One of the most difficult things in life is making decisions. You only have to reflect on the number of times you’ve broken a New Year’s resolution or diet to get a glimpse into the fact that many of us are really bad at following through on our decisions.

The result of our inability to make a decision is often or not empowering other people to make them on our behalf. For instance, if you are struggling financially you can either take the difficult road of reducing your expenses or let the bank make the decision on your behalf.

Let me share with you a story from my life. Just under twenty years ago I had a thriving business, was worth millions (on paper) and thought the world was my oyster. Within the space of twenty-four hours I went from hero to zero when an investor reneged on a commitment. My wife and I were instantly thrust into dire financial circumstances.

We immediately examined all our expenses, sold our cars, bought a cheap buzz box so that our expense line was massively reduced. We jammed ourselves and our three kids into a bright yellow Mazda 121 and even though we copped a lot of ridicule we knew that it would only be temporary. It was a difficult decision to stay the course, but we continued moving forward.

Have you ever wondered why advertisers keep on paying for domain traffic year after year? Despite all the naysayers out there saying that domain traffic monetisation is dead it seems to keep on getting better….yes, you just heard me right.

Domain monetisation isn’t just about views, clicks, RPM and the like. Domain monetisation is all about matching advertising to user intent and this is why it’s so valuable for advertisers. When a person goes to a domain name, they have an intent behind their query about what they are looking for and this is incredibly powerful. The user has already passed from wondering what to look for to seeking to find.

The great majority of people who are in a seeking to find mode are wanting to purchase when they find what they are looking for. The difference between looking up something on a search engine versus domain traffic is that a person looking up something on a search engine is seeking information while a person typing in a domain name is seeking to buy.

Many years ago, I read a report that Google produced outlining that domain traffic produced better results for advertisers compared to search traffic. It was at a time when Yahoo reigned supreme in the domain space but it wasn’t long before Google aggressively went after the domain industry as the traffic converted for advertisers.

Facts can be scary things, especially when you don’t want to know about them. One of the reasons why things are called facts is because they are unequivocally true and yet, so many people take an ostrich approach to life by burying their head in the sand to escape them. The question I would ask is, “Are you a seeker of the truth or a large bird?”

A couple of years ago I found myself in a meeting planning for a leadership conference and I asked the question, “What’s going wrong with the organisation?” Several weeks later one of the leaders pulled me aside and expressed that she was really offended by the question. I must admit that I was a little perplexed by this response.

After listening to their concerns I explained that if you wanted to run a training session for the leaders of the organisation you needed to know the facts so the training could target the issues. I then shared with them that a leader should never be afraid to expose the facts of any situation.

One of the reasons why many organisations fail is due to the leadership punishing those people that are seekers of the truth. It doesn’t take very long before these people are isolated, ostracized and eventually take their talents elsewhere.

If you’re in a leadership position in an organisation then people that seek to find the facts, however unpleasant they may be, are like gold. What you will also discover is these individuals will often put their own position and career on the line for the sake of uncovering the truth of a situation.

Each of us has an incredible amount of potential inside and the secret to unlocking it in your life is by discovering your purpose. The question I have for you is more about your purpose, “Why do you do what you do?”

Having a vision for your life is vitally important as it’s your guiding star that will assist you as you make life’s decisions. Your purpose though, is how you journey through your life, how you interact with others and how you bring your unique “you” to the world around you.

Another way of viewing this is to think about your vision as being “what you’re doing” while your purpose is “why you are doing it”. It’s the why that is often the hardest to answer. For example, many of us can articulate the vision of the company we work for, but can we say anything about the why? It bears thinking a lot about.

For instance, I may have a vision to build a world leading domain company, but I may view my personal purpose is to help others become financially free. Yes, I’m building my company but I’m doing it by assisting partners get free from financial bondage. Nothing makes me happier than when I see a partner reach a personal financial milestone.

I’ve been reading a thread on NamePros that got pretty heated when Jackson Elsegood from Escrow.com, Matt Barrie (Freelancer CEO – Escrow.com’s parent company) and Rob Monster from Epik became involved. I don’t normally like to get involved in these types of squabbles, but I thought for this one I’d make an exception.

I would like to first state a disclaimer, I use Epik as a registrar and have been very positive in posts about the services they provide. I also use Escrow.com and Escrow.com has been a long-time sponsor of Whizzbangsblog. Now for this blog post….

There is a BIG difference between saying you provide escrow services and being approved by a governmental authority to provide Escrow services. Why is this? The governmental body has the authority and mandate to audit a fully licensed escrow service to ensure they are not only behaving in a correct manner but have the resources to backup any problems. There are incredibly large penalties for companies that don’t abide by the rules.

Anyone can put a shingle out and claim to provide an escrow service….I could be wrong but I would think that it’s only a matter of time before the governmental authorities stop them from doing this. If the authorities don’t stop it then it makes a bit of a mockery of governmental oversight.

That being said, my understanding is that Escrow.com does have governmental approval while Epik is not approved by any governmental authority. Regardless of whether it makes sense for the government to be involved or not these seem to be the facts.

When Matt Barrie (Freelancer CEO) challenged Rob Monster (Epik) on the state of the cash in Epik’s balance sheet it was a very relevant question. The only thing that can back-up a failed Escrow transaction is cash….not lots of other assets as claimed by Rob. For a start, the other assets take time to sell and may not be enough to back up a failed transaction.