In my review of Secrets of the Millionaire Mind, I basically just said “this is awful, don’t buy it.” I didn’t expect that review to get much attention, but it did. There was a lot of discussion in the comments about how much your mindset matters compared to the more tangible things.

I think mastering the inner game is hugely important; I just don’t think that book was very helpful in this regard. But today I came across something that is.

Mary Anne Fischer’s site is called i Profit On Purpose, and there are a couple of double meanings here. The lowercase “i” is for “internet,” as in i[insert Apple product here], and “on purpose” refers to life purpose. So it’s about consciously creating an online business that fits with who you are.

She has a free ebook called “What Everybody Ought to Know About Making Money Online.” It had been on my list of things to read, but I didn’t get around to it until Michael Martine gushed over Mary Anne in his latest Remarkablogger newsletter.

He got an early look at her not-yet-launched program and loved it. And while I haven’t seen her program, I can tell from her ebook that she knows what she’s talking about. She talks about things like core strengths, core genius, and the “you” factor, putting it all together to help you create an online business that’s both profitable and enjoyable.

I read through it pretty quickly because I’m trying to leave town, but I saw it as a very extensive overview of the personal considerations that most people ignore when building an online business. I’m very curious to learn more, and I hear from Michael that a lot more is coming.

If you get on her list, you’ll have a chance to win a full scholarship to her program when it launches, but the deadline is 1 AM EST Sunday morning. Sorry for the short notice, but I just discovered it myself.

Let me ask a very loaded question to get some conversation going: do you think an online business should take your passions, strengths, and life purpose into account, or is it better to follow a one-size-fits-all solution?

I just wanted to post an update about Naomi Dunford’s Online Business School, now that I’ve finished going through most of it. I just sold another one this morning, so I know some of you want to learn about Naomi’s six types of online income streams:

• Coaching/consulting
• Services
• Selling physical stuff
• Ebooks/downloads
• Niche sites
• Affiliate marketing

Plus these bonuses:

• Two sections of Dave Navarro’s 30 Hours A Day program to help you get more time, money, and freedom.
• Two audios from Havi Brooks to help you find a peaceful place in the midst of all this financial uncertainty, worry and fear.
• James Chartrand and Harrison McLeod’s Write For The Web so you can write good website copy, niche sites, or become a freelance writer.
• Michael Martine’s SEO-Nomicon: SEO Magic for WordPress to get serious traffic to your site.
• Josh Hohman’s Fool-Proof Niche Control Using Silos, which Naomi says is kind of like her niche websites module on steroids.
• Naomi’s own personal Rolodex of the products and services and websites that make IttyBiz run smoothly.
• And Naomi’s favorite, the Emergency Money Plan, for when you have no start-up capital and you need to pay rent by the first and you don’t have a clue what to do.

I haven’t gotten to any of the bonuses yet, but I’ve gone through the six modules, each consisting of text, audio, and video. It’s good, really good.

I see it mainly as a great high-level view. There are lots of different ways you can go about making money online, and you don’t want to waste time chasing the wrong thing while missing opportunities that would be better suited for you. So you want to know what your options are, and what they really entail, so you can have a plan to keep you focused.

It doesn’t cover every little question you could possibly have about everything, but it does contain a lot of information that you really don’t want to miss. For example, in the ebooks module, I learned that when you launch an ebook, you’re not supposed to just tell everyone it’s ready. You’re supposed to have an actual launch process, a well-planned and executed strategy, just like when they launch the Space Shuttle. (And since an ebook launch is a full topic by itself, Naomi will try to upsell you on her and Dave Navarro’s How to Launch the **** Out Of Your Ebook. That’s the only upsell, and I bought it because, well, I write ebooks.)

It occurs to me that bundling products is a great deal for everyone. It’s good for the customers because all these things would add up to way more than $397 separately (one hour of Naomi’s consulting time alone is $500), but it’s a great deal when you buy them together. And it’s good for the seller because by selling one big product instead of a bunch of little products, you scare away the most price-sensitive people, who Naomi says are very demanding customers. (As in, they ask you why you have the gall to charge $9 for your ebook when someone else is selling one on the same topic for $8.97. But someone who can afford an $897 product wouldn’t think twice about paying $900 for something that’s a lot better.)

Oh, and I make a brief cameo appearance in the video for the services module. For just a few seconds, my name is visible on Akemi’s Akashic Record reading page. Ironically, I saw this just half an hour after meeting another one of my spirit guides.

So, if you were interested in Online Business School but putting it off, now would be a good time to snag it. Naomi offers a knock-your-socks-off guarantee if you don’t love it: your money back, or personal coaching to make it work for you.

Today, Naomi Dunford is releasing Online Business School at 3 PM Eastern. I’ve mentioned this before; it’s her home study course that explains how she’s making over $200,000 this year from six income streams:

• consulting
• services
• selling physical stuff
• ebooks
• niche sites
• affiliate marketing

This includes audio, video, transcripts, bonuses, and “all that other stuff that I think is required by law in the info product industry,” as she says. I don’t know what all the bonuses are, but I just learned that one of them is Michael Martine’s home study course on WordPress search engine optimization.

I’ve really been looking forward to Online Business School. A couple of months ago, I asked Naomi to put together something like this, a practical guide to learning about the best ways to make money online, and then how to actually implement them. I was pleased to hear that she was already working on it!

But why do we need this from Naomi instead of any of the other gurus? Isn’t there already a whole bunch of information out there? Yes, but (1) unlike some people, we know that Naomi is actually doing these things, so she knows what she’s talking about, and (2) she’s very direct, easy to understand, and even entertaining.

Now, let’s get to the downside. I know it’s not fair for me to talk about the downside of a product that I haven’t even seen yet. However, it’s going to take me a while to get through everything, and this is a time sensitive offer, so I think I have to make a guess about what the imperfection in this product will be.

I say imperfection because I know that nothing is going to be “wrong” with it. Everything Naomi does is good. But still, I don’t think making a living online is easy, no matter what information you have. So I don’t think this will be a magic cure-all. It will still take brains and effort to put this stuff into practice. But you already knew that, right?

I like how she’s covering six diverse income streams instead of just one. You might not like all of them, but you can see what the possibilities are before choosing the ones you want to pursue. Personally, I’ve never been a fan of niche sites, and I don’t really see myself selling physical products. But I couldn’t stop doing ebooks and affiliate marketing, and I guess I’m already providing services to some extent, and consulting is something I’ve always had in mind. So you have a lot of flexibility here.

Now, what does all this cost? As you might have guessed, it’s not cheap: $397. But wait–here’s the good news. The first 2,000 copies will be discounted to $197. And yeah, that’s still a lot, but it’s a small price if it stops you from spinning your wheels or making mistakes that cost you money. And if for some reason you don’t like it, Naomi will either refund your money or personally coach you–your choice! This isn’t something you want to wait on, because she thinks she could possibly sell the first 2,000 copies today.

It must be nice to possibly make $394,000 in one day. ($197 * 2000, although that assumes no affiliate commissions. It also took months of work beforehand, so it’s not really one day.) That’s how you know Naomi knows her stuff! Want to learn how to do that? Well, that’s what Online Business School is about!

Update 3:30 PM: It looks like you have a little more time, because Naomi is suddenly having bandwidth issues. (Gee, I wonder why?) She hopes to have it up sometime later today.

Naomi Dunford at IttyBiz just posted Why We’re Broke and How To Fix It. It’s about the history of how we went from being Jacks of all trades to being helplessly dependent on so many people for our survival.

At the end, she drops the fact that IttyBiz has made over $176,000 so far this year from six different types of income streams (and if you didn’t know, she used to be homeless). And she’s going to turn this thing into a series. Part 2: how she did it; part 3: how she helped a client make $500 an hour for consulting; part 4: answering our specific questions about creating a “a safe, non-scuzzy portfolio of online income streams.”

It’s free, but you have to sign up to receive the free updates. Naomi uses AWeber, so you know she couldn’t spam you even if she wanted to.

However, Naomi has turned off comments. But you can leave comments here. Go check out her post, then come back and let’s talk.

*** INTERMISSION – Go read Why We’re Broke and How To Fix It, then come back to comment ***

Here’s what I’m thinking. Back in the 1950s, it was OK to be specialized because jobs were safe in the U.S. If your job was to optimize the performance of widget A for company X, you could count on having that same job at the same company for 35 years.

But today, jobs aren’t safe, and you can lose any job through no fault of your own. What happens when company X has layoffs, or shuts down, or moves overseas? You now have to try finding a job with company Y. Only company Y doesn’t make widget A, they make widget B. So what happens to all your years of experience in optimizing widget A? It’s all wasted.

Think that’s a stretch? The last time I went looking for a job as a .NET developer, every recruiter asked if I used C# or VB. Their clients wanted them to ask, but I had to explain to the recruiters that these languages are functionally equivalent, they have only minor syntax differences between them, and anyone can switch between the two. So whatever the client wanted, that’s what I had.

Somehow we’ve been reduced to a skill set that keeps getting narrower. Shouldn’t things like performance and drive matter a lot more than what model of widget you worked with?