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Okay, so I have been spending a lot of time examining my life introspectively. Brandon James‘ previous post created a great paradigm shift in the way I look at the world. After I read that post, it was clear to me that I was spending a lot of time working on my outside world but not focusing on how my inside world (emotions, thoughts, beliefs) was forming my outside world.

And after reading Scott Stratten‘s post today, I had to write this. I follow fun. I do what I enjoy, so I was working on this blog instead of having fun with it, therefore the uninspired dry spell ensued. What a relief to find out that Scott Stratten thinks that blogs should only be used for meaningful content, not just frequent posts for the search engines to rank it well!

Be water my friend

Okay let me get to what I really wanted to write about.

Bruce Lee is one of my favorite philosophers.

I want to share some of my favorite quotes and how they have altered my way of thinking about the world.

“All knowledge ultimately means self knowledge.” -Bruce Lee
I believe that everything is connected. And I’ve been meditating on the idea that how you do one thing is how you do everything. I have been procrastinating a lot on school projects, but I have found that I can get around this when I involve others, but recently with some introspection I have discovered that I just like to write about things as a way of processing ideas. When I am able to articulate something on paper that I was thinking about getting around to, I generally end up with a plan on paper, and then I just naturally roll into starting that project. The lack of clarity on how I want to do the thing causes the procrastinating.

If you are procrastinating on something begin it in an unthreatening way. For some people this is through mind-maps. For me, it’s through writing about how I am feeling about doing the project and then writing out the actual steps that I complete things, but others love mapping things out.

“When you’re talking about fighting as it is with no rules, well then baby you better train every part of your body.” -Bruce Lee
Sounds like a lesson I have been learning about business management from entrepreneurs that create businesses as a way of life. Train your body and mind like an Olympic athlete because this is your big game, the big game of life.

Are you going to show up for your big game without practicing and eating right? Train every part of your body.

The Following Are Quotes From Bruce Lee’s book Tao of Jeet Kune Do:

Art calls for mastery of techniques, developed by reflection within the soul. -Bruce Lee
You are here to create. Only you should be in charge of making decisions for your life. Take counsel, but ultimately you must make the decisions based on your God-given intellect. I think living well is an art. Life is an art, and you are responsible for creating the masterpiece of your life. The mind is a paint brush, the canvass is the world. I’ve also heard it put this way. The mind is the rudder, the body is the ship. You decide your destination by steering your mind, moment by moment.

You are creating the masterpiece of your life, but remember that the tools are small. Pens, brushes, the mind, and lots of paper; they have the biggest impact.

All vague notions must fall before a pupil can call himself a master. -Bruce Lee
Don’t get away from a life of practice. Don’t get away from a life of play. Play around with ideas and things, and most of all practice at what you believe to be your calling (Your calling? Something that you would pay others to do.) Another great quote of Bruce’s that I am just going to paraphrase goes something like this: I fear not the man that has practiced a thousand kicks once, I fear the man that has practiced one kick a thousand times. I do not compare myself with others anymore. I compare myself with the image of my future self that I hold in my mind. You Are Unique. You Were Not Meant To Be A Carbon Copy. Don’t Be A Knock-Off; Be An Original (people pay more for an authentic original).

Do what you love, and be the best (IN YOUR EYES) at what you do in practice.

Art reaches its greatest peak when devoid of self-consciousness. Freedom discovers man the moment he looses concern over what impression he is making or about to make. -Bruce Lee
Kick that ego and assume the consciousness of a child. A child plays and is not conscious of what others may be thinking of how she or he looks when playing. The child thoroughly enjoys their play and believes it is the most important thing at the moment.

Seek only to impress yourself. Create what is pleasing to you, and live with a sense that no one should care.

My Conclusion: What we are doing is on the page before us. It is truth.
About this great marketing phrase, “It’s not your fault…” That is a lie. You are the cause; your world is the effect, and only you decide what is true. Your beliefs form your world. Choose them wisely my friend. Lies lead to suffering. There is a lie going around that a government should take care of low income earners (that comment should upset some people). But, when those people sign up for welfare they have less incentive to develop themselves. Why should they acquire the skills to make more money when they can just work at McDonald’s and take the welfare supplement.

So, if you’re saying well this is just life…chance happens to us all. You need to take some time and look inward. What have you chose to believe about what you can accomplish? Who have you chose to associate with? How have you decided to treat your physical body? (Live from the inside out. Get your thoughts right (I borrow ideas about the world from inventors). Get your body right (exercise and eat right). Get your finances straight (choose a business or career that you love). Set up an ideal social life (choose people that have the same goals, interests, and philosophies). I have the personal mantra that I only go where I am celebrated.

Read a page from your life. In fact, read all the pages. Don’t blame others for the decisions you make. Make your own decisions and adjust (your sails) as necessary. And one more bit of advice. The past does not exist (don’t dwell on past failures or accomplishments), neither does the future (do not be unnecessarily optimistic) , you are what you are doing now (focus on adjusting your daily activities to create the life you want). Make your moments count.

I’d love to hear your thoughts about how the world works. So please share. These are my beliefs formed by my experiences. It came across horribly dogmatic, but that’s just because they are beliefs. I don’t even consider them opinions. The closer you get to truth the easier life becomes.

Technorati Tags: Bruce Lee, lifestyle design

Interview Highlights
0:27 Why Brooke Started BusinessBackpacker.com
2:19 Brooke’s Business Beginnings
3:24 Working with CEOs
4:53 Where The Magic Comes From For The Blog
5:46 Self Exploration Happens Abroad
7:55 Brooke – I Work Out Of My Core Values
10:21 BusinessBackpacker.com the Conversation
12:15 Opportunities – Discovery Channel Loves Me
12:55 Brooke’s Business Is…
15:03 What We Do Is Systematized Lifestyle Design
16:38 Advice to The Aspiring LIP
19:11 Newbies Let Me Give It To You Straight
20:53 Personal Message From Brooke

“Basically, any opportunity that I can have to teach and empower people those are the things that I love to do just to see the change and the difference that takes place in their lives.”

Brooke’s Words of Wisdom

“Working with somebody helps a tonne because entrepreneurs tend to be very excitable, but it’s like ADD on crack like they have a new idea everyday and their going to go do this, no, their going to go to this, oh, their going to go do this now, and their not really thinking about things in terms of systems and operations and income and structure.”

*Income does not equal lifestyle. You need decide what you want your final destination to be and then work backwards from there.

*Most business owners are perfectionists and control freaks that don’t know how to delegate tasks.

*If you plan to be an location independent professional start your business now (even if you have a full time job) and then transition to an overseas location later.

Are you an aspiring entrepreneur or entrepreneur? Are most business owners control freaks? (i am:))

Technorati Tags: lifestyle design

“Your personal growth depends on breaking out of this reality, that’s why I propose we let go of our goals and start unleashing our dreams.”
- Brandon James

He said some seriously deep stuff in his last post like: “The thing that we don’t get is that the word responsible translates to “response able”, or the ability to respond to events and circumstances. Building a life of stability and safety is making it so we never need to respond to anything.” I expect that he’s going to be one of the thought leaders of Gen-Y.

Not Following Brandon at New Life Travel? You Should: Get Inspired!

Brandon’s Twitter Brandon’s Blog Brandon’s Facebook Blog RSS

Technorati Tags: lifestyle design, vagabond, world travel

(While waiting on Youtube…I posted to Vimeo)

(Should have known to use Vimeo after four YouTube fails.)

I just noticed that I have been adding little to no commentary on some of these video so if you don’t have twenty minutes to learn how Justin Wright made the transition from wage slave to digital nomad and entrepreneur, here are the highlights and summary of the main points.

Highlights:

• Justin’s Story     [0:12]
  

• What do you use your Vibram Five Finger Shoes for?     [3:10]
  

• Why minimalism?     [4:29]
  

• 7 Days without spending a dime? [7:28]
  
• Justin’s expertise: WordPress and Zoopmedia     [9:31]
  

• Advice for the aspiring digital nomad     [11:38]
  

• Future Plans: Bloghelp.org & Justin’s book Coming Soon! [15:23]
  

Justin’s Advice:

• Decide what you really want to do with your life.
• List the obstacles.
• Stay at your job while you conquer the obstacles one at a time.
• Wait until you have replaced your working income through other means.

 

I should note that Justin and another entrepreneur I recently interviewed both had skills for the new economy. Justin is the expert on WordPress and is dangerously knowledgeable about SEO. Colin (interview to come), is an expert at personal branding and web design and graphic design. I study internet marketing and copywriting and I know a little bit about SEO, but I when I reach expert status in these areas I will be able to live where I want and do what I want.

What do you love or what have you decided to be the expert on?

Justin Wright is the founder of ZoopMedia, a company devoted to all things WordPress. He runs a digital nomad blog called Life of Justin and offers a variety of paid WordPress services.  He also has free WordPress tutorials available to help those just starting out. His mission is to live a life of minimalism, adventure, and to help others do the same.

Technorati Tags: digital nomad, lifestyle design

I think that this presentation that Timothy Ferriss did at the TED conference in 2008 really explains who he is and some of the strategies outlined in The Four Hour Workweek which has become the bible of lifestyle design.

My favorite quote from the lecture is: (Fear is Your Friend) “A lot of time it shows you want you shouldn’t do, more often than not it shows you exactly what your should do.”

Technorati Tags: Four Hour Workweek, lifestyle design, new rich, TED, TED conference, Timothy Ferriss

So…it took me a while to get this up. Let’s see, I recorded this on Saturday so that’s one, two, three, four, five days later that I’m actually getting this post up for you all. I’m just going to share what my personal experience has been with this one. With the little mastermind that I have started in my local area of “big thinkers” and entrepreneurial types I have found all the resources, advice, and encouragement that I could possible need to get my business up and running.

Technorati Tags: business, lifestyle design, mastermind, masterminding

Man some people just inspire the hell out of you! I mean, their stories just make you want to pack all your excuses into a trunk and drop them into a lake. This guy Tellman Knudson’s story just made me go, “What!!! I guess I am lazy…” This guy was born with a condition that caused him to be severely pigeon-toed. And he did something about it.

Kind of like Joseph Pilates. He rejected the fact that his condition would limit him and then worked his tail off until he was in a league of his own. For Tellman, this meant cross-country running. He ran until his legs straightened out. For Pilates it meant overcoming rickets and training every muscle in his body to work together.

Now he’s Something near and dear to my heart. Well he tells his story better than I do:

That’s right he’s raising $100,000,000 dollars for a charity that helps homeless children.

Running clear across America barefoot costs a lot of money apparently, and I only just heard about the adventure because Tellman Knudson happens to be one of the top authorities on list-building, and I am an avid student of marketing. So he created an absolutely, draw-doppingly, awesome offer with a few other marketers to fund his run across the states and raise that $100 mill. for charity.

I couldn’t resist; I just had to snap it up and blog about it to boot, Check It Out:

http://budurl.com/fundtherun

Technorati Tags: Cross Country, Cross country running, lifestyle design, marketing strategy, new rich, Pilates, Running

Just Because Viddler Let Me Down, I’m Reposting This With Youtube Embeds.

Technorati Tags: business, Greg Rollett, how to make money online, lifestyle design, marketing strategy, new rich, rock for hunger, rockstar lifestyle design, Social media marketing

Every Once In a While You Happen Upon Someone That Truly Gets It:

A resolution I made in December when I created this blog was to spend more time taking in positive messages and really reprogramming myself (from all the negative thinking that bombards us daily.) This guy really gets personal development so I’ll definitely be listening in more to what he has to say.

Technorati Tags: lifestyle design, new rich, Personal development

Click Here To See Pictures With The Audio
For about 20 minutes I had the opportunity to grill serial entrepreneur, Greg Rollett on starting out in lifestyle design. What I found out is that he not only talks the talk, but he walks the walk. He’s not only the founder of Rock Star Lifestyle Design, he’s a real social media expert that has done Gen-Y Marketing consulting for for Disney, Coca-cola, and Miller Brewing Company. He’s been interviewed as a personal branding expert on the Orlando evening news for the Employment Guide; he’s created the coolest non-profit that I’ve heard of to help the homeless in his area, Rock for Hunger; he lives to help others succeed: indie musicians and Gen-Y-ers that want to design life on their own terms. I caught up with him at the end of December 2009 just in time to hear about another project of his: the Rockstar Business Series for 20-somethings that want help starting out online.

Technorati Tags: how to make money online, lifestyle design, Marketing, Marketing and Advertising, marketing strategy, new rich, rockstar business series, Social media marketing, Social media promotion