When Was the Last Time You Googled Yourself? (And Why You Need To, Especially If You’re an Entrepreneur)
WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU GOOGLED YOURSELF? We use Google for many things. We use it for e-mail purposes (Gmail), to satisfy our video-watching habit (YouTube), and to find great deals on the things we are shopping for. Most often, however, we use it, for the purpose for which it was originally designed, which is as a search engine, to search for anything and everything we either need or would like to know, such as how to plant a...
Confessions of an Existential Nihilist Life Coach (How the Inherent Meaninglessness of Life Can Make Helping Others a Helluva Lot Harder)
EXISTENTIAL NIHILISM AND MANIFESTATION DON’T MIX…OR DO THEY? As the owner of the Manifestation Machine personal growth and development brand, a so-called “success guru”, and a “life coach” (or what I prefer to call a Peak Potential Coach, since the term “life coach” is so cliché and Peak Potential Coach far more accurately describes what I do), one of my jobs is to help people figure out what they want, as well as why they want it. In...
What the Equifax Data Breach Tells Us About American Apathy and Its Power to Impoverish Us All
WHILE THE WORLD SLEPT As most of my fellow Americans were already asleep, preparing for Hurricane Irma, or watching whatever reality T.V. show they like best, I was on DrudgeReport.com, checking for updates not only on the tropical storm situation preparing to impact Florida and the rest of the southeastern United States, but also on the ongoing nuclear stand-off the world is engaged in with North Korea news on Google, and that’s when...
Why I Unsubscribed from Tai Lopez’s Mailing List (The Conundrum of Content Over-Creation in the Age of the Internet)
I REALLY LIKE TAI LOPEZ, I REALLY DO And you know what? Unlike many people, I don’t even find his videos, like the “In my garage” video that made him famous (which has been ridiculed to no end by YouTubers like h3h3 Productions) to be all that annoying, but I must say, one thing about him I did find annoying about him recently was the deluge of daily e-mails I began to receive from him upon signing up for his mailing list through his...
Back Away from the Kool-Aid! (A Guide to Setting Aside Your Ego, Saving Face, and Perhaps Even Becoming Successful)
WE, AS A SOCIETY, ARE DROWNING IN “KOOL-AID” [Disclosure: As an Amazon Associate, we earn from qualifying purchases. Accordingly, we would like you to know that the following content includes links to products and/or services on Amazon.com. If you make a purchase through these links, we will receive a commission from Amazon.com, which will support Manifestation Machine and help keep our content free. You will not incur any...
A Matter of Life and Death (What Chester Bennington of Linkin Park’s Suicide Tells Us About the Meaning of Life)
THE DEATH OF A LEGEND On July 20th, 2017, the musical world lost a legend in Linkin Park lead singer, Chester Bennington, when he committed suicide via hanging in his home, a shocking and entirely unexpected turn of events that left millions upon millions of Chester’s adoring fans heartbroken, including me. I was a junior in high school when Linkin Park’s debut album, Hybrid Theory (a true rap-metal classic and probably...
The Boy Who Cried Blog (Based on a True Story About a NONtrepreneur Who Was Destined to Fail From the Very Start)
MEET DEVIN. He’s a typical, twenty-something young man, born and raised in the middle of America, who, like most of his high school classmates, didn’t go to college because he knew what he wanted to do with his life, but rather because he had absolutely no idea what he wanted to do with it. Like most of his classmates, Devin didn’t pursue a degree in anything super-specific, such as could have seen him become, say, a...
The Greatest Lesson I Ever Learned From Grant Cardone (About Life, Business, and Everything in Between)
THE MAN, THE MYTH, THE LEGEND: GRANT CARDONE [Disclosure: As an Amazon Associate, we earn from qualifying purchases. Accordingly, we would like you to know that the following content includes links to products and/or services on Amazon.com. If you make a purchase through these links, we will receive a commission from Amazon.com, which will support Manifestation Machine and help keep our content free. You will not incur any additional...
If It Ain’t in Writing, It Ain’t Happening (The Most “Must Learn” Lesson in All of Business That I Bet You’ve Never Learned)
“IF IT AIN’T IN WRITING, IT AIN’T HAPPENING” So goes one of the hardest, and most valuable, lessons I’ve ever learned in business. [Disclosure: As an Amazon Associate, we earn from qualifying purchases. Accordingly, we would like you to know that the following content includes links to products and/or services on Amazon.com. If you make a purchase through these links, we will receive a commission from...
This Independence Day, It’s Time For You to Declare Your OWN Independence
WILL THE REST OF YOUR LIFE BE “FIREWORKS WORTHY?” It was 241 years ago today that the United States of America declared its independence from Great Britain and, surely, the day is to be celebrated across America with fireworks galore. But what about you? When was the last time you personally declared, either out loud or inside your own head, your independence with regards to anything? When, pray tell, was the last time you...
In the Real World, You’re All Alone and It’s Everyone for Themselves, Whether You Like It or Not
WELCOME TO THE REAL WORLD Before I’d graduated from college at age 20, and even after I’d spent six or so years working my first couple of full-time jobs, I’d held the belief that other people, namely my friends, instructors, and supervisors had my best interests at heart. And why shouldn’t I have held that belief? After all, it’s what I’d been taught to believe and what I’d been told was the truth...
How to Avoid the Most Costly Mistake Made by Most Musicians, Entertainers, Artists, and Authors (Must-Read for All Sole Proprietors and Entrepreneurs)
SOME PEOPLE HAVE ALL THE “LUCK” “Some people have all the luck”, as they say. They grow up with at least one if not two parents (or perhaps an uncle, aunt, grandparent, or other adult role model) that knows a thing or two about running what I would call “a legitimate business”, as in, one that not only turns a profit but also pays its taxes, as opposed to one that survives by doing “under the...
Spending Less or Saving More Will NOT Make You Rich (The Truth About What It Takes to Build Real Wealth)
THE TRUTH ABOUT WHAT IT TAKES TO GET RICH Growing up, I heard it all the time: “To get rich, you need to spend less than you earn.” It wasn’t until I was in my early 30’s that I realized that this idea was only half right, if not complete bullshit. While it is true–and, dare I say, a “no-brainer”–that one cannot become wealthy by perpetually spending every single dollar one earns or gets...
How I Broke Through the Glass Ceiling, Quit the Rat Race, and Put Myself on the Path to Financial Freedom (And How You Can, Too)
THE ROAD MOST TRAVELED When I graduated from Mid-State Technical College in May 2003 with an Associate’s Degree in Marketing, I intended to apply my education to a career in music. As I’d already been recording in studios all around Wisconsin since age 17, had multiple live gigs under my belt, and become a “triple threat”, in terms of my ability to produce music, write lyrics, and perform well on stage, I...
Down the Rabbit Hole with Cory Groshek: 7 Lessons I’ve Learned Since Self-Publishing My Debut Children’s Book
A JOURNEY DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE, IF EVER THERE WAS ONE [Disclosure: As an Amazon Associate, we earn from qualifying purchases. Accordingly, we would like you to know that the following content includes links to products and/or services on Amazon.com. If you make a purchase through these links, we will receive a commission from Amazon.com, which will support Manifestation Machine and help keep our content free. You will not incur any...
The WWE’s Roman Reigns: Living Proof That Being Hated Means You’ve Made It
IT’S FEELS SO GOOD TO BE SO BAD Earlier this year, WWE Superstar Roman Reigns accomplished something that no “baby face” (pro wrestling lingo for a so-called “good guy”) has accomplished when he was named Pro Wrestling Illustrated’s Most Hated Wrestler of 2016. Additionally, the man is mercilessly booed in a way no “baby face” has ever been booed before (including John Cena, his predecessor in many ways and a man who...
