Happy May Day to all

When I lived in England, May Day was for me the heralding of a new season. It was so easy to be caught out by the emergence of the crocuses and daffodils in February and March and those few sunny days about then too to think that SPRING was on its way. May Day with the extra daylight after the clocks moved - it was the beginning of a new season..  It feels a little that way here. I set out in my last post to stay sane and to stay safe. I also wrote down a bunch of things that I was going to do. It feels a little like some new beginnings: 

• Well I can report that I am safe. My hand is healing and the medical reports were that it did not require any intervention. Good news from that medical visit is that the plate that was inserted in my left arm (following a cycling accident in Switzerland in 2010) does not need to come out. The surgeon in Luzernkantonspital had intimated that it should come out in 2 years. Typical male - took me nearly 3 years to get that tested out. I did also see my doctor briefly to get the referral and will see her for a proper check up in May
• I have spent some more time working on my Industry Rockstar profile as a Business Coach. So far I have written a first draft of the proposition and have created a Facebook Fan page. I found a great way to get the focus to doing the writing. I spent time with a friend building out his business ideas. I wrote up my draft so that he could copy the outline for his business - love the concept of WIN-WIN or Two-for-One. I also embarked on the 30 day Facebook Fan Page Challenge run by Sue Worthington. Like all the things I do I have not really followed up on the challenge  but I do have over 30 likes on my page from the challenge and I can get the insights and choose my own vanity URL.



Facebook Fanpage



• I did start to do some cycling training. I moved my flights to Darwin a little earlier so that I can start Cycle Around Australia 2013 leg third leg from Darwin instead of Katherine. I had been holding back from changing the flights because I was not really sure that I was actually going to be in a position to do the ride. My hand does not feel strong enough to allow me to ride on the roads - so I have installed the cycle trainer. That was a bit of fun as my small wheeled bike did not fit and I had to retrieve my original road bike from storage. The last time I broke my hand in 2006, I trained while watching the Commonwealth Games broadcast from Melbourne. This time I have been catching up on the training videos for the Steven Essa Webinar Magic program, I bought some time ago. As I will be using webinars for my Business Coaching efforts, it is great use of time = Two-for-One again. And for anyone wanting to explore the power of webinars to get 10 times the conversion rates compared to normal channels, Steven Essa is your man.  Thanks Steve for being a great entertainer while you teach. So my fitness is improving. My weight has not really moved  yet and blood pressure seems OK.
• Cycle Around Australia 2013 has completed leg 1 from Melbourne to Cairns with 15 riders. It all seems to have worked well with riders enjoying the peacefulness of the Great Inland Way. 18 riders departed Cairns on April 29 headed for Darwin on The Gulf Ride. the tail end of Cyclone Zane has given them two wet days to start but day 3 is looking good. The blog for leg 1 is Melbourne to Cairns and for leg 2 is Cairns to Darwin. Kathy updates these pages every day or two - bookmark them to keep track of what the riders are up to. We are still actively looking for riders for legs 4 and 5 - Broome to Perth and Perth to Melbourne. I have ridden both of those legs before and can vouch that they are great rides. Have a look at http://www.cycleacrossoz.com.au and see if you dare. Our charity effort is coming along - you will see from the blog page that we have raised $800 - without any real big marketing effort. We have also collected close to $500 in the collecting tins the riders have with them. Our chosen charity is the TADVIC Freedom Wheels campaign. TADVIC’s highly skilled and innovative team of therapists, engineers and volunteers help children with disabilities to enjoy mobility and a form of recreation previously unavailable to them.  If your philanthropy budget allows, head to our My Cause page to make a donation. And my other contribution is I keep the websites running and our Page 1 ranking in Google remains for "cycle Australia". Quite happy with that.

• The markets have consumed a lot of my time - probably more than I would like and more than I need. The FX Markets continue to be difficult as the devaluation of the Yen has stumbled at the magical round number of 100 JPY to the US Dollar. My FX trading activity remains challenged - I lost 1.5% in my direct portfolio during April (a few bad trades in week one and a few in week 4). I am a lot more focused on the strategies I use and that is helping. I have paid the price of having too many strategies in my armoury. My robot is a much simpler person than me and it managed close to 4% in April (and it too had a bad week in week 4), And my outsourced portfolio managed 2.2% in April after a horror start. FX Options trading is working a little better with new positions added on JPY pairs and a few more short on the Australian Dollar. The prime focus during the days has been trading breakouts on ASX listed stocks and long dated options on the US market at night. With options volatility at pretty low levels there is no shortage of opportunity to position well. With my trip coming up during June and July, I have spent a lot of time in the last week or so extending expiries on short term positions to the time I get back from Perth. That has been fun - new skills learned and not fully mastered (2 nights ago rolled 3 contracts incorrectly and had to retrace at some cost)
• Internet Marketing activity has been sporadic and not as focused as one needs. I have joined in a new mobile apps network marketing programme called Rippln. Like all MLM's it is grabbing its share of attention and detractors. What one cannot argue about is the impact they have made in getting 300,000 members signed up in two weeks. The basic idea is to build a platform so that members can benefit when mobile apps are shared rather than handing the cash to Apple or Google through their App Stores. If you want to join in my ripple just click on the image and collect your invite code. What I can say is my network has produced a reasonable number of members as I learn how to market.

 

 

The next few weeks has to be about FOCUS on getting fit - as we ride typically over 100 kms every day and it will be hot, I need to get out on the bike for several hours at a time. A few things will have to slide. I will pick one Internet Marketing initiative and get it going well enough so that it can run solo while I am travelling - in 3 weeks that should be a good target.

 

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