Dear Wealthy Soul,
In my newsletter 2 weekends ago, "Do You Have Bad Karma?," I
talked about the difference between people who have Good
Karma and those who have Bad Karma. (If you sometimes feel
you may have Bad Karma, you don’t want to miss reading this
at:
http://snipurl.com/b0e5.
and my responses to your responses at:
http://wealthysoul.typepad.com/wealthysoul
Few among us don’t occasionally go through bouts of
wondering if we have Bad Karma.
I actually began writing the "Do You Have Bad Karma?"
newsletter about 2 months ago after almost missing making it
for my Christmas season book promotions, which began in mid
September.
I was at a point of incredible frustration after:
1) My shopping cart of last year caused me thousands
of dollars of losses because of glitches in the
system (one of the most popular shopping carts on
the internet, mind you).
2) My new shopping cart – which was supposed to be
up and ready for functioning in early June as
contracted with the programmer I hired last March –
still wasn’t ready the week my promotions began.
3) My latest reprinting of books, which were also
supposed to arrive in June, still hadn’t arrived the
day my promotions began in September due to an
unheard-of three-in-a-row mis-printings of one of
the covers.
4) Two computers simultaneously doing the computer
thing, and crashing on me during the summer. This
wouldn’t have been so disastrous had the external
hard drive I had done my most recent back-up on
hadn’t chosen to make a perfect trio with its two
computer cousins. This put me about 4-5 additional
weeks behind in work.
5) The week before my promotions started, the
company who I had contracted with (also in that
magical month of June) to do fulfillment of orders
for me called me up to tell me that due to internal
problems, they couldn’t handle any new clients.
What this all meant was that:
a) I had no books to sell.
b) I had no shopping cart to sell them on if I had
had them
c) I had no way to fulfill the orders if I indeed
had the books and had the means for selling them!
And this all occurred the week my promotions were beginning
in September!
(Oh, did I fail to mention not having any electricity or
running water for 6 days after the first of 3
hurricanes hit where I’ve been staying in Florida?)
Now you have to know, I am a person who in business can only
be described as "a planner." I like everything ready and
tested and functioning months in advance of anything major.
And I’ve been very successful most of my life because of
this quality.
My philosophy is that there are enough things that happen in
business and in life where you need to be spontaneous, that
you are best off having a firm foundation beneath you to
springboard from.
So I thought I was in pretty good shape when last January I
decided to forego creating any of the audio series I had
planned, and to take the first half of the year to firm up
my business foundation. I felt this was necessary given the
ever-changing landscape of the internet, as well as the
wondrous but so far quite unperfected technology of it.
(Thus the reason those of us who make a good part our living
through the internet affectionately refer to it as "The
Wild, Wild Web").
So, indeed, reaching that point in September where
everything that could go wrong did (and a number of other
things I haven’t mentioned here), I was really pondering
this question:
"Do I just have bad karma, or something?"
And, I’m sure you have occasionally asked
yourself the same question with all you sometimes are faced.
Well, it really is kind of funny that the week I finally
sent you that newsletter (two weekends ago) happened to be
the most phenomenal week of book sales I have ever had!
Had I been selling my books through Amazon.com or
BarnesandNoble.com as opposed to on my own website, I would
have hit the bestseller list easily, and very likely been in
the Number One spot.
Besides the extraordinary response, the wonderful thing was
that other than my telephone lines being swamped, everything
worked with barely a hitch! This is something to be amazed
at on the internet.
So, do I have Bad Karma?
Or, perhaps, did I just have Bad Karma for the ten months
prior to September?
And are you really having Bad Karma with whatever you
yourself might be going through?
Now, I know there are many worse problems in the world than
a few temporary business-related ones. Several of you posted
beautiful responses on my web blog
( http://wealthysoul.typepad.com/wealthysoul ) sharing just
how difficult things can really get, and just how resilient
the human spirit can be.
I myself grew up with a sister who was slowly dying for 6
years of my childhood.
Was that bad Karma?
In addition to that, I’ve spent 7 more years of my 45 years
as an in-home caregiver for an ill or dying loved one.
Is that bad Karma, too?
Or is it that . . . the transformation of seemingly Bad
Karma into life’s greatest gifts and wealth the insight
people who truly have good Good Karma secretly share?
What do you think?
A big hug to you! (For instant Good Karma, pass it
on!)
Yours for the greatest wealth,
Michael
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