Michael Martine

This movie just got on my "must see" list - Avatar

What Happened to Me When I Quit My Job and Launched Out On My Own

Results are not typical. Your mileage may vary. This not a "how to" post: this is my personal blog and all I'm doing here is just telling you what's going on with me.

But almost as soon as I quit my job and became a full-time entrepreneur business owner freelancer hustler, I landed some nice SEO work on retainer (which is kind of a secret service not on my blog coaching services page, but if you're interested, contact me).

So that was happy.

I have more time in the day, but I also have to take care of more stuff around the house since my wife and I decided to amicably end our marriage. 

What I didn't expect was how crazy my sleep cycles have become. Like, I basically work until I can't stay awake. Then I sleep until I wake up. Client calls anchor me in time, but not much else does. So my day often starts around 8:30 am. Then around 9:00 pm I have to take a nap. Then I get up around 11:00 pm or so and stay up until like 3:30 or 4:00 am.

The fancy-schmancy term for this is polyphasic sleep. I call them mega-naps: they're not full nights of sleep and they're too long to be just naps.

You might think the sleep thing is dreadful, but it's not. It's kind of weird, but whatever. I love what I do. It doesn't even feel like work.

My big lesson so far in all this is that deciding what I do with my time has surprisingly little to do with how much time I have and everything to do with what I decide. It's easy to convince yourself otherwise when you're holding down a full-time job with a 40-minute commute one way and running a business. I told myself, "I'll have all the time in the world to meditate and exercise, finally!"

Ha! It doesn't work that way. You have time for what you take time for.

Sleep was the one thing I didn't have before, and it's the one thing I promised myself I would have now. Maybe that's why the naps. Or, maybe my body just can't even think about sleeping for longer than five hours in a row.

The other important activity I really wanted more time for was networking and taking better advantage of social media. To that end, I've been more active on Facebook. This has already resulted in more opportunities and more sales.

And finally, I also have a bit more time to learn new things and dive deeper into topics I care about. Reading is back on the list. 

Before long I'm sure my body clock will even back out.

Hmm... it's 3:00 am. Time for my next mega-nap.

Mr Scruff - Sweet Smoke

If you haven't heard or seen the delightful sounds and drawings of Mr Scruff, you're in for a treat:

Is employment preventing you from making real money? How I stopped throwing money away and broke free

This past Friday was the last day I will ever in my life work for anyone else.

When Tuesday comes around, millions of people are going to get into their cars/trains/buses and go back to work they hate for people they don't respect.

I will not be one of them.

I never thought I'd be so happy to be unemployed, but employment was getting in the way of making money. It was getting to the point where going to work every day was like taking a big pile of money and just setting it on fire. I started to think about all the money I could be making if I were spending my time working on my own projects instead of someone else's stuff. 

The irony is that this was the best job I ever had (how could it be any other way, right?). Breaking free was not about leaving a shitty job. It wasn't about running from fears or displeasure, it was about running towards my dreams and my ultimate self-actualization.

Here's how I did it.

I had something I could and wanted to do to earn a living.

This is key, and why I listed it first. You have to have something to offer the world which it wants and is willing to pay for. If you have a skill or a talent you can make into a business, nobody can take that away from you. It's the basis for everything else you'll do. Without this, you can't even begin. So the beginning is to find or recognize that in yourself. Sometimes it can be right in front of our noses and we don't even know it.

I wanted freedom to the point of becoming irrational.

Sounds simple, I know, but if you don't want it enough to do what's necessary, then it's not going to happen for you. I was so hungry for freedom, I became irrational. That's not a bad thing, it's a good thing. Rational people say well-meaning but poisonous things like "Are you sure you want to risk that? What about your family?" Our rational selves say things like, "When my freelance income equals my job income, then I can safely cut the cord." What is the difference between making excuses and having a legitimate reason? Having something you can and want to do for yourself to earn a living. When you have that, any reason you give for not doing it isn't a reason, it's an excuse.

I worked like a son of a bitch.

As Hugh McLeod says in Ignore Everybody: Put the hours in.

I did. To the tune of 60 to 80 hours a week. I'd work all day at "the job," and then come home and work all night on my own stuff (with a 45-minute commute by car). I got 4 to 6 hours of sleep a night during the week and I'd sleep in on the weekends. The fact that I could build up a real business in my spare time is how I know I'll succeed on my own when all the time is mine.

I created a product pipeline.

I'm not proceeding forth with nothing but good intentions. I have a stack of projects to complete that will make money. You are going to see some amazing shit coming from me and my friends before the end of the year: the next version of Headway is going to change the WordPress theme game again. The next blog coaching group is going to start soon. And, I have other stuff planned I can't tell you about right now. Thing is, there is a plan.

I have great help.

When I was working full-time and running a business in my spare time, I had little time to manage the household in any meaningful way. Making money was ALL I did. My wife took care of everything else, since she didn't have a J-O-B. But now we're getting divorced and I don't have a full-time job, so that is all shifting to me.

I also have tons of wonderful allies and friends in my personal network: they follow me on Twitter, connect with me on Facebook, watch me on YouTube, and check me out at LinkedIn. They are business partners, affiliates, and mentors. Without them, I am nothing. I'll be at several events soon: BlogWorld Expo, Blogsville, and WordCamp NYC. I look forward to growing my network with quality people. Maybe you're one of them.

Systems of a Down - Off-the-Shelf, or Do-It-Yourself?

Nobody thinks like I do.

Chances are, nobody thinks like you do, either (at least in some ways).

I know I'm not just being difficult, or displaying an overdeveloped sense of different-ness because it reinforces my self-identity (I have been accused of this in the past). 

But for the life of me, I have not found any off-the-shelf software I like to help me run things here in Remarkablogger land.

Nothing fits.

I've tried many different project management and CRM services, and they've all been round holes for my square pegs. Most project management software on the web doesn't lend itself to managing my odd mix of blog consulting processes and information product marketing/selling. Most CRM software is nothing more than sales pipeline management software (there IS a difference, but nobody seems to know that).

So, I created my own system.

I'm not a programmer, and I didn't pay anyone to develop it for me. It doesn't run on the web, but on my desktop. I made it during the weekend, maybe it took all of 8 hours to put together.

What is it?

It's a Microsoft Access 2007 database. I've been teaching people how to use Access at an end-user (not a developer) level for over eight years, so I know how to create a decent, normalized database.

Now I have this perfect little system for managing clients, transactions, projects, and so forth. It works the way I want it to, it thinks the way I think. I don't have to conform to anyone else's ideas about what I should be doing or how I should be doing it.

I'm a big fan of not reinventing the wheel, but if nobody else's wheels fit my wagon, then it's up to me to figure out something else.

If you're a real estate agent or a lawyer or a dentist, there are office management applications for you that meet the needs of these professional services. These kinds of operations all have needs which have been studied, categorized, and put into software workflows. 

But nobody makes software for hybrid blog consultants/information product marketers who have to manage clients, projects, sales, and product the way I do. So I "rolled my own."

I'm not writing this to say I'm great for doing this. In fact, I wish I didn't have to do it. I would've preferred to have a bit more time to myself this weekend, really.

No, I'm sharing this with you because maybe it will help you. Maybe you feel stuck and frustrated in the same way I did: you're trying all the off-the-shelf solutions, but they're not your solutions and they're not working.

Instead of continuing to beat your head against that particular wall, maybe it's time to do-it-yourself.

Microsoft Access may not be your thing, but most of us know enough about spreadsheets to make something happen. You can use good ol' Microsoft Office in surprising ways (like, if you're using Outlook standalone without an Exchange server, check out Outlook Small Business Contact Manager). You can use Google Docs (or Apps). And if you're tight on money but want a good desktop software solution, there's always OpenOffice.

I take this lack of applications that work for me as a sign I'm doing something original. If you're frustrated in your quest for applications that do what you want, it might be for the same reason. Pat yourself on the back if so, because if you ask me, that's a better place to be in life.

Although I love comments, please don't reply to this post with a bunch of suggestions for services. I'm done looking (and it feels great to say that).

And since I'm punning off their name in the headline, I figure I might as well include a rockin' video from System of a Down. 

Enjoy!

Water-in-the-face wheelchair guy

It's almost impossible for me to ever feel really down. You know why? Because I'm not water-in-the-face wheelchair guy.

Three Little Tips on How to Do Follow Friday on Twitter (the Right Way)

Follow Friday is getting to me: it's almost worthless. I rarely follow anyone because of it. The ones I do follow, however, are probably because the tweeter was doing one of the following:

• It's not about you getting more followers, it's about you getting more followers for your followers. The eternal question: what value are you bringing to your followers?
• Only list one-to-three names. Too much choice means no action will be taken and cheapens each choice. Don't list out as many names as you can fit into a tweet. Most importantly, say why you think others should follow them. Say what value they bring to you, so people will understand what value they will get if they follow.
• Instead of telling other people to follow your recommendations, say why you follow them. Allow your reader's choice to be whether they decide to follow, not whether they decide to do what you say.

Get A Yob - Video

It's not about newspapers, anymore - It's about news

Check out this post on techcrunch.com

In my other blog I haven't much of a reason to write about what's happening in journalism and news, and I'm not going to act like some kind of pundit, but it's clear we're in for a total transformation of the news industry.

The web/cloud is the distribution model, period.

You don't have a newspaper, you have a news agency.

You don't have a news television program, you have a news agency.

You don't have a news channel on television, you have a news agency.

Soon, the web/cloud will be the main distribution vehicle for news. For many of us, it already is. As William Gibson said, the future's already here, it's just not evenly distributed.

Your blog can also be a news agency.

Alice In Wonderland Trailer

I'm so there.