Growing at the Speed of Failure
Productivity
On Landing Dream Jobs & Free Housing
In this post I cover how to proactively get the best jobs out there. This article is taken from a portion unfortunately edited out of my book Don’t Own, Don’t Rent, Live Well: How to be DEBT FREE, Build Your Nest Egg & Live Life on Your Own Terms.
Here I’m applying it to how to find free housing anywhere in the world (as my wife Fiona and I have for over 12 years now). If you are not familiar with the book, the secret is becoming a Community Executive which is like an apartment resident manager, BUT pretty much everything is on autopilot, systematized, outsourced or selectively ignored. In other words, pay for a month of housing in about 2-4 hours of work a month. 4 hours of work for a $1,000/mo. apartment is like them paying you $250/hour from home. Working 20/week for a “free apartment” (what most resident managers do) is like getting paid$12.50/hour. (more…)
A New Scarlet Letter
For nearly four months this site had been down. I got hit hard by a website virus called “Timthumb”. From what I understand, the virus gets in through a security flaw in a function that allows WordPress users to grab a photo from the outside world (other website) and post it onto their blog. That was the “in” for these hackers.
The virus would just scour the web using “bots” looking for the timthumb security flaw in websites. After a few weeks Google, in conjunction with major web browsers, blocked my site from anyone in the world accessing it. They did this as a precautionary measure to keep the virus from spreading. Unfortunately all of my SEO and page ranking were blocked and removed too.
The darn thing about it is that visitors who (more…)
From Debt to Living Life on Your Own Terms in 7-Steps
When Fiona and I started out, we weren’t just broke, we were less than broke. We were newlyweds with $38,000 in past-due credit card debt, personal loans and no job to speak of. Creditors were calling us multiple times a day demanding payment. That was our starting point.
What we did have was drive and hope to get it together and get out of our situation as fast as possible. Below I (more…)
Songwriting Hacks: 5 Tips That Will Help Your Next Song (Part 2)
(continued from February 1, 2011) [read part 1]
4. Collaborate with others more talented than yourself – 10% [watch video]
I don’t want to spend too much time rehashing the last point. Take your organized notes and whatever you can play on keyboard or guitar (or even just with your voice) and meet up with a key musician as soon as possible. Don’t wait until everything is perfect, because it won’t ever be.
You need enough to get the creative juices going and to respect the time of the other musician. If you act professionally, musicians will be willing to work with you again as well as recommend other great musicians within their network.
I pay musicians $50 for meeting with me. Unless they are going to be a part of a choir or are a good friend already, I pay them something. If it is a group of people, I provide food and drinks – it is the least I can do. Why? I want them to know I am paying them something for their time and expertise and that they have been paid in full. They will not be getting a cut of the song royalties if (more…)
Songwriting Hacks: 5 Tips That Will Help Your Next Song (Part 1)
Songwriting is a craft. Like most craftsmanship, both art and science must be combined in the right proportions to form a desirable end product. Over the last several years I have come to the realization that I cannot write a song on my own without identifying the processes at play. I also found that songwriting is not an endeavor for the likes of the Lone Ranger. Collaborating with people far more talented than me yields results far beyond what I could do in a solo effort. However, like just about everything else I do in life, I always strive to do them more efficiently.
After reading the 4-Hour Work Week and getting to sit down with a few with Tim Ferriss in San Francisco last February, I have come to realize that identifying the processes I use to do everything and breaking them down into their individual parts is key to writing a song in an efficient and elegant manner. Once I determine the processes that lead to success, I can see what parts are unnecessary to produce the desired results, thus shortening the overall songwriting process.
In my search I’ve found that there are five basic steps to writing a song in a brief period of time. (more…)
Zen & The Art of Toddler Bedtime
There is little more frustrating than attempting to put an energetic two year old to bed. Like most two year olds, my daughter Kaiya is a ball of energy. Many times there is no difference between that energy level at 8:00AM and 8:00PM. She can’t read a clock – all she knows is light, dark and energy level. If she’s got energy, it can’t be bedtime yet!
The Frustration
Over the last several months we have tried various techniques that have not worked for everyone in our family. Bedtime becomes crying-time, exhaustion-time, frustration-time, I’ve-had-it-with-this-child-time.
You see, when Kaiya is not happy, her brother isn’t happy. If her brother isn’t happy, mommy isn’t happy. If mommy isn’t happy, daddy isn’t happy. If you feel frustrated and powerless at bedtime and feel like you have tried everything and failed as we did, read on. (more…)
Think Like Brian Eno: Unleash Your Creative Genius to Solve Any Problem
Brian Peter George St. John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno, also known as Brian Eno is in my opinion one of our times creative genius. Though he is a world-renowned musician, music producer and multimedia artist (Generative Music Project), most people alive today between the ages of 20 and 65 have heard his little jingle when starting up Windows 95.
He understands how to get creative juices flowing, to think outside the box and spur amazing talent out of artists such as David Bowie, David Byrne, Sonic Youth, Peter Gabriel, Phil Collins, U2 and Coldplay.
Recently, Eno scored (more…)
Biggest Gains from Increased Failure
In Tim Ferriss’ 2008 post titled From Geek to Freak: How I Gained 34 lbs. of Muscle in 4 Weeks, he sites the Arthur Jones “Colorado Experiment” study performed under the supervision of James E. Johnson, Ph.D. back in 1973. The experiment focused on massive muscle tissue growth in a short amount of time. They sited the results of the first experiment: an astounding 63.21 Lbs of muscle (Casey Viator) over the course of 28 days and a second experiment with Arthur Jones’ gains of 15.44 Lbs in 22 days.
Both athletes showed significant gains; even if you were to believe them to be exaggerated and half their reported results. How did they (more…)
GRTD = Getting (the Right) Things Done: Tips For Productivity by Helen Raptoplous
I’ve known Helen Raptoplous for over a year now. She is vibrant, knowledgeable, driven and one of the most disciplined people I know. She has been called a Muse Mentor by her clients and the premier catalyst for business owners to grow and keep moving their business forward. Listen to Helen on my radio show from December 30, 2010.
“It is true that time is the great equalizer!
We know it, we have the same amount of time in our day as the President of the United States, the Governor, and the top achievers and producers of any Fortune 500 company. No matter who we are and what our job is, we have to accept that time given is a level playing field – we all start with the same 24 hours in a day and we end with the same 24 hours spent. This can be very motivating and depending on who you compare time with, (more…)
