One thing I think we ALL agree on: There are way too many scams out there. Both online and off. Things like:

Email from a "millionaire who needs help transferring large sums of money" This is one of most popular scams online today.

How about "You`ve won lottery!!" mails? You know that unless you`ve bought a ticket, or registered for lottery in question, you haven`t really won a thing. Prepare to be scammed!

Oh, and "Free Credit Report" mails, did you know that they`re usually just someone looking to get your ssn number, or some of them even bill you for using their "free" service later?

Watch out for E-gold and Paypal scams, where someone sends you a mail telling you that you HAVE to login, or risk losing everything. Both E-gold and Paypal have strict email policies, and neither of them would EVER ask for your login info with an email.

Then there`s "You`ve won a free gift". How many of those do you get per week? All you have to do is pay s&h, right? Well, that means it isn`t really free, doesn`t it? You know what they get when you claim that free gift? Usually your credit card number, or even your email address/phone number which can then be sold on as "leads".

I`ve put together a bunch of links that can hopefully help you with safely marketing online, without getting scammed.

Minimize Credit Card Fraud http://www.scambusters.org/CreditCardFraud.html

Museum of Scams and Frauds (I really love this one) http://www.quatloos.com

Great list of online and offline scams http://www.crimes-of-persuasion.com/index.htm

A forum for discussing get paid programs. Good, Bad and Scams http://www.isaaf.com

List of scams with a touch of humour http://www.worldwidescam.com

The most profound observation that we all made was that most on-line newbies set their goals too low. This is often because of limitations in what they can convince themselves is possible. You see, until you have seen something done, you often view many things as impossible. After you see many people doing them, your concept of what is possible shifts radically.

Consider person barely able to make their monthly rent payment. To them earning $50,000 a year may seem like a big dream. However, person making $50,000 sets his goal on $100,000 although it may appear to be a big challenge to him. It magically seems more possible if that individual know anyone actually earning $100,000 a year. The person earning $100,000 a year, can see possibilities of earning $200,000 a year, and one earning this amount can imagine half a million.

As I sat in that room, chatting with someone who had made and lost many more millions than I could imagine, my personal perspective shifted dramatically. Just being exposed to someone who told me/showed me how it could be done convinced me that it was possible. It convinced me that I could do it... and I set out making it a reality :-)

At other times during this weekend I engaged in other brainstorming sessions on how to build mailing lists in excess of one million, how to get millions of visitors to your site, and how to market high-end products. Nobody in group doubted that these things could be done since we knew people who had done them. So our focus became how do *we* accomplish this.