Today’s post is one part valuable inspiration data and one part un-cut real life commentary. It’s a little more on the raw side compared to my usual dissections but no less effective. I have for you a mix of survey data on inspiration and a real life e-mail which captures the exact mindset of moving forward in rejecting the status quo, loving life, and building freedom income.
Insightful Inspiration
I sent out a 2 question survey last month sometime asking respondents to name their biggest lifestyle design inspiration resources. I posted the survey to all, and the likes of Corbett Bar, Adam Baker, Chris Guillebeau, Carl Nelson, Colin Wright, and several of you responded! The results were valuable and insightful. Whatever you want to call “lifestyle design” …these answers tell me it’s not a fad, it’s just more easily capitalized on today. The answers you can see below are inspired by various events in life, history, backgrounds, and a solid measure of shared genius authorship. Check it out here, and if you’d like to add your own, (I’d appreciate it!) please do.
Real Life
I had a reader who’s become a friend ask me, how’s the project going? I, as I sometimes do, shot into a completely unedited bevy of details on exactly how life is going with this…re-engineering, this “intelligent living”…this…life designing. After I hit send, I re-read it and knew it needed to be captured. Here’s my response, which I hope offers you both something to relate to, insight to use in your own experience, and a way to connect….you can in fact both live life and conquer it at the same time! …press on weary soldiers!
Things are busy!!
I was spread a little thin for a while but life’s always a balance. I’m plowing along at IT Arsenal, truly enjoying helping people with their IT problems and turning each case into a situation to gain fans, publicize the fix, and grow from it. I’m customizing the e-mails and experience of a “customer” right now…trying to see how to grow an audience and looking forward to reporting on that. My first product which I think is pretty sure to do dismally, a few sales perhaps, will be a great trial run for creating something for others to consume. I’ve learned so much already. I see now, in order to make good headway, it takes a good 3 hour chunk to get my brain into creating a product and then adding to it. This is valuable to know for others looking to create something on a moonlight schedule. I don’t envy writers. It still needs plenty of work, I have an outline and I have a visual mind map of the starting stages of how to identify what program you need to use…I’m trying to free chunks of time during the week to continue working on that…WHILE the suns gleaming at me to train for an upcoming triathlon and remembering to sleep 7-8 hours a night.
I’ve had trouble remembering that if I’m not well rested, it all crumbles apart. It’s that piece of simple living that’s easily ignored, but disastrous. Going from work, to something fitness oriented, to “freedom” work (not to mention some sort of “unwinding” action like a good drink, a book, video game, conversation, movie, ect. every so seldom, and only a taste as to not trip into the addiction so many of them are marketed to be)…is tough…but knowing that i’m working against the brain numbing cycle of corporate america fat couch zombie living makes it worth it….I swear if you don’t know how to live intelligently, just managing a typical semi-collegeish aged lifestyle (18-30) will put you into the ground today. So many things to blame but i wont.
I don’t wonder why everyone wants to drink the weekend away, lives for friday and then like a computer program re-enters the machine each monday to blindly eat whatever media, corporate e-mail, and cultural crap is put in front of them. It’s a crystal clear picture in my head why society is the way it is sometimes, and why free thinkers or people struggling against the status quo feel so liberated, and yet have a dynamically (varied and changing) tough road ahead of them. The tricky part is, you can’t really tell who is a robot of the machine, or looking to get out, or half way there, or who tripped and fell bass ackward out. At times the way out looks similiar to what others are doing, in appearance at least, but no one can read their freedom oriented mind, or well…just their mind. Sure they own a Macbook Pro and it may seem so trendy, but are they pouring their passion into it, being authentic with it, using it as a tool…or are they….well being trendy with it? More examples abound, are they building something, or are they marking crap? affiliating for nothing but quick benefits? ect. ect….
I’m slowing down the amount of lifestyle design content (RSS feeds from my resource list) that I’m consuming and the 3-10 hours a week I was spending writing articles. I need to focus more on the freedom business (since discovering lifestyle design) in order for me to have something of value to report back at the project. Thats the point of the project anyway and I’m not skimping out despite my brain taunting me to quit. That means my info graphics and timeline right now are on hold or slowly being built. I’m not one to NOT finish things so i’ll come back to them in due time. They are properly archived in active project folders on my computer and mirrored online, if you’d like to join me in launching one, lets do it up, my website is your website.
Lastly in the project realm I’m still heavily connecting with people, I keep myself open to reader comments and carried over conversations like these with you, and they rock. They are worth everything. I’m in heavy talks to collaborate with David Walsh (Source Control) in designing a membership site for process flows, harping on VA services and IT related tasks at first, but using a great model to grow big, we’ll see what happens.. Collectively we have enough reach and popularity right now that it might turn into something that could really catalyze me leaving work with enough clout (ie, income, contacts, momentum, fresh ideas, inspiration) to move forward with more products, solutions and traffic at IT Arsenal to live off the flow of acting on the potential ideas…true freedom living. Whew, that sentence is going to have a hard time making sense.
I love the sun shining, when I get good sleep, and batching the minutia out of life. I have time to enjoy my passions, connect with others, build out this side business, growing freedom thing in my life…and even make my 9-5 bearable.
Thanks for reading!
What do you think, how’s your “project” going? Leave a comment.
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