What a hectic few days!

Wow! Don't think I've done as much on my www.self-positivity.com site in the last few YEARS as I've managed in the last few days, under the pressure from that "disaster" in my last post. So far I've reworked an old article from my ezine, found 3 article submission services, signed up and set myself up on them and submitted. I also sent it in to an ezine I subscribe to that has over 200,000 subscribers. I'm in major overdrive to build my list. Then I updated my autoresponder e-course and loaded that to my site (thanks a million to my programmer for that early morning stint!), let my list know and am watching the numbers climb on that - gives me a good idea who's still actively reading. I've trolled through the products I've bought and signed up as an affiliate, and found which one I liked the best, posted that into a little sidebar spot on my home page. Oh yes, and reworked the home page as well, while I was at it. I was going to do some ebay selling too, except that without my credit card I can't accept payments or pay them just yet.

One really nice thing - one of the Ezine Article Submission Services had a setup where the first 10 articles were reviewed, and if they all got through you got Expert Author status and could post unlimited articles. I sent mine in, then got notice back that it was through, was being featured, AND they'd upgraded me to expert status. They really must have liked it!
(If you want to see it, go to http://EzineArticles.com/?id=30670, but don't tell them I told you...)

Offline has been hectic too. I've been getting stuff ready to go in with 2 years of taxes, working at half strength at work, (busy at the best of times!) and preparing a submission to do some relief work up the chain. Combine that with my fitness/weight loss routine (the exercise stuff is mostly just hard because it takes time. The real challenge is that as a vegetarian, balancing protein & the rest for weight-loss ain't easy, there's not much available out there on it, and so there's heaps of research I've had to do to figure it out as far as I have - meal planning takes me a while since I'm still learning). Then there's been all the running around to do about fixing up this visa transaction, cashing in my powerball ticket for that $12.50 to buy my coffee in the morning (NEED that break from the computer, and love the walk across to the cafe. My little luxury), taking my receipts in to the health insurance place (they were shut for 2 hours. Oh well, tomorrow) putting my stuff together to take down to Cash Converters to make a bit more to live on. I'm really feeling like I'm in control of my own finances - not that I'd knock it back if I won powerball THIS week, too. Multimillionaire has a really nice sound to it, especially if it had a comma in front of it and was added to the end of my name...

I'm in HYPERDRIVE, baby!!!

(Hmm. Wondering if that last comment was at all related to sleep deprivation. Possibly.)

Action plan from here: find another article, rework that and submit. Update the next two entries for my autoresponder, to cover the next 2 weeks. Research my next recommendation for the home page and upload it. Submit my article to another 5 places over the next week. Get my ebay account running again and load some of my resale rights products into my ebay shop at http://stores.ebay.com.au/Self-Positivity. Plus offline keep the exercise & diet going (since 10 April, I've dropped 2% in body fat, weigh 1.5kg less, and have developed a very nice looseness around the waist of my jeans!) and finally, clean up after having receipts, folders and pieces of tax-related paper strewn EVERYWHERE!

Wish me luck? Do I need it - on second thought, just send me your positive thoughts and wishes instead...

Crystal

You know those 'lost everything' scenarios?

I've been reading a few ebooks lately where there are a whole load of successful people online answering the question of what they would do if they suddenly lost everything, and needed to raise money in 30 days.

Argh! Knew I should never have tempted fate!!!

Somehow, despite always being careful how and where I use my visa card, the number's fallen into the hands of someone else - and they've emptied my account with a payment to some "High Risk Adult Entertainment" mob. Worse still, after I told the bank and they cancelled the card, I transferred some money in from my savings so I could live for the next 2 weeks. Well, guess what! Another transaction went through somehow, and THAT'S GONE TOO!

I'm getting the feeling there's something I'm supposed to learn here...

At least I know that I've got plenty of material on how to recover from this! Now, I'm smack bang in the middle of a situation where I've got no choice but to use it.

Since these stories are so popular, and I intend one day to be one of those 'internet success stories', I figure I'll jump the gun here and keep a blog of exactly what I do as I go through this - except this is REAL, and happening to me LIVE right now.

Step 1. In the immortal words of Douglas Adams:

"DON'T PANIC!"

(I met him once, and he wrote these in capitals through the middle of my autograph book. There's more to the story, but I'll save that for another time.)

Step 2. Evaluate.
OK. First thing is to let the bank know. I did that with the first transaction, and they've already cancelled my card (I'll have to make a list of who I need to notify for that, too) but I'll need to call them after the public holiday today and let them know about the second. Plus I'll have to go in to the police and file a report.

What do I have that I can use to get by until the investigation's done and (hopefully) my money's returned to me? Well, beside all these books of how to recover from losing everything in 30 days (Although I haven't really lost everything, just my bank account. My friendships, my job, my place, there's heaps of stuff still to be grateful for) - what else do I have that I can draw on to survive?

I have a powerball ticket that won $12.50 last week, although with a $22 million jackpot, I REALLY want to use that to enter again this week. The receipt I got for gym fees hasn't been taken into the health fund yet, so I should get something from that. I've got the rights to a lot of stuff over the 15 years I've been online, but never done anything with them - now's probably a good time to start offering them on the site and on ebay too - since I can accept Paypal and they hold it until I transfer it to a bank account, I can still use that, and set up another account for the money to go into. Oh, and speaking of ebay, there are a lot of books I've run out of room for. I could do a cull and put some of them up for sale. Hey, I could do a general de-clutter and take some stuff down to the local 'Cash Converters' for some quick cash as well!

Step 3: Take action!
Making decisions and plans is one thing, but the final step is to move on what you've decided. So, I'll be blogging what I actually DO right here.

3.1 - First on the list, I did just buy a great sale package, where the price was going up daily over the week of the sale. Love the stuff I got, so I'm going to sign up as an affiliate and let my list know. I don't do that often, and only for products that I've tried and liked myself, but I must admit I do like hearing about sales on the other ezines I'm signed up for...

Done that. Next!

3.2 - OK, there was another product I bought with resale rights, interviews with a lot of names I really respect, talking along a similar line to what my site covers. I'll load that up to the home page with a special sale price to try to get some more cash coming in. Except for one thing - for this to work I need traffic too. The marketing I've not been getting around to is vital for this. So,

3.3 - I dug out an article I loved, and have rehashed it to bring it right up to date (how powerfully the beliefs you have can affect the kind of lifestyle you live, how appropriate is that!) then submitted it for approval at an ezine article service. I have 10 articles to submit before I get expert author status, but it seems they liked it. It's now being featured at http://EzineArticles.com/?id=30670 so hopefully a few other publishers will like it and run with it, to get me a bit more traffic.

3.4 - Hmm. Probably a good idea to get my list a bit more active, too. It IS over 5 years standing, so there are probably people in there who never open it. I've been thinking that while the programmer is working on my site postcard service, (plan from before this happened) I should offer something else new in the meantime. I used to have a course through freeautobot, but was looking at a paid service so it would be ad-free. I look over all the stuff I've got rights to now, and realise I own a few different autoresponder scripts.

3.5 - Quick email to the programmer, and (he's wonderful to fit me in despite coming up to graduation!) it's up and installed. So now I revise the first 3 messages to give them more value, and make sure they're up to date, upload the signup form to my main page at http://www.self-positivity.com and then mail out to the list that they are the first to be offered the chance to get this course for free. I can revise and upload the rest of the messages over the next week, since the mailing is set up to go out weekly. Since this autoresponder lets me attach files, eventually I'll have bonus material and exercises, and charge for it, but meanwhile this is a great way to give something out (which by the laws of success is a crucial step to getting anything back), find who's active on my list and start the process which will eventually let me promote my own product.

3.6 - Better do some more revision work on that too. I've got work tomorrow, and have to go through all my financial records today as well, so it looks like I'll be doing a lot tonight! Still, it's important to stay calm, relaxed and healthy, so I'll shift this last item to tomorrow morning before I leave for work (I'll get up at 6 instead of hitting snooze, honest!) and get stuck into my financials now.

OK. There's a few steps already taken. I have a few things to do tomorrow, such as cash in my gym fees and powerball ticket, drop a few things to Cash Converters as well as some revision work on the book, and of course the marketing will have to continue regularly now. This will be on top of a VERY full day at work. (The day after a holiday always is, because it means I've got 2 days of work to fit in to one.) With trying to lose weight at the moment as well, and get my fitness levels up, I really shouldn't neglect getting some exercise in as well, (hey, that should be a great stress relief too!) so I think I've done enough today that I'll move on from this to get on to the other areas of my life, including some time on the bike tonight. I'm sure I'll be sleeping well!!