Tag: how to live anywhere

Sweet Shit Saturday #010 (Giving Thanks Edition)

As promised, lots of people to thank for the How To Live Anywhere launch on Tuesday!

If you’re new here, every Saturday I write about awesome articles I’ve found around the Web. Usually it’s not focused on me. I am not that selfish or egotistical. :) But, this week was a little different, so I’m giving myself some leeway. ;)

The launch went exceedingly well. I didn’t sell out of the fast action bonus in one day like I had thought, but that’s OK. I know if I had used false scarcity I would have, but this course will be available forever! :)

Two affiliates had their best ever net income 24 hours online during the first 24 hours of launch. That is just awesome and I’m thrilled to have been a part of their success. I’m going to be sending affiliates a huge chunk of change next month and that feels great. (Currently, the affiliate program is only open to How To Live Anywhere members.)

If you didn’t already know, I believe in treating affiliates like the Kings and Queens they are. Most product owners have never been affiliates and don’t understand what it’s like. From 10:30am EST until Midnight EST on launch day I gave away pretty much all profits to affiliates. Meaning, commissions were set at 95%, so after Paypal fees and affiliate commissions I was making only $1-$2 per affiliate sale and loving every minute of it. :)

You may have seen a few articles/interviews/mentions around the Web, but if not, here they are …

Thank you. You rock for being here.

How To Live Anywhere Members

Obviously, thank you! I have been getting amazing feedback from you and it makes me even more thrilled that I actually released this course. :)

Guest Posts

I wrote two guest posts for launch day. Ideally, I would have liked to write more, but it just didn’t work out that way.

The Absolute Beginner’s Guide To Starting A Small Online Business on ZenHabits.net

How To Start A Revolution (or 3 Ways To Change The World) on TheMiddleFingerProject.org

Thank you Leo and Ash for allowing me to write for your awesome blogs!

Interviews

Sweet! I did a couple of text interviews for launch day …

How To Live Anywhere With Everett Bogue at FarBeyondTheStars.com

This is the second time Everett has interviewed me. I also interviewed him (in audio form) for HTLA. But you already know that if you bought it. :) Thanks Everett! (Everett is releasing his Minimalist Business guide on June 15. I’m sending the audio interview I did with him to my Freedom Fighters on that day. For nothing. No obligation to purchase. You get the audio interview as my thanks for being a Freedom Fighter, which is also free.)

How To Live Your Dreams, From Anywhere With Tammy Strobel at RowdyKittens.com

Tammy was nice enough to throw some awesome questions at me. :) We get into some detail about Limiting Beliefs. It’s an important conversation. Tammy also gave her Simply Car Free eBook and consulting time for everybody who purchased HTLA through her. Thanks Tammy!

Reviews / Mentions

Wooohooo! Quite a few reviews/mentions.

How To Live Anywhere – By WA Christopher J.

I’ve known Jim for ~10 years. We used to play basketball and rock together in good ole Sterling Heights, MI. He is currently on The Eternal Roadtrip in a car with 200,000 miles. He also writes literary masterpieces.

I’m Not Dead I’m Just Working On A Product (And Giving It Away Free For 24 Hours) by Corbett Barr

Corbett gave away his upcoming affiliate marketing course for free to anybody who purchased HTLA in the first 24 hours! Thanks Corbett!

Let’s Talk Freedom by Henri Junttila

Henri gave way both of his eBooks + an hour of consulting for everybody who bought HTLA through him. Awesome, thanks Henri!

How To Live Anywhere by David Damron

David gave away (I believe) every single one of his eBooks. In return, he had a great sales day. :) Thanks David!

A Minimalist Living Movie Vision Board by Charley Forness

Charley not only is giving away one of his upcoming products with HTLA purchase, but he also provided a video testimonial based on his success with HTLA. (I released Version 0.9 of HTLA on March 5, 2010 and he got it back then.)

How To Live Anywhere – A Review by Anthony Feint

Anthony actually reviewed the original Version 0.9 after he bought it back in March. Then he re-reviewed the new complete course. Thanks for that Anthony!

How To Live Anywhere and Enjoy Ridiculously Extraordinary Freedom by Ivan Campuzano

I’ve only recently connected with Ivan and he wrote a great review of HTLA. Thanks Ivan!

How To Live Anyfrigginwhere Like A Boss by Greg Rollett

Greg wasn’t able to write a review for launch day because he had his own product launch going, but then he wrote a review anyway! Greg’s launch is BandWPThemes.com, a way to get your band’s Web site online with a sweet looking wordpress site in ~12 minutes. (Yes, there is video proof.)

How to Live and Work Anywhere by Rosalind Gardner

I’ve known Rosalind for probably 8 years but lost touch with her (and lots of other people) about 5 years ago. Rosalind wrote  a great write up of our recent conversation (I won 2 hours of consulting time with her in an Affiliate Summit charity auction, my way of getting back in touch while helping a good cause, hehe) and a review of HTLA. Thank you Rosalind!

Live and Work from Anywhere by Rasheed Hooda

Rasheed was an early adopter and got Version 0.9 of HTLA back in March. He wrote this review and also picked up the upgraded Long Haul HTLA. Thanks Rasheed!

Free Love Friday by Melissa Gorzelanczyk

Melissa gave me a shout out on her weekly Friday link round-up! Thanks Melissa.

ManVsDebt.com linked on his site under Featured Products I Love.

Baker rules. Thanks Baker!

Mnmlstlife.com linked on the side bar.

Abhishek e-mailed me and asked if he could put a 125×125 button on his Web site for my course without the affiliate link. He simply likes what I’m doing and wanted to help out. Thanks Abhishek, that is so cool!

Thanks to John Reese for sending a shout out to his crew yesterday! (Also, there’s an epic 45 minute interview with John in HTLA Long Haul so thanks for that too John!)

If I somehow missed you then I am a buttface. But send me an e-mail and I’ll be sure to give you credit ASAP! I will probably also kiss the ground you walk on and throw rice at random newlyweds. Just because I can.

Other Thanks

Thanks to Benny Lewis, Jonathan Mead, Jim Cockrum, Grace Gardner (no Web site rock star!), Brian Evans, and Lisa Sonora Beam for allowing me to interview them for HTLA! And thanks again to Leo Babauta, John Reese, Everett Bogue, Henri Junttila who I already thanked above, but who also allowed me to interview them! :)

Thank you to Charlie at CharfishDesign.com for kicking ass on the 5 HTLA PDF guides, the 125×125 button (it’s in my sidebar to your right) and also for hooking up some things on the sales page at the last minute.

Thanks to my Mastermind Group, because without their accountability and insights I might not be getting as much done as I have been.

Twitter + Testing/Tracking Nerd Alert!

There were a ton of mentions on twitter! I’m not sure how to thank all of them although I did respond to every tweet (I think) so if you tweeted you got thanks that way. :)

Interestingly, lots of people linked directly to the course and Twitter traffic made 3 sales! (The math nerd in me loves tracking these things. It’s a good business quality as well.)

Minimalist Testing/Tracking

In Everett Bogue’s Minimalist Business guide (mentioned earlier, available June 15 and that’s not an affiliate link) I wrote an article about minimalist tracking. It’s actually very easy to set up for most sites. For WordPress it’s a little bit trickier, but still doable. If enough people are interested I will send Everett an update on how to set up tracking for WordPress. It takes ~15 minutes from start to finish if you’re using Thesis Theme. Just a tad bit longer (and just a bit of technical knowhow) if you’re using a free theme.

Lots of people don’t seem to realize the power in testing/tracking and how simple it is to set up. For example, I know that Google.com has so far sent me 9 HTLA Long Haul Version sales with a conversion rate of 3.08%. Should I focus more on Google rankings? Probably a great idea. That’s ~$950 in profit from completely free traffic! Thanks for the free plane ticket to almost anywhere Google. ;)

Whoa, tangent! If you’re new here know that I go on lots of those …

Talk soon.

And thank you!

How To Live Anywhere: The Official Guide To Ridiculously Extraordinary Freedom!

The massive How To Live Anywhere course launches today. A short message of thanks …

You can now get How To Live Anywhere right here! –> http://www.ridiculouslyextraordinary.com/how-to-live-anywhere-course/

I worked hard on this course. And (shh), I already added a bonus (2 bonuses for the Long Haul edition!) that’s not even listed on the sales page. ;) More bonuses to come as well!

This is my flagship, evergreen, product. I hope, if you pick it up, it affects lots of change in your life. If you don’t pick it up, I hope this blog is doing so.

I’ve been really inspired by all the comments/e-mails/tweets I’ve been getting lately. If you’ve written in and thanked me, know that I get just as much inspiration from you as you get from me. (Of course, I already responded to you if you wrote in, so you may already know that. hehe)

So, today is a day of thanks.

Thank you for continually reading and supporting. Even if you’re not planning on buying anything from me I want you here.

Thanks to a whole lot of people who are helping out with the launch today (either logistically or with a promotion) or who I interviewed for the How To Live Anywhere course. I will do a full write-up this coming Sweet Shit Saturday #010 (Giving Thanks Edition).

It’s a lot of people. Until you’re behind the scenes of an orchestrated (meaning, planned out) launch you don’t realize how many people come together to make one work.

If you’re into what I do here and want to pick up How To Live Anywhere, here you go: http://www.ridiculouslyextraordinary.com/how-to-live-anywhere-course/

Yours in Freedom Fighting,

Karol

The Thrill of $10k In A Day (and Why Monetary Goals Are Worthless)

I discuss the thrill of $10k profit in a day and then get into how to set goals that matter …

It’s not pre-launch week anymore. How To Live Anywhere launches tomorrow! I’m so fired up. I’m really looking forward to unleashing this bad assery on the world.

What we’ve covered so far:

Monday – How I Created My First 6-Figure Business For $119.40

Thursday – Why I Quit (or How To Go From $10k/month to $0/month Overnight)

Saturday – Sweet Shit Saturday #009 (Business Building Edition)

Today’s article is about, quite possibly, the most important lesson I’ve learned in life.

“What?! What are you talking about?! Shut. Up!”

I had just told a friend of mine that I pulled in $9,000 in 1 hour and I think her reaction was warranted. By the time the product I was selling had sold out 4 hours later I pulled in just a tad over $20k profit.

I was really proud of myself. It was a crazy adrenaline high and it was almost surreal. By the way, I don’t state any of this to brag, but just to show you what is possible. And, more than that, to show you why monetary goal setting is worthless.

I’ve already discussed building trust, giving good content, and the power of an e-mail list. Well, those things all came together on that day.

But that wasn’t the first or the last time I pulled in over $10k profit in one day.

In How To Live Anywhere I interview a guy named John Reese. I paid $4,500 to attend his private workshop in March of 2004. Later that year he released the core information from that workshop in a huge course called Traffic Secrets that cost almost $1,000.

It was August 17, 2004. John pulled in $1 million that day. Me? I sold 35 copies of his course, getting a $500 commission on each one. $17,500 for selling a product that was not mine. That was my first 5 figure day as an affiliate (also not my last).

That is the power of giving people what they want. If you give enough people what they want, you will get what you want. I didn’t have the biggest audience, but I was one of John’s top affiliates anyway. That’s a recurring theme in my life. Besides the temporary setback I wrote about in Why I Quit, my thinking has always been to give, give, give. And then I always got what I wanted.

The problem: At the time all I wanted was money.

Nothing else mattered. I didn’t need all the money I was making, but my goal was to make more, more, more. Fill the bank account! I wanna see lots of zeros! Sell! Sell! Sell!

Listen, I know it sounds like I’m complaining about money. That’s not it. It’s very hard to tell someone “money, as a goal, is dumb” during a time when so many people are affected financially.

While things may be a little more difficult these days, a fun shift is happening. I see a lot of people who are getting back to basics.

Can’t afford cable TV? Awesome, you get to spend more time reading to your kids, or taking walks, or enjoying true peace and quiet.

Can’t afford to go out partying every night? Sweet, invite some friends over, cook out, hang, bond.

Why Money Is A Useless Goal

Money goals are empty numbers and life is not a contest. Making more money doesn’t make us more special. Making more money doesn’t make us happier.

The happiest wealthy people I know grew that wealth as an aside. It happened because they were focused, living awesome lives, giving people what they wanted, but without a number as an end goal. The most depressed wealthy people I know have only money as the goal.

The happiest “regular Joes” I know are happy because they’re focused, living awesome lives, giving people what they want, and setting experiential goals instead of monetary goals. The most depressed “regular Joes” I know are depressed because their end goal is money.

Do you see the connection?

Monetarily wealthy or not, happiness is not determined by a dollar amount.

Depression, whether someone is a millionaire or not, is rooted in some random dollar amount.

Why You Don’t Need $10k In A Day

I’m not going to say it’s not awesome making $10k in a day. It is. But it’s no more awesome than spending an afternoon in the park (Park Zachodni here in Wroclaw, Poland for example!), taking the time to enjoy the cool breeze and the hot sun.

We do need money to live. And we also need money to Live Anywhere. That’s a fact.

We just need a lot less than we think we need.

Money Goals vs Experiential Goals

A short while ago I talked about Living Dreams vs Chasing Dreams. Setting monetary goals is chasing. Setting experiential goals is living.

For example, maybe you want to do what I did and learn how to build a guitar from scratch in India. Awesome experiential goal!

Now, figure out the cost: $1,200 for the course, $1,000 for an economy flight (unless you do what I did and use Frequent Flier Miles to fly business class), $400 for a room and food for 3 weeks. That’s only $2,600 for an unforgettable experience, complete with take home prize (the guitar!).

Tell me which one of these goals feels better to you:

– I will make an extra $2,600 in the next 90 days.

or

– I will make an extra $2,600 in the next 90 days so I can experience the bad assery of spending 3 weeks hand building a guitar in India!

When you feel a goal something clicks in your brain. Solely monetary goals are unfeeling and soulless. When you set a goal based on an amazing experience your synapses will start firing and help you focus on achieving.

The Time Has Come

How To Live Anywhere is coming tomorrow. (Yay!) I will post on this blog at 10:30am EST to let you know, but if you want a headstart to get the fast action bonus just get on the Priority Access List below.

By the way, the process for pulling in $17,500 like I talked about above is the exact same process I write about in The Anatomy of a 4 Figure Affiliate Promo case study, which is part of the How To Live Anywhere course. The difference is, this recent 4-figure-in-a-day monetary goal had a purpose. I’ll let you know about that another time. ;)

This has been my first really public launch in a long while. Whether you decide to buy How To Live Anywhere tomorrow or not, thank you so much for sticking around!

And, as always, results are not typical. Your results may not match mine or they might blow mine away. Remember, this is not a contest. :)

Tell me what you thought about it …

Sweet Shit Saturday #009 (Business Building Edition)

Launch lessons learned, product road maps, how to get more tweets/comments, how to take action, and more! Plus sneak peak at How To Live Anywhere …

(That photo is supposed to be funny…or double entendre-esque. It’s a photo of a business building, but what I’m referring to in the title of this post is building a business. Why am I explaining myself? Did I just confuse you? I confused myself. Should I stop talking to myself via my own blog? Did I just enter a wormhole? Science, help me.)

We’re getting so close to launch for How To Live Anywhere! Next Tuesday, June 8, 10:30am EST! I am really happy about what I’ve created. I’m not sure if I’ve ever been as pleased with a work of my own art as this course. (note: the course is now available!)

I was talking with my mastermind group a few days ago and straight up said “I’m putting so much into this I have no idea what I’ll be able to create for my next product.” Which is fine by me. My goal is to wow everybody who looks at How To Live Anywhere, and I’m sure I’ve done it.

Even Charlie, the awesome designer who is creating the PDF guides for me, said “I love your affiliate guide. It is really really good. I read the whole thing and am reading it again tonight because it’s full of straightforward info. Dig it.” The affiliate guide he’s referring to is a 12 page guide called The Anatomy of a 4 Figure Affiliate Promotion that is part of the How To Live Anywhere course. Everybody who has seen this guide has had nothing but positive things to say. I’m loving this!

Here’s a sneak peak at the cover design Charlie created for the core How To Live Anywhere guide:

Charlie rules.

Let’s get into some links, shall we? Today we’re focusing on business building …

How To Live Anywhere Pre-Launch

I’ve shared some fun business lessons with you this week. The comments/tweets/e-mails you’ve made were all so awesome. Thank you!

Monday – How I Created My First 6-Figure Business For $119.40

Thursday – Why I Quit (or How To Go From $10k/month to $0/month Overnight)

This coming Monday – The Thrill of $10k In A Day (and Why Monetary Goals Are Worthless)

Business Lessons From Around The Blogosphere

Launch Lessons Learned: Q&A With Nathan Hangen of Beyond Blogging by Dave Navarro

Considering this is pre-launch week (like shark week … but without the sharks, and with more pre, whatever that is … Prefontaine?) this was a good article to read.  I don’t necessarily agree with the sentiment about launches being tiring though. Lots of stuff to do? Yes. Last minute tweaks and lots and lots and lots of e-mail conversations. Plus writing guest posts and answering interviews. I love it. It’s what Seth Godin might call a sprint. Not sustainable over the long haul, but definitely sustainable for a few days/weeks.

Frazzled? Overwhelmed? Try Creating a Product Roadmap by Erica Douglass

I’ve been following Erica’s blog for a long time. When she was 26 she sold a Web hosting company for $1.1 million and then started sharing her knowledge with the world. Rock! If you’ve been unsure or overwhelmed as far as product creation goes, this article will help. Erica is planning on releasing 10 products this year (whoa!) and this is her process.

How To Organize A Sales Page To Avoid Overwhelm by Mark Silver

Wow, perfect timing on this. I’m a good sales page copy writer (like anything, lots of practice helps), but I’ve never been good at the actual layout of pages. The collapsible elements WordPress plugin that Mark mentions looks like an awesome option for making the layout less overwhelming. I may try it for Tuesday, although I very well may not. We might both be surprised! :)

Buck Up and Make The Decision by Annie Sorensen

This is a video post and Annie states exactly what I’m a huge advocate of. Stop making excuses, start taking action. When it comes to starting a business, you just have to decide you want it, and stop making excuses about why you can’t make it happen.

Mass Engagement: How To Get Hundreds of Tweets & Comments On Your Blog Posts by Glen Allsopp

Glen really rocks it hard on a regular basis, and this article is no exception. If you’re wondering how he gets such a large amount of tweets and comments on his blog posts and how you can do the same, then check this out.

That’s all for this week. I hope you’re getting value out of this pre-launch. As you can see I’m not hard selling and even if you don’t plan to buy anything from me the articles are legitimate lessons, not disguised sales pitches. It’s basically like any other time on this blog, only the articles are all business focused.

Questions/comments/want to build empires (complete with real castles and moats!) together? You know what to do …

Why I Quit (or How To Go From $10k/month Profit To $0/month Overnight)

The story of why I shut down a 6 figure business one day out of the blue …

“I’ll give you $50,000 + 50% of the revenue for life.”

That was one of the many offers I received for the 6 figure business I talked about on Monday.

4 hour work week?

I had that business so automated I think it was 4 hour work month. All physical products were fulfilled by a fulfillment center in Ohio, all customer support was outsourced for $15/hour to a really awesome Canadian company, all digital sales were fulfilled via autoresponder/Paypal/Clickbank/2Checkout, bookkeeping/accounting was outsourced, Authorize.net merchant account deposits came in every day like clockwork … it was completely hands off.

And that’s where the problems started appearing.

My life went from trying to provide as much possible value as I could to each fan, subscriber, and customer to just wanting to make as much money as possible in as little time as possible.

I was turning into a greedy son of a bitch.

I didn’t know what to do, but I began looking for a way out.

I e-mailed a few people who I respected and told them I’m selling. I had a 50,000 subscriber double opt-in e-mail list, so in addition to the business being completely hands off, I had some really valuable assets on my hands.

I got some really great offers. A few were in the 6 figure range, but I think the $50k + 50% revenue was the best one, simply because it was a guaranteed income stream.

From $10k/month To $0/month

One day (June 15, 2005 – did I ever mention my brain remembers everything?), without consulting anybody about it, I just shut it all down. Profits went from over $10k/month to $0/month.

And I felt relief.

You might think it’s stupid “throwing away” that much money. Many people told me I was insane.

But I “bought” something more important than cash: integrity, dignity, pride.

See, that infoproduct business sold the “how to sell on eBay” type products I talked about in How I Created My First 6 Figure Biz. I had all but stopped selling on eBay by 2005. So I had been selling products teaching people how to sell on eBay while I was no longer actively doing so.

Even though my eBay knowledge was vast (marketing is marketing whether it’s eBay, offline, online, whatever) I didn’t feel good about it and quitting this business was the only respectable plan of action.

Going through that taught me very important lessons about treating customers with respect and providing massive value …

How To Be Ignored

The following seemingly has nothing to do with business, but there’s an important message in these words …

A little over a year ago I was seeing a girl. One day, after she had just spent 2 straight weeks at my house, she gave me a kiss, walked out of my house, and went home.

I called her later that day to say something silly, but she didn’t pick up. No big deal. I don’t expect people to answer every single phone call. So I left a message. And didn’t hear back. A day later I called again, wondering if something had happened. Again, no response. A text went unanswered as well.

I didn’t know whether she died or what was going on. Whatever it was, not knowing and being ignored like that was painful.

The Pursuit Of Every Single Connection

It wasn’t until a week later that I heard from her. I’ll spare you the details. The important thing is that being ignored reinforced an important lesson about how to treat people.

That’s why I’m so adamant about responding to every comment, every e-mail, and every tweet. It’s not a scalable strategy at all, but it feels good to get a response from someone you take the time to connect with, doesn’t it? I know how much I hate being ignored and I did a lot of ignoring that last year of running the automated-beyond-belief eBay how to business.

Will I always be able to respond to every single connection? To be honest: no. But I’ll cross that bridge when the time comes. Today? Yes, I can respond. More than that, I want to respond. It’s not a burden. I don’t feel like I’m wasting time. I love it.

I’m fired up about truly helping 100 people achieve Ridiculously Extraordinary Freedom. At its core, that is what this site is about, after all.

A little while ago I talked about establishing trust. Shutting down a $10k/month business instead of selling it or continuing on with it really boiled down to re-establishing trust with the world … and myself.

Today I do my best to over-deliver. That’s why this blog is free. It’s my payment to you. Yes, How To Live Anywhere is coming June 8, and I will release more products in the future. (Although I have no clue what those will be since I put everything into How To Live Anywhere.) But it doesn’t matter to me whether you ever buy anything or not. If you want to connect, I’m happy to connect. I want to rock your world with what I do here. And in return all I ask is that you keep rocking my world by reading / commenting / tweeting / sharing / e-mailing. :)

How To Be Trustworthy, Ethical, and Still Rock Hard and Live Anywhere

You don’t have to resort to underhanded tactics to make money. Yes, there is millions being made by shady marketing, and you can do that if you want. No judgments, it doesn’t matter to me. (Although you should probably stop reading this blog if that’s your game.)

What does matter to me is getting the message out that being ethical is OK. You can still make a ton of money by being cool. You can live an awesome life and have anything you could ever want. Whether that’s a tiny house in the woods, a 10,000 square foot mansion in Beverly Hills, or a non-stop vagabond live-and-work-anywhere-life full of amazing experiences, it is all possible.

And you know what? Every night, when you lay your head upon your freshly fluffed pillow, you’ll have a great night’s sleep. No stress, no strain, just love.

Note: Results are not typical. I don’t know whether you’ll ever be in a position to shut down a 6 figure business, much less actually run a 6 figure business. Hustle, focus, work hard, and awesome things can happen! ;)

Sweet Shit Saturday #008 (Pre-Launch Edition)

Preeeeee la la la launch! This week is pre launch week and we’ll be talking about lots of business stuff!

Whoa, the official launch of How To Live Anywhere is coming up fast. June 8!

Next week, being that it’s pre-launch week, will be full of lots of nitty-gritty bad assery™. (Not really ™ I just wanted to be super cool and insert a symbol. Seriously, super cool.) In this particular case, I’m sticking to biz-related articles until launch. We’ll cover how I started my first profitable biz for less than $200 (and how you can too), why I once shut down (as opposed to selling for a large sum or continuing on with it) a biz that was pulling in over $10k/month profit, and what it feels like to make 5 figures in a day (multiple times) but why I still think money isn’t of utmost importance.

The next 10 days will also be spent mobilizing a group of affiliates to make the launch a success. While I don’t have the network to pull off a Chris Guillebeau launch of epic proportions right now, it will still be a fun time. The affiliate program is currently open to anybody who bought Version 0.9 and a select few other people. If you have a blog with a readership that trusts you and for some reason you don’t get an e-mail from me by Wednesday please get in touch. (Launch day commissions are going to be a massive 95%. I don’t mess around when it comes to treating affiliates well. Ba ba ba booya!)

How my eBook made $1,800 In 3 Days with 78 people on my list by Kelly Kingman

This is a great story and reinforces what I talked about in 7 Ways To Establish Trust In An Age Of Skepticism. I’ve had Kelly’s blog in my RSS reader for a while and she comes across as very genuine. In other words, trustworthy. As a result, her small list and a few key actions produced tremendous results.

How To Achieve Your Dreams by Tammy Strobel

The most important part of this article is tip #6: action. No article, book, course, or person will ever help you as much as you can help yourself by simply taking focused action right now. Thanks for reinforcing that Tammy. :)

The Importance of Being Unremarkable by Jonathan Mead

Jonathan (who I just interviewed for How To Live Anywhere) has an awesome take on doing unremarkable but important things. I especially like this line: “When we’re focusing too much on doing epic shit, we can lose sight of the truly epic things that aren’t outwardly or obviously epic.” I do a lot of unremarkable things that I really enjoy. Hand washing my clothes in a bag is one of them. Without fail, everybody who sees me do it makes a comment and thinks I’m weird, but I enjoy the process of hand washing my clothes … in a bag. ;) It’s unremarkable, but to me it’s epic.

How To Pursue Work That Matters by Everett Bogue

I agree with a lot of what Everett writes here (and a lot of what he writes in general, dude rocks!), but also disagree with some of it: “…answering every blog comment whether or not it’s relevant or even requires a response.” I seem to be in the minority with this thought (well, Pat and Glen seem to be gung-ho on the same page as me, although I won’t put words in their mouths), but I think answering all (or pretty much all) blog comments is pursuing work that matters. Yes, it takes time, but showing appreciation to fans who allow me to do what I do is time well invested. I liken it to an actor who wants to be famous, but when they get famous and have lots of attention from fans they ignore them. You can tell who not only deserves success, but appreciates who gave them that success. Without you, this blog is just a tree falling in the forest with nobody around to hear it. Thanks for hearing the tree fall and for telling your friends you liked the sound. ;)

Travel Hack: How To Take 40kg Of Luggage On Low Cost Carriers by Benny Lewis

Benny forgot the most important part of this situation in the headline: it’s free! Benny did this without paying extra baggage fees (well, beyond the regular check-in fee). This is simply awesome … and fun. I almost wish I had 50kg of stuff so I could attempt a new “record.” :)

Veganize Your Life by WA Christopher J.

I mentioned I had an article about veganism about 6 months ago and I’ve dropped the ball. Mostly because I haven’t looked at it in months, it’s a good 3-4,000 words, and it’s not done. I get a lot of e-mails about veganism and I really will post that tome some day. For now, my friend James wrote this awesome guide, but he includes a disclaimer: “This guide was written for those who have already made the choice to become vegan.” James is a great writer so it’s worth a read even if you haven’t made that choice yet. :)

The #1 Habit Of Highly Creative People by Leo Babauta

If you know me by now you know I highly recommend this habit myself. You’ll see exactly what it is when you read the article. Here’s a hint: I don’t own the domain HowToBeAlone.com for nothing. (A free Black Book will launch there in a few months.)

That’s all for this week. I hope even if you don’t ever plan on buying anything from me or if you already bought Version 0.9 of How To Live Anywhere you’ll stick around during (and after!) the June 8th launch. If not, it’s cool, we’re still best buds. ;)

Questions/comments/want me to cook you my famous gluten-free soy-free 4-bean veganized chili? You know what to do …