoy new challenges and opportunities.

So I finally agreed to make the move. Although I’ve had periods of feeling doubtful about the decision, I’m proud that I’d adapting to a major change in my life and YES I’m really excited to see what the next chapter will look like.

While I continue my quest to find out what makes video marketing so very successful, and what steps in particular need to be followed, I’m also looking for a new and exciting opportunity for employment.

So as I wrap up this post, my mood is varied. Yes I do feel home sick – I’m even going to admit I tuned into local radio stations online to get my Brisbane fix! Meanwhile, my passion for life and keenness to take on new challenges and opportunities are as strong as ever!

Until next time

P.S. Sorry for the lack of a blog post for a while. I’ve been without decent access to the Internet for a while now, it’s like having to give up coffee!! (Don’t ever try).

How have you coped with huge changes in your life? How are things now? Comments are always welcome.