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This will be my last post on Paris. There are WAY too many things to share about Paris, so I’m just going to give you some key highlights.

A big highlight was The Louvre Museum of Antiquities, which is-without a question-the TOP Museum in the world. Shilpi and I literally ran through the ENTIRE Louvre in ONE day.

If you don’t know how big the Louvre is, it’s something like 5 miles if you go through every room.

No Joke.

Here’s some highlights from the Louvre :

Here’s some highlights from Notre Dam & Sacre Couer, the epitome of European Cathedrals (along with Westminster Abby!):

Also check out this shot of the Eiffel Tower :

Also, on our final day in Paris Shilpi and I had a chance to do some shopping.

I’m telling you, there’s stuff you can get in Paris you simply can’t find in US.

Between the 2 of us we dropped over 3000 Euros!

I bought my first REAL suit, a Ermenegildo Zegna suit. There just something magical about wearing a designer suit, the look, the feel is like NOTHING ELSE!

I wouldn’t bludgeon you with what the suit costs. To give you an idea, it cost 50% more than the Armanis they were selling and the tie alone was over a 100 Euros!

I had a chance to wear my suit that night when we went to a nice family run French restaurant :

This French restaurant was not a gourmet restaurant with Foie gras or caviar, it was more like something you would get if you had dinner with a French family.

And the food was REALLY good!

Yum!

I miss French food already!

Having just gone to Paris, I learned a few things about French people and French culture.

Here’s the 10 requirements to passing off as a French Person :

1. Don’t Smile
2. Be Skinny
3. Drink More Wine Than Water
4. Don’t Wear a Beret - contrary to popular belief, very few French people wear berets. During my time in Paris I saw ONE guy with a Beret
5. Give Yourself a French Sounding Name - Especially important if you’re looking for a job in France
6. Have long meals, and be sure to chit chat and gesticulate during the entire course of the meal - you’re allowed to smile in this situation
7. Wear designer clothes - French people (and Italians as well) really know how to dress sharp.
8. Wear nice shoes - no sneakers - the easiest way to pick out an American Tourist in Paris is to look at their feet, they’re usually wearing sneakers!
9. Kiss your friends on the cheek when you meet them
10. And, of course, the most important, speak French PROPERLY

What can I tell you about Paris?

It’s a breathtaking city. Just imagine, it’s 2500 years old. That’s 2500 years of history and culture. The city itself is a museum, with many of the building dating back 100s of years, and archaeological sites going back to the time of the Romans. Paris is arguably the epicenter of European history (along with London and Rome).

Also, it’s changed.

Really, people are actually VERY friendly now. I heard a lot of horror stories about how rude Parisian are, but my wife and I experienced none of that, everyone we meet was extremely helpful and friendly.

Are trip was both exciting and intense, we saw : the Louvre, Notre Dame, Sacre Coeur, Versailles , Eiffel Tower, Champs Elysees, dinner cruise on the Seine river, and one day in London via Eurostar.

The Food

Now the French are famous for their food, and you know what, the food was REALLY good. I’m not talking about foie gras, escargot, or cavier, everyday French food is delicious!

Picture this : My wife and I went to a cafe everyday, just down the street from our hotel. We had fresh squeezed orange juice (not ordinary oranges, mediterranean oranges -yum!), ham and swiss sandwich on fresh baked bread (hot out of the oven), homemade crepes, and French yogurt!

You have not lived life until you’ve had French yogurt, I’m not kidding, it’s INCREDIBLE.

Check out the view from our hotel :

Here’s our day at Versailles :

Here’s some videos from our Seine river dinner cruise :

Stay tuned, more to come…

Okay, I love working from home but it’s really started to take a toll on my health. I was going to the gym 2-3 types a week, but doing nothing close to a ‘real’ workout.

My waistline was growing!

Then I talked to my friend Jeff, from SuperAffiliateLifestyle.com, to discover he had gotten a personal trainer.

Right then and there I decided to make a commitment in 2008 to get into shape. For the last several weeks I’ve had the pleasure of working with Dominic :

I’ve had 8 sessions so far and Dominic and he is seriously kicking my butt into shape - he used to be in the Air Force - so you can imagine the level of intensity he’s training me at. I’m doing 3 sessions with Dominic a week from 9 am to 10am in the morning! Plus on alternate days he’s having me come in on my own and do cardio.

I gotta tell ya, Dominic doesn’t pull any punches, I’m nearly passed out from exhaustion after each of our workouts.

And it’s GREAT!

I’ve NEVER worked out at this level of intensity in my life. I’m seeing incredible gains in muscle, energy levels, and endurance. My goal for the end of the year is to be 170 pounds with 10% body fat, I’m at 160 pounds with 20% body fat right now.

At the rate Dominic is working me I’m going to hit my goal is 4 months! I’m going to be totally ripped!

Having a personal trainer is AWESOME. There’s no way you can get anywhere close to the same workout or results doing it yourself, it’s a whole new level of working out, seriously.

I decided to do weight training with a personal trainer for the obvious benefits it provides :

1. improve health & fitness
2. increased energy levels
3. higher self-esteem
4. reduced stress levels
5. improved productivity & mental focus.

But you know what the biggest lesson I learned from Dominic?

I learned that to grow in any area of your life you have to continually push yourself out of your comfort zone. Dominic is always pushing to run at a higher speed on the treadmill, to do more weight in my weight lifting routine, etc, etc.

Just when he suspects I’ve adopted to the new higher level he’s set, he challenges me again by raising the bar yet higher.

Dominic is continually pushing my out of my comfort zone, as any great personal trainer would, forcing my body to adopt and grow at a phenomenal rate.

This applies to you affiliate business as well.

You have to be willing to continually push yourself out of your comfort zone, doing things you feel uncomfortable doing, if you want to grow your business at a phenomenal  rate.

For many of you that could be building a landing page, finding some outsources and building a team, testing different ppc affiliate strategies, going on forums and reaching out to people and networking.

These are all things at one point or another that took me out of my comfort zone.

If you’re already a super affiliate making big bucks, then start thinking about how you can push yourself out of your comfort zone to take your business to the next level.

I can tell you right now I’m working on a bunch of projects right now that are pushing me out of my comfort zone, because regardless of what happens in those projects I know that’s what I need to do to grow myself (my skills, my thinking, etc), and as a result, grow my business to the next level.

If you want to have a multimillion dollar business you have to FIRST grow and become the type of person that can handle a multimillion dollar business.

The best way to do that is to face your fears and step out of your comfort zone - continually.

I’ve thought about getting an office space outside of my home for a long time now, and I finally decided against it. Instead I choose to turn my home office into a REAL office.

In the past two months I’ve spend literally thousands on totally transforming my home office. Everything in my home office was either moved to storage or outright trashed and replace with really slick solid cherry wood furniture.

Here’s me at my old desk:

Now, check it out, here’s my new desk with my NEW Mac Pro (I’ll talk about this baby in a second!):

Here’s some cherry wood bookshelves, that are also apart of the office :

Now after totally revamping my office, I decided, what the heck, I might as well buy some new computer as well. Besides I was getting frustrated running a multimillion dollar business off of a small laptop.

So I went all the way, I bought a top of the line completely souped up Mac Pro with 8 processors and 10 GB of RAM, YES, 10 GB of RAM! I got Shilpi an iMac with 4GB of RAM.

Check it out…

We also bought a high end Brother networking printer as well…

I actually hired a Mac consultation to configure and network all our computers and printer plus setup Parallels, which is a really neat program that allows you to run Windows on your Mac. It’s SO COOL, thanks to Parallels I can now run the 2 or 3 Windows only programs that I need on my Mac seamlessly!

It hard to really put in words how cool and how fast my Mac Pro is with the new OS X Leapord operating system, other than that it’s blazing fast with graphics and features that would blown your mind!

Now a lot of you may be asking : “Amit, why did you spend over $10k totally revamping your office and buying new computers??”

It’s all about mindset!

The environment that you create around you effects your attitude, your mental focus, and your productivity. I can’t tell you how many times I felt frustrated & stressed out working off a laptop on a tiny adjustable table.

With my new office, new desk, and new computer, I feel I can conquer any challenge!

It’s an amazing feeling.

And YES my productivity and mental focus has really improved with the new office environment, not to mention the fact I just LOVE working on my new Mac.

It’s so COOL

Okay, I don’t a have time to talk about everything Shilpi and I did in India, so let me tell you about the major highlight…a 3 day trip to Jaipur in the northern desert state of Rajasthan.

Jaipur is a place full of intrigue and rich history of the Rajas (Kings) that once ruled India. I don’t have time to get into a history lesson here, but the Rajas & Ranis (Queen) live a spectacular life. They live in palaces beyond your imagination.

Just check out some of the amazing forts and palaces we saw :

To top that off we actually stayed in Heritage hotel, which was a palace converted into a luxury hotel. Everything was very well preserved, it was like living staying in a museum.

It was absolutely stunning!

Now what’s really cool is that Shilpi and I had booked a basic suite for 2 night for me and my parents at $950/night. We had booked it with the black card and ended up getting an upgrade to the TOP room in the entire hotel.

Do you know what the top room in this hotel was?

IT WAS THE KING THRONE ROOM AND BEDROOM!?!

Check it out…

Here’s the front entrance :

Here’s shot from the throne room that we were staying in :

Here’s the view from our room of one of the multiple courtyards in this palace hotel :

Here’s the bedroom where the Raja and Rani slept, it’s where Shilpi and I stayed for two nights!

The bedroom itself was HUGE with a huge bathroom with every amenity you can imagine.

Okay, to TOP THAT OFF, I arranged a private dinner for 4 : myself, Shilpi, and my parents, where we rented out one of the courtyards and were treated like Kings and Queens for a evening.

It’s all started with a 5 minute firework display for JUST THE 4 OF US! Then they rolled out the red carpet, announced our names, had live music playing and a lady dancing in front of us as we walked to out to our seats in the middle of the courtyard. They held an umbrella over us as we walked, and another person fanning us as we walked.

It was exactly the way they treated a Raja and Rani when they entered a room in the palace for an event. We were all blown away to say the least.

Forget about imagining how Kings and Queens lived in those days, we actually experience it!

Once we took our seat in our lavish chairs we were waited for hand and foot with one appetizers after another as we walked a phenomenal performance of traditional dance and even fire eaters!

This performer is balancing 8 pots on her head WHILE dancing :

Here’s the fire guy :

Btw, the red, white, and yellow you see where performers are performing is are ALL fresh flower petals!?!

After the performance they played live music as we move to our dining area :

Yes, those are all fresh flowers hanging down, MORE FRESH FLOWERS THAN I HAD IN MY WEDDING!

I won’t bludgeon you with the cost but the night was worth every penny I paid, it was truly a once in a lifetime experience.

One more thing, while I was an India I had a chance to fly around in Jet Airways and King Fisher, both Indian airlines. I gotta tell you, the economy class in these airlines have better service and give more food for a 45 minute flight than first class in a US airlines for a 3 hour flight.

No Joke!

This was my 6th or 7th trip to India ever since I first went when I was about 1 and a half years old. I gotta tell you, every trip to India is an AMAZING experience.

This is my 3rd trip to India since they started implementing economic reforms and started moving towards a first world market economy. And each time I’ve gone the changes have been remarkable!

At the rate India’s economy is growing and creating wealth it will blow pass the US in 10-20 years from now.

No joke.

This time around I saw the biggest changes yet : the infrastructure has dramatically improved, especially the roads and the airports.

The airports are just as good as the US, and extremely fast, efficient, and yes, air conditioned, a far cry to what they used to be in the last eighties when I remember spending 8 HOURS at the Mumbai airport because someone had stolen our luggage.

The roads have also improved, I remember going to India in the past and having to hold on tightly while riding in a taxi or a car, if you didn’t your head would hit the ceiling every time you hit a pothole - which was about every 3o seconds!

Now the roads in Mumbai (my first stop) are just as good as Boston roads, and sometimes better-you know what I’m talking about if you’ve ever road down Commonwealth Ave.

LOL

Air quality has also improved in the cities now thanks to the widespread use of unleaded gas and natural gas. Now the major problem is all dust resulting from a lack of landscaping, but even this is improving in cities such as Vadodara in Gujarat.

It’s amazing how entrepreneurs can transform & uplift a country when they’re freed from draconion government controls and protectionist thinking, something our government seems to have long forgotten, but I’ll get into that later!

Anyhow, let me tell you more about my trip…

My wife and I had the pleasure of taking business class on Lufthansa airlines.

If you’ve never flown business or first on a long haul flight before you’re missing out! It’s an awesome experience. Gourmet food + a fully reclinable seat makes for a virtually stress free flight. If you have the cash this is one area NOT to be stingy in, pay the extra several thousand and fly in style.

The only thing that sucked was the whopping 7 hour layover at Frankfort airport.

Our trip started in Mumbai where Shilpi and I were staying with Bhaveshbhai and Sejalbhen. Shilpi and I were blown away by their hospitality. They provided us with one of their 2 bedroom and fed us so much food we could barely get out of our chairs.

If that wasn’t enough they coordinated our whole stay in Mumbai, sightseeing and all.

Bhaveshbhai actually gave us a tour of Mumbai by car. We saw a number of major sites, museums, homes of Bollywood actors/actresses, the Gateway of India, and we also had a chance to see some of the new modern buildings and developments coming up in Mumbai …very cool.

Here’s a picture of myself and Shilpi with my parents, Sejalbhen (next to Shilpi), Seryabhen to the right, parth (Sejal’s son - holding on to Sejal), and Ishan (Serya’s son - between Sejal and Serya) :

Here’s another picture that includes Bhaveshbhai (green shirt and glasses) :

Also check out the gateway of India :

Another thing I love about Mumbai is the food.

Every time I come to Mumbai I always indulge in a South Asian delight call Falooda. You can read all about it here.

It’s amazing, and you can’t get it in the US.

Overall, I have to say that the people, the culture, the hospitality in India are simply amazing. Oh yeah, my mom and my wife also had a blast shopping!

I can’t wait to tell you about the rest of my trip in Part II.

So stay tuned…

There’s one productivity tip I left off in my last post, do you know what that is?

Taking FREQUENT vacations of course!

This productivity tip works best AFTER you quit your job. LOL

In the spirit of living the Super Affiliate Lifestyle, my wife and I are yet again taking a vacation. This one is more than just a vacation, it’s near and dear to my heart…

We’re going to India for the first time together. We’re going to meet up with family and visit Mumbai (in Maharashtra), Gujarat, Rajesthan, and some other cool places.

Seriously, I’ve almost lost count of how many trips Shilpi and I have already taken this year, here a list:

1. Bermuda
2. Alaska
3. Vancouver & Victoria
4. Austin, TX (3 times)
5. Houston, TX (twice)
6. NJ (twice)
7. Las Vegas (twice)
8. Miami
9. Chicago (twice)

I NEVER could have done this if I was still working a job for two reasons:

Lack of Time : I spend WAY more time traveling than the 2-4 weeks vacation time you get in a job

Lack of Money : I will have spend over $50k traveling (that includes conferences) once I tally in the India trip!?! There’s no way I could even come close to paying for this if I was still working at MIT.

I love traveling, especially to other countries where I can experience different people, cultures, sites, and cuisines (yum!)

Shilpi and I plan on traveling even more in 2008.

So what’s India like?

I’ll tell you all about it when I get back!

PS While I’m gone I’m going to ask some of my closest and very successful friends in the business to do some guest posts. They really know what they’re talking about and have a LOT to share, so stay tuned!

I have to admit, Christmas time is my FAVORITE time of the year. I love the opportunity to spend more time with family, to travel, and all that.

In fact my wife and I are going to India this Christmas to visit relatives and vacation.

Now as a super affiliate I REALLY LOVE Christmas, because December is by far my best month in terms of sales and profits.

Up to around Dec 14th my sales overall completely sucked this month, I thought to myself : “What’s going on??”

Then today I almost fell out of my chair when I checked my Dec 15th sales stats for just one of my affiliate accounts. Check it out:

$14,816 in sales in ONE DAY

I ended up netting over $10k profit, in ONE DAY!

UNREAL!

For all you job people out there, how’s that for a year end Christmas bonus? LOL

What’s nuts is that this is ONLY the beginning, between Dec 20-Jan 1st is really the big time to cash in, when conversions and traffic in a lot of online markets go through the roof!

When you take the time to really build an affiliate campaign, I mean build it solid, with a real site, dozens of targeted landing pages, a massive keyword list, the rewards just keep coming in!

This campaign, that made almost $15k in one day - you know what, I spend a short but intense period of time launching and optimizing it.

Now it’s on virtual autopilot, bring in massive profits, month, after month, after month!

I LOVE THIS BUSINESS!

When you start spending big money with Adwords, Google periodically sends you presents, which are usually cool little gizmos of one sort or another.

Okay, I have to admit, my favorite gift from Google is the mini fridge, you can see mine in the lower right hand corner of this picture:

You know you’re a super affiliate when you get that mini fridge in the mail! LOL

Seriously you have to spend some serious cash with Google before they send you one.

Before that Google had sent me a digital photo display gizmo, which I ended up throwing away.

Now just yesterday I received the coolest gadget to date from Google :

Do you know what this is?

It’s a 2GB portable hard drive that’s the size of a credit card!

Pretty Cool!

Not as cool as an Amex Black card but I had to spend way more money to qualify for this little Google present than I did to qualify for my black card!

You’d think if you spend over $1,000,000 with Google in one year they’d fly you to their headquarters and throw you a party along with all the other high spenders.

Still waiting on that invitation!