Bored shitless with smashing my head against a wall I have been relaunched back into action with Natalie’s 30 Day Blog challenge.
Ok maybe this has been made easier..
Made easier after working out what I don’t want to do and who I do want to do it with.
The sliver bullet came with the Sharing Economy Podcast and blogging. for 1000’s of years I have looked for something to do online that means I can work from anywhere. In the last few months i have cracked it. Hardly original, an online blog course.
The Icarus Deception
It was 24th December 2012 and I was walking through Krakow listening to Seth’s Start Up School podcast. Two things landed like space satellite’s in a dwarfs wedding, one “are you a freelancer or you an entrepreneur?” He urged us to decide quickly. And take the marshmallow.
Which means?
I have tried and tried and tried to start businesses, restaurants, event empires and bolloxed them all up, it really is not pretty. However, I was smart enough to keep track of the agony and learning.
The first realisation came in December 2011 as I was sat on a big sofa looking out over fields chatting with my mate about business, he has done “quite well”shall we say.
He asked if I wanted some advice on what I was working on, in about four minutes I was on the defence and squirming like a toad in a wind tunnel.
It rapidly became clear that all my savvy-ness lay in connecting, writing and teaching and being creative – not at all in ruthless business models that were scalable.
About taking the Marshmallow
So a nearly a year later, a breakdown and a lot of battle scars it had all sank in, my stupidity and stubbornness had evolved into the beginnings of resilience and listening.
Godin tells about the Stanford Marshmallow experiment in the 60’s where children are left in room with marshmallows and told if they don’t eat the marshmallow they can have two.
Somewhat unexpectedly Godin says “take the Marshmallow” – don’t wait, start, get going and if there is an opportunity take it and run with it.
So I did
Before I new it I’d tried thing after thing, tweaked, asked questions and narrowed my focus. Suddenly everything that had gone before seemed to be lining up.
I am always more than ready to set fire to people who rant about “the universe” and “the secret’ but things certainly started moving in the right direction.
But..
I was / am exhausted, for a while I was totally mentally drained and stressed – most of it is my body and some force telling me to slow down and align myself with what works for me. I have listened and now live on lentils and writing.
Kicking and screaming
I am a big podcast fan and have been really enjoying Blogcast.fm over the last year, I heard Natalie talking about how she has worked out how to travel and work.
Let me rephrase that – run a business from a laptop ANYWHERE – look here at suitcaseentrepreneur.com.
After a lot of help from Ann Hawkins in one of the most difficult times of my life ever I have worked out where to go and how to get there. (Ann’s twitter bio is “Uncompromising business mentor for when passion isn’t enough. #BHub and #TSMShow. Easily bored but never by jazz.”) Ann has pulled me kicking and screaming from inside myself, she does not take any Bernie bollox and has helped me believe in my ability.
Even as I write I am kicking and screaming to finish the part of the project that will get my site finished and rocking. No more messing around, I have the marshmallow and I am eating it.
I have been navel gazing for years about zooming round the world with #supercoolwife and now #babybernie
Through a combination of joy and pain I am there, I would loved to have taken an easier route but I think I needed to learn a lot in order to make the future work, please don’t ask me to explain that – I know what I mean.
So about 30 days…
In the next 30 days I am going to do Nataile’s blog to write myself into existence, well it is all there I am just keeping it secret and driving myself mad.
(Day one – In the way home I have to write who I want to attract to my website.)
**I started blogging everyday and fell off the horse – but I am happy to have been beaten by my mate Phil
**I started blogging everyday and fell off the horse – but I am happy to have been beaten by my mate Phil
