“I don’t know what to do. Who will marry him?” the mother cries in Agarwal’s book “How I Braved Anu Aunty & Co-Founded a Million Dollar Company.”

What’s so terribly wrong with Agarwal that causes so much consternation for his mother?

He decided to pursue a path of entrepreneurship rather than the more socially acceptable trajectory of working for a short time after college before getting an MBA and accepting a salaried position with a good company.

I should point out that Agarwal lives in India, where entrepreneurship is discouraged by the older generation because it tends to interfere with the custom of arranged marriage.

“Parents of prospective brides strike me off the list when they find I am a start-up guy,” the author/entrepreneur told writer Saritha Rai in a blog that appeared last fall in the global edition of The New York Times. “They want a safety net for their daughters. They feel I could not provide her a nice house or a luxury car as I don’t have a job and banks will not give me credit.”

Something tells me Agarwal is having the last laugh. In his mid-20s, he’s the founder of a successful company, Alma Mater, which sells logo-adorned merchandise for colleges and schools across India. And his book, masquerading as fiction, chronicles the resistance he faced in fulfilling his dream, has sold more than 30,000 copies and is in a third reprint.

His story, however, makes me feel fortunate to be an American where entrepreneurship is encouraged and arranged marriages are hardly the norm.

As an entrepreneur and husband, I understand the demands of starting a business and how it has the potential to put stress on a marriage. Starting a company requires copious amounts of time, money and energy. But being a successful entrepreneur is not the antithesis of being a good husband, wife or parent, as some might have you believe. I have read many articles and blogs that characterize marriage to an entrepreneur as being a “roller coaster ride,” for spouses who have to deal with exorbitant egos, cash-strapped households and neglect by a partner who is preoccupied with building an empire.

I rather like writer Chris Dannen’s take on the subject. The editor of Co.Labs at FastCompany observes:

“The phenomenon of the entrepreneur with the MBA is a relatively recent one; entrepreneurship programs are sprouting up at universities all over the country, but most of the folks that start businesses don’t have the knowledge or inclination to be ‘empire builders.’ What they do have, however, is creativity, drive, self-confidence and dynamism.”

And there is plenty of advice out there for spouses who might be married to an entrepreneur, whether they are wives or husbands.

Nicole Bailey, wife of Petra Coach founder and CEO Andy Bailey, offered several tips in a story for BusinessNewsDaily. She suggests that couples keep to schedules that allow them to spend time together and get away from it all when they can. She also suggests that the non-entrepreneur in the relationship develop his or her own outside interests.

“Understand how your dreamer thinks,” suggests another writer for wikiHow. “Dreamers are ideas people. They always have a new one. It doesn’t mean that they are going to sell everything and go start that bed and breakfast out in the wilderness. They are just expressing a thought. It’s like exercising a muscle. They work out that muscle every day. So don’t freak out. You never know when that one idea is the one that brings success.”

The blog marriedtoanentrepreneur.com offers similar advice: “As spouses of entrepreneurs, we don’t want to kill the dream (or the dreamer for that matter). We don’t want to be the reason that someone, aka our entrepreneur, doesn’t achieve their potential. We don’t want to thwart their passion or creativity or talent, BUT we would like some piece of mind when it comes to being able to afford groceries next week, let alone college in 5 years.”

Writing for Forbes magazine earlier this year, Anson Sowby owner of an advertising agency called Rocket XL, takes the advice to a whole other level by pointing out the advantages of two entrepreneurs marring one another, based on his experience with wife Ro Cysne, co-founder of JilRo clothing.

Sowby writes that he and his wife benefit from such things as networking together, mutual motivation, short commutes and being each other’s sounding board.

Two entrepreneurs under the same roof: I kinda like that. Of course, my wife might have a different opinion…

I draw that conclusion from an article that appeared in an education blog of The New York Times that ran shortly after Apple co-founder and CEO Steve Jobs died. Reporter Shannon Doyne asked students “Who is Your Role Model?” and offered Jobs as well as pop singer Kelly Clarkson as examples of people worth emulating.

But when the students were asked to comment, the majority of respondents listed their role models as mom, dad, grandma, grandfather, sister, brother and teachers.

There’s something heartening about that. As a father of two boys, 6 and 4, I certainly hope I am a role model for them and I take that responsibility very seriously. But even though parents can be role models in your formative years and might even continue to be throughout your life, as you get older the people you admire can change. Certainly media can be a big influence as new leaders, artists, entrepreneurs, scholars and professionals come to the fore.

What qualities are important in a role model? And what makes them worthy of the designation? Lots of celebrities are idolized, but how many really deserve the adulation?

And nobody’s perfect. We all can’t be a Gandhi or Mother Teresa. So, perhaps in choosing a role model it’s better to look up to various people who excel at different things. A role model shouldn’t be just someone you hold in high esteem, but a person after whom you would want to pattern your life.

I have always been inspired by very successful people within specific categories. If I wanted to improve on a particular section of my life I would read a book on someone that was successful in that area, whether it would be in business, family, health & fitness, entrepreneurship, or life’s other endeavors.

Qualities such as intelligence, leadership, philanthropy, courage, humility and grace are certainly traits one might want to look for in a role model. Brad Pitt isn’t just a good-looking actor, he’s also interested in helping humanity, as he did by providing new housing for New Orleans residents after Hurricane Katrina. Hillary Clinton showed leadership as a First Lady and went on to become a U.S. Senator and inspired girls and women all over the world as Secretary of State. Muhammad Ali, a beloved athlete once considered to be the most famous person in the world, has used his fame to help other people with Parkinson’s disease by founding the Muhammad Ali Parkinson Center.

So it’s not just being a celebrity that makes a person role model-worthy, but what they do with their celebrity to teach, contribute and improve the human condition. They should inspire greatness in others, but earn their admiration.

And even though it’s nice to know, as a parent, that children still honor their mothers and their fathers, we can’t forget that peers can be role models as well; and it’s important to talk with kids about specific traits they like in the heroes they respect and want to imitate.

A few years ago, Forbes took a look at role models under the age of 18; and along with the names of actors, singers and athletes was Hunter Stewart, then 8 years old. He was a regular little kid with one extraordinary exception: When his mom was diagnosed in 2007 with cancer he did what he knew best — racing trophy karts, off-road trucks that usually run on motocross tracks — to raise awareness for the disease, donate money to the Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation, and inspire thousands of others to do the same.

I certainly wouldn’t mind if one of my boys said to me, “When I grow up, I want to be just like him.”

Personally, I have purchased domains for a few thousand dollars and, after a few years, sold them for more than $30,000. Domain names are hot properties for individuals and companies who want to make money on the Internet. Like brand names and slogans, domain names that are easy to remember and can be associated with a product or service can make a world of difference in profit potential. Even catch phrases like “Got Milk” can be turned into a profit center by tacking on a “dot com” to create a key piece of Internet real estate.

Need more proof? Self-proclaimed “Domain King,” Rick Schwartz sold his iReport.com domain name to Turner Broadcasting System, the parent company of CNN, for $750,000. Frank Schilling, who began buying domains in 2002, earned more than $10 million dollars in revenue, ninety-percent of which was profit, in two years, and then more than doubled his revenue and profit two years later.

You might view the Internet and the technology sector as “high risk.” However, the Internet is expected to continue in its exponential growth, similar to the growth that the real estate and stock markets exhibited decades ago.

What are Domain Names?

Domain names are the way in which websites are identified, such as Google.com. When domain names are registered in the Domain Name Service (DNS) and directed to a particular IP (Internet Protocol) address, information can be stored at that location and viewed in an Internet browser, such as Internet Explorer or Firefox.

How Can Domain Names Become a Good Investment?

While investments in stocks and real estate often require substantial know-how and significant amounts of expendable cash, domain name investing opportunities are accessible even to the less financially savvy. Domain names can be purchased for just a few dollars and often “parked” on a web host for free.

Domain name investors can also choose to propagate a website with content that is relevant to the domain name. Attracting visitor traffic to a website can significantly increase the domain name’s value to a potential buyer. Furthermore, passive income can be generated from content, creating cash flow while the value of the domain increases, similar to the way a real estate investor might rent out a property while equity in the property increases.

Reasons Why You Should Invest in Domain Names

As my infographic illustrates, domain name investing costs less and has almost no overhead compared to stocks and real estate. There is a low initial investment and low maintenance costs for a business opportunity that has a high potential for return on investment (ROI). Like real estate, domain name investments allow for a “buy and hold” strategy, but with lower transaction costs in a market that has significantly lower risks. While domain name investing does not offer easy financing, legislation protection, or the option to easily cash out, there is no insurance needed and asset protection can be assured.

If you are overwhelmed by the complexity and unreliable nature of the real estate and stock markets and are looking for new investment opportunities that have less risk and are easier to understand, domain name investing might be a good fit for you. Connect with me, follow my posts, and I’ll go into more detail on how you can generate a cash flow and a positive return from your domain name investments.

Disclaimer: The information contained in this article is provided by John Romano as general information only and does not constitute financial product advice. None of the information provided takes into account your personal objectives, financial situation or needs, so you should consult with a tax preparer or financial professional for specific financial issues that involve your personal finances. The communication between John Romano and readers does not establish an advisor-client relationship in any shape or form. Any discussions about finances are strictly for informational purposes only and financial decisions should not be based on such dialogue. John Romano is not liable for any action taken on any information or advertising obtained from this article.

Boston is not as overwhelming as larger cities like New York or Chicago, but it has all the things you’d expect in a big city – culture, museums, great restaurants, and more – while retaining a small town atmosphere.

I was born in Boston (Medford exactly), went to high school in nearby Somerville, and attended University of Massachusetts Amherst.  Boston’s education opportunities attract smart citizens whose projects foster intense innovation.   It was wonderful for me to meet so many people that are driven, ambitious, and filled with inspiring ideas.   Boston inspires innovation and provides great resources to help make your ideas a reality.   I also liked living in a city with a small-town feel.  It’s a great place to visit and a better place to live and raise a family.

Low crime rates, a good public transport system, a new highway system, top hospitals, and some of the best schools around make Boston a great place to settle down.  In fact, parenting Magazine voted Boston the No. 1 city in their 2012 Best Cities for Families List.  The third annual report examined 36 sets of data and ranked 100 cities using nearly 4,000 pieces of data.  According to parenting Magazine, “Offering urban life with a focus on education, Boston is a classically great town in which to raise a family.”

If you’re a four-season type of person, you’ll like Boston’s weather.  Cold and snowy in the winter, it’s not far from major ski resorts.  Those who like the warmer, summer months will enjoy the Boston Harbor Islands, a group of 34 narrow islands spread across the harbor where visitors can explore, hike or swim.

Leave the history books at home and take the kids to Boston’s Freedom trail, a 2 ½ mile trail where history comes alive — the trail passes 16 historic sites, including Revolutionary War landmarks like the Paul Revere House and the Bunker Hill Monument.

There’s lots more for kids to do in Beantown – from watching sea lions at the New England Aquarium, spending the day at the Boston Children’s Museum or Museum of Science (with over 400 interactive exhibits, an IMAX theater, and a planetarium) to taking in a baseball game at historic Fenway Park, home of the Boston Red Soxs since 1912.

Adults will enjoy Boston as much as the kids.  Fans of the television show Cheers should pay a visit to Cheers Boston, and beer-lovers will enjoy a tour of the Sam Adams Brewery, which is home to the Boston Beer Museum.

Make sure you stop at Faneuil Hall Marketplace (also known as Quincy Market), an indoor-outdoor market that will delight shoppers and diners.  And for the outdoor enthusiast, Boston has many parks and the nation’s oldest botanical garden, Boston Public Garden, famous for its Swan Boats.

So, if you don’t like to commit to New Year’s resolutions, consider this just a new tip sheet for achieving your marketing goals in 2013:

1. Optimize your website for smartphones and tablets.
Computers are no longer your main concern when it comes to website compatibility.  Smartphone and tablet sales are eclipsing computer sales, and these mobile devices are what people are using to search the web. Too many websites fail the mobile device compatibility test, but by this time next year everyone will have adapted their websites to mobile technology.  Make sure you jump on the bandwagon sooner than later. Remember, it’s not enough just to have a website that doesn’t compartmentalize and break apart on mobile devices; you want users to be able to log on easily and navigate your site intuitively from their cell phone or iPad. That means customizing your website specifically for those devices.

Even more specifically, when a person is web searching on an iPhone or iPad, they will be more apt to use their fingers to scroll pages than rely on hyperlinks to move from page to page. Also, no page should ever require the reader to scroll from left to right. Buttons and form fields should be large, easy to read and fill the screen. Keep in mind that on average, 25 percent of your potential customers are visiting your site from a mobile device, and that figure is growing exponentially.

2. Create at least two pages of new content every week.
Every time you add fresh information to your website, your search engine rankings get a boost. Google is persnickety when it comes to determining a site’s SEO ranking, and the frequency in which you inject fresh, unique, relevant content to your site will be critical in determining your place in search engine results.

In 2013, make it routine to add two items of fresh content to your website every week.  Make it a blog post, add new resources to your Resources section (if you don’t have a Resources section, add one).  Interview an expert and add a Q&A forum, or even add a new page to your site. Make yourself a solemn promise to add new content at least twice weekly, and reap the benefits of your increased search engine rankings.

3. While you’re at it, create new content for distribution too.
Website content is only a part of your strategy to improve SEO.  You also want to get links to your website, and the best way to accomplish this is through the creation of excellent content worthy of sharing – articles, press releases, and videos for instance.  Have a professional craft a press-ready press release at least once a month for maximum benefit, and distribute it through online wire services to bloggers, industry sites, publications and partners. By doing so, you’re improving your company’s branding, boosting credibility and goodwill, and increasing traffic to your website via those all-important in-bound web links that define results-driven SEO. The more competitive your business, the more important new content is to your success.

4. Make your social networking pages (Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Pinterest)  more interesting.
Do not follow in the footsteps of most businesses that fail miserably when it comes to engaging  with their social media audiences. If you are not putting effort into your Facebook and Twitter pages, you are wasting a valuable resource and you’re falling further and further behind the competition each day. Facebook’s EdgeRank algorithm determines which content will appear in users’ streams. It also penalizes posts with low numbers of “Likes,” comments, and shares.
Take an honest look at your Facebook page and ask yourself if you think it’s interesting enough to capture yourself as a reader, or a fan, or a follower. The more competitive your business, the more important your social networking pages are to your online marketing success. Make it interesting. Make people want to be on your page, and make sure they will want to come back for more.

5.  Don’t abuse or misuse anchor texts.                                                                                       A word of warning about SEO – Google is on to all of us. They have taken to ranking real brands over the average website, and Google doesn’t really care about your anchor texts. Why? Because Google has figured out that only approximately 2 percent of anchor texts are natural. You need to think about how a real person would post. When it comes to products or services, they are going to link to it via  a raw URL, brand name, or a simple command such as “click here.”

We put a lot of emphasis on keywords, but the truth is that most bloggers don’t take the time to consider what keywords they should use to link to a website in order to boost SEO rankings. If you contribute content to another website, don’t agonize over anchor texts. It’s more important for the content to read natural, and if it doesn’t don’t bother posting it. Google is fond of in-text citation and relevance of the content you are publishing.  For instance, if you’re writing a blog article on tax law and you’re using various appropriate industry terms, Google will read that and award you a high ranking.

6. Don’t stop learning.                                                                                                                       If you enter into 2013 with no other piece of advice, you will be OK. Being an active learner all the time is the most underrated, overlooked and foolishly ignored activity any business owner or manager can latch on to. And I don’t just mean what’s already obvious – do more than read the articles on SEO, for instance. Become involved in the SEO community. Become a regular reader of  the SEOmoz Blog, follow influential SEO guides on Twitter and Google+. Communities like Inbound.org are great places to go for the latest research and inspiration. Read at least a few articles pertaining to online marketing every week, if you aren’t already. The online marketing industry is evolving at lightning speed, meaning once you fall too far behind there may be no catching back up. Make learning all you can about the latest in online marketing one of your priorities in 2013.

Since Northern Italy had just received a heavy first snowfall, we figured that hitting the ski slopes would be the best thing to kick-start the vacation. Madonna Di Campiglio happened to be an elegant town used as a base for ski vacations by a great number of visitors. With over 9 miles of cross-country ski trails, skiing in the powdery snow among the ‘Dolomites’ was a unique experience.  The nearby Adamello-Brenta natural park has lovely hikes in the valleys area in the midst of alpine vegetation and great lakes – an excellent option for those who are not into skiing. If outdoor activities are becoming too much, stop for a grappa and relax at one of the many taverns and bars in this mountain town.

Christmas Market in Bolzano

Bolzano, about two hours drive away, is the castle basin of Europe with over four hundred in the nearby surroundings! Once we got to know about the Christmas Market in Bolzano (the biggest Christmas market in Italy), we could hardly wait to go there and experience Christmas like we had never done before. When we arrived in the heart of the city, we found a beautiful Piazza Walther that was gorgeously lit and full of goodies and attractions for both adults and children alike like carriage tours, puppet theatres, music, Christmas tree decorations, handmade crafts, tasty local foods, and much more!

After a physically exhaustive week, the final few days in Italy were spent relaxing in the Romanesque town of Verona. The enchanting tourist trails of Romeo and Juliet in the city are a must for the Shakespearan fans. But, we opted to enjoy Verona in perfect traditional Christmas style… so we immersed ourselves in the full spirit of Christmas in Verona by enjoying the many small markets.

Christmas market, Piazza Bra, Verona

The most famous and largest is the Santa Lucia Christmas market held in Piazza Bra, you can’t miss the huge illuminated shooting star that seems to be flying out of the Arena and landing in the Piazza. Impressive too is the Nativity Exhibition held in the famous Roman Arena. The exhibition hosts incredible nativity scenes from all over the world.

After an eventful vacation, we bid goodbye to beautiful Northern Italy with the hopes of returning once again in the future.