As part of the Alpha leadership program, we were all assigned a “buddy” to look after during the UYMG event. Although I chose Vanya and Jody, I did not really know them. As it turns out, I believe that I chose wisely.
Vanya and Jody were invited by Stephen and Alicia Pierce to give a presentation at UYMG Sydney 2007. I met them both on the Friday morning of the event and I felt very comfortable in their presence. I seemed to relate to what they had to say and was amused when Vanya demonstrated some finger mathematics to me on the way to lunch. I also learned that they lived reasonably close to me.
Vanya and Jody have a business “aquawebsites” which has really flourished since they decided to have Stephen Pierce as their mentor. They have 2 staff now (Samyo and Ken), who also attended UYMG Sydney as students. They were very nice people too. My dad also seemed to get along with all 4 of them too.
Although their business has much to offer, Vanya mostly gave a presentation about their autoresponder system. He showed how easy it was to set up multiple newsletter messages on the autoresponder. Vanya was nervous about giving the presentation in front of a relatively large crowd, but I felt that he did a great job before his time ran out.
When I looked closer at what Vanya and Jody had to offer their clients I realized that they provided an excellent service at a bargain price. Some of my friends from SMCC mastermind group thought so too and they signed up for the aquawebsites package. I spoke to Jody yesterday and she told me that they are just putting video into their system now. These guys are keeping very busy to improve their system and to keep up with the times. This is another reason that I would thoroughly recommend what Vanya and Jody have to offer. I have already done so to a friend of mine.
Some of the features include
A shopping cart system that allows unlimited products
A 2 tiered affiliate program
Hosting and domain with unlimited webpages
An autoresponder for sending newsletters
Customer Login Area
Tax Invoicing and accounting system
24/7 help and support
There are many more features that can be viewed here.
I was asked just over a week ago to give a presentation about wordpress templates for the mastermind group on Thursday 13th (Today). Unlike other mastermind meetings though, this one will be live across the world via a webinar. Time has flown by, but hopefully I have enough information to give a useful presentation.
If you do have any comments or questions about this presentation, please place them here on this blog post.
What I did notice was that some of the images may be difficult for some people to see clearly during the webinar. There is no need to worry though, as I will be giving the presentation away in a PDF format with more defined images. To obtain a copy of it, enter your details in the opt-in box on the right hand sidebar, just under my photo. The guide should be ready during the weekend sometime and it will be updated at times with answers to some of your questions.
Kerri Witt has been promoting the event on the SMCC forums and this is what she had to say.
“Bryan’s doing a much requested techie presentation on changing templates on your WordPress blog. You’ve heard me (Kerri) say like a broken record, “do PRISE, don’t pretty up your blog, do PRISE, understand how the recipe works”. We’ve got a lot of people in our Mastermind who have now finished PRISE, understand what Plugins and Widgets are and are ready to Pimp Their Blog (to borrow JP & Deb’s term). Bryan’s going to be showing us how you can do this for free using WordPress templates.
– How to test out a template to see if it will work for you
– Why just any template won’t do
– What’s important about Widgets
– How to redo your optin box for your new template”
I hope that you learn something from the presentation. Remember to leave any comments or questions on this blog post.
Melissa Hewetson was a guest speaker for UYMG Sydney 2007 and I was fortunate enough to spend some time talking to her before and during the event. I recall having a conversation with her about how I have very visual meditations.
What I noticed about Melissa was that she always seemed to have a smile on her face and that she radiated love all around her. I found that I was always smiling at her too. It was contagious in a nice way.
Melissa has had over 20 years experience practicing metaphysics. She is a great believer in the possibility of gaining a higher energy by breathing consciously, or at least being aware of your breathing.
Melissa has read many books and has acquired a great deal of knowledge from them. She has read many similar to “The Secret” where the law of attraction is prominent. She gave a speech to the Alpha Leaders about a related topic that she called “The Law of Gratitude”.
Some of the things that she told us were similar to…
Write a gratitude list and say them out loud every morning
Treat each day as a holiday
Appreciate friends, neighbours and family
Learn to forgive yourself. If can only forgive someone else if you forgive yourself first. The same applies to love. You can only love another if you love yourself first. We cannot receive what we don’t have to give and we cannot give what we don’t have inside.
Trick your mind by saying that you will have a “crappy day” unless you don’t feel
This is a photo of the stage and function room before it was properly set up. A work book, toy and a whistle was placed on each table for all to use and enjoy. All Internet connections were hard-wired.
Jason Tan and Sern Yi made a special trip from Malaysia to Australia to help Stephen and Alicia on their tour. They are very experienced people who made me feel very comfortable as an Alpha leader. Thanks guys.
Kerri was the Alpha Leadership captain. I had met Kerri at previous Gold Coast and Brisbane mastermind meetings and found that she was a hard working person. We found out later that we live near each other and had some smaller meetings at times to help each other out. I shared the same flight to Sydney with Kerri and she helped me focus in the right direction for the UYMG event. Thanks for listening and guiding me Kerri.
I loved this photo of Joey and Richard wearing some of the cool glasses we bought for the event. Joey (the pump master) and Richard were very friendly and happy going people that made UYMG more enjoyable.
Marta is part of the traffic generation club that I belong to. I have been communicating to Marta over the Internet for months and it was a pleasure to finally meet her in person.
The photo above is one of Janet and Kerri with me. The event had finished, so Kerri could let her hair down. Janet and Kerri were the 2 girls in the Alpha Leadership group that also attend the Brisbane and Gold Coast mastermind meetings.
It was a pity that Karen could not make it this time. Janet and I have got together on occasions to help each other out with new ideas. I will talk about the “buddy system” another time, but Janet had 2 speakers to look after and I felt that she did a great job looking after them.
I was hoping to get a photo of J.P. and Deb with me, but they were already in demand. I liked them in this pose, so I seized the opportunity of taking a snap of JP and his 3 angels.
All 4 of us are members of the Gold Coast and Brisbane mastermind group. Tim Lee was the actual founder of the group and I was so glad that he was part of the Alpha leadership group with us. Angela Tsune attended UYMG as a participant with her brother. She also attended the UYMG Malaysia event and gave some insight of the event to Kerri and me a week or so before we left to go to Sydney.
I was so stoked to get this SP Alpha Leadership certificate and wanted to show it off. If anyone gets the chance to become an Alpha Leader, then I would thoroughly recommend it.
UYMG had finished and it was time to pack up. Here you can see Jason tan trying to get the air out of the ball. The girls were sitting on it earlier. I am not sure what was more difficult, blowing them up or letting them down?
After all was finished I had a drink with Trudy and my dad. Trudy was a childhood neighbour who let dad an me stay with her in her unit at Balmain. Thanks for letting us stay Trudy. Also thanks dad for taking some of these photos and for supporting me and the rest of the Alpha team during the 5 day stay.
When Maureen told me that her Nephew “John” was going to have a wedding at Darwin in December, I thought that it was a crazy idea.
You see, Darwin is a very hot and humid place to be at during December and some of her relatives were coming from a cold winter in Scotland to attend. The bride’s (Michelle) family mostly came from Melbourne. In any case the wedding went very well and I was glad that I participated in it.
Maureen and I left on a flight on Thursday night which arrived in Darwin just before 1am. I had caught a cold in the 3 day period between UYMG Sydney and the flight which made me have problems with my ears for the 1st time on a flight. I can now relate to those poor people who suffer from it.
John and June, Maureen’s brother and sister in law, were kind enough to let us stay on the 12th floor of the Marrakai apartments with them, however when we arrived they had fallen asleep and Maureen had trouble getting them to answer their phones. I thought that we were destined to sleep on the bench in front of the Marrakai, but June finally awoken to let us in.
I thought that the apartments were very nice and on the 12th floor there was a large balcony with 180 degree views of the city. Some of the views can be seen in the photo above and also the one just below. The fire season had finished, so the visibility was very good.
On the Friday morning, we awoken and prepared for the wedding. I had pre-planned a joke where I would wear a kilt that Maureen had made for me, along with a pair of thongs and a vest with Yosemite Sam on it. The idea was that it was 1/3 Scottish, 1/3 Aussie and 1/3 fun. Click here to see how Maureen made the kilt step by step.
Maureen was stunning in her blue dress.
What we did not realize was that Colin, the best man, had decided to wear a real kilt. You can see him in the photo below next to John and John’s dad (also named John).
After a bit of a laugh, I got dressed into some more sensible clothing (although the kilt costume may have been cooler) and we all caught a bus to the ceremony.
Family and friends piled into the registrar to see the ceremony between John and Michelle. The matron of honor was Michelle’s sister “Nicole”.
Afterwards we waited outside the registrar for a bus and I managed to get a lovely picture of John and Michelle with John’s parents (John and June).
Lunch was at the Buzz Café at Cullen Bay. Not only was the food and service really good, but the view of the marina was great too. Also, anyone needing to visit the toilets had a surprise coming their way. The men’s trough had a one way mirror where you watched people dine while you did your business. The toilet seats had red back spiders embedded in them.
After lunch we returned to the Marrikai for some speeches and then we went to the sailing club at Fannie Bay for the night. I actually snuck in a little nap before going there, as I was still not that well.
The band there was great and when I arrived people were dancing and having fun. Beer was available from kegs and late in the night someone bought out some fire starter drinks. Apart from some Tabasco sauce, I am not sure what else was in them. They did clear my sinuses a little though.
It was great to catch up with the people there and it was also nice to meet some of Maureen’s family. Some think that the Scottish are mad, but if you look at the video taken of David (June’s brother, who also attended the wedding) earlier this year, then you may make your own mind up.
