Here is a simple rule:

Whenever you want to increase your rate of success in any endeavor, simply look around at what everyone else is doing and do the opposite.

Here’s an example of what I mean:

In 1980 I was hired by Bud Lucas to become a stockbroker for E. F. Hutton.  He told me that I would receive a salary plus a commission.  I told him that I did not want a salary.  I wanted straight commission.

He explained that accepting the salary was a “no lose” proposition as I would receive whatever was greater: the salary or the commission.

I was the only rookie to ever insist upon receiving straight commission from day one.  I went on to break the previous first year sales record by three hundred percent.  (E. F. Hutton had 5,000 stockbrokers working for them at that time.)

The average person always attempts to keep their options open.  This is a major reason why they’re average.

When I think of highly successful people like Tiger Woods, Warren Buffett, Gandhi or Einstein, I note that they all have one trait in common.

They’re exceptional in how much they have given up. They are extraordinary in their single minded pursuit of their special area of endeavor to the exclusion of all else.

They have forsaken all their options save one.  They dedicate themselves to that one pursuit.  In that regard, they develop their full potential.  Only the greatest do so.

The great conquerors – Napoleon, Alexander the Great and Genghis Khan – also shared a common trait.  They burned bridges behind themselves.  There was no turning back.  It was victory or death.

Fortunately, one does not have to choose between being great and being dead.  There are many levels, gradations of achievement.

Know that there is a trade-off, however.  One can only succeed at an endeavor to the extent that one focuses upon it exclusively.

You must find your level of success between one thing and everything, between being someone and being everyone.

We humans are limited in our abilities.  We can only focus upon one thing at a time.

Your success will be determined in large measure by your willingness to give up options, to commit to one option and stick with it no matter what.

Who does that?  Not many!

Kirk

I just got the bed room set, too. It was a gift from a friend of mine and replaced my old set that was over 20 years old. The new set is oak and all matching, with a bureau, two night stands and a dresser.

At 3 am, my cat woke me up by head butting by back. He wanted to be petted. I obliged him for a moment, then thought that it had been a while since I spent any time with him, so I rolled over and started to scratch his ears and back. Soon he got bored and wanted out of the room. I struggle out of bed and, without my glasses, opened the door and backed up, only to slip on the floor and fall back first onto my foot board, cracking it solidly along the seems. I thought I would wake everyone in the house. Because it broke along the seem, I can probably reglue it and the bruise will heal, eventually. Just not the type of night time adventure I needed.

You see, the reason I even bothered spending time with my cat was that it is part of my obligations as a pet owner. I signed up to be his owner and I feel that I have the responsibility to spend quality time with him to make both of our lives enjoyable. But when I have a lot to do and time is short, he gets short cheated and that is when he wakes me in the middle of the night because he knows he has a captive audience.

I was reviewing websites of some of our affiliates last week, plus I have been spending time on the forum, commenting on some threads that involved web site marketing, and I happened across a site that was having problems with the program structure, making the site un-readable. I contacted the owner to let her know of the issue and got an ear full about the difficulty of maintaining a web site yourself and how limited her time was to the point she thought of just giving up and taking the site down. I could really feel for her frustration. I tried to help, although there are so many programs for setting up web sites and I am not familiar with many of them.

Today, I tried to help another of our affiliates with some special programming he wanted done. He, too was frustrated and in the end, got the information up on his site, but in a round about way that he will have to go back later and fix.

I taught myself how to program web sites. I never learned to write raw code like some, which can handy cap me some times. I use a program that cost well over $400 and do not recommend that the faint of heart bother using it. But I now have over ten years experience working with web sites. And, although my job has no real programming demand, I still like to make my own web pages and mess with the coding to get the desired results.

We all have a lot of jobs to do. Never give up because of the learning curve. Otherwise, you will end up feeling guilty at 3 am because you have not paid enough attention to an important obligation and end up breaking your own bed.

I just wanted to take a minute and share with you all a great little site, for testing color schemes. It’s very important that you have a distinctive color theme for your site. It will provide brand recognition and augment your consistency which will both lead to a feeling of trust and solidarity, both huge hurdles when selling on the web.

But if your like me and your eye for colors could use a little lasik, it’s nice to be able to give your prospective color scheme a test flight. That’s where Kuler comes in. It’s a neat little web app that gives you the ability to develop your theme, export it to any adobe product (CS2 or better), and even see what the world thinks of your colors, in case your looking for a second opinion. Also, if you are looking for a little help, Kuler uses some proven artistic science rules which will suggest variations on a base color for you.

Enjoy. And while your at it take a look at my favorite theme I’ve put together over there. Watch out. It can be a bit addictive.

A while back I ran a short series on buying a new computer. It focused on how to buy the tower, the real guts of the machine. This was for a good reason, as there are many, many different options available and at different price points. Manufactures and stores really advertise processor speed and the amount of ram; the stats cover their advertisements. You’d think that if you bought the best tower available you’d be set with a perfect computer. I disagree. The internal workings of the computer sit below your desk, out of sight, (hopefully) out of mind. However, you constantly interact with your keyboard, mouse, monitor, and speakers. If these items are cheap, uncomfortable, or don’t work right, they will detract from your experience. Skimping on cheap peripherals can reduce your productivity and even hurt your hands and wrists. Here are a few tips for choosing worthy accessories. Keep reading →

We have a few stencil designs (117, the grim reaper, 020 the kitten, L169 the Democrat donkey and L226 the Republican elephant) that require an extra step to make them look like the designs on the posters.

Here is how I spray these designs:  Lets take stencil   #117, the grim reaper, for example…  Oh so popular with 10 year old boys with pencil thin arms.

After I have cleaned the skin, I position the stencil, next I spray one quick swipe of the outline color, which would be black for the grim reaper.  Now I remove the stencil from the arm and I can see a light outline of the grim reaper.  Now I spray the white, and just like coloring in a coloring book, I stay within the lines.  Next, according to Franco, apply powder over the white to keep the stencil from sticking to the ink, then put the stencil back in place, carefully lining up the black outline.  Now spray the black outline and the red eye.

After removing the stencil you can clean up any over spray with a Q-Tip dipped in rubbing alcohol or TAT Off.  When I am satisfied with the appearance, I powder the finished tat.

More experienced people in our company can do these designs without first spraying the outline.  I still need the lines to guide me.

When I first started applying these tats I just sprayed  the outline of these designs.  If the customer complained I gave them a discount or asked someone else to apply the design as it appeared on the poster.  Now I can do these designs myself.  It is not hard to do, I only thought it would be.

Keep reading →

As many of you may have seen in my TAT video debut (see our new video here), when the camera was rolling I was working on my post for this week about Google Alerts.

I have used Google Alerts for a few years now. This little news snippets help me to stay on top of what is happening in an industry plus let’s me get to know the news makers and how I can better get connected.

Google Alerts is a free service from Google. You need to get yourself a Google account here . The advantages to a Google account is access to many of their free services, such as webmaster tools if you have your own site, analytics, special search pages just for books, plus a long list of rather neat gadgets for your use.

Right from the sign up page, Google alerts are email updates from Google to you and can be used for:

• monitoring a developing news story
• keeping current on a competitor or industry
• getting the latest on a celebrity or event
• keeping tabs on your favorite sports team

I enter in a particular phrase of my interest, say airbrush tattoo, and I choose that daily, I receive one email with all the previous day’s listings from the news and blog world that reference airbrush tattooing. On the day of the video shoot, I received this alert:

Port Pirate Festival
By Nigel and Marie~(Nigel and Marie~)
At the end of the week-end, every one got airbrush tattoos “img src=”http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v230/ma_lafranque/P6070117.jpg” I liked mine Xavier learned to be careful who he trusts to tattoo his back, hopefully he learned …
Roadtrip Adventures - http://nigelsade.blogspot.com/

If you follow the link, you learn of a pirate festival in Chicago where, if you look at the photos, many of the participants are covered in airbrush tattoos. Information such as this could go into you date planner for next year to be sure that your airbrush tattoo business is included in the festival. By this time next year, you will have an entire year’s worth of events for your business, all courtesy of free alerts from Google.

The final key to taking great pictures is making the right choices in equipment.  Let’s start at the floor and work up.  The first step is pretty easy.  You absolutely need a tripod.  To fully control the situation, there’s nothing better than a tripod.  It doesn’t need to be anything fancy, but holding the camera will just guarantee yourself a headache.  Now the camera choice gets a bit more complicated.
Keep reading →

This week’s post can serve as a follow-up to my previous post on upgrading to a high-speed internet connection. If you have multiple computers, you can get more out of your high-speed by setting up a network in your home or office. This will allow you to share your internet with all computers as well as sharing files locally.

Determine Your Needs

When setting up a network, you need to determine whether you need a wireless setup or if you can get by with only a wired connection. If your computers are spread throughout your home or office, or if you use a laptop, a wireless solution will serve as the better option. However, if you have desktop setups that you keep in one room, wireless connectivity may be a waste. Keep reading →

When I first started applying tats, I was always disappointed with the way yellow, orange and brown looked on the customer’s skin. In fact when someone asked for a tat and requested yellow, orange or brown, I would warn them that because of their skin color those colors would not show up very well.

I was at a show with my daughter and we were both spraying tats but she was much more experienced at applying tats than I. When I was giving my spiel about yellow not showing up to my customer, my daughter interrupted me. She told me to first spray down a thin layer of white before I spray the yellow, orange or brown,. I did what she suggested and the result was beautiful. That tat really “popped”. The customer was very happy and so was I.

The same is true for spraying any color tat on people with very dark skin. A thin layer of white under any color, even black will make the tat stand out.

A technique that creates a very interesting look on dark skin is to first spray a thin layer of white, then move the stencil slightly and spray the design in the colors requested by the customer. When you remove the stencil there will be a thin line of white on the edge of the design.

One of our tatist did this on a black woman at the New Yourk Beauty Show. The customer chose stencil #13, the eyes. She was so pleased with the end result, she had her friend take a picture. She decided she wanted to get a permanent tattoo just like the one we had applied for her.

The only words or caution are to be sure you apply a thin layer of white. Just one or two quick sweeps of white over the area with the airbrush gun are all you need. If you are goint to move the stencil for that white edge then you need to make sure the white is dry before you move the stencil. I just blow air only from the airbrush gun over the white to expedite the drying.

Have some fun experimenting. You will be surprised at how beautiful some of your experiments will turn out. It they don’t turn out, they can be easily removed.