A friend lent me an insightful book the other day written by Lee Mickle called Body Logic. It was her story of having a bad case of Meniere’s disease and doctors had told her she should learn to live with her condition as there was nothing they could do for her. It is a particularly horrible condition with extreme dizziness leading to nausea and vomiting (like being badly sea sick lying flat on your back in bed), tinnitus and probably lots of other symptoms I didn’t register as I read her book.

What made this book great for me was that at her extreme lowest point she found the start of a way out of her condition. Over the years she has fine tuned the process to make it simpler and easier than what she had to put herself through. What is interesting is that the most important factors to her recovery were considered irrelevant to the medical profession supposedly caring for her.

A second reason why I love her work is that her findings are incredibly similar to the findings I made in my research on unexpected recoveries from serious illness – not exactly the same but close enough.

I hope to meet up with her tomorrow to discuss our mutual interests. In the meantime anyone with Meniere’s should go to http://www.discoveringbodylogic.com/ and buy her book. It is only in hard copy from Australia at the moment so it will need to be posted out.

I was reading about Koch’s Postulates for determining whether disease was infectious and caused by germs/microbes/pathogens. Basically, according to what I’ve read on Wikipedia and various uni websites, Koch was a scientist who was exploring the impact of pathogens around the era of Pasteur and others. Bear with me as you go through the explanation as it shows that medicine is operating out of models it gives lip service to that are not based on fact.

The following is directly from the Wikipedia website:

“Koch’s postulates are four criteria designed to establish a causal relationship between a causative microbe and a disease. The postulates were formulated by Robert Koch and Friedrich Loeffler in 1884 and refined and published by Koch in 1890. Koch applied the postulates to establish the etiology  of anthrax  and tuberculosis, but they have been generalized to other diseases.
1. The microorganism must be found in abundance in all organisms suffering from the disease, but should not be found in healthy animals.
2. The microorganism must be isolated from a diseased organism and grown in pure culture.
3. The cultured microorganism should cause disease when introduced into a healthy organism.
4. The microorganism must be reisolated from the inoculated, diseased experimental host and identified as being identical to the original specific causative agent.”

What is really interesting is that the medical fraternity says that these are all required for causation and then says that they aren’t.  For example:

They say the germ must be present in abundance to cause the disease – there are occasions when this is not the case. People can influenza-like illness without any influenza infection or germs that are able to be isolated. I understand but can’t quote the references that this happens in many infectious diseases.

The infection should not be found in healthy animals. This was set aside very early when it was found that most people with the polio infection, some 80%, never went down with the symptoms of the disease. There are also reports that 70% of people with the Herpes virus are asymptomatic.

The organism should be able to be cultured but it is accepted that many viruses cannot yet be cultured.

The organism should cause disease when introduced into healthy organisms. Many can but this is very host specific. Some people just don’t go down with anything, no matter what you do to them. As the Wikipedia writers stated, “Noninfection may be due to such factors as general health and proper immune functioning; acquired immunity from previous exposure or vaccination; or genetic immunity…”.

So here we have the interesting situation of three out of four criteria not being met and yet they still use these as their “proof” that infectious diseases are “caused” by pathogens/germs.

Perhaps we need to focus more on the host-environmental model of public health, to be truly causal.

Quite definitely the pathogens/germs/micro-organisms exist. But do they not become more aggressive as a result of dis-ease in the person? Are they not nature’s way of recycling us back to the earth at the end of our time? And are they not frequently and largely sitting in our bodies waiting to opportunistically infect us just as soon as we provide the cellular and organ conditions for this recycling to start?

So instead of being focused on avoiding getting infections, perhaps we should focus on building a better external environment and internal cellular environment?

I am doing a lot of writing at the moment as I’m running four blogs concurrently. It is part of my theory about failing fast. I might as well set up three themed sites at once and work three times as hard on the assumption that it is better to trial three than do one and wait for months and months to see if it works. I’m doing three, one week behind each other. That way perhaps I’ll remember what I have to do. And it gives me three times as much chance of success.

But one of the issues is to make sure that I have fresh enough things to write about. That means I need to keep my reading up to keep triggering my own thoughts. I really hate those sites which trot out the same sterile tripe that doesn’t really say anything. So I think I shall take a little time to trawl through some forums for some ideas for tomorrow’s writing.

There is so much to learn! Part of it is the marketing concepts themselves. Part of it is the techie aspects such as how to put on google analytics (thanks Irina for helping me get it on this blog) and how to add extras like photos and images. It is so easy once I have done it a few times, but unless I do the tasks regularly I tend to forget how I did it last time.

Moral of the story: do it several times and do it regularly. OK blog, after blog, after blog. Website, after website, after website coming up.

Then there is article marketing. That is my task this morning – to get a handle on how another article marketing service works.

I have to say it is really nice to get the notifications from Clickbank about sales. Makes it all worthwhile.

I’ve had some problems with my eyes over the last three weeks, culminating in all day at various hospitals seeing five doctors along the way. The news was promising although not likely to be quick. They are talking of perhaps months or even ongoing treatment over the future.

The issue isn’t my eye per se, but how I respond to the situation. A caring mentor suggested I put my internet to oneside for a while as it would still be there when I get better. However I am still likely to be able to do some critical focus times (CFTs) and so will continue to do what I can when I can. I am wearing an eyepatch while working at the computer as I think the screen has been a major contributor to my problem.

I think the issue is whether you stop doing what you really want to do, or whether you work on health issues in parallel with what you want to achieve. And that comes down to listening closely to your body and becoming very well organised, knowing what your next CFT will be so that when you are well enough you can do it without becoming distracted by the multitude of other things that need doing.

Being ill takes a lot of time. Just a fraction of that time when I’m sitting round or lying round can be spent reviewing what I want to do. I might not have much energy but ten minutes doing one component which takes me on to the next stage is worth doing when I have the opportunity. And with a bit of luck and good management the ten minutes might be able to be extended – after all I was trained as a touch typist so mostly don’t have to look at my keyboard or screen when I type, though it does need more concentration to do it that way.

There is just so much to do and so much to learn as I get into this internet marketing. One of the first important learning I have done this year is to recognise the importance of Critical Focus Time. (Thanks Ed Dale.)

Critical Focus Time is the most productive time of my day and it is reserved to do those tasks which will lead to developing more cashflow from my sites. This is reserved for writing for my sites, writing articles and doing anything which will get me more traffic.

Learning, editing, posting, even writing product is not considered critical focus time, because they don’t bring people to the site nor convert them.

After doing the critical focus time activity I then find I have to have an Almost Critical Focus Time. This is for those projects which will stall everything if I don’t do them. This is for key learning which I have to concentrate on at full capacity. I am slightly techno-phobic so this is the time I do my techie learning. As an example it included learning how to put Google Analytics onto my new blogs to see how they perform. It also includes those things I have to make a decision about, say choosing an affiliate product.

One of the ways I remember I’m in Critical Focus Time or Almost Critical Focus Time is to use a timer. I put it on for 25 minutes and make myself work for that time. When the timer is ticking I keep myself typing or focussing on something intently. It is not time when any response is made to anything else other than the task at hand. On the whole interruptions are NOT ALLOWED. After the 25 minutes is over I get up and move around.

Why 25 minutes? It is whatwas recommended and it seems to work. With only 25 minutes available it is amazing how much work I can achieve during that short time, and knowing time is limited I find I don’t daydream anywhere as much nor let myself get distracted.

Ed says that few people can undertake more than 3 hours per day of critical focus time if they are working on it full time. If you are employed it will be less than that, but it should be the first thing one does in the day. It is CRITICAL to getting done what needs to be done to be successful.

I have developed a new blog and website about residential solar power. It will answer questions about solar power and issues we have discovered as we put solar panels onto our house. Check it out and let me know what you think of it.

Last week our city was inundated with three months rain over a few hours, hailstones the size of golf balls and bigger, flooding in some areas and part of a hill slid down into ground floor appartments. We were comparatively well off. My husband’s shift work had him home a couple of hours before the rain hit and we were safely ensconced in our sitting room in a suburb that was better off than many.

We only lost power for two hours and it was back on around 7 p.m. Some people were without power for days and a few still do not have it. We were fortunate. We had bought a generator as we had heard that our power supplier was likely to become less reliable in its electricity supply. The supplier has been fine but the generator got its first use for what it was bought for. It was nice to know that we would not lose any of the produce in our freezer if we were one of those whose electricity could not be restored early. And the convenience of being able to have lights to do the dishes by was great!

An acquaintance made a comment to the effect that “it must be nice to have money for that sort of thing.” I thought back to the times I have seen her with fast food containers waiting to go into her rubbish bin and the times she has told me about having meals and coffees out with friends. I smiled when I thought how I had been mildly envious of the fact she could “afford” to eat out so often. Yes we had to make a choice and we did – just a different choice to the one she makes several times a week.

The previous paragraph isn’t intended to be a smug commentary (though I did feel a little smug), but as part of a reflection on how prepared one can be, should be, or might be for whatever life can throw at us. We are far more likely to be affected by a storm than a terrorist attack. But either way it might be a good idea to update my first aid skills.

What is important in life? I know this varies very much from person to person. I used to take people through a course where one of the tasks was to identify our core personal values and to put them in an hierarchy. As usual I reviewed mine prior to the exercise and happened to discuss my list with a friend. Top of my hierarchy was freedom. I almost lost my friend then and there.  To her love was the most important value in life and if I didn’t agree with her then it was unlikely that I could continue to be her friend. I was wrong, dead wrong.

Apart from being a flabbergasted at her response I also wondered why my top priority wasn’t love. I realised it was because I had always been loved, always expected to be loved and had always loved others. Loving is and was a daily activity – like brushing one’s teeth. I have been very fortunate in that aspect of my life.

My friend, soon to be ex-friend, was different. She had felt unloved by anyone in her family and deserted by everyone of importance to her. Love was top priority. Over the next couple of months she let go of our friendship and had found someone else to be her “best friend”. She told me I was “too much like her mother” – the mother who had dominated and then deserted her – for us to continue as friends.

Values drive our behaviour. One of the additional questions I had for those in my course was to assess whether our values and their order in the hierarchy actually worked for us, or whether it would be useful to change one or more of them.

My top value of freedom is the reason I am learning internet marketing (that and the fact that I like finding out stuff). Success will set us financially free for our later years in life. Success will also be a good role model for my grandchildren. My thoughts are that if they can become good at internet marketing (with all that that entails), can recognise markets, can buy and sell face to face, can drive a bus and truck and get on well with people then they can be financially OK over their lives. Once they have those skills they can then go do anything else – if they want to go to university then that is fine. But I think they should get a basic education first before they specialise in a trade/profession.

I have just heard another mentor say to me that success is not about finding exactly the right niche in life and working hard at it. It is a matter of trying lots and failing fast. The first person I heard this from had his own insight when he was training to be an architect and realised that architects didn’t come into their own until their fifties and sixties. When he asked why he was told that was how long it took them to learn. Each project took an average of 3 to 5 years. This person changed track. When he chose another business it was in publishing where he could publish monthly and make his mistakes each month, rather than each 3 years. He reckoned he was learning 36 times as fast.

In the internet marketing field it is apparently also a matter of failing fast. While it is necessary to learn basics such as how to put together  the mechanics of an auto responder one should expect to repeat the whole process of putting together a website perhaps dozens of times. Some (many in the early stages) will fail. Some will bring in a little. And the occasional one will work really well.

My mentor said  to “Just do it.” There is no perfect market. Get over it. Learn from your failures. And if it doesn’t work, sell your failure on flippa.com then move on and do it again in a different market.