The reason why I strongly dislike Multi Level Marketing (MLM) and Network Marketing (NM) systems is that the people who join don’t actually earn anything or benefit from them in any shape or form.

The only people who make any money are those who are at the top of teams.

Ultimately, the only people who win big are those sitting at the top of the pyramid.

In 2019 there were roughly 116 million people globally signed up to either a MLM or a NM business including around 400,000 people in the UK.

Less than 1% of those people actually made any money.

In the documentary Secrets of the Multi-Level Millionaires, (On the BBC iPlayer which I highly recommend watching), BBC investigator journalist Ellie Flynn went undercover to learn more about Younique and Nu Skin, two cosmetic and lifestyle MLM & NM networks aimed mainly at women.

She discovered that out of 1.23 million people who had signed up to Younique, only 0.02% of presenters (the name Younique give to members) achieved top earnings.

That is just 240 people… out of 1.23 million!

She also discovered that in 2017, Nu Skin had 90,079 active distributors (the name Nu kin give to members) across Europe, Africa and the Middle East and that 89.2% of them made no money and only 1.09% made around £870 a month.

If a distributor was working full time that would actually be less than the UK minimum wage.

Only 36 people (0.04%) were earning around the £18K a month which is heavily pushed as an incentive to get people to join the Nu Skin family.

Both networks ‘sell’ their incredibly overpriced products to the team members and all team members then need to sell the company products to the people they recruit.

But selling products is not the way members make money.

The whole focus of these companies is to recruit more members, something which they do not talk about much until they get you inside the network.

The members believe that they are ‘representatives’ of the company and believe that they are ‘building their own business’ within the business.

They see themselves as ‘entrepreneurs’ when in reality, they are actually the ‘customer’.

Why do they think they are entrepreneurs who are building their own business within an established framework similar to a franchise?

Because they are told that!

A lot of the MLM & NM training focuses on mindset and empowerment.

They organise big events where members are encouraged to buy tickets and meet up with thousands of other ‘entrepreneurs’ where speakers on large stages with flashing lights and big video screens encourage members to ditch toxic friends and family who question their decision to join the network.

The three main points these events focus on are:

1. Developing an empowered mindset: Basically they are preventing you from thinking about leaving by insisting that if you are not making money then you are being held back by a negative outlook… which can be changed.
2. Ignore others: They repeatedly tell members that they are on an incredible journey to wealth and that they are entrepreneurs building a business and that they should ditch anyone who questions what they do. Including close friends and family.
3. Recruitment: The main focus of all MLM & NM companies is to get new members and they talk and teach more about that than actually selling the ‘products’. The reason for that is that the network itself is the ‘product’ and the members are the ‘customers’.

There are seminars where you learn useful information…

Then there are seminars which are very reminiscent of the large gatherings for evangelic preachers such as Billy Graham where they request people to ‘hand over money to gain entry to the house of God’.

One clip in the Secrets of the MLM Millionaires documentary had the company founder named alongside Jesus as one of the ‘most important people in history’ at one of their large gatherings!

Interestingly the global capital of MLM businesses is Utah in the USA, the spiritual home of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints aka The Mormons with over 100 MLM businesses founded there.

So what does that tell you?

With MLM and NM, you are not entering the house of God; you are entering a world where you are rich and living a life of freedom… or so they promise.

In reality, people lose a lot of money when they join an MLM or NM business and are left with absolutely nothing when they leave.

The Empower Network (there’s that word again!), a MLM style business that focused on building an internet business collapsed when it hit the point that it was no longer sustainable.

Pyramid and ponzi schemes collapse and imploded when they hit saturation point.

Members paid to join the Empowered Network and for that they got access to internet marketing training which focused heavily on getting new people to join the network.

Members would get a website built on the Empower Networks network with all of the Empower Network graphics.

Basically putting it, people were paying to advertise the Empower Network and they were actively seeking out new members for the Empower Network hoping to make money when really all they were doing was putting more money into the pockets of the two Dave’s who set it up.

Members will always lose out, while they are out there talking about the network, trying to recruit new blood, people who are curious will go and do a quick Google search and what do you think they will find?

They’ll find the main company website which has landed a high ranking position in the search results thanks to its age and all of the other websites pointing back to it.

This means that a lot of people who decide to join will actually join via the main website and side step the recruiters who have been busy trying to persuade people to join.

MLM and NM are completely geared up to make money for the business owner and a select few of people who joined at time of its inception.

What happens when people leave the network and stop paying?

They lose all of the products and services they were using and promoting.

That includes any website they may have had, all of the content they were adding to the website which they shared across the internet.

They are left with nothing!

No business, no website, no content… absolutely nothing!

In the documentary Secrets of the Multi-Level Millionaires one woman was heard saying that she had spent £1,800 and was left with nothing.

She had earned nothing back and had nothing whatsoever to show for her money.

This is why I believe that you should either build your own business, create your own products or look into something which you can do for yourself such as sports trading or trading the markets.

Used correctly, £1,800 would pay for the creation of several fully automated passive income systems that makes sales for you online while you are busy doing other things.

It would build an email list to which you could promote yours or other people’s products where you make money whenever a sale is made.

It would be a decent sized bank for trading football matches or horse races in Betfair.

It would also be a decent sized bank for trading the financial markets.

There is no reason why you cannot take £1,800 and double it within a few short months… maybe less.

You should be able to take £1,800 and use it as a start to make a lot of money… as long as you do not invest it into any MLM or NM business because as we have seen, you will be left with nothing.

Starting with a lot less than £1,800, our friend Kate Davis now makes between £750 and £1,725 each month trading the financial markets.

Strictly no MLM or NM involved here!

She makes the money while she workouts each morning in her home gym before going to work.

It’s just her and her phone.

If you would like to learn exactly what she does, go to:

www.TreadmillTrader.co.uk

Kind Regards

John Harrison

PS… Since her first profits during lockdown, Kate has earned over £20,000 (as of September 2021… it’s probably a lot more than that now).

That’s over £1,000 a month.. oh and it’s TAX FREE too.

Here’s that link again:

www.TreadmillTrader.co.uk

If you have never heard of Call the Midwife – and I’d be surprised if you haven’t, it is a popular long running television series created by the BBC based on the memoirs of Jennifer Worth.

It’s set in the East End of London during the 1950’s and 1960’s where Jennifer worked as a midwife.

Jennifer wrote three books about  her life during that time and what she had experienced and witnessed over the years working as a midwife and nurse.

The television show follows the lives of a small group of NHS midwives who live and work with a group of nuns who were also trained nurses and midwives.

It’s a beautifully made show packed full of nostalgia. It’s full of great uplifting stories, but it also tackles a lot of hard to watch painful themes.

Call The Midwife is well known to lubricate the eye sockets. Every week people are left weeping while watching the show.

On a Sunday evening after the show has ended social media is awash with people saying how much they cried watching the show.

The really sad part of the Call the Midwife story is that Jennifer Worth died the year before the show hit our screens. Unfortunately she never got to watch the show or see how popular it has become.

Another show that is getting rave reviews lately is The Responder starring Martin Freeman.

Martin plays Chris Carson, a police officer in Liverpool, who is spiralling into chaos trying to keep his mind focused on the job while trying to save the life of a girl who stole a big bag of drugs worth hundreds of thousands of pounds from a drug dealer who just happened to be an old friend of Chris’.

Chris is caught between the two worlds of trying to be a good and decent cop while also trying to find the missing drugs for the bad guys to prevent harm coming to him, his family and the young woman who stole them.

Martin Freeman’s performance as the crisis-stricken and morally compromised police officer has been hailed as one of the best with many calling for him to win a BAFTA award.

So why am I telling you this?

The story was written by ex-police officer Tony Schumacher who just like Jennifer Worth, drew on years of personal experiences.

The story is fiction and not an actual series of memoirs but the fact remains, The Responder was based on a series of actual life events.

Another incredibly popular and long running BBC series is Silent Witness. Silent Witness began in 1996 and has been running ever since.

Again, this is a show which was originally based on real life experiences as the creator Nigel McCrery was a former murder squad detective from Nottingham.

Nigel also went on to create New Tricks, another BBC detective series.

Drawing on his knowledge as a murder detective and his time spent working with forensic pathologists; Nigel created a factually accurate show which captured people’s attention and has lasted an incredible 26 years.

You may be wondering where I am going with this.

People’s real life stories and real world experiences are interesting to other people. People love watching true stories and learning about history and other people.

You yourself may have more than enough real life experiences to create a book which could quite easily make you money… and possibly change your life.

If you yourself have not had a career as exciting or varied as a midwife, police officer or murder squad detective, you have eyes and ears to record what is happing in the world around you.

The people I’ve already mentioned above are chroniclers.

They are recorders of history.

They put down on paper the events that are happening around them then they either publish those records as memoirs, social observations or fictitious stories.

Is keeping a daily diary a good idea for you?

A lot of people laugh at the idea of keeping a diary.

They think of books such as The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13 ¾, or The Diary of a Wimpy Kid, but the truth is, a diary is a collection of daily records which grow into complete books of history.

A history which you can publish for the world to enjoy.

Some people like to use traditional diaries because it feels more personal and special to them, whereas others prefer to publish their diary entries online as part of a blog.

The bestselling book and popular television series The Secret Diary of a Call Girl is another set of real life memoirs which was originally published online as a diary blog.

Personally I think writing a diary either online as a blog for the world to see or as a collection of Word or Google documents is better because you can work with them better.

If you use a traditional diary, you’ll need to transfer all those pages to the computer if you wish to use them as part of a book or product and that can be a bit of a ball ache.

Keeping with the online theme, your memoirs can be published to a website as blog posts AND they can be used as email content.

Maybe your memoirs can be used as an exclusive email newsletter instead as a way to grow an email list… and as we know, having an email list is a profitable thing to have.

An email list is like having your own personal cash machine. You can promote products and services to the people on your list and earn money when people buy.

Your emails can become your diary entries… and your diary entries become your emails.

You write your diary entry into a Word document, copy it over to your chosen email service and then hit send.

Write one diary entry email a day and you will have 365 entries after one year. That is more than enough content for a book or two… and who knows where that will lead to once they have been published.

If you would like to know more about how to make money using email, go to:

The Email Secret

Kind Regards

John Harrison

PS… An email a day – or every few days – takes very little to write. You do not need to write thousands of words for each email. If you want to share a long memoir you can also break it up over several emails.

Here’s that link again:

The Email Secret

I would like to ask you to de me a favour but before I do, I want to share with you the story of the woman who woke up to find a mural painted on the side of her house.

Nickie Hadley from Hyde in Greater Manchester only realised that she had a mural on the side of her house when she looked out of her window and saw neighbours looking at it.

When they waved at her and shouted ‘we love it’, Ms Hadley decided to investigate.

Ms Hadley lives in an area which has a lot of natural beauty which is also earmarked for 2,000 new homes.

She is part of a group opposing the plans and in a local Facebook group set up to discuss the plans she said that she had a wall which if anyone wanted to place a protest poster on it, they could.

She never expected to find a piece of protest art painted to the wall.

As part of an interview with the Manchester Evening News, Ms Hadley said: “It’s always easier to ask for forgiveness than for permission!”

The artwork depicts a young boy pulling a barrow full of bricks with an aeroplane flying above pulling a “save our green belt” banner.

The artist responsible for the stencil style artwork is known locally as ‘Mr Eggs’.

The reason for sharing this is to talk about perception and reputation.

The artwork by Mr Eggs is – as far as I am aware – worth nothing. There is no monetary value to it.

But, had the artwork been painted by another street artist known as Banksy… it could be worth tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands and possibly millions.

A recent piece of street art which appeared on the wall of an electrical shop in Lowestoft in Sussex was sold to an unnamed buyer here in the UK and the rumour is that it sold for £2 million.

Realising that the artwork was an official Banksy piece and could be worth a fortune, the shop owners, Gary and Nadine Schwartz, had the wall with the artwork removed by a construction engineering contractor.

The buyer didn’t just get a piece of artwork; they now have half of a shop wall, a few paving slabs and a pile of sand.

What is interesting here is that the piece of artwork which appeared on Ms Hadley’s wall in Greater Manchester is just as good, if not better than the Banksy piece which is rumoured to have sold for £2 million.

Banksy is not the only street artist in the world… many would say that he isn’t the best either.

There are many who are just as prolific, just as political and just as thought provoking… but he is the one who has somehow captured the public’s attention.

Many celebrities have admitted to owning artwork by Banksy which has helped grow his credibility.

Banksy clearly has a celebrity status now and has now become a ‘must have’ for many serious art collectors.

The name ‘Banksy’ is all that is needed to open up wallets.

It’s kind of ridiculous that people will hand over tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands and as we have seen, in some cases hand over millions of pounds to own an original piece of art by Banksy when they probably walk past far better street art on a daily basis.

It’s highly likely that many owners of Banksy art would walk past work done by him in public places and not know it had he not signed it with his name.

The piece which sold for £2 million had not been signed but appeared in a video that Banksy had released to social media of the work he had done while doing a tour of that area.

Had he not released the video, people may not have realised that the work was a Banksy. Up to the release of the video, it was just another piece of annoying street art… or as most people would rightly call it… vandalism!

Most people who own pieces of artwork, furniture, photographs or any kind of official celebrity memorabilia, need telling that what they own is what they think it is… otherwise how would they actually know?

They need to be told officially by others in the know that what they have is an original.

Some collectibles come with certificates of authenticity to prove that they are the real thing.

Basically what that means is that people will pay a lot of money to own something which they have been told is real.

It’s kind of ridiculous when you think about it… but it is really good for those who want to make money.

The fact that people will spend money to own something rare or unusual means that people can make good money selling them the items they want to own.

£2 million is a lot of money, it could feed a lot of people, it could erase or ease a lot of problems for a lot or people… yet here is one person who allegedly spent that amount of money to buy a ‘wall’ which had been spray painted.

It’s crazy what people will buy.

What do you actually get for owning a wall with a piece of artwork on it?

Some people buy pieces of art as an investment. They are banking on the fact that what they buy is rare and are going to go up in value.

But as always, that is a bit of a gamble because in a few years time, the love for Banksy may bottom and it’s possible that no one would want to spend over £2 million to buy a wall. If that happens, you have lost money.

Some people buy art and collectibles simply because they want to own a piece of history and to be the one person who owns something specific.

For these people, the collecting of ‘stuff’ is ‘ego’ based and is all about being the one who owns a specific thing.

Whatever the reasons, both types of collectors will spend a lot of money to buy collectible items.

And this is where you can make money… by sourcing collectibles from one person and then selling them onto a person who really wants to own them… for a big fat easy profit.

If you would like to know how to find and buy cheap collectables and memorabilia which you can easily sell for a big profit check out:

Narconomics

Martin Fanshaw, regularly makes profits of thousands of pounds by simply buying an item from one person then selling it to another person for a much higher price than the one he paid.

He doesn’t simply buy an item and then wait for a customer to come along; it’s not your usual business model. He only buys an item when he knows he has someone to sell it too.

The Banksy wall may have only been sold after the shop owner was approached by a collector showing interest.

Martin sits nicely between two people and creams off a large profit for simply organising the transfer of an item from one to the other.

All the items he transfers are easy to handle and can be popped into an envelope or a jiffy bag. No big walls here to take out and deliver! There is very little work to do and yet it can generate huge profits.

Martin once turned a £30,000 profit in just two days… by simply selling items to people who desperately wanted to own them.

Anyway, if you would like to learn how Martin Fanshaw sources collectibles and memorabilia which he sells to people who are desperate to own them while creaming off a nice large profit for doing so, go to:

Narconomics

Kind Regards

John Harrison

PS… Oh yes, that favour I wanted to ask you about… if you find any of my emails or articles useful in anyway, please share them with your friends and if you know someone who is looking for a way to make money or is interested in changing their financial situation for the better, please direct them to my book which I am giving away for free here: John Harrison’s How To Stop Working And Make A Million Pounds Instead.

While following celebrity food author Miguel Barclay’s adventures on Instagram – he films himself doing anything and everything – I saw something rather brilliant.

In one of Miguel’s Instagram Stories, Miguel was walking along a street talking to his phone like he does when he spotted something unusual in the back of a van.

Stopping to take a look, Miguel filmed something he didn’t expect to see.

The sliding side door was open and there in the back of the van was a full on professional barber shop.

Sitting in the barber’s chair was a gentleman being given a short back and sides.

Looking closer you can see the van’s livery says ‘Trim-it’, which is the name of the company set up by twentysomethings Darren Tenkorang and Nana Darko.

Before ‘Trim-It’ was born, Darren had been studying business management at Sussex and was working a one-year placement at a re-insurance firm in London.

It was at University where he met his business partner Nana and also discovered that he struggled with dyslexia.

After being officially diagnosed with dyslexia, Darren had to revaluate his career plans and after stepping out of the train station in Brighton one day and seeing a barber shop that specialised in Afro-Caribbean hair, his future was revealed to him.

Afro-Caribbean hair is different to European hair and very few high street barbers and hairdressers know how to work with it.

Darren realised that there was a lot of potential customers in and around South London and that many of his potential customers are busy business owners and entrepreneurs who struggle to find the time to ‘pop to the barbers’.

Many of them want to ‘cut and go’ and don’t want to spend too long waiting in reception so for them, a mobile barbers which you can order through the app developed by Daniel and Nana is ideal.

The mobile barbers come to you wherever you are.

Darren has fond memories of going to the barbers with his dad when he was young.

“My dad used to take me to the barber’s in the morning and we’d be there for hours,” says Darren. “We’d watch the football, and he would usually sip a pint of Guinness, chilling with his boys.”

As he grew older, Darren became increasingly frustrated with the slow tempo of the experience he once enjoyed as a child.

“I got sick of waiting for an hour at the barber, especially on a Friday or Saturday,” he says.

“Or it would be your turn next in the queue, and then the barber would go to eat, or to pick up a child,” he remembers.

Darren wanted to offer busy entrepreneurs a faster and more exclusively tailored service, and that meant taking the barber out of the shop and onto the road.

Mobile hairdressing itself is nothing new.

For years hairdressers have been visiting mainly women in their homes, and cutting hair in kitchens or lounges using the home owners own chairs.

Hair dressing equipment is thrown into a big bag or suitcase with wheels meaning that the traditional mobile hairdresser is restricted to what they can carry.

When you set yourself up in the back of a van, you can kit it out fully and you can manage any mess far easier. Plus there is no ‘setting up’ or ‘getting ready’. You simply pull up at the arranged destination and throw open the door.

This is a brilliant business model and a perfect way to take your business to your ‘busy’ customers for who time is short.

You are offering a service which makes their busy lives easier. It is convenient and as we know, people pay good money for convenience.

Why do you think there are so many takeaway food outlets around?

Takeaway food means that people do not need to cook and there are very few pots to wash after eating, if any. Takeaway food saves time.

With the barbers in a van concept, people do not need to leave their homes or their place of work, drive several miles across town only to struggle to find a place to park – which can be quite expensive – then having to wait alongside other people in a busy and often hot shop.

The van barber removes all of those problems.

The person who orders a hair cut or a shave, simply steps out of where they are and into the back of the van as soon as it arrives.

I love this idea.

I believe Trim-It currently has three vans doing the rounds in London.

There are many large towns and cities in the UK where this type of service could easily be replicated.

I’m more than certain there are other businesses which could run similar services.

Nail technician in a van?

Massage in a van? (Not that kind of massage! Although saying that, the brothel in Sheffield did try that once!)

Can you think of one?

Read More about Darren, Nana & Trim-It here: The BBC Article

Kind Regards

John Harrison.

PS… If you are looking for a good business idea which might work in the back of a van… or just as a business in general, I can help you with that with my book The Stolen Files.

In the book you will find 133 business ideas to choose from… even if you don’t pick one, they will give you a lot to think about and will help you come up with your own profitable business idea which you may be able to run from the back of a van!

To get your copy go to:

The Stolen Files

I read on one of the socials recently… I think it was that Twitter one where you can only write half a sentence… a woman who was a peripatetic school teacher admitted that the only children she can remember over her 30 year career were those who were either ‘very strange or a proper little shit!’.

And there we have it ladies and gentlemen… the most valuable marketing lesson there is…

To make a lasting impression on the world… you need to be…

Very strange… or a proper little shit!

Being either of those will have you talked about for years to come.

And that explains how people such as Nigel Farage and Piers Morgan are still earning money.

They are unforgettable people.

When papers and news outlets need an opinion, they go to the people who they think of first, and the people they think of first are the ones they remember… 

And they generally happen to be the people who are ‘very strange or proper little shits’.

Okay, before you panic, I am not in any way saying that you need to become a proper little shit or pretend to be strange… but it may pay to say or do the odd strange and shitty thing if you want you or your business to be talked about and remembered over the competition.

Before you go out and start publicly insulting anyone and everyone or strutting through your town centre wearing a suit made from meat like the very strange Lady Gaga, I suggest you carefully think through anything you try because sometimes… it can backfire spectacularly.

Saying the wrong thing can do more harm than good.

Who remembers Gerald Ratner’s little quip about the jewellery he sold in his stores being ‘total crap’?

It’s a memorable moment, but not for the right reasons. His business suffered terribly after that quip was reported across the whole of the UK.

Gerald Ratner who had built the company he inherited from his father into a multi-billion pound empire was forced to resign his position of chairman soon after his ill-fated quip.

I’ve also read about an actor who is now struggling to find work due to sharing his anti covid vaccination views.

So yes; you do need to be careful with what you say, when you say it and to who.

However…

Being strange and shitty can be manufactured.

I recall a true story I once read where a hotel at a ski resort in the United States alluded to the fact that they didn’t allow women to hire the snow bikes.

I’m struggling to find the book which the story was in so forgive me if I’m a bit vague in my retelling of the story.

I believe it was a paid-for marketing ‘review style’ news article written from the perspective of a guest who added towards the end of the article that she or his wife was not allowed to ride a snow bike because she was ‘female’.

It was one simple sentence in the newspaper article.

It blew up and caused outrage across the USA.

Women liberation groups condemned the hotel and gathered to protest outside… which attracted the attention of the television news channels.

As they say ‘there’s no such thing as bad publicity’ (although Gerald Ratner may disagree!).

The publicity brought a lot of national attention on the hotel… it was publicity which cost the hotel nothing.

The hotel released a statement saying that there was no such ruling and never had been and that there must have been some kind of ‘breakdown in communication’ that day and ‘apologised’ for any offence and outrage caused.

Problem solved…

Apology made…

Women libbers go home happy (well, satisfied at getting an apology)…

Hotel is now known across the whole of the USA…

Bookings go up.

The whole episode was a marketing stunt cleverly disguised as a third person review of a failing which was not actually real.

For that brief moment in time, the hotel was seen as being a ‘proper little shit’ towards half of the population of the United States.

And guess what…

I remember that story… albeit a little vaguely.

One of the best ways of managing and manufacturing your ‘strangeness and shittyness’ is through the use of emails.

I would also say social media, but it’s too easy for people to share and jump on you if you get it wrong.

At least with email, if you get it wrong, people are more likely to just unsubscribe from your list.

Writing and sending simple emails is still one of the best ways to make money.

It is a system which you can take with you wherever you go in the world.

There are people who make their money by simply writing and sending just one email a day… the rest of the day is theirs.

To learn more, go to:

The Email Secret

Kind Regards

John Harrison

PS… If you are not sure as to what type of emails to write and send, study the ones that you receive regularly. Study mine too. You will soon see a pattern emerge.

Writing profitable emails is incredibly easy.

Here’s that link again:

The Email Secret

I recently read a very interesting article about the decline in attention spans and the ability to focus.

The writer of the article started by telling us how he honoured a promise he made to his 15 year old godson and took him to Elvis Presley’s home, Graceland.

Apparently his godson was a big Elvis lover when he was nine and asked his godfather if he would take him to Graceland one day.

The trip was not just to honour the promise; it was to help the young boy who was having a few issues. He had dropped out of school and was lost in a world of social media, porn and messaging apps.

For the trip to Graceland there was one condition which was agreed upon by the writer and his godson… phones would not be used during the day.

Unfortunately, the young lad interpreted that as ‘not making phone calls’ during the day, he didn’t think that it applied to sending messages or scrolling through social media.

As soon as they landed in the USA, his phone was out of his pocket and he was busy checking and sending messages.

After observing the behaviour of his godson, and his own behaviour, the writer realised that people are losing the ability to focus on one thing for any length of time.

People struggle to pay attention to one single thing for more than a few minutes at the most.

Very few pay attention to the world around them. They are lost in a world of screens flashing up messages, bite sized stories and videos.

This realisation motivated the writer to travel the world and talk to the experts studying the decline in attention and the scientists who were monitoring the affect modern technology and social media was having on people.

Let’s just say… it’s not looking good.

Studies show that the attention spans and ability to maintain focus has reduced dramatically. One leading French scientist, Prof Barbara Demeneix, declared: “There is no way we can have a normal brain today”.

A small study showed that a group of college students could only focus on any one task for 65 seconds.

Another small study involving office workers found that they could only focus for an average of three minutes.

What is interesting about those two studies are the ages… students are younger than office workers and are more likely to spend more time online chatting to people and watching videos on platforms like Tiktok.

Is the fact the students have an attention and focus span less than half that of the older office workers proof that this is getting worse?

All the experts conclude that the decline in our ability to focus and pay attention for any length of time is not because individually we are becoming weak-willed, it’s because our attention and focus was STOLEN.

The technology has made it way too easy to be distracted by fun and entertaining content.

What’s worse is the fact that all social media platforms are designed to keep you scrolling and prevent you from leaving.

The Dopamine High

With the constant notification of ‘Likes’, ‘Comments’, ‘ Shares’, Loves’ and ‘Retweets’ etc, people’s egos are being stroked… or kicked… and brain chemicals such as dopamine, responsible for feeling pleasure, are being released over and over again throughout the day.

Dopamine release in people is happing far more often than it ever used to.

Dopamine is one of the pleasure chemicals which are released when people take drugs to get high and escape from the harsh realities of the world.

Social media and instant entertainment has replaced chemical drugs.

People are becoming addicts, hooked on the next fix of dopamine.

They are compelled to check their messages and their socials or watch one more cat video so that there is a quick dopamine release and they can feel ‘happy’ again… briefly.

The problem is that this addiction to dopamine release through the constant access to social media and entertainment, is robbing us of our ability to focus and pay attention to anything else for any length of time.

This is not good for people… and it’s most certainly not good for the achievement of success.

Success is the reward for constantly doing specific things consistently… something which is going to be hard to do when your attention and focus is being eroded away by the need for the next dopamine fix!

The downside to addiction is that when you don’t get your fix, you can become irritable, cranky and sometimes even depressed.

You crave more of the ‘good stuff’ and when you don’t get it, you go into withdrawal.

Basically, just like a heroin addict, you get cravings and start ‘clucking’ for the next fix. This is also a state which robs a person of their ability to stay focused and pay attention to what they are doing.

I have said many times that the smartphones and tablets we have at our disposal, and the social media platforms we have free access to are incredibly powerful tools we can use to achieve success and/or financial freedom… but we have to be aware that they can also be responsible for causing people to fail.

They can destroy our chances of success because of the ease of access to entertainment and the way they are designed to keep us ‘stuck’ in a dopamine driven perpetual cycle of scrolling and watching.

To become successful using these incredibly powerful tools, we are now required to develop a stronger discipline and a mindset which helps us to see that they are tools to be use, and to understand that we can get lost in a dopamine fuelled rabbit hole of pointless posts, videos, and conversations if we are not careful.

Retrain Your Brain

The decline in our ability to focus on the job at…er … at… hmmm… what was I doing?

Oh yes! …

The decline in our ability to focus on the job at hand and pay attention to what we are doing and what is going on around us can be prevented and reversed.

If you feel that your ability to focus and pay attention for any length of time is on the decline then you need to retrain your brain.

You need to relearn what you could once do naturally.

And that is done by taking time out from phones and tablets and reducing the amount of distractions around you.

Put your phone or tablet on a shelf and go read a book in another room where you cannot access it without having to get up from your chair and walk a distance to it.

If you are working on one device, whether it is your laptop, phone or tablet, put the others away where you cannot access them without having to walk and get them.

Set a timer and know that you cannot look at any social media platforms until the alarm has sounded.

Start at five minutes – which is two minutes longer than the three minutes the study found to be an average length for office staff – and increase the time as you improve.

Studying and practicing ‘mindfulness’ could be a huge help in increasing your ability to focus and your attention span.

Mindfulness teaches people to pay attention to the moment and to focus on only what you are doing at that time. It is an exercise and like all exercises, the more you do the stronger and better you become.

The modern world is damaging the attention spans and focusing skills of billions of people… but the good news is that it can be repaired.

If you are looking for a great read to help you with your retraining, a book which will teach you a lot more about life… check out Stuart Goldsmith’s Beyond Wealth here:

www.streetwisenews.com/bwealth

Download the book to your favourite device, put all the other devices in another room, turn off the television and radio, make yourself a brew and read… read without distraction. Train your attention muscle and at the same time learn some of the most powerful lessons ever written.

Kind Regards

John Harrison

PS… Reading is one of the best ways to train your attention and your ability to focus because you cannot read without giving it your full attention. It is mindfulness in action.

Here’s that link again:

www.streetwisenews.com/bwealth

Decision making is easy… effective decision making is not so easy.

Decision making is where a person decides to do something based on the information they have in front of them.

Effective decision making is where a person decides to do something based on the information they have in front of them AND the information they have gathered to look at the decision from as many angles as possible.

For example: (This is a real world example I spotted online this week!)

Let’s say that you see a coaching course which will cost you £800 each month for a year. That coaching course should help you build a six figure a year business.

The decision that most people face is whether to buy or not based on whether they can afford it or not.

For them, there are only two options… buy or don’t buy.

The decision is based purely on whether they can afford it or not with the money they currently have.

It’s understandable… in a way.

Effective decision making would look at the situation from every angle possible and not purely on the price of the product.

Instead of can I afford this or not, effective decision making would ask questions such as:

• What would happen if I bought this course?

• Could this be a case of ‘I cannot afford NOT to buy it’, by not spending £800 a month, could I be missing out on thousands by the end of the year?

• Is there a way to generate the £800 I need each month to cover the monthly fee?

• Will the information and help within the course help me to afford the £800 monthly fee effectively making it free?

• If I’m considering spending £800 a month on this course, is there a better way to use that £800 per month myself?

• Should I spend £800 on a coaching course which will no doubt require me to spend more money on having stuff made and/or run advertising… or should I simply use that money myself to have stuff made and/or run advertising and start to build my own business now without them?

Effective decision making means looking at all variables and outcomes and making the best informed decision possible.

You may not make the right decision all of the time, but you will make less bad decisions.

Many people make decisions on only a few pieces of obvious information.

A lot of people make decisions based on what they have learned to do by watching other people make decisions.

If your parents and other family members regularly made decisions based on just a couple pieces of information such as ‘can I currently afford it or not’ then it’s highly likely that your decision making process would be the same.

Unless you have learned how to do effective decision making looking for angles which are not so obvious and making necessary comparisons, you’ll probably make decisions like most of the population… ineffectively.

Andi our techy guy once told me the story about the ‘old copper water tank’ fiasco which happened when he was refurbishing his first house over 20 years ago.

He had ripped out the old emersion water heater and replaced it with a new combination boiler and central heating system.

He was left with a large copper tank.

About to throw it into the skip, a family member suggested that he should keep it and take it to a scrap yard as it could be worth ‘a few bob’.

So that is what Andi did, instead of putting it into the skip, he put it aside for safe keeping until the day he could take it to the scrap yard.

Unfortunately, the whole house was under refurbishment and so ‘aside’ was more often ‘in the way’ which resulted in Andi spending a lot of time moving the copper tank from pillar to post.

Eventually he got to the scrap yard with the copper tank and was given a lousy £5 for it.

£5 is £5!

It’s got to be better in his pocket than someone else’s right?

Wrong!

Andi realised that he had spent a lot of time and effort moving that copper tank about. He also used a small amount of fuel making a special trip to the scrap yard.

For his time and effort he received £5. It barely bought his lunch.

The amount of time and effort used saving that copper tank could have made him more money had he decided to use it elsewhere.

Being a certified and time served joiner, Andi could have taken an hour out of his day and hung a door for a customer and been paid £30 or more.

He could have skipped the copper tank, carried on with what he was doing and then popped out to do an hour’s work for more money… and it would have been a lot less hassle.

The decision to save the copper tank had been made quickly based on information which was not properly thought through.

Every day we are faced with decisions that need to be made. Most days it’s mostly small decisions but every now and then there are a few big decisions.

Decisions affect our:

• Time.
• Health.
• Finances.

Make a bad decision and one or more of those three things will be affected.

Sometimes the affects can be incredibly harmful and long lasting.

Small decisions can be made there and then and their effects are small in comparison to big decisions.

I’m a big believer that big decisions should not be made without spending some quiet time with a notepad, a pen and a brew.

A big decision should be made by looking at all the information, variables and outcomes possible.

And if that means looking for comparative information which is not obvious then so be it.

What do I mean by comparative information?

There are people who will not spend £197 on a product which will show them how to make thousands of pounds extra because they ‘decide’ they cannot afford it…

But they do ‘decide’ daily to spend £2… £5… £10 on food and drink without considering the financial consequences.

Those small decisions probably cost them more than the £197 they think they cannot afford to spend on life changing information…

But they cannot see or understand that because they do not spend any time engaged in effective decision making.

Those small decisions rob them of the opportunity to make decent big decisions which could have a positive effect on their lives.

Deciding to watch a few hours of television most nights instead of learning a set of specific skills robs you of a different – and probably – better life.

I write this email because I want you to know and understand what effective decision making is and so that when a big decision needs to be made, you are able to stop, gather all relevant information, variables and outcomes and think about the decision more effectively.

You owe it to yourself.

Kind Regards

John Harrison

PS… Would you like to turn £7.50 into £75 regularly?

With The Magic Multiplier you will learn how to source unique digital assets which specific companies and businesses would happily pay you over £75 to take off your hands.

This is a simple process which requires:

• No special skills education or ability. Simply follow the instructions and you can’t go wrong.
• No software or tools required. Everything is done via readily accessible websites run by other people.
• No silly MLM or member recruitment nonsense.
• No affiliate schemes or generic products to sell which everyone else is selling.
• No service to provide or product to deliver. Everything is done virtually online.
• You don’t need a website, social media accounts or any kind of online presence
• No need to process any payments or fulfil any orders. It’s all done for you.
• No customer service or back-up service needed.

More importantly…

• You can get started fast…less than an hour from reading the step-by-step instructions to up and running and making money!
• Work when you have the time, wherever you happen to be in the world…24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
• Work from anywhere on the planet with an internet connection.
• You can get started for just £7.50 (Show me a business you can start for less!)
• You will have zero competition. Nobody will be selling the same thing as you because it will be totally unique.

To learn more go to:

www.MagicMultiplier.co.uk

There’s a guy who I see most days taking his dog for a walk.

And when I say ‘taking his dog for a walk’ I actually mean it… he drives his dog to a small grassy area so the dog can have a quick run around, relieve itself and have a sniff of the spots other dogs have relieved themselves.

He doesn’t do anything other than lean against his car while his pooch entertains himself for five minutes.

The thing that really gets me is that the grassy area is less than a minutes’ walk away from his flat.

It really is.

I decided to check with Google and the distance from his flat to where he lets his dog run around is 0.1 miles and takes less than a minute to walk.

He throws the dog into his BMW and drives it around the corner to the grassy area.

Because of traffic in the area – the flat is above a shop on a busy main road and running parallel to that is another busy main road and both meet up at this grassy area – it could actually take him longer to drive to the area than it would if he walked.

I thought the whole idea of walking a dog was to actually walk it!

Not only do you exercise the animal, you get exercise yourself… which brings me onto my next point.

This chap could do with the exercise.

He is a little rotund… that is the polite way of saying it.

Now, it may be possible that he has an ‘invisible illness’ and is unable to walk far but it’s never stopped him walking to the pub with his pool cue when he fancied a few pints… although he does use taxis regularly.

The truth is this guy is lazy and I imagine that is why he is the size he is.

He likes his beer, he likes his takeaway food and he clearly likes to avoid doing anything that is remotely good for him… or anyone else.

I’m not one for shouting loud about environmental issues, but I try not to think about the emissions he is pumping out into the air when he takes his dog for a walk.

It’s not just a case of driving there and back; he leaves his engine running while he leans against the car watching fido do his doo doo.

He does this at least once a day.

The walk there and back would be good for him and it would take no more than a minute or two to do. As I say, knowing the traffic in the area, I would say he would be quicker walking.

It amazes me how lazy some people can be… it really does.

Yet ironically, by being lazy, a lot of people actually give themselves a lot more work and hassle in the future.

By becoming the size he is and by avoiding walking, he is setting himself up for serious health issues and further mobility issues which will make life far harder than walking for a couple of minutes each day.

I’m not sharing this story just to moan about this guy, it’s his life, he can do with it whatever he chooses… and as I say, I don’t know the full story… but I’ve been in the business of dealing with people long enough and have developed a fairly accurate sixth sense about people.

I can generally determine when someone is struggling through no fault of their own or whether they are simple lazy.

Being lazy is self destructive.

If people spent just a few minutes extra doing something, it could have huge benefits to them later on.

The sad thing is that a lot of people don’t. They avoid extra effort.

Over time, those small amounts of ‘extra effort’ we put in are amplified.

Walking for 5 minutes a day builds up strength and fitness over the course of a year.

Writing just one page a day becomes a book by the end of a year.

Writing one email or article a day becomes a resource full of useable content at the end of the year.

Investing a few pounds a day grows into a bigger pot over a year.

All of the above could change your life for the better… and all it took was doing one small thing each day.

If you are looking for a relatively ‘lazy’ way to make money that requires a little bit of extra effort which will be amplified and multiplied, check out The Magic Multiplier here:

www.MagicMultiplier.co.uk

Kind Regards

John Harrison.

PS…With the Magic Multiplier…

• You can get started fast…less than an hour from reading my step-by-step instructions to up and running and making money!
• No special skills education or ability. Simply follow my instructions and you can’t go wrong.
• Work when you have the time, wherever you happen to be in the world…24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
• Work from anywhere on the planet with an internet connection.
• You can get started for just £7.50 (Show me a business you can start for less!)
• No software or tools required. Everything is done via readily accessible websites run by other people.
• No silly MLM or member recruitment nonsense.
• No affiliate schemes or generic products to sell which everyone else is selling.
• No service to provide or product to deliver. Everything is done virtually online.
• You don’t need a website, social media accounts or any kind of online presence
• You will have zero competition. Nobody will be selling the same thing as you because it will be totally unique.
• No need to process any payments or fulfil any orders. It’s all done for you.
• No customer service or back-up service needed.
• No need to advertise, so costs are next to nothing.
• You’re totally independent. No partners or agents to interfere or let you down.

Here’s that link again:

www.MagicMultiplier.co.uk

I like to think that I am an okay boss and that I reward people for doing a good job…or at least thank them and show my appreciation in some form.

But not all bosses are good.

Take the boss I was told about the other day.

I heard about a guy who had received a ‘written warning’ from his boss for not hitting his quarterly targets.

It sounds like he was underperforming and so you can understand that his boss was a little concerned.

Failing to hit targets may not warrant a written warning but that’s not for me to say, I don’t know much about the company, how it is run or what contracts it has with its employees.

However…

I would say that the written warning was unfair because of all of the other stuff that was happening at the time.

The gentleman who had been given the written warning was more than a little ‘miffed’ because the period in question was during the pandemic and during the lockdown he had gone above and beyond the (contracted) call of duty for his boss.

Being on a salary, this man doesn’t get paid overtime and he had racked up over 80 hours of unpaid overtime, had committed to go into work while other staff were off poorly or furloughed so that he could keep business running as smoothly as possible.

He chose to put the company first. He was a loyal employee, the kind of worker all bosses dream of.

The pandemic itself had a major effect on the company’s business. People have changed the way they do things and the way they shop.

It has been a very strange and, here’s that word again, unprecedented time that very few of us have ever witnessed before.

We were all thrown into a world that none of us recognised.

Everyone suffered in some way thanks to the pandemic.

And here was a guy going into work trying his hardest to keep his ‘boss’ business running as smoothly as possible.

And what was his reward for his efforts?

A ‘written warning’ for not hitting his targets.

I hope that he is not hoping for a pay rise or a bonus because I get the feeling it isn’t going to be coming anytime soon!

If you bend over backwards to help the company you work for navigate through a rough period just as this guy did … and get a written warning because you didn’t hit your targets, then it is a clear sign that you need to…

Give yourself the pay rise you deserve.

Because you are not going to get it from your boss!

I’m sorry to have to say this, but your pay rise is now your responsibility.

With rising inflation and the cost of living always going up… having a second income stream should no longer be a dream, it needs to be a priority!

Even if your target is to make just £100 extra each week, how much could that help you?

An extra £400 – £500 per month would really help most people.

Why stop at £500 extra per month when you can make over £1,000?

Kate Davis makes between £750 and £1,250 each month spending as little as half hour ‘tinkering’ on her phone before she hits the gym.

Most mornings she makes between £50 and £185 … that’s before she starts her day job!

Kate doesn’t need to rely on her bosses to give her a pay rise or a bonus; she gives herself a pay rise each and every day.

As a bonus, the money Kate earns is TAX FREE, and no, this does not have anything to do with horse racing or football.

If you would like to know more about how Kate makes between £750 and £1,250 each month in TAX FREE money before hitting the gym doing nothing more than ‘tinkering’ with her phone Click Here:

www.TreadmillTrader.co.uk

Kind Regards

John Harrison

PS… Since her first profits during lockdown, Kate has earned over £20,000 (as of September 2021).

That’s over £1,000 a month.. and remember,  it’s TAX FREE too.

Here’s that link again:

www.TreadmillTrader.co.uk

Last Black Friday I watched as a popular Australian copywriter with an ego bigger than Australia itself won top seller position over a group of other top copywriters.

For some reason – and I cannot for the life of me figure out why – many of the world’s top copywriters (a title they seem to give themselves!) grouped together to sell a bundle of their products.

Each copywriter put forward one of their courses to be included in the bundle which they all promoted to their email lists and followers.

Personally if I were to do a Black Friday sale I would simply sell my own products to my own list, but I guess they thought that a bundle of courses by all the ‘popular’ copywriters would sell well… plus it is a good way to find new followers.

Anyway, Daniel, the copywriter who was so desperate to win did so by creating an offer people simply could not refuse.

To wipe the floor with his competitors, Daniel decided to offer a bonus bundle to those who bought the original bundle through his affiliate link.

The bonus bundle included ALL of his other courses valuing several thousand pounds.

The original bundle was being sold for $500 which is £367 at time of writing.

If you were to buy all of the courses from the original bundle separately, it would cost several thousand pounds… to add another several thousand pounds of products as a bonus just blew all of the other offers out of the water.

Daniel’s fans and followers who want to learn from him simply couldn’t refuse.

One of his courses which focuses on email marketing normally sells for $1,000 alone (the sales page says it will soon go up to $2,000), yet for the price of $500 his fans and followers could get ALL of his courses as well ten other top courses.

The only criteria was that they bought from him through his affiliate link within that short five day period leading up to midnight on Black Friday.

This was an offer people couldn’t ignore.

Daniel had made an offer they couldn’t refuse.

This was like being given the opportunity of buying a Lamborghini for the price of a Fiat Doblo.

What Daniel did to generate a rush of sales and to top the sellers leaderboard is called ‘value stacking’.

He added so much value to the offer that people just couldn’t say no.

Anyone who had wanted to buy Daniel’s products were foolish to pass this offer by.

Value stacking is a great way to generate a lot of sales because people love to get ‘more bang for their buck’.

Offer a person a free bag of fries when they buy a pizza is okay at best, but to offer two bags of fries, a garlic bread, a kebab and a large bottle of pop will generate more sales because people cannot pass on an offer like that.

People who cannot eat that amount of food or are not hungry will rush to buy a pizza if they were given all of that extra food.

At least they have tea sorted for the following day.

The problem is that for companies who sell physical items like the pizza shop in the previous example, those extra products cost money.

When your bonuses cost you money to supply, the amount of profit you make drops.

However…

With digital products, it’s the opposite.

Once a digital product has been created and is online, it costs nothing to give people access to it or add it to a download bundle.

Adding more digital products to an offer can increase your profits because it can increase the amount of sales you have of that new offer.

Let’s say that you have a £197 product for sale on your website and that you sell a couple each week.

You make £394.

If you add that £197 product as part of a bonus to another £197 product, effectively doubling the value of the offer which results in 25 sales in a couple of days…

You have made £9,850… which is far better than the £394 you would have made from that product if it was bought separately.

Value stacking with digital products is quite simple to do because you can ‘create’ new products to be used as bonuses if you haven’t already got anything that you can use.

Plus value is subjective.

Offering an hour long video as a bonus with a £97 value could be worth thousands to a person who follows what is taught and earns thousands of pounds in the process…

But to someone who watched ten minutes and then did nothing, they may think that the video was worthless.

Value stacking is a great way to generate sales and make a lot of money online when selling digital products.

Creating digital products and setting up fully automated passive income systems from which you can sell digital products, is a lot easier than you may think.

To find out for yourself go to:

www.The30DayTo30KChallenge.com

Kind Regards

John Harrison

PS… People can buy digital products from your fully automated passive income systems at any time of the day. You do not need to do anything other than add more digital products to your system.

Here’s that link again:

www.The30DayTo30KChallenge.com