If you’re a long time reader you’ll know that I’ve always been accident prone.

According to research reported in New Scientist magazine I’m not alone: 1 in 29 people have a 50 per cent higher chance of being involved in an accident than the rest of the population, and I’m certainly one of them.

Though strangely I walked away without a scratch from the craziest, most dangerous thing I’ve ever done, which was crouching down in the middle of the Ball of Death (back in my newspaper photography days) while stunt riders raced around and above me at high speed on motorbikes.

# drenched in acid (luckily a diluted one) and raced to hospital where I had the embarrassment of my clothes disintegrating and falling off in front of dozens of people while I stood there screaming in agony.

I had the embarrassment of my clothes disintegrating and falling off in front of dozens of people

# bitten by a vicious fish which wouldn’t let go and had to be cut off my body with a knife, and also badly stung by a jellyfish.

# stepped backwards into a freshly dug grave and nearly stayed there for ever.

# fallen out of a helicopter, which was flying almost on its side so I could get better photographs of a crashed fighter jet. Sounds dramatic but I was on a 6 foot safety rope so all it did was jolt me around and terrify me and the pilot.

# attacked by bats in a cave in the Borneo jungle, and had to be tested for various bat borne diseases. Why the bats ignored my companions to zoom in on me is a mystery.

# gassed by fumes from ancient disintegrating negatives in a newspaper office after attempting to carry them out of the building to protect my colleagues (after I collapsed the building was evacuated and it took 3 firemen in full chemical protection suits to remove the negs) and had to be raced to hospital where I was given three sponge baths by nurses but was too out of it to enjoy the experience, and spent several days there recovering.

# ended up in hospital yet again when I got my head sliced open by a high-speed ceiling fan and fell to my knees with blood squirting everywhere. Many stitches later, and after a night in bed, they decided I was well enough to go home but I fainted before I’d left the hospital and they had to keep me another night.

# suffered severe whiplash while riding on the bonnet (hood?) of a speedway car. The car windows had been removed and to try and get a good picture of the driver I was lying with my head hanging over the front of the car and holding on by spreading my legs and sticking my feet through the side windows. Before we set off I asked the driver to take it easy and just do one lap. He had different ideas. I’d had enough after a couple of hundred yards but couldn’t move to signal him to stop. When I tried to get off the bonnet I had to lie on the track until they got me an ambulance.

# tossed and then crushed by a rodeo bull. This was my worst injury and put me in intensive care for a while, followed by 6 weeks unable to get out of bed. Again, totally my fault. In the quest to get a better photo I decided to shoot with a wide angle lens which meant getting into the ring close to the action. The bull obviously didn’t like photographers. It threw it’s rider, charged straight at me, tossed me in the air, then ran over my body. Everyone thought it had killed me. (By all accounts it made a spectacular segment on the local TV news, but I never saw it and cant even watch a rodeo on TV now or in a movie now. Brings back too many bad memories).

So why am I telling you all this?

Well, why not? And I’d like you to get to know me better.

But the main reason is that I had another bad accident. Just a few days after writing my previous newsletter I fell off a ladder and smashed myself up quite a bit, and I’ve hardly been able to do anything for the past two months.

Luckily my feet were only about five or six feet off the ground when the ladder tipped backwards, and I landed flat on my back on the lawn (lawns are hard in Australia because of the dry soil). But I still couldn’t get up for about 10 minutes, maybe longer. I guess I’ve got no idea how long I actually laid there. And I couldn’t stand up, I had to crawl to the house.

Even though I landed on my back/shoulders and banged my head, it’s my front that got hurt. I self-diagnosed myself with cracked or broken ribs and didn’t go to the hospital because I know from past experience that there’s nothing they can do about them. A few weeks ago I finally gave in and saw a doctor, who told me off for not getting attention earlier, and discovered that I’d ruptured ligaments where my ribs attach to my sternum, cracked a couple of ribs, and tore muscles around my left shoulder and in my side. Though my back, strangely enough, has been fine.

Anyway, I’ve hardly done any work since I fell, because of the pain, and from being so tired all the time (whenever I turned over in bed the pain made me wake up).

But now, at last, I’m recovering.

I can see now how people can get killed falling short distances. I’d hate to think what would have happened to me if I’d fallen just twice as far.

So what’s all this got to do with internet business?

Well nothing actually

Except, perhaps, my own theory that I have so many accidents because I’m always willing to try new things.

Even though I might not look it, I’m an action man

Life is for living. So I’m a never say no — if I think it will be fun and not hurt anyone (except me) — person.

And it’s the same online, where I’m always testing new methods of earning. Always trying exploring new, or undiscovered, niche markets. Always trying new tools and new techniques. The Internet changes and the bottom line is that you need to adapt with those changes or be left behind.

Important Note: having said that, I’d also like to add that it’s very important that you don’t just jump from one new trend to another so fast that you never achieve anything. So do take time out to try test new methods, but keep your core business running, and only devote part of your time to exploring different ideas or new trends.