First... watch this video... and then continue reading

Have you ever asked yourself, "What is the purpose of all this work? I see others enjoying the warm soup of success and prosperity. Yet, I can't enjoy it... because I have no spoon."

In 2005, I joined a real estate investment program led by Mike Watson. During the early days, when Mike did the free seminars himself, he spoke about a process he called The Foundation to Success. At that time, there were 10 points to his process. Today, I am going to expand on point number two...which is "Know You're Why." I believe he calls it your "Red Button Statement."

It has taken three years and tens of thousands of dollars, but I've finally embraced my "why."

Have you seen the movie called, "The Bucket List" with Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson? The story follows two "seasoned citizens" on their travels around the world as they cross-off the things they want to do before they die of cancer. For all the exotic traveling, fine dining, and car racing they did... in the end they both realize that life is about having meaningful and loving relationships.

I have a big Why. I will tell it to you shortly. Its like the fabric that made Joseph's coat. My big Why, keeps the vision I have for my life warm on gray dreary days, were it seems to only rain problems and inconveniences.

One patch of my big Why or item on my bucket list, is to be able to afford a special cruise. Not just any type of cruise. I want to do a Norwegian Cruise line, like one my wife and I took to Alaska.

Let me explain, my mother is from Selma, Alabama. She is the youngest of nine brothers and sisters. Currently, their age ranges are from 58 to 77. It is my desire to take all of them on an all-expenses paid five-day cruise.

They are one of big why's, the reason I work so hard. I want to cross-this-off before, as my dad would stay, "I would rather have the Upper-Taker than the undertaker...," take them all away from me...and investing is the quickest way for me to accomplish this.

Simple Steps To Developing Your Big Why

Mike Watson talks about creating a red button statement, he came up with the idea of red button statement from observing chickens in a science project. I won't go into the whole story of behavioral shaping. Just understand that a red button statement is similar to your life's mission statement or unique service proposition.

Here's the steps you need to take for your own red button statement:

The Red Button Statement Broken Down:

1. Finding your why

2. Finding your who

3. Writing your statement and living by it until you posses it.

Template for Writing your right button statement

Part 1 -- The Why

I will not stop investing/working/(whatever action) until I _____.

Part 2 -- The Who.

I will not stop investing until I _________ lives are impacted.

Putting Your Red Button Statement Back Together. Here's my life's red button statement:

I will not stop working investing until I share my vision and goals with everyone I come in contact with.

I will not stop working and investing until my wife can live the life she deserves, my extended family and close friends live in abundance and prosperity, and I touch all of those people that will hear my message with the gift that I've been blessed with and the plan that I am implementing.

Why Do I Need To Step It Up

Every Sunday evening, my family does a teleconference call (we each live in different parts of the country, my brother Karnell Matthews and my folks in St. Louis). Last night, my mom informed us that one of her sisters had to be rushed to the hospital; because of chest pains.

My mom’s announcement was a wake up call. If I want to realize my vision of having all 9 brothers and sisters enjoy the fruits of my labor, then I have to get busy. I have to generate more massive action from the gray matter swishing around my skull, I have to make a way out of no way.

Life does not stop because of recessions, depressions, or political changes. It keeps moving. If I am going to fulfill my red button statement, then I have to move faster than life. I have to demand my spoon and taste the soup of success, and if no one will give me one... I will make my own.

Moving Forward,

Kendall Matthews

www.StressLessHomeLoan.com

P.s. Please share with me your red button statement in the comment section. Let’s get 100 red button statements placed on active rain.

P.s.s. Liked this article? Then subscribe to Kendall Matthews' Adventures In Door Knocking

One of the hardest things for me to do is to stay focused.  It's probably not that hard for you, correct?

What I've found helpful, is to break down every hour into 15 minute segments. I tell myself---- "Self, what is the most important thing you can do in the next 15 minutes? What can you do that will be highly productive and beneficial in the long run?"

Well last night at around 11:47 p.m., "Self" told me, "The most important thing you can do, the one thing that will be highly productive and beneficial in the long run is... TO GET OFF THE COMPUTER AND GO TO SLEEP!"

Below is part 2 of the 10 Powerful Steps Every Real Estate Should Use To Get Blog Traffic.  Remember, to subscribe to my blog "Adventures in Door Knocking" to have my musings come to you automatically.

This tips are from Yaro Starak, a professional blogger and my blog mentor. He has a offers a free report called Blog Profits Blueprint that I signed up to recieve, before I joined his program, which is turning out to be a lot of work... but necessary if I want to see results.

Top 10 Blog Traffic Tips (#7, 6, 5, 4)

7. Start commenting on other blogs. Once you have your pillar articles and your daily fresh smaller articles your blog is ready to be exposed to the world. One of the best ways to find the right type of reader for your blog is to comment on other people’s blogs. You should aim to comment on blogs focused on a similar niche topic to yours since the readers there will be more likely to be interested in your blog.

Most blog commenting systems allow you to have your name/title linked to your blog when you leave a comment. This is how people find your blog. If you are a prolific commentor and always have something valuable to say then people will be interested to read more of your work and hence click through to visit your blog.

6. Trackback and link to other blogs in your blog posts. A trackback is sort of like a blog conversation. When you write a new article to your blog and it links or references another blogger's article you can do a trackback to their entry. What this does is leave a truncated summary of your blog post on their blog entry - it's sort of like your blog telling someone else’s blog that you wrote an article mentioning them. Trackbacks often appear like comments.

This is a good technique because like leaving comments a trackback leaves a link from another blog back to yours for readers to follow, but it also does something very important - it gets the attention of another blogger. The other blogger will likely come and read your post eager to see what you wrote about them. They may then become a loyal reader of yours or at least monitor you and if you are lucky some time down the road they may do a post linking to your blog bringing in more new readers.

5. Encourage comments on your own blog. One of the most powerful ways to convince someone to become a loyal reader is to show there are other loyal readers already following your work. If they see people commenting on your blog then they infer that your content must be good since you have readers so they should stick around and see what all the fuss is about. To encourage comments you can simply pose a question in a blog post. Be sure to always respond to comments as well so you can keep the conversation going.

4. Submit your latest pillar article to a blog carnival. A blog carnival is a post in a blog that summarizes a collection of articles from many different blogs on a specific topic. The idea is to collect some of the best content on a topic in a given week. Often many other blogs link back to a carnival host and as such the people that have articles featured in the carnival often enjoy a spike in new readers.

To find the right blog carnival for your blog, do a search at blogcarnival.com.

Did you miss tips 8 through 10? Well, here you go.

Or click here to read the last three tips.

Happy Blogging,

Kendall Matthews, CRMC

www.StressLessHomeLoan.com

P.s. Yarak, has some free blogging set-up videos that was helpful for me in setting up RSS Feeds and other technical things I couldn't figure out, would you like for me to create a post review about that?  Let me know.

In every bloggers life comes a special day - the day they first launch a new blog. Now unless you went out and purchased someone else's blog chances are your blog launched with only one very loyal reader - you. Maybe a few days later you received a few hits when you told your sister, father, girlfriend and best friend about your new blog but that's about as far you went when it comes to finding readers.

I have a list of top 10 techniques new bloggers can use to find readers created by Yaro Starak of BlogMastermind. These are tips specifically for new bloggers, those people who, like me, have next-to-no audience at the moment and want to get the ball rolling.

Yarak states, it helps if you work on this list from top to bottom as each technique builds on the previous step to help you create momentum. Eventually once you establish enough momentum you gain what he called "traction", which is a large enough audience base (about 500 readers a day is good) that you no longer have to work too hard on finding new readers. Instead your current loyal readers do the work for you through word of mouth.

To make his list a lot more easier to read. I've broken it down into a 3-part series. I've found that things are much easier when broken down into smaller chunks, don't you agree? Here are tips 8 through 10 tips by Yaro Starak, a professional blogger and my new blog mentor (point of disclosure I purchased his mentoring program last week.)

Top 10 Powerful Blog Traffic Tips (#10, 9 and 8)

10. Write at least five major "pillar" articles. A pillar article is a tutorial style article aimed to teach your audience something. Generally they are longer than 500 words and have lots of very practical tips or advice. This article you are currently reading could be considered a pillar article since it is very practical and a good "how-to" lesson. This style of article has long term appeal, stays current (it isn’t news or time dependent) and offers real value and insight. The more pillars you have on your blog the better.

9. Write one new blog post per day minimum. Not every post has to be a pillar, but you should work on getting those five pillars done at the same time as you keep your blog fresh with a daily news or short article style post. The important thing here is to demonstrate to first time visitors that your blog is updated all the time so they feel that if they come back tomorrow they will likely find something new. This causes them to bookmark your site or subscribe to your blog feed.

You don't have to produce one post per day all the time but it is important you do when your blog is brand new. Once you get traction you still need to keep the fresh content coming but your loyal audience will be more forgiving if you slow down to a few per week instead. The first few months are critical so the more content you can produce at this time the better.

A technique that I use, from reading the book "Getting Things Done" by Robert Allen, is what he calls, "batching." I block time every day, to write at least four 300 to 600 word articles. This has helped me stay ahead of the game. In a future article, I will let you know the program I bought at Best Buy, that has been very helpful with writing.

8. Use a proper domain name. If you are serious about blogging be serious about what you call your blog. In order for people to easily spread the word about your blog you need a easily rememberable domain name. People often talk about blogs they like when they are speaking to friends in the real world (that''s the offline world, you remember that place right?) so you need to make it easy for them to spread the word and pass on your URL. Try and get a .com if you can and focus on small easy to remember domains rather than worry about having the correct keywords (of course if you can get great keywords and easy to remember then you’ve done a good job!).

An example of this would be like my new blog on golf called www.ThePhoenixGolfer.com

I've started www.ThePhoenixGolfer.com blog a few weeks ago, and I'm going to put in place these exact strategies and more. I'll keep everyone abreast of how it progresses by way of page rank from Alexa. Last night, my blog rank was around 5.3 million.

I've been doing the blog thing for awhile, but I've decided to really step-it up a notch and treat it as a business. I hope you enjoyed these 3 tips. However, if want more tips? Here you go.

Blog Responsibly,

Kendall Matthews

www.StressLessHomeLoan.com

P.s. You can find page rank of different webiste by visiting Alexa.com

P.s.s. Liked this article? Then subscribe to Kendall Matthews' Adventures In Door Knocking

The Fundamentals of Gripping Effectively

There are multiple ways to grip a golf club. Although it sounds overwhelming, it truly is not. Once you begin to experiment you will eliminate four or five of them instantly. I will give you a guide to get you started on the right track.

Which Is Better Interlocking or Overlapping Grip

For starters, if you have small hands and fingers, the interlocking grip will probably work best for you. It helps you wrap your fingers and palm around the grip handle.

On the other hand, if you have large hands, the overlapping grip will probably work best for you.

The above-mentioned grips are the proper way to hold a club- however there are three different ways you can apply them to the golf club.

3 Types of Positions

You can grip the golf club in a weak position (no knuckles of the left hand showing), neutral (one knuckle of the left hand showing) or the strong position (2 or 3 knuckles of the left hand showing).

During your experimenting, if the golf ball has a tendency to curve to the right, you will want to move BOTH hands to the right (strong). When you move the hands make sure you do it slowly. If the golf ball has a tendency to curve to the left, you will want to move BOTH hands slowly to the left (weak). Now, if the golf ball is flying without a curve, you have the correct grip for you. DO NOT EXPERIMENT WITH ANY OTHER GRIP.

Feel The Grip Pressure

OK, you have found the correct grip for you. There is one last item we need to deal with. The amount of pressure you apply to the club plays a major role in how you swing the golf club. The tighter you grip the golf club the slower your arms will swing and the longer the clubface will take to release in the downswing (causing a slice). This is a good thing if you HOOK the golf ball. This will definitely stop the ball from curving from right to left. On the other hand if you have problems SLICING the golf ball this amount of grip pressure will make the ball slice more.

If you are struggling with slicing the golf ball, you will have to hold the golf club like you were holding a baby’s hand. Gently, the lighter you grip the golf club the faster the club will swing and the quicker the club will release in the downswing. If you do not have any problems with the ball curving, you have found the correct amount of grip pressure.

I call myself “The Vice President of Shanks and Slices.” You can check out some cool videos I gathered at http://www.ThePhoenixGolfer.com

Tools and Techniques You’ll Need To Repair Your Golf Grip Part 1

Let’s Focus on Your Left Hand

When you pick up a golf club your hands are the only part of your body that touches the club. For many years the hands (grip) have often been referred to as the steering wheel of the golf swing. I don’t believe this could be truer. Gripping the golf club correctly makes playing this game a much better experience.

Gripping the golf club at first glance does not seem like a very difficult thing to do, however, it can take a lot of trial and error to figure out the correct grip for you. This is a very interesting aspect to the game of golf. Gripping the golf club is a VERY INDIVIDUAL thing for everyone that plays golf. There are no two grips alike. You can only find what works for you through hitting golf balls. I can and will guide you, but ultimately, results on the golf course speak louder than me.

Place the golf club up in your left hand, the golf club goes across the left palm- from the base of the forefinger to the pad above the pinky.

Now, hold the handle steady with your left fingers and wrap your palm around the top of the grip.

1. Club Goes Across the Left Palm

2. Wrap Palm Around Top of the Grip

The grip does more to effect actual ball flight than anything else in the game. That’s why we’ve started with the grip. It’s the foundation of the swing, and a quick fix for those of you that have undesirable ball flight patterns.

The more you grip the golf club in the fingers, the faster you can swing the golf club and the quicker the clubface will close. If you grip the golf club further up in the palm, the slower the golf club will travel and the longer it takes for the clubface to close. If you are slicing the golf ball, you will want to move the grip more into the fingers (the base of the fingers), if you are hooking the golf ball, you will want to move the grip more into the palm area (higher up in the left hand).

Let’s Focus On Your Right Hand

Now that the left hand is in place you are going to place the right hand on the golf club. With your right hand on the side of your right leg, slowly bring it towards the bottom of the golf club. The right hand will be placed on the golf club more in the fingers than the palm. You will simply fold the right hand around the fingers of the left. BOTH PALMS MUST ALWAYS FACE EACH OTHER. It is not a difficult thing to do but it is mandatory, no gray area.

3. Bring your Right Hand Towards the Bottom of your Left Hand

4. Fold your Right Hand Around the Fingers of the Left Hand

5. Both Palms MUST Face Each Other

Congratulations, you have now GRIPPED the golf club.

But hold on a second, there is a good chance this is not the correct grip for you, so you will have to experiment. However, I have given you a great starting point. The placement of the hands on the golf club controls what the clubface will do during the golf swing and ultimately what the clubface will look like at impact. In the next section I will show you some variations of the grip that will help you find the one that works best for you.

**SPECIAL NOTE Most golf clubs either have a “ladies” grip or a “men’s” grip on the golf club. If you have small hands it is very important to make sure you have your clubs gripped with a ladies grip, it doesn’t matter if you own men’s clubs. If you have large hands you should have your clubs gripped with men’s grips. There are a couple more options, if your hands are really small you can have “junior” grips placed on your clubs or if you have x-large hands or arthritis you can have “jumbo” grips placed on your clubs. The grip size also effects ball flight. Large grips tend to make a person fade the ball and small grips tend to make a person draw the ball.**

I call myself “The Vice President of Shanks and Slices.” What title would you give yourself?