Jarkko Laine » Business

Start By Creating Art

Jarkko — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 05:04:38 +0000

On this blog, and on my newsletter, we talk a lot about how to make a living in a sustainable way, using minimalism as a tool to make it possible. But going from a consumer just like anyone else to a minimalist business owner can be a big jump. In fact so big that it is easy to get discouraged from trying at all. That’s why you need an intermediate step to start from, and here it is:

First, become minimalist to create art. Don’t worry about making it a business at first.

By becoming an artist¹ first, you don’t yet have to worry about whether your idea will be profitable or not. You can work on anything that excites you and keeps you up in the night, and enjoy the excitement that comes from creating something of your own.

That’s how it started for Jay Shafer (and most other remarkable people out there) who, without any prior construction experience, taught himself to build his own tiny house. Today, he designs tiny houses for others through his own business, Tumbleweed Tiny House Company.

Give yourself freedom to figure out what makes you come alive

For me, the most frustrating part in career advice has always been figuring out what I want to do. There are so many things that could work. When I read about turning my passion into a business, I keep coming back to the question: “so what is my passion, then?” Treating all the paths as ways to create art is making the process much easier: I can always just start practicing and creating first, and then see if that thing is something I will keep doing even after the initial excitement wears off.

Following this approach, after you have tested your passion would be a good time to start to think about ways to make a living through this passion. What if there isn’t one? That’s just fine too. After all, you have just created something of your own, something of lasting value, and only “lost” the time you would have otherwise spent watching television!

A new e-book

I was blown away when I started reading Brett Oblack’s new e-book, Consume Less, Create More. It takes the above philosophy that I have been living by for quite a while and puts it to words in a beautiful way. In fact, just reading the description of the book was one of the moments where I couldn’t help but think: “How didn’t I think of this theme for a book?”

If you are excited about the idea of using minimalism for creating more, check out what Brett has to say.

But most importantly, think about this: What could you create if you gave up some of the consumption and spent the time on building on your own ideas instead?

When we talk about art in this context, I use a broad definition that means anything that comes from you heart that you create with your own mind and two hands. Some example could be writing, baking your bread, knitting, painting or song writing ↩

There is No Substitute for Hard Work

Jarkko — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 05:36:01 +0000

As I started writing this post, I had just sent out my first ever exclusive newsletter article to my subscribers (read more about why you too might want to subscribe). It was 7:39 AM and I had been up since five. Today, my alarm failed me and I woke up only at six, fired up my computer and got to changing my world. My kids will wake up soon, and I’m a bit anxious to have the post out of the door before they wake up.

With two small children I don’t have too much time to work on my projects, so I keep coming back to the thought of working smart instead of hard. It would be nice to just work an hour or two when I feel like it and then forget all about it. But that’s not how it goes. Smart work is great, but it’s no substitute for hard work.

So, if you are procrastinating on your next big idea, here’s the deal: stop looking for the smartest ways to do it, and just get back to work. If you don’t have a plan for how to work smart, work just as hard as you can and figure out the smart as you go.

How I Work

During July (my summer vacation from my day job), I have been testing my ideal work routine, which I plan to continue when I stay home with my kids starting January 2011. It consists of nowhere close to as many hours of work as that of some of the most hardworking bloggers and internet entrepreneurs I know, yet it is as hard work as it can get for me.

I work every morning, except Sundays when I sleep in. I wake up between five and six AM depending on how late I stayed up the night before — aiming to start closer to five than six, with varying success.
I jump right in. I try to plan my work for the next day in advance before I get to bed so I have a clear plan for where to start. When I forget to do this, I can easily lose half an hour in the morning for surfing the web and looking for inspiration.
Focus. Knowing that I only have the three or so hours in the morning available for my work, I am forced to focus on the things I think matter most. When Oiva wakes up, I turn off the computer and stop my work right there. If I haven’t completed the most important task by then, the task gets postponed to tomorrow.

So, my hard work is about three hours every day. That’s not hard work, you say. And, sure, it’s not optimal yet: if I got to bed a bit earlier, I could probably wake up about an hour or so earlier and squeeze in one more hour.

But that’s not the point.

Work Hard With the Hours You Got

This is where smart work comes to play.

Most office workers spend eight or more hours at the office every day. You probably do too, just like I do, when it’s not July. And out of those eight hours, how many are actually hard work? Four? Maybe five?

When working these three hours, the risk is the same. If I don’t pay close attention to what I do, three can easily turn into one, or even less. That has happened. But when you do pay attention, you don’t need full working days to get a lot of things done. A couple of hours can be plenty.

Blog posts and e-books don’t write themselves. The world isn’t changed in five minutes (although many five minute iterations will ultimately do the trick).

So work hard with the hours you have available. It’s the only thing you can do.

Side Business, Smart Business

How to Make a Living in a World of Abundance

Jarkko — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 04:25:22 +0000

If we’re adding to the noise
turn off this song
If we’re adding to the noise
turn off your stereo, radio, video

– Switchfoot, Adding to the Noise

We all have a set of basic needs: food, shelter and clothes¹. To pay for them², we need money. To get money, we have to sell something.

At the same time, in the western world today, there are already more options on the market than a regular customer can handle, and businesses, both big and small, are pushing out new stuff at a speed like nothing we have seen before. Where do you fit in?

What can you sell when too much of everything (and more) is already being sold at your local mall?

This is a hard question, and I fight it with every business and money making idea I think of — not to mention my day job. That’s why, although I can’t pretend I have it all figured out, I have to say something about this question and how it has affected my plans for making a living.

Leave a Legacy

On this planet that once seemed so big, with all ends open for exploration, we are now close to hitting its boundaries. Everything we create consumes some of the planet’s finite resources. And every time we throw away that creation, it means something will be lost forever (or, at least for a really long time).

“Let’s just create whatever we can make people want to pay for” just doesn’t seem good enough anymore. There must be something better than building this throw-away culture even bigger. There must be a way to create something we can be proud of.

We need to leave a legacy — or do nothing.

Pick Better Fights and Help People

In my current day job, I work in entertainment. I guess that explains a big part of why can’t seem to get past this question: entertainment as a business is the stereotype of the kind of business that works by trying to convince people to buy things that they don’t need or often even want.

We fight hard to beat the competition and make more money, and we don’t provide real value to the world we live in.

I don’t mean to say there is no place for entertainment in the world — in fact, entertainment could be one of the few things people in a world abundance should be doing. But that has nothing to do with today’s entertainment business. It should be entertainment created for artistic values, to provide understanding and a clearer vision of the world. It should be meaningful. And most importantly, its goal shouldn’t be to beat the competition and to grow investor value.

If we want to work long hours and fight a big enemy, we should at least make sure the enemy is worth the fight.

There are still many real issues in the world: poverty, hunger, ecological disasters, diseases, prejudices, loneliness.

How about facing one of them instead?

Time is precious. Not doing anything is hugely valuable. So, if you are not fighting a big cause, why would you spend all your time working?

Working with Ideas

The day before my summer holiday started, as I rode my bike to work, I was trying to imagine giving up different things in life. I asked myself the question: “Would I miss something if no one in the world was creating new _____s?”

I tried it with soap operas, and the answer was no.

I tried it with computer games, and answered no.

I tried it with new gadgets, and after some soul searching answered no.

I tried it with great bread, and the answer was a yes — although, I do think I could still live without bread.

But then, I tried it with books. That was a definite yes.

There is no way around it: if I lost the window to all these wise people’s minds, and all the wisdom and learning that I can get into through it, I wouldn’t be able to live my greatest passion. Without books, I wouldn’t be me.

I concluded that there is something specially valuable in written words.

And that (with a hint of bread) is where I am building my future ways of making a living in this world. Give the test to try, you might find your answer to be something different — but exciting!

July 2010

Today is the fifth day of July, and my four-week summer vacation officially starts today.

My plan is to spend this month test driving my ideal workflow and keep working on my minimalist business that leaves time for what I love the most: my family³.

I will be working in the mornings for a couple of hours, with words and ideas: building this blog to be the main platform for leaving my legacy and sharing what I learn, and writing my first information product. Work has started and I’m looking forward to being able to share all of it with you.

What about you? Will you join me and test your own ideal work this month too?

And if you haven’t already, go read these fabulous and free e-books and manifestos about making a living and changing the world in a meaningful way:

279 Days to Overnight Success and The Brief Guide to World Domination by Chris Guillebeau
How to Create a Movement by Everett Bogue
What Matters Now by Seth Godin

I have been re-reading all of them this week, and every time I am blown away with the wisdom and encouragement these guys are sharing.

I believe we are living in a time where mass-marketing products no one needs is not only boring but also getting dangerous, and we need to find better ways to make a living. Using words to improve people’s lives can be one of the ways to get food on the table without compromising your values. I don’t know if it’s the best way. And I’m sure it’s not the only way.

So, think about it: how will you make a living without adding to the noise?

Once we are covered on those, we can add more needs — but at least according to Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, those additional needs aren’t material! They are things like friendship, respect of others, confidence, achievement, love. ↩
Assuming we are not going to opt for illegal action ↩
In January 2011, I will be doing this full time, staying home with my two sons as my wife starts the practical studies phase in her psychology studies (in other words, goes to work, but with a very low pay) ↩

6 Buzz Words that Can Change the World

Jarkko — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 11:47:35 +0000

In the highlands of Rwanda, Emmy Gatsinga produces some of the world’s finest coffee. She employs 35 small farmers who grow coffee organically without chemicals or artificial fertilizers of any kind. When coffee lovers in Europe buy this coffee, they know they are not giving their money to some greedy middlemen — this coffee has a real human face.

When Leo Babauta set out to write his new book, Focus, he did something quite out of the ordinary. He put the book out there for the public to read and comment on, for free — and before it was even ready. And even his earlier books were uncopyrighted, meaning that once you bought the book you could do anything with it. It is clear that for him, it’s all about getting just a fair enough compensation for his work, and then leaving a legacy.

These examples are scenes from a better new world that is slowly coming to life. One that can be defined by these six buzz words:

Enough. Slow. Real. Personal. Fair. Legacy.

The current way of running the world that is powered by a vision of a never-ending growth is only one of many options. And although it has had a big role in improving the quality of life in developed countries, it seems that it has now overgrown the planet’s capacity and is not a sustainable option anymore.

In this post, I will outline what I believe could be one way out.

Now, you probably think that it’s useless to spend time thinking of these things and there is no way the world would actually change, no matter what one or two person thinks. There are just too many of us on the planet: if we change our ways, some other people will take our places as the top consumers. This may be true, but still, I see no choice but to try and come up with changes that we could in fact make happen.

Real. Personal. Fair.

It all starts with caring for real people (yourself, your neighbors and relatives, as well as those people you have never met) and it is based on fair business between equals. It is a world where people have names and products have personalities.

Some people see brands as the enemy. In her classic anti-capitalistic book, No Logo, Naomi Klein, presents a solid case against big brands based on building an image instead of actually living it, such as McDonalds, Nike and the like. But by grouping all logos and brands in this together, I believe she also misses an important opportunity: In a culture where brands are everywhere, and people are getting tired of their fake promises, the next big winner will be brands that are real, personal and fair.

These new brands are representations of the people making the product. They are personal. They are people like Emmy Gatsinga and her farmers, Leo Babauta, or 37signals, a software company that doesn’t hide behind a corporate mask. Or you.

Enough. Slow.

When you know what is enough and cultivate your restraint, you will not have to worry about maximizing your profits, but can instead relax your copyright claims the way Leo Babauta is doing, or work a bit less and be content running a smaller operation instead of keeping up with the growth competition. You get to work slower, and therefore often a lot smarter too.

This is where minimalism comes to play: if we combine the buzzwords real, personal, and fair with the minimalist principle of enough, we amplify the message. When we know what we need and restrain from wanting things just for its status value, we lead the markets towards more sustainable ways!

If enough people make it loud and clear that we don’t want any more disposable stuff, the message will come through: real people creating useful things as art (and only just enough of them) will succeed while companies filled with nameless people pushing out garbage will suffer. And then, more people will opt for creating a legacy instead of pushing papers.

Will this be the future?

I don’t know whether this future will in fact happen or not. I see signs of it as people are getting more interested in food grown nearby, artisan work, and fair trade. At the same time the existing institutions are pushing heavily towards maintaining the status quo and regaining the growth cycle of earlier years.

What I do know is that working towards this world can be a rewarding experience. And living in it is possible already today, even if most of us still are on the outside.

Do business with real people, pay attention to when you have enough, live your life slowly, be fair, leave a legacy. It might make a difference.

Start Building Your Minimalist Business Today

Jarkko — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 20:11:51 +0000

A month ago, minimalism blogger and writer Everett Bogue launched his second e-book, Minimalist Business, as a pre-release that was available for just 24 hours. Having read his first book, The Art of Being Minimalist, I knew this book was something worth waiting for, and was among the first ones to buy the book and read it in just a couple of days. Since then, I have been returning to the book for advice and inspiration as I work on building my own very small business.

Today, Everett has just made the book available again. The book has been further polished and improved based on feedback he collected from the pre-release, and this time it’s here to stay. It’s a useful, beautifully crafted book about building a really small business to support your goals in life. If that is something you want to do in life and you are not running such a business successfully yet, I believe reading this book and following its advice will be what you need to give yourself a flying start.

If you are not sure why you would want a minimalist business, keep reading. Otherwise, check out the book now.

Why Would You Want a Minimalist Business?

This idea has many names: Clay Collins calls it a freedom business, Jonathan Fields talks about becoming a career renegade, Chris Guillebeau labels it very small biz. In the minimalist movement, Everett Bogue adds some minimalist principles to the mix with great success and calls his version minimalist business.

What these ideas all have in common is the goal to create a business built around the things that matter to you the most while making the business effective and automating parts of it. This way you will have freedom to focus on the things that you care about in life rather than spending your best hours working 9 to 5 on priorities set by other people.

Everyone is different, and we all have different priorities in life. Maybe you share some of my reasons (spending more time with my family, sharing ideas through blogging, participating in my local community, and doing my part in helping reduce poverty in the world), maybe you are like Everett and want to be free to live anywhere you decide, or maybe your goals are completely different.

The beauty of a minimalist business is that when you put in the work and build one, it will give you freedom to focus more of your time on these things.

Out of these approaches I have been reading about (I have bought and read something from all of these writers — I guess that makes me a bit of an e-book junkie), I like Minimalist Business the most. For me, its beauty lays in the fact that by applying minimalism first to my life and then to the business itself, I can make the goal much more attainable than normal sized business could ever be. And the book itself is a work of art. You can’t really go wrong with this (and if you don’t agree, Everett promises a forever money back refund for your money!)

If You Don’t Want to Buy the Book

By now it has probably become clear to you that I am trying to sell you this book. That’s because, first, it is a great product and I have great respect for Everett Bogue’s work, and second, as an affiliate, I get a share of the purchases made through my blog.

But I do understand not everyone wants to buy the product.

If you are not ready to get Minimalist Business (yet) but want to know more about the topic, here are links to some free resources to get you started:

Check out Everett’s landing page for the book and read the first 37 pages for free. It’s a great resource even if you are not going to buy the full book
Read Everett’s blog, Far Beyond the Stars. Many of the ideas in the book have been covered in blog posts over the past months as well.
Read Chris Guillebeau’s blog, The Art of Non-Confirmity.
Browse my archives for my past experiments in building an online business, and follow my future posts as I report on building my own minimalist business.

And most importantly, just start.

Can You Protect Your Online Brand?

Jarkko — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 08:10:44 +0000

I usually don’t like to cross-promote my blogs, but this time I posted something on Insanely Interested that I thought would be interesting to the audience of this blog as well.

Hop over to Insanely Interested to read the story of how someone “borrowed” my personal brand to land a freelance writing gig — as me!

Donation Can is Live – Finally

Jarkko — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 20:16:29 +0000

Check out the plugin page for more information! I hope you enjoy Donation Can and find it useful in your online ventures.

Take a look at the right sidebar of this blog for how the plugin looks in action.

Good night!

There is No Such Thing as Failure

Jarkko — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 05:27:37 +0000

In my series of small thoughts about business, goals and life, here are a few lines on failure.

When I look back to the goals I have set myself during the life time of this blog, I quickly notice that many of them haven’t happened as planned. But there is a funny thing I’ve noticed: I haven’t failed — my goals are just taking longer to achieve than I thought at first.

Business authors like to collect traits of successful business owners, often ignoring those who they see as failures. That’s one of the biggest critiques against books like “The Millionaire Next Door”: apparently, the failed businessmen share most of the traits with the successful ones.

But when I think about it now, I can’t help but wonder who is to say that those businessmen who are not (yet?) millionaires are failures? Maybe one or two of their ventures have not taken off as they were hoping. Maybe they have lost a good deal of money trying. But if they haven’t given up, I don’t think they have failed. They can still make it big time. Success is just taking longer than they thought.

What success is, is a topic for another discussion. But remember, overnight success doesn’t happen overnight, and failure is just delayed success. Hang in there, keep fighting, and check out Chris Guillebeau’s new (free) pdf report: 279 Days to Overnight Success.

No related posts.

Reasons for Going Against The Flow

Jarkko — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 12:50:32 +0000

There are days when I think life would be so much easier if I just gave up on my most ambitious goals and gave up to the normal way of life. I could sleep longer in the morning, I would be less stressed out, and in the short term, I would have more free time.

Luckily, my dreams are strong enough — and so many — that I just can’t give up.

Naomi from IttyBiz makes says it perfectly in her post about changing the world:

As long as a person is dependent on somebody else to give them money in exchange for large amounts of time, energy and brain power, they can’t do much to change the world.

Eliminate the chain.

Do your thing.

Change the world.

I could quote the whole post here, but that’s just unethical, so go read the post on Naomi’s site to understand why I’m still trying to make money online.

And speaking of changing the world, check out this blog post at Insanely Interested, and comment on my latest dream.

Glen Allsopp Plugs Into his Identity

Jarkko — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 12:52:50 +0000

Just a bit over a year ago, Glen Allsopp was an 18-year old guy from England, working in a job he hated, doing college courses that bored him to death, and running his own business part-time. In my books, that’s already quite an achievement for someone that young.

But it wasn’t enough for Glen, who wanted to plug into his real identity and live his life to the max. So, he took a job in South Africa, left his old life behind and moved to a whole new country far away from everything he knew.

If you checked out any of the links to Glen’s blog I posted last week, by now all of this is old news to you. You know who Glen is, and want to hear him speak, don’t you?

That’s why I think this is enough background.

Let’s get started with the interview questions.

Your blog is about plugging in to your identity and being the real you. But who is the real Glen? (A drawing to represent your mind would also be nice)

I’m someone who’s just realised they are not the box they thought they were trapped in. Despite doing crazy things like moving to South Africa on my own at 18, my life had been lived relatively shy and script-like.

As soon as I started to realise this, I’ve completely turned my life around. I’m starting to become a very confident person, someone who goes for what they want and I’m really enjoying life. I see it as my mission to help others do the same.

To describe myself in 5 words:

Authentic
Passionate
Non-judging
Creative
Challenging

A drawing that represents my mind:

The pink is my brain / mind, the light-bulb is my core creativity and centeredness. The green-lines are my distracting thoughts and beliefs that sometimes consume me and the majority of the planet.

This blog is about being insanely interested in everything. Often it’s not that easy to let go of all the prejudices related to the right way to lead your life and really make the most out of your unique personality. How can someone like this plug into her identity and make the most out of it?

Being insanely interested in everything must be great; I guess it keeps life interesting. I assume the prejudices you are talking about are that people think you are a little insane and should stick to one core focus.

Stick to what is true to you, because deep down you know what is right.

If being interested in everything is enjoyable and makes you happy, why change for anyone? Accept the prejudices / judgments and thrive off them. Be proud that you aren’t following the social norms and you are leading your own life.

What makes this September insanely interesting for you?

September has been very interesting for me; I’ve been offered a few great jobs in New York which I’ve turned down for personal reasons. The main thing for me this month is focusing on productivity, my workload has increased the last few months and using tools like ToDoist have really helped me keep on top of my tasks. That and the great ‘what are you doing this week’ discussions over at My Tropical Escape.

Every month is interesting because every month is different. I’ve also been planning the adventures for when my family come to visit me in Cape Town, it’s been over a year since I seen them.

What do you suggest others to do to make their September more interesting?

Do something different, give something a try, and even just set yourselves a challenge. Try a month where you try to cut costs and see how little you can spend whilst surviving. Or, look at areas of your life you would like to improve and spend a month working on them, such as going for interviews or asking for a pay rise if you want to improve your career.

I would actually recommend people try blogging if they’ve never tried it before; it can be almost meditative and could possibly become a new passion for many readers.

What is the most interesting/scary thing you have done so far in your life? How did you make yourself do it?

By far it was quitting my job in England, quitting college where I only had 1 year left (of 3) and leaving all my friends and family behind to go to Cape Town on my own (at 18). I did it by looking at my life situation, seeing if I was happy or if I wanted to make a change.

It might sound like risky business, but if the job you are doing isn’t for you and you don’t plan on extending education in the courses you are taking, why bother? That was my mentality anyway. Thanks to the support of my parents I realised it was possible and ended up in South Africa a few weeks after being offered a job.

Let’s play a word associations game: I give you five concepts, and you respond with the first idea that comes to mind.

Pizza: chicken, sweet corn, food fights, messy furniture
Pencil sharpener: scratchy, metal, small, sharp, shiny, cheap, annoying
South Africa: violence, beaches, women, sun, adventure, challenge, experience
Water: cold, windy, splashing, birds, clean, refreshing
Plug: PluginID ;), energy, voltage, electricity, implementation, doing

Thanks, Glen, this was fun!

Now, make sure to check out Glen’s blog if you haven’t yet. And even if you have, there is something big you just might have missed: an always up-to-date Personal Development Blog ranking list (too bad we’re not listed ;) Insanely Interested ranks 47th).