If you love gaming as much as I do, then you’re probably looking for ways to justify your time dedicated to pillaging villages and completing epic quests. Well fear not, my game loving friends, there actually happen to be extremely beneficial lessons to be learned from the online realms of adventure.

The spirit behind most multiplayer online games is in community. The more you interact with each other, the richer your experience with the game is. Through my time spent in these alternate worlds, I’ve discovered a few key correlations that can be applied to the business world. So if you’re ready to level up your Intelligence, read on…

Lesson #1: Be Where The People Are
Often times in games you need the help of others for a variety of reasons. You might need an item they have, help finishing a quest, or guidance in finding a particular location. In all these instances, you have a greater chance of connecting with someone who can help if you are in one of the major cities, simply because that’s where the greatest number of people are. In real life, when you want to make connections with like-minded individuals, you need to be where they are. In the social media realm, those “cities” are places like Twitter or Facebook. Where are your people? Do some research and find out where your peers and customers are. That’s where you need to be making connections.

Lesson #2: Have a Quest or Mission Others Can Get Behind
Once you’ve found where you should be most visible, you need to give people a reason to befriend you. In gaming, it’s usually an invitation to join in a battle to the death over the destiny of the online world. In real life, your mission may not be quite as epic, but it should still be something that inspires and motivates. What is your quest? What is it that you are trying to achieve? Use that as your base and find creative ways to spread your message so you’ll pick up helpers and followers.

Lesson #3: Reward People for Networking with You
Loot is a powerful motivator in online games. Everyone wants their just rewards for helping out. In real life, it’s not much different. People want to know that you appreciate their efforts and gifts of time. Make sure to leave no doubt of your gratitude. The more you can give back and reward contributors, the closer your connection will be with them. They’ll also consider you a valuable ally for future business adventures.

Lesson #4: Keep In Frequent Contact
When you’re faced with the possibility of connecting with over eleven million players, it’s easy to forget about someone. If you’ve made a valuable connection, keep the momentum going with frequent communication. Drop a line to see how they are doing, take them out to lunch, or connect with a quick chat or message via Twitter or Facebook. If you stay on a person’s radar, you’ll never be far from their mind.

Lesson #5: Join or Create a Guild (Tribe)
When you find people you want to connect with on a daily basis, or when you’re looking for a group to help you level up and complete quests, you usually join a guild. The guild then becomes your online family, the place you go for help and friendly banter. In the real world, finding a like-minded group or tribe is essential to growing and getting support in your field of choice. Now that online communities are so prevalent, it’s even easier to find a group willing to accept you into their fold. With the right group, you’ll find an amazing support system ready and able to help you achieve your goals of a true epic destiny.

While the online world is a great break from the stresses of your daily life, nothing quite compares to the feeling of real life achievement. If you use these tips, you may find the adventure of your real life even more rewarding then your latest online achievement.

Do you have a passion for gaming? In what ways has gaming helped or hindered your business goals?

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How much time do you spend reading Twitter updates, Facebook posts or your RSS feeds? How often to you visit your favorite websites or read an inspiring book? All these actions can be extremely beneficial for your self-improvement and business success, however, there can be a downside if you’re not monitoring your exposure.

With so much information easily accessible at our fingertips, it’s easy to reach information overload. This is when you’ve taken in so much information that you’re almost paralyzed from making any forward progress. You have so many ideas or concepts in your head that your mind just gives up in confusion.

Luckily, the solution to this problem is simple. The best way to handle too much information is to output information or ideas. There’s a measurable balance between outflow and inflow. The more you outflow, the more able you are to receive new ideas and inspiration. If you really want to move forward, make sure to take a break from “receiving” good ideas and shift to “giving” them instead.

Some examples of this in action:

• When you read an inspiring book, instead of going straight to the next one, give some time for the ideas to really sink in and then force yourself to “do” something about it.
• If you spend an hour reading Twitter or Facebook updates, spend some time actually posting some yourself.
• If you’re reading articles, engage in the conversation by leaving comments.
• Reading emails daily? Send some out to your subscribers or get caught up with business contacts.

The beauty of this formula is that it works for many other areas of your life besides informational intake. If you’re not experiencing the growth you desire in an area, put more attention on it and find ways to output information or ideas. It’s definitely an application of “you reap what you sow.”

So, how can you benefit from a little outflow today?

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“You can’t build a reputation on what you intend to do.” –Liz Smith

I love this quote. So often we get so caught up in what we want to do that we forget to just go out and do it. It’s far easier to think about doing something great than to actually get up and try to do it (and possibly fail).

No one wants to do something wrong or make mistakes. Even if it’s a necessary evil in life, it doesn’t feel great. The fact still remains that most people will do everything they can to avoid feeling pain or embarrassment.

So how do you overcome the fear factor and chug along anyway? Here are my tips for pushing through the wall of fear.

1. Realize what you’re feeling is completely normal.
The more amazing, incredible or potential-filled your idea is, the more resistance you’re going to feel about moving forward. In fact, the closer you get to realizing your idea, the harder your lizard brain is going to try to stop you. Everyone goes through this. What separates the successful from the dreamers is the courage to push past your internal naysaying.

2. Get clear about exactly what you’re doing.
Sometimes a lack of preparation can cloud judgement and create extra roadblocks that don’t need to be there. A confused mind stops in its tracks. It doesn’t want to take any steps forward because it doesn’t know which way is forward. With a proper road map, it’s much easier to reach your destination. If you’ve found yourself hesitating for long periods before taking any action, more than likely you’re not clear as to what specific action to take. Take some time and really put together a plan of attack for what you’re trying to do. Even if it’s the wrong thing to do at first, some action is better than no action.

3. Think positively about your outcome as often as you can.
Consider this step a way to retrain the negative tape running through your head. Everything you want to achieve or have is possible. It’s just a matter of finding a way to make it happen. Sit down and really think about how this project or endeavor will benefit you. What do you hope to achieve from it? As often as you can, consciously think about it. Imagine how it will feel and what it will be like when you’ve reached your goal or hit your target. Keep that thought in your mind as often as possible.

4. Have an accountability buddy.
It’s funny how we’re more concerned with letting someone else down than we are ourselves. When it comes to motivation, however, this is a great trait to exploit. Let someone in on what you’re doing and keep checking in with them. If you have a group or following, let them know your goals and keep them updated with your progress. You’re more likely to follow through with something when you’re being held accountable for it.

5. Be realistic.
While every goal is attainable, you might not get the results in exactly the fashion or time frame you were looking for. Keep an open mind about when and how you’ll attain your goal. Sometimes, what seemed like a roadblock ends up being blessing in disguise. If you’ve planned ahead for these possible interruptions, they’ll feel less like detours and more like small speed bumps.

It takes a lot of courage to put yourself out there and create something. However, it always pays off in the end, even if they only payment is wisdom gained through the failure. I’ve shared my own personal habits for pushing through the wall of fear. How do you push through yours?

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Unless you’ve been under a rock these past few years, you probably know about Facebook. If it’s a tool you’ve overlooked in your marketing efforts, you might want to reconsider. Its 500+ million active users share more than 30 billion pieces of content each month. In fact, the average Facebook user is connected to 80 community pages, groups and events. If you want to be where the people are, then you need to know how to leverage Facebook to find potential clients, connections and sales.

There are two ways to use Facebook to promote your business – via your own personal account and through Facebook’s Pages feature. In this lesson, I’m going to talk about marketing via your own personal account. I’ll address how to use Facebook Pages in an upcoming post in this series.

When you start to think of Facebook as a business tool, the question of privacy and how much to share with work and personal contacts can become a concern. Most people don’t want to let their boss or clients know “exactly” what they did over the weekend. Lucky for us, Facebook has set up a great way to control exactly what your connections see. You can control just about anything, so you can feel comfortable and secure using your Facebook account as a medium for business, while still saying your hellos to Mom.

Getting this kind of security is achieved through a feature called “lists.” This feature allows you to create lists, similar to Twitter, that you can add your friends to. Then you can go through and create privacy setting based on these lists that will determine who can see what. To get started, use this simple tutorial as a guide.

STEP ONE: Set Up Your Lists

1. Click the Account link on the top right of page. A drop down menu will appear. From there, click the “Edit Friends” link.

2. On the left side of this page you’ll see a list of links. Under the Lists heading, click the “Friends” link.

3. A list of all of your friends will now appear. At the top of this list will be a button that says “Create New List.” Click this to begin creating a new list. These lists allow you to separate your friends and family from work or professional contacts.

4. Once the lists are created, add your contacts to the appropriate list. I like to make sure I keep everyone in just one list so I don’t accidentally expose someone to content I don’t want them to see.

1. Click the Account link on the top right of page. A drop down menu will appear. From click the “Privacy Settings” link.

2. At the bottom of the chart there is a link that says “Customize Settings.” Click this to personalize your settings.

3. You’ll find three areas where you can customize your settings. The first is controlling who sees what you are sharing. The second determines who sees what other people post on your wall or about you. The third handles your contact information. Go through and create your settings. If you want to exclude a list from seeing something, click on the Customize link. Begin typing who you wish to exclude in the “Hide this from” section. You can exclude multiple lists using this feature.

Sometimes you want to post something that is outside your created settings. You can do this with the privacy feature when you post your status updates. Next to the Share button is a lock icon. Click this and you will see a drop down menu. Click on “Customize” to set who you want to exclude your status update from. Just like in the privacy settings, you can also exclude by list.

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