Before I go into today’s topic, I was to give a shoutout to my buddy, Ridzuan Ashim at XSmatter.com. Although we haven’t met IRL (in real life) yet, he was so kind to help point out that my hyperlinks were messed up in my ‘Blogging for Dummies: Singapore’s finest‘ post and also mentioning that I could change my comment procedure. It’s now easier to leave comments (you don’t have to login anymore). It’s only with the help of friends like Ridzuan and others who’re more experienced in blogging and Internet Marketing, that’s helped me build this new blog to an Alexa 662,094 ranking (as of 1st Aug 06). Thanks for the help guys.

On to today’s topic.

Have you ever done anything new that you’re real excited about? (ok, silly question).

Were you really hyped about it?

It may have been starting a new relationship, going to a new school or starting a new job.

Remember how your first day was?

Simiarly, you may have had your Internet Marketing success hopes go up after attending an Internet Marketing seminar preview. The presenter might have said something along the lines of:

• Do you have a neuron, three fingers, one working eye and a computer with Microsoft Word? Yes! you can create a website!
• Did you know that Bert Ingley plays Madden NFL 06 for a living and makes great money!
• (fill in name) Internet Marketer just bought a TV station, succeeded in auctioning for a town in California, has 257 high-performance sports cars and hasn’t even driven half of them! or (insert your great achievement/expense here)

It’s easy to get mentally trapped. Get a euphoric high from hearing about this.
Darn it, if they can do it, so can I.

You might’ve signed up for the course, expecting to receive five figure paychecks like clockwork.

You go for the course, you go home, thinking to yourself, I can do this, I can do this!
You clock up 18 hour work days.
You are meeting people every day, exchanging ideas, you’re going to take over the business world.
Watch out Google, Yahoo! Ebay, Yahoo
You do this for 20 consecutive days.
You are exhausted, but never mind, everything’s just waiting for you.

You were super psyched, everything seems new, the world might’ve even seemed brighter.

Then bleep. (or hiss if you prefer)
What happened?

The Honeymoon Effect is what happened.

That’s when all the hyper, and gloss, and glamour, and thoughts of instant riches suddenly get ripped away. Cold, hard reality is revealed. You might have a ‘oh darn’ moment, or if you’re a little more honest a ‘oh shit, what have I got myself into’ moment.

What seemed possible, seems less possible. Maybe even impossible.

The honeymoon effect typically manifests itself as soon as an hour after you come up with the idea, or about a month into the project.

Is the honeymoon effect bad?
Not necessarily. It keeps out a lot of wannabe entrepreneurs.
It poses as a barrier of entry to the poseurs.

It is a double-edged sword though.
You will find yourself facing your moment of truth.
Glamour aside, is this a business you want to go in.
If not, you can save yourself a lot of time and effort, but quitting right now.

The honeymoon effect can be an effective tool to keep the team motivated.
Successful entrepreneurs are able to constantly renew this honeymoon effect for the team and for themselves.

If what you’re doing is:

• personally meaningful
• congruent with your attitudes, values and orientation
• adds value to the world

each morning you come to engage your project, it’ll be with a sense of purpose and commitment.You can boost your team’s morale by doing the same for them too.

Here’re 3 specific ways to employ the honeymoon effect:

• Focus on the macro, less on the micro: What is your mission? What is your purpose? How will you change the world? Frequently there is a focus on micro level, nitty-gritty tasks. Granted these are tiring, repetitive and need to be done, however viewed in the context of accomplishing the greater good, they are much more palatable.
• Action=Reaction: In a positive, learning environment, hand out kudos, high fives to your team members, encourage them to give them to other team members and to yourself too. As you adopt a ‘pay it forward‘ approach, there will be a goodwill multiplier effect. Whatever you give out, will come back to you multiplied.
• ‘What can we learn from this’ thinking: It’s inevitable to encounter negative experiences in the course of business. Some people feel down after a failure. But what’s more important is how we deal with it. Asking the question “how can we learn from this? What’s our takeaway?’ will help create a solution should the situation repeat itself (it usually does). Brainstorming and creating a solution will help yourself and the organization become bigger, better and stronger!

The Honeymoon effect is essential to all relationship dynamics, whether personal or in a business setting.

Work with it to make it work for you.