280 visits
2,587 page views
9.24 pages/visit
11.79% bounce rate
00:09:56 average time on site

These figures tell the story of how members like my new ‘Private Group’.

On average, they explore TEN pages every visit - and spend close to 10 MINUTES exploring.

Remember the last website you spent 10 minutes at lately?

Yes.

That’s the point.

You can join the Private Group here… if you like.

For instance, we’ve all heard that in advertising, sex sells. A study compared viewer recall of brands in ads with explicitly sensual or sex-oriented themes - and found (surprisingly?!) that while they remembered the person (or anatomy) on display, it blurred or overshadowed the sight or image of logo, brand and product.

The simplistic conclusion: Sex does NOT sell. Unsexy ads had just as good recall as the other.

Even casual analysis of this scenario will suggest there are other variables at play. Yes, they compared two groups, one of which was wearing a cap full of wires and seated (forced to!) in front of a TV - and so, with nothing better to do, the people actually WATCHED the ad.

Would they watch an ‘unsexy’ ad at home? Or would they rather raid the fridge, take a toilet break, or just replay the program they had been viewing in their minds?!

Maybe it’s my conditioning as a medical doctor that makes me see most things in shades of gray rather than cut-and-dried black or white.

In medical school, students are taught the famous study linking coffee-drinking and cancer. A strong causal association between drinking a lot of coffee and getting lung cancer was suggested by the research data - until some smart cookie figured out that most coffee-drinkers also smoked cigarettes as they drank!

The link was actually between cigarette smoke and lung cancer. Coffee was what is called a ‘confounding variable’.

We live in a multi-variate world. No test is ’simple’. Least of all, tests involving the way people think and behave. Pseudo-scientific talk based on miniscule sample size merely clouds the issue, rather than proving anything conclusive.

Yet many of us long to be uni-dimensional in this world - just because it is EASY!

Thoughts?

“It ain’t about how hard you hit; it’s about how hard you can get hit and still keep moving forward!”

Watch the short version below or click here to view this 3 minute clip - and be inspired.

And then, see this snip from “Secondhand Lions” too

Indeed, I’ve got to know some very nice, very rich, very famous and very interesting (not all the same person!) people over the years - and only a few I have had the pleasure of meeting or even speaking to on the phone.

Which made me wonder, today, as I listened to a interview with one such friend…

“Do I Know You? Really?”

Paul Evans is the CEO of Nicheology.com. When he took over the reins from my good friend, Ryan Deiss, and his business partner Jimmy D.Brown, Paul wrote to me (I assume he got my details through Nicheology’s affiliate records, I’ve been one of their early affiliates). He invited me to help promote a re-launch of what I still consider to be the world’s best Private Label Right’s membership site to my list.

I next came across Paul when he posted an excellent note on a forum we both frequent, talking about his system of patiently and painstakingly building up a successful membership site (not Nicheology.com) to a point where he had 2,500 members, each paying $10 every month!

It took around 3 years. That was his point. Not many people are willing - or able - to wait and work so long for success.

That post was so informative and insightful, I printed it out and referred to a couple of times - but as is typical with me, I failed to implement an idea based on it. That omission will soon be fixed!

More recently, I heard Paul’s name mentioned on Twitter (by a mutual friend, Carrie Wilkerson, the ‘Barefoot Executive’ - who herself was introduced to me by my friend and mentor, TIMIC.com creator, Willie Crawford - vive la social networking!).

I added Paul Evans to my Twitter network - and through it heard about the interview he was doing yesterday on Blog Talk Radio with Willie Crawford. As it happened way past my bedtime, it was only this morning that I could listen to the recording of the 1 hour interview.

It changed my outlook.

Not only did I learn something new about my business and how I could improve it, I also learned some personal things about Paul Evans, including a painful incident that, had it happened to me, might have permanently shattered or devastated me - yet Paul talked about how he drew STRENGTH from it… how it made him what he is today.

And he gave listeners an huge dose of common sense business advice - the kind that you DON’T hear often from ‘gurus’. In fact, quite coincidentally, his interview was titled “3 ANTIDOTES TO ONLINE FAILURE” - which nearly mirrors the title of a message I wrote to send my list yesterday… “THE ANTI-DOTE”.

It is an interview that I strongly recommend that you make time to listen. And if you simply, absolutely cannot afford to spend one hour, at least download it and listen to the last 10 minutes where Paul shares 5 powerful tips or breakthroughs to get over your hurdles and hurtle along to huge success.

I awoke this morning looking for some direction.

I listened to this interview, and found it.

I took 2 hours off, sat in a room with a sheet of paper and a pen, and drafted out an important document that will serve as my guide for the next few years.

And then I wrote this blog post.

It is almost evening. I didn’t do any of the regular ‘conventional’ work on my business. But it probably grew many times over in the hours since I woke up.

I also realized I didn’t know Paul Evans well enough at all.

Until today.

And now, I want to know more. So I signed up to his list after visiting his blog, “Nicheology News - Your Business. Your Money. Your Freedom”.

Has a nice ring to it, right? Like… Money.Power.Wisdom

I can’t wait until Paul and Carrie are visiting India in 2010. Maybe we’ll meet sooner. It’ll be worth the wait, though!

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He was my all-time favorite pop singer. Here are my 3 secrets about Michael Jackson.

1. MJ is the ONLY celebrity I have EVER sent fan-mail to! I wrote him a long letter when I was 18, and hunted high and low to find an address to mail it. Never did get a reply

2. I cried when I heard the news of Michael Jackson’s death. Because it made me sad to lose such a visible symbol of my younger days - and all that his memory and songs stood for. (Did you?)

3. I still have a letter addressed to Mike in my briefcase. It is about my work with CHD kids. I thought he might help. Don’t know why I didn’t post it sooner. Wish I had.

Do you have any Michael Jackson secrets to share? Leave a comment.

The King of Rock is no more.

Michael Jackson, icon of the world of pop, child singing sensation, world-famous rock super-star, is dead. At fifty.

I’m devastated.

Michael Jackson was my all-time favorite pop singer. Like many million others, I spent hundreds of hours as a young man swaying to his crooning, and letting the music and lyrics merge with my own ambitious and unreal dreams to form a rosy vision of what might be.

Today’s news was a splash of cold water dashed against them.

Michael Jackson was a gifted singer, savvy entertainer, and astute brand manager. I’ve read his biography. His career started early. As a five-year old, he was a star, fighting off an intrusive press and his adoring fans.

For his musical genius, he paid a heavy price - it cost him a normal childhood. And the consequences of this manifested as some bizarre PR stunts… though the magic still lingered on.

That magic ended today.

If you hadn’t first heard Michael Jackson’s singing as a teen or young adult, you probably don’t understand what exactly many of us are mourning.

It’s not just the loss of a super-talented singer. Not just the demise of a pop icon. Not just the passing of a record-breaking entertainer.

It is more.

We’re mourning the loss of a symbol of our youth - of innocence, of romantic possibility, of purposeful change.

RIP MJ.

Most, if not all, doctors practicing medicine know that a battery of tests often serves no real benefit in terms of diagnosis of an ailment. But they do know that it translates into an economic advantage, direct or indirect, which is the reason why it keeps being done. Avarice, not ignorance, is the driving force.

Equally romantic is the idea of ‘teaching’ empathy to a medical student. It is not like trying to teach ‘obedience’ or ‘honesty’ (which are behaviours) to a school boy, but like trying to inculcate ‘love’ or ‘concern’ or ‘affection’ (which are emotions) in a grown-up.

One is born with them (or grows up in early childhood developing them) - or one doesn’t.

And when the seed of these emotions lie inside, it is almost impossible to deal with human suffering as a clinician without being deeply touched by the emotional roller-coaster that any doctor rides each day in professional life. (See “Doctors Die a Little Every Day“)

Medical practitioners who function as highly skilled automatons are a reality of any country, or form of medical education for this very reason.

Some refine their skill set, while dulling and walling off their feelings, as a protective barrier that permits efficiently carrying out their duties. Others refuse to get involved and deeply engaged with their patients, more as a reflection of their personality and nature, rather than their medical training.

I also take strong exception to the blanket statement that ethical role models are non-existent. I have personally been influenced by the high ethical standards of many of my own professors and teachers, like Dr.A.M.Selvaraj, Dr.V.G.Tapase and many more, and have tried, in my own practice, to be one for my students who choose to follow and model me.

While there are many good points in Dr.Srinath’s editorial, especially in the area of imparting epidemiological knowledge to Indian medical students, in the end what will make them better doctors has less to do with what they are formally taught in college, and more to do with what kind of people they essentially are.

Empathy is a noble human emotion. Avarice is an ignoble human emotion. And doctors have both. Because doctors are, after all, human.

We read books like Eckhart Tolle’s “The Power of Now”, Victor Frankl’s “Man’s Search for Meaning” and Ayn Rand’s “Fountainhead”, and try to figure out the deep meaning and profound insights these authors expound.

But we also forget how much power and impact can be there in SIMPLICITY.

In childrens’ books like Enid Blyton stories.

I’m reading “The Twins at St.Clare’s”, where Pat and Isabel, the O’Sullivan twins, go to a new school. Each experience they have has a lesson that’s just as applicable to adults in their life - and what’s more, it is EASY to understand!

My recommendation: Take a book your child (or any child in your area) is reading. Browse through it. Watch for the lessons. Take them to heart.

Because, at heart, we are all still children.

“Trust agents are at the elbow of connections.”

Cool, I thought. And then watched this interview with Twitter MASTER, Maynas Eric Chua on TV (which aired across Asia) - where he mentions the role trust plays in growing his Twitter following to over 30,000… and then included me as one of the ‘Trust Agents’ who helped with it!

Cool! Watch it

Looking back over the years, I wish we had recorded (or taken notes on) what we discuss, because these conversations are often insightful and instructive.

Yesterday, we were talking about what makes someone a ‘winner’.

Having a dream, making a plan to achieve it, and taking action on the plan may lead to it coming true. But does that make YOU a winner?

“You can’t possibly call someone who achieves this a ‘loser’!” my daughter exclaimed… until I gave her a scenario.

What if someone trains hard for a competition, dreaming about winning it - and then he does, which makes him delighted… but he also knows that if he had lost, he would have been DEVASTATED?

Is it wrong to call such a person a ‘loser’?

We explored this from various angles, but this is the crux. It is what defines a ‘winner’.

If you can dream, plan and act - and then accept whatever result you receive with aplomb, grace and gratefulness, then you’re a winner… regardless of what the ‘result’ is.

And to the contrary, if your achieving the ‘result’ means everything to you, and not getting what you want will leave you angry, frustrated or unhappy… why, then, you’re NOT a ‘winner’ - even when you win!

Thoughts?