I believe that by buying my own web server (dedicated) I did the best decision I could because now I have total control over it. No one is limiting my usage (in term of sql query, bandwidth, cpu usage, etc). The only down side is that I have more management to do, but I like that down side since I wanted to learn about web hosting, and specifically how I could do it myself.

Here’s a quick tutorial of what I did:

1. Installed the operating system
I opted for Fedora, which is a solid solution based on Red Hat.

2. Install Apache/PHP/MySQL
Those are the easiest to setup, mostly because they are pretty much correctly setup from the beginning, so issuing a small

yum install httpd mysql php

would do the trick.

3. Install mail
This was a bigger problem than expected. Installing a mailing software is not as easy as you’d thought it would. I’m not going to go into much detail but if you aren’t familiar with software installation, I’d suggest you get a friend or someone who’s good at it to help you out, like I did.

4. Install mydns/Bind
Since you’re most likely going to act as a server, you need to be able to manage your domain name, but this is not necessary. I found that mydns was the easiest to setup and it works with mysql. Managing it is also a piece of cake.

5. Transfer
When your installation is complete, it’s time to transfer your data onto your new server. I had ssh access on my old server, so I simply did a

tar -cfv base.tar.gz /

in order to get all my stuff into a compressed archive.

I also did get a backup of my mysql databases with a simple

mysqldump –all-databases

With all that done, I simply put that stuff onto my new server and I was good to go.

Remember to always check out if everything is working fine. Some of the time, due to different server settings, thing may work while others may not. I often had to correct the permissions over the files I had transfered, which was a SMALL pain in the ass compared to the new control I have over my stuff.

The first idea that comes in mind is to start your own business. But which business? Is there anything you like? Well, for me, programming and/or anything related to computer is great. Currently managing many websites is a really interesting job that keep me passionnated. If it’s not your kind of stuff, maybe you should think about what you actually want to do… Maybe you like to interact with people, help people, work on machines, buy stuff for people, sell stuff for people. You can make any profession your own. If you didn’t notice, most of the “geniuses” in our world don’t have diplomas. They started as self declared whatever they wanted to be. If they liked robotic, they just played with a lot of robot until they were recognized has an expert in the field.

Most of the time when you go to apply for a job, what employers are looking for is experience. Do you know how to deal with various stuff? If you do, then you’re most likely their best choice.

This small story of mine should help you understand how this idea works.
At age 18 and before, I had a huge interest in websites. I did my first website out of Geocities, at age 13. From that point forward, I learned a lot about computer and programming. I was so interested in the topic that I was often ahead of my peers in the domain. I had seen the potential computers had and I wanted to take part of it.

At age 18, I began to manage around 5 websites, mainly blogs which I would try to update regularly. At first it was fun, new. Then routine made the whole thing a chore. I was bored to do all the work alone. At that moment I had no idea what to do. I was making money out of the advertising on those website I owned and because I didn’t see a drop in how much I was making even though I wasn’t writing anymore, I though that if I’d stop, it wouldn’t make a huge difference. For a year I did nothing on those sites, but still, revenue was in. I was partially happy, partially because I did money, but not totally because I knew I could do much better. At the moment I though I could do better, which was around age 19, I said to myself I had to find a solution to my biggest problem: generate content without it being a chore.

So my first solution was to find people to write for me. I though about friends and family members, but most of them where not as passionate as me for the topics I was writing about. I waited for some months until I read the 4-hour workweek by Tim Ferris. In the book, I learned about elance and registered there. I decided I would try to get some people to help me write content, even though it would cost me up to 300$ of my personal money. I engaged 3 different writers to write about my main blogs topic and gave them specific instruction.

After a month, all the articles were ready and I began to put some of them on my blogs. Some articles were great, some sucked huge time, but I didn’t have the time to do it myself anyway. I began to see revenue increase, I was beginning to see some results. I told myself that it was actually time I tried again to write on those blogs.

Still, it’s a huge task. I believe the best solution is to find some friends which would agree to write for me for a small amount of money per article. With that idea, the business became.

I’d pay my friend over 5$ per article, which is similar to what I would pay over elance, but the results would be much better and since those people were my friend, they had a better understand of what I was looking for and they often had the same interest as me. From that moment forward, managing my blogs and website was a piece of cake.

What I want you to grasp about that story is the how I did it. Notice that I wasn’t able to do what I wanted at first, but after a while, I succeeded. It’s not because you fail once that you’re necessarily going to fail twice…

When you don’t have money, you look for what is free. But how could free web host be possible if there’s a business for it? Well, because some people like to give for FREE. At that time, I went to my best friend, Google, and asked him “free hosting” please. Most of the free host you’d find would have a nasty side effect: “banners”. I didn’t want banners, but it seems it was the only possible option. I lived with that for a long moment, maybe one and a half year. Later, I found it was enough and went ahead to look for another host. That time, I found what I was looking for: a free hosting package with PHP and mySQL for free, without any banner.

5 years later, my needs in term of webhosting have changed. I have a much more broad understanding of how to manage web servers and for that reason I have different needs.

This article topic is on how to find that web host you’re looking for, at age 15. May it be to host a blog or to write on a specific topic, this should give you a general idea of what to do.

1. Find the topic you want to write on.
Do not begin to look for a web host before you have any idea about what to write on. If you’re doing this solely for the purpose of wasting time, reconsider that. If you could be doing something else more productive, do that instead.

2. Search on the topic to see if you can write a lot about it or not.
With some research you can see whether or not the topic you want to write about is interesting, broad and targeted. If you want to write about honey production in the mountains, maybe you’ll have to look again… (or not).

3. Start looking for web hosting.
Many websites have as primary task to help you find free hosting. For free, check out http://www.freewebhostingtalk.com/, and for paid services http://www.webhostingtalk.com/. Those forums allow you to get information about various hosts such as positive and negative reviews.

4. Register to the web host.
Go to their website, check out if you like how they look. A web host that takes time to make a good first impression is often a good host afterward, but not ALL the time. If the host you’re looking at look cheap, it probably is. When you’re decision is done, simply go to their sign up page and sign up!

5. Write/Design your web site.
This step could have been done before step 3 and 4. Here you write about what you want. You design your website the way you want it to look. If you’re having trouble, never hesitate to find help online, many forums are dedicated to that task.

6. Upload your web site.
Using one of the various softwares called ftp clients, upload your website (put the files from your computer onto the server).

7. ENJOY!
This is pretty self-explanatory.

That illustrates the power of skillful negotiation.

Negotiation is defined as the process of conferring with another so as to arrive at the settlement of some matter. Negotiation is an art. It is a learnable art. Learning and taking action are poles apart. Practice makes it perfect.

The followings are crucial factors to keep in mind:

i. Prepare: Prior planning prevents poor performance. With proper planning and preparation, you can negotiate with confidence and power. Most successful negotiator spent 60-70% of their time preparing for the negotiation process. This is when you set your objectives: identify values, issues, and priorities. Determine what you are willing to give and what concession you need in return. Do your due diligence and gather as much information as you can. Create a strategic plan with supporting information and tactics.

ii. Probe: Once you have set your objectives and prioritized your needs, you are now ready to communicate with the other party face to face. Besides communicating your position, you need to be attentive and listen carefully to your opponent’s needs, and explore their positions. Use assertive language to imply authority and strength. Speak clearly and directly, to strengthen the position you represent. Assertive language is persuasive and it puts people forward.

iii. Propose: As both parties have shared their wants and need, you can begin to propose ideas to solve the differences. Keep all proposals conditional, flexible and brief. Rephrase rejected proposals in positive words. Do not reveal too much of your priorities as the opponents may use them against you.

iv. Trading Concession: Now that you have explored what is the premise of possible agreement, you are ready to move on to the trading concession. Keep in mind your bottom line objective, do not forget the priorities you have set earlier. If you are unsure or do not have enough information about your opponent proposals, ask, justify and lay them all out on the table. You cannot be assumptive while trading concession. Weigh the pros and cons of each concessions. Calculate the relative risk and return.

v. Close the deal: Stay calm and vigilant as the negotiation may have become tense at this point. Watch for any closing clues, words of indication, body language, such as uncrossing arms, open palms, leaning forward, etc.

Last but not least, once the deal is closed, you need to confirm exactly what has been agreed on and summarize all the details on paper.

2. Long term vision
Building a successful business is hard but not impossible. Most of the times, when we have to make certain changes in our lives, we are immediately faced with temporary setback. Some people can be bugged down easily by these challenges. A long term vision is required to keep you motivated over temporary defeat. Understand that everything happen for a reason. Embrace every experience and you will discover miracles.

3. Focus on adding value
We get paid in direct proportion to the value we created to the marketplace. People pay for product and services that can help them save time, energy, make more money and be more productive. How can you contribute to these wants? Ask yourself how you can create more value to your customers.

4. Working in versus working on the business
A business is not another job. A business is an enterprise that generates profits with or without you. You need to make a clear distinction between self-employed and business owner. A real business owner has a system that works for him, rather than him working in the system.

5. Lack of Capital
Money capital is the life blood of any business. Having sufficient liquid asset allows your organization to invest in resources that can help you to create more value to the marketplace.

6. Poor sales
Many business do not have cash for only two reason,poor sales and poor sales. You need to draw out a plan how to generate sales and revenue. You need your cash to operate for your business. Read books on sales, take home study courses. A great sales person can sell the most mediocre product in the world.

7. Poor Marketing
Most businesses have poor sales because they have poor marketing. The function of marketing is to make selling unnecessary. It is fundamental to the growth of your business. Study your market, the demographics and how they make their purchasing decision. You can have the greatest product on the planet, but with mediocre marketing skills, there will be no sales.

8. Poor Management
Management is a process which includes planning, organizing and leading. Set realistic goal. Take manageable risks. Control your expansion and monitor the revenue streams. Make appropriate changes when necessary such as decreasing expenses, increasing income, or seeking advice from professionals.

9. Poor timing
Timing is everything: Provide the right solution at the right time and to the right market and you will win big time. But you must do your homework. According to Brian Tracy, an hour of research can reduce your production cost of $10. Read everything you can about your industry, subscribe to periodicals, magazines, newsletters and etc. Make decisions very carefully. Gather all necessary information you need. Making decision without having enough information is no different that being ignorant.

10. Inconsistency
Perhaps consistency and persistency should be considered the most crucial skills for a new business manager. You must decide in advance the commitment you are willing to make for your business. Decide the amount of time and money capital you are willing to allocate to your business. You are now a leader of your organization. The destiny of your business lies in your hand.

“A journey of thousand miles starts with the first step.” – Chinese Proverb. Do it!

However, the lack of green is the most common reason why most small businesses fail. It is rare to hear any business that failed because the owner was too busy to take care of the business.

Raising money capital for you business may be hard, but it is not impossible. Before we dwell into ways to raise capital, it is vital for you, as the business owner, to determine a financing strategy.

Critical factors to consider are: What values must be created to generate the positive cash flow? How the value will be created? What is required to start, acquire or expand the business? Break down the potential risk and return.

The following are the top 10 ways to raising capital for a small business.

i. Part-time income: When no substantial amount of capital is required in the initial start up, you can create a part time income stream to fund your business venture. While doing that, you utilize the spare time to study the nuts and bolts of the industry you intend to get involved in.

ii. Love money: This is the money that come from people with whom you have establish your credibility, people who have known you for long time, or people closest to you such as relatives and family. It is advisable to have every detail of the loan in written agreement regardless of your relationship with them.

iii. Personal loan: If you have good credit standing or valuable property, you can get a personal loan from financial institution. Most financial institution will require you to have a business plan with projected revenue and financing strategy.

iv. Angel investors: These are individuals with money but no time or experience to run a business. They are usually self-employed professionals such as physicians, lawyers and etc. If you can show them how to get a reasonable return on their money in a reasonable amount of time, they will usually say yes. However, angel investors are usually very unhappy when the return is not as much as they expected.

v. Joint Venture Partner: You can utilize other people’s resources, or even credibility to get angel investors. Otherwise you can get them to contribute to your efforts in creating value to the market you serve.

vi. Personal Savings: This is self-explanatory.

vii. Line of Credit: This is also referred to as the maximum loan a bank will allow the borrower for one-year period. Most commonly used to seasonal financing such as inventory built-up and receivable financing. It could be unsecured but sometimes bank may require a pledge of inventory, receivables, equipment, or other acceptable assets.

viii. Private placement: This is a source of equity capital for private company that has decided not to go public. It is commonly used by company to raise a specific amount of capital in a short period of time. The company will offers stock to a few private investors, rather than announcing public offering.

ix. Capital reinvestment: Start small. Monitor the cash inflow and outflow of your organization very carefully. Instead of writing a paycheck to yourself to satisfy your instant gratification, reinvest the earned income into the business operation to generate more cash flow.

x. Public Offering: Commonly referred to as IPO, or Initial Public Offering. Company raises capital through federally registered and underwritten sales of the company’s shares. It is advisable for you to consult with lawyers and accountants with the recent regulations and statues that governs IPO.

To master the game of power requires looking at the world in a certain way. Preferably from a paradigm shift. Greene was able bring the traditional view of power into the positive light that illustrates the indifference of power, elegantly.

According to Greene, the concept of Power itself is not of being right or wrong, ethical or unethical. Power is amoral. It is an idea of being able to observe one’s circumstances and not taking things personally. While observing one’s opponents, it is important to understand that their power does not come from intention, but the effects of both their action and inaction.

True mastery of power comes from practice and experience. It is not gained by mere study or discussion. This is the same as studying any other discipline. The laws that are being presented in this masterpiece are definite and practical.

Greene goes on to describe how one’s inaction and detachment from every circumstances by chance, contributes to gain true power. To gain power mastery, one must be able to judge all things by what their cost are and use this method in each and every circumstances. With that, they will never waste valuable capital such as time, peace of mind, money, and etc on unnecessary matters.

It is a social game. It is a game of appearance. It is socially agreeable that human relationship and human itself is complex. However, the most powerful people are the greatest psychologists of all. They do not discriminate, do not trust anyone completely and they study everyone, including the loved ones.

Greene stated there is a simple premise to power: Certain actions almost always increase one’s power, while others decrease it and even ruin it. I prefer to call this the Western Sun Tzu of the 21st Century. It distilled the fusion of both western and eastern philosophy and wisdom on the subject of Power.

We can never get away from Power. Neither can we opt out from the power game. In our everyday lives, we play the role of either an influencer or the one being influenced. The better we are at dealing with power, the better person we become. If you want to know how to master power and dictates the destiny of your inner and outer world, you’ll have to read the book!

2. PLR (Public Label Rights) – these are basically articles, e-books or software bundles that grants you the right to use content written by someone else as if it were your own. You can claim the authorship, modify or re-write the material anyway you like, or give it away as a bonus. There are ghostwriters out there who have written and created these products and yet they are reluctant to put them into marketplace. PLR products and be bought at fairly reasonable price.

3. 6 Figure Freelance by David Drake – If you have decided to render professional service, consider picking up a copy of Six Figure Freelancer by David Drake. Learn how to earn extra cash writing online content and not having to be Pulitzer Prize winning writer. Freelancing offers you huge profits with small risks, and you control your own schedule. This system gives you the edge over the competition and opens your eyes to huge buffet of writing opportunities available.

4. World Wide Brands – They offer the world’s largest database of e-commerce wholesalers. Every time you search for a wholesale product, there will be a built in market research to tell you how well each product you search for will sell, the competitions, search engine keywords that are most popular for the products you want to sell. The database is updated every business day by their full-time research team.

5. Become an eBay Power Seller in 90 Days, by John Thornhill – This is a step-by-step program to fully equip yourself to become eBay Power Seller in 90 Days Flat, and literally attract hundreds of dollars per day, working at comfort of your own home for just a few hours a day, selling eBooks. Once the system is setup, product delivery and payment processing is automated. All you need is couple hours to reply to emails. You will learn how to optimally price your product and get quality visitors to your sites.

6. Advanced Automated Forex Trading Signal Software – If you do not want sell digital product or physical product, nor to render any service, why not pick up a copy of the Advanced Automated Forex Trading Signal Software by Mr. Kirchberger. No trading experience is required, menial time commitment, low risk with high returns and you get to create forex signal yourself. This is proven money making method, with credible pilot no-guesswork system and therefore eliminated the “human error”. It works in any country, with any broker.

7. Widget Bucks by Joel Comm – If you are familiar with Google Adsense, Widget Bucks is one of the contextual advertising systems. Like Adsense, it can figure out the content of your site, and search through its inventory of products and serve ads that match your content. You will be compensated based on cost-per-click (CPC) basis or sometimes cost-per-mile (CPM) – the frequency the ad is shown. Usually the ad will pack with a list of ten different products that might interest the user. If the user clicks on just one of them, you get paid.

8. Legit Online Jobs – Without having to create your own website, sell anything, or carry any inventory, not to deal with any customers, or contact anybody, Legit Online Jobs offer you the legitimate ways to make money online using a computer and internet connection. This is not getting rich quick scheme. But if you follow through, you can easily earn a couple thousand dollars every month.

9. Life Coaching Resource by David Wood – The universe is continuously expanding and more people are turning into coaches and mentors for personal and spiritual growth. Do you like to help people? If money were no object, would you do it? If you answer yes to both of these questions, you may want to consider becoming a life coach. You can help people make big life changes and get paid.

10. Secret JV Profit by Dylan Loh – Many times when we have decided to start our own business, we gave in to limitations based on our limited beliefs such as not having the talent, resources and etc. Have you ever heard of the term “leverage”? It is defined as “doing more for less”. In the Secret JV Profit (where JV stands for Joint Venture), you will learn to use other people’s lists to promote your product, how to build profit-pulling partnerships and build a big list for FREE in half the time. We all have 24 hour a day and we can only do so many things in that period of time. Using the appropriate can help you achieve more by doing less. To your success!

The internet has allowed us to connect with professionals and likeminded from all over the world. If you are restricted to travel, you can start participating in forums, group discussions, comments on blogs of people that has the same value and of the same industry you intend to pursue.

The Warrior Forum has been the number one Internet Marketing Forum since 1997. People who participate in the forum have one purpose in common, to make money. Not by spamming other members in the forum, but by adding values to others, communicate ideas and strategies about making money online.

Regardless of what your niche is, be it self-improvement, gardening, making tutorial videos and what not; warrior forum is a melting pot for people who are serious about creating wealth online.

Tony Robbins, a very profound motivational speaker once said: “Success leaves clues”. It did. To get the results of the top 3 percent of the industry you choose, study what they do and do what they do, think what they think and you will achieve the same result. In the warrior forum, people are so generous in sharing ideas on legit ways to make money online and do it the right ways.

Help is here for newbie too. You can find active participants ranging from beginners to people who are already making a consistent amount money.

Beside of getting educated and networking with highly successful individuals in wealth development, you will also create more back link to your website and open up new venues for quality visitors to your site.

You will also have a potential group of people from which you can select potential joint venture partner for you upcoming projects. You get to leverage, achieving more with less. You work smart at the same time working hard on developing more wealth in your life.

This blog reveals the 10 common ways that ordinary people use to manifest great wealth and abundance in their life experience.

At the end of each review on different profile of these highly successful people , the author highlights the asset that these people possess that drive them towards their goal.

The following is a summary of these traits:
1. Hard work
2. Persistence
3. Genius
4. Luck
5. Skill
6. Enterprise
7. Guts
8. Sacrifice
9. Frugality
10. Ambition

If you have read Think and Grow Rich, you can immediately recognize how similar these traits are with those described by Napoleon Hill.

Wealth creation is a mindset. It starts with a burning desire to be wealthy. Once you have the desire, you must believe that you can acquire what you desire because thoughts are things. Be persistent about your desire but not attached to a specific outcome. When you have convinced your subconscious mind that you can have what you desire, through autosuggestion, or self-talk in modern language, you can then created a belief in you, and your subconscious mind will begin to organize your actions and behaviors to drive you towards that goal. You will also begin to attract people, events and circumstances to assist you in order to achieve those goals.

When you have an inspired thought, act upon it with no delay and no question. If you try to reason yourself , you will get lazy. Our reasoning is usually based on our limited personal observation and experience. It is human nature to that we believe what we believe is true. We get into our comfort zone too much, and it is time to get out. Be aware of how your thoughts will drive your behaviors and eventually your results.

Surround yourself with the right people, people with the right mindset and with those whose value is in alignment with yours.
We create our luck, with our own beliefs . It is our dominating thoughts that creates our reality and hence, our luck. We ask for the key to unlock the genius within us, and when we do, we act in faith, with persistency.

Dedicate yourself to mastering what you do, develop the skills you will need. Luck is the junction road between preparation and opportunity. Be prepared for the opportunity when you notice it is there, organize a plan and work on your plan.