Jarkko Laine » Inspiration

How to Make a Difference (Free E-Book)

Jarkko — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 04:51:28 +0000

There are times when it seems like the world is never going to change for the better, and making a difference sounds like a distant dream.

Today is not one of those days.

Raam Dev, blogger and digital nomad currently staying in Nepal, has put together an e-book that shows that there is still will, passion, and caring left in this world, and that everyone can make their lives stand for something. The way he created the book makes the message shine even brighter: The book is a collection of small tips (from a couple of sentences up to one page of text) written by over 40 bloggers unaware of each other, each trying their best to make a difference in the world.

I contributed three of the over 100 tips in the book: “Practice your enough”, “Take the first step”, and “Don’t give up”.

It’s amazing that so many people care about the topic and each responded to Raams inquiry for contributions with great enthusiasm. But to me, there is something about this book that inspires me even more and that’s how quickly Raam put it together. When you read the book, you wouldn’t believe that it was only a month ago that Raam sent out the email asking for contributions! That’s what happens when you care about something with great passion!

This is one book you don’t want to miss, if you care about making a difference in the world (as I am sure you do!). Here’s what Raam says about the book in his introduction:

This ebook is a plea for help. It’s a voice in a room full of people who care about exactly the same thing but who are entirely oblivious to each other. It’s a calling for everyone living on Earth to recognize a new responsibility that we’ve brought upon ourselves, a responsibility that we created by quenching our thirst for abundance and feeding our lust for social and economic development.

In a world where technological advancement has given entire populations individual access to more knowledge than was available in the past thousand years combined, we have a new responsibility. We have a responsibility to speak up when something isn’t right and take action when things need to change. We have a responsibility to be responsible.

I was going to write more about the book, but my older son just woke up, and I need to get this post out now. So, without further ado, go download “Small Ways to Make a Big Difference” and get inspired to keep making the world a better place! The book is free, and there are no strings attached. You don’t even have to give out your email address.

6 Inspiring Examples of People Doing Great Work

Jarkko — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 22:18:00 +0000

It is easy to say that we need to do great work and change the world to the better. Doing the work is where it gets harder.

Today, I want to point you to some of my online heroes: great people doing great work that changes lives. People a lot like anyone else, except for one thing: they haven’t settled with dreaming. They are creating the change they want to see in the world.

Some of the names are more familiar than others, and some are doing more dramatic things than others, but what is common to all of them is that they are real. No one on the list is faking it. And like Sam Spurlin points out, these are all people who you can use as your holy shit effect to inspire you to keep going with your own world changing work.

Here we go: six people to follow closely (in alphabetical order), with a brief comment on why they inspire me as I try to leave a legacy.

Everett Bogue: Everett is a living proof of someone who has implemented a minimalist business and is close to living the four-hour workweek. Together with many other great minimalist bloggers, he is telling the world that we don’t need all the stuff we keep collecting and can in fact live a far more fulfilling life if we give up consumerism. This is a big part of the message I believe the world needs to hear today.
Jules Clancy: Jules runs a minimalist food blog called Stone Soup that has quickly become my favorite source for new recipes. Her blog posts are small pieces of art, and she just released a free e-cookbook this month. She shows that you can take rather crowded blogging niche, cooking, and make a difference by putting your soul into your work. My first, upcoming, digital product is largely inspired by Jules’s work.
Raam Dev: Raam left the safe path three months ago to travel in India, Vietnam and Nepal and gain a deeper understanding of what this world is really like. I believe it won’t be long before Raam creates a big movement, but already now, he is changing the world by sharing what he sees and experiences and encouraging us to learn more about these distant parts of the world.
Jonathan Fields: I have learned to know Jonathan as the super excited, always friendly and helpful blogger who puts his family first and encourages us to find new ways to make a living as career renegades. But what really blew me away were the Renegade Profile podcasts he kept releasing one after another for a really long period after releasing his book.
Chris Guillebeau: The man behind The Art of Non-Confirmity and the powerful manifestos The Brief Guide to World Domination and 279 Days to Overnight Success, Chris is traveling the world and showing us that it is, in fact, possible to visit every country on this planet (and build a business while doing it).
Totcycle: Funnily enough, although I know the name of his son, Luc, I don’t know the name of the author of this blog. But that’s not the point. Totcycle is changing the way we see family biking, providing tips and information on the how, and inspiring people with the why of leaving your car behind and picking the bike instead.

I know there are many more whom I couldn’t fit on the list, and many that I’m not even aware of. So the big question is: who are your inspiration for great work?

—

On a side note, today, inspired by great articles by Raam Dev and Joshua Becker, I have decided to take a break from blog stats (I won’t visit FeedBurner or Google Analytics, and I have customized the subscriber count on the sidebar to always show 1 for me) until August. So, after this post, I won’t know if I suddenly get a big increase or a huge drop in visitor counts or if my subscriber count goes up or down. And that’s fine. It’ll be that much more exciting to see the results in one month, and this will free me to write to you as one, real person rather than just a number.

Training for a Bigger Cause

Jarkko — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 09:10:22 +0000

What do you do if you are a fanatic blogger and athlete who wants to use those talents to leave the world a bit better than it was when you got it?

When faced with the question, Mark Hayward decided to go ahead and start a non-profit project to combines these interests: “Getting fit + social media + blogging = social good.”

Together with bloggers Leo Babauta and Dan Clements and with help from a bunch of other compassionate people, Mark launched his new project, Train for Humanity, on September 9th.

This must be an insanely interesting time for Mark, so let’s hear what he can tell us about it.

How did you come up with the idea for Train for Humanity?

The inspiration to try and do something to assist with humanitarian crises came many years ago while I was a U.S. Peace Corps volunteer in Papua New Guinea. However, the idea to create Train for Humanity, which combines getting fit (training for endurance events), the internet (blogging & social media) to raise awareness and funds for people who are suffering, came to me a couple of years ago while I was out for a run after having watched a CNN story on Darfur.

How did you know this was an idea you wanted to implement?

I have known for a long time that I would implement, or undertake some type of humanitarian initiative…it was the WHAT that I didn’t know.

When thinking about new ventures I try very hard not to jump into projects too lightly or on a whim. Back around March of this year I started a self-imposed challenge to try and make money online. Really, I wanted to try and stimulate some ideas for generating passive income online.

After a couple of posts on the topic of ‘making money online’ I realized I just wasn’t into it.

All along I have had this idea to create a humanitarian project, so why not focus my energy on that and try to do some real good in the world.

How did you collect your team, and what was challenging about it?

Collecting the team of Train for Humanity collaborators was the easy part.

In fact, I found that people wanted to help. Leo Babauta, of Zen Habits, was the first person I contacted to see if he was interested in participating. About a year ago I did a guest post for Leo titled, ‘Removing Negative Thought: Tips To Overcome and Step Outside of Your Comfort Zone’ and that article was the first time I came out in public with the Train for Humanity idea and concept. So it was natural that I would ask Leo.

The next team member that I contacted was Dan Clements, author of Escape-101. I have known Dan via the internet and blogging for quite a while now and since he is a runner and has traveled quite a bit to various countries, I was really pleased that he too agreed to participate.

Once the blogger/athletes (Leo, Dan, and I) were in place it was then time for logo creation, legal input, and a website. And we wound up hooking up with Sean Hodge, Andrew Flusche, and Joshua Clanton.

Why did you pick Darfur, or genocide and civil war victims in general as the target for your project?

I can remember back to the Rwanda genocide and thinking that I did nothing to help or to try and change the situation. Also, every once and a while I would wonder, “What has happened to all of those children whose parents were killed in Rwanda?”

Darfur is the first genocide of the 21^st century. Over 200,000 people have been killed and more than 2 million have been displaced. I might not be able to do much, but I am certainly going to try and do something.

The internet, blogging, and social media puts all of us with access on a level playing field now….you don’t have to be associated with a huge humanitarian organization. If an issue is bothering you (human rights, Darfur, animal cruelty, etc), there are so many tools available for free and when combined with a little creativity and persistence anyone, I believe, can make a difference.

How did you manage to stay focused and get the project launched?

I continued to read and get educated about Darfur, Rwanda, and to some extent the Holocaust. Two books about Darfur that I would recommend are:

Also, after I had asked the other collaborators to assist and participate, and notified Darfur Peace & Development Organization that we would be raising funds for them during the pilot phase, there really was no turning back.

Were there any surprises in the world of non-profit organizations and in launching one?

The biggest surprise came when it was time to open a bank account.

I never thought it would be so challenging. But, because I live on Culebra, a small island in the Caribbean, it was near impossible to open an online account. With e*trade financial I actually went through FOUR layers of customer service frustration over the course of three months and I finally just told them to send back all of my paperwork.

In the end, Andrew was able to get the account open.

Train for Humanity is about social media as well as training: how are you planning to use social media in the project?

Because we want to be able to provide Darfur Peace & Development with all of the funds we raise, at present we are operating on $0.00 budget. The natural fit for us to get our message out initially, and to continue to do so, was to focus on social media. On the day of the launch we started sending out Twitter messages at 7:00am.

Our goals is to be active participants in Twitter, Plurk, triiibes, and StumbleUpon. We are also in the process of setting up a Facebook page and hope to integrate more of a FLICKR and YouTube presence in the near future.

How has the Internet reacted to your launch so far? Has it matched your expectations?

The people on the internet have been very kind in helping us to get the message out and sponsoring the athletes. Leo, of course, has a huge following but the nice thing has been that it’s not just Leo’s audience…bloggers and social media users have been coming from all different places.

I didn’t really have any expectations…we have goals that we would like to accomplish, but the Train for Humanity pilot project runs until December 15^th.

We have had fewer page views than I expect after the launch but we lost a bit of momentum because my internet connection recently went down for three days…not the best online promotional strategy. :)

THANK YOU for this opportunity to dicuss Train for Humanity, Jarkko! Our message is quite simple: getting fit + social media + blogging = social good.

The program director at Darfur Peace & Development just emailed me a horrific story about how the first school that they helped to build was recently bombed and six schoolchildren were killed. Stories like the school bombing are what we are training for and why we are doing this.

Now, follow this link to sponsor Mark. Or if you like, feel free to give your donation to Leo or Dan – or why not donate something to each of them? Every penny goes to help improve the situation in Darfur.

If you can’t afford a donation, you can also help out by telling your friends about Train for Humanity, either online using your social network, or through face to face communication. t

The 52-in-One Challenge: Write a Blog Post Like Nothing You’ve Ever Seen Before

Jarkko — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 09:00:49 +0000

I have all these serious posts planned out. They have nice titles, I’m doing some heavy research on them, and I hope they will make a difference in some of our lives.

But today, I don’t feel like working on any of them.

Instead, in the spirit of Insanely Interesting September, I’m going to let ideas flow and just have fun. Seriously, sometimes you just have to get a bit crazy and go overboard.

Why?

Well… Because.

It will make your life insanely interesting. Trust me.

That’s why today, I’m putting up a challenge for myself as well as all of you.

All the way back in January, Mark Hayward wrote an inspiring blog post listing 52 Post Ideas to Help You Stay Inspired Throughout The Year.

Coming up with 52 ideas worth sharing with the world is a big deal. But how about combining all of those 52 ideas into a single, meaningful title — and then actually writing that post?

The outcome can be anything. It can be a huge success. But it can just as well be a complete failure you’ll want to forget, lock up, and sink in the deepest oceans.

That’s exactly why it’s the interesting thing to try.

Let’s Get (Y)our Hands Dirty

In his post, Mark divides the 52 ideas into 10 categories (Blogging, Link bait, Marketing, Social media, Humour, Entrepreneurship, Online business development, Design, Guest blogging, and Blogging tools). Go take a look at the post to see what the original, serious ideas were, and then get back here to see how I twist and turn them into something horrible.

First, I thought I’d combine each of the ten categories (and the two extra titles) into eleven titles to make the final title combination easier to grasp.

Here you go. The first list:

Are You Ready For Server Crashing Traffic — A Creative look at Technorati’s Top 5 Must Read Blogs, Why You Site Stinks, and How You Can Swim Against The Stream
Blog Post Buffet: Read These Top 10 Marketing Posts About Scrambled Egggs From Technorati Top 50 Blogs to Ensure Eternal Blogging Success
Feeding Readers to the Purple Cow. Five Steps for Becoming Remarkable with a Viral Marketing Campaign, One Reader at a Time
Want to Become A Top Digger? It’s all About Stumble Upon, Social Media Comments, Giving and Taking. (P.S. Get Noticed)
Seth Godin Ate John Chow While Mud Wrestling With Shoemoney: Top Reasons Why Australian Crappy Updates On CopyBlogger Disturb Me
Failure 101: How Failure Helped Me Get Five Tips From the Most Motivated Internet Entrepreneurs
Flipping Flagship Blog Networks: These Ten Niches Will Outsource Your Writing To Generate Income Today
Love your RSS Button: How Improving Your Branding Will Increase your Reader’s Opinion on This Site’s Font Size
Why Crafting The Perfect Invitation To Get People to Write on Your Blog Tool is Easier Than You Think – and a Very Effective Networking Tool
One Little Known Plugins That is Guaranteed to Stand Between WordPress and Movable Type and Declutter Your Traffic
Ten Habits Of Computers – How to Improve Your Writing by Avoiding Bloggers

What do you think?

I think many of these titles would make rather interesting blog posts. But this time, I’m after a bigger goal: combining all of these into just one, massive monster headline.

And here it is. The ultimate blog headline (I wonder what Brian Clark would think of this one):

Seth Godin Ate John Chow While Guest Blogging and Buffet Crashing! A Creative look at Technorati’s Top 5 Must Read Marketing Blogs, Why Scrambled Eggs Helped Me Get Five Tips About Failure, and How You Can Use Your RSS Button to Swim Against The Stream (and Generate Outsourced Income) by Feeding Your Readers to the Purple Cow (ps. It’s All About Font Size, StumbleUpon, and Improving Your Writing)

And now, the most interesting part, the challenge.

Write a meaningful blog post with the monster title shown above.

And here’s some more detail:

Write your post during September
Send me the link to your post (or add it to the comments)
I will add your link right at the end of this post (first come, first served – so be quick to reserve the best spot and most clicks)
After a while, I might run a round-up of the most inspired submissions around the end of the month, which naturally means more link love your way.
I’d appreciate it if you linked to this original post. But you don’t have to. If you have a policy against linking, or you feel like you don’t want to fall into my link bait, I totally understand it. Just write the post, let me know about it, and I’ll link to it. I just want to see what you guys can come up with!
Tell your friends (But only if you like the idea… If you hate it, I’ll just pretend I never wrote any of these 846 words)

But that’s not all.

I will also do my share, and post my own version some time during the next two weeks. Subscribe to my RSS feed to make sure you won’t miss it!

Now, let’s have some fun.

What You Came Up With

Here are the posts that were written in response to this challenge, in order of appearance:

Derrick Kwa writes about why it’s not a good idea to mix up every spice in a blog post, even if they would be good ones when used sparingly.

There’s still room for more, so keep them coming!

Following The Creative Toddler

Jarkko — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 04:27:51 +0000

Do you know why it’s so hard for a sushi cook to start a new restaurant that mixes sushi with Russian blinis? According to The Medici Effect, it’s mostly because of association barriers inside the chef’s mind: he is just too used to looking at the world through his specialized sushi master eyes to see the opportunity.

It could also be that sushi and blinis don’t match. But that’s a different story.

We are told to think outside of the box, but still most (if not all) of us often get stuck in our usual ways of thinking. It’s just so much easier to keep doing the old thing and ignore new options.

Too bad this approach doesn’t work that well with innovation.

It’s this approach that makes a software developer stick to his current tools even when a different programming language or development style would be more suitable for the project at hand. It’s the approach that keeps a manager from reviewing his rewarding practices even when they clearly have no effect on performance. It’s what makes everyone work overtime in their offices even if working less hours – maybe even outside the office — would be a cheaper and less stressful option.

Little kids are different.

They have just entered this world, and they are still open to every new thing that comes their way. Of course, not every child is the same, but if I asked you to define children with just one word, I’m pretty sure curiosity would be at the top of the list.

My son is just like that. He is always on the move, exploring the world. In a fraction of a second, you may find him standing on the kitchen table looking at cars outside the window. Shouting of excitement. Seeing a miracle in pretty much everything new he finds. Always learning.

That’s the spirit we, as grown ups, can learn from children. As Kim and Jason wisely put it, we should be childlike – not childish.

Yesterday, I took my family out in a forest near our home and filmed my son, Oiva, as he explored the unknown.

I see this video as an example on how we should live our insanely interesting September!

Insanely Interesting September

Now, let’s take a look at you. How has you insanely interesting September been so far? Let’s hear what you have learned, seen, or experienced so far – write your insanely interesting events in the comments!

If your month has been no different from August, it’s not too late to get started. Here are some ideas to make your September the most interesting so far:

Get on the level of a toddler, and look at the world from down there (you may also want to taste some of the things a toddler would put in his mouth). You’ll be surprised at how different things look like from that perspective
Write down all your ideas
Ask why — again and again. Don’t settle for “because I say so.”
Wake up early
Slow down
Make yourself accountable
Read about all kinds of topics
Start a new project
Take a chance

And share the things you learn with your friends (that’s us), through the comments. Have an Insanely Interesting September!

The Return of the Insanely Interesting September

What is an Idea?

Jarkko — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 14:00:33 +0000

In the spirit of Insanely Interesting September, I gave myself a simple task: For one day, write down each and every idea that crosses your mind. Then at the end of the day, count how many you got.

It turns out that this wasn’t such an easy experiment after all: with each new idea I was more and more lost trying to figure out if it qualifies as an idea or not.

My first idea in the morning was to take care of my errands during the lunch break so that I wouldn’t have to hurry too much in the evening.

I didn’t come up with an amazing new product for taking care of your errands. And I didn’t even build myself a new process for taking care of the running tasks I need to handle.

But still, this simple thought saved me a lot of stress throughout the day.

So, was it an idea?

If it was, it wasn’t a very useful one.

It could be a seed for a bigger idea, though: I could write a blog post about how it makes sense to take care of your business during your lunch break, or I could come up with a new business targetted at people who are too busy to take care of their errands.

But does an idea really need to be new in order to be accepted as an idea?

And does an idea need to be useful in order to be a real idea?

You tell me! What do you think an idea is?

What about this video, are the ideas in it ideas, or just things you do?

How to Stay Motivated Working on an Idea From Last Year

The Return of the Insanely Interesting September

Jarkko — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 13:00:02 +0000

This morning, the grass on our front yard was covered with frost. People were scrubbing ice off their windshields. The last signs of summer were long gone. While I still miss summer, in a bitter sweet way, I love the crisp, fresh air, the bright colors, and seeing the nature change into something new again.

Last year, we dedicated September for celebrating the insane interestingness of life.

It was a month full of inspiring posts and interesting interviews with people with different interests. Here’s a brief recap in case you missed the posts or want to have another look at them:

Now it’s September again. And that means that it’s time to continue the tradition and roll out the second round of interestingness.

And as always, the second round must outperform the first.

So, here’s what you can expect to see in the month beginning today:

Use cases: There will be interesting interviews with readers and public figures insanely interested in everything
Tapping into your creativity: We’ll find out how creative you really are and talk about ways of making the most with the newly found talents.
How to see more: Opening your eyes for the interestingness of your everyday life will be an eye-opening experience.

…and much more: We’ll continue our discussion on expertise and acquiring more of it. You’ll see new links to interesting blogs and web sites. And after the summer break, there will also be a new report on how my make money online challenge is going so far.

To me this is a time for making blogging more fun and enjoyable than ever before. I can’t wait to get the interviews rolling, and sharing my creativity experiments with you guys.

Subscribe to my RSS feed, and you’ll be right where the action is.

Have an insanely interesting September!

Focus Your Big Picture Every Day

Jarkko — Fri, 23 May 2008 14:00:56 +0000

If you don’t have a clear big picture, you are lost. Every activity seem just as important as the next – and none of them seems to lead anywhere. So you end up working on the easy ones that call for your attention with the loudest voices.

Is this how you love to spend your days? If not, you might want to consider adopting a new habit.

What follows is not my invention. It’s just pieces of advice that I have gathered during the past year from books, other blogs, and by trying the ideas in practice. While not always easy, cultivating this habit makes a difference.

All you need is a cup of coffee, a good book, a piece of paper, and a few minutes just by yourself.

The Morning Ritual

Scott Ginsberg calls it his best habit. Fave. Numero uno:

I’ve been practicing this technique every single day for five years, and I submit to you that it’s the most valuable habit I’ve ever developed.

Ever.

It was this blog post by Scott that really got me excited about the idea of having a daily appointment with myself. But Scott wasn’t my only influence.

The list of things that Leo Babauta uses his early mornings for differs a bit from Scott’s, but the overall idea is the same:

[...] not only does it instill a sense of purpose, peace and ritual to my day, but it ensures that I’m getting certain things done every morning … namely, my goals. I’m setting aside morning time as a time of peace and quiet, and time to take small steps each day towards my goals.

To me, what matters most in a morning routine is how it helps me focus on the big picture. When I spend time thinking about my long term goals, my faith, and the things I want to achieve later that day, I feel much more energized and productive than on the days when I skip the routine.

Being focused just feels so much better than being out of focus! And it helps me get more done.

How To Do It?

There is no one right way to do your morning ritual. But to make things easier, I have collected a framework that you can use as a model for building your personal routine.

Find a time slot that suits you: I like early mornings when most people are still asleep, the excitement of getting up with the sun makes you feel energized, and the daily stress hasn’t yet got a hold on you. But if waking up early isn’t an option for you, it doesn’t mean that you couldn’t do a daily routine: maybe you can take a coffee break around 10 AM, or do your ritual while having lunch?
Get a cup of coffee: Take some time to make breakfast (or go to a café) before you start. It could be as simple as a cup of coffee and a piece of bread, but still having it makes this feel more like a real meeting with yourself. The time it takes for you to eat your breakfast is also a pretty good time for the ritual. When you run out of coffee, you are ready to greet the day.
Read: Choose a book that makes you think. Something inspirational. Something that gets you excited about life and the possibilities ahead. Inspiring quotes work well, so do books like Make a Name for Yourself by Scott Ginsberg, or profound ones like The Bible.
Journal: Write down your thoughts. What have you learned lately? What gets you speechless? Is there something you don’t understand? What are you thankful for?
Review your big picture: Think about how you see your big picture today. Do adjustments according to things you have learned, and write down what part of it you value the most right now.
Most important tasks: After finishing with your big picture it’s time to start getting ready for the day. Pick and write down the few most important tasks for the day, making sure that you don’t select too many of them. You can write them down in form of a regular to do list if you want to go a step further, create a Todoodlist!
Pray / Think about the day
Get to work: You are ready now. Focused. You know where to start your day from. You know what you want to get done before getting to sleep. Wait no longer, but get the day started!

Products to Support the Habit

The morning ritual is such a powerful tool for the insanely interested to keep their lives focused that I felt I had to do more than just write a post (or two) about it. That’s why I’m working on a new product to be sold through my Insanely Interested Store, the Morning Ritual Guide Book.

It’s a simple, practical handbook that will consist (among other things) of the following parts:

More detailed morning ritual instructions, tips and tricks
40 pages of morning ritual template sheets for writing down your thoughts, most important tasks, and other daily information
Space for sketching your big picture
A master task list
A list to hold your 100 big dreams and wishes

The book is work in progress, so if you want to make sure you won’t miss it, you can now subscribe to my store’s RSS feed and get the new product information popping straight to your news reader!

Also, as I mentioned above, Todoodlist by Nick Cernis is a great product for organizing your actions and things to do, and a perfect companion to your morning ritual. Todoodlist is already available at the Insanely Interested Store.

Escape!

Jarkko — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 16:00:04 +0000

Warning: Reading this post can make you pay $9.99 for a book.

Reading this book can make you do dramatic changes in your life and turn you into an escape artist.

Proceed reading at your own risk.

Did that sound interesting enough?

You might already have noticed a small banner at the top of my blog main page and at the end of my RSS feed advertising a book called Escape 101. It’s a really good book that deserves more attention than just a small banner so I decided to spend this one post to tell you more about it.

Have you ever considered taking a long break?

I don’t mean a summer vacation.

Sure, four weeks feels long when all you’re used to is a two-day long breaks once every week. But now we’re talking about something bigger: three months, six months, or even a year away from your everyday surroundings.

According to Dan Clements and Tara Gignac, the authors of Escape 101, more than half the employees of small and mid-size companies say they long for a sabbatical. So I’m not far off if I guess the thought has crossed your mind at least once during your career. But still, only a few really take action and make their dream come true.

Making big things happen isn’t easy.

Since finishing the four-hour workweek, I have been playing with the following question: What would happen if everyone would go on to pursue the lifestyle presented in the book?

The thought kept bothering me for a while, until I started reading Escape 101 and realized that there is no way everyone would do what these books recommend. And yet, it’s not because the actual doing would be difficult. Clements will tell you that technically it really is quite easy and doesn’t require a lot of education or a lot of money.

The roadblock is inside our heads.

It’s those little voices we have learned to listen to that say things like:

What would others think of me?

Normal people wouldn’t do this!

What if I fail and lose everything I’ve worked so hard to reach?

I have to work hard and earn more money – then I can do whatever I want.

I’ll do it when I retire. It’s just 30 years, right?

You get the picture. And I’m sure that just like me, you can come up with a list of excuses far longer than it makes sense to reprint in a blog post.

It could be something we learn through our education. Or maybe it’s just natural for us to be scared of everything new and different.

That really doesn’t matter. What matters is what you do about your fears.

It’s more than just sabbaticals

Escape 101 is a book about overcoming those mental roadblocks and actually making the dream come true.

It takes a practical step by step approach to all things standing between you and your escape plan: money, time, your job, your business, your kids, and shows that none of them really are the show stoppers we make them sound like. Then it goes to share ideas on how to get the most out of your time away, and even on how to get back home once the sabbatical is over.

Reading the book got my mind flying and I was able to easily see myself spending a year looking at the world with my wife and kids a few years from now: a few months is a small village somewhere on the Japanese coast, some time seeing the world down under, and finally going to the United States to meet all the great people from the blogosphere.

But right now, that’s not one of the things on my priority list. I have other dreams to pursue first.

Taking this into account, the most surprising thing to me was that the book not only inspired me to think about the possibility of taking a sabbatical but also gave me ideas that I can use in pursuing my current dreams. Ideas on building my business, ideas on using money wisely, but most importantly ideas on looking at impossible plans and not seeing them as impossible at all!

Get the book and see for yourself

Escape 101 is available as an e-book for just $9.99, a price well worth paying if you’re considering a long escape from your current work, or if like me, you are working on making some other impossible sounding dreams come true.

If you want to spend a bit more and buy a book that you can touch and feel in your hands, you can also get the book from Amazon for $13.57 plus shipping and handling.

Check out the book yourself and see what happens!

This marketing message is part of my participation in Mark Hayward’s Make Money Online Challenge. But rest assured: although this post is full of affiliate links, it follows my strict, non-compromising ad policy: I will never recommend you something I don’t believe in personally. No ad on the blog will ever promote products I wouldn’t buy myself.

6 Thoughts That Crossed My Mind During a Week Offline

Jarkko — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 15:00:46 +0000

On the Friday morning before Easter at six A.M. our plane left for Costa del Sol, Spain. It was a relaxing week of sun, warmth, singing together with our Church Choir, and away from the online world.

Now, I’m back, and trying to find my place on the blogosphere again.

To resume my life online, I decided to share some bits from my mind from the past week. In no particular order.

I hope you’ll find them interesting.

Traveling is fun!

…and taking a child with you makes it twice as fun (and challenging)

Oiva was a good chap and enjoyed the warm climate, sand, and all the new things all over him.

On the other hand, he pretty much dictated our pace, the times we could use for relaxing (not during the days, that is), and pretty much everything. But while it was challenging at times, there is no question about it – the good brought by this young traveler beat the challenges 100 to 1.

My lesson learned: having kids is a poor excuse for not traveling. After all, who of us didn’t like to travel when we were young?

And, if you want to get away for a while but can’t afford it right now, here’s a free way: How to Travel the Globe for FREE Using FLICKR

Work as a meaning for life is overrated

Before leaving for Spain about a week and a half ago, I wrote a post about planning your work and life as one thing, and not too separate entities. This idea can be implemented in two ways.

One is to make your work the meaning for your life.

The other is to plan your work so that there is more room for a full life.

I often find myself thinking that without work, things would soon get boring. Not during this holiday. Throughout each of the seven days, there was always something to do and experience.

The four-hour workweek starts to make sense.

There’s nothing wrong in a bit of a backup plan

Sure. I want to do big things.

But I’m not in my early twenties anymore. At almost 28, I’m closing in to thirty, have a wife and kid, some mortgage, and packed my bags full of baby food and diapers for the holidays. Just in case.

Actually, it was my wife’s idea, but I agreed. Just in case.

Just don’t let your carefulness stop you from doing the big things you are planning.

I don’t need all that information

When I returned home from my trip, I had 1000+ unread blog articles waiting for me in my Google Reader. Multiply 1000 by 52. That is 52,000 articles per year!

Sure, I like to brag about reading all the time. But I think this is too much.

So, yesterday I spend about an hour cutting down the number of blogs I subscribe to about half of what it used to be before the trip, getting down to 127 subscriptions. Not a small number, but at least a bit easier to handle.

If you have a similar problem, check out SproutWire and let us spot the best articles from the noise for you. The site just went live yesterday, and is now ready for the masses!

Life is full of new things to learn

It’s interesting to see how thoughts evolve.

Before I started blogging I had no idea. Because unless you write down your thoughts, you’ll never remember what you were thinking a year ago, or even a month ago.

This, I think, is the beauty of blogging: a blog is a record of the small changes that happen when your brain interacts with the world. A full version control that shows the path you have gone through to get to where you are today.

If you are not blogging yet, try it now!

Back to normal scheduling

This was my quick way to say I’m back, and had a lot of fun on my short vacation. It was warm and sunny. It was hard at times. And it was relaxing most of the time.

New, more structured posts coming up later this week. Welcome to all new readers and the rest of you, thanks for sticking around!

Cheers!

How To Triple Your Week Without Anyone Noticing