I recently attended a speech where the presenter shared this video and poem.

It really touched me, so I wanted to share it with you too.

Invictus

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll.
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

You can watch the YouTube video from the film Invictus here.

Invictus by William Ernest Henley is a post from: jannajungclaus.com

This is a blog post I wrote exactly two years ago today on one of my old blogs. Although I have changed A LOT in the last two years, this is still one of the best books I’ve read, so I’ve decided to re-post the is review of Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi.

Wow, Flow: The Classic Work on how to Achieve Happiness has been catapulted to the number 1 spot on my Favourite Books list! That said, it took me about three and a half months to finish the whole thing. It’s not an easy read, but if you stick to it and if you’re willing to use your brain and imagination, it is worth every little bit of effort you put in.

To give you some background, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi is a professor and former chairman of the Department of Psychology at the University of Chicago. For the past twenty years he has been involved in research relating to the concept of Flow and decided that his findings should be accessible to people outside academia as well. So he started writing and publishing outside of academia, for laymen (and laywomen).

Let me explain the concept of Flow that is at the basis of Csikszentmihalyi’s work: Flow experience is the total involvement with life, an experience that strikes the right balance of challenge and skills, that makes us learn and grow within ourselves. This can be any experience or activity: reading, playing chess, rock climbing, weaving, dancing, or any other experience that involves you entirely.

Csikszentmihalyi notes that his book aims to present the general principles that generate flow in people’s lives rather than insider tips on how to achieve happiness. It draws on many studies conducted by Csikszentmihalyi and his colleagues and uses concrete examples of how other people have transformed boring and meaningless lives into lives full of enjoyment.

According to Csikszentmihalyi, there are two main strategies that can be adopted to improve the quality of life: to make external conditions match our goals or to change how we experience external conditions to make them fit our experience better. A combination of the two would be an ideal path to improve life experience.

Although occasionally flow experience may occur by chance, it is much more likely to occur from a structured activity, or from an individual’s ability to make flow occur.

The following elements would need to be existent to create flow conditions:

* challenging activity that requires skills
* merging of action and awareness
* clear goals and feedback
* concentration on the task at hand
* a sense of control
* loss of self-consciousness
* transformation of time.

If all of these conditions are met, the subject is much more likely to have a flow experience. Some activities are designed to be enjoyable and are thus much more likely to produce a flow experience, these include games, dancing, reading and so on. On the other hand an individual’s ability to create a flow experience for themselves is based on their ability to control psychic energy and direct their experience of outside events. For example, if an individual is focused on the activity itself, rather than the outcome, a flow experience is much more likely to occur.

Throughout the book, Flow is described in various circumstances:

* Physical activity, or the body in flow
* Mental activity or the flow of thought
* Vocational activity or work as flow
* Social activity , or flow in solitude or in company
* Tragedies transformed by flow.

In the chapter that studies flow and vocational activity, Csikszentmihalyi makes a very interesting observation: most people have most of their flow experiences while they are working or on the job and least likely to experience flow during their leisure time. Yet people wish to spend less time at work and more time doing leisure activities. This raises several important questions about our society and people today: Are we so impressed by societal values and opinions, that we think we have to hate our jobs? That we think it would be preferable to do nothing all day and never grow our skill set or our mental capacity? And what would our society, or even humanity in general look like, if all of us remained in a state of complacency?

Csikszentmihalyi asks similar questions in the last, and in my opinion best, chapter of the book, The Making of Meaning. Here, all the threads weaved throughout the book come together and such major themes as life goals, purpose and meaning are discussed.

This chapter discusses how, why and when people decide who they are in life and what it is they want to achieve. Among psychologists exists a consensus that this process happens in a sequence of steps, starting with the preservation of the self and eventually leading the individual to merge the self with a larger whole (such as a religion, a life purpose, etc). However, Csikszentmihalyi notes that most people stay in the first stages of this development process and only “if a person is lucky and succeeds in controlling consciousness” they can progress to the final stage.

My favourite section in the book discusses purpose and life goals and encourages us to stick with our convictions:

“Purpose gives direction to one’s efforts, but it does not necessarily make life easier. Goals can lead to all sorts of trouble, at which point one is tempted to give them up and find some less demanding script by which to order one’s action. The price one pays for changing goals whenever opposition threatens is that while one may achieve a more pleasant and comfortable life, it is likely that it will end up empty and void of meaning.”

I think this is true for everyone of us. Some may not have any life goals or a strong sense of purpose, while others may have an exact plan of what they want to achieve. Our resolution should be the same, find our life purpose, live for it and fight for it. Because with a life purpose, we can turn every experience along the way into flow!

You can check out Flow: The Classic Work on how to Achieve Happiness at Amazon.

Book review: Flow: The classic work on how to achieve happiness by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi is a post from: jannajungclaus.com

My friend Suzanne and I will be starting a Meditation and Oneness Blessing Group in the Sydney CBD next week.

It will be on every Tuesday from 6-7.30pm in the St James Trust Building (Suite 1016, 10th Floor, 185 Elizabeth St, St James Trust Bld).

Our Mission is to provide a space for people to wind down and relax after work. A space where they can feel peaceful and calm. A space where they can find to their inner selves.

We are doing an ancient Ayurvedic breathing meditation which awakens the energy centres of the body (chakras) and improves your health and wellbeing. The breathing meditation is followed by the Oneness Blessing so that you may receive the divine energy for your own everyday life.

In my personal experience, receiving the Oneness Blessing helps you to grow from the inside out. By that I mean that through the powerful Oneness Blessing energy you will find your true self grow stronger and stronger until you cannot help yourself but turn from the inside to the outside so that your true self will also be reflected to the rest of the world.

Some people call this process awakening, some people call it finding themselves, some people simply enjoy the feeling of freedom and liberation.

If you are in Sydney, I would like to invite you to join us for a wonderful night of meditation and Blessings.

Oneness Blessing Sydney is a post from: jannajungclaus.com

Well, this picture really says it all….

How to Be Happy At Work

This image and a corresponding article were originally published here.

Where are you?

How to Be Happy At Work is a post from: jannajungclaus.com

I was recently reading the amazing book Free by Chris Anderson and came across a very profound sentence that really struck a chord with me:

Every abundance creates a new scarcity.

The author was explaining that the newly available abundance of mostly free information creates a scarcity on behalf of the recipient, in both attention and time.

The statement certainly isn’t new, but it’s very timely in the internet marketing world. After attending an internet marketing workshop recently, I conducted a survey with new internet marketers asking about the challenges they face. One of the recurring themes was that new internet marketers continually suffer from information overload and lack of focus. The survey results were also backed up by information from the Warrior Forum and a survey conducted by Kyle Tully last year.

Because of the high demand for one-on-one support and direction, I have created a personal one-on-one coaching program.

This program is not for everyone, and I can’t take on more than 3 students to start with because of the intense one-on-one mentoring, so I will be very selective.

In order to qualify you need to:

• be committed to Internet marketing and spend at least 12 hours a week on creating your Internet business
• not be afraid of investing in yourself and your future
• be willing to work with me as part of a team
• complete some pre-coaching homework to make sure you meet the above criteria

The one-on-one coaching program is specifically tailored to each person, their individual needs and their chosen business model, and includes:

• Setting a strategic direction for your business and working together to set KPIs that will measure the success of our coaching
• 2 x 30 minute Skype calls a week where we share our screens and discuss your business
• Twice weekly homework which I will check and provide feedback o
• A shared online working space where we can Interact, collaborate and share files
• templates, video tutorials and instructional manuals where you can learn from my mistakes and avoid making them yourself

If you really want to see improvements and excel your Internet marketing business, apply for coaching now (no guarantee that you will be accepted, as the spaces are limited). Prices start from US$697 per month.

From Yearning to Earning – Excel Your Internet Marketing Business is a post from: jannajungclaus.com

One of the hardest things about learning something new is to manage ourselves – to manage our psychology and teach an old dogs new tricks. The most difficult aspect of learning a new behaviour or skill is often the ‘unlearning’ of an old behaviour or habit that is counterproductive to what we want to achieve.

Our psychology plays havoc especially when we’re creating new habits that challenge our core needs (certainty, significance, love/connection, variety, growth and contribution, adapted from Tony Robbins). So in most cases the theory of doing something new (like practicing swimming on dry land), will in no way compare to actually doing this new thing (actually swimming in water) – there are just too many variables in the reality that theory can’t predict.

Just do it!

The best advice anyone can give is to simply start doing something. Prepare for it by reading and researching a little if you want – but the longer you wait to DO, the more difficult it will be come. Everything that is normal for you today, was probably once difficult and scary. You can only make something more normal by tackling your fear and just doing it.

Rewarding Good Behaviour and Punishing Bad Behaviour

One of the best ways to support the creation of new habits, is to manipulate yourself. You need to reward good behaviour and punish bad behaviour. This way you will quickly gravitate towards what you like (your reward which is a result of good behaviour) and move away from what you don’t like (your punishment resulting from bad behaviour).

An example could be cleaning – if you’ve stuck to your good behaviour that supports creating new habits (whether these are health habits, productivity habits, business habits, or anything else) you can pay someone else to clean your house.

If you’ve indulged in bad behaviour (say you slept in when you should have gone for a bike ride) you’ll have to clean your house yourself.

A friend of mine, who is a very successful forex trader, has used these techniques to reinforce the right trading behaviour – he is now a millionaire.

Make sure you share your rewards and punishments with someone who can check whether you’re sticking to your plan – cheating the plan would mean cheating yourself.

Managing Yourself – Creating New Habits To Support Your Business is a post from: jannajungclaus.com

Have you heard of the 80/20 Rule? It’s also called the Pareto Principle (named after the Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto) and it says that 80 percent of your results should come from 20 percent of your effort. For example, in your business, a vital few activities result in 80 percent of your income.

Unfortunately for most people, they are stuck on the wrong side of the Pareto Principle. They keep focusing on the 80 percent of their time that delivers hardly any return. Sounds familiar?

Especially if you’re self-employed or your working with the internet, it’s easy to constantly get distracted from your main line of work. In his recent post How To Never Get Anything Done, Dean Hunt the world’s leading Buzz Marketer, described how most people spend more time fearing a project, worrying about a project and avoiding a project, than actually doing it. Luckily, I recently spent some time learning from Dean and another great internet marketer, James Schramko, and one of the main lessons was to create more results with less effort.

Leverage 80 Percent of Results With 20 Percent of the Effort

So, how do you create more results with less effort? One Word: Leverage!

Leverage the vital few activities that create 80 percent of your results. Are you great at interviewing people? Well, one video interview can be a TV show or downloadable video, it can also be a podcast and turned into a report. Imagine what a whole series of video interviews could do? An online TV show, a series of podcasts, a Book and a membership site which combines all these products, can be created from the simple act of filming some interviews.

Think about it, how many activities in your business do you repeat over and over again? Would it be worth filming those activities to turn them into training videos? How many repetitive tasks do you do each day? How can you leverage your time by setting them up once and being able to access them automatically? That is leverage.

What we can learn from Barbie

Do you have a best-selling product? Can you simply replicate it, re-package it and sell it again? You wouldn’t be the first one. Think of Barbie. She started as a single doll, then she was replicated with different clothes – she even kept the same name! And that’ been going on for over 50 years. And to spice things up a little bit, Mattel added Barbie’s friends and family who were just like Barbie, but in different sizes and nationalities.

The Barbie doll range implements some other incredible leverage techniques: Upselling, Downselling and Cross-selling.

You want to buy more than just Barbie? Well, you can also get her a house, a car, and a horse. You don’t want Barbie to be lonely? Well you better buy her a man (Ken), or at least a friend. You don’t want to buy an entirely new Barbie Doll? Maybe just a new outfit will do.

Lesson: Play To Your Strength

So what is the best way to implement the Pareto Principle and leverage the 20 percent of your effort that delivers 80% of your results?

• Find the vital few activities that deliver 80 percent of your results.
• Determine what makes these results so popular with your market.
• Find out what else your market wants.
• Offer your market these additional products and services as up-sells, cross-sells and down-sells from your original offer.

I’m off leveraging this great blog post by turning it into a video… hang on, maybe it’s going to be a podcast. Or should I save it for my new book…?

How are you going to leverage? Leave a comment below and please share this post with your friends!

The 80/20 Rule: Lessons From James Schramko, Dean Hunt and Barbie is a post from: jannajungclaus.com

About 6 months ago I met a guy who had a whole room of people doing boxing exercises while learning about internet marketing. He was a strong, fit, happy guy telling jokes on stage and loving the crowd’s attention.

Then he started to tell his story – how depressions nearly led him to take his own life. And how a taxi driver saved his life.

The result is this interview Patrick and I did a few months ago – and a new friendship.

Janna interviews Patrick Moore about depression and what’s important in life

You can find out more about Patrick at his website www.danceintherain.com.au or you can buy his book ‘Touch The Sky’ (contact him on the website for more details).

Saved by a Taxi Driver – Patrick Tells How Depression Nearly Pushed Him Over The Edge is a post from: jannajungclaus.com

This is an extract of an interview I did with James Schramko a few days ago. James reveals his predictions about what will be happening with internet marketing in 2010, and also talks about his own plans for the coming year.

The full interview, and two bonus interviews with some of James experts make up the Secret Lab Insider Interview Series that is available as a bonus when securing your seat at James’ next internet marketing workshop Fast Web Formula.

Interview with James Schramko – Predictions for 2010 and Fast Web Formula Workshop is a post from: jannajungclaus.com

A couple of months ago, I wrote a post about attending James Schramko’s workshop in Sydney. Now the News is out that James is holding a new internet marketing workshop in Sydney – it’s called Fast Web Formula and will be held from 5th-7th of March 2010.

I was so impressed with James’ previous workshop, and especially the community and ongoing support on his private forum (a $1 free trial is available here) that I have decided to create a secret bonus product for his Fast Web Formula course. It’s a series of interviews with James himself and his Secret Lab Insider experts – the people who help him make his business (and workshops) work behind the scenes.

In this amazing interview, James reveals

• his personal KPIs (key performance indicators)
• how to recognise bogus internet marketers
• James favourite internet marketing moments
• what happens once money doesn’t matter anymore
• the most important skills internet marketers need to learn to prepare for the change coming in 2010
  and much more…

Plus two bonus interviews with James’ article marketing expert Kerry Finch, and Steve Ovens, also known as SEO Steve.

If you’re looking to grow your existing internet marketing business, or start a brand-new one, James Schramko’s Fast Web Formula course is the one to attend. Here are just a few of the reasons why you should:

• A 3 day LIVE WORKSHOP with Australia’s internet marketing super star James Schramko. He will go through everything from profitable online business models to specific (and easy!) techniques to build, promote and sell products online
• Network with James experts, other attendees and forum members – not other internet marketing workshop has such a high-quality audience
• Continue your workshop momentum through James’ amazing private forum – you will have access internet marketers worldwide who are keen to help you succeed
• Get Access to James’ private tools – they’re so secret I can’t mention more but I can tell you that they have saved me thousands of dollars and hours of time
• Access to LIVE weekly Webinars with James and other experts where you can have all your questions answered – PLUS recordings from previous webinars if you’ve missed out

Secure Your Seat for Fast Web Formula now before it’s sold out – and remember if you buy through this link you will received the Secret Lab Insider Interviews as a bonus!

No thanks, I don’t want to achieve anything in 2010, but I’ll take James’ free report.

To claim this amazing James Schramko interview as a bonus, simply book now and email me your confirmed booking details janna.jungclaus @ gmail. com (no spaces>

Fast Web Formula Bonus is a post from: jannajungclaus.com