If you like the article round-ups, us lucky location independent professionals and digital nomads now have our own blog carnival too! With help and support from Cath Duncan, and Sharon Hurley Hall, I’ve established the first-ever “Digital Nomad Blog Carnival”, which will focus on the issues that we face as we attempt to live and work anywhere.

Writers from across the blogosphere can submit articles here for a chance to be featured. Each month, a different blog in the location independent community can host—the editor will review all the submissions and publish the cream of the crop in a monthly roundup post. For readers, it’s a fantastic way to dig up great, relevant content from all corners of the web and connect with some like-minded writers you may never have read before. For bloggers, it’s a really effective way to get your writing noticed and gain exposure with a new audience. I’ve already received a few great entries! Feel free to submit your own articles in the following subject areas:

• Tips for living location independent
• Locations/destination guides
• Technology & gadgets for the digital nomad
• Your travel stories
• Doing business abroad/internationally/online
• Lifestyle design
• Other (what categories do you think we should add?)

I’m extending the deadline on this first edition for one more week, so I hope you will submit your articles for the first Digital Nomad Blog Carnival by next Saturday, June 20th, and look for the published carnival roundup shortly thereafter!

Please help spread the word to your favorite writers and your fellow digital nomads!

Read the original article on Thrilling Heroics here: Get Your Blog Some Exposure in the New Digital Nomad Blog Carnival

“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

But somehow I still find myself emotionally hung up on something.

WTF!?

I always find that emotions can really get me in a rut, supplying me with a copious lack of motivation and killing any desire to do work. I came to Thailand nearly three months ago. At that time I was a bit bummed about how my last (albeit short-lived) relationship ended, and frankly part of my motivation for a year of travel was for the escape. I didn’t come to Bangkok with any plans to get involved in another relationship, but for some reason I found myself in one…and then another (both ended rather quickly).

I guess I’m a hopeless romantic! It’s one of the things that annoys me the most about myself: I wish I could just be happy on my own (I love being single, really), but there’s always that desire for romance. You know—always on the lookout for the next future ex-girlfriend!

Anyway, believe it or not, huge cultural and language barriers are NOT a great recipe for a successful relationship! So even though I was trying for escapism when I left for Southeast Asia, here I am carrying around emotional baggage with me instead. You know, when your new girlfriend suddenly stops returning your calls just before Valentine’s Day, it always makes for a great week!

Alright, alright! So what do I do?

So, I dunno how it is for you guys, but for me, whenever I have some emotional baggage—relationship or family bullshit, or some other kind of conflict, I find it hard to concentrate on anything besides the baggage. I just can’t be productive until the unfinished business is finished. And unfortunately this kind of conflict nearly always exists in life.

I think that, while I have tons of great friends out here, and we have a lot of fun times—my life is full of high highs and low lows—overall I’ve been depressed for about a year or so.

I have so much to be thankful for out here, and I genuinely don’t want to come off sounding “woe-is-me,” but I am at a point where I don’t know what to do anymore. My emotional lows have affected this site and they’ve been affecting my business, and it’s definitely well past time for a change. I want to be so much more productive—to do so much more with my life at this point…

So I’m having a little honesty moment and putting my problems out there for all to see. I’m putting it to you:

What do you guys do when you’re carrying around emotional baggage, or your life is filled with distracting “noise”?

• How do you remain productive and stay on top of your work?
• If you run a small business, how do you stay on track?
• How do you get closure in a world that usually offers none?
• What methods are there for re-igniting one’s motivation and creativity?

Here are two great replies I got from some great Twitter friends when I put this question out there a few weeks ago, but please add your own replies below:

Dorie Morgan (@brstngphnx) says:

“I build a little more time for me to process what’s going on. Maybe I get up a little earlier to write or maybe I eat alone.”

Rosy Villa (@rosyblue) replies:

“Go to a dark place, take deep breaths & forget what you can’t change. Then, write a list and try your best to stay with it. ”

Thanks to everyone for the thoughtful support. I’m hoping to make 2009 a really kickass year and get a lot accomplished professionally. I appreciate your help so that I can have the emotional energy to then give back to everyone else in our wonderful community.

Read the original article on Thrilling Heroics here: How Do You Stay Motivated When You Stumble and Fall?