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Get Paid to Learn About EBay

eBay is one of those things now-- either you know how to do it, you do it, and you love it, or you hear that someone knows how to do it and you go "I just don't know how to do it, and it seems hard."    If the latter applies to you, here is a great way to create some passive income for yourself while you're learning how to use this (very useful) website. 

OK, this one doesn't really count as passive income, as you have to spend the time listing the items, answering questions, and then sending out the stuff to the winning bidders, but still-- I bet there is something in your office (or living room, or kitchen) that you haven't used in six months or more, and that you'd much rather just get some money for. 

This is the eBay challenge:

1.  Look around your house, and find one thing that's worth a little something (so you'll be motivated to learn how to do this.  I'm guessing a piece of $20 isn't going to break through the procrastination block you've maybe built up about eBay). 

2.  If you don't already have an account, sign up for eBay.  It takes a little figuring out, but it's great to know how to do it, and after awhile it becomes second nature.  Case in point:  five years ago or so, I taught my 65 year old retiree father about eBay.  I was visiting him recently, and discovered that he now has a whole online business selling Corvettes that he restores.  If he can do it, you can do it!  http://www.ebay.com.

3.  List it, sell it, get the money, then go "wow, that was MUCH easier than I thought."

4.  Use the money you made to buy an educational program (my idea of intellectual dividend reinvestment), or better yet, to make an extra payment toward your credit card debt. 

No matter what you use the money for, you essentially got paid to learn something new.  One thing about eBay that I like is that they've made listing your stuff SO much easier than it used to be.  Sometimes they even fill in all the information for you, which is so great.  I currently have six things up for auction on eBay, a result of my New Year's resolution to clean out stuff I don't use, and turn it into things that help me on my journey toward success.   I'm probably selling $1,000 worth of stuff right now, which I think I'm going to use to attend a real estate seminar, or maybe buy some more books on tape.  I figure you can never be too smart, after all.

The eBay challenge will repeat every month.  I think this will help us streamline our lives, AND put money in our pockets while we do it.

Affirmations

Recently on his blog, Dilbert creator Scott Adams talked about his use of affirmations to achieve goals in his life.  In fact, writing affirmations is one of the techniques that Shakti Gawain talks about as well.  In short, the "writing affirmation" technique is this:

Take a goal and state it in the affirmative, as follows: 

--I have a new job with a 20% raise.
--I am a bestselling author.
--I make $5000 per month doing what I love.

Yours can obviously be whatever applies to your life, but should  be stated in the present tense, specicially using the words "I am," or "I have" to start the sentence.  Pick something you're happy with and will be able to say (and write) multiple times per day, because you're going to be living with this statement for a while--like, until it comes true.  Once you have it, the writing affirmation technique is basically that you write this statement on paper, 15 - 20 times per day. 

Sounds simple, and it is.  I've had alot of luck with this one and have made some major gains in my career since I started.  My husband did it with money, and he's now making the EXACT amount he specifies in his affirmation every day. 

Scott Adams has a great post about this technique on his blog.  One thing I think is really interesting about this post is not only the amount of comments, but how you can tell the different TYPES of people by their responses.  Like, some people clearly think it's absurd, but then they also spent alot of energy mocking it, writing stupid stuff over and over again in the comments, like "I will become Scott Adams," and stuff like that.   What I wonder is, if these people aren't willing to at least entertain the fact that methods that could be considered "alternative" could work, why would they even read the whole post in the first place?  Seems silly.

Anyhow, I started doing this last year, actually after I read about Scott Adams' success with it in another book.  Oddly, the very next day I Googled "Scott Adams, affirmations," and ended up finding that post, which he'd just posted the day before.  Cool!

There are a ton of really interesting stories (as well as the non-believers) in the comments-- definitely worth the read.  I feel about this the way I feel about any and all of these methods for retraining your mind and/ or opening up different channels in your mind to attract and/ or create more wealth in your life.  WHY NOT DO IT?  IF you try it and it doesn't work for you, who cares?  No one will ever know.  You do it alone, so no one will laugh at you.  If you try it for six months and it doesn't work, stop and try something else.  You're dedicated to success, so you're most likely willing to try whatever's going to work UNTIL something works, right? 

Just my two cents.  I like doing the affirmations.  At least I feel like I'm being productively involved in my own success. 
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The Importance of Meditation

Meditation has really been one of the things that's required the most discipline for me.  I'm one of those "Super Type A" people who doesn't like to stop even for a minute, much less sit down and close my eyes in the middle of the day, attempting to quiet my mind down and "visualize my success."  I guess I just always figured that visualizing was for people who couldn't think of an action to take, and since I'm absolutely FULL of ideas, I didn't need it.    Therefore, while I always knew and understood that meditation was important on some level, it was always the thing that would get pushed to the very end of the day, until I finished everything else. 

Starting January 1st, however, I decided that while I have achieved major success in my life since I started reading, studying, and practicing techniques for success, I was finally ready to make time in my day for meditation.  So, for the next thirty days, I am determined to make meditation and visualization a part of my day BEFORE I get sucked into a thousand emails, phonecalls, and the general craziness of life. 

I did have good success with hypnosis, which I used to stop biting my nails a few years ago.  I combined the personalized sessions with a standard Light and Sound machine.  As I recall, I did have to listen to the hypnosis session at least once a day (with the light and sound turned on) for about six weeks, but it totally worked--one day, seemingly out of nowhere, SURPRISE!  I totally had nails, and it didn't even occur to me to bite them.   This seems like a good comparison to me-- if it took me that long to change ONE HABIT, it's a good sign that I shouldn't get too impatient about the business of completely retraining my mind to produce success. 

I've armed myself for this 30 day meditation experiment-- got out my light and sound machine, ordered a few meditation-type CDs including "How to Attract Money" and "Creative Visualization" by Shakti Gawain.