You may have noticed that I just put a “Reading Music” section in the sidebar of the blog. Personally, I have found music to be an incredible motviator for accomplishing work and creating a positive attitude. I realize that all of you may not have my “exquisite” taste in hip hop music (lol) but this can be applied to any genre of music that you enjoy. I really think that listening to those songs that you really like and make you feel good can have a tremendous positive effect on your overall progress and motivation. Next time your feeling tired, un-motivated or just plain lazy, throw on a track that you absolutely love and start grinding it out!

I am planning to update the reading music section really often cause I am constantly finding new awesome songs I want to share. Also, if any of you like a soca/hip-hop/reggae mix I listen to Trini Radio all day while I’m working, it’s free and broadcasted live from Trinidad and Tobago, thanks to Greg from RRRMusic for the link to that.

Back on the money side of things, I thought I would put a positive light on being rich rather than dwelling on the negative aspects. No matter what anyone tells you, there are specific traits, characteristics and actions that all successful people embody that greatly improve the way they conduct business and ultimately, their overall success. Below is my list of the 20 Traits of Successful People.

Successful People

1. Wake Up Early to get working and into the day before everyone else.
2. Are Patient in solving problems and making business decisions.
3. Innovate in most things they do, from idea to implementation.
4. Are Decisive in making quick choices.
5. Persist at anything they do.
6. Use Discipline while conducting business.
7. Organize everything to have a smooth running operation.
8. Are Entrepreneurial not neccesarrily literally, but in thinking.
9. Work Hard at every task, project and challenge.
10. Are Goal-Oriented in terms of their path to success.
11. Use Creativity to identify new opportunities.
12. Understand People and how to get the most out of them.
13. Find Solutions to common problems.
14. Are Outgoing in every sense of the word.
15. Respect Money both physically and in principal.
16. Manage Their Time effectively and appropriately.
17. Are Bothered by anything that doesn’t meet the highest standards.
18. Network with like-minded people.
19. Motivate not only themselves but others.
20. Are Curious by nature.

There you have it, how many are you able to tick off the list? Chances are, the more of these traits that describe your line of the thinking the better chance you have of being successful in anything you undertake.

This post was sparked by the continuing happenings at a poker affiliate forum that I regularly visit and is not targetted at any specific individuals or comments, but more to the overall concept of learning to change your business strategy when things don’t go your way. In any industry, there will be (almost guaranteed) bad things that happen, stupid policy shifts, rip-off’s, dissapointments and basically anything else you can think of that will test your business acumen. In my point of view, this is all really just a test of finding effective solutions to rising problems and is really what developing and maintaining a great business is all about.

Take a look at any industry and look at the market leaders, the ones who make the biggest profits, have the best product and usually are miles ahead of their competition. There is a simple reason for this which is the ability to use foresight and adapt accordingly. If you are really “in love” with your industry, your ear will constantly be to the ground and *most of the time* you will have a pretty good idea when things are going to go south with one thing or another. It is learning to use this foresight that will ultimately put you way ahead of your competition. If you sense a negative change coming, you better believe you are most likely right and start planning accordingly on how to adapt your business model to accommodate the shifting marketplace.

This seemingly simple skill is something that many take for granted in business but it really is what seperates the average from the excellent when it comes to strategy. Learning to identify potential problems and working to successfully overcome them is something that will not only help your business but you as a person as you continue on throughout your life.

To me the name says it all, I have always had a tremendously hard time writing a first blog post that really connects with my future audience and gives you a valuable reason to come back to my blog and listen to my opinion. First off, I just want to say as far as “make money online” or “improve your life” style blogs go, this blog is not neccessarily going to focus on those aspects, but I am sure they will slip into some of the content due to my severe interest in business and better living. I guess I should will start out by telling you why I decided to make the blog in the first place…

Basically the creation of this blog boils down to an internal frustration I have felt for a long time about a large variety of issues in both societal conformity as well as business practices and really, the general state of thinking in a corporate society. I, as many have been a victim of shitty jobs, go-nowhere departments and companies full of more haters than you can shake a stick. This puts a really big mental strain on a person and sooner or later if you have the entrepreneurial bug, you will snap and get the hell out. While I did this at the ripe age of 19, and yes, I had already had that much experience with corporate bullshit.

My first venture that lasted for about 5 years until just recently was running a Catering company in my home town of Toronto that we grew from a one contract operation to a $175,000 a year money maker all while working part time from university. During school, my fascination with online business grew tremendously and I have since stopped catering and am presently working for a small Internet marketing company on some really awesome projects. Anyways that is a brief history to let you know where I am coming from, now on to the topics of the blog and why you should read me over the thousands of others.

In all honesty, I don’t particularly want to absolutely define the focus of the blog so instead I will give you a general idea of what to expect. I’m not going to lie, this blog serves a selfish purpose as it allows me to voice my opinion on things that are important to me as well as things I really want other people to hear. That being said, you can expect posts on travelling, money, changing your life, business, entrepreneurship and really whatever else may be of interest in the big picture of life. Alot of recent discussion and self-analyzing in my life has made me really question a lot of things and creating this blog was one of the new ventures that was really important to me. There are lots of other plans, which you will not doubt read about in the coming months but for now, I hope you have at least a somewhat vague understanding of what to expect.

Thank you so much for stopping by and I look forward to seeing you around FiveSomething in the coming weeks, months and years.