An odd thing happened today. I got tracked down by a fellow Irishman today who wanted to ask me some questions on my affiliate marketing business. For those of you who don’t know me that’s what I do to put bread on the table here

Anyway this guy had put quite a bit of effort into tracking me down and getting in touch with me to ask me some questions about what I did. Now I have zero problem with this – especially because he wasn’t looking for a handout; just some advice and to see if the concept of making money is actually real. 15 minutes later he was relieved to find out it wasn’t all hocus pocus and that you can make a full-time income from working online.

The point I’m getting at here is that we can forget just how much we know about a subject and how much that knowledge can help others – even in 15 short minutes. I didn’t change that guys life but I heard more hope in his voice at the end of our chat. That was more payment than others have given me for hours of my time!

Never discount what you know – it will always be of value to somebody else.  And give without hesitation and expect nothing in return. You will be rewarded in more ways than one.

Ok folks. Something is going on here. Twice in the last 24 hours I’ve been contacted by friends who have just been infected with a new strain of computer virus. One female friend just reinstalled Windows Vista and was done with it (drastic to say the least but she’s stubborn and hates asking for help) and the other friend is leaving on holidays today and is going to have to leave her computer unplugged and locked up until she gets back. Why? Her 15 year old son managed to download a really nasty virus from a porno site that’s designed to steal credit card numbers and other financial information.

Am I bothered that friends called me for help with this type of computer problem? Not at all – I’m a total nerd at heart and always will be to some extent.

No my problem is that these people were using freebie anti-virus programs that are months out-of-date and of absolutely no use in stopping an actual virus. All for the sake of a few dollars they’re willing to risk losing hours of time (in one case a lifetime of digital photographs) and frustration just because they’re too cheap to go and buy a decent anti-virus and firewall solution.

The attitude I see is “It won’t happen to me because I don’t download pirated movies/mp3s/games”. That’s about as shortsighted an approach to computer security as I can think of. It’s just plain dumb to be blunt.

What I can’t understand is that these people have zero clue about the risks they’re taking getting hit with virus and spyware infections. Viruses don’t announce their presence on your system like in those dumb hacker movies – there’s no skull and crossbones on your screen. No cryptic messages or any of the other nonsense that Hollywood would have you believe. The best and most dangerous viruses are the ones that do their very, very best to stay hidden.

Listen up folks. If you are not using a firewall package AND anti-virus software then I can promise that you are going to get hit with a virus and probably a nasty one at that. You cannot use one and not use the other. You’d also be wise to download and run Spybot or Ad-Aware at least once a month also to clear up spyware problems.

If you’re happy to risk financial disaster and identity theft then continue on taking risks online. Soon enough you’ll become a statistic with the rest of the “It won’t happen to me because…” crowd.

Worst part is that I’ll probably wind up writing Part III of this series…. shame.

They say that moving home is one of the most stressful things you can do and it’s been keeping me busy for the last 60 days at least. I’ve also had to deal with whiplash and a dislocated finger and battered shoulder – that’s a story for another day though.

For now let’s just say that I’ve been busy and flat out for the last month. Apologies.

That’s not a typo the title really does say “How To Avoid Being Successful”. It just confuses people to hear that – why would anyone avoid being successful? Aren’t we all trying to become truly successful in our own way? It’s what you all aspire to isn’t it; that’s why you buy all those self-help books and DVDs that you watch and read religiously.

Here’s the thing – avoiding success can be a conscious thing but more often than not it’s subconscious. We often aim to avoid success without even realizing it. The way we live our lives each day is often enough to prevent success. Sometimes it’s because of the influence of those around us. Sometimes it’s because of the what we learned from our parents and peers as we grew up.

The point is that being unsuccessful is a learned behaviour; it’s something we learned how to do over time. Until it became a habit. For some people it becomes instinct. They can avoid success and successful situations almost at will.

Does that sound unfair? Think about this. You all know that person in your life who displays this ability to avoid success. That one person who will pick the loser every single time. That person who could walk into a room full of billionaires, visionaries and gurus and would hook up with the only total loser in the place. That’s the reality of it. Some people are not only attracted to avoid success but actively pursue it in a very subconscious way.

So how can you avoid being successful? Just follow these simple tips:

Friendships
Surround yourself with people with no ambition, desire nor dreams. Spend as much time as possible with them in bars or coffee shops moaning about how unfair life is and how opportunities always just seem to pass them by. Buy into their apathy until you feel as hopeless as they do. Don’t forget to reinforce just how awful and hopeless life is at least once every six months as a group. “All men are bastards” or “All women are bitches” are good mottos to start off these friendships with.

Affirmations
Each day you wake up and get out of bed remind yourself of how inadequate you feel and how your life is just a pointless journey with no excitement or joy. Put all your mental focus into having a rotten day and focus on coming home each day unhappy and upset. Visualize it until it’s as real in your mind as it is in real life.

Distractions
Keep yourself constantly distracted with the opinion and advice of others. Make sure you never, ever make up your own mind on any matter – business, personal or otherwise. If for some reason you find some element of success in your life then immediately find something else to distract you until the potential of success has vanished. This is especially true in business; if you find a business idea that works well then immediately start doing something else to distract you.

Excuses
Whenever you’re inspired to do something or set a new goal then immediately find a reason for not doing it. The standard of excuses of being tired, not having enough money, not having enough time are all acceptable. Especially if you’ve just spent the last 5 hours eating pizza in front of your cable TV. The more excuses you can find for not even trying the more you can truly learn to avoid any form of success.

Mindset
Being successful is a mindset as much as it is a tangible thing. True success can’t become real in your life until you adopt a mental attitude that fosters success in your life. Beware – avoid all forms of positive mental attitude. Steer clear of inspirational books, movies or people. In as much as you can stay mentally negative – especially when presented with a positive/inspiring idea, situation or person. Always find some reason to criticize positive things.

Other People
Always remember and never forget that your problems are always caused by other people. Always and without fail. Nothing is your responsibility. You are accountable for nothing nor anyone in your life for any reason whatsoever. Everything that goes wrong for you is the fault of somebody else.

You now have a blueprint on “How To Avoid Being Successful” – go forth and be negative right now!

It never ceases to amaze me how little thought people give to the safety of the data on their computer. They’ll continue hoarding personal files and information on it with no thought given to data backups, anti-virus or firewall software. For months (or even years) they use their computer always assuming that viruses, spyware, hacks and hard drive crashes happen to other people – most of it is just hype to sell software and external hard drives right?

Wrong.

It’s always the same. The same people who assume “It can never happen to me” are the exact people who get caught with their drawers down. One recent example is of a friend I chatted with on MSN one night recently. A few minutes later her MSN sends me a link with a virus in it. Luckily enough my anti-virus software caught it. Sadly for her that virus had been sent to all her MSN contacts and everyone in her Outlook address book. She’d been using a free anti-virus package which simply hadn’t been protecting her PC properly – something is free for a reason; usually because it’s not very good.

She then said “I’d die if I lost all my college work on this laptop”. So I asked “So you’ve got all your files backed up right?”. Her reply? Go on guess what she replied? “No I don’t have them backed up”.

DOH!!

This is an intelligent young woman training to become a teacher. Her laptop was expensive and her school work is priceless (she could never have replaced it) yet she’ll use a free anti-virus tool and no backup system! Does that make sense to you? It certainly doesn’t to me.

She was lucky – the virus didn’t destroy any data so she won’t have to drop out of college. Luck was on her side this time and the fact that the following day she went and invested in Norton Antivirus on my recommendation. She also got herself signed up Mozy Online Backup and invested in a USB memory key to store her data on.

She had to spend some cash yes but now her lifes work is protected.

You’re either protecting your computer data or you’re not. Period.

It’s funny just how often time changes our perception of things. This only just popped into my head the other day when I was watching a “favorite” old movie that I’d bought from Amazon; a college frat comedy. This movie is at least 20 years old and I had fond memories of watching it and falling over laughing so as a minor treat to myself I decided to buy it online. Oh the movie is called KingFrat by the way.

After 30 minutes I turned the movie off. It was truly and utterly awful. The worst kind of crap you could imagine. I think I managed one small giggle in all that time. I was so disappointed. What happened to the movie I loved when I was younger?

Time has colored my memories of this movie. I made it funnier in my head than it ever was in real life. Seeing it again kinda woke me up to the reality that time does change us and how we see and feel about things. There are things which are timeless (in movie terms we can say Star Wars for example) and other things date in our lives very quickly.

We’re told that time is a great healer and a great destroyer. Both are equally true. In this case time neither healed nor destroyed for me – it simply showed me that what was once important and precious to us can change; sometimes a lot sooner than we think.

What has time changed in your life?