I LOVE getting messages from readers who’ve benefited from the things I write, people who have shared passions, and those who seek further advice for how they can get the most out of their lives. (Note: I actually file a LOT of these emails into a special folder for when I need motivation and positive reinforcement!) Today is my birthday, and especially this week, I’ve been blown away by all the incredible feedback I’ve received about my writing, birthday wishes from around the globe, and incredible questions from all the awesome friends I’ve been fortunate to make through this site! So I’ve been brainstorming all week to come up with some way I can say “Thank You” for being part of what I’m building here at Thrilling Heroics. If you’re not already subscribed to my newsletter, take a moment to jump on my exclusive email list. You’ll immediately get a couple cool freebies, and over the next few days I’m going to be working on offering something really special STRICTLY for subscribers to the newsletter.

How to Go from High School Student to Master of the Universe

Today I want to start off by answering one particularly good question I received, here on the blog, because I think it’s definitely something that could benefit a lot of people. This is especially relevant for 18-year-olds recently out of high school, but I hope my thoughts will be useful to people in all stages of life. This comes from reader Binbin here in Bangkok:

Dear Cody,

First off, kudos to you for breaking free!!
I am truly inspired by your lifestyle. My question is…what would you tell your 18 self about earning money and opportunities with your current knowledge?
I want to explore the world but need to start earning money top fund it. How should I begin??

Best regards,
Binbin.

If I could jump into a time machine and go talk to my 8-years-younger self, there are all kinds of things I’d tell me:

A Winning Mindset:

The first step in dominating the world is to cultivate a strong mindset. This is one of the many things you won’t learn in school. The first valuable belief to instill in yourself is that you truly can achieve anything. What most of our parents told us as kids—that we can be anything we want to be when we grow up—is still true; there is no goal that is out of reach, no person you can’t speak to, no place you can’t go, no possession you can’t have, nothing you can’t be. If you really invest your time in understanding your desired end results, break that goal down, and do what’s necessary.

You can bend the rules of reality. We’re mostly limited by fear and traditional “rules” that we think apply to us. (Subscribe to my newsletter and you’ll get a 1-hour recording about how to overcome fears and live a remarkable life, by the way!) Start challenging assumptions. You don’t have to go to college, graduate within four years, take a desk job, stay close to home, get an MBA, climb the corporate ladder, or anything just because it’s what society tells you it’s what you’re supposed to do. Your life is your masterpiece, and you are the painter.

Find people who’ve done what you want to achieve successfully, and “model” them. Everything in life is pretty much a game—relationships, business, money, politics—figure out the rules and adopt the most empowering beliefs that will get you where you want to go. Follow people who are really passionate about something, and have broken the rules of “reality” to achieve great success. A few people that have done their own thing and become wildly successful at it: Chris Guillebeau, Tim Ferriss, Gary Vaynerchuk.

Continuing Education:

Parents may not like my advice here, but if I could go back and do college over again with the knowledge I have eight years later, I would have made some very different decisions. First, you need to ask yourself if a university degree is even worthwhile for you at all. A lot of universities provide a tremendous amount of value, and college life will give you experiences that will help you grow in many ways—but there are also plenty of skills you won’t learn in school (see Mindset above, for one). Some of the most successful business leaders today were dropouts: Steve Jobs, Richard Branson, Bill Gates, Larry Page, Michael Dell, Jerry Yang, Mark Zuckerberg, Kevin Rose, and so on. And I know some wildly successful people personally—some of the most brilliant young entrepreneurs I know, and people who’ve been successful in the corporate world—who didn’t get degrees. That’s not to say that dropping out guarantees success—but there are other things you can invest your time in that might be more valuable than putting those years, and all that money, into traditional education.

I’d say that college is a good decision if you know what you want from your career. If you know what line of work you want to get into, and it tends to require a degree in order to be successful, or open doors, then go for it. If you’re just window shopping though, and you’re not sure what you want your life to look like, take a year and travel the world instead. Or take an interesting internship; experiment with entrepreneurship and fail; or even just read books! As much as I enjoyed and got a lot out of my college experience, I’d say I had no idea what I wanted, I had little direction, and could have made a lot more progress if I’d just gathered more life experience and gone into a degree knowing what I wanted out of it. If you’re going to go to university, pick up some hard skills—mathematics, science, economics, a business degree. Like Marc Andreessen says, “Graduating with a technical degree is like heading out into the real world armed with an assault rifle instead of a dull knife.”

Whether you go to a university or not, that’s not to say education is overrated. Either way, you’ll need to take initiative to learn a lot on your own if you want to be successful. You can almost get the same education from one of the top schools—without the diploma—on your own. Look at open courseware and things like the Personal MBA program. It’s important to keep your skills sharp, stay competitive, and continue learning throughout your entire life. Most people don’t read a single book after college. Don’t be like them.

If you want to see the books that have been most influential in my life, check out the Required Reading section at the top of my resources page for my top-10 most important books.

Purpose and Goals:

As stated above, you can do almost anything in this life, despite what the haters will tell you. But the fine print is that you have to be willing to give something in exchange. Our mission here on earth is to provide value of some sort or another to other people. Napoleon Hill said that you need to get clear and realistic about what what value you intend to share with the world in exchange for the success you seek out of life. You need to figure out what your purpose is—what drives you and what you want to build; to share with the people around you.

Once you figure out who you are and what you want, you need to create a roadmap for yourself to arrive at your destination. Most people don’t clarify any well-thought-out goals for themselves. But if you spend time figuring out what few goals are most important for you—whether you set new resolutions once a year, or come up with your own system—even if you don’t achieve everything, simply making the plan in the first place will make you about sixty percent more likely to follow through on the action. Check out how to set SMART goals or New Year’s resolutions—but this is useful any time of year. USE IT.

Now that you know what you want, you should surround yourself with like-minded people. Take a good look at your friends, seek out people on social media, blogs, meetup groups, and at networking events for others who want to do similar things as you. Build a support group for yourself—you’ll find simply by hanging out with people that are doing what you want to do, have the things you want to have, and are the way you want to be, you’ll begin to change. One of the best decisions I ever made was to build a mastermind group with a small group of friends in college where we met weekly to hold each other accountable to our goals.

Entrepreneurship & Location-Independent Work:

If you truly want to be in charge of your time, your location, and the projects you get to work on, then self-employment is for you. Even if you work for someone else, if you want to become “location independent”, then take all of the lessons I’ve given above, and focus all your energy on limiting distractions and making enough time to invest and concentrate on your own projects. Creating value for others and finding ways to give back are the most important things you can do, but it is far too easy to allow yourself to be overwhelmed with other people’s agendas and never make any progress towards your own goals.

I’ve been asked a few times if lifestyle design can work for people in the “developing” world, and my answer is a resounding YES! Just like anyone else, you need to take stock of your skills, your abilities, and what you’re passionate about—and identify the things that others find valuable (i.e., worth paying money for). Anyone who is like Binbin, living here in Asia, I actually think you’re especially well-positioned to take advantage of geoarbitrage and the global economy. If you can identify ways you can provide value, especially if you can work online, look for unconventional ways to take advantage of those skills. Can you start doing freelance work for firms in the US or Europe, rather than just doing business locally? Can you sell your services online, to a global market, at a higher price that will allow you to work fewer hours and leverage your time to do more of what you love? Even just start part-time, as a side job. But get started.

Blogging:

Like my friend Sean Ogle, probably the most life-changing thing I ever did was start this blog. Go start a blog and start talking about the things that interest you! Blogging gave me a good excuse to keep reading, keep learning, to talk about the current events, ideas and technologies that interested me. Blogging also gave me a means to reach out to interesting folks from all walks of life, ask questions, and make friends with people around the globe. I’ve expanded my network of friends to include people I would never have imagined; I’ve made friends on the other side of the globe, landed clients on five continents, had incredible mentors, become involved in great collaborative projects, gotten into conferences, been interviewed in papers and massive media sites, had free business books sent to me, gotten access to countless great information products, and been involved in organizing incredible events—all because of this blog.

Additionally, on the social web, the barriers are very low. There really is almost nobody that’s out of reach—entrepreneurs you look up to, your favorite author, who knows! If you find yourself especially inspired by someone—start a conversation with them! If you need an excuse, simply take Karol Gajda’s advice and thank them for their writing. This really is the best way to pay a blogger without having to spend any money.

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On that note, I hope you will leave a message for me, and as I said, I always enjoy getting great questions from readers. Your feedback keeps me going most days, and it’s what keeps me creating useful content here! The best way to get in touch with me is to ask your questions in the comments or leave your comments on my Facebook fan page.

Feature photo by andresrueda.

Read the original article on Thrilling Heroics here: A Student’s Guide to Mastering the Universe

If you’re someone who’s tired of living from one paycheck to the next, want to build a solid safety net, curb impulse spending and increase your earning power, then Adam Baker at Man Vs. Debt is someone you should be listening to. He and his wife paid off about $18K in consumer debt, sold all their belongings, and were able to travel the world for over a year (with their 22-month-old daughter!). With a little hard work, they have been able to achieve some incredible things, and because he’s done it, Baker has become a huge authority in the online personal finance world who shares credible advice that will help you eliminate financial stress in your life.

I’ve known Baker since early on after he started his blog in 2009. Since then, he’s quickly amassed a loyal following, joined forces with some of the biggest forces on the social web (Leo Babauta at Zen Habits, J.D. Roth at Get Rich Slowly, and the team at WiseBread). He and I partnered together with a great team to start Untemplater, and finally got the chance to meet in person when he visited Thailand in January on his year-long location-independent world tour! I’ve been looking forward to doing a video interview with him for quite a while now, and this week we were finally able to sit down for a great conversation.

Baker just launched his first ebook guide, Unautomate Your Finances: A Simple, Passionate Approach to Money , which lays out his holistic approach to personal finance. I know from interacting with him on a weekly basis that he’s spent the last several months toiling away on this guide, he’s gotten a tremendous amount of positive feedback, and this is something that is sure to transform people’s relationship with money. Watch our video conversation below to see why you should un-automate your finances, how you can build a more conscious, simple, sustainable financial life, and get the scoop about his world travels since freeing himself from debt prison!

• 0:55 – Baker’s college experience, business background & financial history
• 2:15 – White picket fences & opting out of the template life path
  
• 4:54 – Unconventional approaches to eliminating debt
• 6:45 – Deliberate, effective budgeting
• 8:13 – How to plan for income fluctuations & irregular expenses when you’re a freelancer
• 10:20 – Couchsurfing & backpacking through Australia, New Zealand & Thailand
• 13:38 – Traveling the world with young children
• 16:07 – More about Baker’s new ebook Unautomate Your Finances
• 20:36 – Cultivating a conscious mindset about personal finance & money
• 22:12 – South by Southwest Web Awards & where to find Baker
  

UPDATE: For more from Baker: check out his Sell Your Crap guide to learn how his family got rid of all their belongings before they went traveling around the world, and how you can sell all your stuff on eBay, Craigslist, and Amazon to make some extra cash. Also, if you want to add a guaranteed $12,000 to your online business over the next 12 months, you might want to grab a seat in his course with Corbett Barr, The Hustle Project. Corbett and Baker are both Faculty members at Digital Nomad Academy, regular recurring mentors for our students inside the Academy, so I can speak personally to the high quality of their coaching.

I’ll be honest: I’m someone who hates to sit down with spreadsheets and budget out my finances. I don’t even like to look at my bank statements every month! With student loans, a lot of random business stuff going on, and the fact that I’m a lazy excuse for a human, my finances are a damn mess, but Baker has developed a product that has fundamentally changed the way I think about money, and he and his wife Courtney are proof that you really can get conscious about how you spend, escape the debt “game” that the rest of the world is stuck in, and start to build the lifestyle you want now! Forget dreaming about retirement, if he and his family can eliminate their debt and go globetrotting, you can get control of your finances and do whatever you dream of doing too.

Here is what you get if you purchase a copy of Baker’s Unautomate Your Finances:

• A comprehensive 83-page eBook. In “The Unautomation Theory” section, Baker relates his experience climbing out of the debt hole and the way that has transformed his family’s lives. He goes on to explain how to avoid financial burnout and unlock conscious financial awareness by un-automating. In “The Science of Unautomation” he’ll help you take a hard look at your priorities and figure out how to budget for what you really want in life. Lastly, in the “Applying Unautomation” section, he focuses on application, showing you how to actively manage your finances with a simple 2-page minimalist budgeting system and apply his “Debt Tsunami” tactic to rid yourself of debt.
• A 27-minute video interview with Leo Babauta of ZenHabits.net. Baker interviews Leo on how he applied the principles of simplicity and minimalism to dramatically turn around his financial life.  Powerful insights from a leader in simplicity, blogging, and productivity.
• A 29-minute audio interview with J.D. Roth of GetRichSlowly.org, one of the top personal finance blogs on the web. J.D. joins Baker on a call to discuss his own financial recovery story and what it’s like now that he’s in the “third phase of personal finance“.
• A 2-page, custom-designed PDF version (printable) of the minimalist budgeting system discussed in the main guide.
• A simple Excel template for those who want to take the minimalist budgeting system digital.
• Free Extended Updates! Get on the exclusive email list and over the next 6 months, Baker will be releasing sample case studies, FAQ’s, and exclusive interviews… for free!

At just $17, I honestly thought he was nuts for giving away so much hard work, but it just goes to show how dedicated he is to providing real value and helping those who need financial guidance. This is a truly impressive product that would typically go for at least $39 if you look around at other bloggers online, and it comes with Baker’s “as long as I have a pulse” money-back guarantee. So if you need to learn how to get the best of your personal finances, start an emergency fund, successfully get out of debt, and create a realistic budget that will let you achieve your financial and life goals, then Unautomate Your Finances is definitely something you need to check out.

And do make sure you follow Baker on Twitter, and join the Man Vs. Debt Militia over on his site MVD to learn more about how he turned his financial life around, took his family vagabonding around the globe, and get good solid money tips.

Read the original article on Thrilling Heroics here: Get Out of Debt and In Control of Your Personal Finances with Adam Baker of Man Vs Debt

Benny Lewis is a permanent traveler who’s been globe trotting for over seven years, learning languages as he goes. To hear him tell it, he wasn’t particularly talented when it came to learning languages in an academic setting, but his love for them came about in 2003, after a trip to Spain, where he immersed himself in the local culture and discovered that learning languages isn’t so difficult when you approach it with the right mindset. He now speaks seven languages fluently (and several others partially), and holds himself accountable to learning new languages in just 3 months, earning himself the fitting nickname Benny the Irish Polyglot.

His passion for linguistics and cultures has led him to nearly twenty countries, and also led him to seek out online work that would enable his full-time travels. He calls himself a “technomad”—a technology-enabled, location-independent freelancer, combining his electronic engineering degree from University College Dublin with his deep linguistic knowledge translating technical documents and picking up different jobs anywhere he travels.

I had the pleasure to spend some time with Benny on his recent trip to Bangkok, and sat down with him to talk about his travels and his unconventional approach to learning languages. He stresses the importance of confidence in your speaking abilities, and insists that it’s not necessary to speak perfectly at the start, but it is necessary to start! He also has unique tips for making the time to learn a new language, and assures people that you don’t have to travel to learn or maintain languages.

If you’ve ever been interested to pick up even a little of the local language when you travel abroad, or to reach fluency in a second or third language, give our video a watch below:

• 1:20 – All about Benny’s 3-month language missions
  
• 2:00 – How a blogs can help you achieve your goals
• 2:56 – Language hacking versus academic language learning
• 5:15 – The importance of attitude; Is your language half full?
• 6:45 – Language-learning methods, image-association
• 8:10 – 3 top language-hacking tips
• 11:40 – How to keep a language fresh when you aren’t actively using it (Benny recommends using Couchsurfing.com, Meetup.com, LiveMocha.com)
• 13:40 – Travels & tech nomad experience
• 15:20 – Get specific with your language-learning objectives
• 16:25 – Confidence and re-framing your mindset about languages

Here’s a quick video of the Thai he learned (in a matter of days) while he was here, which also illustrates his emphasis on “filtering”:

Maybe you’ve struggled trying to learn a language before but were never successful…

Wouldn’t it be great if you didn’t have to spend years before you were able to converse in a foreign language? If you were able to start speaking from day ONE? Doesn’t that sound like something you’d love to be able to do?

Imagine, not being scared by all the grammar and vocabulary you feel like you need to know before you’d be comfortable speaking…

For confidence boosters and language hacks to get you started communicating immediately, get your copy of Benny’s new Language Hacking Guide today, compiled after over 7 years of experience.

As you consider the benefits of deciding to learn Benny’s method, you might like to see some examples of the expert insight he can offer you. You can follow his travel-hacking videos (in seven different languages) at IrishPolyglot.com, and follow his 3-month language missions and language-hacking tips by subscribing to his blog FluentIn3Months.com. Some of his best tips and advice:

• How to take as much as you like in your hand luggage
• How to speak Portuguese as if you were from Rio
• How to practice a foreign language for free without traveling
• How to speak a language pretty well, starting from scratch, in just two months
• The smartest decision you will ever make to achieve fluency

If you want to learn a new language effectively, click here to get your own copy of Benny’s invaluable Language Hacking Guide now!

Read the original article on Thrilling Heroics here: Language Hacking with Benny the Irish Polyglot: The Fastest Way to Learn a New Language

To get you guys thinking like proper renegades, today I share some of the absolute best manifestos I’ve come across. This is my guide to 14 of the best-available ebooks out there—some free and some not—that will help guide you through the long process of branding yourself, creating your own successful freelance business, outsourcing, automating, systematizing, and turning your business into a vast empire with the power of the web, easing into an unconventional nomadic or otherwise remarkable lifestyle and getting the best travel deals while you’re vagabonding around the globe.

Add these to your Christmas gift wish list or use them as stocking stuffers for that special nomad in your life, and check out my page of lifestyle design and digital nomad resources for more tools to help you on your journey.

A Brief Guide to World Domination by Chris Guillebeau

One of the world’s most traveled dudes—Chris Guillebeau of The Art of Nonconformity—offers you a clear alternative to being unremarkably average, giving lessons on how to identify the work you’re most passionate about and how to go about changing the world. Awesome!

Probably the first ebook you should download and consume, right this instant! Download it from The Art of Nonconformity.

New Economy Superstar by Corbett Barr

This isn’t a book about fame or celebrity or making millions. It’s about a new type of success that isn’t reserved for the lucky and well-connected few. This opportunity wasn’t available until just a few years ago, and you’re just in time to take advantage of it. Learn how the biggest opportunity of this generation will make you happy, wealthy and independent!

A great primer for making a successful living outside the corporate career, including interviews with many remarkable people. Download here and visit Corbett at FreePursuits.

Rockstar Personal Branding by Skellie

Personal branding isn’t very different than product branding, except that the entity being branded is you. Just like Nike uses its brand to attach a certain personality and uniqueness to the shoes it sells, your personal brand is made up of the qualities and unique traits you relay about yourself. Your personal brand represents the way you want other people to think about you.

Download for free when you sign up for Rockable Press’ free newsletter here. Also visit Skellie’s great blog Anywired.

The Unconventional Guide to Working for Yourself by Chris Guillebeau

The greatest benefit of self-employment, or even a side project that produces additional income, is personal freedom. When you can take more control of your choices, you’ll experience an independence that money can’t buy. No one will do this for you. If you want freedom, you’ll have to make it happen for yourself. This guide can help.

Let Chris teach you how to create personal freedom through your own very small business. Get the book here.

How to Be a Rockstar Freelancer from FreelanceSwitch

Covering everything from getting started to expanding your business, if you want to start your freelance career the right way, then How to Be a Rockstar Freelancer will give you everything you need to become the best freelancer in town!

Get 212 pages of expert freelancing advice from Collis & Cyan Ta’eed—the founders of FreelanceSwitch. Grab your copy here.

SourceControl by David Walsh

David is an entrepreneur who’s been pushing the limits of outsourcing for years to build projects and create companies—and he’s blown an absurd amount of time and money along the way. Anyone who tells you outsourcing is simple & cheap is lying to you. After all the chaos, the mistakes, the blown budgets and the wasted hours—yes, it’s simple and a massively profitable. Everything leading up to that point is anything but. He’s taken every lesson he learned over the last 3 years and put it into a 160 page, fully annotated, resource-packed book that is everything you need to start outsourcing successfully. No other resource available gives you this level of detail toward leveraging your time and money.

Get this incredible outsourcing framework for the dangerously ambitious from MuseLife genius David Walsh now!

Not By The Hour: A Guide to Making Passive Income from FreelanceSwitch

Streams of passive income can take a bit of work to get started, some even take a little work to maintain, however they are well worth it. Having a steady source of income is particularly useful for a freelancer as it helps mitigate risk and balance out some of the ups and downs of freelancing. Besides who doesn’t want a source of income that keeps generating with or without your input!

Another useful guide from Collis Ta’eed, founder of FreelanceSwitch. Grab this one for free here!

The Zero Hour Workweek by Jonathan Mead

Learn Jonathan’s story of liberation and his journey to getting paid to be himself (by doing what he loves). Discover why the world needs you to do what you love and how to find the intersection between what you’re good at, what you’re passionate about, and what people will pay you to do.

I was honored to be featured as a Zero Hour Case Study for Jonathan’s 0HWW book. Check out some of my thoughts on how to get paid to be you.

How to Be Remarkable by Colin Wright

Colin wrote this book to share some valuable tidbits of knowledge with everyone because he firmly believes that if the world has more inspiring, ambitious and remarkable people we’ll all be a lot better off. John Bardos, Diggy, Kristin Norris, Carol Segrave, Carlos Miceli, Anoush Rima Tatevossian, Amber Rae Lambke, Paul Smith, Christophe Galland, Jenda Michl, Alan Perlman, Sean Ogle, Robert Granholm and JD Bentley all contribute useful lessons to this great compilation.

Download this free ebook from Colin Wright at Exile Lifestyle.

Overcoming the 7 Major Obstacles to Traveling the World by Anil Polat

Anil’s blog series on overcoming obstacles to traveling the world turned out to span 2 months, generated over 100 comments, and had his inbox filled with messages from people who wanted to, had, or were currently overcoming the 7 obstacles themselves. Hear personal stories and advice from other world travelers … and build your knowledge of how to prepare for and sustain long-term travel.

Anil interviewed me to get my personal experience and advice for other long-term travelers too!  Download the book here and visit Anil at foXnoMad.

Life Nomadic: The Life Changing Guide to Travel by Tynan

Life Nomadic is a book that will change the way you think about travel. Rather than think of it as an expensive luxury, you will understand it for what it is: a surprisingly affordable necessity for fully experiencing life. In 2007, Tynan sold everything he owned and began traveling the world. He became a nomad. This book is a collection of the travel strategies, tips, and philosophies that he’s accumulated since then.

Download Tynan’s helpful and revealing guide to the nomadic lifestyle at Tynan.net.

007 Lifestyle: Living Like James Bond by Derek Johanson

This is a definitive guide to living a kick-ass, real lifestyle just like James Bond’s. Derek will share with you the essential ingredients of how he lives the ultimate 007 lifestyle. Follow this guide and you will feel like 007. Your friends will be jealous as they watch you travel the world with ease and take control of women’s hearts effortlessly. You will be able to design a lifestyle that rocks your boat. You will have more options and freedom to pursue your goals and ambitions. You will become a positive influence on others to live happy and fulfilling lives.

You can read more about the ebook and see Derek’s recent MI6 Report where he interviewed me for the 007 Lifestyle series here. Also find Derek at Live Uncomfortably.

How to Make Money with Your Travel Blog by Nomadic Matt

Matt makes over $3,000 dollars a month from his travel websites and has been for many months. That is enough to keep anybody traveling and being a digital nomad for a long time. Even if you don’t want to be a digital nomad, it’s still a nice side income. This ebook has all of his tips, tricks and advice on how to build a successful blog, rank high in Google search results, and how to make money through advertising.

Check out my recent interview with Matt Kepnes and see Nomadic Matt’s Travel Site for more info.

Frequent Flyer Master: Free Travel Anywhere by Chris Guillebeau

Chris has traveled to about 120 countries so far and has roughly 80 more to visit every country in the world. He has a war chest of Frequent Flyer Miles on eight different airlines and all three airline alliances. Between earning and redeeming, over the past year I’ve been through well over half a million miles. My current balance is 676,583 miles in eight accounts. Learn how to go anywhere in the world for nearly free using Frequent Flyer Miles, even if you don’t travel very often.

Chris even guarantees that his book will earn you at least one free plane ticket! Check it out here.

What are your favorite guides for creating a remarkable life? Be sure to check my resources page for more useful lifestyle design and digital nomad resources.

Read the original article on Thrilling Heroics here: 14 Must-Have Ebooks for Lifestyle Designers

Today’s guest post is courtesy of Oscar Del Ben, a freelancer, blogger and entrepreneur. He writes about personal development, productivity and lifestyle design at freestylemind.com. His personal mission is to help as many people as possible to switch to doing what they love.

People often ask me if my job is secure or not. The reason they ask me this question is that I don’t have a regular job. I’m not employed by anyone and I don’t have a fixed paycheck.

Instead I am a freelancer, blogger, and internet entrepreneur. The majority of my income comes from freelancing work that I do for internet startups. Recently I also started building internet assets, like my blog, a web application, and a few mini-sites. My goal is that each of these assets will eventually generate an interesting stream of money one day.

So, is my job secure? Actually I don’t have an answer, mainly because it depends on what you mean by secure, but also because I don’t believe in job security at all. The real question is: can any job be secure?

Unfortunately the answer to the last question is no. It doesn’t matter if you are employed full-time in a big corporation, because history teaches us that you can lose your job any day. Even working for yourself isn’t secure, because when you lose your client you have to start over again.

Does this mean there’s not a solution to job security? Not at all. It is possible to build a relatively secure lifestyle if you plan ahead and follow some guidelines. The main problem is that our society doesn’t teach us how to do it. When we go to school they prepare us to work for one company, not many, and when you quit working there, you are often in a big trouble.

There are many solutions to this. For example you can build a remarkable resume by staying competitive and managing your reputation, so that when you quit working for a company, you’ll already be considered an expert and you’ll get another job more easily. Another solution is to create different sources of income, so that if you lose one, you’ll have many others that support you.

How to build a second income stream

The good news is that it’s not hard to come up with a second income stream. You don’t need to be an entrepreneur or an internet marketer because there are plenty of opportunities available to everyone.

If you have trouble thinking about how you can diversify your income, the following list might be a good start:

• Find a part time job. Having a part time job is not uncommon; many people have one. For example you can work in a bar during the weekend or do baby sitting on Saturday. If you are good at math, or you master a foreign language, you can also offer repetitions. Do a local search in your area to find out which part time jobs are available.
• Offer consulting. If you already do any kind of technical work (writer, programmer, marketer, accountant, etc.), you can offer consulting to companies or individuals in your free time. By offering your expertise you can earn higher rates, even if you work only a few hours per week.
• Build a website. Creating a website is a good idea if you are already familiar with technical stuff. The trick here is to find a niche where competition is not huge and where you can fulfill some necessity. Building a successful website it’s not easy, but it can bring great rewards, and potentially a lot of money.
• Ask your friends for collaboration. Many times you don’t need to approach new people to find a part time job. For example I have a friend who runs a company and he needs someone who does some errands for him. He can only hire for 4 hours a week, so he’s looking for someone who can do this just on Saturday mornings. Another thing I often do is to offer my help to people who are creating a new product. Everyone is willing to accept your help if you can add value to them in some way, so don’t be shy and just ask.

There are tons of opportunities available to anyone who wants to start making money in his free time. You just have to remember that there’s no quick fix and you have to put real work and time in whatever you choose to do.

When you find an alternative stream of income, it’s important that you don’t immediately raise your lifestyle expenses and spend all your money. Save cash for later, or better yet put it into a high interest saving account, otherwise you’ll be in the same situation as before.

Case study

I have a friend who works full time in a company during the day, and then offers design consulting at night. She usually has no time to do other work during the day, but she can manage to find one hour in the evenings and another six hours on the weekends.

I asked her how much this part time work brings her. She replied to me that her hourly rate is 30 dollars, and in a normal month she can make $1,400–$1,500.

That’s not bad for just one hour per day and six hours in the weekend. I expect her to quit her job soon if she can find even more clients, but that’s another story.

Remember, it’s better to find something else now, rather than waiting for the necessity to arise later.

Read the original article on Thrilling Heroics here: Is Your Job Secure?

When I decided to create my own footprint on the web, though, things started to change. I started sharing my ideas and my experiences with the world, and soon I had friends around the globe, influential colleagues running innovative businesses, and fantastic mentors who were doing the things I dreamed of.

I really leveraged the the power of web 2.0 to brand myself, build an extensive network, design a business that I can essentially run from anywhere in the world, and now I’m able to travel around the globe and live in Thailand where the cost-of-living is very low, and I’m dangerously close to the white sand beaches. I’m still basically a bum, but I’m a vagabonding bum with an international business, a global web presence, good friends around the world, and an awful lot of fun travel and volunteering experiences under my belt!

Plus, thankfully, it’s awful cheap to live in Thailand.

So Here’s How I Do It

Recently, I attempted to compile all the useful tools I’ve come across since I started this game four years ago, and separate it from all the crap. You can see my whole resource page for living a kickass life here, but today I’d like to share some of the applications, tools, and resources that I use daily and recommend to all my clients and friends. These are all of my best-kept secrets!

Web Presence

• Find a quality web host – Although I’ve hosted most of my websites with DreamHost for the last 3 years (use promo code THRILLING30 to get 30 bucks off), after surveying my blogger friends and clients, a vast majority of them prefer BlueHost. They offer truly superior 24/7 phone support, have much less down time and technical problems than my DreamHost server, and I love working with them!
• Easily manage your content – WordPress is by far the easiest, most powerful content management system out there. I use it for all of my sites—blogs, business sites, minisites, and it’s even great for photo galleries, portfolios, communities, job listing sites & more.
• Get a great web design – if you don’t have the cash to invest in a proper web designer (a good, original design will often cost $3–$5K) there are TONS of great, inexpensive HTML templates and WordPress themes available from companies like WooThemes and ThemeForest. I have used great designs from both.

Gadgets & Gear

• Pack a tough laptop – If you’re going to be backpacking the world for a few years, getting sand and water in your laptop, you might want to invest in a Toughbook. But I’m an Apple fanboy and all my favorite apps & development tools are on OSX. I’ve found the new 13-inch unibody aluminum Apple MacBook Pro can take a few hard drops and has been great to travel with.
• A global smartphone – Again, I go with my favorite Apple here, and as an online businessman, yes I am an iPhone 3G-carrying member of the tech elite! You’ll need to follow the unlocking instructions here for use on non-AT&T networks, international travel & data access.
• Portable WiFi – The awesome and compact Airport Express will turn almost any ethernet connection around the world into a wifi network.
• Backup your important files – Especially if you carry client work with you as you travel the world, you want to make sure you save secure copies frequently in case your laptop is stolen or damaged. I connect to an external drive and backup my whole system with TimeMachine often, and also use free Mozy online backup to automatically upload copies of my most important files to the cloud (runs in the background so I don’t even have to see it or think about it).

Communications

• Cheap calls around the world – call friends & clients around the globe for as little as 3 cents a minute with Skype, or set up your own virtual SkypeIn number that people can dial from their phone back home to reach you on the web (I even use mine to forward to my Thai mobile number).
• One number to rule them all – previously called GrandCentral, Google Voice will give you one phone number to route and forward to any phone; highly customizable. This is also how I maintain a Bay Area, California international line that I can forward to my Skype or my mobile abroad.
• One chat client to rule them all – Adium or Meebo can connect AIM, gTalk, MSN, Yahoo chat, Facebook chat and more.
• Online group video chat – Tinychat offers free chat rooms & audio video conferences online.
• Free teleconference calls – FreePhoneConference.com gives you a free dial-in teleconference number to hold a workshop for dozens of callers.

Online Collaboration

• Maintain a public or shared group calendar – Google Calendar gives you an easily-shareable calendar and schedule organizer.
• Easy document collaboration – Google Docs gives you collaborative word documents, spreadsheets, and forms that you can share with others and modify the same document remotely.
• Screen sharing – Adobe ConnectNow is a new, free service that lets you meet live over the web and share your screen with anyone.
• Team project management – There are tons of web-based project management apps like Basecamp, or the free alternative Collabtiv.
• File storage & sharing – Store archives of your large files online and easily send & share them with your colleagues with a free Dropbox account.

Web Development

• Access your server – Open-source Cyberduck FTP client for Mac.
• Edit your code – Powerful, user-friendly editor Smultron, also open-source for Mac.
• Build test websites offline – Run your own local Apache server with MAMP for Mac.
• Test and tweak live websites – Firebug is a Firefox plugin that makes testing your code much easier.
• Test cross-browser compatibility – Finally, Adobe BrowserLab offers a way to do this easily and free (keep this one on the down-low).

e-Commerce & Invoicing

• Easily send & receive money online – PayPal
• Simple online invoicing & bookkeeping – FreshBooks
• Deliver digital products – e-Junkie handles payment & fulfillment for your ebook, audio, or other information products.

Marketing & Promotion

• Start your mailing list – AWeber is the leading provider for customer list management, autoresponders & drip campaigns.
• Smart social bookmarking – Install the Su.pr bookmarklet in your browser toolbar, submit your links and they’ll be automatically sent to Twitter, Facebook & StumbleUpon!
• Build your expert credibility – LinkedIn is the best professional online network, and LinkedIn Answers is the best place to brand yourself, share your expertise with others, and even solicit feedback on your own questions from experienced CEOs and other professionals.
• Give a great presentation – Prezi is guaranteed to be a PowerPoint-killer. Forget slideshows, Prezi gives you a canvas without limits to deliver a dynamic presentation.

Personal Finance

• High-yield online savings accounts – get a little better return on your dollar by putting your savings in a Emigrant Direct or ING Direct account. I especially love ING because you can create as many sub-accounts as you want, easily managing different “buckets” for your many savings goals.
• Best multinational bank – HSBC Bank has the most locations around the globe of any bank I’ve seen.
• Avoid hefty fees – Charles Schwab could possibly have the best checking account for travelers. They reimburse all ATM transactions and have no international fees. If you want a referral, let me know.
• Frequent flyer perks card – Are you a frequent flyer? Get 1 mile per dollar spent, plus 12,000 bonus sign-up miles with the Discover Miles card.
• Manage your accounts & budget –  Mint.com is powerful, free personal financial management application.

Travel & Mobile Lifestyle

• Find the best travel deals – Kayak.com compares thousands of airfare and hotel aggregator sites like Orbitz and Travelocity to find the lowest fare.
• Get the cheapest local flights – Find the budget air carriers in your region with WhichBudget.
• Get last-minute airfare deals – You can bid low on last-minute flights from Priceline and check out their Pricebreaker deals.
• Meet locals and find free accomodation – Couchsurfing. Almost anywhere in the world. Awesome.
• Low-cost rentals & sublets – AirBnB lists vacation rentals and apartments for rent in 87 countries.
• Backpack around the world on $25 a day – How to See the World, the free Art of Travel guide, is a great resource to learn more.
• Learn how to become a digital nomad – Read Christine Gilbert’s great series 30 Ways in 30 Days to Redesign Your Life and Travel the World.
• Go green and get all your mail virtually – EarthClassMail will send all your snail mail to you via email. Great for business backpackers!
• Affordable world travel insurance – World Nomads insurance recommended by Lonely Planet.
• Master travel hacks – Grab the Frequent Flyer Master guide from Chris Guillebeau, who’s traveled to 119 countries in a few short years, to learn how to get the most out of your miles and get the advantage over the airlines. He even guarantees one free plane ticket!
• Learn to become a permanent traveler and live anywhere – If you want to move abroad permanently, and create income streams that support you as a perpetual traveler, then you absolutely must get Karol Gajda’s stunning ebook How to Live Anywhere. This is the guide I seriously wish I’d written! Check out my interview with Karol here.
• Get your work done wherever you go – Coworking is the hip new way to have an office without a job. If you like being surrounded by other human beings but not distracted from your work, search for coworking spots where your’e traveling.

Lifestyle Design Tools

• Set and budget for your goals – Tim Ferriss’ Ideal Lifestyle Costing method will help you figure out what your ideal lifestyle looks like, set goals for 6 months or a year down the road, and figure out what you have to do and how much it will cost to get there. Use this Dreamlining Worksheet.
• Build a support team – David Walsh is an automation genius who put together SourceControl to show you how to successfully outsource taks and give you a framework for your ambitious projects.
• Automate all your business processes – Take a few tips from Rob Granholm on how to Automate Your Systems. Rob has done a tremendous job breaking down processes, and for extra credit you can even apply this outside of your business.

What are your favorite tools, apps & resources for living a mobile lifestyle and getting work done from anywhere?

Check out my resources page for more useful tools, ebooks & resources for living an incredibly kickass life. BTW the featured photo at the top of the page is me with my buddies Migration Mark, Dwight Turner and Joel Bruner on a vagabonding trip to Laos.

Read the original article on Thrilling Heroics here: 49 Tools for Living the Mobile Lifestyle

Bangkok Tweetups

Well this weekend, we had another great event to promote a charity cause here in Bangkok: our July Tweetup attracted about 30 or so great folks from Twitter, Facebook & Couchsurfing. We had some tasty Thai food from a local street vendor, knocked back a few beers, talked about everything from design to microphilanthropy, and contributed a percentage of the bill to Dwight’s Urban Garden Project.

For those of you in Bangkok, or any travelers who plan to pop in for a visit in the upcoming months, make sure you check out our new site BangkokTweetup.com for ongoing info about our monthly Tweetups and other fun events around town (or follow us on Twitter @BKKtweetup).

“How to Live an Adventurous Life” telecall with Cath Duncan

Additionally, I had a fantastic call with Cath Duncan from Mine Your Resources last Thursday. I was quite nervous for the call, but Cath is an expert interviewer. She had some incredible questions and we ended up having a really great, in-depth chat. I think a lot of the questions & answers will be useful for anyone who’s interested in travel, lifestyle design, social media, building a mission business, and giving back. It was pretty much the most thorough discussion I’ve ever had on my whole life-work philosophy and I was quite proud with it. Cath has the recording available for free on her teleconference page here (look under “Recordings of Past Teleseminars”), and I’ll also make a direct download available to my newsletter subscribers soon.

Video interview on living nomadically in Thailand with John Bardos

I also had a really fun discussion with John Bardos recently, from JetSetCitizen.com. John is originally from Canada, but he’s been living an expat life in Japan for the last 12 years. He had some fun questions about life in Thailand, location independence, and freelancing for me. Check out the short video on his blog. Sorry for my slow connection, the video’s just a a little choppy but John did a fantastic job cleaning it up and polishing it! (Also check out a fantastic, underrated interview with John on the Viralogy blog not long ago!)

My Coachella Music Festival project

One last personal project I’d like to point your attention to is my new concert site. For anyone interested in outdoor concerts and music festivals, I think you’ll find this interesting. I’ve been going to the annual Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival in the desert in Southern California for the last three years. This year’s headliners were Paul McCartney, The Killers, M.I.A., The Cure, Morrissey, Franz Ferdinand, Thievery Corporation, and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. HellaCoachella.com aggregates news, photos and videos from the concert. If anyone is in California or plans on attending next year, keep in touch with me since I plan on returning yearly for the festival.

Later this week

I’ll be back soon with a review of Randy Komisar’s Monk and the Riddle, which I just finished. Fantastic book about life as a Silicon Valley venture capitalist, and the real secret to successful business.

Read the original article on Thrilling Heroics here: My July Projects +2 Free Interview Recordings

We had quite a few submissions this month, so below are the best in each category. If you write something great this month about location independent and digital nomad life & business, please submit an article for next month’s edition which will be hosted at Get Paid to Write Online.

Tips for Location Independent Living

Jeanne D’Arc shares How To Travel The World as a Digital Nomad Family! posted at soultravelers3, saying, “We will soon be entering our 4th year as a digital nomadic family. 4 continents & 30 countries later, 86,000 miles later, we’ve learned a few things along the way. We want every family to know this is more enriching & affordable than most realize. We live large on $25K a year total.”

Steven K. Roberts shares First Steps to Technomadics posted at Nomadic Research Labs, saying, “I originally wrote this back in 1993, while inviting folks to join me on the Microship expedition. It was updated in 2004, and contains a number of timeless tips for getting decoupled from a fixed-based life and taking those first tentative steps as a nomadling.”

Lifestyle Designing

Cath Duncan shares How Location Independent Living Can Make You More Agile And Resilient posted at Mine Your Resources. “Whatever your reasons for being location independent, being location independent can help you to overcome the major obstacles to change, and help you to become more agile and resilient.”

Doing Business Abroad & Online

Thursday Bram shares 5 Warning Signs For Portable Business Ideas posted at Working Your Way Around The World. “Building your own business can be a good way to create an income that will support you while you travel. But finding the right business can be difficult.”

Robert Alan shares Can You Build A Solid Virtual Team? posted at Sell It on the Web, saying, “Tips on how to start an effective virtual team for your home office.”

LIP Careers

Sean Ogle shares Cruise Your Way To Location Independence posted at Sean Ogle, saying, “This article was written for those that are interested in going location independent, but may be too intimidated by the risk of jumping in 100%”

Technology & Gadgets for Digital Nomads

Sharon Hurley Hall shares The Portable Writer posted at Get Paid to Write Online, saying, “I no longer need to carry much with me to have an ultra portable writing business. Here are some of the items in my writing toolbox.”

Zoe Westhof shares Ingredients for Creativity On the Go posted at Essential Prose, saying, “Tips on cultivating the mindset for being creative while traveling or working abroad, and a list of tools to enable creativity on the go.”

Your Vagabonding/Travel Stories

Thursday Bram shares Interview: Nellie Huang posted at Working Your Way Around The World. “Nellie Huang, the blogger behind Wild Junket, has been all over the world — and written about most of it.”

Honorable Mentions

There were quite a few off-topic submissions unfortunately, so make sure you keep your submissions relevant to Location Independence folks! But there were several that talked about travel and business that were just too good to pass up, and I figured the LIP crowd would be interested:

• MoneyEnergy shares 10 Tips From Tim Ferriss, Guy Kawazaki and Keith Ferazzi on Lifeline Relationships and Mentoring posted at MoneyEnergy.
• Mark Sukhija shares 14 don’t miss things in Rome posted at MarksTravelNotes.com.
• Jason shares become an internet social media superstar! posted at jasonblogz.

That concludes this edition. Thanks to everyone who participated this month! Submit your blog article to the July edition of the Location Independent Blog Carnival using our carnival submission form.

photo credit: Stuck in Customs

Read the original article on Thrilling Heroics here: Digital Nomad Blog Carnival #1

UPDATE May 10: This contest is now closed. The winner will be announced via Twitter & the blog soon. Thanks to all for your participation.

I’ve been back in the States for a few weeks this month—my only brief trip home this year—and it’s been a lot of fun catching up with friends and going to the Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival in the Southern California desert. But I had very mixed feelings about coming back to the U.S. right now, and my visit has been a little bittersweet.

The U.S. has been hit hard by a down economy, and California is showing visible signs of the recession. Restaurants are empty. Small businesses are closing their doors. A lot of folks are looking for work, a lot are depressed, a lot of people are stagnating.

In this economic downturn, it’s time to take your reputation, and your career, into your own hands. There is no such thing as job security anymore. Pensions and benefits can be taken away at a moment’s notice. And even your retirement savings can’t be relied upon these days.

I believe that entrepreneurship, as risky as it can be, is truly the best solution. As a freelancer or business owner, you take your destiny into your own hands. And if you prefer the “security” of a full-time job, these days you should at least develop a second, side income stream, and actively manage your “employability”. That means staying sharp on developments in your field, keeping your resume fresh, and regularly adding people to your professional network. You should never quit job searching really, because the unfortunate reality is that everyone’s job is disposable.

It’s funny—in conversation you notice there are fundamental differences in the way employees and entrepreneurs think. I won’t say one is better than the other, but I think at least a little bit of entrepreneurial thinking is good for everyone. It keeps you on your toes and makes you realize that you can create your own prosperity if you try hard enough. My mission here at Thrilling Heroics is to help people break out of conventional thinking and pursue their potential, so I expect you guys to be able to hear me say that, or else you wouldn’t be my audience!

Anyways, I’m working on a few things to help everyone kick ass at life just a little bit more. My mission this year, in everything I do, is to empower as many would-be freelancers, entrepreneurs, and other do-gooders to take back their power, to realize they don’t have to be just a cog in a wheel and take what life gives them. You can build an awesome business, you can live a remarkable life, and you can do anything and go anywhere you want! You just have to work for it.

Here we go:

Discount Social Media Consulting for New Clients

It’s no secret that I provide social media consulting and blog development services for select web entrepreneurs and professionals. Just this month I helped Kare Anderson—a dedicated blogger and author who already kicks ass even without my help—launch her new site HowWePartner.com. And I helped coach Eileen McDargh—a professional speaker and management consultant—on introductory ways to utilize social media more effectively for her business. Eileen was completely ecstatic and said this after our first hour together:

“In just one hour, Cody cut through the chaos and confusion of social networks, showing me what I needed to do and—even more importantly, what I did NOT need to do. It was very valuable and worth the time.”

My fees are typically somewhat substantial, because I try to filter out only the most dedicated and remarkable clients, and dedicated people tend to have money to spend on their remarkable projects. The amount of attention and commitment I give to each client makes the investment worthwhile. My job is to follow industry trends in the social media and blogging space, filtering through the noise to find the most important solutions for my clients. I maintain a wide knowledge base and an active network in the blogosphere so that I can provide my clients with relevant news and resources, software and tutorials, and even introduce them to like-minded professionals and key influencers in their niche, to establish authority on the web and improve their business.

Because we’re all feeling the negative effects of this economy, I’m offering a small discount on my consulting for new clients right now. If you’ve got something important to say, I want to help you get the right web technology and social media strategies in place to increase your online exposure. Add me to your team and leverage my expertise in the following areas:

• WordPress
• Blogging
• Social networks
• User-friendly, accessible web design (XHTML, CSS, PHP)
• Search engine optimization (SEO)
• Personal branding
• Online project management & collaboration tools

I usually bill $95 per hour for my consulting time. But if you book an Introductory Blog & Social Media Consultation with me in the month of May, I’ll give you your first hour of consulting for just $75. I’ll talk with you directly via phone or webcam to understand your specific business situation and your online marketing objectives, and help point you in the right direction.

An Awesome FREE WordPress Theme in the Works

There is a sizable market for my premium web services. But I realize there are also several important demographics out there who can’t afford pricey web consulting and development work, including young professionals like myself who are interested in personal branding and establishing their reputation on the web, micro-business owners and other solopreneurs who are tightening their belts right now.

As a low-cost alternative for these rockstars in training, I’m currently building a killer app—a premium, all-in-one blog design, which I’ll release as a free WordPress theme. “Thrilling Theme” will be my masterpiece. It will serve as the framework for my future web development projects, and it will have everything you could ever dream of! The free theme will include:

• Multiple color schemes and style options to choose from
• An easy way to upload your own custom logo or header image
• Integrated Twitter updates, Flickr photos, and more
• Easy insertion of your Google Analytics tracking code, your FeedBurner RSS feed, etc.
• And tons more. Please share your ideas in the comments!

For do-it-yourselfers, the theme will be available as a free download. For individuals and small businesses that want some basic help getting started with Thrilling Theme as the template design for their site, a basic setup & customization package will be available for a nominal charge. (We’re talking about a complete social media platform—possibly the framework for your online business—for less than 400 bucks!)

What About for Non-Blogging Nerd Types?

Additionally, I’ll be doing as much as I can to provide free, valuable advice on this blog to help as many people break free as well—talking about going solopreneur, building a strong reputation on the web, and taking your business location-independent if you desire. Blogging and leveraging social media has allowed me to make awesome friends in all corners of the globe, and I’ve even attracted clients from five continents! My only desire is that I can help you guys experience similar success.

I have a few projects on my back burners, some things that have been marinating for a while. In the coming months, I look forward to teaming up more with great folks like Jun Loayza, Jonathan Mead, Carmen Isais, Mark Weins and Tom Barrett to deliver some fresh, unique perspectives and experiment with some new ideas.

Locally, I’ll continue to work with Dwight Turner of In Search of Sanuk to host charity events and fundraisers in and around Thailand, and I hope to provide discount services to many more non-profits this year. I’ve just partnered with Fusion International on a new project to help them relaunch and revitalize their website focused on victims of extreme poverty, conflict and internal displacement. When you support this site, do business with me, or tell people about Thrilling Heroics, you’ll help me continue to support good causes, and promote events like our Bangkok Tweetup for Charity.

The Part Where I Ask for Your Help

In order to empower as many people as I can this year, I need your help to reach the biggest audience possible. What can you do? You can subscribe. You can tell people about my mission and about ThrillingHeroics.com. You can check out my company, Thrilling Heroics Consulting. But I’ll go a step further: if you blog about my mission with link to this post by May 10th, you’ll be entered for a chance at a FREE 1-hour Blog Consultation. It’s simple:

1. Write about my mission to help as many people become Rockstars as possible with discount consulting. Write about the upcoming free Thrilling Theme. You can even write about the competition itself.
2. Include a direct link to this post or to ThrillingHeroicsConsulting.com
3. To make sure I get your submission, leave a comment on this post and include the URL for your blog post about this competition.

On May 10th, I’ll choose one commenter at random to receive a free consultation with me by phone or Skype. You’ll get a full hour to ask me any questions you like about blogging, social media, and WordPress.

Thanks for staying with me this long. Forget the crummy economy. Let’s all combine forces to do some good this year. Check back soon for more on living a remarkable life.

Feature photo credit: Elmo Keep

Can’t get enough Thrilling Heroics? Follow @codymckibb on Twitter.

Read the original article on Thrilling Heroics here: I Want to Make You A Rockstar!

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

Happy 44th Dad! on 12seconds.tv

Although I’m a day late and a dollar short posting this, yesterday Larry McKibben turned 44 years young, so I just wanted to wish him a great year ahead. He’s a fantastic father to my sister and me, he’s always been a great manager, and he’s fast to make friends with his silly sense of humor.

Also, I had a great conversation late last night with Jun Loayza, the young Chief Marketing Officer of Future Delivery (I’m going to have to host an interview with him soon, the guy’s got tons of incredible ideas). Jun got me signed on at 12seconds, a fairly new video network where you can record 12-second video messages to your friends, so I tested out my camera with a silly dance at 4 this morning and then dedicated the video message above to my dad!

Happy birthday, pop!

Read the original article on Thrilling Heroics here: Happy Birthday to My Dad!

What is Twitter?

Twitter is a new social network/instant messaging mashup that’s being referred to as a micro-blogging tool. It allows users to send text updates (called “tweets”) to all their friends—from twitter.com, instant message (via AIM or MSN Messenger, for example), or even from a mobile phone. It’s like posting an instant blog post, but you’re forced to craft your message with a 140-character limit.

The site asks members “What are you doing?” Answers range from the mundane (“eating a burrito”) to the interesting, hilarious, and even useful (well, okay, once in a while). While some use the service merely to updates friends on their whereabouts and activities, many people are using it to promote their blogs, share valuable links, and otherwise brand themselves and their businesses online.

Below: The default Twitter profile page.

(Click image for larger view.)

Most web nerds like myself are saying Twitter will be big (like, Facebook big) over the next few years, but right now it’s still at the early adopter stage, which means it’s dominated by bloggers, web designers, and technologists. For many Twitterfolk, it has become a primary channel of communication over the last year (*read: easier to reach them via Twitter than via email). I’ve been able to get the attention of a few power users in the “Twitterverse” over the last few months, including great folks like Robert Scoble, Guy Kawasaki, and Chris Brogan, and I’ve even had some pretty decent exchanges with them! If you’re in the technology or internet industry and you’re not using Twitter yet, it is a MUST. What are you still reading this for? Run! Go! Right now!

What About Twitter for Business?

For the rest of us, the question is how does one effectively leverage Twitter for business or personal branding? If used properly, it can easily bring more readers into your camp. I’ve already built a pretty decent sized following myself (follow me here), using the service mostly to share helpful tips and links I find across the web and to promote my own writing. One cool function is that you can easily plug your “tweets” in to the sidebar on your own blog or into other social networks and share your updates with friends that aren’t already on Twitter. (See Twitter badges and WordPress plugins.)

Below: My Twitter replies from other users. Yes, you can
add your own crazy backgrounds too!

(Click image for larger view.)

The BBC and CNN are using it to broadcast breaking news. Companies like Whole Foods, Zappos, Dell, Cisco, Comcast, and more are using it to send updates to their customers. If you provide value, you’ll make fast friends. Aside from sharing my links and blog posts, I also use Twitter to search for people with questions about blogging and answer my clients’ questions about WordPress. If you use it wisely, Twitter can give you a platform to show off your expertise, cultivate a reputation as an authority in your field, and build a loyal following.

Here are 5 tips to go from Twitter Newbie to Twitter Ninja:

1. There are several third-party Twitter clients that will run on your desktop much like your instant messenger does, so you don’t have to be logged in at twitter.com, and they give you quick navigation and search tools at your fingertips. First of all, I would recommend that you lookup Twitter clients and find one that suits you. I use Twhirl (see image at right), which makes my experience much more like a chat client that I can easily turn on and off when I want to.
2. Learn how to us the @replies to send messages to other users, and learn how to use a URL-shortening service such as TinyURL or SnipUrl to condense long hyperlinks so you can fit them within your 140-character tweets. (Twhirl and most other Twitter clients have URL-shortening services built-in.)
3. If you’re a blogger or a social media freak like me, hook up your blog’s RSS feed and feeds from your bookmarking services (del.icio.us, StumbleUpon, Google Reader…) to auto-publish to your Twitter account with Twitterfeed.com.
4. Subscribe to keywords if you want to monitor the larger discussion about certain topics across the whole Twitter network. This is how I find a lot of users asking about WordPress, and I just try to answer people’s questions when I can. I’ve made a lot of new friends this way and have even scored last-minute freelance gigs by answering strangers’ questions with helpful advice. (Watch Ed Dale’s awesome tutorial video “Become a Twitter Master with Twhirl” for more about @replies and subscribing to keywords within the Twhirl client!)
5. Once you’re used to how the rules work, check out Lee Odden’s list of Five New Twitter Tools You Should Know to help you find more new people to connect with on Twitter and expand your network.

Thanks for reading! Follow me on Twitter and send an @codymckibb to ask your WordPress and blogging-related questions!

Helpful Twitter Articles from Others:

• Why Twitter?
• 17 Ways You Can Use Twitter: A Guide for Beginners, Marketers and Business Owners
• 9 Ways Twitter Made Guy Kawasaki’s Website Better
• Three Ways to Maximize Your Twitter Time for Networking, Marketing and Fun

photo credit: somefool (MatthewM)

Read the original article on Thrilling Heroics here: Tweet and Grow Rich: 5 Tips to Rock Your Business With Twitter