I do have a pretty cool announcement I was recently informed of. My lil ol Onyxtraveler blog has been selected to be featured on the Black Web Log Awards site on January 17, 2011! They recognize the best Black Bloggers and have done so since 2005! Their site is http://blackweblogawards.com. Make sure you check it out on the 17th. Of course, you know I’ll give you a heads up! I’m excited to get a little internet love!! whoo hoo!!

The Internet Loves Sheila Brown

Cheers,
Sheila

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I have so many things that interest me that I am either currently pursuing or want to pursue: writing a book, publishing my own info products, offline consulting, creating membership sites, building 100s of autoblogs, being a professional singer in a foreign country, building a public speaking career, weight training to obtain the body of my dreams, dating/love life, time with friends, obtaining business credit, starting a travel company, outsourcing my business, obtaining my Tefl Certification, having an online store, modeling, writing more blog posts, starting a new risque’ blog, planning my next international trip, monetizing my blog and very specific HUGE monetary goals…

I think you get the picture. Right now, I literally feel as if I am sprinting in quicksand and the quicksand is pressing in on my chest and suffocating me! This feeling really sucks! Multitasking does not work!!! Combine all this with the fact that I suffer from S.O.S. (shiny object syndrome) and you can see why I’m feeling this way.

I know I need to prioritize and work on one project at a time, but that is easier said than done when I have the spector of making money to fuel my travel passion/obsession, eating and paying rent on an apartment in Austin that I’m never in. I’ve made the decision to hit a very large income target quickly and while my
current endeavors financially support me now, I’m ready to live a life that is truly “out of this world” and I want to do it now! Patience is not a strong suit, lol. There are shortcuts I could take in hitting my financial goal, but I’m choosing not to pursue them for personal reasons. Gotta do this on my own.

After talking to very insightful friends this weekend, I have narrowed my focus down to 3 things that I am passionate about and will get the most financial bang for my time invested quickly. I’m close to removing one of those items as I am still feeling that sinking quicksand feeling as I am typing this post.

Anyway, I just had to vent and get this off my chest. No pun intended, lol. I actually do feel a little better. Thanks for listening.

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On the very Psycho flip side though, there have been many occasions where I have been at seminars with several hundred/thousand people and an opportunity to take the mike or go on stage and speak impromptu to the crowd presented itself and I have rocked it! In fact, I very deliberately seat myself at the end of an aisle, at the front of the seminar room just so I can guarantee myself a chance to get up in front of the crowd and be heard and seen. What the hell is that about?? I love being the center of attention in those situations where I can speak off the cuff and not have to prepare a talk. How is it possible to have a very strong desire to speak in front of large groups of people, either in person or via some sort of digital media, while fearing it at the same time?? I know I have a gift and I am in some way destined to share it.

What do I do with this? How can I fulfill what I do believe is part of my destiny to become a motivational speaker and find my platform? Hmmmmmm… Perhaps since this revelation is now “out there”, something totally amazing will Manifest

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This leads me to the purpose of writing this post. The one question that people ask me all the time (and if they don’t ask, they definitely want to) is “How in the world do you make money to travel & have your fun life if you don’t have a job????” I am a very private person, so I NEVER EVER EVER answer this question directly until now. The truth is, I do internet marketing. I use MANY different strategies to make money online, but I will only reveal one in this post. One very successful strategy that I employ is the creation of blogs that run “automatically” in many different niches. I discovered this strategy and most importantly, discovered my teacher, Mike Johnson, in February of 2010. I loved the idea of basically having hundreds of ATM’s aka websites out there making me money 24/7 once I set them up correctly. Trust me when I tell you that there is no better feeling in the world than to make money while you sleep!! As I was psycho busy traveling for my then client, I was only able to set up a handful of blogs, but they are a VERY profitable handful (I’ve chosen my niches very well). I’ve since gotten back to my original goal of setting up a very large number of them every quarter. Think about it, if you have one site out there that is generating $10 – $100 a day (and this is VERY attainable), imagine if you multiplied that by 100 sites, 200 sites!! Crazy right!! Imagine what it would feel like to make $3,000 a month on autopilot? Mike is now up in the $30k – $40k per month range after doing this for 18 months. That is of course, not to say you will have the same results, because you have to actually do the WORK to actually make money. Novel concept, I know.

I am sharing this information with you because my brilliant teacher, Mike Johnson, has re-opened access to the course that I purchased back in February that taught me, step-by-step, this profitable strategy. The version that I learned was his Auto Blog Blueprint 1.0 course. He closed access to the course back in early April for 2 reasons: 1. he wants to limit access to the information to be able to work directly with his students and 2. he decided to release a 2.0 version with even more POWERFUL, money making AutoBlog strategies. After waiting with baited breath for 2 months, I was given early access to version 2.0 and OMG…IT IS KILLER!! So much so, that one of the main motivators for me suddenly deciding to stay put in LA for an additional 6 weeks is so that I can use this time to implement his new, super tactics and reach my goal of having xxx # of sites up and running and financing my 12 months of travel! Man, this version was worth the wait and then some!!

Since you all follow my travels and I do keep getting the question, I decided to become an affiliate for Mike’s course and share this information with you. He launched Auto Blog Blueprint 2.0 today and is limiting access to only 1,200 new people. This is not a scarcity tactic. He is serious and he will shut it down once he reaches that number. He added 400 members last night in a pre-launch event, so space is limited. Currently, the price for Auto Blog Blueprint 2.0 is $97.00, but because I am one of his early users, I have been given a $20.00 discount coupon for you to use, so the cost will only be $77.00. He launched at 6:00pm CST tonight and the coupon is limited to the first 300 that purchase and will not be valid if that number has been reached. As of June 29th, 2010, it will be $147.00. This content in invaluable no matter what price you get in at, but why wait?? BUY IT NOW!! If you ever wanted to know how to make money online, this is THE course to get. I have never promoted an Internet Marketing course because so many of them are pie-in-the-sky B.S. I am sharing this one with you because I do use it and am making money with it. This is one of the main platforms in which I am building out in my total Internet Marketing strategy.

If you are interested in purchasing this course, and if you are smart, YOU WILL DO IT NOW, then CLICK THIS LINK NOW to purchase & input COUPON CODE: 947DE9483F or CLICK ON THE PICTURE BELOW. As I mentioned, I am an affiliate for this product and by purchasing thru MY LINK, I will be compensated. Your time really is limited, so do not miss out!

I want to hear about your successes when you implement what you learn. Make sure you Facebook me and keep me posted on your progress. I’ll be sharing mine once I start hitting some major financial milestones with this strategy at the end of 90 days! Go out there and PROSPER everyone!! Stop WISHING you could have the life of your dreams and now, actually do something to ACHIEVE IT!! I HAVE!! XOXO

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I am truly blessed to have manifested a consulting client that pays me to travel & do really cool work for them. In the past 6 months, I have been sent to Los Angeles, Kansas City, Saint Louis, Phoenix, Baltimore, Boston, Atlanta, Savannah, New York, Vermont, Denver, Houston, Nashville & Wisconsin. In the midst of all of this business travel, I have had the opportunity to sneak in a few vacations. Ya’ll know how I roll! LOL I went home to Kansas City for my birthday, McAllen, Texas for Thanksgiving and Christmas, Dallas to chill, Park City, Utah for the Sundance Film Festival and I just returned from Montreal Canada. Montreal rocked and during my amazing time there, I was inspired to start blogging again. Please allow me to fill you in on this amazing city.

My client sent me to Burlington, Vermont last week to work and in looking at the map, I discovered that Montreal was very close to VT. I determined that if I worked my ass off to complete my consulting work, I could free up at least 24 hours to drive 1 1/2 hours to Montreal and explore the city. I finished up my work Thursday evening around 6pm and hit the road North. After a quick stop at customs for the obligatory “why are you going to Canada” questions, I was off. I arrived into Montreal around 8pm. Since I live in hotels Monday – Friday, I decided to book a hostel to stay in. I’m going to write a separate post about the joys of staying in hostels that I hope you all enjoy. After checking ratings on www.hostelworld.com…, I decided to book space in a 12 bed room for $20.00 a night at The Le Jazz Hostel Saint Denis in the Latin Quarter area of Montreal. As I knew absolutely nothing about Montreal, I chose this hostel based on previous ratings from other guests and also because staying in an area called The Latin Quarter had to have some flavor and energy right?

I definitely made the right choice in Hostels. I was in the heart of a very vibrant and happening part of town. Tons of restaurants, bars, people in the streets and partying. Upon getting checked in and entering my room, I met one of my roommates Mili. He was a mega cool Asian dude that had just moved to Montreal from Vancouver. As I was hungry as hell, I asked him if he wanted to join me for dinner and we headed off to find a great restaurant. We ended up at a Mexican restaurant called Three Amigos and got our grub on! Mili had never had a margarita before, so I suggested he get the Cadillac Margarita, which was their strongest one. He was a little dude and he was drunk as hell when he finished it. Hilarious! After dinner, we walked back to the hostel and I crashed.

Whenever I am faced with the dilemma of being of being in a totally cool city with a very limited amount of time to explore, I follow a strategy that has never failed me. I make my way to the main Tourism office and book one of those red double decker bus, hop-on-hop-off tours. This works so well because it allow you to sit on the bus and let the tour guide tell you all about the city and sights while you take notes of the 3-4 things you want to go back and revisit. As it was the winter season, they did not have the hop-on-hop-off tours, so I booked a 3 hour bus tour that drove us all over the city with an amazing guide. During this tour, I learned some of the most fascinating facts about this city regarding its history, culture and lay of the land and completely fell in love with Montreal even though it was 20
freaking degrees and ya’ll know Mama does not do cold weather!!! LOL

Highlights: Montreal is a city in the Providence of Quebec. Because of the cold weather, Montreal has an underground city that runs for 33 kilometers. It is a series of tunnels mainly under the downtown that contains over 1,100 shops and restaurants. It connects buildings and also houses its subway system. It allows people to maneuver around when the temperature is below zero degrees. It was amazing! I also got to explore Old Town Montreal which is comprised of buildings built at the turn of the century. It is a popular, lively area for tourism with shops, restaurants and outdoor venues all along the water. We also hit Chinatown, the Latin Quarter, Notre Dame, the Olympic village and buildings, the Botanical gardens, museums, parks, etc… Montreal is definitely a summer city with MAJOR festivals occurring every week. It is a city that is built on tourism and truly loves tourists to visit. I felt incredibly welcome from every person I encountered. Montreal is a French speaking city and unlike snobby Paris, a huge majority of the citizens are also English speakers. Most of the signage was in both French and English. I loved hearing the beautiful French language being spoken, while being able maneuver around because they spoke English as well.

If Montreal is not on your list of cities to visit, please do yourself a favor and put it on there!! I am seriously toying with the idea of traveling around Quebec this summer as it is a part of Canada that I want to learn more about and fully experience as a result of being in Montreal. In my 28 hours there, I was able to walk over 5 miles exploring the city both above ground and underground, tour the entire city by bus, have awesome meals, meet incredibly warm people, go to a Blues club, stay in a great hostel and discover a new favorite city. Thanks Montreal. I cannot wait to return!

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Don’t get me wrong. I’m not unhappy here in my new home, Austin Texas. Nothing could be further from the truth. I love it here!! This city is freaking awesome and the people that I have been Blessed to meet are all amazing as well! I’ve decided to make Texas my home state for tax/business reasons (the cost of living is uber low here and there is no state income tax) and Austin is really the only city in Texas that I could stand to live in. I’m just ready for new challenges and complete spontaneity in my life that travel provides me. I’m also ready to date some more Foreign guys. I miss hearing a sexy accent whispering sweet nothings in my ear, hehehehe. To avoid this prolonged time of being “grounded” in the future, I have spent my time working on multiple income channels that will provide more than enough capital coming to me in such a way that I will not have to be tied down to a Consulting gig, no matter how cool it is. I will be able stay on the road for as long as I want to and be “grounded” because I choose to, not because I have to. This is a work in progress and I will be happy to share details after I hit the road again late January/early Feburary 2010.

It is truly 100% possible to have the life you desire. It doesn’t matter if you have kids, are married or single, whatever. You just have to be clear about what you want and take focused and consistent action. I’ve had to overcome quite a few hurdles to get to this point in my life and I am only at the beginning, but the point is, I am doing the work!! I’m CONSTANTLY working on myself to remove my own internal barriers (basically making myself get the eff out of my own way! ), connecting with the right people, learning and implementing new skills and challenging myself to dream bigger and live larger than I ever imagined. I try many things. Some work amazing well and some do not. The point is, I do not effing quit!! If you only knew the life I have mapped out for myself. OMG, it is freaking amazing! With my proven power of manifestation, it is only a matter of me being clear and focused to create the life I want for myself. Thank you for being on this journey with me!!! I’m so looking forward to 2010 being the most incredible year of my life thus far. What dreams/goals/plans are you working on for 2010?? If not now, then when?? If not you, then who???

On an ending note, I finally got to see the Disney/Pixar film ‘Up’ last night and it is an absolutely brilliant film. There is a montage at the beginning of the movie that shows the main character Carl & his life with his soul-mate Ellie (they met as little kids). Ellie had a dream since she was a child of going to Paradise Falls in South America and living a life of adventure. She made Carl swear he would take here there. This montage brilliantly and poignantly shows how it is so easy to let “life” get in the way of our true dreams. Don’t wait to live your dreams. Tomorrow is not guaranteed! Enjoy this beautiful clip & try not to cry. XOXOXO

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I attended a life changing networking event this week in my new city and I was completely overwhelmed with the caliber of Entrepreneurs that live in this city and work in my field. In theory, I knew that was the case, but I had no idea just how true it was. One of the people I met was a woman named Vicky Flaugher who owns the website www.smartwomanguides.com…. If you are a Female Entrepreneur, it is a great site to check out. I was led to the woman I’m going to hire to be my Coach after looking at her site. This is a person I have been praying for for a while.

As I was perusing her site and getting to know more about her, I found this youtube video that she has posted and I decided to post it here. It talks about your “aha moment”. Have you had one? Did you act upon it or did you ignore it as so many of us do. I have had several “aha moments”, the most recent one, of course, being to give up my life in Los Angeles and to go to Australia and to now settle down in my new city. A city where I have wanted to move to since 2007. I am working on keeping space clear to receive many more “aha moments” regarding Love, Entrepreneurship, Service, Spirituality, etc… Looking forward to sharing those with you as they come. Please feel free to comment about your own “aha moments” and how they changed your life. Namaste!

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Anyway, it’s now about 8:15 and the doors to the conference open at 9:00am.  I plan on being front and center as my golden strategy that I employ at every conference/seminar I attend is to be sitting within the first 2-4 rows on an end seat so that when they call for questions, I get to stand up, front and center in front of the entire room of usually 500+ people, take the microphone and say something incredibly profound. I do this early & fairly often in the conference so that the whole room gets to see me, hear me & make the decision that they want to get to know me. (Golden tip #1 – if they call for someone to go up onstage – get your ass up out of your seat and be the first one up!!} It saves me the stress of having to introduce myself to people as they now come to me. As I am almost always the ONLY BLACK WOMAN IN THE ROOM or the only one that is halfway “Diva-Delicious” looking, I always have a beeline of men that will buzz around trying to get my attention throughout the weekend and I get to pick and choose who I want to be with like a Queen Bee.

Ladies, pay CLOSE attention to what I am about to tell you as I am about to drop some SERIOUS man-getting knowledge on you that I need to be getting paid for. Fellas, I am going waaaaaaay off topic here, so you can tune out.  As I mentioned in my “about me” page, one of my 3 objectives in traveling is to meet lots of hot, sexy men.  For those of you that do not know me, this also typically means WEALTHY men – should be a given, but some of you are not informed.  My girlfriends are always asking me where in the world do I meet all of the p-a-i-d men that I date.  Aside from my own neighborhood – hello, why do you think I deliberatly chose to live in Beverly Hills when I moved to LA – I also go to a ton of conferences/seminars every year that attract wealthy people.  I really hope ya’ll are taking notes here!!!  You have to go to real estate, internet marketing, self-development, professional organizations, Success, wealth protection, wealth creation events/seminars.  These are all topics that are of interest to me and that I actually implement in my life.  You can’t just show up not knowing anything about the topic.  You have to have a true interest as there is a huge time & financial investment in attending these events. Every one I attend (and I attend at least 5 a year), I spend anywhere from $3,000-$15,000  on each one with airfare, lodging, food and educational materials if I choose to buy courses. I am serious about investing in myself professionally, personally and educationally but I reap the rewards too. You have to be able to talk the talk and and know enough to know who the TRUE PLAYERS are.  You do not want to get stuck talking to a bunch of newbies or broke people trying to learn the “secret” to becoming rich.  Hell, you can stay home for that!!  LOL.  Do your homework ahead of time to know who is speaking and what type of people follow them. You need to be able to speak intelligently, not be shy, go talk to everyone. When you meet someone that you have an interest in, you need to be ready:  {GOLDEN TIP #2 – Have business cards made up – but not your typical business card.  Go to vistaprint.com… and get 250 cards for free.  I would actually suggest you upgrade to the next level card with the glossy finish.  You want to put your photo on the card (assuming you are pretty of course, otherwise, I really can’t help you), your full name, email and phone number. Instead of some bullshit company name and title that suckers put on their cards, simply put “Entrepreneur”. This will accomplish 3 things: 1. he’ll remember you when he pulls out your card later and there is your beautiful face looking back at him 2. he will know how to contact you and 3. he’ll be intrigued by the mystique of the “Entrepreneur” title to want to get to know you better.  You better make sure you can back that sh*t up though and really have something going on.}  Google Brian Tracy, Dan Kennedy, Jack Canfield, Armand Morin, Jeff Johnson,  Mark Victor Hansen, John Childers..etc to get a clue as to what I am talking about re: the types of events you should go to.)  Do enough homework so that you can talk about strategies briefly and ask the guy to talk about what he does.  Ladies, you know that the only voice a man wants to hear is his own  so use this to your advantage.  Listen intently to every word he says as if he is dropping gold bombs.  Nod, smile, throw in some “uh-huh’s” , ask a few questions, keep eye contact so he thinks you are really listening.  Meanwhile, you are listening trying to find out a way to connect later for drinks/dinner or lunch if it is early in the day – but only after you have determined if you are interested.  Is he totally hot and you just want a kissing buddy, is he super smart and you really want to learn from him and see if you can do some work together, is this someone you can mastermind with, will this be a lifelong friend or is he super-paid and you think you may have a winner? Either way, this stuff works!! {Golden tip #3 – if you are one of my girls that will not date interracially, then you can completely ignore my advice above as it only works with men that actually want to date a Black Woman}.
Okay, so back to WIS…the first day was intros and lots of newbie info. I spent the day memorizing the agenda, familiariazing myself with the speakers and determining which ones I truly wanted to connect with and when would they be speaking.  Also spent time with my friend David. I met David at the Armand Morin conference in Phoenix the weekend of Dec 3-5 2008.  He was in the states from Australia with his family on holiday and he introduced himself to me during one of the breaks.  We ended up connecting and I met more of the people he met and at the end of the day, we had a group of about 10 that wanted to continue communicating so we created a mastermind group.  We would talk weekly on Sundays about what we internet marketing projects we were working, giving each other advice, encouragement, etc…  During one of our first calls, we were stating our goals for 2009 and I told about my intention to be in Australia in March for WIS, even though I had no idea how it would happen.  As it so happens, David lives on the Gold Coast where WIS was being held (conincidence huh?  Thank you God for that one) and he invited me to stay at his house with he and his family while I was in town after the conference ended.  I was so grateful for that!!  David and I and his friends spent a ton of time together at this conference.  Also, during the conference, I put in a request for a roommate as I did not want to pay $400 a night myself.  I ended up (again by coincidence, Thank you God again) with a woman named Susan from Sydney. She is an amazing person that became a really good friend to me.   The rest of the day was spent at the conference before heading off to bed for 11 hours of sleep.

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