It may seem silly to think that someone who works from home can separate their personal troubles from their office work. After all, you’re right there in the home environment. You’re surrounded by “personal”. But the line has to be drawn once you cross into that office so that your mind can be focused on the work demands of the day.

Taking your troubles to the office is never a good idea. One reason is that it interferes with your ability to concentrate. This causes misunderstandings and mistakes you may regret heavily. Another reason is that separating yourself from your troubles to concentrate on your work can give your mind a break so that you can see the problems from a better perspective later. Finally, taking your troubles to work can create safety hazards because you are so preoccupied with personal problems.

Emotional people give off vibes that customers and clients can pick up. This can create a problem if you need to stay on top of your game to outwit someone who may play on your mental weakness. Emotional people also give off negative vibes that can cause potential business losses. The old saying comes to mind, “laugh and the world laughs with you, cry and you cry alone”. But it isn’t only about becoming sad, it’s also about becoming angry. Anger colors your ability to think clearly. It changes the tone of voice and the facial expressions. It can also cause quicker reactions when a “think before you speak” situation arises.

Learning to separate your business self from your personal self is a great accomplishment that can mean the difference between success and failure. Troubles at home must be dealt with separately if you are to make the most of your potential.

Troubles create a double-edged sword. Troubles at work affect your personal life. Troubles at home affect your work life. It can become a vicious circle until you learn how to manage them effectively.

Think of it as acting. Actors must become separate from their personal selves to come into the character they need to portray on screen or at a live theater.

Take the bull by the horns and put your determination into action. Train yourself. Test yourself. Play-act if necessary. Become more aware of you and how you affect those around you by your moods and reactions. Whatever it takes to learn how to make the change, it will be a worthwhile positive step toward accomplishment both personally and professionally.

This is a guest post by  Shawnee Bowlin.

Got a couple emails asking where I’ve been the last couple days, since I’ve not posted since Monday.  I’ve been terribly BUSY! My affiliate marketing is at a stage where there’s no real growth (probably the economy - but I doubt it) and I’ve found myself… as my mom would put it “spinning top in mud“! Basically putting in the time and NOT getting any results. I had to do something about it and FAST! I was spending my money on pay per click campaigns and the ROI was not what one would hope for.

I didn’t know where to turn, until I came across a site I had bookmarked a few months ago that I wanted to check out. Oh boy! Did I ever snooze on this one.

I’m finally getting the help I need to take me over the “hump” so I can start making the kind of money the super affiliates are making.  Right now I’m starting over from scratch so I can really make use of all the teaching and resources. The hardest part is trying to really give this a chance and pretend for a moment to forget everything I knew before about affiliate marketing and PPC. This one really holds your hand and walks you through making money online.

In the coming days I’ll try to make time and dedicate a post to this amazing new resource.

Gotta run now…  limo service for our girls and their friends (huge halloween party at thier school).

This is a guest post by Shirley Anderson.

Are things moving a little slowly where building up your website’s popularity is concerned? Is your site being found (never mind sought) by people and search engines? Maybe you need more sales to make your month. If any of these scenarios apply to you, then blogging for business may be your answer. It will not only increase your website traffic, but sales as well.

Why Blogging?

• Fresh and updated content. This requires effort on your part. If you don’t feel that you can commit to daily (preferably) additions to your blog, then seek out contributors, guest writers, free content or a freelance writer. The point is to keep a wellspring of information and activity flowing to your blog. Search engines love sites that are active and ever freshening.
• Linking to your site. Think of your blog as a traffic detour that reroutes visitors to your main site. Place your site links on the sidebar of your blog to increase exposure and traffic to the URL that you really want people to go to.
• Yet more exposure via RSS feeds. Having people subscribe to your Really Simple Syndication feed is a terrific way for your site to go viral. Other blog or website owners can put a link to your feed on their sites, thereby giving you more access to potential visitors and buyers.
• Faster recognition by search engines and site directories. Every time you add a new page (entry) to your blog, pinging it will get it crawled substantially faster than a traditional website does. Don’t forget to add your RSS feed URL when you ping. If you’ve never done it before, try autopinger.com or ping45.com. There are several places that you can submit to. Ping-O-Matic is another one.
• Sheer volume of readers. The internet gets billions of searches a day from around the globe. Most of these people will access blogs, which have become very popular. There are blogs that receive upwards of a million visitors every month. Translate that to dollars! Think of the amount of traffic routed to your main site.

Another nice thing about blogging is that it doesn’t have to cost you anything. You can sign up to Blogger for free. Since it is a Google platform, you can put your AdSense on the blog, as well.

There really isn’t any downside to blogging for business. Think of it as bait for your website, and enjoy the steady increase in readership.

The good…

The price of gas is finally going back down! Excellent!

The value of the Canadian dollar is going back to where I like it. Excellent². Now I can finally start back making some money when I cash in those US dollar affiliate cheques. Gotta love affiliate marketing and getting paid in a currency that’s stronger than what you use.

The BAD!

Seems you can’t get away from the word “recession” no matter how hard you try. Unemployment, high credit card balances, mortgage rates that are through the roof (people are losing their homes daily - or so CNN would have us believe). Everyday I/we get emails from people who just lost their jobs due to downsizing etc and they’re struggling to make ends meet. Desperate and gloomy times for sure!

I look at some of the campaigns that I’m currently promoting via PPC search engines and the numbers tell the same story. The economy is slower than usual.

All is NOT LOST!

My usual scan of the blogs I read ( My Sunday night ritual) revealed a great little video I’d like to share with you. Hopefully it will get you motivated with the power of it’s message….

If you want it bad enough, there’s nothing that can hold you back.

Other than the booming bass (base?) coming out of family room downstairs from Indy and her friends little party (btw, it was supposed to be a movie… not not kill dad’s stereo), the house is pretty empty. Caron is at work, Tehya is at the movies and a sleepover after and Kieana is watching scary movies at at one of her friend’s place. I guess sooner or later this house will be empty when they head off to college or decide it’s time to see the world a bit. If Caron is reading this from work, I’m sure she’ll leak a tear or two. She’s emotional like that, PLUS… our girls have been our everything for the past 15 years +. Not many friends and family who’s been convinced that we want nothing to do with them… but at least I got my way No complaints..we’re a tight bunch!

Speaking about retiring and that lonely feeling… are you preparing yourself for the inevitable retirement? The one aspect of working at home or running your own business that SUCKS, is the fact that you DON’T have a pension. Caron (providing she stays at the hospital) will have a nice fat pension that will hopefully pay for her love of cruising when she retires. But what about me? I plan on hiking up to Machu Picchu someday!

Without a structured pay cheque coming in (one with the normal deductions and contributions), it’s one of the things you tend to overlook when you work for yourself. You must make it a priority to put some of the coins away for the days when you can no longer work. In my case, my enemy will be my eyes failing or not being able to use this keyboard. Hey! Maybe they’ll perfect the voice enabled data entry by then. But in all seriousness, bank, invest and/or hide some money in your mattress.

My aim is to invest in some real estate so when it’s time to retire I can sell the brick and mortar suckers and join Caron and any grandclones on some mega cruise liner whenever we feel like grazing at a buffet and tanning our then leathery skin. Plus, if all goes to plan I will finally have my first restaurant in 2009. Gotta build up the equity!

Enjoy your weekend and remember to think about your retirement and what you need to do so you can actually enjoy it when you do retire.

Ok, just got rid of one kid (his parents just came and got him) still got another 2 hrs to hear them abuse my stereo.