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Okay, I'll admit it, the big green can jumped out at me and I needed to have one. Amp tastes very familiar to Mountain Dew. I can't imagine why -- they make the stuff.

I have to wonder though, if it was this drink that had me up tossing and turning last night. I didn't get asleep until about 1:00pm and just couldn't sleep.

Regardless, it tasted good, and original as far as energy drinks go. Even with a hint of Mountain Dew, it still puts this drink aside as something that tastes a bit different and unique in the energy drink sector. The large 473mL can is to be expected for a carbonated beverage, it seems.

The one striking difference between Amp and other energy drinks is its distinct lack of the ingredients commonly found in competing drinks:

Caffeine: 142mg
Ginseng: 15.8mg
Taurine: 14.2mg
Vitamin B3 4.0mg
Vitamin B2: 2.9mg
Vitamin B5: 1.9mg
Vitamin B6: 0.7mg
Vitamin B12: 1.2mcg

Calories: 220

Note the low levels of Taurine, a fraction of most other drinks. The caffiene is pretty high, though. The bottom line is, who really knows what those ingredients really do anyway? My point is, Amped is closer to a $3 can of pop than a "true" energy drink.

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Most people are intelligent enough to know that if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. The only person I know who has actually paid the money for the "Get Rich Stuffing Envelopes" scam is a girl my wife knows. This naive girl paid the $40 for the package, clearly desperate for some extra "easy" money.

Fact is, automated envelope stuffing machines exist and are used, so actually getting paid to stuff envelopes is not accurate. The old envelope stuffing scam works a bit differently, its actually a pyramid scheme.

"The Scammer" takes out ads in the newspaper promising thousands of dollars a week "stuffing envelopes" and suckers send this scammer money to find out how. The Scammer sends back a package telling the buyer how to sucker other people to send them money. The Scammer is at the top of the pyramid, trying to bring in new people under them and in the process, making money just for photocopying the pyramid instructions and "stuffing envelopes" to mail them to the buyers.

Unfortunately the people who fall for these scams are generally desperate people who aren't smart with their money (or in general).

I found out that this girl had her car repossessed, today. She was not making the payments, she did not even have insurance. She is starting to be swallowed alive by debt and credit, and its only going to get worse before it gets better.

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A few months ago I was finishing up the book 'The Age of Speed' by Vince Poscente. It is all about how much we have sacrificed and how incorrect some of our notions of speed are, and how some businesses have succeeded and failed by speed.

The one chapter that really struck a chord with me was about the blurred boundaries that occur from working at home. For me, working is an obsession because I just love it. Accessbility to my office is always there so I'm always tempted to work; Its 9:00pm and I'm still working.

My constant workload causes guilt. I constantly feel terrible for not spending more time with my wife and the 'kids' (our lovable dogs). Its a never-ending guilt that follows me nearly every day, but I know that if I was not working at all, I would be more unhappy than ever.

There is no time to disconnect when I am at home, because work is always on the other side of a sliding glass door. Even if I'm not working, I think about work. The only time I forget is when I'm on vacation or away from the house, and even then sometimes I have my laptop with me. I'm always working or thinking about work.

The issue is that in a regular nine-to-five job, there is 8 hours dedicated to work, and a disconnect when you leave and have 16 hours of home. Without a barrier (the workplace vs home) the boundaries are blurred and cause an internal conflict between career and family or free time.

One solution would be to simply define better priorities, but people will often gravitate towards what they would prefer to do. Take for example playing video games all day vs jogging, some people will gravitate one way, and others the opposite. I am more than aware of my workaholism, its talked about constantly between friends and I'm aware of it every day. But, its like any bad habit. Unless you have something better to do, you'll shift to those bad habits.

The true solution is to fill my life with the things I would rather do first, but my passion is web development, but that's work. Can work really be relaxation? Most people would say no, but that goes against how I feel everyday.

Needless to say, its complicated.

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Sir John Templeton (Templeton Investments) gained a solid reputation as a stock picker with global savvy who would revolutionize the mutual fund industry. He passed away this year at the age of 95.

Templeton's Rules of Investing:

1. Invest for maximum total real return
   
2. Invest, don't trade or speculate
   
3. Remain flexible
   
4. Buy low
   
5. Search for bargains among quality stocks
   
6. Buy value, not market trends or the economic outlook
   
7. Diversify
   
8. Do your homework or hire wise experts to help you
   
9. Monitor your investments
   
10. Don't panic
    
11. Learn from your mistakes
    
12. Begin with a prayer
    
13. Outperforming the market is a difficult task
    
14. An investor who has all the anwswers don't even understand all the questions
    
15. There's no free lunch
    
16. Do not be fearful or negative too often
    
    
    

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I sometimes like to compare myself to famous and successful business people. Perhaps its me looking ahead to the possibilies and the future ahead, or perhaps I like the satisfaction of knowing my mind and work ethic is comparable to the best. Two highly successful people I look up to are Hugh Hefner and Donald Trump. Say what you will about pornography, but I watched a documentary on Hugh's Playboy empire and besides for the naked women there is a lot of business going on there. Sure, every highly successful person borders on the line of workaholism, but for some people (including myself) its what we enjoy.

Hugh still controls a lot of the business and aspects of the Playboy magazine instead of getting someone else to do it. That shows dedication and enjoyment. Instead of being out enjoying his millions, he'd rather put together another magazine.

Then there's Donald Trump, the real estate tycoon. In all honesty I didn't show much interest in Trump's business and work ethic until the "Apprentice" series. I never miss an episode because there's a lot of good business strategy there. He also enjoys what he does so much that it consumes his life. He's always touting that you should enjoy what you do. Its not even about the money, he's all about making a good deal. My personality is similar, I love making the deal and get more excited about that than the money itself. The money is secondary, and as long as I enjoy what I do, the money will always flow because I will do a good job because I'm enjoying myself.

.. and yes, most of my workday is spent in my Pajamas, like Hugh Hefner.

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The energy drink for non-conformists! Here's a unique drink can plastered with all kinds of different images, kinda reminds me of Jones Cola. The can is pretty much identical to a Monster Energy drink, except boldly red with a red tab (Monster is the same in green).

The first sip is Berry-flavoured, but I can't place the exact flavour. It tastes good, perhaps a cherry-strawberry. The texture (if its possible for a carbonated drink to have a "texture") is pretty much identical to Monster drink.

The general consensus is that I like it, and the can struck my eye in the store which is the only reason I really bought it.

The label is a bit striking. Lost Planet contains double the dosage of most other energy drinks, although that's in part due to the 473mL can.

Taurine: 2000mg
D-Glucuronolactone (synthetic): 1200mg
Caffeine (synthetic): 160mg
Vitamin B3: 40mg
Vitamin B5: 10mg
Vitamin B6: 10mg
Vitamin B3: 5mg
Guarana: 5mg
Vitamin B12: 10mcg

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Don't waste your time, and you damn well better not waste mine. In a perfect world, on a perfect day, I can schedule what needs to be done, and if I can focus and follow the list, it gets done. That's a perfect day and there's nothing more satisfying than not deviating from the plan. But, there's always something that comes up or someone that insists on wasting my time on something that is just not worth it. I prefer people who contact me and keep the small talk to a minimum and tell me what they want. Some people are intimidated by me and are afraid to come out and say what they're thinking, so I egg them on to get to the point. Its not that I don't like to talk to people, its just when I'm in business mode I like to stay in business mode and rarely switch into casual mode because that basically means the end of my work day. If only others were more interested in getting things done instead of talking to me about things that just aren't important.

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... is the biggest mistake of small business owners.

I've always believe that if something is important, and you want it done right, you do it yourself.

That doesn't mean mistakes don't get made, it just means its not someone else making them. I don't like paying people to make mistakes, it really irritates me.

However, its absolutely impossible to get everything done without delegating and getting someone else to do things for you. Delegation is the most effective way to increase your productivity, and not nearly enough people do it properly.

Delegation comes down to trust. If you are able to put your trust in someone else that they will make the right decisions and move in the right direction, things will turn out fine. That usually always comes from their past performance.

Never try and babysit someone when you give them a task. Don't tell them how to do it or how you expect it to be done. This statement shocks most people. What you want to do is tell someone the result you want from them, and leave the path they take up to them. Make it clear what you want and how you want it, but leave the job itself to them.

Over time, you can develop a great team of people who know what they are doing and you can delegate those things that you need "done right" rather than delegating those things that don't require any skill, or something you simply don't want to do.

Of course, that's after you waste a lot of your own time fixing other people's mistakes. Partner with the best, and hire only the best and it'll be worth it.

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You have to be two-faced or two-sided like a coin. Being nice and helpful to people will get you far as long as you don't let them walk all over you.

If your job is customer service, you know how important it is to keep the customer happy or to calm them down when something goes wrong, even if its completely their fault and you have to take the brunt of their anger or stupidity.

That's all fine and dandy, but sometimes you have to be aggressive and outright threaten people, and mean it (even if you don't). Take for example the web design business. If you design a website and write your own content, sooner or later someone is going to steal it from you and use it as your own. That's when you find out who their host is, what their mailing address and email address is (via domain whois) and fire off legal threats backed with paperwork that'll make them freak out and bail. Very rarely do people not comply when I threaten them with legal action.

If they don't comply, I take the next step. You gotta know which side to use depending on the person and situation -- taking the wrong approach can (and will) get messy. They say that you attract more bees with honey than vinegar but sometimes you don't want to attract bees at all.

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Money has always been a cause of a great amount of stress for many people. Anxiety over debt can present itself in many ways including sleepless nights and chest pains.

Among college students, nearly 80% receiving degrees (1999-2000) had at least one credit card, and half of those carried a significant balance (re: American Council on Education). On top of credit card debt, many students also carry years of student loan debts.

"Credit cards are a double-edged sword. Its hard for a recent college grad to buy an airline ticket without a credit card, but it's easy to lose control and start overspending," says Jane Rinzler Buckingham, President of market research company Youth Intelligence.

Today's youth have accumulated more debt than any generation before them in history, and their happiness and even their physical health are suffering because of it. Everything from sleeplessness and depression to irritability and heart palpitations, (Paul J. Lavrakas, Ph.D., former director at Center for Survey Research at Ohio State University).

How do you know if your debt is affecting your health? One of the first signs of debt stress is anxiety. Worrying about money and how you will be able to afford the basic neccessities. Because of the higher debt-to-income ratio of most 20somethings, the anxiety weighs on them daily and compounds the stress of everyday life. Long-term stress can develop into depression.

"Being in a lot of debt can feel overwhelming to people and wreak havoc on self-esteem" (Olivia Mellan, money coach in Washington D.C., author of "Money Shy to Money Sure")

Money is still somewhat a Taboo topic on our society, so most people will hide their money troubles from others and the ones they love. Debt can become a shameful secret for some people when its really nothing to be ashamed of, its just money. Some people take it too seriously, though.

In 1997, a freshman at the University of Central Oklahoma committed suicide because she was overwhelmed and upset over three maxed credit cards and was losing her part-time job.

The fact is, being in debt can make you sick, in whatever way your body manifests stress. Insomnia, digestive problems, asthma, anxiety attacks, and skin problems are all common for those stressing about their finances. Stress can trigger addictions to cope, as well. Excessive eating, drinking, smoking can all develop.

Loss of desire in sex can also occur, a woman describes her ordeal after gaining $20,000 in credit card debt: "I haven't had sex in six months, moslty because I can't relax enough to pursue a relationship or get in the mood. My libido has completely shut down ... sex doesn't even enter my mind." A recent poll showed that 58% of people said their sex lives improved when their finances improved.

A study of 1000 people at Ohio State University found that people who have high credit card debt are likely to be in worse health and have higher levels of physical impairment, and be more overweight than those without a lot of debt.

So if you do have financial problems, you need to understand that its not the end of the world and there is help available. Above all, realize that money is a tool and should be treated with care and respect as it can cause a lot of damage to you and your health.

Adapted with references from Cosmopolitan Magazine, August 2002.

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We all judge a book by its cover on a daily basis and its difficult to get away from looking at something and making a quick judgement. I originally avoided Liquid Ice because their can design looks pretty cheap. Generally, I'm not a big fan of products that don't spend time on promotions or at least making their product look attractive to buyers. Sometimes this suggests that the product is a cheap product and not worth it.

Liquid Ice took me by surprise and from the first taste it instantly jumped near the top of my list for energy drinks I enjoy. The taste is excellent and totally unique for energy drinks. It reminds me of blue freezee or something, its a berry flavour of some kind.

As far as the energy or high metabolism this drink says it may enhance, I always feel energetic after drinking an energy drink so who knows.. its a standard 250ml can and contains the usual ingredients Taurine (1000mg), Caffeine (80mg), Niacin (20mg), Vitamin B6 (5mg), Vitamin B12 (6mcg), and Coenzyme Q10 (5mg).

Put this drink on your list and enjoy it. Its easy to find, just look for the bright blue label with tacky yellow lettering.

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Basic strategy of negotiation is to get what you want, and to give away as little as possible. Its easy to get carried away on a deal if you're not willing to walk away.

If you're selling something, don't appear like you are desperate to sell. All the time you see people posting cars for sale as "must sell" or "OBO" which is ridiculous since you are instantly giving away that you are in a situation where you are desperate to sell, or are already willing to take LESS than your asking price. Never give anyone the impression that you need to make the deal or you'll be walking away with a lot less than you want.

Furthermore, its already assumed that pretty much every deal is negotiable and only suckers pay full price for anything. There is no need to tell anyone a deal is negotiable otherwise it does the same thing, it tells them you really want to make a deal happen.

Inflating your price and then giving a "discount" to people interested is a great way to get the price you want. When I sold my car, I priced it $500 over what I wanted to sell for, which gave me room to come down on the price. If I had started with my best price I would have ultimately taken less.

Now, if you're on the other end of the stick, you need to pay attention to these same things and take advantage of them. Never pay full price and always ask if they can do better on the price, whether its a house, car, or anything else. By acting reluctant I stumbled into "staff pricing" at the local electronics store and have had the deal ever since which has saved me thousands of dollars. It never hurts to ask.

Play hard to get, but not impossible. There are folks out there that make you want what they have because they act as if they don't want you to have it. It works sometimes, other times not. The one time I really tried this as a marketing tactic, it didn't work. People were intimidated by it and instead of playing hard to get, people perceived that I was playing impossible to get. Just don't be too eager to make a deal.

Be prepared to walk away. Never expect to get what you want the first time, and be prepared to say "no" when you don't get what you want. Once upon a time I had someone who wanted to sell me a website and I didn't necessarily want to buy for the $10,000 price they wanted. I said no and told them I was more interested in a price of $6000. We went our separate ways. Not even half an hour later they came back to me with a price of $7000 and I took it. The deal paid for itself in just a few months and has since been an extremely valuable asset and generates a lot of income.

Make your deal seem better than their deal. By this I mean if they want more money for something you want, tell them why its not worth as much as they're asking. If you're trying to get more money for something, explain all the ways that its worth MORE than you're asking.

Above all, never be deceptive in a deal. Always tell the truth, prove what you say, and never over-sell something or say it will do something it won't. If you trick someone into buying something or making a deal, it will come back to bite you either in reputation or possibly even legal action. If you lay everything out in a truthful way, your reputation is not at stake, and if they still make a bad decision it won't be your fault if you gave full disclosure.

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The one thing you need to know is that you can have the greatest product or service in the world, but if people don't know about it, or don't talk about it, it doesn't exist.

So the best way to get started with your business whether it is a service or a product, is to talk to people about it. If you developed it because other people needed it, go back and make contact with those people and tell them it now exists. Find groups of people who might need it and talk to them about it. Tell friends about it, get feedback. Don't get upset with criticism. If someone tells you its a terrible idea, try to look at it from their perspective -- they may be right.

Find the most likely people to buy and talk to them. If they don't buy, continue to re-evaluate your product, your pricing, and what else is in the market if anything.

Throwing money around for promotion can help but only if your margins are good enough to recoup the costs. Promoting a $10 item in a Superbowl TV spot will only be a wise choice if you can sell 10 million of them.

You should use every opportunity to contact other people and try to talk to people about your product. Sometimes when I receive a spam email from a company wanting to sell me something, sometimes I see an opportunity and contact them to do business.

Even if people don't seem interested now, they may be interested in the future. Don't avoid talking to people (especially if they are asking questions) just because the sale isn't imminent. They might come back in a year to do business with you and if you tick them off they won't come back at all.

Don't be pushy. People love to buy, but they hate to be sold to. If you walk around and talk to people like you're an advertisment, they will avoid you.

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No, I'm not talking about the FOX version entitled "Kitchen Nightmares." Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares is the original european version of the show that airs currently on Food Network.

The show features world-class chef Gordon Ramsay (commonly known as the British guy who constantly dropping the f-bomb, cursing people out, and yelling at them in order to try and teach them when they don't understand or show respect.

The premise of the show is Ramsay going to restaurants that are in trouble for any number of reasons. He comes in and basically works as a consultant to look for and find problems. Often its quality of food, marketing, management, bottlenecks, location, any number of things that can make a restaurant go into trouble. Every show its something different as every eatery has problems all their own.

Its one of my favorite shows less because of the food, and more because of the business aspect of the consulting Ramsay does for them. It never ceases to amaze me how ignorant and irresponsible some people are with their restaurant and how amazing it is to them that the business is failing.

After watching the show for quite some time now, there are a few key reasons restaurants fail.

Bad Food
If you don't make good food and people don't like it, they won't enjoy the experience and won't come back. Even if you do spend time and money promoting the restaurant, its a dead-end street when those folks eat the food and hate it. Always have the best product you can, and cook it consistently and properly every time. Failure here means failure, period.

Bad Management and Service
People want their food quickly, if its not cooked quickly it needs to be worth the wait. Failing both of these, poor customer service will kill any business. This also relays into the kitchen where if the chef and food isn't being prepared in a streamlined way, everything will back-up and make restaurant service look terrible.

Bad Business Sense
For any number of other reasons, people who make good food may not know how to run a business. Restaurant owners or a chef may hire unsuitable people or too many people to run a business. They may spend too much on wasted food, too much on promotion, or any number of variety of things to cause expenses to greatly outweigh income.

The UK version of Kitchen Nightmares feels a little more "nice" and focused on the transformation of restaurants in a less "evil" way. Its brilliant that the Food Network allows the blatant swearing -- bleeping everything out is just annoying and we know what he's saying anyway. Meanwhile, the US FOX version, has sparked at least one lawsuit against Gordon Ramsay .. but what did the people expect when they signed up for a show on FOX?

UK and US versions have one thing in common, the show is definitely less about food and more about the business and the people running it.

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If you enjoy finding something, perfecting it, and then replicating your success with that, then you will be highly successful doing whatever that happens to be. However, if for some reason what you were doing doesn't work anymore (if the demand dries up or becomes saturated) then you'll need to adapt or move on to survive.

Donald Trump in his "Art of the Deal" book says "You're generally better sticking with what you know" (pg 28) but I don't agree. Staying within your comfort zones will allow you to feel safe, but it doesn't help your business to grow by venturing into anything new. Even if you do stick to what you know, that doesn't mean it will necessarily br profitable either, illustrated by my miserable failure in an eBay business I partnered on many years ago.

You don't grow if you don't leave your comfort zones. With that said, you should only venture into niches or other business ideas or markets you have an interest in. Your interest will drive you to learn and become better in that new niche. Use that to your advantage when entering into something new.

One of the worst things you could do is go into something because "there's money in it." Don't let someone else drive you into something you don't want to do. Your heart won't be in it, the learning curve will be steep, and it just won't be fun. Experiment and you'll grow, and your business will too.

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I don't mean the voice inside your head that tells you to start fires. I mean the voice that tells you when something is a great idea, or something doesn't seem right and your gut tells you so.

It is suggested that the feelings that people have in their “gut” are connected to our bodies natural fight or flight stress responses. Subconscious processing of cues around us causes the body to stress (sweating, uneasyness, butterflies, etc).

Its not very scientific, but it's definitely good advice when making any decision to listen to yourself. No matter if its a big business decision or deciding which camp site to take at the lake, your intuition and gut will almost always steer you right. That is, I don't think my gut has ever lead me wrong. That doesn't mean I have never made a bad decision, because I have.

You won't always have that uneasy feeling that something is not a good decision, I find that only comes when things really don't add up. You can see a deal as being excellent on paper, but if elements of the deal make you uneasy, that's something else entirely. When that happens, don't go through with it, and don't ignore your gut.

Sometimes its easy to get blinded by the big picture and get sidetracked by the idea rather than how much of a bad decision something really is. There was one time that I made a very bad business decision, and my gut didn't warn me beacuse I was so excited by it.

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Do you ever find yourself working without any specific goal or dream? That is what happens when there is no strategy or plan. Its great to work and work and be doing well, but without any short or long term goals, how will you know if your efforts have been successful?

Make short term goals to give yourself something objective to complete, and reward yourself when you accomplish your goal.

Long term goals take more planning, so keep them challenging but attainable. Even if you don't accomplish your goals, at least you know there's something you are working towards -- a light at the end of the tunnel, perhaps.

When I find myself overwhelmed with work, thinking to myself "will it ever end?" it helps to stop and sit down and think. Recently the feeling swept over me and I sat down and laid out some of the major things I wanted to do in the next 2-3 months. By laying them out on a long-term scale I was able to calm down and realize that not everything needed to be done right now. Everything is part of a larger plan.

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My experience with Bolthouse Farms' drinks began with a Mango Lemonade 1L beverage that I picked up on a whim during grocery shopping many years ago. It was a smooth and great tasting drink that was more of a fruit smoothy than an energy drink, but it got me through the day.

Its been awhile since I drank a Bolthouse Farm drink, mostly because I grew a little sick of drinking the same thing. On this particular trip for food I caught a glimpse of a new flavor -- Mocha Cappuccino.

My experience with coffee flavored drinks have not been very good in the past, exclusing Starbucks branded drinks like their Frappuccino. This one also left me struck with how lackluster it was.

Maybe I just don't like the creamy texture or maybe its the taste. Perhaps its the fact its a protein drink loaded with 42g of Protein that carries a flavor I don't like. I've never been much of a fan of Whey Protein. Regardless, I don't like this one and as I write this I am trying to drink it. Lets just say its not going very well.

I rarely pay attention to the price when buying food unless I'm comparing prices between sizes and the brand name vs no name products. Its true, food shopping is a vice of mine where I often spend more money than I should on stuff I really shouldn't be buying. My point is, I have no idea how much these drinks cost without checking my reciept -- probably close to $4 for 1L of drink.

The drink has many of the ingredients of an energy drink like Vitamin C, B6, B12, and actually shows "Mocha Cappucchino" on the label as an ingredient which includes arabica coffee.

Ultimately this is a big, cold, creamy coffee drink that doesn't leave me wanting more. I'll stick to the other Bolthouse flavours.

Bolthouse Farms beverages contain no preservatives.

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Many years of ambitious workaholism has taught me a few things. One of those is that the "jack of all trades is master of none."

When I developed my first major website, things were great because I could put my entire effort into it -- and it thrived in every aspect because I focused on its development and promotion.

But it was that success that lead to a realization. In my nievety I thought that by adding another project (because I had the current one under control and had extra time) would generate more income. Getting greedy and seeking more income gobbled up my time, and it was a slippery slope.

I added more and more to my plate without any clear plan to manage everything I was taking on. Before I knew it, I was running over 18 separate websites, and it was years before I asked anyone to help.

Finally when I did get a couple people doing some contract work, I was still the one putting in over 70 hours a week. Lots of projects were in development or planning stages when I finally snapped. Luckily for me, there wasn't a big mental breakdown. My epiphany was more of a realization in the shower one morning.

I stood there overwhelmed with the amount of work that needed to be done, and at that moment I finally saw that it did not matter how long I worked, I would never complete all the projects I had laid out for myself. I would work until the day I died, and at that moment I just realized that I couldn't do everything myself anymore.

There were only three solutions to the problem I was in. The best option allowed me to continue everything, but required human cloning. The second option was to hire people, but that required cutting into my income and paying people to manage projects that were not that lucrative.

Hiring people to do my work proved to be unsuccessful for the most part. Delegation is difficult, and so is finding capable workers. So, the final option (and most realistic) was to reduce the number of projects and sell off existing projects that were not going anywhere. Reducing my workload to focus on what was important was required.

I did feasibility studies, checking how much money some projects were making. Others that were in their planning stages were scrapped. Some that had been developed but were not monetized were sold.

One website inparticular was a video website or "tube website" that was earning just over $2000 per year, that took a significant amount of resources to operate, including someone to help manage it. Its margins were tiny, and accounting for everything I was probably breaking even or losing money. Sure, I could have promoted it and increased traffic, but that also would increase my costs. It was decided that the website needed to go, even though it was one of my favorite projects that I had run for over 5 years. It was truly painful to let go, but I suspected that once it was sold and I was separated from the project, that I wouldn't miss it. Sure enough, today I have no regrets about selling the project.

Since that day in the shower my number of projects have been reduced from 18+ to 13. Of those projects, one is discontinued, another is not being developed further (due to poor results) and many of the remaining could be full time jobs each on their own. Truly there is a long way to go.

Future development of new projects has been limited. I no longer develop full websites for small ideas, instead just add the features to existing websites. Trying to reduce the time I am working, no new project is begun or pursued unless it has potential to replace my existing income.

So the moral of the story is, you should choose one great idea and run with it. Work on it, improve on it, and don't start something else until the project as a whole can be delegated to someone else. Only when that is possible should you move into the next project. Until then, take it from me -- Do one thing, and do it well.