Location Independence

What a concept! Working to provide your income stream from wherever you happen to be. It seems that lots of people do it both through freelancing or working for a company that does not require you to be in an office but just to generate work flow. What about remote entrepreneurship? Interesting idea if you can put the business on auto pilot and be free to move and experience while you check in from afar. Is it possible? From reading too many online blogs it would seem you can eke out a moderate to a quite lavish lifestyle while maintaining your freedom to be where you choose.

As I come to the close of my busiest work season, I realize that what I give right now to my company taxes my sanity and my good spirit. I work long hours right now with an expected refund in January and February. But you cannot refund your health and the times missed with family. So how can I make the leap. I remain dependent on the income my job provides and wonder at the same time if I live up to my income.

Am I able to leave work and make a lifestyle that nurtures me? My investment divisor is 31.5 meaning that at this age I have 31.5 years left to live. 31.5 years...what do i want to fill those years with.

Gary Vaynerchuk speaks vehemently on liking what you do for a living. He says that if you dislike your job 1% you need to find something else to do. How about if you dislike your job about 50% and the other 50% that you enjoy is the downtime when you spend the least amount of time on the job!

Location Independence sounds amazing. Gotta go there.

Early Victory

Ten out of fifteen stores who were presented the product said yes so far. Three days in we have our first reorder from an amazing store and an amazingly supportive woman. She sold eight of her ten items. Now I just need to figure out how to make the product profitably. That is my next big step. Early numbers say it is possible to make money on this.

Breakthrough again!

Interesting that I began selling the new product this week and I am definitely excited to see how it is received by the stores and then if the consumer is willing to exchange cash for my product. Because I work full time right now I hired a sales person to execute on this for me. Stay tuned on results. This is the moment of truth after all the weeks of preparation.

My next dilemma was that I was not sure that I could make money selling the product. And if not, then it is not a relevant step on my path to autonomy and freedom. The cost of product was too high and the retail price point was fixed as it was an variation on an existing product. And then I did that "10 solutions brainstorm" on the problem. It included things like raising the price, shipping out of a printer in California who was slow to quote and reply. (red flag) It included going to a trade show to scout alternatives for printing and then the breakthrough solution came.

I have always been wary of shipping out China but I went online to globalsources.com and alibaba.com and registered and requested quotes on my product. The early ones are coming in at .32 per unit versus the $8.00 I am currently paying! Need to investigate a little more. I have a friend who brings product from China and I will request that her contact checks out my possibilities. All of a sudden the project is feasible again!

Business possiblilities and adventure. It satisfies two of my goals. Interesting how when each step of the process is difficult I pull back and think "it is not going to work." And now I know to keep looking for solutions. I recommend that you brainstorm solutions with a friend. Two brains multiply your results exponentially. I am not there but I am on a new path that feels like it may resolve the issues. I wish I could stay in North America but if I do I will not be able to continue.

Here is what I learned in this lesson. The little voice in the back of my mind works against me to discourage me and keep me staus quo. Safe and settled. How easily we choose safety over adventure and potential happiness. This new road feels daunting in the face of a series of new challenges that I have yet to define. One foot in front of the other. If you view the whole task it looks like a mountain. If you look at the next step it is easy. My mountain is production in Asia...HUGE. My next step is to contact my friend who is already producing in China about the project....EASY.

10 Possible Solutions

The lure of the warm climate increases as November looms. I am invigorated by my plan to change my scene. A small voice chatters in the back of my head about what if...What if I don't like the travel idea once I am doing it. Adjusting to living in England was hard at first. What if the money does not last? What if I am bored by not working after a lifetime of looming deadlines and list filled days?

The answer could lie, as it often does, in "a solution brainstorm". Freely brainstorm a list of 10 possible solutions for the issue. Do not stop until you get to 10. Then pick one off the list and try it. If it does not work, pick another one and try it....you get the idea. Keep going and eventually one of your solutions will either solve the issue or take you to a new place where the issue is no longer relevant.

So, if I find that I do not like to be lying on the beach reading every day in Fiji, then I brainstorm 10 things I would rather be doing and then do one of them. Problem solved.

Is life about experiences and living and testing limits? There is a woman who rowed the Atlantic Ocean. She said she had left behind a 'perfect life'. One statement she made touched me in particular. She said that she bought an expensive house close to work and then had to work to afford her expensive house. A vicious circle. It gave me insight into how we step into a never ending, continually escalating spiral of attainment and achievement.

There is no exit on a spiral. It does not end unless you jump off. That is scary. So, if you jump and it turns out to be less than fulfilling then what happens next? You brainstorm 10 new ways to create fulfillment where you are and you pick one.

We choose feeling secure over happiness. Status quo and mediocrity over the great unknown. Trust yourself. Jump. There is so much more to live.

A Preview of Life's Coming Attractions

I want to put up a description of my future scenario so that when I achieve it I will look back and go WOW I did it!

So here it is. My three year plan. (Reduced the timeline from the five year plan) I have created a reasonably successful business so that I have income coming in to support my lifestyle. Trivia Party Starters. Maybe. When winter comes, November or late October, I head to warm places. Choices include a condo rental on the beach at Madeira Beach, Arizona or Hawaii (Kona is my first love). I prefer the beach. My pleasure is to spend two hours a day walking/running on the beach with Audi. Then go for coffee at the local coffee shop. I have a Blackberry and a laptop and a Kindle to stay in touch with everything/everyone. I will work at the business for two hours a day and have one person here in Guelph to keep the business day to day. I will spend 3-4 months there and then go to Europe and rent by the sea for a couple of months a year. (It is surprisingly cheap to rent monthly in the small towns far from the maddening crowd.) Drink wine in the places where wine was born and read endless books on Kindle while watching the water. Tour around on a bicycle and enjoy the culture. Train it to Paris or Rome for a couple of days. Spend summer at the cottage. Not sure if Sandra would rent the cottage out for two months June and July.

I am doing my PhD online through Walden U and enjoying the content immensely.(Psychology)

I travel to China and teach English for a semester or two. I build a house with Habitat for Humanity. Spend a week at Kilimanjaro and climb to the summit. Three days at the North Pole to see the Northern Lights. The pyramids in Egypt and a hike through the Sahara. Descend into a shark cage and see them up close and personal. Take yoga classes in Asia. Cooking lessons in Thailand, Greece, France and Italy. Running on the Great Wall of China. Learning to sail in the Mediterranean.

I have a philanthropic side to the business that helps educate young girls in third world countries so they do not get married so young. I feel good about that and the more product I sell, the more girls who will attend school and find out who they can be.

It is all possible and affordable on a normal income if you can be mobile and still earn that income. The other thing I think about is missing friends and family and I know they will come over to share these amazing moments with me. And I will be back regularly to share simple times. I will send my kids a ticket while they are in University to join me where the mood strikes them.

Sounds like the impossible dream. When you do the math it does not seem impossible. This blog entry becomes my roadmap. Napolean Hill says "Your burning desire is nothing more than an accurate picture of what you will one day become". Einstein says that "Imagination is the preview of life's coming attractions". This is what I will one day become. I have already begun the trek but the road ahead is still foggy and the destination not obvious to me. But I am moving step by step.

Carpe Diem

I am at the cottage with a group of friends who have been friends since high school. We have moved in and out of each others lives but never too far away. Throughout the 35 or so years that we have known each other we have shared moments and sadness and illness and joy and lots of wine. Remarkably we are all still here. We came up to this cottage before our children were born and now we are here and the children have moved on. For many years in between we shot photos each year as the kids grew and this year we won't. It is not sad just the way it is. There is a new life for all of us now and we need to Seize The Day.

Fear. Doubt. Happiness. Boredom.

Normally we think the opposite of happiness is sadness. Here is a new idea. What if the opposite of happiness is actually boredom instead of sadness? The opposite of love is indifference instead of hate? These thoughts come from Tim Ferriss and the longer you think about them the more interesting they become. Boredom is unhappiness. The times when I feel the most unhappy are the times when there is nothing to stimulate my mind and body. When I stretch to reach new goals I feel the happiest. When I leave my comfort zone behind I feel anxious and uncomfortable. When I push through this feeling even on small tasks, I feel the elation of having accomplished something hard; of stretching the envelope and learning new skills.

Last year I was working on this project and one thing went wrong and I immediately packed it all up and put it away. I have reopened the project now about a year later and have moved way past that one thing that went wrong and now when I look back I cannot believe it was a showstopper for me. It has faded to a small insignificant detail. That kind of retrospect lets me look at the issues that seem to loom now and when I think about it I know that they too will shrink to become insignificant with time and action that helps me move around them.

I act in spite of fear and doubt. My current mantra. It works.