Josh, Welcome aboard. You made a great choice with GDI. Take advantage of the practical wisdom of many in this forum, find a mentor you can trust and read all you can. Good luck and hope to see much of you in here.

Brad

I have just this week put the finishing touches (for the moment) on my minimulist website. You may visit at http://cosmicbear.ws. My focus is liberty and I was raised on the coast of California where surfing (the physical kind, on a board) always seemed to me to embody the very concept of freedom (I tried it three times and fell of each time so I quit).

Hello Simon.

You get paid on the commisions of people five deep. All it will do is remove the commision from the top of your upline, which in my case I am considering moving all of my downline to my fifth level just so I don't make anyone in my upline any money at all just out of spite, the lazy bums...just kidding. I can't seem to get a response from any of them.

Anyway, now we know how NOT to be with the friends we make, and you can rest assured you will receive a commision on anyone five deep and as far accross as you can go.

Good luck mate.

Brad

Chrystal, you will want to place a / between .ws and your handle...you have www.my.ws.homebizworker and it needs to be .ws/homebizworker to work. Aside from that, very nice.

And Steph, thanks for making that little change. I hope I didn't upset you. I like your concepy alot and wish you much luck.

Brad

Hello fellow GDIers,

Lets not lose track of the parable of the seed. You plant it and leave it to grow. If you stand over it and watch, it will seem to take forever and you will have wasted your life as you cannot MAKE it grow.

I find that if I plant the seeds(send out leads through my autoresponder, pass out cards, talk to everyone I meet) and sit in front of my computer flipping through my email boxes all day, at the end of the day all I will have is sore eyes, and whatever responses I would have had if I wasn't being silly.

There is an old proverb from the Old Testement that states, "The heart of the King is in the hands of the Lord". How this has taken shape in my life is the realization that I need to recognize that there are powers outside myself that mold and manipulate peoples responses to my messages in life. If I introduce 100 people to this opportunity it may take weeks before someone has an 'aha' moment and seemingly out of the blue have it come to their mind that I had just the thing they needed. You know, the "If you build it, they will come" sort of thing.

Plant the seeds, put out your intention to the Universe and move on to the next plot of land. It will grow as you don't fret.

Brad

It has come to my attention that I need to concentrate my efforts on the product. We have a great package to offer, what with the multi-faceted web hosting (complete with the web design tools), domain name, complete back office at your fingertips 24/7. All this (and much, much more) at an unbelieveable $10.00 a month. Have you priced all of these individually? This is a wonderful service we are providing, and one that anyone with a computer and network access would LOVE to take advantage of. And yet, I haven't found one of our splash screens that is geared toward that audience (which is fine as it allows me the opportunity to get creative myself) but rather stresses the Home Based earnings aspect, which is marvelous beyond words in itself. The problem, as I see it, is that if people ONLY see this as a Network Marketing Opportunity they will be less likely to take it seriously as the wonderful, fun filled package of creativity it ALSO is.

For an example: I have set as my immediate goal to find five dedicated, motivated, honest people to pour my time and energies into in training them how to train and motivate five people to train and...you get the idea. I am therefore looking at, realistically, at the end of a year, an income of around $4,000.00 a month. This is very comfortable for me (my wife and I choose to lead a very simple lifestyle). But at the same time, as I am seeking those 'chosen few', I can also be providing a wonderful service to EVERYONE I come into contact with that has a computer and a product, whether it be the local flower shop owner, the family accross the street that would like an inexpensive way to keep in touch with their family on the East Coast...whatever their product (physical, intellectual, spiritual etc) I have the perfect service.

So say in the first year I have trained my five people through the five levels and through local adds I have 1,000 families that are taking advantage of this wonderful product (and absolutely loving it because they ALSO have a personal guide (your's truly) and a zillion new friends at the forum which they will never have anywhere else) and I am bringing in about $5,000.00 a month. And that base will grow exponentially by word of mouth as the families are thrilled with the product. This is very do-able and realistic.

In my mindit works like this; get excited about the product and the company, work with a few to get them excited and share the product with anyone that has a computer.

Good luck, Brad

I believe that success in this business, as in ANY business, is meaningless if it doesn't come from a place of integrity.  Personal and corporate integrity are paramount in my mind for a succesful venture. If in my mind I view gaining more money to be simply an avenue to being able to help others than, in my mind, I have a healthy attitude toward wealth, but this MUST be met with a healthy relationship with a company that ALSO views wealth in those terms. This is my primary reason for partnering with GDI. I have been involved with a couple of companies in the past that proved to be, shall we say, "shady' in their dealings as it turned out, and this is the attitude that has given the Affiliate Marketing industry a black eye. The 'anything to make a buck' mentality is arcaic and harmful in the long run, which is why the GDI mission statement was so attractive to me. We DO help ourselves by helping others.

[/color]

This is a wonderfully practical spirituality taught by don Miguel Ruiz in his book "The Four Agreements" which have been abbreviated here: 

1. Be Impeccable With Your Word
Speak with integrity. Say only what you mean. Avoid using the word to speak against yourself or to gossip about others. Use the power of your word in the direction of truth and love.
2. Don’t Take Anything Personally
Nothing others do is because of you. What others say and do is a projection of their own reality, their own dream. When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others, you won’t be the victim of needless suffering.
3. Don’t Make Assumptions
Find the courage to ask questions and to express what you really want. Communicate with others as clearly as you can to avoid misunderstandings, sadness and drama. With just this one agreement, you can completely transform your life.
4. Always Do Your Best
Your best is going to change from moment to moment; it will be different when you are healthy as opposed to sick. Under any circumstance, simply do your best, and you will avoid self-judgment, self-abuse and regret.

What this has to do with people quiting is; we need to be, people expect us to be, rolemodels for success. If we bring them in and simply orphan them without taking them under our wings and nurturing them along, then we can never be surprised when they stray off discouraged and following the next shiny pretty that comes along. We are making friends, and friends don't give up on friends.

Sorry to be so long winded and philosophical...I'm getting over a cold. Yeah, we'll blame it on that.

Brad

I used SmartFTP, which is free online< to transfer my own website I created with Microsoft Front Page 2003. The transfer is seamless and there is plenty of room for further growth. I am deeply impressed with what I get for $10.00 a month.

Brad

Another aspect of web design I have implemented recently is the importance of the opening page. The first look at you site should give the viewer an idea of the main concept of your entire site, then allow the rest of the site to flesh out those concepts.

Brad

I have taken to attempting to contact the next person up from my direct sponsor as I have sent 4 emails to him with absolutely no response. BUT, I must thank Howard Martell who has been more help than I could have ever expected seeing as I am not in his downline at all. It's people like him that will make this company work.

Brad

Hello fellow GDIers.

I was amazed when I found I could actually host a website created with Frontpage 2003 under my own name. I am jazzed. Is there anyone that can tell me what the bandwidth is? I haven't come accross that info anywhere. Anyway, my site is at http://cosmicbear.ws/. Please feel free to critique. I look forward to working with you all over the next...well, lifetime actually, as this one is 'it'.