And when I say STUPID… I mean REALLY stupid. I can’t believe how dumb I have been. Duh! In fact, well… I’ll leave all the DUH moments for below.

OK… the other day (after the Brainsnap #2… I mean BrainSTORM #2 session) I posted something over on Alex Jeffreys‘ blog and I have been thinking about it ever since. So, I thought I’d bring it over here and give you all a good laugh at how dopey I have been. Here it is…

You wanna hear something stupid? Like REALLY stupid? OK here goes… you are gonna laugh…

I actually believed it was immoral to build a list. I have had literally 10’s of 1000’s of people to my website and I let them come and take what they wanted and never bothered to build a list until very recently.

Even dopier of me was the fact that I participated in an interview with Peter Sinclair and Joel Comm and Joel kept repeating “BUILD A LIST! The MONEY is IN the LIST!” Well, dopey me ignored that because I thought it was like holding people to ransom like… “Hey you want what I’ve got? Then give me your name and email addy and you can have it.” I didn’t think it was ethical to do that. Duh!

I wrote an e-book called the “Power of Choice” about 3 years ago which is about the best thing I have ever written. It even makes the hair stand up on the back of my neck and I am the darn author and I KNOW what is coming. That book has been praised lavishly (a-hem… cough) all over the world and I was too silly to maximise the effect it was having on people. Double duh!

One guy in Canada wrote back and said he read it word for word to his family and then they all sat there and cried their eyes out. That is POWERFUL stuff to be able to do that with the written word.

Anyway, I’m blowing my own trumpet too hard here. Just slap me if I go too hard on that. I know I bung on a bit at times but, as you know, I am a writer and words are my weapons, so to speak.

I just want to re-iterate that you have opened my eyes and now I feel as though I have been a moral warrior for far too long. Not to mention a real d*ckhe*d for not taking action far sooner.

Triple duh!

I can’t believe how dumb I have been. I could have had a list of 10 to 20,000 subbies easy.

Yep! You guessed it – QUADRUPLE DUH!

So, thanks Alex – you have woken me up from my false moral high ground and I am now wide awake and making up for lost time.

Gazza is now on the prowl. Watch out! LOL!

I might even whack this post up on my blog.

As usual, way too long…

Gary Simpson

So, there you have it. Dumb huh? Like… who was I fooling? Answer… me.

Well, Christmas 2008 is over and we are heading inexorably into 2009. I hope you had a FANtastic time. I certainly did.

I have been doing a few “catch-ups” on sites that I have really wanted to visit PLUS update my blogroll which I refer to as the blogeroo (as in kangaroo coz it enables me to hop from site to site – I’m an Australian, if you didn’t already know, and damn proud of it too! LOL!).

Anyway, I was just over at Stephen Bray‘s excellent blogsite (hi Steve!) making a few posts to put me back in his “good books” and I saw a discussion on black-hat and white-hat marketing and blogging. In fact, it was a tongue-in-cheek comment made by Erwin Chua (hi Erwin – I just commented over at Erwin-Ville too!)on Stephen’s blog that sent me back here to engage in this… well… er, RANT, I guess.

Here is what I had to say on the matter over at Stephen’s blog…

“Anyone wearing ANYTHING but a white hat on my blog over at Gary-Land will get a visit from me via email pointing out the “offense” as I see it. Repeated attempts at skull-duggery and cheating will see me give them the Gazza-Slap. When they wake up they can have ONE more chance and then that is it. Black-hat or grey-hat me again and I will BLACK BAN them.

That’s MY stance and I think it is generous.

As the late Yul Brynner said (on smoking): “Don’t do it! Just DON’T do it!”

MANY students have complained (it has happened to me here and to Dean Holland and to Garry Parkes and Nigel Yip and, it would seem, many others) that SOME “students” – of the Black Hat variety – are cloaking their name field in the comments box with their marketing sites and their PPP (Profit Pulling Platforms). Let me say this… it is UNFAIR to siphon off a fellow student for YOUR personal gain. In fact, it is downright sh*tty! In fact, in my book, it’s like having an affair with your best friend’s partner. Unpalatable in the EXTREME!

Now, just in case you don’t understand, here are some definitions:

White Hat – playing by the rules, honouring other people, adding value, being decent,

Grey Hat – trickery and con-artistry designed to give advantage elsewhere (ie bleed off to another site through deception),

Black Hat – outright contempt, skull-duggery, KNOWINGLY pi**ing all over another person through the use of cloaking and bleeding.

Let me say this, and I am sure it goes for the MAJORITY of other students… If you repeatedly try that SH*T after being ‘kindly’ informed via PRIVATE email or IF you retaliate with further BLACK or GREY hat “techniques” then you will be outed right here in front of everybody and yes… you will be ostracised by me and PROBABLY everyone else too. Don’t prey or scunge off other people’s efforts and hard work. We HATE this cr*p!

Play fairly like almost everybody has been and everything will be wonderful in Blog-Land and we can all be happy little Bloggers and marketers.

PLEASE, just DON’T do it! PLEASE!

Am I too harsh, about right, not strong enough or whatever on this matter?

Can I have your comments please…

Gary SIMPSON

PS: If this black or grey hat stuff has been happening over at your blog and you are too “nice” or timid to say what you REALLY feel then just put a heading up and a link to this post. Let’s STOP this right now (oh, and please don’t name names here if you “suspect” somebody. I know of some newbies who have made innocent mistakes. But this can be a warning for ALL – especially to those who think it is “clever.” It AIN’T clever!).

And so it is Christmas Eve 2008. How the year has flown…

I want to take this opportunity to wish everyone a safe and very Happy Christmas 2008 and a wonderful New Year looking ahead to 2009.

I have decided to post the link to my FREE “Time in Motion” ACTION Planner here because I am aware that the link (to the right) is not displaying correctly on ALL browsers (thanks Susan! … and I don’t have time to fix it right now). So here is a picture of the cover…

And here is how you can get it:

Finally, here is a poem that I have always loved, a copy of which adorns my office wall.

Best Wishes

Gary SIMPSON
Perth, Western Australia

Hello fellow followers of Alex Jeffreys,

Whew, what a session Brainstorm #2 was! I have yet another headache from the almost 7 hour marathon. Again, thanks a LOT Alex!

I got up at 3.30am to ready myself for this and I was still at the computer, complete with headphones, at 10.30am (Perth, Western Australia time, that is). Yes, I am going the EXTRA mile… or miles.

I noted – with interest – that only some 130 to 140 others were on this call out of a potential of 500 people. Yes, I know, many of those MIA probably had work or family committments but I wonder how many chose to watch TV or go to a booze up instead? Hmm. And the number dropped to around 90 or so as the session ploughed on.

I hear people complaining about early times-late times and committment a fair bit and it just rolls off me like H20 off a duck’s back. Wait till some folks read my little MOTIVATIONAL MOMENT in Garry Parkes’ forthcoming Profit Pulling Project Newsletter #2. Watch out!

Anyway, what did I learn at Brainstorm #2?

First, there are some TERRIFIC weblog sites among the student membership. I particularly like Mark Austin’s and I have told him so previously on his blog. I also like Andre (the “Norwegian Connection”) Thomassen‘s blog very much. It is hot! Well done Andre!

Next, I find the “Twitter” stuff interesting but I am unsure if I could add it to my already heavy workload. I reckon I could be a prime TWIT on that thing. I can imagine you all nodding your heads! LOL.

Then, I need to investigate what is happening on some blogs that I have made annotations for in my notes. These blogs belong to, in no particular order… Daniel’s D-Marketing, Richard Moloney, Rich Schefren (heh… why not learn off this guy?), the writing style of Thomas Northrop (I will be “analyzing” you dude!), Dostin‘s OTO query, Paul Mracek‘s little icon thingy-ma-jig (Alex mentioned something about Matt Garrett… and Billy the Kid? on that).

Next, JT spoke about Paypal issues (boy, do I have ISSUES with Paypal) and the chicletts for social bookmarking AND Serge Krasnay seems to KNOW what is happening there too. So, I need to see both these guys to sort out PP – coz they (PP… hmm, what else does PP stand for? “P*** POOR!”) just don’t like giving sensible answers to ticketed questions – just get rid of you from the queue. Very unhelpful PP! (I said in an earlier post somewhere that I was gonna pay-out on PP! – just a touch of “Bad Gazza” there.)

When I emailed Paypal and said I had done something a dozen times and it still wouldn’t work do you know what some genius “helper” at PP replied with? “Check your work again.” GRRRRRRR! That is just a DH reply.

Finally, Harry Harris – that is FUNNY stuff you have going on at your Harry B deMille Film Production studio. Even funnier is that you have allowed ME to go nuts over there and play the character of “Gazza-wan-san, the Jedi-Samurai – Teacher of Master Yoda.” You have really got my creative juices flowing. And THAT could be dangerous!

And before I forget – if you haven’t downloaded your copy of my “Time-in-Motion” ACTION PLanner then, well… IMHO you just aren’t serious enough about your success in 2009. I wrote this thing for you guys and I will be keeping a watchful eye on who has it and who hasn’t – and ALSO who has only done the single opt-in so far. Remember, I have Jedi capabilities!

MERRY CHRISTMAS to you all…

Gary Simpson