Its all about authority. You have authority which reflects in your blog, which then becomes an authority blog (over a period of time…yes!). Self-esteem is your ticket to being an authority in your niche. Simply put, you must regard your self as highly as possible for your audience to believe in you. The problem is when you try to walk the bridge in reverse gear. Its when you start with the blog and want to make yourself an authority using the blog. Sure it works, but there are secrets to it.

Self-esteem is your best friend you’d ever want to know, especially if you are a blogger. It does not matter what others think of you because it won’t be any better than what you think of YOU. I recently followed a business lecture, which explained the essence of marketing. Have you ever wondered why, that you’re struggling to become successful? The speaker went on to prove that “People don’t buy what you SELL, instead they want to believe what YOU BELIEVE.” In other words, you need to make your audience believe in what you believe about the products you are selling.

In the context of blogging, your product is your blog content. Logically, for you to become a successful blogger, you need to believe in what you say to your audience. It must be a clearcut yes on every piece of content that you add to your blog. I don’t know how, but if you don’t believe in what you write, that usually shows in your writing. You may do hours of research to produce a highly informational article; but at the end of the day the success of that article lays upon how you regard yourself in providing that content to your audience. Simple as that.

Everyone has their own unique style of writing. You too have one, even if you’re unaware of it. But what is the essential ingredient that shapes the writing style of successful bloggers which in turn influences the majority of readers? The answer is obvious. The secret is that you must be aware of your level of self esteem.

Take a look at your role models for sec. Who you want to become in 1, 2 or 5 years time. You regard them very highly because they themselves regard them very highly. They are on the top and have achieved what they’ve achieved because they believe they are the best! All you have to do is replace “they” with “you” in the previous sentence.

I don’t care what everybody else is saying about becoming successful online. But I know this much. If you believe you are the best in your niche and believe in producing the best, you will no doubt be one of the best in whatever you do. Just do it!

Although I came across Steve’s speech below, after his demise; I had always remembered him as a personality of great inspiration and wisdom.

The must-read Steve Jobs speech that will change your life
This is the “Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish” address delivered by Steve Jobs in 2005
at Stanford University:

Steve Jobs speech – how to live before you die.

I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest

universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this
is the closest I’ve ever gotten to a college graduation.. Today I want to tell
you three stories from my life. That’s it. No big deal.Just three stories.

The first story is about connecting the dots.

I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around
as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I
drop out?

It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college
graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very
strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all
set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I
popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So
my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night
asking: “We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?” They said:
“Of course.” My biological mother later found out that my mother had
never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high
school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few
months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.

And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was
almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents’ savings
were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn’t see the
value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how
college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the
money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and
trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but
looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped
out I could stop taking the required classes that didn’t interest me, and begin
dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.

It wasn’t all romantic. I didn’t have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in
friends’ rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with,
and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good
meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled
into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later
on. Let me give you one example:

Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in
the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer,
was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn’t have to
take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to
do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the
amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great
typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way
that science can’t capture, and I found it fascinating.

None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten
years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came
back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with
beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in
college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally
spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, it’s likely that no
personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have
never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not
have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to
connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very
clear looking backwards ten years later.

Again, you can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them
looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in
your future. You have to trust in something – your gut, destiny, life, karma,
whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference
in my life.

My second story is about love and loss.

I was lucky – I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple
in my parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had
grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over
4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation – the Macintosh – a
year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get
fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I
thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or
so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and
eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with
him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my
entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.

I really didn’t know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the
previous generation of entrepreneurs down – that I had dropped the baton as it
was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to
apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even
thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn
on me – I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed
that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to
start over.

I didn’t see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the
best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being
successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure
about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my
life.

During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company
named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife.
Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy
Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a
remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I returned to Apple, and the
technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple’s current renaissance.
And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.

I’m pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn’t been fired from
Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it.
Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don’t lose faith. I’m
convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did.
You’ve got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is
for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the
only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the
only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet,
keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when
you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better
as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don’t settle.

My third story is about death.

When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: “If you live each
day as if it was your last, someday you’ll most certainly be right.” It
made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked
in the mirror every morning and asked myself: “If today were the last day
of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?” And whenever
the answer has been “No” for too many days in a row, I know I need to
change something.

Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever
encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything
- all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure -
these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly
important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to
avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked.
There is no reason not to follow your heart.

About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the
morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn’t even know what
a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer
that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six
months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is
doctor’s code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything
you thought you’d have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It
means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as
possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.

I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where
they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my
intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I
was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the
cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be
a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the
surgery and I’m fine now.

This was the closest I’ve been to facing death, and I hope it’s the closest I
get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you
with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual
concept:

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to
get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever
escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the
single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old
to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long
from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so
dramatic, but it is quite true.

Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be
trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking.
Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And
most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They
somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is
secondary.

When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth
Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a
fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it
to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960′s, before personal
computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters,
scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form,
35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat
tools and great notions.

Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and
then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the
mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a
photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself
hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words:
“Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.” It was their farewell message as they signed
off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And
now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Thank you all very much.

[Steven Paul Jobs, the iconic co-founder, chairman and former CEO
of Apple Inc., died on October 5 after a long battle with pancreatic cancer. He
was 56 years old]

Drinking Water Filtration

Gamestop

Has Microsoft been given a prominence place over Sony at Gamestop’s online store? There is a rumor that Gamestop has been biased towards Microsoft in merchandising their online product range and some other presentational aspects of the store. Never has Gamestop been asked a direct question regarding the delicate matter although employees of Gamestop/EB freely accept they’re getting preferential treatment from Microsoft but not from Sony. These preferential treatments according to the sources come in the way of free goodies. How nice.

Gamestop the giant game store

With hundreds of outlets across the country, it must be impossible to informally favor a particular manufacturer over another, in this case to favor Microsoft over Sony. Even if such standardization is possible, how effectively can a single outlet of Gamestop can promote Microsoft over Sony, besides the front-line staff of Gamestop are not been offered anything extra for promoting any particular brand.

Merge of Gamestop with EB

Not long ago Gamestop merged with Electronics Boutiques, another giant in the games industry, whose staff were also thought to be getting free goodies from Microsoft. However giving gifts as means of a business strategy is not by any means illegal or inappropriate. Just that the visible effectiveness of such strategies look so lame.

What Microsoft does different

If, however one accepts that Microsoft has succeeded in getting preference from Gamestop / Electronics Boutiques, the only thing done differently by Microsoft is the strategy of giving free goods out to employees of such company staff. Is it really that Microsoft using free-giveaways as a marketing strategy? It simply does not matter why Microsoft gives stuff free. The point is that nobody else does.

Sony doesn’t care

Does Sony care about the preferential treatment that Microsoft is getting, apparently not. Because if they did, Sony would try to outperform Microsoft in giving free goodies. Obviously, Sony has other plans, only that its not clear as to how exactly Sony plans to tackle this situation. Surely, winning the hearts of the employees of front-line-sales-firms is not a tactic for Sony.

Is it really happening after all?

Could all this be a hypothetical theory magnified by some controversial behavior from certain companies? Or could this be a reality where an authentic goodwill gesture from Microsoft turning into an ally of increasing sales via Gamestop? Perhaps bit of both, may well be the perfect answer for Gamestop slanting towards Microsoft products over Sony.

Its all in the game, when it comes to business nothing combined with goodwill is really unethical. Free giveaways are just freebies, how the receiving party reacts to the situation is totally beyond Microsoft. On the other hand Gamestop or EB favoring Microsoft, Sony or any other brand, does not imply a misconduct of business. It may be the staff of Gamestop having more on-hand experience with Microsoft products than with Sony products. After all, there were no official news at least with hints of Gamestop and Electronics Boutiques promoting Microsoft over Sony.

Yanni

Isn’t it true, we run around like crazy, looking for wealth and everything surrounding it as if we’ve come to this world forever… I was just watching a recorded ‘Yanni live in concert’ show last night. In an intro to an amazing track of his called ‘Until the last moment’ , Yanni himself revealed how we ought to be looking at life.

He said “This one is about appreciating life. As we all know life is very short and its very fragile also…”

This one should touch hearts from inside. Orchestral music at its best. Yanni rocks…

Enjoy!

Growing economy in Sri Lanka has been a thumbs up with regard to my newly established business endeavors. If you too are looking for ways to make money in Sri Lanka read one of my older posts how to make money online in sri lanka. This business is something I’ve started recently and glad that I did start it eventually.

Today I have been very busy with creating a business presentation in Power Point. While my PowerPoint presentation is cooking in the oven, I was just thinking how this timely growth of SriLankan economy has helped my business grow too, hence this quick blog post.

Most of all, the confidence of Sri Lankans towards new businesses has increased dramatically in the recent past. If I were to point out a single reason for my success with this new business, it would be the newly acquired confidence and the energy of our people.

The simple smile on the faces of average Sri Lankans, that had been long buried for years under the cloudy war, has been revived and that smile alone tells a whole different story that the reports of Central bank will never be able to comprehend.

Long live Sri Lanka… !

Just wanted to give a quick update on hummingbird 2. If you’ve been watching different automation tools for following, unfollowing and building lists within, twitter hummingbird was one of the first ones to come out and it really has set the standards higher for other competing products.

Hummingbird 2 product is going to allow us to do some things that currently none of the other products are doing and it’s doing it in a fully automated manner. e.g. the follow engine, as long as the software is running which you can let it run day in and day out, listens to the live Twitter stream for users who mentions any of the keywords you’ve instructed it to listen for. These users are analyzed further, by looking up critical statistics about their account history from TwitterCounter and Twitter itself.

Users who are identified as candidates are then graded according to a set of parameters you configured. Users who grade high enough are automatically followed by Hummingbird 2. Hummingbird will remember this user in its internal database and will use this information later when deciding whether or not to continue following this user.

Hummingbird 2 has a very intelligent unfollow engine too. Basically it only unfollows when it needs to unfollow somebody to make room for a another follower so it’s dealing with one at a time. Really the fact of it to address is the unfollow and the unfollow churn that twitter is so concerned about. So how does hummingbird 2 know how to do all of this.

If you look at the configuration tab, this is where you set your keywords which hummingbird 2 will be listenng for, in the twitter stream. If your target audience is for example, people who are interested in twitter automation solutions, you could use ‘twitter automation, twitter software, twitter marketing, tweet later, tweet adder’ etc as your keywords. You may also tell hummingbird to ignore anyone who doesn’t have a custom avatar. You can set numbers to suit your prference according to
-users with at least this many followers
-users following at least this many people
-users with at least this ratio of followers/following
-users with at least with this many number of updats etc..

There’s also a grading mechanism, where you could establish a grade and based on that particular grade hummingbird 2 will decide upon whether or not to follow a person. When you apply all these, basically twitter just sits in the background running and it listens to the stream looking for any twitter conversations that triggers any of your keywords and follows or not follows people based on the selection critirea you have specified.

There are plenty of statistical reporting to analyze your twitter progress. The brilliance of hummingbird 2 is that you have the ability to set your own quality criteria for your followers and followings. This in return produces an inevitable high quality targeted audience and a genuine follower base.

**Update – 26.11.2011
Twitter Hummingbird software and the company has recently changed hands. So if you want to upgrade or reinstall your Hummingbird 2 to the latest Hummingbird 3, your original purchase has to be within the last six months and accompaniying the original receipt.

**Disclaimer –
The above review was for the Hummingbird 2 the latest version Hummingbird 3 might be totally different, perhaps include advanced features.

ONE: Don’t miss the boat.

TWO: Remember that we are all in the same boat!

THREE: Plan ahead. It wasn’t raining when Noah built the Ark.

FOUR: Stay fit. When you’re 60 years old, someone may ask you to do something really big.

FIVE: Don’t listen to critics; just get on with the job that needs to be done.

SIX: Build your future on high ground.

SEVEN: For safety’s sake, travel in pairs.

EIGHT: Speed isn’t always an advantage. The snails were on board with the cheetahs.

NINE: When you’re stressed, float awhile.

TEN: Remember, the Ark was built by amateurs; the Titanic by professionals.

ELEVEN: No matter the storm, when you are with God, there’s always a rainbow waiting.

My instructions were to share this with people that I wanted God to bless and I picked you. Please pass this on to people you want to be blessed.
(Give it!! Don’t just get it.)
Most people walk in and out of your life……but FRIENDS leave footprints in your heart.

Tourist: Whose skeleton is that?
Sardar: An old king’s skeleton.
Tourist: Who’s that smaller skeleton next to it?
Sardar: That was same king’s skeleton when he was a child.

2 sardar were fixing a bomb in a car.
Sardar 1: What would you do if the bomb explodes while fixing.
Sardar 2: Dont worry, I have one more.

Sardar: What is the name of your car?
Lady: I forgot the name, but is starts with ‘T’.
Sardar: Oh, what a strange car, starts with Tea. All cars that I know start with petrol.

Sardar: U cheated me.
Shopkeeper: No, I sold a good radio to u.
Sardar: Radio label shows Made in Japan but radio says this is ‘All India Radio! ‘

Museum Administrator: That’s a 500-year-old statue u’ve broken.
Sardar: Thanks God! I thought it was a new one.

At the scene of an accident a man was crying: O God! I have lost my hand,oh!
Sardar: Control yourself. Don’t cry. See that man. He has lost his head. Is he crying?

In an interview, Interviewer: How does an electric motor run?
Sardar: Dhhuuuurrrrrrrrrr. …..
Inteviewer shouts: Stop it.
Sardar: Dhhuurrrr dhup dhup dhup…

Boss: Where were you born?
Sardar: India ..
Boss: which part?
Sardar: What ‘which part’? Whole body was born in India .

1. A murderer is condemned to death.. He has to choose between three rooms. The first is full of raging fires, the second is full of assassins with loaded guns, and the third is full of lions that haven’t eaten in 3 years. Which room is safest for him?

2. A woman shoots her husband. Then she holds him under water for over 5 minutes. Finally, she hangs him. But 5 minutes later they both go out together and enjoy a wonderful dinner together. How can this be?

3. What is black when you buy it, red when you use it, and gray when you throw it away?

4. Can you name three consecutive days without using the words Wednesday, Friday, or Sunday?

5. This is an unusual paragraph. I’m curious as to just how quickly you can find out what is so unusual about it. It looks so ordinary and plain that you would think nothing was wrong with it. In fact, nothing is wrong with it. It is highly unusual though. Study it and think about it, but you still may not find anything odd. But if you work at it a bit, you might find out. Try to do so without any coaching!

THE ANSWERS TO ALL FIVE OF THE RIDDLES ARE BELOW:

1. The third room. Lions that haven’t eaten in three years are dead. That one was easy, right?

2. The woman was a photographer. She shot a picture of her husband, developed it, and hung it up to dry (shot; held under water; and hung).

3. Charcoal, as it is used in barbecuing.

4. Sure you can name three consecutive days, yesterday, today, and tomorrow!

5. The letter e, which is the most common letter used in the English language, does not appear even once in the paragraph.