…is an amazing line in the film “Lemonade“.

It is so true that we can take what life throws our way and just see negative side affects. If we look deep enough into our individual situations we WILL find good.
In fact, the good will very much out way the bad, after we get over the initial shock!

If you can, please take 35 minutes, and watch this inspirational film about turning Lemons into ‘Lemonade’!
It’s worth missing one of your favorite TV episodes for.

Live with Passion & don’t forget what you love!
Have a great Day!
~Chais Meyer

Resources from the Film:

• The Lemonade Website: (for additional details about the movie) http://www.lemonademovie.com/
• The Male Copywriter Website: http://www.malecopywriter.com/
• Please Feed the Animals Blog: http://www.pleasefeedtheanimals.com/
• Red Eye Roasters Website: http://www.redeyeroasters.com/

After a recent technological disaster, I realized that there really is a HUGE difference between skill and luck (and I’ve been lucky A LOT).

I took on a project for a local Doctor and I came up severally short! I was asked by this doctor to JailBreak his iPhone (allowing it to work on a competitor to AT&T’s phone network)…
This is normally no big deal and I’ve ALWAYS come out ahead on technology projects like this, without a flinch! To help somebody Jailbreak their iPhone, I charge $150 for the knowledge, actually  JailBreaking it, and filling in the voids that Jailbroken software has for the iPhone; I make them work like they should.

For people that understand technology, especially when it comes to iPhone Jailbreaks, this is NOT a very complicated task. The really smart people out there are the ones that come up with the Jailbreaking software in the first place, guys like me just use their knowledge to benefit from (of course I am actually providing a good service to people that don’t feel comfortable doing it to their phones in the first place).

So why did I find out that there’s such a big difference between skill and luck? Well, I’ve always taken for granted the skills that goes into creating this Jailbreaking software (A new jailbreak is created every time a new version of the iPhone software comes out…that’s how it works, they stay in sync). I’ve always assumed that whenever a new version of the iPhone software comes out, there will always be people smarter than Apple and they will go ahead and create a iPhone fix for us everyday folk.
On this day, my mindset was no different and I decided to upgrade this customer’s iPhone to the latest Apple Software. I figured that a Jailbreak had already been created and it would be pud for me to go to the next step. I upgraded the iPhone to 3.1.3 and then proceeded to look for the matching Jailbreak software…I started having trouble finding the appropriate software I needed, so I dug a little deeper. Before I knew it, I’d been researching on the internet for 2 hours for a fix and I realized a fix DOESN’T EXIST!

No problem right? I can just undo what I’ve done and go to an older version of this fix…right? WRONG! This particular iPhone software upgrade changes things inside the phone that CAN NOT be undone! THERE IS NO FIX OUT THERE! Even the biggest brains in the iPhone tech world are saying that they’re not sure if this version of the iPhone software will ever be able to be Jailbroken.

What does this mean to me? What does this mean for this Doctor who put the fate of his iPhone in my hands?
It means that I fucked up…big time! I made a completely Rookie mistake by upgrading the iPhone before knowing if there was a fix out there! This Doctor CAN NO LONGER use this $600 phone for an unknown amount of time…it is essentially an iPod now. All because I thought I was skilled in iPhone Jailbreaks, because I’ve never messed before, I thought I was invincible!

At that moment I realized there’s a BIG difference between Skill & Luck!
I had been extremely lucky at every point until that moment. Luck, that relied on other peoples skill to make the impossible possible!

I still am not able to fix this guy’s iPhone, and I don’t know if I will ever be able to. I may have to buy this $600 piece of equipment from him (because I jumped the gun on a very simple thing)!
I learned a very important lesson that day, Never jump into something just because you haven’t failed at it before…Make sure to do your research, which allows you to under promise and over deliver!

Please learn from my mistake(s): Know what you’re talking about and know what process goes into accomplishing ‘your goals’…before you find yourself in a sticky situation!

Thanks for reading and hopefully learning!
Have an Awesome Day!
~Chais Meyer

There are so many times that I wonder “What if…”, or “What would happen if…” about certain things, apparently the guys at College Humor think the same way.
I’m not sure if weed was involved or not in their thought process, check out this video! [Warning: Kids may need to leave the room because of the gore! Hahaha...]

~Chais Meyer

I’ve often wondered to myself if it would be possible to start a business that just sells business ideas.

I am in love with the thought process of our current market (whenever the market changes) and what types of businesses could succeed within it. I like to push the envelope with outrageous business ideas just to see if they would work, as well as solving solutions to common everyday problems.

I’ve started an idea list of possible businesses and possible products that could and help and/or entertain people. I don’t have enough minutes (or energy) in one day to accomplish all of these ideas at one time…so, they remain on the list.

Now here comes the questions:

• What if I could sell these ideas?
• What if I could provide a single person (that has time and money) with the ins and the outs of my business idea and the ways that they could attempt to make it successful?
• Could I sell these business ideas?
• How much could someone make on a business idea?
• Could I give the idea away and get royalties on any success that was made because of it?
• How would I build my reputation to the point where people who don’t even know me, know I have a money making idea that they would be willing to buy and run by themselves?
• Would it be more advantageous for me to hire my own team of people that would essentially facilitate and operate all of my ideas for me?
• If I sell an idea to someone with money, would they be capable of making it successful? After all, they couldn’t think of this idea…
• Is there a business model out there like this already that I don’t know about?
• If so, how did they get things started?
• Is it worth selling ideas? I mean if they benefit society they shouldn’t just be sitting on my notepad, should they?
• Could I give the ideas away (open source) and have them benefit others without myself getting any $$ or recognition?
• What should I do?

As you can see, I have a bunch of questions and would love to have answers for them, What are your thoughts?

Just a bit to think about…Let’s make something happen with unused ideas!

Keep pushing your mind to the limit, nothing is unattainable!
Have a Great Day!
~Chais Meyer

A tomato is a fruit!
But what I’m really talking about is what we’ve worked so hard for, and how things happen because we make them happen (we don’t just sit back and expect life to fall together around us).

Shawna and I have been working very hard over the past 4-5 months and sacrificing certain luxuries (like living in our own house) to obtain a certain milestone in our life,  ‘Moving to Key West Florida for an entire month’.
This may not sound like that big of a deal to some of you out their, but for the others, please let this stepping stone for us help with motivating you to get what you want out of life.
To us, this is a feat that we knew we would accomplish…Oh, Did I mention that we are staying in a two story house with a private fenced in yard and a 25′ heated pool in the back yard? Ya, it’s pretty sweet.

Okay, let’s ask some questions to put this whole thing in perspective (to gain some understanding of why it’s so important to us):
Q: Why Key West Florida?
A: We went to Key West last year on vacation for the first time and it was so beautiful, relaxing, and the lifestyle there was very chill, it kind of seemed like the rest of the world didn’t matter (and I’m talking about the actual Islanders, the locals that live there year round). It is also very expensive to live there for an extended period of time and that was one thing that we wanted to prove to ourselves, that we could make it happen (get the resources and make the plans to live their for one month) in a 4-5 month time period. Oh ya, and it has one of the top 10 beaches in the U.S., that helped with our thinking too.

Q: What did we have to sacrifice to make it happen?
A: We own a home that we don’t live in (which we could be doing right now, but it just makes more financial sense to live cheap and have someone else pay our mortgage for us). We live with our parents, which isn’t a horrible situation by any means, it’s just the lack of privacy and not having ‘our own space’ that is hard to deal with (Note: As a thank you to them for opening their home, we’ve invited them to join us for the first week in Key West). Also, we have crappy, dented, used and abused cars that get us from place to place (trying to avoid the monthly expense of a new car and countless other toys that Americans can’t seem to go without). It’s been really hard keeping our expenses low and to putting more into our business growth than our personal lives, but it is well worth the rewards we are starting to receive.

Q: Why do we consider this trip a milestone?
A: I think the simple answer is…We could have claimed bankruptcy nearly a year ago, but instead we’ve turned our life around! So much so, that we are able to enjoy one whole month working on an island that is the most southern point of the U.S. (meaning it’s really warm). It also shows us that if we can get to this point in 4-5 months time, who knows where we can be 12 months from now. It is a much needed stepping stone that motivates us and reminds us that anything is possible.

Work hard & trust God, it’s okay to sacrifice things to have a greater reward in the end. Remember…There is no pride in Survival!

Have an Awesome Day!
~Chais & Shawna Meyer

P.S. We would love to hear from anyone else that has hit a milestone in his/her life that has helped them to push forward.

Sometimes in business we realize that we are heading in the wrong direction and we either need to (A) jump ship. OR (B) Change the way we’re doing things.

This realization came to David Lano & myself while we were working on our Control Yours business last month. We realized that our current pricing structure was not designed for long term growth or future employee involvement (even though we were providing a hell of a deal to small businesses). Something needed to change.

Changing price is a tricky thing because of what it does to your brand (it can help it by making it look more exclusive, or it can hurt it by making you look like you are a money whore), and because of what it does with your current customers (if something isn’t added to your products/services and your price increases dramatically, it can really hurt your business because of how greedy it makes you look). $$ is a very emotional topic with individuals, and unfortunately for us, individuals run businesses, and businesses are our clients.

David and I took an approach that you may have seen many times over and we believe that it was the best thing for our business. We raised our rates from 75% (on our smallest package) to almost 300% (on our largest package). We have created different subscription packages that people can choose from (4 main packages), as well as offer different services within the different packages (to help differentiate between them). Before we were just including everything to everyone at one really cheap price, on our way to business suicide.

Did we gouge the current customers that were with us from the beginning and hit them with the 300% price increase right away? No, not even close…we “Grandfathered” them into our new pricing structure while keeping their current monthly pricing (and they will pay that same price until they either quit our services or upgrade to a new package). It’s a good deal for them since they were with us since the beginning, and because we didn’t burn them, they can and will remain fans of Control Yours.

If you’d like to take a look at our current site with changes in place, please copy and paste the following link into your browser [ https://www.controlyours.com ], click on the ‘details’ tab and choose ‘price’. If you have any constructive criticism for us (or just bitching & moaning), we are open and willing to receive it!

Thanks again & have an Awesome Day!
~Chais Meyer

Hello All!

We have recently redesigned our website for our business Control Yours. And as we went through and created new images, we also changed our pricing structure. We went a couple of different routes before we decided on the final one (if you want to see it, click on the details tab after you click on the link above).

So…Here are some vector boxes that were trial and error. Have them, use them, enjoy them…Just don’t sell them! Click on the sticker below for your download to start.

Until next time…Have an Awesome Day!
~Chais Meyer

I was watching a video on TED.com today where Tim Farris talks about smashing fear and ‘how to feel like the incredible hulk’.

See this video below:

His talk started to get me thinking about how, so many times in my life I end up over-complicating things (as many of us do). And It is really interesting to me that we believe ‘what we have always done, has to be the right way’, just because we don’t know another way. Like…Who says having a cell phone with the ability to check/respond to my emails actually makes me more productive? Maybe I’m just wasting more time than anything. If I set up a one hour segment to read and respond my email a day (and that’s it), maybe I would get a lot more done because I would be focused to accomplish the task at hand.

I just love that Tim’s thoughts and ideas have helped me see that not everyone is supposed to follow the status quo, and not everyone has to fit into a mold. Identify your loves to live them, identify your fears and conquer them. I think we all could get a little inspiration from Tim.

Have an Awesome Day!
~Chais Meyer

…There is no mail service better than Google’s gmail (I just wanted to say something SHOCKING to get you here, hehe…Keep reading)!

What I want to talk about is an add-on to Gmail and how you can add an email client that will allow you to maximize it as well as other email services. The best way to take advantage of your email on an Apple computer (or mac as they call them now), is with the Apple Mail program (in my opinion)!
This is a weird statement for me to say, I normally run away from the Apple consumer products when it comes to using them with my businesses, but Mail is definitely an exception.

Why use mail and how?
The main reason that I recommend using Mail is because of how easy it is to run several email addresses/accounts at one time. I am currently running 7 email accounts with my one Mail program. All of my email messages come into one (1) Inbox together (or separate Inboxes if I wish). When I reply to a message, it replies back to the sender from the account they sent the message to (I can also choose to reply from any of the other accounts I have in mail).

Okay…can’t I do all of that with Google’s mail services (Gmail for individuals and Google Apps for businesses)? Why yes you can!
Then why use a client at all? Well…Because you can sync with your address book that is built into your computer, save events in your calendar directly from your email (when you get a message that has a place, date and time Mail identifies that as an event automatically), and most importantly send HTML emails (Mail already comes with quite a few free templates), you can even modify these templates for your own business and/or own personal use (Here is a link that shows you how -You need to be a little Geeky or hire a geek to get this done).

Using all of the FREE programs that come with the Apple systems (Mail, iCal, Address Book), you can do the basic things you want with business (at least things that have to do with communication) with ease.  And it will even sync with an iPhone using the Apple Mobile Me service.

I am excited that I finally found a mail solution that actually works how I want to use it. Even on the go with my phone. Now all I’m looking for is a great to-do list program that works on my iPhone and with my apple contact list and calendar. If I find something that works, I’ll let you know!

Here is another link that shows you more you can do with Mail.
If you have a windows computer…Sorry, I can’t help you, I don’t own a windows machine! You’ll have to let me know what works for you.

If you have any questions or would like additional info about anything in this post, let me know and I am glad to help.
Until then, Have an Awesome Day!
~Chais Meyer

We finally sold our home…well, sort of. (This picture is of our ‘home purchasers’ and myself, my wife couldn’t attend the key hand off).

About 3 Months ago, we wrote a post about our home and how we couldn’t afford to own it anymore. We had the choice of finding some way to sell it or have our mortgage company foreclose on us. My wife and I didn’t want to go down without a fight, so we took the drastic measure of moving in with my ‘rents (that’s the cool term for parents), staying in their basement and out of our home that we loved so much.

We had to call our mortgagor and tell them that we were unable to make our mortgage payments and we needed some help. The gave us a 3 month break from payments so we had some time to try to solve our problem (come up with our unpaid mortgage amount or sell our home…or else). During that time, Shawna and I have been racking our brains to try and figure out a solution that would not only get us out of this mess, but hopefully put some money into our pocket as well (we did put tons of hours into our home, fixing it up from when we originally purchased it 3.5 years ago).

What we did (with the help of God) was have a lawyer draw up a ‘Lease to Own Contract’ (that we are giving to you for free at the bottom of the page) and found a married couple that was interested in having their monthly rent payments go towards the purchase of a home. Along the way I believe we found a short term market niche for real estate investments.

The Details (let’s call the person paying us the TENANT):

• the TENANT will pay a monthly payment to us, (which will include $ that will go towards the principal for them to purchase the house from us, the interest for us taking the risk and acting as their bank, homeowners insurance in case the house catches on fire and the property tax)
• When we receive that monthly payment, we will then pay the bank that we have our mortgage through, which will cover our principal, interest, homeowners insurance and property tax
• The official home ownership (the paperwork that says Shawna and I own the home) won’t change until the TENANT decides to pay us outright for the home or goes through the 20 years of payments as we’ve set up.
• Why would the TENANT want to do something like this? Well, first off there is no need for them to get a mortgage from a bank (which is nice if you currently don’t fit the criteria to get a mortgage). They don’t have to do anything different from paying rent like they normally would (it’s easy). It is their home unless they decide to move or not make their monthly payments (all the money that they’ve payed every month does not go back to them if they decide to terminate our contract).
• Why is this good for us? We make positive cash flow every month $60 a month extra we can apply towards our home principal. We can pay our bills. If the TENANT carries the payments to the full 20 years without paying the home off in advance, we will make $40,000 extra in interest (that’s a nice little investment). We don’t have to do any of the landlord responsibilities because it is their home and they are responsible for everything that breaks down, etc.
• We also had them pay a $3,000 (non refundable) down payment to start this process. This payment goes directly towards the principal of their home and we get enough up front money to pay off our past mortgage payments (the bank won’t foreclose)!

How is this a market niche? When our nation is going through home sale hardships (because it’s hard to get a mortgage), why not purchase 10-20 forclosed homes and duplicate this process? be a landlord without the responsibilities of fixing up and maintaining the property. And if you really wanted to protect yourself, you could create something about a pre-payment penalty in the contract. It could say, if the TENANT pays off the total home value before 50% of the contract term has been complete, there is a penalty of “BLANK” %. Something like that.

We just wanted to let you in on how we got ourselves out of a sticky situation. If you would like to download this contract in an editable (Microsoft Word) format, Please Click Here. Also, if you would like to use an Amortization Chart (like what we used to help create this contract) Please Click Here.

Please note, this document was designed and created specifically for our situation, so not everything will apply to you. We still recommend having a property lawyer look at this contract after you have edited it. It will still be considerably less expensive having them proof it than creating a new contract.

If you can benefit from our experiences, please take advantage of them.
We are thanking God and Enjoying the day! Have an Awesome day yourself.
~Chais & Shawna Meyer

PS. If you don’t have Microsoft Office which is needed to edit these document types, go to Open Office’s website and download their Open Source program for your computer. It’s free and does the same things Microsoft does.