Business – and life – can be a real roller coaster ride for your emotions. One day you’re down and frustrated, the next day, BAM, it all comes together. Progress comes in spurts. That’s… What I Learned This Week There’s something known as the “whoosh” effect in fat loss. My friend Alwyn Cosgrove was the first to share this concept with me. Here’s how it works. A fat loss client might find that they’ve gone weeks without any progress at all on the scale and then suddenly, whoooosh, they’ll drop five pounds. But this phenomenon of “spurts of progress” isn’t exclusive to weight loss. It’s something we experience in all areas of life. I’ve had many friends and coaching clients who have experienced a whoosh effect when building their online businesses. You might also call it, “an overnight success”. My colleagues in the fat loss information marketing world, Mike G. and Rob P., both spent night after night toiling until 3am trying to crack the Google Ad Words code back in 2006. They suffered through many nights of frustration and then, almost suddenly, whoooosh. The clicks started turning into sales. You’ll hear similar stories over and over again from successful people. In this upcoming August Financial Independence interview, you’ll hear first hand from ETR Mastermind Member Shaun Hadsell about the whoosh success phenomenon he’s recently experienced. Success comes in spurts. It’s not a smooth-sailing journey. There are dips, as Seth Godin explains in his book, The Dip, that you’ll have to work through. And, in my opinion, it’s often your passion and your vision that will get you through them. That’s why I believe it’s so important for you to build a business based on something you are passionate about – whether it’s a product or a process. If you don’t enjoy what you are doing, you’re more likely to quit when you hit the dips. Progress comes in spurts in our personal lives as well. Many a young man has gone desperate and dateless for weeks, and then suddenly, seemingly without changing a thing, he’ll get on a hot streak when the girls are literally chasing him down. Ahem, or at least that’s how I remember it. Your mileage may vary. Personal projects, particularly when dealing with other people, wax and wane with their progress as well. Back on the farm, my mother’s new house is finally coming along. After a couple months of no progress – due to what the contractor claimed to be a hold-up from the city’s building inspector (who was still nursing a grudge against my

long-departed father, believe it or not) – the house is finally starting to take shape. The foundation has been poured.

The sun rises on the foundation on July 4th

And, if you know anything about building, once a foundation is in, the rest of the house goes up pretty darned fast. I’m about to head home this week to drop the dog off before I head to Europe, and I expect big progress to have been made… But spurts of progress aren’t limited to the big picture. This goes for work on daily tasks as well, particularly when it comes to writing and creativity. So if you’re struggling with what you might call “writer’s block”, here’s some strange advice: take a break. Go and “dither” about. Take the dog for a walk. Go sit under an apple tree. Here’s why… From the Schumpeter column in a recent issue of The Economist comes the argument that dithering can help creativity. “Ernest Hemingway told a fan who asked him how to write a novel that the first thing to do was to clean the fridge,” the editor writes. He also reports on research from San Diego University which found that slowing down also makes us more ethical and that people are five times more likely to do the right thing if they have time to think about it than if they are forced to make a snap decision. Overnight success is wonderful in theory, but, in reality, success rarely occurs so quickly. Sometimes our ideas are ahead of the market. Apple was not the first to think of the tablet computer, although many other companies had lost substantial amounts of money trying to bring the idea to market before its time. Frank Partnoy, one of the researchers from San Diego University disputes the idea that all blocks of time in your daily schedule are of equal worth. As you’ll know from my magic time argument, I believe some of your hours are worth three times – or more – as much as other hours. There are times of the day when your creativity flows easier, and times when you are best off doing menial tasks. The key, of course, is to recognize this and work in spurts. As Schumpeter’s column concludes, “Brain workers dither for ages but then are struck by a flash of insight or a burst of creativity.”

So go ahead. Yes, the Titan of Time Management, Craig Ballantyne, gives you permission to dither. After all, my best ideas come to me during dog walks, workouts, and showers, not when I’m chained to my desk chair implementing all of these good ideas. In fact, old Bally the Dog and I just returned sweaty (and panting) from a mid-afternoon walk to the lush, green oasis which I call Bally’s Gulch where I’ve had several breakthroughs. Each day around 3pm, I grab some reading material, and we walk down a big hill and sit in the shade of an old maple tree. He sniffs at phantom smells in the air while I dither. Today, I read through an immensely inspiring profile of Peter Diamandis from Wired magazine. Magically, this article helped me piece together an ETR essay I’ve been working on for over a week. It’s as if the dithering was meant to be. So no matter how busy you are and how focused on progress you have been, it pays to put a little dithering into your days. You have my permission. What I Read This Week More reasons to dither…because the alternative—spending too much time in front of your computer surfing the Internet—might be making you crazy. I recently stumbled across this article (on the Internet, yes, I recognize the irony) that makes a strong case for cutting back on Internet access. http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2012/07/08/is-the-internet-making-us-crazy-what-the-new-research-says.html And I agree. Despite the fact that most of my business interests are online, I limit my Internet access, I don’t carry my cellphone with me on dog walks, and I stick to an old Blackberry phone because it makes accessing the Internet extremely annoying (but that’s how I police my Internet time). The author, Tony Dokoupil, reports on why we are just so darn addicted to the Internet: “We may appear to be choosing to use this technology, but in fact we are being dragged to it by the potential of short-term rewards. Every ping could be social, sexual, or professional opportunity, and we get a mini-reward, a squirt of dopamine, for answering the bell. ‘These rewards serve as jolts of energy that recharge the compulsion engine, much like the frisson a gambler receives as a new card hits the table,’ MIT media scholar Judith Donath recently told Scientific American. ‘Cumulatively, the effect is potent and hard to resist.’” But you CAN resist it. It’s a matter of routine and habit. Minimize your Internet, email, and social media time. Give your phone number to important people, consider using a service like “AwayFind.com” for essential contacts, and get started on an Internet diet.

Quote of the Week We’re giving you something a little different this week… First, a quick story. In the fall of 2006 I received a strange email from a Turbulence Training Customer. According to memory, he wrote something along the lines of, “I don’t believe you really exist. You’re just some guy who made this stuff up and you’re probably lying on the beach with some blond bimbo. This is all fake.” It was then I fully realized how skeptical people often are when they visit a website. Their scam radar is on, full blast. And things haven’t really changed. Take a look at this wonderful comment we received on the Early to Rise website this week:

It’s still a battle we must fight, and something that we must address in our communications with prospects. That’s why videos (even those on Youtube) are so powerful. People can see you. It’s a big step in getting them to believe you are real, and a video gets them going down the path to the KLT factor (know-like-trust) that must exist before they are ready to become customers. What’s New and Useful At ETR This Week? 1) The Virtual Mastermind is filling up Over 34 ETR and InternetIndependence.com readers joined the FIM Virtual Mastermind program in the first 2 hours and 19 minutes. That was impressive. And we’ve almost filled our PRO-Level Mastermind group (limit of 20 people) that gets a guaranteed monthly hot seat with Matt and myself. Thank you for your support and thanks to the ETR team for creating so much value and anticipation through our free video content. 2) I’m taking a hike. Please forgive me if you don’t see me doing too many ETR QnA’s for a while over at www.SuccessQnA.com. I’m off to Europe for my annual summer “camp and hiking” extravaganza. I’m leaving on July 24th at 9:30 pm, I’ll wake up the next morning in Copenhagen (in one of my favorite airports in the world).

But I’m not staying in Denmark. Instead, I’m making a quick transfer on to Vilnius, Lithuania where I’ll meet up with the mysterious Simon Black and his lovely girlfriend, Viktorjia. After a night in the old city and a workout at their local big box gym (which is like a 24-hour fitness but with a ping pong table in the middle of it), we’re off to the 4th annual BlackSmith Liberty and Entrepreneurship Camp. We have over 50 students from 35 different countries attending this year, and one of the attendees is our winner of the 2nd Financial Independence Monthly Transformation Contest that we held over at ETR. Check out his site and cool opt-in: www.dreameurotrip.com. Following the camp will be three days of hiking in the fjords of Norway. Should be incredible. Next month, you’ll receive a full report on this journey. 3) FIM will be out early as a result of my travels I’ve just about finished up the August issue of Financial Independence Monthly and we’ll post it online a few days early. You’ll love the Profit Pyramid content. It’s one of the most important articles I’ve ever written for FIM. And I wrote it all at 4am in a hotel room in Denver after letting my mind “dither” overnight on a conversation from the previous day. Full details in that issue soon. Until then, take care. Sincerely, Craig Ballantyne