Coffee & Convo

During this month of November, tens of thousands have taken a united pledge and committed to putting pen to paper in search of the next great novel within. Focusing on quantity over quality, participants pledge to write 50,000 words by November 30th, the equivalent of a novel-length book. The project is sponsored by NaNoWriMo and the brainchild of freelance writer Chris Baty who is encouraging everyone to just get the words out and worry about the rest later.

Being that public accountability (or public humiliation) can be a powerful tool, I too have taken on the challenge. I signed up on the eve of November 1st and am already feeling the ‘what have I gotten myself into’ anxiety just four days into the challenge. We are supposed to write roughly 1660 words per day to stay on track. According to my calculations, that put us somewhere around a 6667 word count for today. I am at 3802…yikes! Nonetheless…I tarry on.

How about you…do you have a book inside you? Have you started writing it? What’s your biggest challenge to writing your book? Feel free to join me in the comments…

And if you have a useful tip for busting through creative blocks…do share!

They say that pet owners tend to look like their pets. Well, what if you don’t own any pets, what’s the next best thing to best represent your personality? I recently discovered that there’s a shoe style on the market which features my namesake. The “Kamaria” shoe was selling at Target for $29.99, and honestly, I have mixed feelings about it. For one, the shoe is not really my style, but more importantly, I’d like to think that my style could fetch a much higher ransom than $29.99 ($14.99 on sale).

But enough about me, if you were a shoe, what shoe would you be? Tell us which shoe and why it best represents you…

If all it took was one click, would you do it?

The .co Create Your Opportunity Contest wants you to help me win $50,000 in start-up capital for an amazing business idea. Please visit the site and vote for me!!!

Click Here for direct link to the OfficeFlexed entry…

I had the opportunity to interview Terry Dean recently, who is living the ultimate in lifestyle freedom as a successful internet marketer and entrepreneur. Wanting to uncover some of the thinking behind “success” and how various people connect their educational choices with careers and ultimately success, I had a few question for him. To no surprise, his insightful answers gave me pause and no doubt you will too. Listen in…

1. If you could go back to when you were 18 again, bright-eyed and hopeful of what life held in store for you, would you do anything differently?

Really I would not do anything differently. The reason is your experiences create the person you are today.

For example, I’m a college dropout, but the reason I dropped out was because it was a ministry school and I got married to one of the teachers who taught the high school at the same organization.  They got upset with us, and we decided to leave them entirely.

So I could say I wish I would have skipped college, but I came out of there with my wife who supported me all the way to the success of my business.  We’ve been married 16 years.

I also wish I had never gotten myself into the deep debt I did, but that is what gave me such a committment to never being in debt again.  This led me to coming up with business ways of buying cars with cash and even recently paying for my home with cash (you can bet the home builder was quite happy to get a cashier’s check in today’s financing environment).

So the answer is I wish I would have skipped college and skipped the pain of those debts, but they’ve led to the life I have today.  So the answer is no I would not change anything…even the painful parts.

2. Would you go straight to college, attend a trade school or backpack through Europe for awhile?

If I was advising someone starting out, I would tell them to do what it takes to accomplish whatever dreams they have for their life.  If that requires you to go to college, then do so. You’re not going to move toward your dream of being a surgeon by backpacking through Europe for example.

Take the next step toward what you want to do and finish with your life.  I could mention all those exercises here everybody talks about like writing your obituary and what you want to accomplish, but I’m sure you’ve heard them before.

What if someone doesn’t have a clue, which is pretty common when someone graduates from high school?  In that case, backpacking through Europe or anything else that will get you EXPERIENCES on a low budget would be what I’d advise.  Get out there and meet people.  Become a listener and ask questions.  The more variety of people and cultures you do this in, the better it will be to helping you figure out what YOU WANT.

Because it’s not about what your parents want or what the media tells you that you should want.  It’s about what you want.  And I’m also very big on finding your purpose and providing value to others.

What kind of work would you enjoy and love to provide values to others?  If you know what that is, go for it.  If you don’t then do the experiences and listening above until you get a good idea about it.

3. What are your thoughts on the old adage “go to a good school so you can get a good job?”

It’s a stupid statement.  Who just wants a good job?  A good entrepreneur makes more than almost any job.  But if you do want a job (which some people do), then get the RIGHT job…not just a good job.

The right job would be one that fulfills what I said in the above question.  It fulfills you while providing value to others.

And should someone go to college just to pass the time until they figure out what’s right for them?  NO WAY.  Talk about getting into debt…and wasting money.  They’d be stuck in one way of thinking (whatever school they attend) so they’d miss other experiences and they’d come out with a mountain of debt still possibly not knowing what they want.  In my opinion, that’s just stupid.

I am a hardcore entrepreneur.  I can’t work for anyone else.  I hated it…and I was never a very good employee.  Yet my wife now works as a nurse.  That is what she WANTED for quite a while.

So she went to a trade school to get an associate’s degree to be an RN.  And she works a job as an RN.  And you know what, she is very good at it.  And she enjoys it.

We don’t need to the money, but she didn’t feel fulfilled just working in business.  In fact we often forget to even update the checkbook with her direct deposit checks.  She had to find what fit her, and that took a while.  Once you she KNEW what she wanted, she went to a trade school to get it done.

4. What is your opinion on how one’s success in life relates to their education? What would you say success IS related to?

Success does relate to education, but education doesn’t just mean college.

I continually educate myself every year.  Amazon.com and I are very good friends. I buy a couple of books or ebooks every week so I’m always learning both in my subject of internet business and other subjects I enjoy.

I’m glad you left the question a little open by asking about success, not just money.

You can earn money doing a lot of things.  But success in my opinion only comes when you’re doing something you love.  That means that success is going to be related to finding what you love to do and going after it with all your heart.

And that means intense passionate work.  I recently wrote an article on my blog that talked about a key of every successful entrepreneur.

Success is directly related to the speed of implementation.

This means how quickly you test new ideas and put them in place.  Let’s say you have a coach and they suggest you test a new form of advertising.  Some people sit around and think about it.  Others want to study it for two months before they do it.

The successful people test it by the next day.  They play it a LITTLE SAFE and keep their investment very low in the beginning, but they put the test in place immediately.

It’s not thinking about business that makes you successful.  It’s DOING business.  Successful entrepreneurs test small, but do so quickly.  And they learn as they go.  Unsuccessful dreamers learn everything before they go…and then get distracted by something else along the way.

5. With regards to achieving the illusive “lifestyle freedom,” what would be your advice to those who are struggling with making the transition (i.e. those who still trade time for dollars)?

Lifestyle freedom means you have enough coming in from passive sources that you don’t have to go to work today if you don’t want to.  It’s now fully your choice what you do…not the mortgage company’s choice because of what you owe them.

My advice is to start putting information products together – items like books, ebooks, audios, videos, etc. on subjects which solve people’s problems.  The job of an entrepreneur is to SOLVE other people’s problems.  And the easiest way to do this passively is to through products that sell for you even when you’re not working.

Let’s say for example you know how to kill the weeds in your lawn.  Do you think others want to learn this?  You bet they do.  Maybe you did backpack in Europe.  Do you think others would like to know what you learned to have a better experience?  Yep.  Every problem is an opportunity to profit by helping others overcome it.

Create your product.  If I was just starting out today I would use a system like Clickbank.com for my first product.  They pay the affiliates for you, giving you the opportunity to concentrate on what matters…getting a good conversion on your website and finding good affiliates to promote for you.

You will work hard at first to get everything in the system flowing, but once it’s up and moving it requires only a small amount of effort to keep it going.

And here’s one more element to mention.  When you’re putting together that product you can put a few affiliate links throughout it.  These links could be to other information products, physical products, or even continuity programs like membership sites.  These all then pay you the affiliate share of the profits totally passively while you’re promoting your new item.

6. Lastly, what book(s) are you reading now?

The one I just finished was Facebook Marketing for Dummies by Paul Dunay and Richard Krueger.  The next book will be Methaphorically Selling: How to Use the Magic of Metaphos to Sell, Persuade, and Explain Anything to Anyone by Anne Miller.  I read through one book at a time and I take action at least one principle from the book immediately.  So I just put up my Facebook fan page for example because this was so important throughout the Facebook Marketing book.

Terry Dean is an internet marketing coach who has been helping home based entrepreneurs and small business owners for over 14 years.  Grab a free copy of his Internet Lifestyle Manifesto which shares how to find your passion and profit from it online at his web site today: http://www.mymarketingcoach.com.