I just thought I would share a moment with you. The sun was setting, it is mid-October and the clouds were beautiful, purple and billowing. I live not too far from the spot where the video I shot (below) was taken and I love walking there.

After overcoming a life-threatening and life-altering illness, one that put me in the hospital for months from December of 2004 until April/May of 2008, it is as if my eyes are seeing things for the first time, that I am once again experiencing life.

I am beginning to see the possibilities in life again, the things that make my heart beat a bit faster, and the things that don’t necessarily mean success as much as they simply make life a bit more fun. I have experienced all the trappings of success, have been known as a “success” for much of my life. To have had it all vanish, all the trappings, while fighting for my life was disconcerting but I always knew, if I could just get through to the other side, I would have it all again.

Interestingly, having made it through catastrophic illness, having beat back the most dreaded of diseases and lived to start again, my perspective has been forever altered. The “things” I once thought important are no longer so and the “trappings” of success are now viewed for what they are, impermanent and easily replaceable. The things of value, the things that really matter, friends, family, my faith in people, my faith in Something Greater have all been restored, renewed, or significantly strengthened.

Success no longer has the same meaning…but success still has the same definition!

Figure that one out for yourself….

By definition, success is a progression, an improvement in your overall quality of life on daily basis. Tony Robbins talks about CANI! CANI! is “consistent and never ending improvement.” Tony Robbins talks about the improvement in the quality of your life on a daily basis, incrementally, continually, and consistently. Early Nightingale and Napoleon Hill talk about progression toward a worthwhile goal or ideal. Interestingly, every great thinker has equated success with progress, a progression, a journey that includes never ending improvement.

If that is the definition of success…I am a success!

Every day of my life has become a success, a mural of sorts, and I thought I would share just a moment of it…me and my little dog, TuffGuy…my Higher Power is the painter, my life the canvas!

The video below will be up around the web, on my personal blog, The John Zajaros Blog, and elsewhere. It’s just a moment, a glimpse, and Martin Scorsese has nothing to worry about.

I challenge you to find your own personal place or places, your space if you will, that spot or those spots you can retreat to, that inspire you, not only your entrepreneurial spirit, if you have that sort of wish for your life, but personally and spiritually. Because those personal places are the best places to take a step back and renew, recharge, and refresh the Spirit before facing the ups and the downs life invariably throws at us daily…on our journey, our progression, our never ending quest!

This has just been a moment of personal reflection:

The Quest Revealed!

As stated, the most significant and meaningful trappings of success are no longer the same for me. However, that doesn’t mean I can’t get excited about a new Hunter sailboat, almost purchased a while back, or a comfortable houseboat for Connie and I to retire on. TuffGuy, Bart, kids, and whomever else wants to come along with us, as well! Well, maybe? But the landscape has changed, the Master Gardener has done a real job on me, I no longer yield the same produce and life on the other side of H#ll is indeed Heaven!

We are tested throughout our lives but one thing I know with absolute certainty…Tony Robbins is right! CANI! is the real “secret” to success. Only through constant, consistent, and never ending improvement, never quitting no matter what the odds, will you prevail.

Not only will you prevail, life will be amazing!

But you must demonstrate:

Faith– in yourself, your loved ones, your friends, your Higher Power (in what ever form you see it) and, most importantly, your Self!
Hope– above all, hope! Without hope, when things are their blackest, you will falter! You must have HOPE!
Determination– there were times when the only thing that kept me going was determination, that refusal to quit regardless of what everyone and everything was saying!
Persistence– just a bit different from determination, a one-two punch of sorts. Determination is the mindset, persistence is the implementation!
Goals– It is not enough to want something, you must have concrete goals and a plan of action. Without goals you are truly a ship without a rudder, blowing this way and that!
Burning Desire– this may also be called “The One Thing!” It is not enough to have goals, it isn’t even enough to have a plan of action, you must want it, whatever “it” is, with all your heart! You must want it in the pit of your stomach, it must burn within you like nothing else…it must make your soul ache!

IF you are able to define, clearly and concisely, what your “One Thing” is, write it out, burn it into the very fabric of your being, and then have complete faith in the reality that it will be yours, put the plan into action and improve upon it in some way each and every day, constantly and consistently, you will prevail!

In the words of one of the greatest statesmen to ever walk the Earth, “Never, Never, Never, Never Quit!” And you will prevail!

John Zajaros
216-712-6526 (home/business)
866-835-2913 (toll free)
Skype: johnzajaros1
johnz@johnzajaros.com

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I was in the shower and it hit me! One of those eureka moments when everything becomes crystal clear, at least until you get out of the bathroom and it leaves your brain forever. You know what I mean, kind of like what a dream does, you struggle to remember, but it’s gone forever. First of all, I guess I should explain what the heck I am talking about! You see, I seem to get some of my best ideas in the shower. I did some research with a physiologist during my stint in academia and he said it had to do with the fact that as we put our head under the nozzle and allow the water to pulsate and massage our head, the brain is being stimulated by the repetitive pulses of the shower massage. The stimulation leads to increased brain activity, the result being creative thoughts and ideas. I was impressed and thought about it for a minute or two.

After a couple of minutes back on the task we were working on, surveying 3100 skeletons in the Hamann-Todd Collection at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, a question came to mind. Interestingly, my question then is just what you are thinking right now if you are with me on this. What about before shower massages? What happened then? He laughed and told me not to be so old-fashioned. Me? Old fashioned? Well, we both laughed and then he continued. My research partner noted that the topic had been researched thoroughly, the evidence conclusive. Who was I to argue with him, it sounded reasonable to me. He went on to talk about impulses and axons and dendrites and after about 5 minutes I knew two things: one, I was glad I was a bone guy and not a physiologist; and two, I knew he knew a whole lot more about it than I did!

Anyway, back to my revelation. I was actually thinking about a Clickbank marketing campaign I started a couple of days back, considering the target market and how to reach them. It was then that it hit me like a ton of bricks, my eureka moment! I know, but I really do a lot of my best thinking in the shower and lately all I can think about is marketing, it’s a sickness! So, all at once, the two came together in a moment of total clarity. It’s about perceptions and assumptions!

That’s right that was the moment, the revelation, and the epiphany! The thought was so intense and so amazingly clear, I got out and wrote it down else it disappear much as the dreams mentioned above vanish in a moment. Let me explain. As marketers we see the world a certain way, we make certain assumptions based on our perceptions, our observations and, if we are really good at what we do, our testing. We study, quantify, test, optimize, study, and then test again. Once we assume that we have everything pretty well knocked, a clear understanding of whatever it is we are attempting to monetize, we launch our product, service, campaign or whatever. Interestingly, we cannot test the one variable that makes everything that preceded the launch so much window dressing, the testing just this side of pseudo-science. We cannot test how people will react given their individual perceptions and assumptions.

Interestingly, the perception or perceptions, and the assumption or assumptions based on those perceptions, is precisely where the challenge rests. We base our marketing, in fact every decision we make in our lives, on the schema we bring with us through life, our own life-mind-map, if you will. The conundrum, the puzzle, the real and difficult challenge is to shed our pre-conceived notions, our perceptions and assumptions, in order to make an educated guess about what a prospective customer will do or won’t do based on their perceptions and assumptions.

So what does this mean for Internet marketers, in fact for all marketers? Well, let’s take the Clickbank example for a moment. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard Internet marketers, regardless of the niche, advice people to stay away from Clickbank. The Reasoning? I’ve been told, and heard others complain, that you will market your product and when people find out it’s a Clickbank product, they will go and sign up for their own account, if they don’t have one already, and take the sale and the commission for themselves. You do the marketing, someone else gets the sale! All I can say to that is that the person making that assumption, based on a certain perception, is not thinking like a prospective customer, they are thinking like an Internet marketer. Perceptions and assumptions!

Significantly, most people do not view the world as we do; and, they don’t have any desire to. The fact is most people have no idea who or what Clickbank is until they see a form with it written across the top as they are making the decision to purchase an item. Think about your first experiences online. Did you have any idea what you were doing, much less what Clickbank or Clickbooth or Commission Junction does or is? Much less know how they work? The average consumer types in a few words, ones they think might get them a bit closer to solving a problem or answering a question, and they wait for a page to crystallize in front of their eyes. They don’t know anything about sponsored links or PPC or SEO or anything else, all they know is there’s a page with some possible answers and those answers may help them solve their problem. That’s it! However, we as Internet marketers assign to our prospective clients and customers all of our own, very personal, skewed, slanted, and even biased perceptions and assumptions. Significantly, most customers just want the quickest, easiest fix for their particular issue, question or problem; and, hopefully at the lowest price possible.

So that was it, the eureka moment, the moment of clarity, the ah-ha moment. I knew then, at that precise moment, that there was nothing to worry about because I am not marketing to Internet marketers, at least not for the campaigns I am currently invested in. I am marketing to John Doe or Jane Smith and all they want is for the pain to go away or their dog to behave or to lose 15 pounds or for their little Janie or Johnny to make the soccer team or any one of a hundred or a thousand different things to happen or get fixed or have answered that have absolutely nothing to do with Internet marketing or Clickbank…they just want their problem fixed!

That was it, that was the moment and it was an amazing one for me personally. You see, I’ve become so immersed in the culture of marketing, and particularly Internet marketing, I forgot what it is like to sit in front of a monitor, not having a clue how to turn the darn thing on, much less try to get the answer I needed. Going back to that mindset was an amazing moment, because it helped me to reshape my thinking and to understand once again what it is like to be on the other side of the transaction; and, on the other side of the learning curve. Our perceptions, based on certain assumptions, must be shed if we are to be effective marketers. It is about more than empathy, it is about being able to step outside yourself and view a situation from both perspectives, without making any assumptions! It is something like what we call an emic and etic perspective in anthropology, the ability to view a situation from different perspectives in order to achieve a clearer understanding of the individual, the society in which he or she resides, and the culture they are a part of, and how that all comes together to shape an individual’s schema or life-mind-map. If you can read that map, you are going to be successful beyond belief. If you are a lousy navigator, I suggest you learn how to read a map. Or? Take up glass blowing, it may be more profitable!

Professor John P. J. Zajaros, Sr.
216-539-7412
Skype: johnzajaros1
johnz@thequestrevealed.com
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We all wonder what it takes to be the best, to be on top of the Internet marketing heap! The secrets to being an online business sensation are perplexing to many, elusive to most, and rewarding beyond measure to the chosen few!

So, what does it take to be successful? Well, first we need to define success, and that’s for another day, but for now we need to discuss that all-important trait you must have or cultivate if you are ever to succeed at internet marketing. The trait is actually a constellation of abilities that I will reveal more completely in the video below. For even more input, email, call or Skype me anytime.

Ultimately, you need one thing more than any other single component or trait. If you have the ability to build this one component, you will succeed when most around you fail. This is not a pep talk and this is not an easy business. If you want someone to give you a pep talk, talk to one one of the many “gurus” out there so adept at talking you out of your money, not once but many times!

One time offers, upsells, and all the rest!

If you want the truth, from someone who has built businesses that have succeeded, and others that have not…and learned from both kinds of experiences, then enter and learn! I don’t have all of the answers but I have enough of them to ensure your success, and mine! By helping you, I can help myself, and we can both benefit! I am not building an online empire and I am not selling someone else’s product unless I use it myself…and believe in it! I am looking for a small group to MASTERMIND with! Are you looking to go it alone or are you smart enough to realize that two or more minds when focused together create another, greater mind, one we can share and use collectively to build a successful online business.

On or way to The Internet Marketing Quest Revealed!

Don’t forget to sign up for the newsletter! We are also having the drawing on April 30, 2009 at noon!

John Zajaros
216-712-6526
Skype: johnzajaros1
johnz@thequestrevealed.com

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