Some might be familiar with the term “digital nomad“, “vagabond“, “tech nomad“, or simply “web worker”. And then of course there is Tim Ferriss, who made the concept of “mini-retirements” popular in his book The 4 Hour Workweek. Whatever you call it, there have been a few smart people living this way for quite a while. Steven Roberts, for example, has been working remotely via bicycle, kayak, and ship since 1983! Check out his beautiful new sailboat HQ, the Nomadness.

Location independence is a form of lifestyle design, consciously building a business that one can operate from anywhere in the world to support you in your ideal lifestyle—whatever that means for you. Although the popularity of this lifestyle is seeing some big growth right now, it’s definitely not a mainstream concept. So I wanted to start off our journey with a video introducing myself and my experience with living nomadically, and talking about why you should care about location independent living.

Since taking my business on the road in November 2008, I’ve traveled to Hong Kong, throughout Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, and Malaysia.

What were my motivations for building a location-independent income stream? And what might motivate others to pursue a location-independent lifestyle?:

To see the world, of course! (2:40): Obviously, a lot of people simply like the ability to travel freely, experience foreign cultures, and expand their worldview. Many people dream of “saving up enough money,” but slow travel is actually much cheaper than you might think. So why follow the deferred life plan and wait until retirement?

Geo-arbitrage (3:05): For any serious business owner or freelancer who’s bootstrapping his own venture, extended travel and living overseas presents some advantages if you can leverage the economics of geoarbitrage: cultivating the ability to earn in strong currencies while you live somewhere where the cost-of-living is low.

Freedom of location, time, choice (4:30): For many “LIPs”, a big motivating factor is the freedom to choose where you live—some dream destination, permanently traveling, or even simply a remote community where you grew up. Additionally, if the exchange rate is in your favor, it is possible to be more picky about what projects you take on and free up more personal time to spend on non-work activities or projects that don’t earn you income (I work with my friend Dwight on charity fundraising for causes throughout Thailand and Southeast Asia, for example).

Personal growth (6:15): Becoming an expat—living abroad for an extended period of time—will change your paradigm. Being in a new environment will spark your creativity, and getting outside your comfort zone will expand your resourcefulness and self-reliance.

Subscribe to my YouTube channel for more videos of my travels, and future thoughts and insights on working and traveling anywhere.

Feature photo credit: Stuck in Customs

Read the original article on Thrilling Heroics here: What is Location Independence? A Video Introduction to the Work-Anywhere Lifestyle

He’s been squeezing as much insightful value into each Tweet as he can (@UpbeatNow), and he’s compiled many of these thoughtful quotes into a great little pocket guide. Here’s what Raj says about his new Twitter-inspired book:

You can’t say a lot in 140 characters. Or, that’s what we thought until Twitter came along. Twitter set a new standard to communicate in 140 characters. Brevity is the name of the game. It is timely in a way as everyone in the world is moving at a breathtaking speed and would love to spend “as little time as possible” to get “as much insights as possible.”
This is where #Th!nkTweet: Bite-sized Lessons for a Fast-Paced World comes in. It is a collection of 140 bite-sized lessons that will help you learn and grow. FAST!

Some examples of my favorite tips from the book:

#10: If someone can copy your business by copying your actions, then there is a “structural” problem with your business.

#37: We value money as if we can NEVER get it back and we squander time as if there is an ENDLESS supply.

#42: Work and fun need NOT be mutually exclusive.

#46: While you are traveling the road less traveled, remember to light the path for others behind you.

#79: It is easier to come up with an excuse to NOT pursue your dream than to put the effort into pursuing it.

#110: You cannot “stand out” by conforming. Non-conformance alone won’t make you “stand out” either.

#139: The classic dilemma: 1) Want to grow AND 2) Want to continue to operate in the comfort zone.

If any community members are interested in purchasing the book, you can sign up here and use the discount code “ADD12” to get an additional discount from Raj’s publisher.

This is just Book 1 in a series of thought provoking Th!nkTweet books that Rajesh is working on. If you like the advice in this one, more titles are on the way soon! Also be sure to check out Raj’s recent, full-length business book Upbeat: Cultivating the right attitude to thrive in tough times.

Read the original article on Thrilling Heroics here: Business Lessons for the Twitter-Length Attention Span: Insights in Just 140 Characters

Jun runs several sites, he has an interesting video series that shows the behind-the-scenes of starting up a new web company with some college friends, and he has a new venture, Viralogy, where he does great, interesting video interviews with many bloggers from our community. I finally had the chance to sit down for a talk with Jun, and we had a really fantastic  conversation about social media, travel, Thailand, and the location-independent lifestyle!

I look like crap with poor lighting and low video quality (!), but if you’ve ever wondered how I managed to become a “digital nomad” and live in Thailand, this video interview packs almost all of my philosophy on life and work into about 13-minutes!

• 1:15 – Breaking out of the traditional “template” lifestyle and job path
• 2:45 – How do you create a job that you can do from anywhere?
• 5:00 – How long does it take to make your business location-independent?
• 6:30 – How living in Thailand has helped me grow and develop personally
• 8:30 – Resources & links for learning more about the location independent (LIP) lifestyle
• 11:20 – Can you have relationships while you travel the world?

Jun did a tremendous job, really asking me some great questions and opening it up for queries from Twitter followers. He’s compiled a lot of valuable supplemental info on his blog post, so if you’re an avid blog reader or social media user, I’d appreciate if you click over and vote for Jun’s post on sites like StumbleUpon, Digg, or share the link on Twitter! The Awesome Revolution interview series is really interesting and useful, so let’s help him make it a success!

Read the original article on Thrilling Heroics here: How I Became a Digital Nomad and Moved to Thailand

I started Thrilling Heroics in 2006 to encourage young professionals and entrepreneurs to pursue an unorthodox, exciting lifestyle and career, strive for excellence, and make a positive difference in the world! If you’re a regular subscriber, I thank you for continuing to visit and support this community. No one can succeed without the friendly cooperation of others, and you have each helped make Thrilling Heroics a success! And whether you’re a regular reader or a new visitor here, I also wanted to share 23 things to help you get to know me a little bit better:

• I’m from California’s capital, Sacramento. But I’ve spent over a year living abroad in Southeast Asia. My homebase is in Bangkok, Thailand, and I occasionally travel around the region to places like Krabi, Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia, Singapore, etc.
• Professionally, I’m a web developer and internet marketing consultant: I help lifestyle designers and social entrepreneurs develop online businesses and web presence, and help teach them to leverage social media networks to build authority and expand their business globally.
• I have been self-employed since 2007, and working remotely as a digital nomad since November 2008. In my travel experience, I’ve been fortunate enough to visit about 20 countries (all of North America, across Europe & the Mediterranean, and now Asia).
• I recently co-founded an awesome lifestyle design community for college students and young professionals who want to learn to build their own businesses, live anywhere, and take their lives into their own hands.
• I used to speak French fairly fluently thanks to my high school language professor who got me passionate about travel and cultures. I am also learning to speak Thai, ever so slowly.
• Music is my biggest passion, and I love love LOVE electronica: house, techno, downtempo, chillout, everything. Some of my favorites are Thievery Corporation, The Crystal Method, Chemical Brothers, Kraftwerk, and Zero 7.
• Two of my very closest friends passed away by age 22: Chris Cravens and Kareem Khan will always be missed. Take life by the horns, because you never know when you might suddenly lose it.
• As a fan of Tony Robbins, Tom Peters, Napoleon Hill, and Dale Carnegie, I naturally was a member of Toastmasters International back in the States, and founded a mastermind group for ambitious college students.
• In 2006, I got to meet multi-billionaire Warren Buffett. Probably the world’s greatest money manager ever, and one of my biggest role models.
  
• I am a serious Apple fanboy and not ashamed of it: I own a dual core Apple iMac desktop machine, a 13-inch aluminum body MacBook (my ideal travel laptop), an iPhone 3G and an iPod nano!
• I code websites by hand in XHTML, CSS, PHP, JavaScript, and jQuery. I’m a huge WordPress evangelist for its ease-of-use and built-in SEO benefits.
• Being a codemonkey and a night owl, I keep a work/sleep schedule that most people would find strange. I frequently work until 5 or 6am and get up between 11am-noon. Don’t call me lazy please, it’s just how I am.
• I despise rainy, cloudy weather. It makes me depressed. I would much rather be soaking up the sun on a beach somewhere (which is a big part of why I came to Thailand!)
• Unlike most dudes my age, I can’t stand watching televised sports. None of ‘em. I like sports bars and pubs, but could care less about the Superbowl game on the bigscreen. I’d rather be reading business news and blog RSS feeds or watching TED Talks.
• I’m a regular attendee at the Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival. Three days of incredible bands and DJs in the southern California desert! I’ve seen Paul McCartney, Portishead’s reunion, Roger Waters (Dark Side of the Moon in the desert!), Kraftwerk, Rage Against the Machine’s reunion, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, M.I.A., Thievery Corporation, The Crystal Method, Tiesto, Fatboy Slim, Justice, Bjork, The Killers, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and many other incredible shows in Indio, California!
• I’m a huge photography enthusiast, and sell some of my travel and landscape photos I’ve done over the years. I actually studied photography and computer graphics for three years in high school, then worked in a dark room and as a glamour shots photographer!
• In college, I studied a lot of literature, religions, anthropology, philosophy and arts. I graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in Humanities & Religious Studies, and a minor in History.
• I have three phone numbers and just one phone (thanks to international call forwarding and Skype). It’s my least favorite communication form though. I love interacting with people and talking with new people in person, but for some reason I have a strong aversion to being on the phone.
• Two things I miss from home: driving, and my golden retriever! I used to have a thing for customized street cars and fast driving.
  
• I have a strong fear of heights, but I’ve also gone skydiving out of a plane at 13,000 feet. It was one of the most incredible experiences I’ve ever had!
• When I started writing Thrilling Heroics in 2006 I had a strong desire to attend Stanford University for grad school, and I still would like to one day, perhaps after I’ve been successful in business and made a name for myself. I’m drawn to Silicon Valley for its innovative, entrepreneurial atmosphere, and I love following the research and trends that come from Stanford’s professors.
• Since I started blogging, I’ve become friends and interacted with some of the coolest people online: Rajesh Setty, Ramit Sethi, Jun Loayza, Adam Baker, Jonathan Mead, Chris Guillebeau, Kare Anderson, Pamela Slim, Monica O’Brien, Ben Yoskovitz, Penelope Trunk, Clay Collins, Guy Kawasaki, Andrew Warner, Gary Vaynerchuk, Chris Brogan, and many, many more.
• I have an unhealthy addiction to information! But on the bright side I love continually learning, about everything, including online business & startup advice, social entrepreneurship, social media trends, content marketing, travel, outsourcing, productivity, personal finance, personal development & personal growth, “pickup” & social dynamics, reason & philosophy, and much more.

If we don’t know each other personally yet, please feel welcome to introduce yourself. I am always happy to bring readers into my extended network! There are many ways to connect with me online:

You can connect with me on Facebook—please share a short message, and tell me something about yourself. What do you do professionally? Where do you blog? What projects are you working on? How did you find Thrilling Heroics?

Follow me on Twitter—this is probably the best place to engage with me in discussion. Aside from email, sending me an @reply is the quickest way to get my attention and I try to spend a decent amount of time here involved in discussions and answering people’s questions.

Ways You Can Help the Thrilling Heroics Community Grow and Thrive

In our interdependent society, it’s impossible to achieve great success without the help of others. The best way to get friendly cooperation is to give it. When you make it a habit to encourage others and to help them better themselves, most will reciprocate when you need their help. This is especially true in our online social communities. Thrilling Heroics is a part of a larger network where I try to help others as much as possible and receive a ton of support from my peers in exchange.

Help me give generously to the Thrilling Heroics community, and you will benefit in kind. You can help me by leaving your feedback and encouragement in the comments (encouragement is what keeps me going!), correcting my errors and adding in the areas where I’m weak, answering questions and offering support to other commenters and community members, and so on. Get involved and help the Thrilling Heroics empire thrive by subscribing to the RSS feed, joining my exclusive newsletter (and get a free telecall recording!), and sharing with your friends:

• Give Thrilling Heroics a thumbs-up on StumbleUpon
• Join the growing Thrilling Heroics community on Facebook
• Add Thrilling Heroics to your Technorati Favorites
• Save Thrilling Heroics to your del.icio.us bookmarks
• Donate to help pay the hosting bills, ensure more free CC-licensed articles & support the continued development of my free open-source ThrillingTheme

Thank you again for continuing to visit and support this site.

Read the original article on Thrilling Heroics here: 23 Interesting Things You May Not Know About Cody

“If change doesn’t cost you anything, then it isn’t real change.”

—Twords of wisdom from Tim Schmidt, @timschmidt on Twitter

This is a weekly review of great articles and resources from around the web on how to master everything from your finances to your personal development, run a successful business, go global, and live the life of your dreams.

The Nature of Hard Work

I get a lot of flak from some people for being a slacker entrepreneur, working on my time, traveling, meeting new folks, going to music events, and living cheap in Bangkok. But my Facebook or Twitter escapades don’t show you the totality of my life: life for any freelancer or entrepreneur is not all fun and games. There are many nights pulling 8-10 hour shifts after dinner, only to be snapped out of it by the birds chirping and the sun rising, or those days when you get up at an ungodly hour to take that client call, desperately roaming the city streets for a decent enough wi-fi connection to Skype with someone on the other side of the globe.

I’ve always enjoyed Yaro Starak’s writings—author of Entrepreneur’s Journey—and he recently shared something that I could really associate with:

I’ve started to look at how I work more closely because it’s become quite clear that how I “work” is how most people want to work, yet never seem to be able get there. People are curious to find out if I really do just blog only a couple of hours a day and how could I travel the world and run my business at the same time for almost an entire year. How can I live with such a fluid work structure?

Yaro has some incredible insights on psychology, productivity, and online marketing. Check out The Real Secret to a 2-Hour Workday for some insight into the traveling blogger/entrepreneur lifestyle.

On the other end of the spectrum, every once in a while someone comes along and completely challenges my assumptions. Watch this TED Talk where Mike Rowe, host of Discovery Channel’s “Dirty Jobs”, discusses the importance of hard work and skilled labor in our economy. He notes how, as a society, we have declared a war on work, but shares why he believes work is not the enemy.

For those of you who still haven’t made the jump to self-employment yet (we love you too!), Dumb Little Man put out a helpful piece, How to Write Great Cover Letters for Your Resume—you know, for like, when you wanna apply for the CEO position of your company.

For you Entrepreneurs:

Jun Loayza, a busy young serial entrepreneur, included me in his recent post about the Best Blogs for Young Entrepreneurs. Great list, and thanks Jun! Also check out his new post about An honest take on making money online. Fantastic stuff.

Ashley Morgan made some great points to consider in ‘The power of free and how to make money online by giving away your work’ at Upstart Blogger. Free is a new paradigm of the web, and it’s an important thing to consider for you social networkers and bloggers—what value are you giving away for free that will attract users and attention to your site or service?

Freelance Folder compiled a list of the 15 Applications No Online Business Can Live Without, which will be a good resource for anyone getting into a web business or online collaboration.

Which leads us into…

Technology

Silicon Alley Insider broke the news about the U.S.’ new federal chief information officer: Obama Taps 34-Year-Old Whiz Kid As America’s CIO. The Federal government is finally recognizing the importance of all this information “in the cloud”, and how to manage it. Are you thinking about it yet?

Livingston Communications shared a fantastic new user guide for business users on Twitter: A Twitter Basics Primer. Additionally, Econsultancy has some methods for analyzing your social media marketing effectiveness: 10 ways to measure social media success.

AllFacebook shed some light on the recent changes in the Facebook Pages feature that might be important for some of you business owners who are leveraging social media: Facebook’s New Updates: Getting The Facts Straight.

For Travelers and Business Backpackers:

One I missed from last month was the launch of Chris Guillebeau’s new unconventional guide How to Become a Travel Ninja: From Hong Kong to Johannesburg and Everywhere Else. Chris is a great guy, and he’s already traveled to 103 countries and counting, so I’d take his advice if you’re interested in cheap travel, Round-the-World tickets, maximizing frequent flyer programs, or getting into countries like Iran, for instance!

Dell sponsored the first crowd-sourced white paper on their Digital Nomads blog: What Makes a Digital Nomad? This one is beautifully laid out, a great read for prospective location-independents, and especially for any corporate-types who manage remote workers or are thinking of instituting telecommuting at their company.

Want to opt-out of this global recession? You might try vagabonding your way over to Brazil.

And don’t miss Brooke’s latest article about what she learned from rock climbing over on our site BusinessBackpacker.com.

Do Some Good:

In a follow-up to his viral campaign which raised over $250,000 for DonorsChoose.org, 4 Hour Workweek author Tim Ferriss is offering $3 for every new Twitter follower he gets in the next two weeks, and hoping to raise a total of $150K for U.S. public school students in low-income and high-need areas. If you’re not already, then follow my favorite author and vagabond, @tferriss. Learn more: The Tweet to Beat: Paying $3 Per Twitter Follower.

The Girl Effect is a great new effort to raise awareness and create change in third-world economies by empowering young women.

If you’re in Bangkok by chance, make a contribution to my buddy’s Living Water Donation Drive. InSearchOfSanuk.com is collecting donations to benefit Bangkok’s migrant Burmese workers for the Songkran holiday.

Other great stuff from around the web this month:

• A Blog is Your Home. Twitter is Happy Hour from Andy Drish
• Greg Rollett contributed showed how musicians can apply the nomad lifestyle with Forever On Tour: The Rise of Location Independent Musicians (Greg mentioned me, yay!)
• Gretchen Rubin posted about Happiness Myth No. 3 — Venting Anger Relieves It at The Happiness Project
• Starting A Business Is Like Asking Out A Girl For The First Time on MyWifeQuitHerJob.com
• Monica O’Brien wrote 7 Ways to Land Great Consulting Work In Between Jobs at Twenty Set

###

One of the most important parts of my job is keeping up with industry news and headlines, and cutting through the static for my clients to find what’s current and what’s important. If you’d like to receive good recommendations from me on a more regular basis, please feel free to connect with me on your network of choice:

• Follow me on Twitter
• Subscribe to my Google Shared Items
• Subscribe to my reviews on StumbleUpon
• Subscribe to my bookmarks on del.icio.us
• Connect with me on Digg

Read the original article on Thrilling Heroics here: Best of the Web: March Edition

Want to see your business here?

Depending on the type of business you run, local search results may drive the majority of your web traffic. I’m a one-person, location-independent web freelancer who does the majority of my work via email with out-of-state and international clients, for example, so my local visibility is not as high of a priority as a Sacramento-area magazine or a local small business owner with a brick-and-mortar shop. But I recently read an article by Jacob Cass that explains how local search hits can frequently give you the advantage over your competitors, because local businesses often tend to come up at the very top of search results. In other words, if anyone performs a Google search for something like “yourindustry yourcity” or they search for your kind of business within Google Maps, then having your listing on Local Search means you’ll be one of the first companies that show up! Just look at the positioning Jacob’s business Just Creative Design has on the search results page for Newcastle graphic designers!

So even though my target clients are in the Silicon Valley area or abroad, well outside the greater Sacramento area, I decided to go ahead and list my business in the search engines’ local listings. It can’t hurt, and it gives your clients the ability to rate your business and write testimonials for you! In addition to Google Local Search I’ve also been recommending Yelp to all of my friends with small businesses. While Yelp doesn’t have the same traction here in Sacramento yet as it does in the San Francisco Bay Area or other large metropolitan areas, services like Yelp (sort of a social networking-style local search engine where users rate their favorite hangouts and other businesses) will see increasing exposure in the years ahead and give web-savvy companies the edge as the economy suffers and more businesses decide to make the transition online. Anytime I’m somewhere I’m unfamiliar with, I can easily pull up Google Maps or the Yelp application on my iPhone (available for free at the iTunes App Store) to find out where the nearest Starbucks is, or what hotspots, businesses, and events are going on in my immediate area. And so can your customers! Are you there, ready to be found?

Below I’ve listed the most popular local search engines and most important places to submit your business listing. For most of these services, you’ll need to sign up for a free account, and you should have a brief description of your company, contact information, hours of operation, and company logo or photos to attach to your listing (people always click more often on photos than plain text):

• Google Local Search
  
• Yelp (feeds data to Windows Live and Yahoo)
• Yahoo Local Search
  
• Live Local Search
  
• CitySearch (feeds data to Ask.com and Windows Live)

Additionally, if you do any sort of event marketing, it can be beneficial to get involved on some of the most popular web 2.0 sites such as Upcoming.org, Meetup.com, and Eventful.

Here’s to your entrepreneurial success! If you appreciate this helpful tip, please give me a nod and help rate my freelance web business on Yelp!

Read the original article on Thrilling Heroics here: An Easy, Free Way to Get Top Search Ranking for Your Small Business

For anyone thinking about getting involved in blogging, you’ll hear from some of the biggest names in the blogosphere, like ProBlogger Darren Rowse, 4-Hour Workweek author Tim Ferriss, Chris Brogan, Wendy Piersall and Liz Strauss. And for technology entrepreneurs or business owners who hope to use web 2.0/social media marketing to their advantage, you’ll learn from the success stories of individuals like Garage Technology Ventures‘ Guy Kawasaki (also author of The Art of the Start) and Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh.

Attendees will be able to watch individual videos based on their content area preference or view the conference in its entirety. While the videos are streaming, viewers will be able to chat online with the Network Solutions team […] or participate in a live public chat.

The videos will be streaming live this Wednesday, October 29th, at 1pm EST/10am PST, and I believe they’ll still be available for download after that, but I highly recommend you take the opportunity to hear from some of these big names:

• Tim Ferriss, best-selling author of The Four Hour Work Week
• Guy Kawasaki, Co-Founder of AllTop.com
• Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos
• Darren Rowse, blogger, ProBlogger
• Chris Brogan, Vice President of Strategy, CrossTech Media
• Rohit Bhargava, author of Personality Not Included
• Wendy Piersall, CEO of Sparkplugging.com
• Brian Solis, author of PR 2.0, CEO of FutureWorks
• Lionel Menchaca, Chief Blogger, Dell
• Scott Monty, Global Digital and Multimedia Communications Manager, Ford Motor Company
• Liz Strauss, Social Web Strategist, Successful Blog
• Toby Bloomberg, CEO of Bloomberg Marketing
• Lee Odden, CEO of TopRankMarketing.com
• David Berkowitz, Director of Emerging Media and Client Strategy, 360i
• Lorelle VanFossen, author of Blogging Tips: What Bloggers Won’t Tell You About Blogging
• Dave Taylor, Head Strategic Marketing Director, Intuitive Systems

Visit solutionsstarsvideo.com on the 29th to watch the conference live, or for more information.

Read the original article on Thrilling Heroics here: Tune In for a Free Social Media & Internet Strategy Conference This Wednesday!

Hey Jun, so give us a little professional background on how you got to be where you are and what your role is with Future Delivery.

As an undergraduate at UCLA, I got a taste for entrepreneurship by founding Bruin Consulting, the UCLA Undergraduate Case Competition, and the Veridical Group. Each experience taught me something new about myself and really amplified my abilities as a leader and consultant, and my business sense.

After I graduated from UCLA, I worked at an international consulting firm for about three months. At the three month mark, I realized that the corporate life was just not for me. I mean, the pay was good, the job was steady, it was around 55 hours a week (not bad for consulting), and we even had an amazing Flavia machine in the kitchen! What drove me to step aside from the corporate world was that I felt unchallenged, and that I was in cruise control. You go to work, come back home, eat dinner, you might have time for the gym, and then you sleep. It became an endless routine!! From my experiences as an entrepreneur, I knew that my passion was in having my own baby (company).

I stepped aside from my corporate job and teamed up with Yu-kai Chou, my Delta Sig pledge brother who co-founded Bruin Consulting and the Veridical Group with me. Together, we founded Future Delivery. This is a startup company; therefore, I wear at least twenty different hats. My main responsibility is that of Chief Marketing Officer. I am in charge of everything having to do with our branding, advertising, lead generation, conversion, and client fulfillment. I am the face of Future Delivery, so I must always make sure I look my best!

What is the new FDCareer roleplaying game all about? Give our readers a run-down of the community and why it’s such a great benefit.

Many of you play video games and watch TV all day. Many undergraduates go to class, play and party all night, and ignore their careers until right before they graduate—which in many cases, may be too late. We created the FD RPG so that undergraduates and young professionals can have fun while developing themselves professionally.

In the FD RPG, every time you gain an internship, get a high GPA, or become a leader of an organization, you gain experience points and level-up on the site. As you level-up, you gain prestige, new abilities, access to new areas of the site, and will be able to recruit with more prestigious firms. We’ve also implemented Quests that help you develop career-wise. For example, a Quest for a Consultant could be a business analysis case. You will have to solve a company’s problem—could be profitability or an acquisition—and you will submit your solutions online to be reviewed by our expert panel. A Marketing Quest could be to gain social influence on Twitter by gaining more followers.

Monster.com is about helping people apply for a job.

Vault.com is about helping people research companies.

FD Career is about getting students and young professionals prepared for their careers. It helps you discover what you want to be, and how to get there.

You’ve got a great blog where you share your journey with entrepreneurship. Can you share some of your thoughts on the startup life and your opinions on work-life balance?

Hahaha… there is no work life balance. To be a successful entrepreneur (not that I’m successful yet), your work and life have to be one thing. That is the key. My personal relationships, family relationships, and girlfriend relationships have suffered because of the path that I have chosen. But these are the sacrifices that you have to make in order to put yourself in the position to be successful.

For example, I probably have time to hang out with my friends from UCLA or high school once or twice a month. I do see my girlfriend a lot during the week, but this is how we spend time together: her sitting in front of the TV watching a show or movie, me sitting by her side with my laptop and earphones on so that I can concentrate and meet my project deadlines.

This life is NOT for everyone. Cody, I chat with you all the time at 3am because we’re both still up doing work. We don’t even complain about it because we know this is the life that we have chosen, so all we can do is laugh. Though the road is tough, you will love what you do.

I keep pushing because I truly believe in the idea, I love my baby, and I love my team. If we fail, I would gladly start another company will all of them.

I’ve heard some rumblings about a sort of reality show that you guys are putting together to showcase your experience starting up a company?

Glad you brought it up! Our first video will launch this week! Hopefully it’ll launch before this is posted so you can link to the first episode. [See Episode 1, Part 1 here, and Part 2 here, also see below. —Ed.]

The Living the Startup Life video series is for all of those people who have a great idea but don’t know where to start, for everyone stuck in their corporate job afraid to leave their company to pursue their dream career, and for everyone who just wants to watch some guys have a lot of fun while succeeding or failing.

Lastly, would you mind sharing a bit about your education and how your experience has helped you become an avid entrepreneur. I’m interested if you have any good tips for students or twentysomethings that want to start their own businesses and really exercise their entrepreneurial muscles!

Why yes I do. My major at UCLA did NOT prepare me for my entrepreneurial quest. The three main things that prepared me to pursue the entrepreneurial life were:

1. Finding a mentor who guided me on my path to become an entrepreneur
2. Getting a taste of it while starting an orginzation and a company as an undergrad
3. Reading business books in class instead of paying attention to the teacher

• The E-Myth Revisited and E-Myth Mastery by Michael Gerber
• Good to Great by Jim Collins
• Never Eat Alone by Keith Ferrazzi

If you do these three things, then you will be prepared to become an entrepreneur.

Thanks for your willingness to share your wisdom with the Thrilling Heroics community, Jun.

If you have any questions about entrepreneurship, Jun is genuinely interested in helping you guys out and making new friends on this great online web community of ours, so please feel welcome to contact him at Jun.Loayza (at) FDcareer (dot) com or on his blog Living the Startup Life. If you are interested in the FDcareer RPG, I highly recommend it! In my experience on the community site, I’ve already reached level 25 (currently #7 on the leaderboard!) so feel free to connect with me if you have questions about blogging, WordPress, or web development, and keep an eye out, because I will be creating some web design and blogging-related quests for you guys in the next few weeks! (Check out a little more about the FDCareer RPG in this intro video below.)

Read the original article on Thrilling Heroics here: Young Entrepreneur Jun Loayza Reveals the Interactive Web Game That Will Rock Your Career!

Evan Carmichael at YoungEntrepreneur.com recently wrote up a guide to avoiding ten common mistakes that beginning entrepreneurs typically make when starting a new venture. Evan has a ton of valuable advice, and I certainly had a few valuable take-aways for my business, so I thought I’d share his tips here. Make sure you click through to read more details about how to get around these challenges though.

1. Not enough money. “The most common reason why new businesses shut down is that the owner runs out of money. Cash flow is critical to a startup business…”
2. Not thinking survival. “At the beginning stages of a business this may mean doing work that might not be completely what you want to do but it helps pay the bills…”
3. Losing momentum. “If you had 24 hours to spend on a business they would be put to far better use by spending one hour a day than for 24 hours straight. It takes time to develop a new company and for people to react to what you have to offer…”
4. Doing it all alone. “Nobody is perfect or has the skills to do everything themselves… By getting people around you who complement your skills, you will be able to achieve your goals and have a lot more fun along the way!”
5. Not hiring help right away. “There will be tasks in any business that you, as the owner, should not be focusing on if you hope to build any sort of sizable organization…”
6. Doing it just for the money. “If you read the stories of famous entrepreneurs and how they built their organizations you will find that it all comes down to the root of loving what you are doing…”
7. Getting through year 1 and past year 2. “In year two entrepreneurs often find themselves still not making much money and the startup excitement has faded. You’ll need to work your way through the downturn and know that the money is coming if you keep at it…”
8. Not building around the customer. “The best way to make a lot of money quickly is to find a customer who has a problem and is willing to pay you to solve it – and then you go out and build the solution. Most entrepreneurs take the opposite mentality of “if I build it, then will come” only to realize that they’ve built it and nobody is coming…”
9. Not seeking mentors. “A great way to get a business going is to find out what other people have done to achieve success and implement those strategies into your own company. Find mentors who have knowledge of your industry and will give you time out of their day to help you…”
10. Not getting involved in the small business community. “Countless opportunities are generated by connecting with other young entrepreneurs and finding out what they are up to and how you can help. You will get new business opportunities, partners, investment, media attention, ideas for productive tools to use, advice for your company, and many other resources…”

[source: The Top 10 Mistakes People Make When Starting A Business at YoungEntreprneur.com]

Read the original article on Thrilling Heroics here: 10 Pitfalls to Avoid as a New Entrepreneur

Personally, I’m a big fan of productivity lists, how-to’s, and life hacks, so my custom search engine includes a lot of big name sites like Lifehacker, Zen Habits, Tim Ferriss’ 4HWW blog, and many more. Anytime I’m curious how to do something, like how to install a certain software application, how to improve my resume, or how to get the most out of a particular social networking site for instance, my custom-build search engine returns incredible results! And if you like to hyperlink to other resources and articles as additional support when you write new blog posts, this will serve as a fantastic tool for you just like it has for me.

I highly recommend Google’s Custom Search, and since I’ve already done the work and compiled a master list of over 50 of the web’s most credible and authoritative blogs, I’d also like to introduce my own Thrilling Blog Search engine as an open community tool for the Brazen Careerist network and the blogosphere at large. Try it out. Seriously! It provides some really cool results for all sorts of subjects from personal development to social media to finance. Link to the search engine page here and try a search for “resume,” “savings account,” or “LinkedIn” for example:

If you’d like to utilize this tool for your own blogging workflow, feel free to bookmark my directory/links page, or you can easily add it to your iGoogle homepage or your own website. Be aware that this search engine already crawls several of the most trusted blogs on the internet, but I will be adding to the sites in the future. If you’d like to contribute to the project or suggest a site for addition, you can get in touch with me but be aware there will be a strict review process. In other words, if you email me with a suggestion, you better be ready to pitch your site and why the community will benefit from it!

Here are the top-notch blogs/bloggers that are already a part of this fun customized blog community search tool:

Personal Growth/Productivity

• Lifehacker
• Zen Habits
• Steve Pavlina
• LifeDev
• Life Optimizer
• The Positivity Blog
• Scott H Young
• Duff McDuffee
• Today Is That Day

Career/Personal Branding

• Personal Branding Blog
• Brazen Careerist by Penelope Trunk
• Life Beyond Code
• Water Cooler Wisdom
• Personal PR
• Newly Corporate
• The Urban Muse
• PR Interactive
• Erik Folgate

Lifestyle Design/Travel

• The 4-Hour Workweek
• Anywired
• The Art of Nonconformity
• Real Social Dynamics
• Ronnie Nurss
• Brave New Traveler

Generation-Y Issues

• Employee Evolution
• Twenty Set
• WorkLoveLife

Personal Finance

• I Will Teach You To Be Rich
• Get Rich Slowly

Freelancing/Entrepreneurship

• FreelanceSwitch
• Escape from Cubicle Nation
• Erica Douglass
• How to Change the World by Guy Kawasaki
• The Anti 9-to-5 Guide
• Instigator Blog
• College-Startup
• Jamie Harrop

Social Media/Technology

• Chris Brogan
• Dosh Dosh
• Copyblogger
• Tobias Baeck
• Paul Stamatiou
• Greg Rollett
• Moving From Me to We
• Paul Woods

Blogging/WordPress

• ProBlogger
• Pearsonified
• Theme Playground
• Blog Perfume
• Lorelle on WordPress
• Thrilling Design

Remember, this is a community project, so please feel free to get involved!

» Add a search widget to your Google homepage.

» Add the custom Thrilling Blog Search to your own site.

» Get in touch if you’ve got a suggested site that will benefit other bloggers and readers.

» Blog about this or tell your friends about the Thrilling Blog Search engine!

These are just the first round of additions to the Thrilling Blog Search community search tool. As I come across more great sites, I’ll be updating the list and the search engine tool. You can view several of my favorite blogs and suggested resources, as well as my custom Thrilling Blog Search tool on my Links Page here.

Read the original article on Thrilling Heroics here: Announcing an Awesome New Community Search Tool for the Blogosphere!

That’s what my friend Alicia Dunams set out to do in her mid-20′s, but she instead found herself on a journey of personal growth and self-actualization. Alicia is the author of Amazon best-selling book Goal Digger: Lessons Learned from the Rich Men I Dated, a successful entrepreneur, real estate investor, and success coach. In her book, Alicia asks: Rather than marrying rich, why not set about to earn a few cool million yourself? Or start your own dream business?

I love Alicia’s enthusiasm because much like me, her strongest passion is to encourage and empower others to seek their full potential! Alicia educates women and empowers them to seek their own financial success, and become wealthy in all aspects of their lives, through her book, her Rich Girl Guide series, and via the new Wealthy Girl Summit she has organized.

Wealthy Girl Summit 2008 is a nationwide, four-day virtual wealth-building conference that will be held next week from January 24th – 27th. Alicia has brought together some extreme female power players to speak about personal finance, retirement planning, real estate and stock market investing, entrepreneurship, and the importance of emotional wealth and attitude!

The event is inspired by the tyrannical words of one of the many rich men she dated and interviewed for her highly successful book. Upon seeking the advice of “Mr. Rich” on how women can create wealth and become millionaires, this rich man replied “Women must compete for men. That is the only way they will become a millionaire. Women are too emotional and scattered to become their own millionaire.” Enraged by this sexist remark, Ms. Dunams set out to prove Mr. Rich’s point of view to be wrong. Ms. Dunams had a vision for a nationwide event that would, “in one fell swoop”, get the attention of young women across the country to take action and empower themselves, in a radical fashion, to be the creators of their own millionaire success. “I want Wealthy Girl Summit to become a movement.” Says Dunams. “A movement that will instill the millionaire mindset in young women to create wealth in all areas of their life.”

Headlining the dozen power speakers are serial entrepreneur and venture capitalist Christine Comaford-Lynch, financial strategist Loral Langemeier, and leading motivational speaker Marci Shimoff. Christine Comaford-Lynch is the CEO of business accelerator Mighty Ventures, personal consultant to big shots like President Bill Clinton, and author of Rules for Renegades: How to Make More Money, Rock Your Career, and Revel in Your Individuality. Loral Langemeier is author of The Millionaire Maker’s Guide to Creating a Cash Machine for Life and Director of Live Out Loud, a financial coaching and mentoring company. And Marci Shimoff is the New York Times #1 bestselling author of Chicken Soup for the Woman’s Soul and a participating teacher in the transformative film The Secret.

If you’re an entrepreneurial or success-minded young woman in your twenties or thirties, I strongly encourage you to participate in this conference. I’ve read great material from Alicia Dunams and Christine Comaford-Lynch, and have interacted with both of these awesome women, and I highly recommend their insightful lessons! 2008 is a new year, and perhaps you’ve set some powerful resolutions for yourself — to increase your income, take control of your career, or start working for yourself maybe? No matter where you are located, this nationwide teleconference and webinar should prove to be an exceptionally valuable opportunity to invest in yourself in ’08 and learn from the tremendous achievements of other successful self-made women! To become the millionaire you seek to be, or even to achieve a more humble goal, it’s all about learning to transform your mindset and beliefs, and these special guest speakers will show you how to with their proven successes! Check it out at www.WealthyGirlSummit.com

Read the original article on Thrilling Heroics here: Women, Invest in Yourselves First with the Empowering Wealthy Girl Summit 2008

1. A while ago I remember you were very keen on going to study at Stanford. Are you still with that goal?

2. What new changes are you planning for Thrilling Heroics?

3. If you’re planning to detach your income from your time (as so brilliantly put by [Steve Pavlina in this podcast]) how do you plan to do it?

I ask these questions out of curiosity and as I too am facing them in my own version of things, I’d like to hear your approach to them. To be more specific, I’ve had a long-running goal of going to film school, I’m currently in the process of making some changes to my blog and I’m interested in the concept of detaching my income from my time.

I thought these great questions deserved a little more in-depth discussion, and they give me a perfect opportunity to recommit to my mission here at ThrillingHeroics.com and share some of the plans for its development in 2008, so I’m happy to answer them here on TH with this post!

Revamping Thrilling Heroics for 2008

New Developments & Directions
Some great news — ThrillingHeroics.com has recently been accepted as one of the first handful of blogs to join the new Brazen Careerist blog network! I’m deeply flattered to be chosen by Penelope Trunk and the guys at Employee Evolution, and I’ll be honored to work alongside some other fantastic Gen-Y career bloggers.

Thrilling Heroics has evolved and changed over time alongside my interests and pursuits, and it will continue to do so, but I remain committed to my central mission: to inspire and empower others to pursue their dreams and goals in the face of adversity. The discussion is concentrated more in the direction of personal and career development now than it was at the birth of this blog in 2006, but the central message is the same, with a new twist: namely, Thrilling Heroics is a career-oriented resource for college students and young professionals, with a strong focus on leadership, personal development, productivity, personal finance, entrepreneurship, and “lifestyle design.” Above all, I am passionate to encourage Generation-Y readers to pursue their dreams with reckless abandon!

TH started out with strong foundations in green business and social entrepreneurship. But whatever your interests, what remains central to the purpose of Thrilling Heroics is to empower the members of our generation to “think outside the box” of traditional work and traditional business, and really take advantage of all the things that are at our disposal to achieve our wildest dreams. Yes, that’s right — the ones you had when you were a kid. The world is your oyster! Whether your goals are to save the planet or to be the next CEO of GE! Join with other college students and young leaders who want to excel, make their dreams reality, and change the world. Watch as I experiment with entrepreneurship, living the mobile lifestyle, and practicing personal development and growth. Follow my adventures by subscribing to the blog, and share your own adventures as well!

New Format & Improved Features
For 2008, I will renew my commitment to sharing great content with you here at TH regularly, and the strong focus on career development and personal growth will hopefully manifest itself in several ways over the next few months: you should see a fresh, new, more personal design; articles will be organized into new categories and more useful chunk content; I’ve selected a new motto based on input from dozens of friends and colleagues; and I’ll continue to work hard to bring you great interviews within two new series: “Bright Young Minds” with young professionals who are making a difference, and “Proven Success,” a series where we’ll learn from the successes of established entrepreneurs and leaders. Check in later this week for an exclusive new interview with “Duff” McDuffy from Falling Fruit TV — Conscious Media for People Who Care!

Other features in the works include my definitive guide to networking, an introduction to lifestyle design, and further discussion of leadership, travel, personal finance, and personal growth. I’ll be serving up more consistent updates and sharing new, exciting content as I write from my experiences with personal entrepreneurship, and experiments with remote work, living the mobile lifestyle, and geoarbitrage. This is an adventure, so come along with me for the ride and learn from my successes and failures!

Help Me Create a Community for Young Professionals Who Want to Rock Their Careers!
I’ll be looking for guest writers that are interested to share their own stories. Other young bloggers who want to help encourage college students and Gen-Y workers to reach for their dreams, apply here! And to encourage user participation and build a true community, I’d like to potentially set up community forums to continue the discussion beyond the blog posts! That’s up to you guys too, though, so please help me spread the good word about Thrilling Heroics and tell your friends and colleagues. Get involved in the comments, submit your own ideas, and help me encourage our generation to kick ass and take life by the horns! Remember that my mission is to build your confidence to succeed, and to help you realize the freedom and flexibility to invest your time doing what you are truly passionate about.

Cody’s Entrepreneurial Roadmap

Freelancing & Entrepreneurship
To answer questions 1 and 3 above, let me start with the personal side. In the last three months, I left my traditional office job to pursue my true passion and I have been experimenting with freelancing and entrepreneurship. This is why I’ve been somewhat absent from Thrilling Heroics recently — I’ve been very busy with my freelance web development projects and laying the foundations of a business! I now work solely as a freelance web designer and consultant, building WordPress-powered blogs for professionals and small companies. I enjoy serving all kinds of clients, but work particularly well with other professional consultants who want to build up their personal brand, authors and columnists interested in transitioning to a web 2.0 platform, or speakers and coaches who seek to build an online community of raving fans! Some of my recent projects include Life Beyond Code, Moving From Me to We, HighlyObsessed.com, and TomAlexander.com.

I am in the very beginning stages, but my eventual goal is to incorporate and build my own web design company. In the next few months, you should see a full-fledged new business and website dedicated to my freelance design services, and at some point I may need to build a team from among my network of designers and creative-types — or outsource to other freelancers to help me increase my project capacity. This is not something I plan to do for my entire career, nor is it the only project I plan to have going at any one time, but over the next few years my end goal is to create a business that I own. The advantage of being owner, as opposed to president or CEO of a company, is that you profit from a company without necessarily having to run the business. (Not that there isn’t work to be done — but you hire smarter people to maintain things for you.)

How To Automate Your Income
Now to truly separate my income from my time, I plan to generate products that can bring in recurring income. You create it once, and see the profits from it repeatedly. Zen Habits has a great article on automating your income that discusses turning your service into a product:

Do you currently provide a service? If so, you have to devote many hours each week to provide that service. However, if you can turn that service into a product, such as a book or DVD or web site or CD, you can create it once and sell it over and over. Brainstorm the best way to create a product that gives customers the same information or skills that they would get from you in person.

Leo also goes on to speak about other forms of automated income:

Instead of creating an information product, you could create a real-world product, such as a gadget or nutrition product. Freelance designers can turn your idea into an actual design, and contract manufacturers can turn the design into a product. Other types of automated incomes include real estate, online retail businesses (including an eBay business), affiliate marketing, a blog, and a membership-type website. There are many possibilities. Find ways to turn your strengths into a revenue generator.

On my new web design blog, I hope to provide valuable free content, such as WordPress and business blogging how-to’s and instructional training videos that will attract both web design contracts and point users to products like website templates, podcasts, and eBooks that they can purchase from my site.

How To Get Into a Top University
Finally, I do still plan to apply to the Stanford Graduate School of Business, but not for a while. Once I prove myself with a few more years of career experience, either through the success or failure of my business and other professional pursuits, I feel I’ll be more qualified to work alongside other entrepreneurs and young leaders at one of the world’s best B-schools! I still maintain my strong interest in studying green business and social entrepreneurship at the University’s Center for Social Innovation and the Stanford Technology Ventures Program, but of course, coming from a not-quite-so-prestigious state school, it will be quite a challenge. For anyone who wants to apply to a big, competitive university, the keys are to show your dedication to achievement and personal growth, and to convince the program’s admissions officers that you’ll do great things with a degree from their school. Also, it doesn’t hurt to build relationships with faculty or with members of the alumni network from the school you hope to attend! Here are more valuable tips from Penelope Trunk.

I’ll be sure to post more about my personal goals and my 2008 resolutions very soon, so stay tuned for that before the New Year if you’d like to learn more.

###

I will be leaving to travel overseas at the end of the week (spending the holidays in Spain), but read my upcoming interview with Duff McDuffee — Co-Founder of Falling Fruit TV, philosopher, life coach, and yogin — in the next few days! Duff will share some great thoughts on things from conscious business to GTD to Buddhism!

Thanks again to Gautam for the great questions! Gautam Valluri is a friend from the blogosphere, a sharp young filmmaker, writer, and designer in Hyderābād, India. He does some fantastic exclusive interviews at BrokenProjector.com.

Read the original article on Thrilling Heroics here: It’s Time for Some Thrilling Heroics: Commit to Pursuing Your Wildest Dreams with Me in 2008!