Free Multimedia Course on Blogging from Mark Joyner

I was just looking at Business Strategist Michelle Price’s New Media Mastermind web site (As we would say from where I’m from: "Gurrrl, you need to update some of your links!") and noticed that she had reported that Mark Joyner is offering for FREE his new course on how to blog effectively and profitably.

You probably have heard of Mark Joyner; he’s one of the most well known internet marketers in the world today.  He’s most known (to me, at least) for his free (there are for-fee options as well) Simpleology course, which, I must admit, I signed up for a couple of years ago and have not log-on since, nor actually done any of the lessons!

(If anyone out there has done the Simpleology course, what did you think?  How did it go?  Should I buck up and give it a go?)

Anyway, as I was saying, Mark Joyner is offering his new how-to-blog course for free, provided I put the following copy on here on my blog (which you can, too, of course).  He has such a great reputation, I just couldn’t pass this up.

Care to join me?

Here’s the copy (and, though I didn’t personally write it, it’s all true…..By the way, this is a great marketing move on Mark’s part and my advice is to take note and creatively copy this idea from one of the masters of internet marketing):

I’m evaluating a multi-media course on blogging from the folks at Simpleology. For a while, they’re letting you snag it for free if you post about it on your blog.

It covers:

• The best blogging techniques.
• How to get traffic to your blog.
• How to turn your blog into money.

I’ll let you know what I think once I’ve had a chance to check it out. Meanwhile, go grab yours while it’s still free.

 

What kind of gift giver are you?

When I was growing up, we didn’t celebrate Christmas.  As a Jehovah’s Witnesses, we considered the celebration inherently non-Christian and thus, contrary to what we believed constituted "worship in truth."

I remember kids and parents expressing regret for us.  "Don’t you feel deprived when everyone else is getting presents?"

But, my mother is wise and loving.

Instead of a specific day where gift-giving can be burdensome and obligatory, throughout the year, Mom surprised us with special gifts that were filled with meaning and joy.

At this point in my life, I do not hold a particular religious or political stance in opposition to Christmas (or, really to any holiday).  However, I feel honored to have been taught such a valuable lesson in giving from my mother.

She found great joy in the giving, to be sure, because it was out of joy rather than obligation.  (Dov Baron recently offered a message on The Beast of Obligation and how to move from that burden toward the freedom of being joyful and authentic.)  My mother is really one of my heroes, because she also gave us the gift of herself, the gift of her time.

I was reading an article in the December 2007 issue of the AARP Bulletin, "About Buying Gifts."  The author contrasts her mother’s buying style with her father’s.

Her mom took care to find just the right gift.  She knew that "a gift has to be about the person receiving it."  The problem was that she worked so hard and so often to earn enough to buy the perfect gifts, her mother had little time to spend with her children.

Her dad, on the other hand, bought presents that he really wanted for himself.  As a result, her dad ended up playing with or using the gift more often than the person for whom he supposedly had purchased it.

However, her dad lavishly bestowed on his children the gift of time.

"He had time to tramp barefoot through mud puddles.  He had time to catch lightning bugs (my note:  that’s fireflies to all you Northerners!) and to walk all the way to Dairy Queen and back on hot summer nights.  And he had time to tell stories and to listen to us."

What about you?

With birthdays, anniversaries, baby showers, and the holidays like Christmas or Hanukkah, it’s easy to get swept up in commercialism or it all and the obligatory "shoulds" and the "have-tos" in the area of gift-giving. 

Do you feel a sense of obligation to give gifts — however meaningless — just because you have to?  Or, do you give (or not give) a gift according to how good you feel about giving it?

What about the gift of you?  How generous are you with your time?

Are you consistently paying attention to how you feeeeel and doing only that which is congruent?

Inspired to perform works greater than Jesus

Two days ago on Christmas Day, Chad and I came down to spend a couple of days at my mom’s house for the holiday.  She lives in a little town called Dupont, just shy of 140 miles south of where we live in Bellingham.

It’s so interesting, this day called Christmas, when the whole Western World celebrates the birth of Jesus.  Well, I suppose there are some in Christendom who do actually celebrate Jesus’ birth on this day, despite how highly unlikely — actually a near impossibility — that he actually was born on December 25.

For the majority of us, the secular Christmas affords the opportunity to rest from our labors, eat decadent foods, and exchange gifts and spend time with loved ones (and lie to the kids that there really is a Santa Claus who, at the North Pole, spends the year tallying up whether we’ve been good or bad…..but I digress!).

Still, I cannot help but remark at what an enormous impact this Jesus has had on the world — regardless of religious affiliation or lack thereof — past and present.

Not only is a holiday been named for him since the mid-4th century CE that is celebrated in some form the world over, we mark time based on his birth.  The year Jesus was believed to be conceived (and born), an entire epoch ended and the so-called Christian Era began.

For example, we would refer to today’s date at the 25th of December 2007 A.D., which stands for Anno Domini, or "in the year of our Lord."  When we reference time before Jesus, B.C. (Before Christ) is used.

There are other designations, like C.E. (Common Era) and B.C.E. (Before our Common Era), but they take their point of reference from the same year of Jesus Christ’s birth (which is year 1 A.D., or 1 C.E.).

This is amazing.  Who else has an entire era named for them?

More than his birth, I think of particular interest is all the things Jesus accomplished during his brief 33 years.  The last chapter of the book of John (John 21:35) in the Christian Bible indicates that all the books in the world could not contain all the remarkable, miraculous things that Jesus did in his life.

Clearly, non-Christians and Christians alike acknowledge the wisdom and great influence of the historical Jesus who walked the Earth over 2,000 years ago.  He has been called the Prince of Peace, such was his commitment at all times to nonviolence.

You may recall when one of his disciples cut of the ear of a guard in defense of Jesus — who was about to be arrested and eventually delivered into the hands of the Romans to be put to death — this Jesus rebuked him, saying "Put up again thy sword into its place: for all that take the sword shall perish with the sword. Thinkest thou that I cannot ask my Father, and he will give me presently more than twelve legions of angels?" (Matthew 26:52-53)

In all this, it was Jesus himself who said, as reported by the apostle John in his account of Jesus life (John 14:12), "Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father."

There are probably as many interpretations of what was meant here as there are people on Earth, but I like to think of those — Christians and non-Christians alike — who have done "greater works than these" by following in the tradition that Jesus set of love, nonviolence and peace.  Mother Teresa, Mahatma Ghandi, and Martin Luther King, Jr. come to mind — preeiminent peacemakers who accomplished great things for far longer than Jesus’ 3 years of ministry, or longer than even the 33 years of Jesus’ entire life.

Jesus words inspired them and they inspire me.

Aren’t you inspired, too?

What "greater works than these" are you accomplishing as you fulfill your joyful, inspirational purpose here on Earth?