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Introduction

Our minds are a fantastic thing. It is full of immense possibilities and has unlimited capabilities. However, in today’s overstimulated and fast-paced world, our minds can quickly become overwhelmed. Many people feel that their minds are never at peace.

There is a constant commotion that never stops, with an out of control banging of thoughts that can leave them feeling nervous, worried, sad, or troubled. They are never at peace with themselves and can never seem to get out of their ruts and move forward to accomplish their goals. Often, they feel unfocused and disoriented.

These are all clear signs of a cluttered mind. When our minds become overworked, it can lead to an inability to think straight, which can result in a loss of productivity. If you feel like your mind is racing faster than you can keep up, it is essential that you take care of yourself and find a way to declutter your mind so that you can gain mental clarity and achieve greater success.

Fortunately, there are ways that you can train your brain to slow down and focus. The first thing that you need to understand are the various things that can lead to a cluttered mind in the first place.

Too many people spend their lives carrying around baggage from the past. We hold on to things that were beyond our control and past grudges and worries that we can't change. However, it is essential to understand that the past is gone and if you want to gain mental clarity you have to learn to let go of the past. The burden of the past can be incredibly heavy and will influence the present if allowed, and will impair your actions and judgments and keep you from achieving greater success.

Another problem that people face when it comes to mental clarity is the constant, unremitting chatter that fills our heads. It can render you incapable of experiencing the real joys in life and impairs your cognitive abilities. It can slow you down, and affect your decision-making abilities and leave you feeling confused, bewildered and absent-minded. When you can learn how to quiet this constant chatter, you can start to clear your mind and gain the clarity you need to succeed in your business.

Negative thoughts can also affect your abilities to process constructive ideas. Unfortunately, if they are allowed to remain in your mind, negative thought patterns will eventually become a part of your personality.

They will begin to influence both your thoughts and actions and keep you from accomplishing your goals. You need to gain a clear understanding of the mechanisms of negative thought patterns so you can learn the different ways to break them.

When our minds are cluttered with things from the past and negative thoughts we can't find happiness.

The negative thoughts that we have cause us to complain about our shortcomings rather than counting the blessings in our lives. We end up forgoing the simple joys in life without giving it much thought. However, you can change all of this by developing a greater sense of mental clarity and space.

The reality is that mental clutter, when not dealt with, not only will influence your mind, but it can also lead to physical manifestations as well. Taking the time to clear your mind of all the clutter, and develop strategies for success is incredibly important if you want to enjoy greater success.

Chapter 1 - The Different Kinds of Mental Clutter and What Can Trigger It

Before you can learn how to fix your mental clutter and gain mental clarity, you have to know the different types of mental clutter and the various ways that it can manifest.

There are five kinds of mental clutter that can end up causing you to lose focus and keep you from greater success. The information presented in this chapter will help you determine what type of mental clutter consumes your mind.

Negative Self-Talk

The majority of us have a voice in our heads that dictates information to us. It could be a voice that prompts you to say something during a conversation, or the voice that tells you what it is that you truly want in a given situation. It is the voice that speaks to you about how you look when you look in the mirror or the voice that talks to you in terms of your self-esteem. It can be both positive and negative.

This type of self-talk, when it is negative, can create a significant amount of mental clutter in our heads. When you tell yourself that a specific goal that you're trying to accomplish is impossible, it can end up actualizing a situation where you end up failing.

On the other hand, if you can cultivate positive self-talk, the results are much more likely to end up being the opposite. Instead of failing, you succeed. Negative self-talk ends up creating a negative mental environment that impacts every aspect of our lives.

Some common signs of this kind of negative mental environment include feelings of inadequacy, feelings of self-doubt, and feelings of ugliness. If you can relate to these feelings, you're not alone. This is a common type of mental clutter that many people deal with, and many don't even realize that it is occurring until they stop and think about it. 10

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PUTTING ON YOUR INTERNET SPY GLASSES

Don't be afraid to learn from your enemies, as well as your online competitors. The old saying goes:”Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer.” And, that applies even more to online business competitors who can teach you how they get the results you want to get for yourself, without having to dig things up on your own.

Of course, you can't just go up to a competitor and ask them for all their trade secrets. No one in their right mind would ever divulge the secrets to their business success, unless there was something in it for them. However, unlike old-fashioned corporate spying, online business spying does not require that you engage in surveillance training and illegal theft of company records. Instead, you can simply choose to put on your Internet spy glasses and walk the trail that your competitor has left you through many of the same Internet tools that you've used day in and day out, except this time, you will use them to keep tabs on your competitors activities online.

WHAT KIND OF INFORMATION CAN YOU UNCOVER?

It may surprise you to know the types of information you can dig up online on your competitors' businesses. This can range from:

• Demographics Not sure who is the target demographic for your niche? Your competitor knows and that information is also available for you to uncover with just a click of a mouse.
• Popular Keywords If your competitor knows what Google keywords attract traffic and make money, wouldn't you want to know? This is a simple thing with various tools available that can quickly scan pages and let you know what keywords it finds.
• Who Links To Them The value of a website business is established by the number of incoming links and what ranking these links happen to be. There are a number of other variables, but you don't need to know all the details. You just will learn how to find out quickly who is linking to them and then seek to get the same link for your own website.
• What Products They Are Promoting You can find out about the types of products you might want to offer to make money, the same as your competitors. In addition, you can price or package them in a better format to beat your competitor at their own game!
• Where and What Your Competitors Advertise Why try to figure out what places are the best to advertise? Your competitors already know that and tracking this information down online can save you a lot of time in your own advertising campaigns. If you also know what they are advertising, you also know how they're making their money. So, it's both important to know where and what your competitors are advertising.

There is really tons of information you can get on your competitors online, simply because everything done online leaves a trace. Understanding what information is valuable to you, you can customize your market research to include keeping track of the movements of your competitors and then beating them at their own offers and strategies. So, get ready to find out more than you possibly thought you could find out about your competitors. And, best of all, it's perfectly legal.

TARGET YOUR COMPETITOR'S DEMOGRAPHICS

You would think this is really hard to do, but actually it is one of the simplest spy maneuvers online. In the real world, you might have to spend an inordinate amount of time figuring out who buys from your competitors based on the people who visit and the sales they make. Online, it's just a matter of knowing about Quantacast.com, a search engine that quantifies this information, at http://www.quantacast.com .

What kind of information can you get from plugging in your competitor's URL to the quantacast search engine? You can get some great demographic stats on visitors to the site, including:

• Traffic Count This is really important to determine exactly how successful your competitor's site is. If it doesn't attract much traffic, you probably don't want to base your strategies on what they are doing, as they aren't reaping the traffic benefits. But, if they are successful, it gives you a good indication of what type of traffic you can shoot for too.
• Gender The percentage of male to females that visit the site.
• Age Group You can even get a bird's eye view on the percentages of people within specific age groups. This tells you whether they are marketing to an older age group or a younger one.
• Ethnicity You might find out that they are targeting people in an ethnic group that you didn't think of for your own site. If these people are visiting the site, it stands to reason that products that target this demographic will sell better.
• With Or Without Children Amazingly, this is also available on Quantacast.com. This gives you an idea of whether the products are being sold for family reasons or whether your demographic is more the free-wheeling, no children, households.
• Income Level Here is where you find out what kind of income level these visitors represent. Obviously, if the income level is low, your offers have to appeal to them. If they are high, price is not as big a consideration in your offers. Either way, pay close attention to this statistic.
• Education Level If most of the target demographic is not college educated, then you may want to make sure that your copy is geared towards that. If it consists mostly of graduate level people, then you have a very sophisticated audience and you need to keep that in mind, when you publish content, in order to keep them engaged.

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CUTTING CORNERS?

Are you guilty of cutting corners? You know, using software to spin articles for your web content? There are many Internet marketers who are able to perform the required tasks for their business without losing that personal touch. There are others with limited time and no ability to take their business to the next level.

In short, if you are building an Internet marketing business, you need to create a business that is personal, respectable, and profitable. There are times when cutting corners is just fine and times when you should avoid doing so at all costs.

It can be difficult to know when to cut corners and when you should not. What we mean by cutting corners is quite simple:

• You are using robots to do a job that is supposed to be personal or one-on-one.
• You are not interacting with your readers on a personal level because you do not have the time to do so.
• You are using software to do the tasks that a human should be doing for your website.
• You are not checking the quality of the content or of the messages after using such software.

Everyone is concerned with their bottom line, but if you hope to grow your business profit-wise, you need to focus on what will make your reader click, buy, or sign up. Getting a website up and hoping to make a few dollars a month from AdSense is simply not enough. The good news is that you can get your website up and running –inexpensively- and still have a website that is performing well.

NO SOFTWARE? NO WAY

It goes without saying that using software to manage your website is a must. But there are times when you need that personal touch. It takes minutes of your time or the time of someone you hire to do the work for you, but it makes a lasting difference in the hands of your readers.

The key is to know when to use software and when to use humans to do the work for you. In this book, we will talk about all of your options and give you pointers on making more money with less investment.

2.WHEN TO USE SOFTWARE

Internet marketers are one of the most targeted individuals when it comes to software products. The more well-known you become in this industry, the more product offers you will get. There are definitely advantages to this, such as being the first one to review products or to getting the leg up on the other guy. But which types of software do you end up using? Which types of software should you invest in?

In the end, the investment into any type of software needs to pay you back by increasing your profits in some way. If it makes your job easier, that may be a good investment, but only if that means you will be able to invest more time into your business.

Think of it like this. You are a manufacturer of steel drums. A company comes along wanting to sell you a great new tool that is supposed to make it easier to cut the steel. It does not save you time. It does not do a better job than what you are already using. But you do have to pay for it. Do you buy it? Most likely you will not since there is no real way to recoup the cost of doing so.

The same is true for Internet marketing software. Purchase what is going to make you money. Even more so, you may not need to purchase it since there may be a free version out there that is just as beneficial to you. As you can see, you should never invest in a product until you have done extensive research on it.

Let's talk about some of the top software products you could be using. These items can help you to save some time and help you to increase your profit margin. Check them out.

EMAILING SOFTWARE

One of the most important things you can do for your business is to have constant communication with them. When someone visits your website, learns about what you offer, and signs up for your email list, you can draw them back to your website time and time again through effective email marketing.