We are not even dealing with kind of punishment you might get at school or a correctional institution. We are talking about toughest kind of discipline: regular, old-fashioned, grit-your-teeth self-discipline. I can hear groans but I don’t know why Discipline has become so unpopular. You should treat it as a good friend, shake hands with Discipline and give him a clap on back — invite him in to look around your home office and get his opinion of your plans.

Discipline will strengthen you and make it easier for you to get organised and stay organised; consider taking him in as a business partner. It is Discipline which will help you to keep going in face of difficulties. It is Discipline which will help you fit in million and one things which will be clamouring for your attention when you first start out as your own boss.

OK, you are boss and you can take a day off when you like without asking permission from anybody else. Great! Fantastic! Wonderful! Yes, it is just as you wanted it to be — but who is going to cover for you during your absence? Who is going to sort out your schedule, arrange for your mail to be acknowledged, make sure your diary is up to date? Aha, now you see it. The answer is “you” because there is nobody else. You, that is, and your good buddy, Discipline, who will steadfastly see you through this potentially difficult situation.

If you have a vacation planned, you will have a date to work to and, even if you are lackadaisical in your running of your business and allow tasks to pile up, you will know how long you have in which to get things sufficiently ship-shape for you to be able to take off without leaving your business in a mess.

What if you decide to take a day off at short notice (like, just when you wake up one morning)? That is one of great things about being boss but wouldn’t it be easier if your work was right up to date, everything neat and organised? Wouldn’t you be more relaxed if machine was running smoothly?

If so, don't forget your often most-fertile marketing territory--your own backyard!

* REALITY CHECK

The promise of Internet is that it can literally bring your product or service to a global marketplace, quickly and economically. Just think of all potential customers you might reach in "cyber" mode versus a traditional "bricks and mortar" approach. The numbers can be staggering.

We must ask ourselves, however, if lure and promise of greater reach via Internet is "real" or if it's simply "wishful thinking"? Does Internet represent reality for our business or just possibility?

In my opinion, for most of us, it's latter. The Internet makes it "possible" for us to reach a wider audience, but it does not guarantee we will. After all, person on other end of cyber pipeline needs to first know about your product or service. He or she then needs to discover your Web site, take initiative to visit your Web site, and then once at your site, actually buy your product or service.

And just as Internet might open up whole world to YOUR product or service, so too does it open up world for products and services of hundreds (if not thousands) of competitors--many of whom are likely to have deeper pockets that can get them noticed more quickly and more effectively than you.

Simply put, when you introduce Internet into mix, pond in which you swim is suddenly a whole lot bigger!

* THE LOCAL APPROACH

To market my recently published novel, "CURRENTS-Every Life Leaves an Imprint," I took a different approach--an approach that is starting to pay some small, yet encouraging dividends.