I am not going to run out of the bath and into the street naked like Archimedes! And it’s not really so much of  a new discovery but I am so excited and ecstatic that I can’t write fast enough to tell you about it.

I have found the solution. I have just found the way to overcome the obstacle that was getting me down and hampering the progress of my product creation.

And what’s more, As soon as I found the solution, I did my first video lesson, from scratch in less than an hour. How cool is that?

Funny thing is, I always knew about this solution, I just never actually explored it.   Only because I thought it may not work or it was completely out of my league.

But you know what? You won’t know until you try. And everything that may seem impossible at first will become a no brainer if you use your head and keep your cool.

I don’t mind telling you what’s responsible for this victory but allow me to savor the joy of keeping you in suspense for just a bit longer. I deserve the treat after all I’ve been through!

So I am now in full swing and getting on with my project with the aim to complete in the next few weeks. Hold on! a few weeks may seem a long time when you talk about it but really, the way days are turning into night and the weeks come and go so quickly these days, a few weeks fly by in a blink .

I have a lot to do and because of all the problems I’ve been facing which  delayed the launch of  my product, I now need to get on with it.

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I believe that you can change your fate however you want. It’s up to you to set your own goals. It’s up to you to make the effort to achieve your goals and consequently write your own future.

The only thing you have little or no control over is your death. But let’s not get too philosophical about that!!

The point I’m trying to put across is that you have the ability, if you have the will, to change your circumstances and here’s how:

I’ve made my own law, to counter act Murphy’s Law; “if shit can happen, it will” And my answer to that is “So what! stop the shit  from hitting the fan and you’ll only need to do a little cleaining up!”   

Now, The reason I’ve made this highly non philosophical observation is this: Yes it’s true that things can go wrong, but  the art of survival is to be able to stop the chain reaction by closing down or bringing to a standstill whatever it is that’s gone wrong in the first place.

There is always a way around the obstacles. It’s not always obvious, it’s not always easy and sometimes it prolongs the process, but again so what! What’s the rush?

So if you bear with me, I will get my product launched in  good time now that I’ve identified the problem.

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To give an example-Today, I put my lunch in the microwave and was staring out of the window while waiting. After I heard the “Ding” from the microwave, letting me know the food was ready, I opened the fridge to get my food!

That’s focused for you!!

* * * *

No development yet on the product creation front.  Still thinking of a way to get out of the deadlock I’m in.  You know, the synchronization of the audio and videos I’ve been talking about in my previous posts. 

Short of buying  another quite expensive software and then spending time to learn how to use it, I can’t see a way out. 

To be quite honest, I am getting to a point that I’m thinking what the hell am I doing here?  I’ve been trying to rush this through for launch but there is a lot to do and Sometimes things just don’t work out as quickly and smoothly as you want them to.

Sometimes you have to let events go through their own phase.  I suppose my Critically optimistic outlook on things and my acute impatience don’t really help matters much here.

But allow me to entertain my fantasy for a moment and imagine that we live in an ideal world where everything always turns out exactly the way we want.

If that were the case, I would’ve by now launched my product, had my prominent internet friends and connections promote it to their list and hundreds, even thousands of people were rushing for their wallets and credit cards to purchase my course. voila!  Fame and fortune for me. 

Yeah right!  If only it was that easy!

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I’ve been giving you graphic details of my struggles and triumphs so far.  And let me be honest, I have had some small victories until now and I value my victories because this is what keeps me going.  

It’s wining the small battles that make me dare to face the all out war.  It’s the little things that make me happy and allow me to carry on relentlessly.

The sad reality is that no matter how strong you are and how many battles you win; you still may ultimately lose the war. 

I say May, because as you know, nothing is certain but I believe that even if there is a 10% chance that I may succeed and win the war, I have to give it a try.

I never believed that you can get what you want without doing any work.  I am not lazy; I take action when I need to so why shouldn’t my dream become reality?

No one said life was easy! What  I always said is “ It’s only the first 100 years that’s hard.  It will get easier after that!”

And no one can say that success is automatic.  It’s not.  It takes a lot of effort and it takes a lot of guts to go for it.

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Now back to the product creation saga!  After I realised that the audio and videos are not synchronized, I tried to find a way to correct this fault.  There is no sincronizacion options on any of my audio-video editing software.

So I was playing around with my audio editing gizmo and realised that you can speed up the recording.  Oh yeah!  I can do it this way.

  OK.  Judge for yourself. 

This is the original audio

And this is the fast version

Errrr!   don’t think so!!

You think I’ve tried enough?  Should I give up now or carry on like a fool!

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For the last five days, I’ve been working hard to get my audio recordings finished. I say days what I really mean is a couple of hours in the evening.  Yes. Unfortunately, I still have to go to my day job because my Internet income isn’t enough to sustain my lifestyle, not yet anyway.

So by the the time I get home, if I’m lucky and there are no tube train delays, it’s just before 6 or at the latest by 6 pm.   However, lately, there’s been tube delays every day for one reason or another so I’ve been getting home more like 6.30 or even 7 pm. 

By the time I cook some dinner, yes, I do have to cook my own dinner! and eat it, it’s more like 8, 8.30.  and, yes, I am a slow eater! though a fast cook!

And I do like to watch “The Unit”  it’s a great action packed TV series that they show a few back to back episode of during the week end and my son records for me  So we can watch it together,  one episode a day during the week.  Except for Wednesdays, when we watch “leverage”. 

Any way not to get side tracked talking about TV shows, I’ve been spending about two to three hours an evening on the recording.

But you know what?  It’s been going quite slow.  I start well but half way through the recording my voice changes!  I get this feeling like some one’s grabbed hold of my throat and is squeezing the air out of my lungs!

Drinking water doesn’t help, so I’ve been drinking pineapple and coconut juice that seems to help a bit but it’s a sugary drink and I don’t like drinking it too much especially at night because it gives me insomnia! that’s been another problem that I won’t talk about now.

Besides all that, just when I got the hang of the software and got my voice sorted with honey and jasmine tea, what happens?  My stupid computer conks out again losing all my latest work.  Yeah I had back up but the back up was not quite up-to-date because I was just in the middle of the recording!

OK so that’s not so disastrous is it?  I only have to do it again and not quite from the beginning…..  So I’ve now done three of the eight recordings,  the PowerPoint’s and the silent videos.  All I need to do now is to put the voice track on the videos.  Simple right?   Wrong!

I wanted to try to put the voice and the video together, before finishing all the audio recordings to see how it works.  I had to buy a new software for this and learn how to use it but I won’t talk about that now either.

Guess what!     Errrrrhm!  the video and Audio are totally out of sync! 

It seems the more I do the less I achieve!

So what else can happen? a heart attack? a stroke?  an earth quake or tsunami?  Whatever!

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I need to get this bit off my chest so I am writing again, even though I have now sorted out most of the problems and especially learned how to use my audio editing software now.

But last Saturday, when I was trying to do my recording and had to put up with all the noises I talked about in yesterday’s post, what I didn’t tell you is this: even though I was really frustrated, I thought, I won’t be beaten by these little snags, there must be a way to get through this.  Going to a recording studio is out of the question anyway, and giving up is not an option, not for me not now.

I decided to keep recording in small sections and then use the editing software to cut out the unwanted bits and the noise within the recording and then patch everything together.  Yeah right!

It seemed like a simple thing to do. Little did I know that simple doesn’t necessarily mean easy!

Ok, I’m not a geek! But I’m not an idiot either, I can usually work things out by trying a few different options etc….

But this editing software, seem to have a mind of its own! I tried and tired.  There were no proper instructions on how to use the damn thing, I said proper, there were no instructions period.

The instructions just said things like, you can edit your recording, you can cut and past from file, you can do this and you can do that, but it didn’t tell you how!!

I kept trying and trying with no success.  I kept deleting a bit and realising I’d cut too much off or didn’t cut enough, or cut off most of the bits I wanted to cut off but left just a couple of words at the end which proved to be a real head ache to delete.

To cut a long story short, I was at it for most of the Saturday morning.

I got to a point with anger and frustration that I was stamping the floor and punching the door.  I was cursing everyone and everything.

In the end, I came to conclusion that I need to get away. Get out of the house, go for a walk, get into a break state and then try again.  And this time if it didn’t work I’ll pack it in.

In true spirit of   “if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again, then give up.  There is no point being a damn fool about it!”

So I went out and the rest you know.  If you don’t know, then you should read yesterday’s post!

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There’s just been one spanner after another being thrown in the works what with my audio recording and editing software and the new video software that I had to learn to use etc.

To make matters even worse, from Wednesday evening I’ve had no internet access due to some technical problem with my telephone exchange.

I tried to count the no internet access as a blessing so I can get on with my audio recordings.  Yeah, take a disadvantage and turn it into an advantage, right!

So I cancelled my Saturday seminar to stay home and do my recording.

 * * *

 If you think it’s an easy task doing a thirty minute recording in a flat on the 16^th floor of a tower block  in the middle of London, Think again!

As soon as I started recording, all hell seem to have been broken loose!  There were ambulance sirens, police sirens and fire engine sirens, coming from the street.

RAF jets roaring past overhead and then the upstairs neighbour decided to do his DIY!!

And they started digging the road, just about a 100 yards from my building using one of those pneumatic drills.

I tried closing my windows to take advantage of the double glazing silencer! But that would only get rid of the noise from the street and not the noise from upstairs, besides I hate sitting in a room with closed windows – just can’t breath.

I started re-recording several times from the beginning, but each time I had to stop because of some noise or other either from outside or from upstairs.

I thought this was the epitome of ill fortune.  I have a whole day of no internet, no phone and no interruption but still can’t do what I planned to do with my day.

I felt like giving up.  I kept saying to myself, “what the hell you think you’re doing, You can’t do this at home!  this needs to be done in a recording studio”. And then I answer myself by thinking “ what? You want to pay those studio prices? Are you serious? Just get on with it girl. It can be don so do it yourself!”

I had to pack it in and go for a long walk.  Got side tracked and went shopping too. It’s good for the sole!

By the time I got back, it was getting dark.  I was in a refreshed and positive mode. 

Took me just over an hour to record the first lesson.  Wow!  That was good!  But I still need to do some editing.

Ok.  One down and another seven to go.  But the thing is now after all the tentative tinkering with the software, I know what to do and the rest would not take me as long as the first.  My persistence  paid off and I came out victorious!

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The clock is ticking, and sooner or later your number comes up and you’ll be gone. I don’t view this as a “negative” aspect. I’m just being pragmatic here.

It would be good practice to use this principle of limited time to spur ourselves on.

I simply use this notion as an inspiration to keep me going. I go after what I want as heartily and avidly as I possibly can for as long as I can, in the knowledge that I would be rewarded for my hard work and perseverance.

It may be that I upset a few people along the way with my diligence, but hey, who said there were any rules when you are trying to achieve success!

I may not even get quite the outcome I am working towards but whatever happens, I know that the satisfaction I get from achieving little goals are reward enough to encourage me to keep going for more.

All this passionate pondering over the week end didn’t get me anywhere.  My computer is still playing up and rendering my software unusable.

But I devised a cunning plan and started recording on Friday night. Half hour into my first recording and my throat felt like I’ve swallowed a blade! Yep, this time my voice let me down!! did I say voice? what voice! I didn’t have one!

For heaven’s sakes I am trying to cash in on my most valuable asset; TIME, and everything is going against me. Is this a test of endurance and patience? Well whatever it is, it’s out to get me I’m sure.

Better stand down for a bit. Lay low for a couple of days and do some sole searching ha?

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