VidPenguin Productions Blog

While appearing on Craig Ferguson's Late Late Show, Trace Atkins, a country superstar, shares his story about his childhood and life before he was famous.

Trace was a DJ in the Southwest for five years. He then moved to Nashville and continued playing in bars for three more years before he signed his first recording deal.

Trace states, "I had always had very happy club owners. I would challenge people not to drink as much from the stage as I did." I sold lots of liquor. This is the...

Setting aside every self-help book out there, I’d like to propose the theory that there is ONE thing you need to be successful and that you are already in possession of this thing.

You don’t know it yet.

Ten years ago, two marketers started their online journey. They both endured similar pitfalls and setbacks.

One went on to make millions.

The other one failed miserably and worked a 9 to 5 job.

What made the difference?

The mind-flip.

Imagine you have a switch in your brain, and...

Fortunes are made when people think out of the box and ask questions no one else is asking. What happens when you pair X with Y to make Z? Sometimes nothing happens, and other times fortunes are made. Pairing two ideas together to create a third is ‘idea sex.’ I don’t know who coined the term, but I’ve heard James Altucher use it often.

The founder of Netflix had to pay Blockbuster $50 for a long-overdue movie. Then he went to the gym, got on the treadmill, and started...

Did you just lose your job?

Did your business just close?

Are you feeling like less than a success?

You’re not alone -and in fact, you’re in very good company.

These folks all experienced failure before reaching their ultimate success.

1: This guy dropped out of Harvard and co-owned a failed business called Traf-o-Data. Not an auspicious start. But then Bill Gates went on to build the world’s largest software company.

2: This aspiring writer received this rejection notice:...

Gene Wilder was a movie star, director and arguably one of the funniest people who ever lived.

During an interview, he gave this account of his start in comedy:

“I was 8 or 9 years old when my mother had a heart attack. When she came home, the doctor said, ‘Don’t ever get into an argument with your mother because you might kill her.’”

No pressure there, right?

“And the second thing he said was, ‘Try to make her laugh.’”

“I had never...

I was reading a classic the other day – The One Minute Entrepreneur.

This is a distillation of the first couple of chapters, including the very same notebook idea that so many self-made people have used to build their fortunes.

There once was a young man in high school who found himself in jail, accused of having illegal drugs. This student wasn’t a bad person by any means. He had friends, decent grades, a girlfriend who loved him and a place on the football team.

But he...

We’re living in one of those movies where a virus threatens humanity; some of the leaders don’t pay attention to the scientists, and everything looks hopeless while the protagonists' race to save lives and find a cure despite the politicians best efforts to be total idiots.

Then the heroes save the day, all is well, and we can leave the movie theater relieved it was ‘just a movie.’

Except that now we are trapped on the movie screen, the director is gone, and there is...

With the world essentially turned upside down right now, maybe it’s a good time to forget about getting things perfect and instead simply concentrate on getting them done.

Whatever your specialty is, reach out to people on social media and see who you can help. I think you’ll find that people are much more open right now to receiving help from a kind stranger.

Offer two ears to listen and one mouth to offer solutions to whatever they are facing. In other words, do more listening...

There is an old piece of advice that says you should always, ALWAYS pay yourself first. Take 10% off the top of everything you earn and save it, invest it, and, most of all, keep it for yourself.

You save this 10% off the top before you pay any bills before you pay taxes before you buy food or pay the mortgage.

And over time, that 10% will add up to significant money and even financial freedom.

But there’s another 10% I want to talk about, and it’s time.

If you’re spending...