I’ve recently finished time with two incredible resources. One that came by means of community and friendship and one by a search for “living life with a plan” on twitter. The sources in mind are “Work the System ” by Sam Carpenter and the Under 30 Rockstar Business Series which was led by Greg Rollett (Rock for Hunger Vice President)

I’m not one for nonsense and I’ve realized my wordyness throughout this blog so the details are below. The two resources combined equalled a tornado of productivity and creation in my life. The systems structure by “Source Control” reviewed in a previous post was thoroughly expanded on by Work the System and the Rockstar Business Series was the most solid foundation and reassurance I’ve had since I started taking my “freelancing” to a different level. One not stuck in traditional advertising or business ideas.

Work the System

Warning: If you’re not a structured person, this book will slap you in the back of the head (in a good way). On the other hand if you don’t mind a few documents (that you’ve created) giving you guidance in your life and you admit that having a few guidelines to live by could do you good you’ll take to this book like a fish to water, and you’ll be 10 times better for it.

The book is an easy read and seriously outlines a rock solid structure for doing business and living your life (don’t worry it’s the same system) The basic premise is held together by 3 documents, one in my opinion enveloping the other. The “strategic objective”, “operating principles” and “working procedures”. These documents are created and then used as a foundation for operating in life, but they are more than that. They are to be referenced often and used to refresh your mind when lost. They are to be leaned on. I breathed in this book like fresh air. The system Sam Carpenter presents is simple, yet something we overlook in our business life constantly. We clamor for a “wholistic” reasoning or aim in our business endeavors, and because of that, we don’t make much progress toward our vaguely defined future. I (we) are lifestyle designers, but what does that even mean, have we defined an objective for ourselves? What’s worse is when we get in deep, we become fire killers, instead of fire preventers to issues in the very “projects” we inevitably create. Work the System rectifies that and puts in place a solid system for getting things done and maintaining control. Documentation is our friend. From Sam Carpenter…

In Western culture, the word “control” has an undeserved bad rap. It conjures up the image of a type-A personality gone wild with power, who, headed down the road of personal self-destruction, cuts wide swaths of anxiety among all those encountered. “Control freak” is the term that often surfaces, and in order to avoid that label we’re anxious to “lighten up and go-with-the-flow.” But if hyper-control is a bad thing, do we want the opposite, to be out of control? (And, let’s say it here: As we search for a middle ground, let’s not forget this brutal reality: Each of us will someday lose control of all that we have. Life is ephemeral and survival is temporary. Sooner or later, for each of us, it’s over.)

So, as we “go with the flow,” we want to avoid navigating without reason, care, or attention to detail. Control, in fact, is a good thing. Truth is, control’s four horsemen of self-discipline, planning, efficiency, and consistency are mandatory for securing freedom, wealth and life-satisfaction. How can we lighten up if our world is confused?

I had a chance to chat with Sam after he stumbled on this blog and reached out. He really understands how the world works. The great perk for this community and myself has been how easy it is to apply the book to a “project structure” and managing virtual assistants…the “working procedures” especially will work not only for executing tasks yourself, but for any digital workers that come across your path. I bet that breaking out on your own, contemplating a non-traditional lifestyle and creating your own business agendas you already take part in some form of the methodology behind Work the System, but after reading about the results and experience of Sam and his company Centratel, I’m positive I wouldn’t have worked out as good a system. I highly recommend this book for gaining a document structured laboratory for success in the projects and growth your currently planning. Check it out on Amazon here.

Under 30 Rockstar Business Series

Greg Rollett is the man. I can’t thank him and his team (Jared O’Toole, Matt Wilson) enough for putting on the program that they did. These guys are all leaders and practitioners of the online marketing, social media, blogging and branding world. All those words I just mentioned get a ton of hype, but you absolutely need the basics and will invariably use some mix of them

for launching any sort of business idea or making any type of income on the web. That’s a fact. The program was a 4 week interactive video series. It was recorded and included accompanying materials for take away. Read here for full pitch. Although the program is over, I’m sure it will be run again and I can’t stress enough how useful the information was for confirming a lot of the social media information I already knew, but more importantly linking me up with other like minded individuals. It’s strange, but knowing others are using those 4 wordpress plugins you are and struggling with 100 ideas just like you, goes a long way. If you’re interested in the business minded aspects of lifestyle design and the one’s I’m hunting right now, get to know Jared and Matt at Under 30 CEO and Greg Rollett at Rockstar Lifestyle Design (his last post was awesome) they are feeding my fire for creating possibility.

Where am I?: You find me in the midst of transforming my life into one that is designed. Currently, I’m grappling with heavily automating and system optimizing my passions turned freelance business while I view life with an elevated perspective to generate useful, easily managed income producing products and services. All in hopes to live a life of dream fulfilling, unencumbered by the drug that can be a paycheck, one that has a tendency to fuel unnecessary materialistic living. Whew, in simpler terms…I want to live a good life on purpose.

Where are you?