This guest article on finding business ideas comes from friend of Thrilling Heroics, Patrick Lockton. If you’re not savvy about what Krav Maga is yet, it’s an Israeli self-defense martial art you can learn more about here on Wikipedia.

“There are no original ideas. There are only original people.”

–Barbara Grizzuti Harrison

Mobile Entrepreneurs are the perfect idea hunters

Think about it. How many people have the time and opportunity to engage with a wide range of ideas from different cultures and individuals in a meaningful way? Great idea hunters put themselves in a position so they will collide with great ideas and then adapt and apply those ideas in a new part of the world.

Mobile entrepreneurs wake up every day with a high likelihood that they will be hit with a great idea.

The value of ideas

Ideas stimulate innovation, create business opportunities, growth, and have the ability to change people’s lives. Well known Stanford economist Paul Romer has a theory that the world is much better off than it was 100 years ago because we keep coming up with new ideas.

Hunting for ideas is a very productive use of one’s time, given the role that ideas have in progress. With no ideas, there are no advances or innovation.

According to the book The Idea Hunter, “the best ideas are results of combining old ideas and existing ideas.” Most great ideas arise when someone finds an idea and repurposes that idea to create something brand new. The research conducted by the authors of The Idea Hunter came to the conclusion that there is a genuine and tangible value in the ability to find ideas, and it has nothing to do with genius or intellect.

How do you come up with good ideas?

A lot of successful entrepreneurs get their ideas from one part of the world and recycle them elsewhere.

Walt Disney would go around and look through trash cans to find out what ideas were being discarded. Springwise.com and coolbusinessideas.com have built entire businesses on recycling and spreading news of new ideas for businesses.  They scan the globe for the most promising business ventures, ideas, and concepts that are ready for regional or international adaptation, expansion or cooperation.

Improve on existing ideas, don’t just copy them

I read about a guy who read The 4-Hour Workweek and decided to copy Tim Ferriss’ original nutrition supplement business.

He managed to find a supplier that provided the supplements he needed and the guy on the phone said: “wait a minute, are you calling because you read The 4-Hour Workweek as well?” Apparently he wasn’t the only one that decided to copy the idea.

There’s a 99% chance any business you start will be a derivative of another business already out there. Your goal, if you want to be successful, is to find ideas through your travels and experience, improve upon them, and apply them within a new location or a new context.

Think about it. NetFlix (founded in 1997 in the USA) led to LOVEFiLM in the UK (founded 2002) and was recently sold to Amazon for more than $300 million. Peet’s Coffee in Berkeley, California, led to Starbucks. The list goes on.

My Own Experience

My recent experience in New York City has taught me that travelling and improving on existing ideas can be one of the best ways to succeed as an entrepreneur. You already have a successful product or business model, and it has already been market-tested.

I have been practicing Krav Maga from a very young age and have been an advanced practitioner for years, so one of the first things I did after arriving in NYC was to try and find a place to train. I was enthusiastic and passionate, but I soon discovered something very surprising—the modern form of Krav Maga that had become so popular in Europe was nowhere to be seen. The options available were very different and comparatively expensive.

Modern Krav Maga seems to induce a passionate following wherever it goes.  I am not sure why. Perhaps it is the fact that it is a very practical and modern form of self-defense that constantly develops. Perhaps it’s because it has been battle-tested by Israeli Defense Forces, MOSAD, law enforcement professionals (as seen in the Jason Bourne films and Casino Royale) or that it’s ridiculously effective, functional, logical and easy to learn.

Whatever the reason, it was astonishing that the most deadly and effective modern fighting techniques in the world hadn’t really arrived in New York.

I decided to start teaching Krav Maga part time and at affordable rates.  I trained like mad for months and months and completed a grueling instructor’s course. Within 3 weeks of launching a Facebook page, I had received over 300 enquiries. I didn’t even have a website—the response was phenomenal!

The Krav Maga Institute NYC was born in June 2011.  It’s still in the early stages, but things are looking very positive. We are cheaper, more modern and convenient than the other schools. I am loving every minute, so money is just an added bonus.

Innovation isn’t about genius. Knowing this should empower and motivate mobile entrepreneurs to realize the ideas are out there to get, absolutely for free.

In a way, it’s liberating that we can all become great idea hunters and we can all make a difference in what we’re trying to do. Whatever our goals and objectives are, the ideas are there to be found.

Becoming a great idea hunter is learnable, it’s repeatable, and it’s something any entrepreneur can work on every day.

Read the original article on Thrilling Heroics here: Mind the Idea Gap: How Mobile Entrepreneurs Can Find & Repurpose Great Ideas

Ramit Sethi was one of the earliest bloggers to inspire me when I first started writing Thrilling Heroics and building my online network. He was a graduate of Stanford University who’d studied technology and psychology, co-founded Silicon Valley startup PBworks, and was writing the hugely successful I Will Teach You To Be Rich blog to show college students and young professionals how to take control of their personal finances and get into entrepreneurship.

Although he’s based in the Bay Area, I reached out to him and learned that he’s originally from my hometown in Northern California. The first time I met Ramit in person was one chilly winter day in 2006 when he was in Sacramento to visit his family, and I had the chance to interview him about his education, entrepreneurship experience, and his perspectives on new media.

One of the first bold moves Ramit made in his career was to call up Seth Godin and negotiate a job opportunity with him! He later consulted with Omidyar Network, the philanthropic social innovation firm started by Ebay founder Pierre Omidyar. He got himself featured in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, NPR, ABC News, CNBC, and more, sharing personal finance tips and bolstering his readership at I Will Teach You To Be Rich to over 250,000 visitors per month!

In March, Ramit published his book by the same title, which instantly hit #1 on Amazon and made him a NYT bestselling author. His educational background in social psychology translated well into a book that helps you make real behavioral change:

At last, for a generation that’s materially ambitious yet financially clueless comes I Will Teach You To Be Rich, Ramit Sethi’s 6-week personal finance program for 20-to-35-year-olds. A completely practical approach delivered with a nonjudgmental style that makes readers want to do what Sethi says, it is based around the four pillars of personal finance—banking, saving, budgeting, and investing—and the wealth-building ideas of personal entrepreneurship.

These days Ramit hangs out with Tim Ferriss (check out his feature on the 4-Hour Workweek blog about the psychology of money and how to set up an automated personal finance system, with great excerpts from Ramit’s book).

How could you ask for a better twentysomething role model for personal finance and entrepreneurship success?

I met up with Ramit a time or two in San Francisco since first meeting him in 2006, but I’ve been wanting to catch up with him for a video interview for a while now to see what has changed in the last three years. Just my luck, this week he’s turning the six-week personal finance program in his best-selling book into a real online bootcamp where he’ll take you by the hand through a step-by-step online curriculum to automate and optimize your finances before the end of 2009, so I offered to help him promote the bootcamp if he’d sit down and answer some questions for you guys here.

Check out the video interview below for the following:

• Learn more about the I Will Teach You To Be Rich 6-Week Personal Finance Bootcamp
• Entrepreneurship, experimentation & failure
• How the things you spend your money on reflect your values
• How Ramit negotiated a book deal from his blog
• How he promoted his book to #1 on Amazon and the New York Times bestseller list
• Personal finance & entrepreneurship tips for travelers & expats
• Learn about the I Will Teach You To Be Rich Scholarship for Social Innovation

To learn more about Ramit Sethi, social psychology, technology in business, scrappy startups, and x-man abilities, make sure you also read my 2006 interview with him.

Feature photo from You 2.0

Read the original article on Thrilling Heroics here: Ramit Sethi Shows You How to Negotiate, Automate & Perspirate Your Way to Financial Success

A lot of my blog readers are friends, family and professional colleagues. But even if we don’t know each other personally yet, I consider each and every one of my readers a valuable part of my community. The more active participants there are in the discussions here, the more valuable Thrilling Heroics becomes for everyone!

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

When I first started reading blogs, Ramit Sethi was one of the young writers who inspired me to get involved in the blogging community, as well as entrepreneurship. He’s a Stanford graduate who’s been helping readers save money for over three years, as well as a co-founder of a cool San Francisco startup, and he’s worked with Seth Godin and tons of other cool people! (Check out my 2006 interview with Ramit!)

Ramit has finally authored a hardcopy book to help folks optimize their finances, and it launched a few hours ago! There are several really awesome, useful preview chapters available, and Ramit’s even giving out prizes to a few lucky readers if you purchase your copy today. In his own words:

This book works. For about $10, you’ll get the step-by-step guide I wrote to walk you through optimizing your accounts, negotiating with banks and credit cards (use my call scripts), spending consciously (use my charts to see guidelines of how much people typically spend, and how to beat “typical” people), and how to invest. I’ll show you how most people think personal finance is all about willpower, like “If I just try harder, I’ll be able to save more…” That sounds suspiciously like a diet, which always fails. The book shows you how to automatically redirect your money to investing, saving, and guilt-free spending — even if it’s $200 jeans or $5 coffee every day.

Check out the cool gifts he’s giving out: if you buy a copy of the book and forward your receipt to iboughtthebook@iwillteachyoutoberich.com, you’ll be entered to win one of the following:

1. One Kindle per hour today: I’m giving away ONE BRAND-NEW KINDLE EVERY HOUR today (from 8am-4pm Pacific) to anyone who buys the book and forwards the receipt to iboughtthebook@iwillteachyoutoberich.com
2. $1,000 for 5 savings accounts—each. Mint (which I use and recommend in the book) is giving away $1,000 checks to kick-start savings accounts for FIVE book buyers (that’s $5k in total)
3. Software from Pearbudget: Three $30 accounts to help you manage your money
4. Entrepreneurs—free advice. Chris Yeh (Stanford/Harvard Business School grad) and I will get on a conference call with 3 aspiring entrepreneurs for 20 minutes each and answer any questions you can throw at us
5. I’m live on video throughout the day. I’ll be doing a live webcast for most of the day at iwillteachyoutoberich.com, so drop by and say hi

Ramit is an insightful writer who’s got hundreds of useful, actionable tips to help you save money, spend more wisely, and invest where it counts. His blog is great and he’s been a huge success, so I highly recommend picking up a copy of his brand new book I Will Teach You to Be Rich! Learn from the best! I highly recommend this guy’s work.

Read the original article on Thrilling Heroics here: ‘I Will Teach You To Be Rich’ Blogger Ramit Sethi’s New Book Release

In several recent years, the Kauffman Foundation has hosted Entrepreneurship Week USA, or E-Week. Well now it’s truly a global event with schools and organizations around the world holding activities to promote entrepreneurship. Global Entrepreneurship Week 2008 starts in just 4 days!

Visit UnleashingIdeas.org to learn more and view the video below for more about Global Entrepreneurship Week.

For local Sacramento readers, Ricardo Robles of Capsity Offices has been working overtime to bring Entrepreneurship Week activities to the Sacramento area for the first time:

“Be a part of an international celebration of entrepreneurship as it rolls through Sacramento Nov. 17 -23. The future of Sacramento’s young, green, mobile, diverse, motivated, musical and artistic business leadership will discuss the strategies, challenges and opportunities they face every day. With Global Entrepreneurship Week we will seek to acquire the knowledge, skills, networks and values needed to grow innovative, sustainable enterprises that have a positive impact on our lives and the lives of those around us.

For the first time Sacramento will join over 77 countries in an initiative to Inspire, Connect, Mentor and Engage millions of young minded individuals for a better future. Global Sponsors and Partners that have joined in the efforts of Global Entrepreneurship Week include: Kauffmann Foundation, Ernst & Young, IBM, NYSE Euro next, and more. Please see the flyer for further information.”

For readers around the world, be sure to visit the international GEW website to see what’s going on in your corner of the globe. For my fellow Sacramentans, here is a brief list of some of the events that Ricardo and the local entrepreneur community have set up here in town:

Monday, Nov 17
Living the Entrepreneur Lifestyle
@ Sac State University Union

Tuesday, Nov 18
Sustainability in Entrepreneurialism
@ Green Sacramento, 1931 H St.

Wednesday, Nov 19
Bikeramento Bixer
@ The Park Ultra Lounge

Thursday, Nov 20
Women Entrepreneurs Focus on Mind, Body and Spirit
@ KVIE, 2595 Capitol Oaks Dr.

Friday, Nov 21
No Fear, No Box, Let’s Go!
@ The Guild Theatre, 2828 35th Street

Saturday, Nov 22
Music and Entrepreneurship
@ Harlow’s, 2708 J St.

Sunday, Nov 23
Making a Living as an Artist
@ Kristel Durand Photography Gallery, 500 N St.

More info at gew.sactivist.com

Read the original article on Thrilling Heroics here: Global Entrepreneurship Week: Unleashing Ideas Around the World Nov. 17–23

Happy Memorial Day, dear readers. Today is an important U.S. holiday when we offer remembrance for all the women and men who have lost their lives in military service to our nation. It is also a time for family gatherings and BBQs that for many families coincides with their children’s’ next rite of passage as they make the switch from colleges and universities into careers.

I hope you all have the opportunity to spend quality time with your loved ones today, and to those students who are celebrating their graduation from college this weekend or will be graduating in the weeks ahead, I give you my sincere congratulations! As a special treat for you guys, I’d like to share a link to some of the best commencement speeches, including wise words from greats such as Kurt Vonnegut, Winston Churchill, Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, and Will Ferrell.

Here I’d like to share my favorite commencement address, delivered by Steve Jobs at the 2005 Stanford University graduation ceremony. Jobs is a creative and technical role model for many, and an incredible public speaker. Of course for anyone who’s passionate about Silicon Valley like me this is an exciting address to hear, but Jobs offers something for everyone. The CEO of Apple and Pixar shares his experiences with adoption and growing up in a working-class family. He talks about love and loss, about his fight with cancer and embracing one’s mortality.

Jobs attended Reed College in Portland, Oregon, for a short time, and he relates stories about how he dropped out of college when he didn’t see the returns for his parents’ financial sacrifice, sharing what he learned as he continued to audit classes that appealed to him. If there is one big take-away, Jobs encourages new grads to find what they love to do, citing that “work fills a large part of your life,” and that following your passion is of the utmost importance.

“…it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later. Again, you can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something: your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. Because believing that the dots will connect down the road will give you the confidence to follow your heart even when it leads you off the well-worn path, and that will make all the difference.”

Stay hungry. Stay foolish. Congratulations to all of you who’ve worked so hard to graduate from your degree programs this summer.

[source: Gawker]

Read the original article on Thrilling Heroics here: College Grad Special: The Top 10 Best Commencement Speeches

I’ve put together a primer on my media and entertainment consumption as part of the Media Diet internet meme. It’s a big post, but I highly recommend each and every one of the useful links contained here, and if you take just five minutes to read through this, I’ve included a few little gems on how I handle information overload. Since it’s such a link-intensive article, I’ve set all the hyperlinks to automatically open in new windows for you.

Bob Glaza (One Reader At a Time) tagged me last week for the Media Diet meme, a discussion that’s been propagating across the web since last year about our media consumption habits, to share with others how we get our information. I tracked this particular thread as far back as James Gordon-Macintosh and a few others at Seventy Seven PR, but I know that Jeremiah Owyang was also talking about it months earlier.

Everyone’s talking about information overload these days, so I figured I’d use this as an opportunity to share both 1) some of my personal interests, but also 2) how I filter through the vast amount of knowledge and media that’s available to us these days through the blogosphere and all the mainstream entertainment and news channels. Being a blogger, I like to follow a tremendous amount of information in this “Age of Conversation.” But, I like what Bob says: “Why NOT bite off more than you can chew?”

photo credit: drspam

Readables

When I was at my desk job, I used to read a few more newspapers and magazines (like the WSJ, Chronicle of Higher Education, Time, and BusinessWeek), but I pretty much entirely get my fix through the Internets these days! To be honest, I rarely watch the news or read the papers, let alone visit the sites of any mainstream media directly these days because there’s just too much information, and much of it I find too hyped (fearmonger much?) and unbalanced for my tastes. I do highly enjoy Wired.com, and I’ll pick up a copy of FastCompany now and then. But I concentrate mostly on niches that directly affect me, like the personal development and web design blogs, and I tend to hear all the most important headlines through friends, family, and social media anyway (Robert Scoble was covering the China quakes on Twitter before the USGS reported them).

I get a few Google Alerts sent directly to my email account for certain search terms, so that I get a daily summary and know immediately when someone on the web is talking about me, one of my sites, my business, or a couple of key interests of mine, for instance.

I use Google Reader almost daily to sift through nearly 70 blog subscriptions (and a few other RSS streams like freelancer job feeds). That means there are usually about 250-350 new articles in there daily. How do I keep up with all these? Well, firstly Google Reader makes it easy to organize your feeds into different folders, or categories, so I’ve got them organized by priority and into groups like “friends,” “business opportunities,” “blogging tips,” “web design,” and “personal development.” Some of the feeds I check every day, but others are marked for just occasional perusal when I’ve got the time. I generally browse through the titles in List View to dwindle the number down to just those that seem applicable or interesting to me (I probably read about 10-20% of the updates that come through my RSS reader).

Some of my most frequent reads are blogs like Problogger, Web Worker Daily, Life Beyond Code, Freelance Switch, Real Social Dynamics, Zen Habits, and blogs from the Brazen Careerist network. One big secret: probably 50% of the useful knowledge I share with my friends and blog readers comes from Lifehacker and Tim Ferris’ Experiments in Lifestyle Design Blog (from the author of The 4-Hour Workweek).

Aside from what’s in my feed reader, I find that the social web does a great job of “filtering” the most important/useful/sometimes completely silly news for me, so when I’ve got the time to wander, I frequent aggregators like PopUrls and Guy Kawasaki‘s Alltop network. I’ve been using PopUrls as my landing page for the last several weeks to keep my finger on the pulse of the web, because it is customizable to your tastes (by source or category), and I like to track the most popular articles, recommended articles, and the top hits on del.icio.us, Digg, and StumbleUpon each day. Additionally, the extremely illustrious, bright folks I follow on Twitter are also a renewable resource for awesome content!

If you want to follow some of my favorites, please checkout my Google Shared Items page, or my del.icio.us bookmarks.

I do read a little bit “offline” too! I try to read about a book per month, but these mostly consist of business or personal development books. A few of my favorites have been The 4-Hour Workweek, Vagabonding, The BrandYou50, Now Discover Your Strengths, and Never Eat Alone. A nice, warm book is good for travel, or when I feel like pulling my eyes away from the computer screen for a bit and laying in my hammock outside. Right now I’m reading Blogging Heroes, which has interviews with 30 top bloggers from around the world. Stay tuned for a list of top-recommended books from me and my mentors soon.

Viewables

I do have cable at home, but the only show I’ve watched religiously for the last four years has been to tune in to “Lost” when I visit my folks each week (it’s been slow to answer all our burning questions, but it has the best character development of anything I’ve ever seen on the tube). I use TV more for the very occasional break from work—since I work from home, it’s fun to completely disengage for an hour or two and enjoy some pure entertainment once in a while. The Daily Show and The Colbert Report are the only news/politics I can tolerate these days—faux news with plenty of comedy and satire mixed in for good measure (and Stephen Colbert has the biggest stones of anyone on television!). Otherwise, I’ll watch some pointless drivel on E! or MTV for an escape when the opportunity presents itself.

For trends in technology, entertainment, and design, I’ve enjoyed the inspiring TEDTalks for a long time, which you can subscribe to as video podcasts through iTunes.

And I do enjoy the occasional movie! (Looking forward to seeing Indiana Jones today!)

Audibles

Ah this is key: I pretty much have some sound going at all times! I listen to a tremendous amount of music. I live and breath music! (I even have a sleep playlist!) But I hate the radio (ever notice how ALL the stations go to ads at the same time!?), I always listen to iTunes at home and CDs in the car. I have a huge MP3 library, where a few of my favorites are Massive Attack, Thievery Corporation, and Kings of Convenience, but I also listen to a few great online radio stations that you can stream directly into your iTunes, like Soma FM‘s Groove Salad and Beat Blender, Ibiza Sonica, and Ibiza Global Radio.

For good business and personal growth information, I highly recommend several podcasts: Stanford’s Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders, Escape from Cubicle Nation, iinnovate, and the FallingFruit.tv podcasts. Listening to podcasts on the iPod is a great way to leverage your time if you’ve got a long commute on the bus/train, or a plane trip somewhere, or if you’re just doing chores around the house.

When I was at this year’s Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival, I was motivated to buy the first three albums I’ve bought in probably years: Dark Side of the Moon, Kraftwerk’s live Minimum-Maximum, and Portishead’s first CD in a decade, Third. All highly recommended (you can sample below with my fancy new Amazon widget).

Other Resources

I hope you’ve enjoyed learning about some of my interests, and about how I filter through the static. That’s it for me, but here are a few recent posts from other great writers in the blogosphere that might give you a few tips on dealing with information overload and productivity in this high-bandwidth media world we live in.

• Chris Brogan, a huge voice in the blog community, shares his tips for processing information effectively and turning out awesome content in How I Do It
• Maki shares how to get through too much information in too little time on DoshDosh with Managing Information Flow: How Prioritization Will Improve Your Work and Learning Efficiency
• Leo does an Exclusive Interview with Stephen Covey on His Morning Routine, Blogs, Technology, GTD and The Secret at Zen Habits

I’m gonna tag Ryan Healy, Ronnie Nurss, Meg Roberts, Erik Folgate, Jamie Harrop, Susan Johnston, and Holly Hoffman, my fellow bloggers in the Gen-Y conversation, to participate in the Media Diet meme! Anyone else who’s got 2 cents to throw in can jump on board too!

Read the original article on Thrilling Heroics here: Filtering Through the Static: My Media Consumption Habits

John Hennessey is the president of Stanford University, U.S. News & World Report’s #4 university in the nation and voted one of America’s best colleges for entrepreneurs by Fortune Small Business. Hennessey is one academic who has an entrepreneurial legacy himself, as he transferred his important research in microprocessor technology to actual industry application by co-founding MIPS Technologies. Not to mention, he also sits on the boards of Google and Cisco.

At last year’s Entrepreneurship Week, President Hennessey described how teaching entrepreneurship does five important things within our society:

1. It increases people’s creativity and willingness to think outside the box
2. It encourages individuals to follow their passion and excel at what they do
3. It creates a community which embraces and leads change
4. It encourages people to have a “glass half full” attitude and approach problems as potential opportunities, and…
5. It increases students’ willingness to take on and overcome new challenges by building excellent teams!

The entrepreneurial spirit is definitely prevalent throughout Silicon Valley, and perhaps universities like Stanford are to thank for it. It certainly is home to many people who refuse to let the fear of failure prevent them from pursuing their BIG dreams! Remember, as Wayne Gretzky says, “You’ll always miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.”

Read the original article on Thrilling Heroics here: 5 Kickass Benefits of Entrepreneurial Learning

This is for you dedicated students and other fans of continued learning!

A degree from a top university often comes with a hefty price tag. But these days you can nearly get an online education from these institutions for free! Though the business world indeed puts a high premium on the actual credentials you can put on your resume, and the peer network you will form at one of these colleges can help you go a long way too, the teachings and knowledge just overflowing from these institutions is nothing to sneeze at!

“Open courseware” has been a hot trend on the web for the last couple of years, as the evolution of web 2.0 encourages sharing, collaborating, and open sourcing of knowledge as well as software. Many of the top research institutions are sharing their lectures and presentations via online videos, audio podcasts, and articles. I’ve personally followed (and highly recommend) series such as Stanford’s Social Innovation Conversations, the Stanford Technology Ventures Program’s Ed Corner, featuring awesome resources on entrepreneurship and presentations by many of Silicon Valley’s tech elite, as well as Google’s TechTalks.

If you’re inclined to learn from some of the incredible educators at MIT or Stanford, Education Portal has put together an invaluable list of the ten best universities with primo online open courseware offerings. The list includes:

1. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (mit.edu)
2. Open University in the UK (open.ac.uk)
3. Carnegie Mellon University (cmu.edu)
4. Tufts University (tufts.edu)
5. Stanford (stanford.edu)
6. University of California, Berkeley (berkeley.edu)
7. Utah State University (usu.edu)
8. Kutztown University of Pennsylvania (kutztownsbdc.org)
9. University of Southern Queensland (usq.edu.au)
10. University of California, Irvine (uci.edu)

YES, all these universities serve up free education resources! So go learn! To see the full details and get links to each institution’s online courseware, check out Education Portal’s list “Universities With the Best Free Online Courses.” Lifehacker also recommends Wendy Boswell’s guide to the “.edu underground”.

Read the original article on Thrilling Heroics here: The Top 10 Universities with Great Free Online Courseware

I’m still traveling through Spain for the holidays, but I have some useful goal-setting exercises on the way soon! In the meantime, here’s some interesting material to keep your appetite satiated.

At the 2007 Entrepreneurship Week USA opening ceremonies at Stanford University in California, Carl Schramm (President and CEO, Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation) surprised some of the audience when he said that 70% of college students will start a business at some point in their lives. Schramm said that while our grandparents had four jobs on average, over the course of their entire careers, Generation Y students in general will look forward to working 13 major jobs during their professional lives! And who is responsible for creating all those new jobs? Entrepreneurs, of course!

Schramm is author of The Entrepreneurial Imperative and calls entrepreneurship the US’ “competitive secret,” which allows us to stay ahead of developing nations economically (who knows for how long?). Startup companies “birth the new” and give security to others by creating jobs, and they posses the only key to creating wealth! They even facilitate non-profits and philanthropic ventures. This presents an interesting new way to look at economic models that I hadn’t approached before: without the for-profit businessman to virtually create capital, governments could not operate (there would be no one to tax!), and the non-profits would not have any money for their causes. Without individuals to start up businesses, there can be no government, no philanthropy, no charity…

Read the original article on Thrilling Heroics here: Carl Schramm on Entrepreneurship

Over at CodyMcKibben.com in November, I wrote about my experiments with freelancing, and about my desire to shift my career so that my work is not just means to pay the bills, but more of a way to express my passions and continue to increase my personal growth. See the post here. In response to my thoughts on career development, my friend Gautam Valluri asked me about my plans to develop Thrilling Heroics in 2008, and to discuss my entrepreneurial plans further. He writes:

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.

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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!

Ah, blogging…

Okay I’ve been meaning to participate in Robert Hruzek’s latest meme since May 24th! That’s been over a month now (!), and I feel really horrible I still haven’t shared how I feel bloggin’ has impacted me since I started. What can I say? … I’ve been swamped with work, and interviewing authors and entrepreneurs, and calling San Diego business owners, and test-driving BMWs, and Toastmastering, and MasterMinding, and NetImpacting! It’s a hard life!

Oh well, I have the time now. Part of the reason it’s taken me so long to address is that I’ve been reflecting on the question for about three weeks! To quote Robert, “The irony is that while we bloggers are out changing the world, we’re also changing ourselves, you know? And by that I mean me, personally. To my surprise, I’ve changed in significant ways – directly as a result of blogging.”

I just had my first blogging anniversary in early June! (Although I started online journaling in 2003, I consider my blogging birth to be June 2006 when I started ThrillingHeroics.com and started writing for an audience, not just for my family members.) So how has it changed me in those 13 months? A LOT! That’s how.

How Blogging Has Changed Me

I’m addicted to the internet! I experience information overload firsthand. On a daily basis! But, the good side is that I’ve gotten really good at filtering what information I let in, what I care about and what I waste my time on. I read MUCH more (I’m almost done with my 5th book for the year — that’s 4 more than last year — in addition to the thousands of news articles and blog posts I read from week to week). I don’t let myself get as distracted by television (most of it is pointless drivel), video games, or other forms of laziness and distraction. I’m much more informed — I always know the latest trends in technology and business, and I often hear the headlines days before they get reported on your local TV news station. I’m addicted…but I’m always constantly learning and growing.

• Cody Recommends: Google Reader for organizing all those RSS feeds; and Suggestica for good book recommendations

I’m much more well connected. I’ve learned to appreciate the importance of and power of relationships. Considering myself a bit of a rogue journalist, I like to interview and talk to people in different businesses and I always enjoy reaching out to form new connections and learn from people who are doing it! I’ve somehow managed to build a global network of friends — a columnist in Wisconsin, a career coach in Arizona, a photographer in Pakistan, a student of design in Norway, an American student in Ireland, an executive in Palo Alto, a professor in India, entrepreneurs in the Bay Area, and so on. I’m a businessman, and what I’ve realized is that business is all about people. Relationships. You’ve gotta foster them before you need them, and you’ve gotta keep fostering them. You can never assume that you don’t need someone just because they’re not a customer! (They might be a future customer.) The best practice is simply to always look out for how you can help others and promote others, and it will come back to you, guaranteed. Think Karma.

• Cody Recommends: LinkedIn for business networking and asking questions to your professional peer group; and Facebook for connecting with old friends, coworkers, and classmates; also read Keith Ferrazzi’s Never Eat Alone

I have loftier goals. 13 months ago, I didn’t want to go to Stanford GSB. I didn’t want to run my own company. I didn’t think writers or CEOs would give me the time of day. But, through lots of patient persistence and trying to learn about my interests — in green business, career development, and tech startups — and through trying to get in contact with important people, I’ve become much more motivated to do BIG things. I’m more of a goal-setter. I’ve started a career development group. I’m trying to start a professional organization in Sacramento! And I’m learning how to rubn shoulders with the big guys — the ones who are doing what you want to do! I’ve learned that pretty much anybody is accessible. Even CEOs. They may not have a lot of time — but everyone, in their own private lives, considers themselves just another regular guy (or gal). Everyone LOVES to talk about themselves! If you have a sincere interest in what someone does, let them know. We all like to feel important and like our experience and knowledge are valuable to others.

• Cody Recommends: Start a MasterMind group (or join mine!) to excel your career and for goal accountability; and join a Toastmasters club to practice your public speaking

I take more initiative. Perhaps through trying to keep a clean email inbox, I’ve picked up the habit of attacking tasks more aggressively. I break down projects into actionable steps and I just go after the next goal. I didn’t always have such a proactive approach to getting things done — in fact I was quite a procrastinator. But procrastinating doesn’t work if you want to be a writer. You’ve gotta put out regular, good content. And that means you have to go out and chase it down! Now, if I see something that needs to get done, I try to just DO IT. When I want to accomplish some big goal, I call up those important people who I think can help. Just ask them (make it worth their while — frame it how it will benefit them). What’s the worst they could say? No? So what…you can’t lose what you don’t already have. So do it now, or else you won’t ever do it. Same with cleaning the house, starting that 401k, taking that vacation, saving the $10 service fee the bank tries to screw you for, reaching out to your favorite author, going back to school, and so on. Do it now, or you’ll never do it.

• Cody Recommends: David Allen’s Getting Things Done (this is the productivity Bible!)

Thanks go out to Robert for starting this little exercise! I’m not going to tag anyone for this meme because I’ve attacked all of my blogger friends with plenty of memes lately, but you readers out there who happen to blog, please feel free to continue this discussion and let me know how you’ve changed since you started blogging…

Read the original article on Thrilling Heroics here: How Has Blogging Changed Me?